Test Sosaria
| Test Sosaria Shard | |
|---|---|
| Launched: | November 21, 2003 |
| Time Zone: | US EST/EDT (UTC-5/UTC-4) |
| Maintenance Time: | 5:00 AM
|
Test Sosaria is a shard with the primary purpose of serving as a testing area for game balance and new systems. Unlike the Test Center shard, players cannot randomly set their skills to whatever level or combination they wish. Instead, they may choose a class gate that will give them a set of moderately high skills pertaining to a profession, such as a Bard, Paladin, Treasure Hunter, etc. The purpose of this setup is to observe and gather data on skill use and gains in a more realistic setting compared to Test Center.
One caveat, however, is that just like Test Center, the Test Sosaria shard could be wiped or reset at any time (although it never was). Additionally, players will only receive the items normally associated with new characters to help get them started, another key difference from Test Center where players can have essentially any artifact, resource or other items just by uttering commands. Test Sosaria reputedly also has it's own housing and veteran rewards servers, so claiming/placing items associated with those systems should not affect a players standing on normal, production shards.