Not sure if there’s any interest in this sort of thing, but I might as well give it a try…
Occasionally blizzard opens the public test realms (ptr) to all users. More rarely they allow users to use pre-made characters, geared level 70 characters, of their choosing. This is one such time.
Mostly everyone goes there to pvp with classes they’ve never played before (or perhaps don’t have a decently geared 70 for) but wanted to try.
You can use the opportunity to play with friends who you normally can’t play with if you’re on other servers, since you can both copy to the same PTR server. There are actually two PTR servers - PVE and PVP. Copy to the PVP if you want to get together - if you don’t like PVP servers, don’t worry about it, don’t leave cities and you won’t have to deal with any pvp. I made characters on the PVP server because they’re much more populous.
If there’s interest, we can get together and create an SDMB guild, and from there we could form arena teams together, make groups for battlegrounds, whatever.
To use the PTR, go to www.worldofwarcraft.com, select account->public test realm, click “copy a character”, then copy premade character, then select an alliance premade of the class of your choosing (they start with the letter A), then select US-PVP (not US-PVE) as your server.
Within an hour the character should probably be copied over. Then go to the “download client” link along the top of the page, and download and install the client. You’ll need to restart the game a few times for patches, and if you want your existing mods you’ll have to copy them over from \world of warcraft\interface\addons to \world of warcraft\wowtest\interface\addons.
The reason I say PVP server and alliance is because that’s already what all my characters are. Since we all need to do the same thing, that seems like the best option.
Some of the itemization is pretty stupid - there’s no balance druid gear or elemental shaman for example, and they don’t start you out with gems. If you wanted, you could copy a non-premade character (that is, one of your regular characters over) with gems and send them to your premades. I also have some left over gems for caster classes, especially healers.
If you’re interested, post to this thread with your character names after you’ve logged in with them and I’ll try to organize us. I also can set up a ventrilo server for us if we want to coordinate further.
My (goofy, not really meant for public posting, just coming up with something cause I have to names) characters:
“Balancelol” - Druid, geared/enchanted for resto.
“Dreadwalnut” - Mage
“Direcashew” - Shaman, geared for some horrible hybrid nuking/healing role
“Dreadpecan” - Warlock
