Testing, testing...

[Rowgen]

Though while Cata's on everybody's mind, is there anything us non-GMs can do? Perhaps there's some custom changes made to the server that could be more conveniently documented, or any policy issues that we could mull on or the likes?

[Rigley]

I say we wait. All we stand to gain from switching earlier is having Cata sooner, when what we stand to lose is having any number of issues, with the solution potentially being unavailable without potentially breaking the server. I'd rather not have regrets.

See personally, from being on the server firsthand, I think the state of the bugs are more than a little exaggerated from what I've seen people commenting on them. Again, I'm not wholly certain since I haven't witnessed any bad crashes or issues, but on that same note I haven't had any experience where I've said 'I guess we can't make this work'.

[Dae]

I say we wait. All we stand to gain from switching earlier is having Cata sooner, when what we stand to lose is having any number of issues, with the solution potentially being unavailable without potentially breaking the server. I'd rather not have regrets.

See personally, from being on the server firsthand, I think the state of the bugs are more than a little exaggerated from what I've seen people commenting on them. Again, I'm not wholly certain since I haven't witnessed any bad crashes or issues, but on that same note I haven't had any experience where I've said 'I guess we can't make this work'.

Well.... Still... I'd personally feel a lot more comfortable moving forward if there were some assurance that if we go Cata sooner rather than later that we won't be forever unable to fix some of the problems in question, should a solution ever become available.

Also, not sure if this has been asked already, but will we be able to have both the old and realms up for a little while to make migrating to the new one easier, like with the last restart? I mean, its not too difficult to have two of the same patch, as I understand, but with two different patches, I can't be sure.
Giving us a head's up as early as possible would probably be a good little kick in the pants for people to write down any details they need to now, rather than later, and help avoid the inevitable restart "lose everything" issues.

Oh, and I'd personally appreciate it if we could get a universal WoW installer that installs up to Cata available some time before we make the switch; with my Macbook here on the end of its rope, I'm going to be using the PC client for WoW come Cataclysm. My new computer is a PC/Hackintosh, and it would be easier for me to just run WoW in Wine when I'm using OSX then have the rather portly client on my computer twice. At least now, pointing me in the direction of a good, safe PC download would be nice. I've had some very bad (AKA: had to wipe my computer more than once) experiences with trying to install WoW in the past, and I want to be safe and I'm avoiding the Blizzard installers like the plague.

[dastmo]

I say we wait. All we stand to gain from switching earlier is having Cata sooner, when what we stand to lose is having any number of issues, with the solution potentially being unavailable without potentially breaking the server. I'd rather not have regrets.

See personally, from being on the server firsthand, I think the state of the bugs are more than a little exaggerated from what I've seen people commenting on them. Again, I'm not wholly certain since I haven't witnessed any bad crashes or issues, but on that same note I haven't had any experience where I've said 'I guess we can't make this work'.

Well.... Still... I'd personally feel a lot more comfortable moving forward if there were some assurance that if we go Cata sooner rather than later that we won't be forever unable to fix some of the problems in question, should a solution ever become available.

Also, not sure if this has been asked already, but will we be able to have both the old and realms up for a little while to make migrating to the new one easier, like with the last restart? I mean, its not too difficult to have two of the same patch, as I understand, but with two different patches, I can't be sure.
Giving us a head's up as early as possible would probably be a good little kick in the pants for people to write down any details they need to now, rather than later, and help avoid the inevitable restart "lose everything" issues.

Oh, and I'd personally appreciate it if we could get a universal WoW installer that installs up to Cata available some time before we make the switch; with my Macbook here on the end of its rope, I'm going to be using the PC client for WoW come Cataclysm. My new computer is a PC/Hackintosh, and it would be easier for me to just run WoW in Wine when I'm using OSX then have the rather portly client on my computer twice. At least now, pointing me in the direction of a good, safe PC download would be nice. I've had some very bad (AKA: had to wipe my computer more than once) experiences with trying to install WoW in the past, and I want to be safe and I'm avoiding the Blizzard installers like the plague.

It is highly unlikely for the installer to give you any troubles, really. But if you want to make sure nothing goes wrong, as I said in the Shoutbox, download a complete stand-alone folder, instead of the installer. Then you just change the realmlist, double click the icon and you're good to go.

[Rigley]

We're planning on giving plenty of time for people to get ready prior to the switch, since some have voiced a willingness to run Cata lead-in events.

[Delta]

Well.... Still... I'd personally feel a lot more comfortable moving forward if there were some assurance that if we go Cata sooner rather than later that we won't be forever unable to fix some of the problems in question, should a solution ever become available.

I don't believe this will be a worry. As you can see by the list of Server News announcements Kretol has made over the years, he's been making revisions to our current server's core (that's what the Revision Updates are) without any major catastrophe or incident for quite a long time. Moving to Cata now would still allow the freedom to fix any bugs we are currently experiencing or will experience, workarounds permitting.

Furthermore, we've switched cores two or three times already during testing, and retained the same character database. That is to say that we went from one to another and back without having to remake our characters.

Also, not sure if this has been asked already, but will we be able to have both the old and realms up for a little while to make migrating to the new one easier, like with the last restart? I mean, its not too difficult to have two of the same patch, as I understand, but with two different patches, I can't be sure.
Giving us a head's up as early as possible would probably be a good little kick in the pants for people to write down any details they need to now, rather than later, and help avoid the inevitable restart "lose everything" issues.

I'm not sure what will happen if we decide to go Cata, but you will definitely have enough time to note down the contents of your bank/inventory/mailbox before WotLK CotH is closed. At present, the two servers are already running concurrently.

Oh, and I'd personally appreciate it if we could get a universal WoW installer that installs up to Cata available some time before we make the switch; with my Macbook here on the end of its rope, I'm going to be using the PC client for WoW come Cataclysm. My new computer is a PC/Hackintosh, and it would be easier for me to just run WoW in Wine when I'm using OSX then have the rather portly client on my computer twice. At least now, pointing me in the direction of a good, safe PC download would be nice. I've had some very bad (AKA: had to wipe my computer more than once) experiences with trying to install WoW in the past, and I want to be safe and I'm avoiding the Blizzard installers like the plague.

For 4.0.6a? Kretol linked such a torrent at the bottom of the first page of this thread.

http://www.conquestofthehorde.com/Thread...#pid261513

(You can either follow instructions, or just download the whole thing.)

...Hope that helped a bit!

[muhaha8]

We're planning on giving plenty of time for people to get ready prior to the switch, since some have voiced a willingness to run Cata lead-in events.

Oh, you called, Rigley? I'm so glad you did.

[Dae]

I say we wait. All we stand to gain from switching earlier is having Cata sooner, when what we stand to lose is having any number of issues, with the solution potentially being unavailable without potentially breaking the server. I'd rather not have regrets.

See personally, from being on the server firsthand, I think the state of the bugs are more than a little exaggerated from what I've seen people commenting on them. Again, I'm not wholly certain since I haven't witnessed any bad crashes or issues, but on that same note I haven't had any experience where I've said 'I guess we can't make this work'.

Well.... Still... I'd personally feel a lot more comfortable moving forward if there were some assurance that if we go Cata sooner rather than later that we won't be forever unable to fix some of the problems in question, should a solution ever become available.

Also, not sure if this has been asked already, but will we be able to have both the old and realms up for a little while to make migrating to the new one easier, like with the last restart? I mean, its not too difficult to have two of the same patch, as I understand, but with two different patches, I can't be sure.
Giving us a head's up as early as possible would probably be a good little kick in the pants for people to write down any details they need to now, rather than later, and help avoid the inevitable restart "lose everything" issues.

Oh, and I'd personally appreciate it if we could get a universal WoW installer that installs up to Cata available some time before we make the switch; with my Macbook here on the end of its rope, I'm going to be using the PC client for WoW come Cataclysm. My new computer is a PC/Hackintosh, and it would be easier for me to just run WoW in Wine when I'm using OSX then have the rather portly client on my computer twice. At least now, pointing me in the direction of a good, safe PC download would be nice. I've had some very bad (AKA: had to wipe my computer more than once) experiences with trying to install WoW in the past, and I want to be safe and I'm avoiding the Blizzard installers like the plague.

It is highly unlikely for the installer to give you any troubles, really. But if you want to make sure nothing goes wrong, as I said in the Shoutbox, download a complete stand-alone folder, instead of the installer. Then you just change the realmlist, double click the icon and you're good to go.

And with the idea that the installer borking my computer, I know it seems highly unlikely, but every single time, my hard drive starts physically making a ticking sound, my computer behaves strangely, and often freezes and gives me what amounts to the "You're going to have to reinstall your OS" screen. And I wouldn't believe it myself if it didn't make the clicking noises and started behaving strangely every time I even just patch my game, and only with Blizzard's patching and updater. Every time.
I suppose with PC, there's plenty of stand-alone downloads available, but with the Mac versions, I've typically had to patch things up myself...

Still, I hadn't noticed the download in the first post. XD

[Hawk]

... you're telling me it took me 3 days to get to 4.0.6a that I'm not even sure works when I could've just used the download link that I completely missed?

ಥ_ಥ

[Anski]

... you're telling me it took me 3 days to get to 4.0.6a that I'm not even sure works when I could've just used the download link that I completley missed?

I still <3 you Hawk.

[Aphetoros]

We're planning on giving plenty of time for people to get ready prior to the switch, since some have voiced a willingness to run Cata lead-in events.

Oh, you called, Rigley? I'm so glad you did.

Indeed.

[dastmo]

... you're telling me it took me 3 days to get to 4.0.6a that I'm not even sure works when I could've just used the download link that I completley missed?

ಥ_ಥ

Be grateful you didn't have to /roll for it. Or else, it would take you three weeks, instead of three days.

[Hawk]

Where's the dislike button on this thing? D:<

[dastmo]

I'm right...

Spoiler:

[Kretol]

I will be having the Skyfire server up again for testing, this time with anyone being able to log in. It doesn't seem to be super active as far as development is concerned (particularly regarding the database content), but I suppose it's something.
TrinityCata is still in an alpha state.
ArkCore seems to be more active and allegedly has less bugs, but I'd still prefer to try Skyfire again after testing ArkCore lately.

To be able to log into any of the Cata servers with less issues, you'll need to log into Account Management, go to My Account->Edit My Account, and then set your client type to Cataclysm. As a reminder, the client needed is 4.0.6a (13623).

As a note, the server may come down or restart at any time, though I'll try to make announcements before doing so (assuming they're done purposely).