Ranger Archive
Thread: A short guide for Rangers wanting to get onto that there TC...
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Almagill
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:43 pm
#1
OK, those of you who are already ON TC, look away now. Those who don't want to know anything about TC, quick, face the wall..
Right those of you that are left...
As you know the CURB will be getting rolled out on a Test Centre 'soon'. TH wants you to come try it out and give the Dev's feedback, we need to get our butts on there to make sure that nothing too horrendous happens to Scout/Ranger for some reason.
"how do I get onto TC"
*** added as an afterthought*** You're going to end up with TWO Galaxies folders, so make sure you clear enough disc space to accomodate a second installation of the game.
There are two ways. The official way is for you to click on the Test Centre logo down on the lower edge of Launchpad. This will start an installer which makes a copy of your existing Galaxies folder and then downloads all the necessary patches etc to let you get onto TC.
This can take a very long time. I'll repeat that for emphasis "This Can Take A Very Long Time" especially for those of us cursed with dialup connections. It is the official way to do it tho and I guess comes with some sort of support or whatever, but don't quote me on that.
The OTHER WAY is to start the installation process as described above, let the installer click and whirr away up till you get to the point that it wants to start downloading stuff. Now STOP the process.
"What?" you say "Are you mad? Stop the process??" Welll, yes, stop the process, quit out of Galaxies, go offline.
Now open your My Computer and find your original Galaxies folder (it's the one NOT called Galaxies Test Centre).
Size that window over to one side of your screen.
Open your My Computer AGAIN and look for the newly created Test Centre folder. Resize that window over to the other side of the screen.
Now, follow this bit VERY carefully.
Select ALL the folders and files INSIDE your ORIGINAL Galaxies folder and drag them over to the new TEST CENTRE folder using the right mouse button, MAKE COPY HERE. Let Windows copy your folders over to the new TC folder.
OK, nearly done.
Go back online, go back to Launchpad, click the test Centre button again and the patcher will do a file check, bring down any last minute patches you missed and drop you into TC at the character creation screen.
From there, you're on your own
Remember to create a RIN channel ( /chatr join RIN ) and to let us know what your new toons name is. Also, remember on TC you have three character slots. Hah, I laugh at the jedi and their feeble one extra slot
Finally, you may need to manually make a shortcut to the new TC launcher, just right click the desktop, browse down to the new TC folder and make a shortcut to the application.
See you all on the CURBside, eh?
Right those of you that are left...
As you know the CURB will be getting rolled out on a Test Centre 'soon'. TH wants you to come try it out and give the Dev's feedback, we need to get our butts on there to make sure that nothing too horrendous happens to Scout/Ranger for some reason.
"how do I get onto TC"
*** added as an afterthought*** You're going to end up with TWO Galaxies folders, so make sure you clear enough disc space to accomodate a second installation of the game.
There are two ways. The official way is for you to click on the Test Centre logo down on the lower edge of Launchpad. This will start an installer which makes a copy of your existing Galaxies folder and then downloads all the necessary patches etc to let you get onto TC.
This can take a very long time. I'll repeat that for emphasis "This Can Take A Very Long Time" especially for those of us cursed with dialup connections. It is the official way to do it tho and I guess comes with some sort of support or whatever, but don't quote me on that.
The OTHER WAY is to start the installation process as described above, let the installer click and whirr away up till you get to the point that it wants to start downloading stuff. Now STOP the process.
"What?" you say "Are you mad? Stop the process??" Welll, yes, stop the process, quit out of Galaxies, go offline.
Now open your My Computer and find your original Galaxies folder (it's the one NOT called Galaxies Test Centre).
Size that window over to one side of your screen.
Open your My Computer AGAIN and look for the newly created Test Centre folder. Resize that window over to the other side of the screen.
Now, follow this bit VERY carefully.
Select ALL the folders and files INSIDE your ORIGINAL Galaxies folder and drag them over to the new TEST CENTRE folder using the right mouse button, MAKE COPY HERE. Let Windows copy your folders over to the new TC folder.
OK, nearly done.
Go back online, go back to Launchpad, click the test Centre button again and the patcher will do a file check, bring down any last minute patches you missed and drop you into TC at the character creation screen.
From there, you're on your own
Remember to create a RIN channel ( /chatr join RIN ) and to let us know what your new toons name is. Also, remember on TC you have three character slots. Hah, I laugh at the jedi and their feeble one extra slot
Finally, you may need to manually make a shortcut to the new TC launcher, just right click the desktop, browse down to the new TC folder and make a shortcut to the application.
See you all on the CURBside, eh?
Message Edited by Almagill on 04-01-2005 12:19 AM
agent156
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:49 pm
#2
I wont stand for this cheap grinding of TC!
DL it like a really man, you'll learn the ins and outs of watching progress bars for hours and will be a better....
DL it like a really man, you'll learn the ins and outs of watching progress bars for hours and will be a better....
FourthNail
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:50 pm
#3
Ok, let me ask the dumb noob TC question. By copying our files over as described, will we be copying over our existing toons as well? I've grown quite fond of ol' Plunk and would like to see how he would work out in the CURB.
Plunk
Plunk
Deadtech
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:55 pm
#4
man glad i have a cable modem. Only took about 15 minutes to dl TC. then again that was back around patch 8.
Almagill
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:56 pm
#5
FourthNail wrote:
Ok, let me ask the dumb noob TC question. By copying our files over as described, will we be copying over our existing toons as well? I've grown quite fond of ol' Plunk and would like to see how he would work out in the CURB.
Plunk
Short answer, no.
Your toons are stored server side (which is why they sometimes stand there in their newb clothes or underwear when the server takes a sicky)
In this instance of TC it looks as though we will ALL be starting with novice melee or novice ranged characters and working up from there.
Unlike recent 'cloned' galaxies which have been used for load testing of new publishes there will be no blue frog (character builder terminals) initially but they will be phased in as testing progresses.
Expect this round of testing to be hugely controlled and for the Dev team to be looking for results from very specific areas of change at any given time.
Almagill
Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:58 pm
#6
Deadtech wrote:man glad i have a cable modem. Only took about 15 minutes to dl TC. then again that was back around patch 8.
Oh make me jealous why don't you
It was funny to see posts going up today from people hwo had just installed TC and thought the 150 - 200Mb download they were seeing was the CURB already and not 'just' the game files to bring the game up to its current state of play from a fresh install (without doing the old copy manually trick)
FultonMeigs
Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:30 pm
#7
You know it's funny, but for some reason I'm developing an overwelming desire tosling a CDEF rifle over my shoulder, pitch a one-tent camp, and craft L-dart traps. 
agent156
Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:58 pm
#8
Ya this is the last time we might really get that "n00b again" feeling so enjoy it.
Jolandir
Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:29 pm
#9
Look carefully at how they are going to be testing this new CU. First is letting people go up marksman and brawler (where do you see Ranger there?). Then what they are calling the middle combat class which is 1 Elite Combat Profession (well that let's Ranger out!). Then 2 combat professions will be tested (three strikes!). They will not be starting with the blue frogs so if you want to give input you will not go up the scout tree you will go up brawler or marksman, so why do they needus to test anything? We are not considered a direct support profession for the CU either such as DE, BE, Arch, Doc, Chef, Clothiers, AS, WS, entertainer. We do not support the GCW in any way by there new plans just revealed. So that means we are at best support for the real support professions. Again basically they have very effectively eliminated Ranger.
Jolandir
WildBil2Me
Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:13 pm
#10
Jolandir wrote:
Look carefully at how they are going to be testing this new CU. First is letting people go up marksman and brawler (where do you see Ranger there?). Then what they are calling the middle combat class which is 1 Elite Combat Profession (well that let's Ranger out!). Then 2 combat professions will be tested (three strikes!). They will not be starting with the blue frogs so if you want to give input you will not go up the scout tree you will go up brawler or marksman, so why do they needus to test anything? We are not considered a direct support profession for the CU either such as DE, BE, Arch, Doc, Chef, Clothiers, AS, WS, entertainer. We do not support the GCW in any way by there new plans just revealed. So that means we are at best support for the real support professions. Again basically they have very effectively eliminated Ranger.
Jolandir
Wait ... what?
I missed that ... where does it describe this?
Owen-Lars
Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:21 pm
#11
Calm down Jolandir, we dont know what is going to happen yet.
Testing will be focused and not just about one or two professions so if that means everyone can only do marksman and brawler first then so be it. Ranger and scout are not going to be ignored and unavailable for testing.
Im glad the focused testing is going ahead, we dont know what form its going to come in (i highly doubt its like you say though) so we will just have to wait. Lets not start saying testing is going to be this and that when infact we know little about what is realy going to happen until we get in there.
Focus testing is good, even if it means we cannot head to ranger for a bit.
Oh and as scout is required in a few core combat professions require scout as a pre-req i highly doubt scout will be excluded from testing.
Something along the lines of just the novice professions will most likely be the case for initial testing purposes.
And Bill will need to be on top of his department from the off 
WildBil2Me
Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:50 pm
#12
If I'm right, Testing will work something like this.
Day 1: we get to start playing from the novice experience. The idea behind this, simply, is to test the novice experience from the ground up. Those from JTL beta will remember going through a new type of "novice experience" while we were first getting into the Beta world.
Day 2 - on: we will be getting more and more "focus" threads telling us what the devs are concerned about. Some of these things will be simple game mechanics that need stress testing while others will be based off of our own experiences and feedback. If a large amount of the player base says "rifle specials get bumped out of the queue when a Ranger types /rescue" then the Devs might ask peple to start looking into how its happening and explaining the phenomenon.
Somewhere down the line: we'll get access to Blue frogs which offer some of the new weapons and armor and we'll be asked to test those armors against the gameworld. etc. etc.
There will be rollbacks, and jumps forward as needed to test a variety of the aspects as well as interaction of all professions. Owen's new system for having us concentrate our efforts by "department" is an example of the kind of thing I expect to see.
Owen-Lars
Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:58 pm
#13
Yeah thats just about what is going to happen but more spaced out i feel.
I expect it to go like this (not confirming this or anything just saying heh)
Stage1: Novice Experience
Like you said, new to the game, whats it like, hows it doing, is it fun? Stuff like that
Stage 2: Single Elite profession
Test all the way up to one elite profession. See how it plays out, see what happens. Could be blue frog, could be normal leveling.
Stage 3: 250 Skill points
Blue frogs, group focus testing, large scale battles, pvp balances, template balance and end game testing
Each stage will have various focus tests i expect but gaining in frequency up to stage 3 with the most focus tests running. The aim is to test all areas so things needs to be testing in a linear format to stop the average player just being an idiot and loading up power template after template.
I also expect each stage to be split up further depending on what the focus of testing is. Lots of wipes, lots of restarts and lots of changes.
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