I can live with it, because I get to start over and see the improved version of the tutorial. But, had I known in advance I wouldn't have spent all the time I did repeating missions to level up past 20.
In preparation for an upcoming patch to the Tribble Test Server, as well as Open Beta (to be announced very soon), we will be performing a character wipe on Tribble today.
While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to clean up existing Romulan characters that would become unplayable due to today's patch
I am unsure of why there are so many references to Zen in this thread. No one here spent any money on Zen for Tribble. It has never been enabled on the PWE Wallet to place Zen on Tribble . . . and WHY would anyone purchase anything for a Beta server that is supposed to get wiped anyway?
The ONLY Zen that ever made it to Tribble was for the Season 5, when Free-to-Play was in testing, and they mirrored any Zen you bought for Holodeck onto Tribble as well. They also gave some out as a bonus, but all of it was a direct result of Holodeck purchases only. Tribble is a completely separate entity from Holodeck. It is not a Live server. It is not an actual game-play server. It is a testing server, and anything on there, currency or otherwise, is always earmarked as temporary and non-refundable. That is the way it is for all Beta servers for all games.
I think the only time I have ever seen Cryptic allow actual Zen purchases on a Beta was for Neverwinter, however when they did the wipes over there they credited the zen and astral diamonds back to the players. However that was due to the fact that real money purchased those commodities. That never happened here on Tribble, thus no need for a refund or credit of any sort. It's not needed.
Also, I am seeing a lot of reference as if this is a live server or something. I find it kind of amusing that people are freaking out because that "had x character for so long and now they are gone". I am frankly surprised any characters lasted this long. I was shocked to see someone say their toon has been on Tribble since season 3. If the developers did what most game developers do, a wipe would happen between each and every major game element. In the case of STO, that would be between each and every Season.
Besides, it takes a few seconds to move a high level character from Holo to Tribble. THAT is a privilege I have not seen in any other game for testing. I think it is awesome here, and we should be thankful to be able to pop over a high level character to do whatever high level stuff we choose in a testing environment.
Maybe I am just guilty of seeing the glass half full with the server arrangement we have as players on STO.
EDIT: Before the inevitable flames start, I want to point out that I would not argue with a stipend or bonus given to us to snag z-store stuff to test. My point was aimed at the folks who were trying to make it sound like they spent actual money on this server when they didn't.
While I really don't have a problem with the wipe, some thought should have gone into what happens to the data. It's now going to take months again to get our starbases & embassies back to where they were. I would like to make a couple of suggestions:
All characters on Tribble automatically join a default Tribble fleet built by PWE.
If we want to create our own fleet, they should be equipped with the maximum starbase and embassy levels/capabilities.
if you read the patch before this they implemented a 30 second project timer they were preparing tribble for this wipe last week
I thought you said you will only Wipe Romulan Charecters not the Whole Servers CHaricters i just lost so many Lockbox ships i had all the Good ones Built up there as well as Millions of Ec and Fleet modules
In preparation for an upcoming patch to the Tribble Test Server, as well as Open Beta (to be announced very soon), we will be performing a character wipe on Tribble today.
No problem with that. It's standard practice on many MMO test/beta servers to perform character wipes.
However, in a similar vein, it is also standard practice on said other MMO test servers for the devs to provide cheap(er) items or pay-to-play points (ZEN in this case), so that testing can be a little less painful ...
Also, when I first started on Tribble, there was a stack of C-Store points waiting for me (around 9,000 if I recall correctly) which I used for things such as increasing the number of character slots, so I could test with both new characters & some ported from Holodeck ... these have also gone.
why no warning this was going to happen ? , I have funds on 3 toons that will be lost and taken a year to get . I for one will not start a new rom char if we loose everything when this has taken place , not on with the lack of warning as I could have put the funds in the account bank on tribble . who makes this plans to do this ?
That is the funniest thing I ever heard, really.
I am not sure if the tribble account bank works, but if it does, you can just copy over your characters from holodeck and deposit all their "funds" into the account bank, rinse, and repeat.
Given that it is a test server, I am uncertain what the point would be.
i wasnt aware that you could even use zen on tribble. always thought all of that was disabled
Using real money is disabled. The only valid references to Zen in this thread are the bonus free zen Cryptic gave to players for the free-to-play launch. No one actually paid for Tribble Zen - only Holodeck Zen involved real money.
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
why no warning this was going to happen ? , I have funds on 3 toons that will be lost and taken a year to get . I for one will not start a new rom char if we loose everything when this has taken place , not on with the lack of warning as I could have put the funds in the account bank on tribble . who makes this plans to do this ?
. . . you ARE joking, right?
Some of us actually test on Tribble, and with the character transfer system it takes minutes to become a millionaire on there.
For the sake and benefit of the doubt, I am going to assume that you do not know the differences between the servers, so I will explain. That server is for testing, not game-play. Holodeck is the actual play server, and your efforts for progressing a character should always be done there.
Hints as to the differences of these servers:
On the launcher: The button is marked PUBLIC TEST (TRIBBLE). The keyword there is test.
In order to play on Tribble, you have to read and acknowledge an agreement that this is a test server and wipes can and will happen without notice and at any time.
These forums are a great example of the obvious, being under the category of "Test Servers"
Trust me, if you put half the effort into Holodeck as you did on Tribble, you'll have your funds back in seconds . . . to use for testing purposes, I would hope.
Im going to butt in on this, and be a naysayer on this idea of wipes...
and before anyone goes dude...its test server it happens...
ya i know...
But lets take a step back and look at the larger picture here...13 days and a wake up from this mark before the 21st..which imo we are not ready...but its not up to us...anyway
There is just way to much to test still for romulans...to restart us at 1...heres why
for those of us level 21 and higher we were sitting comfortably able to test the mid and high level content to make sure it works...now...once again we have to resit through the low stuff to make sure it works before making sure the new stuff works..
we were looking at around 30 more romulan missions to test now its back to around 50
not to mention the fact we need to run missions with our forced ally kdf or fed to see if their missions work with us on the team (bet most still didnt bother to think about that)
so were looking around 80 plus missions to full test for 2 weeks time, plus reputations, doffs, ship skills again...(are we 20 seconds are we 40 seconds or did we remove cloak all together???)
Now dont get me wrong, I enjoy testing to find whats working whats not, but many are not testing, because if they were they wouldnt be flying through levels 1-50 in one day...theres no proper testing being done there...
Myself, I run around every little area of the map..make sure I or may away team decide to stop on an invisble wall, or dialogue is spelled right, armor looks right, weapons have the proper sound effects/visuals and so on...
for 13 days I feel the wipe was not in the testers best interest,
beat me up for this post I dont care, from my standpoint this was a bad decision, and as such it is only my opinion.
Out of all the silly freaking out on this thread, THIS has got to be the ONLY valid argument or outlook I could possibly agree with for folks being upset at the wipe. That is probably because this person is looking at it as a testing perspective for . . . oh you know . . . the TESTING server
Everyone else seems to be getting wound up over zen they didn't spend real money for and characters they put more work into on an unstable server than they put into on the live server LOL.
I commend this poster for being one of the few of us who actually explore the content and look for bugs and provide feedback and such to the Devs.
In preparation for an upcoming patch to the Tribble Test Server, as well as Open Beta (to be announced very soon), we will be performing a character wipe on Tribble today.
Cool I think I was getting too attached to my character lol. I'm looking forward to starting again.
I'd like to say whats been on LOR so far has been great. (It would be even better if you add a delete all button to the mail tho )
I posted this as a response on a thread where someone was understandable and justifiably upset about this wipe, but ill post it here, since i figure cryptic will be more likely to see this, here goes: "Except they didn't wipe with the free to play update, since i still had characters from before then, and i know it was a test server, but this is still stupid, i had long ago stopped just porting characters over and instead been just making them to test them, and ive spent hours and hours playing on it, worst of all i was stupid enough for spending real money on ships on this server, so im actually extremely po about this, heck, i could even handle that better if it wherent for the fact is is now impossible for me to have my gorn with a winter jacket outfit on him, since its impossible to get use it now, even if i remade him, and i dont think theres enough slots to fill out all the characters i played, even if i bought new slots. i thought i'd never say this, but this actually makes me half tempted to quit the game after years of being a loyal player, supporting them both with my money and constantly trying to get people i know to play this game, as well as trying to defend them on rants about said game, and this is how i ( and many others) are rewarded, great job breaking it cryptic."
As and added note, something this major probably should have had a sooner announcement, to see what kind of response would come, and thus hopefully a way to work around this, where you could still get your wipe, but players could say, for the next few days somehow transfer from tribble to holodeck, it really would have saved a lot of grief, and alienated less players. I say again, nice job breaking a good game, who's ever idea it was to make this move.
and fazemladaiya, please dont act like you know the reason why so many of us are upset, i've tried to make give info on the forums for bugs i've found, but as far as i can tell no one ever took notice, and some of us HAVE put real effort in the live server, i know i've put alot more in holodeck then tribble, its just that i've played the game for almost 3 years now and have put literally HUNDREDS of hours into the game, so started to use the tribble server for not only testing the game itself, but different builds, loads outs and such, well replaying the game and making new characters well i was at it. plus i could be wrong, but im prett sure at some point i spent money to get more zen, or at least was going to once LoR launched, since i figured i'd get back to playing my other guy after that, and i was about out of zen on the tribble server.
Going nuts about a char-wipe on a TEST server where the ToS CLEARLY state that wipes can happen at will without warning and whenever they please, is just...
well...
nuts.
If you did'n read the fine-print, you have only yourself to blame... Not the people who warned you that it would eventually happen.
Also... It has been clearly stated too, that what happens on tribble, stays on tribble... No transfers from a server where exploits are made as easy as they are on tribble.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Going nuts about a char-wipe on a TEST server where the ToS CLEARLY state that wipes can happen at will without warning and whenever they please, is just...
well...
nuts.
If you did'n read the fine-print, you have only yourself to blame... Not the people who warned you that it would eventually happen.
Also... It has been clearly stated too, that what happens on tribble, stays on tribble... No transfers from a server where exploits are made as easy as they are on tribble.
Please tell me where it says that, i don't ever remember seeing where it said that, i'll admit thers a good chance i either missed it or forgot, seeing as how long it would have been when i read it i can honestly say i dont remember seeing this in "the fine print".
"While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to clean up existing Romulan characters that would become unplayable due to today's patch."
Pay special attention to the highlighted text
how ever people are not reading it like that. they see
While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to Mess with all the people testing today's patch.
life is so much better when you take off the cryptic hates me goggles. and reading the whole post also helps to.
Please tell me where it says that, i don't ever remember seeing where it said that, i'll admit thers a good chance i either missed it or forgot, seeing as how long it would have been when i read it i can honestly say i dont remember seeing this in "the fine print".
Too bad the tribble page on the STO website only displays the copy screen after u signed up for tribble testing , but seeing as you are on the forums ...
When will downtime for Tribble/Redshirt occur?
Downtime will happen on-the-fly, unlike Holodeck. This means that if we have a new patch or maintenance that needs to happen, we won't be waiting for our standard time. Instead, the maintenance will occur almost immediately, after a notification has been made to anyone playing on that particular Test Server.
"While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to clean up existing Romulan characters that would become unplayable due to today's patch."
Pay special attention to the highlighted text
how ever people are not reading it like that. they see
While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to Mess with all the people testing today's patch.
life is so much better when you take off the cryptic hates me goggles. and reading the whole post also helps to.
I was noticing that, I read the original post and saw that. I assumed the hack they used to block out the story missions beyond 21 broke the toons with the current patch that unlocks those later missions. I think they figured that it'd probably take less time to level a new toon to 21 than for the devs to figure out how to prevent the old toons from breaking.
Anyway, no real loss. We can retest the earlier missions to see if there are any more bugs then test the later ones.
I thought you said you will only Wipe Romulan Charecters not the Whole Servers CHaricters i just lost so many Lockbox ships i had all the Good ones Built up there as well as Millions of Ec and Fleet modules
Uh.. why?
Isn't that the kind of thing to do on the *Live* server, not a *test* server where the characters could be wiped at any moment?
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
I thought you said you will only Wipe Romulan Charecters not the Whole Servers CHaricters i just lost so many Lockbox ships i had all the Good ones Built up there as well as Millions of Ec and Fleet modules
I know how you feel bud, I'm the chief tac officer for my fleet on holodeck, I use tribble to do re iews on ships then report back to my fleet in a fleet e-mail...I lost all my ships and FSM (I was just about to buy a fleet aquarius!!! >x( ) too, soo annoyed and now the experimental ships console is gone...I can't even get an oddy now!!!!! I was holding out hope that they would add the kumari to it...I am saving on holodeck and I want to know wich one to get... They have destryed the only reason I go on tribble.. I mean, at least invite me to the beta please? So I can do a report on that while I get my ships back?
Please tell me where it says that, i don't ever remember seeing where it said that, i'll admit thers a good chance i either missed it or forgot, seeing as how long it would have been when i read it i can honestly say i dont remember seeing this in "the fine print".
In fairness, it's not really my fault that you did not read the documentation of what you signed up for before you signed the deal...
I will give you some short indications, but finding the remaining relevant data is your job... I DID after all read it.
The Star Trek Online Public Test Servers are where we'll be previewing and testing all of our latest content before making it available on Holodeck. Much of the content may be unpolished and potentially buggy - after all, that's the point of putting it on a Test Server. We greatly appreciate Bug Reports and feedback on this content so that we can refine and perfect it before putting it live.
When playing some Beta Games, you may accumulate treasure, experience points, equipment, or other value or status indicators within the Beta test. This data may be reset at any time during the testing process, and it may be reset when the particular game completes this testing phase. In this case, all player history and data will be erased and each player will return to novice status.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
That is just crazy how are we supposed to test the content if you wipe the romulan toons we have logged the hours on, just speaking some commonsense
Again, they are wiping the characters because the current update to Tribble would render existing characters unplayable. In the case of this testing, wiping the characters is the common sense approach.
Anyone else lose their Tribble Characters on May 7, 2013? Not happy here!!!
Well, while this IS annoying, they announced the wipe in several places yesterday prior to it and to the most recent patch. But, starting over again on a test server isn't the end of the world: I requested character copies, and even though it suggests two hours, they were there in seconds.
I'm in the LoR closed beta, so it's been aggravating to replay everything, but we'll have to when LoR launches on Holodeck anyway.
For folks who were really trying to build Fleets on Tribble, it will be a real pain, since those Fleets are now GONE. But, you have to ask why anyone would decide to focus that much energy and so many resources on a TEST server, at least in my opinion.
Anyway, go back and request your characters to be copied over, and if you are in the beta test, well, at least you know what comes next for a while!
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge (...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
if you read the patch before this they implemented a 30 second project timer they were preparing tribble for this wipe last week
Yes, I'm familiar with it. It still takes a while to do all the projects, so we can no longer test things using upper Tier capabilities... at least until we reaccomplish them.
Comments
I think the reason they didn't give us any notice is because they didn't want the customer's opinion/input to this decision.
The ONLY Zen that ever made it to Tribble was for the Season 5, when Free-to-Play was in testing, and they mirrored any Zen you bought for Holodeck onto Tribble as well. They also gave some out as a bonus, but all of it was a direct result of Holodeck purchases only. Tribble is a completely separate entity from Holodeck. It is not a Live server. It is not an actual game-play server. It is a testing server, and anything on there, currency or otherwise, is always earmarked as temporary and non-refundable. That is the way it is for all Beta servers for all games.
I think the only time I have ever seen Cryptic allow actual Zen purchases on a Beta was for Neverwinter, however when they did the wipes over there they credited the zen and astral diamonds back to the players. However that was due to the fact that real money purchased those commodities. That never happened here on Tribble, thus no need for a refund or credit of any sort. It's not needed.
Also, I am seeing a lot of reference as if this is a live server or something. I find it kind of amusing that people are freaking out because that "had x character for so long and now they are gone". I am frankly surprised any characters lasted this long. I was shocked to see someone say their toon has been on Tribble since season 3. If the developers did what most game developers do, a wipe would happen between each and every major game element. In the case of STO, that would be between each and every Season.
Besides, it takes a few seconds to move a high level character from Holo to Tribble. THAT is a privilege I have not seen in any other game for testing. I think it is awesome here, and we should be thankful to be able to pop over a high level character to do whatever high level stuff we choose in a testing environment.
Maybe I am just guilty of seeing the glass half full with the server arrangement we have as players on STO.
EDIT: Before the inevitable flames start, I want to point out that I would not argue with a stipend or bonus given to us to snag z-store stuff to test. My point was aimed at the folks who were trying to make it sound like they spent actual money on this server when they didn't.
if you read the patch before this they implemented a 30 second project timer they were preparing tribble for this wipe last week
No problem with that. It's standard practice on many MMO test/beta servers to perform character wipes.
However, in a similar vein, it is also standard practice on said other MMO test servers for the devs to provide cheap(er) items or pay-to-play points (ZEN in this case), so that testing can be a little less painful ...
Also, when I first started on Tribble, there was a stack of C-Store points waiting for me (around 9,000 if I recall correctly) which I used for things such as increasing the number of character slots, so I could test with both new characters & some ported from Holodeck ... these have also gone.
So, how about a ZEN infusion on Tribble?
That is the funniest thing I ever heard, really.
I am not sure if the tribble account bank works, but if it does, you can just copy over your characters from holodeck and deposit all their "funds" into the account bank, rinse, and repeat.
Given that it is a test server, I am uncertain what the point would be.
Time for a server reboot...
:cool:
Using real money is disabled. The only valid references to Zen in this thread are the bonus free zen Cryptic gave to players for the free-to-play launch. No one actually paid for Tribble Zen - only Holodeck Zen involved real money.
....... cya, that or make a complete OFF-SITE backup :P
OT: yeah im fine with a full wipe of Tribble, i didnt lose anything on there.
. . . you ARE joking, right?
Some of us actually test on Tribble, and with the character transfer system it takes minutes to become a millionaire on there.
For the sake and benefit of the doubt, I am going to assume that you do not know the differences between the servers, so I will explain. That server is for testing, not game-play. Holodeck is the actual play server, and your efforts for progressing a character should always be done there.
Hints as to the differences of these servers:
Trust me, if you put half the effort into Holodeck as you did on Tribble, you'll have your funds back in seconds . . . to use for testing purposes, I would hope.
Out of all the silly freaking out on this thread, THIS has got to be the ONLY valid argument or outlook I could possibly agree with for folks being upset at the wipe. That is probably because this person is looking at it as a testing perspective for . . . oh you know . . . the TESTING server
Everyone else seems to be getting wound up over zen they didn't spend real money for and characters they put more work into on an unstable server than they put into on the live server LOL.
I commend this poster for being one of the few of us who actually explore the content and look for bugs and provide feedback and such to the Devs.
Cool I think I was getting too attached to my character lol. I'm looking forward to starting again.
I'd like to say whats been on LOR so far has been great. (It would be even better if you add a delete all button to the mail tho
Your doing a good job thanks STO Team
As and added note, something this major probably should have had a sooner announcement, to see what kind of response would come, and thus hopefully a way to work around this, where you could still get your wipe, but players could say, for the next few days somehow transfer from tribble to holodeck, it really would have saved a lot of grief, and alienated less players. I say again, nice job breaking a good game, who's ever idea it was to make this move.
and fazemladaiya, please dont act like you know the reason why so many of us are upset, i've tried to make give info on the forums for bugs i've found, but as far as i can tell no one ever took notice, and some of us HAVE put real effort in the live server, i know i've put alot more in holodeck then tribble, its just that i've played the game for almost 3 years now and have put literally HUNDREDS of hours into the game, so started to use the tribble server for not only testing the game itself, but different builds, loads outs and such, well replaying the game and making new characters well i was at it. plus i could be wrong, but im prett sure at some point i spent money to get more zen, or at least was going to once LoR launched, since i figured i'd get back to playing my other guy after that, and i was about out of zen on the tribble server.
well...
nuts.
If you did'n read the fine-print, you have only yourself to blame... Not the people who warned you that it would eventually happen.
Also... It has been clearly stated too, that what happens on tribble, stays on tribble... No transfers from a server where exploits are made as easy as they are on tribble.
Please tell me where it says that, i don't ever remember seeing where it said that, i'll admit thers a good chance i either missed it or forgot, seeing as how long it would have been when i read it i can honestly say i dont remember seeing this in "the fine print".
"While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to clean up existing Romulan characters that would become unplayable due to today's patch."
Pay special attention to the highlighted text
how ever people are not reading it like that. they see
While we don't do this often, it is required for today's maintenance to Mess with all the people testing today's patch.
life is so much better when you take off the cryptic hates me goggles. and reading the whole post also helps to.
Too bad the tribble page on the STO website only displays the copy screen after u signed up for tribble testing , but seeing as you are on the forums ...
PWE Branflakes post called Tribble Test Server FAQ
THE FAQ Page itself
I was noticing that, I read the original post and saw that. I assumed the hack they used to block out the story missions beyond 21 broke the toons with the current patch that unlocks those later missions. I think they figured that it'd probably take less time to level a new toon to 21 than for the devs to figure out how to prevent the old toons from breaking.
Anyway, no real loss. We can retest the earlier missions to see if there are any more bugs then test the later ones.
Uh.. why?
Isn't that the kind of thing to do on the *Live* server, not a *test* server where the characters could be wiped at any moment?
"Back on topic. Destinii is correct."
(Formerly Destinii until the 'Great PWE Forum Shakeup of 2012')
I know how you feel bud, I'm the chief tac officer for my fleet on holodeck, I use tribble to do re iews on ships then report back to my fleet in a fleet e-mail...I lost all my ships and FSM (I was just about to buy a fleet aquarius!!! >x( ) too, soo annoyed and now the experimental ships console is gone...I can't even get an oddy now!!!!! I was holding out hope that they would add the kumari to it...I am saving on holodeck and I want to know wich one to get... They have destryed the only reason I go on tribble.. I mean, at least invite me to the beta please? So I can do a report on that while I get my ships back?
In fairness, it's not really my fault that you did not read the documentation of what you signed up for before you signed the deal...
I will give you some short indications, but finding the remaining relevant data is your job... I DID after all read it.
For one the wording "Public Test (Tribble)" in the dropdown here: http://sto.perfectworld.com/community/tribble-test is a dead giveaway that it's a test server.
Futher, from same page:
From this page: https://support.perfectworld.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4135
The Star Trek Online Public Test Servers are where we'll be previewing and testing all of our latest content before making it available on Holodeck. Much of the content may be unpolished and potentially buggy - after all, that's the point of putting it on a Test Server. We greatly appreciate Bug Reports and feedback on this content so that we can refine and perfect it before putting it live.
From the TOS here: http://www.perfectworld.com/about/terms , under "16. Official Service and Beta Testing", last paragraph:
When playing some Beta Games, you may accumulate treasure, experience points, equipment, or other value or status indicators within the Beta test. This data may be reset at any time during the testing process, and it may be reset when the particular game completes this testing phase. In this case, all player history and data will be erased and each player will return to novice status.
Again, they are wiping the characters because the current update to Tribble would render existing characters unplayable. In the case of this testing, wiping the characters is the common sense approach.
Well, while this IS annoying, they announced the wipe in several places yesterday prior to it and to the most recent patch. But, starting over again on a test server isn't the end of the world: I requested character copies, and even though it suggests two hours, they were there in seconds.
I'm in the LoR closed beta, so it's been aggravating to replay everything, but we'll have to when LoR launches on Holodeck anyway.
For folks who were really trying to build Fleets on Tribble, it will be a real pain, since those Fleets are now GONE. But, you have to ask why anyone would decide to focus that much energy and so many resources on a TEST server, at least in my opinion.
Anyway, go back and request your characters to be copied over, and if you are in the beta test, well, at least you know what comes next for a while!
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge
(...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
Yes, I'm familiar with it. It still takes a while to do all the projects, so we can no longer test things using upper Tier capabilities... at least until we reaccomplish them.
Your Javelin deals 125417 (89066) Disruptor Damage(Critical) to Tholian Recluse. > lol