Should characters always be wiped from beta to launch?

"Everyday we take the Massive daily posts and bring them to Dragoon discussions. We would like to thank Massively for their original content."

Who doesn't love a good beta? Right? Well, actually, lots of people don't like betas for several reasons, one of the biggest ones being the fact that your character's progression will usually be wiped clean before the game goes into launch mode.

As you can imagine, this is a necessary evil. After all, betas are for testing, not for getting a head start on your leveling. But more recently, some studios have been allowing characters to stay from open beta to launch, essentially establishing that beta period as a headstart of its own -- often before the official pre-order headstart.

This might just be another sign of that evolution of betas from a testing period to a marketing strategy, but we want to know how you feel about the character wipes themselves. Do you feel that erasing your character from beta to launch will stop you from playing in the beta, or do you see it as a fair part of the process?


TH

Yes.

Why should some lucky random keep his character while we have to start last.

TH

I think it's part of a fair process, having characters wiped is all part of the beta experience, in the launch game, people shouldn't be able to keep their character they have levelled up since beta, and chances are the quests won't have changed much, so it won't be too difficult to level up quickly again!

always should wipe the beta datas just to start with healthy bug free database layouts to prevent future clog ups that might render the data broken.

should not do early access too since its just pointless marketing.