Happy carnival playtime: pre-mades on the PTR
by Eliah Hecht 
Dec 12th 2007 at 9:41PM
Hortus, the PTR community manager, announced a few hours ago that pre-made characters are going to be enabled on the patch 2.3.2 PTRs, starting today. This often-requested but seldom realized capability means anyone who can get on the PTR can get a level 70 character there of any class they want. This time around they'll be geared up in Arena Season 2 and heroic badge reward gear, and will start with extra Badges of Justice to get whatever other gear they might want; "don't even ask" for other gear, warns Hortus and his spinny hat. In a later post, he says that the PTRs will not be up tonight, and are expected to be available "sometime late tomorrow."While the idea behind pre-mades might be testing new content, I have other intentions. I tend to use pre-mades as a way to test specs or classes I haven't gotten a chance to experience at level 70, to see if it's worth respeccing on the live realms or leveling a character up to 70. It's also a fun chance to play with gear you might not have on the live realms without having to work for it. Personally, I plan on making a ret pally, a resto druid, and some sort of shaman, since those are all classes I've never gotten very high with, and I'd like to see what their endgame is like. What sort of fun will you be having on the PTR?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dave Dec 12th 2007 9:56PM
Is Blizzard giving us free time or other rewards for testing their product yet?
Until the answer is yes, or I have some compelling and incentive laden reason to use it, I have no intention of using the test realm OR beta realms ever again. The feedback is almost always ignored and there's really no point in it.
icer Dec 12th 2007 10:03PM
sweet got my 4 premades
Zeplar Dec 12th 2007 10:04PM
I did a pre-made priest and hunter for patch 2.2, and now I'm leveling both up as alts.
Zeplar Dec 12th 2007 10:04PM
Also, the PTR's are for bug testing, not class balancing etc...
Whome Dec 12th 2007 10:24PM
So if people like pre-mades so much (I know I do), why doesn't Blizzard leave a pre-made-enabled test realm up all the time. Or, if they wanted limits on it, they could just it up the first week of each month.
I've never read a blue response to this question; and, I would really like to see one. If anyone can point me to an official explanation for denying this feature, I would appreciate it.
Eliah Hecht Dec 12th 2007 10:32PM
Often PTRs are used for testing raid content, and when you're testing a raid, you want people who have completed the previous raids. Therefore it doesn't make sense to just give them any gear they want; you should only let people raid who've earned the gear they need to do the raid that's being tested. Or at least that's one argument I've heard.
Of course, that's no reason not to give pre-mades with merely decent gear, which is what's going on here (well, good PvP, decent PvE gear). I can't think of many reasons not to always do that. Maybe they want to reduce load on the PTR servers?
Charlie Taylor Dec 12th 2007 10:35PM
@Eliah
That would make sense, except for when BT and Hyjal were on the PTR Blizz enabled premades, and let people have free T5.
Whome Dec 12th 2007 10:38PM
That's a reasonable argument; but, what I was really thinking of was having a "test" server that is guaranteed to be up at least one week of the month, whether QA testing needs to be done or not.
It would be more like a player test server, rather than a patch test server; and, it would have no impact on the live realms. It's purpose would be for players to enjoy the things you talked about in your original post.
If this sounds like too sweet of a deal, perhaps you could restrict access for this "player test" server to those players that have helped test on the "patch test" server (to go along with #1's excellent point).
Eliah Hecht Dec 12th 2007 10:41PM
@Charlie yeah, I know, and I still think that was a bad idea (no matter how much fun I had at the time)
@Whome that's a nice idea, although some might say it trivializes the game to give people level 70s for free, even if only one week a month. I like the idea of using it as a reward though.
Milktub Dec 12th 2007 11:33PM
Maybe this time I'll take the bait. I have a 70 melee dps, a 70 tank ... perhaps I'll grab up an epic'd out mage and priest to see what that's all about.
MechaKingGhidra Dec 12th 2007 11:37PM
"What sort of fun will you be having on the PTR?"
Simple. None at all. I don't know how they determined their eligibility date to have one's account open from to be allowed to use the PTRs but since I was about a month late to have an active account according to the current date, I'm going to have any of that testing goodness I'd like to indulge in whatsoever.
If anyone knows how they came up with this specifically timed prerequisite, I'd greatly appreciate it if it were made common knowledge.
Eliah Hecht Dec 13th 2007 12:10AM
From Hortus's post:
"The PTR authentication servers were not updated between 2.3 and 2.3.2, meaning that if your password changed or if your account was otherwise invalid prior to October 8th you will not be eligible for the 2.3.2 PTR."
I take this less as a deliberate requirement, and more as laziness: the boys at Blizz didn't feel like updating the auth server data, which presumably requires some amount of work, and since the PTRs aren't officially supported anyway, it's not a disaster that it leaves some fine folks like you out in the cold. Of course, on the flip side, if your account was valid on Oct 8th but isn't now, you can play on the PTR.
Aust Dec 13th 2007 1:51AM
@Eliah I think he was talking about the note at the bottom of the character copy page: "Only World of Warcraft accounts that have been active since November 13, 2006 are currently eligible to participate on the public test realm".
Suzaku Dec 13th 2007 12:57AM
Fun? Aren't the test and beta realms for... y'know, testing and bug fixing?
Well, I understand wanting to make characters and have fun on the PTR trying out builds or running around in nice gear, it seems like that's not really... right. To me at least. Especially since the servers are always terribly queued.
It really irritated me when the people in beta were treating it like a BC demo they were gifted with, instead of supplying bug fixes. And then it went retail with bugs and typos.
Oh well.
Theserene Dec 13th 2007 1:03PM
Happens with a lot of the patches now, people go to the test realms to just mess about and such as, a lot of the actual stuff they are supposed to be testing comes out with flaws.
Nick Dec 13th 2007 4:54PM
I copied a few premade classes that I am trying to level. To try them out.
Yes, I know it's for testing, but what if I find a bug with trying out an endgame toon? =D Typos in armor updates, etc? =P
JPN Dec 13th 2007 8:06AM
I did it once, and....it was fun...for about 10 minutes. It was cool to actually SEE all the epic stuff that I probably will never see...but in the end, I logged off and never went back. This may sound cheesy, but because I didn't EARN that stuff, I just didn't want to use it. Weird, I know, I was surprised. The irony is that I'll probably NEVER earn that stuff, but at the same time, I felt like I was cheating myself a little and couldn't see investing more time. Let me tell you, I own one piece of epic gear (for now) and I'm damn proud of it!
That said, from a gameplay/tech standpoint, it was awesome to control a character with all that stuff, those huge crates of storage, and to see those crazy numbers...it's almost like an alternate reality in a bad Deep Space 9 episode. (Come on, you know those got silly near the end.)
D Wilson Dec 13th 2007 9:28AM
Ok here's something wierd. I've never been able to copy premades to the test server because of the November 13, 2006 deal. But this time it let me. Not 5 minutes ago I copied 4 premades to the test server. Maybe they're bumping the date requirement?
Eric Hadley Dec 13th 2007 11:30AM
One big draw to the PTRs that I've read about is the ability for some of the most elite of the PVPrs to meet one another and duel and play arena games. Playing against opponents that you are aware of (via web and forums) but would never have the chance to play against is a pretty cool thing.
ThorinII Dec 13th 2007 1:18PM
This is probably the only way I'll ever get to play a lvl 70!
Sad, but true. :0(