"Help us to find some hardcore realm defenders! Were looking for the few, the proud, the players willing to test new techniques and class balance issues until their fingers are bruised and their eyes are bleeding. Could that, or a slightly less obsessive description, be you? If you and your friends survive the challenge, youll be invited to join an early stage of the New Frontiers beta test. Heres how to join up:
- Copy your character to Pendragon, and form a guild with your like-minded comrades. The guild leader will be your liaison with Sanya, and will be responsible for turning in the battle reports (see below).
- Sign up here: http://www.camelotherald.com/169challenge.php to let us know you intend to participate. Please do NOT sign up until you have formed the test guild on Pendragon! But form that guild fast registration will be closed at 6:00 PM EST on Monday, March 15. Also, only one person PER TEST GUILD should sign up duplicate entries will disqualify the team.
- Play from now until April 5th, and try to rack up the realm points. Kill, kill, kill the enemy. Cheaters and farmers will be disqualified.
- Three battle reports will be required. The first is due Monday, March 22, the second on Monday, March 29, and the third on Monday, April 5. (For all three dates, the deadline is 6:00 PM EST.) In this report we want feedback the groups comments, opinions, and thoughts. We want to know how the 1.69 changes compare with the live server experience. We want to hear about bugs, flaws, and implications of the changes. This is your groups chance to shine, and demonstrate testing savvy, as well as the ability to communicate clearly and concisely. You may send reports more often if you choose to do so, but only the three are required.
- Teams will be judged based equally on realm points and battle reports. The fewer realm points, the better the analysis/bug finding needs to be!
FAQ:
Q: How long can a battle report be?
A: No limit but remember, developers and Herald weenies who never have enough hours in the day LOVE bullet points, lists, and people who are clear and to the point without a whole lot of verbosity. (Yes, I know, pot, kettle, blah blah blah.)
Q: What if I can't turn in the report on Monday?
A: You'll need to turn it in early, or make prior arrangements with Sanya, aka the Herald Typing Monkey. If your team is qualified to participate, you will get an email from her with contact information no later than Tuesday morning.
Q: How many winners will there be?
A: No idea. If we have ten awesome teams, then there will be ten winners.
Q: But established Pendragon guilds have a head start!
A: True. But bear in mind that our Pendragon regulars are always invited to join the beta tests early on, and aren't competing with you. And if you check out the Realm War status page for Pendragon, youll see that (due to population issues) they dont have THAT much of a head start on points just organization.
Q: Blech. Testing. I dont want to test or write up feedback.
A: This may not be the contest for you, then. We are actively looking for testers, here, and using 1.69 as an audition. There will be a guild phase of the beta test, and a general wave as well if you know you're not a tester at heart, just wait for one of those signups to come around.
Q: Will everyone on a winning team get into beta?
A: The list of winning team members will be submitted by the team leader after the contest is decided. The Herald typing monkey does not get involved with guild politics and long drawn out dramas about who is and who is not pulling their weight.
Q: How do I copy my character to Pendragon?
A: Step by step instructions:
1. Create a 1st level character on Pendragon. This is the name the character will have on Pendragon, so pick a name you can tolerate that does not violate our rules. It does have to be in the same realm as the character you are copying.
2. Log into that level one character.
3. Type /charcopy Server Charactername (For example: if the character you were copying was named Bob and was found on Lancelot, you would type /charcopy Lancelot Bob).
4. Log out.
5. Watch your email. (Hey, is your email address on the registration page up to date? If it's not, you won't get anything.) You'll get an email when we receive your /charcopy request, and another when your character is actually copied. You do NOT have to stay off your character on your home server, but you do need to stay off the Pendragon placeholder.
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Copied characters lose everything in their "backpack" inventories and vault. They carry with them equipped items and gold. They do not carry with them last names or guild affiliations. They will have personal realm points (and realm point abilities) but no guild realm points.
If you log into your new character copy and there is ANY anomaly (missing spells/skills/etc) please do not appeal to Customer Support, as there's nothing they can do. Delete the character, create a new 1st level character, and email the Code Warrior (scottj@mythicentertainment.com) to let him know what happened. He'll recopy the character for you. (Note that he will check the deleted character to see what hosed up, so just deleting a character you're tired of isn't recommended. Please also note that he'll just delete any and all email that isn't related to the character copier, so don't bother with other topics.)
Q: Can those of us on Mordred or Gaheris participate?
A: Of course! Just remember, if you have an item from another realm equipped, it may not work and if you unequip it for whatever reason, you will definitely not be able to re-equip the item. And of course, you've got to be in the same realm with the people you're guilded with.
Q: Do we have to stop playing on our main server?
A: Nope. You can play on Pendragon as much or as little as you want to, but remember realm point totals will count for fifty percent of the judging criteria.
Q: Are there any things that are different on Pendragon in terms of combat?
A: Things can appear on Pendragon solely for testing purposes. For example, right now, Pendragon allows everyone into BG 2 to try out different combat ideas. That option may vanish without warning."
Pendragon BG2 is open for everyone, I heard it's a lot of fun.