Accessing the public test realm

Here is a full and complete step-by-step set of instructions for copying characters, downloading/installing the public test realm, running the PTR, patching and reinstalling the PTR, and getting on the public test realm and TTR. This guide is written for a beginner-level audience, but expects basic knowledge of using Internet Explorer and getting around the filesystem.

The most common errors posted on the PTR/TTR forum are caused by people not following the bolded instructions. Make sure to follow them!

Copying Characters

In order to do useful testing on the Public Test Realm, QA has given us the ability to copy our own characters or to potentially use premade max-level and well-equipped characters to test on the PTR so we don't have to begin a level 1 character and level it instead of testing. To use premades, your account must have been Burning Crusade-enabled before the PTR opened!

Copying characters is a one-way operation: You will be copying your character from the real server you play on to the PTR, as it was when you last logged out. What you do on the PTR has no effect on your real character on the live realms. Your PTR character and all of its experience, items, and gold will not be getting transferred back to the live realms, either.

To actually copy a character, go to the character copy page and follow the instructions. Make sure you are not playing WoW when attempting to copy your character. Make sure you choose a realm that fits your play style, as there are both PvP and PvE test realms.

"Premade" character copies may or may not be available, so take a quick look at the stickies on the Test Realm Forums.

There tend to be issues with copying characters due to the immense demand that is placed on the servers handling the copies. If you are seeing errors, please cancel out and try again later. QA is usually aware of problems with the copy servers instantly, so please do not flood the forum with character-copy threads. That being said, the Estimated Queue Time is usually accurate, so simply be patient and wait until the character is copied. As long as the characters status is "pending", the character will be copied.

Downloading and Installing the PTR

Now that your character is hopefully in the process of getting copied over to the test server that you selected, it's time to download the PTR.

The PTR is a special version of WoW that stands on its own from your regular copy of WoW. Go to the http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/charcopy/downloads.html download page] and select "PC" or "Mac" in order to download the client. Click "PC" if you're running Windows.

MAKE SURE YOU TELL YOUR WEB BROWSER TO SAVE THE FILE INSTEAD OF RUNNING IT!

This is extremely important. The Downloader/Patcher programs only run properly if they are run in the same folder as the Launcher and your copy of WoW.

Remember where your browser is saving the file (common locations will be either on your Desktop or in your Documents folder) as you'll need to move it in a minute. While it's downloading (if it's not already done), fire up Explorer by either clicking on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, accessing it from the Start Menu, or opening the Start Menu, clicking on "Run...", typing "explorer" (without the quotes) and pressing Enter.

The default location that WoW installs itself to is C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft on Windows, and /Applications/World of Warcraft on OS X, but that may not be the case for you. To find out: right-click on the shortcut you use to start WoW, select Properties, and look at the "Target" field in the window that pops up. Get to that folder.

Now that you're in that folder, you should notice "WoW", "Launcher", "Repair" and several other programs and folders. If you see a folder called "WoWTest", rename, delete, or otherwise remove it now. Trying to reinstall the PTR over old data will break things. Once the file has finished downloading in your web browser, move it in to the folder you're in now, extract the program from the .dmg on OS X, and run it.

The PTR should now be downloading using the standard Blizzard Downloader. If you're having issues with the Blizzard downloader, see the support article. Once it's done downloading, click "Finish" to exit the downloader, then get back to the World of Warcraft and run the patch that was just downloaded. Run it with administrator privileges. This will start installing the PTR.

When done installing, the PTR will start automatically. There are frequently many small patches for the PTR required after the initial install. See the Patching the PTR section for details.

Installing UI modifications

Players can install UI mods for the PTR client much the same way that they would for the regular client, but with a few caveats:

• The install path is not World of Warcraft/Interface/AddOns, but instead World of Warcraft/WoWTest/Interface/AddOns (note the WoWTest folder...)
• The realm name and often your character name is different. To compensate when copying your addons' settings over, copy from
  • World of Warcraft/WTF/Account/<Your Account>/<Your Realm>/<Your Character> to
  • World of Warcraft/WoWTest/WTF/Account/<Your Account>/Test Server (US <PVE/PVP>)/<Your Character>
• The live and PTR addon environment are often very different. Use the most up-to-date beta versions of the mods and please file bug reports with the mod authors so bugs can get fixed.

Courtesy of Valyra from Alleria:

1. Open up two explorer windows, one pointing to your World of Warcraft directory and the other pointing to your WoWTest directory.
2. Copy your WTF folder from your World of Warcraft directory to your WoWTest directory.
3. Browse to WTF in WoWTest. This is the folder which has your computer-specific settings (seen in config.wtf). You do not have to modify any files in this folder.
4. Browse to Account/<YourAccountName>. This is the folder which has all of your account-specific settings. You do not have to modify any files in this folder.
   • Rename the <YourServerName> folder to Test Server(US PVE) or Test Server(US PVP).
5. Browse to the new Test Server(US <PVE/PVP>) folder. This is the folder which has all of your server-specific settings for the server from which you copied your character. There should be no files in this folder.
6. Rename the <YourLiveCharacterName> folder to <YourPTRCharacterName>. For example, if your name on live is "Valyra" and your name on PTR is "Valyratest", rename the Valyra folder to Valyratest. DO NOT BROWSE TO THIS FOLDER.
7. Go back to the <YourAccountName> folder and browse to SavedVariables. This is the folder which contains all your account-specific saved variables, such as your UnitFrame and Bar Addon settings.
8. OPTIONAL: I do this to make things easier on myself but it is by no means necessary. Sort by file type. Delete all files with the .bak file extension. You should now have only files with the .lua file extension.
9. Sort by file size. Any file larger than 1KB is likely to have information stored regarding character- and/or server-specific settings. Open each file in succession using a text editor (Notepad will do the trick; I recommend TextPad) and do the following:
   • IF YOU DID NOT HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR NAME, SKIP THIS STEP. Open up Find/Replace in your text editor. Enter YourLiveCharacterName in the "To Replace" or "Find" field. Enter YourPTRCharacterName in the "Replace with" field. Do this for every file above 1KB.
   • Open up Find/Replace in your text editor. Enter YourServerName in the "To Replace" or "Find" field. Enter Test Server (US PVE) or Test Server (US PVP) in the "Replace with" field. Do this for every file above 1KB.
10. Save all the files when done and log in to WoWTest.

A simpler way to update character/server name in your WTF folder

Courtesy of Anúbereth from Earthen Ring EU:

The above procedure described by Valyria can be accomplished more easily if you have a command line and perl. This is the case for OS X or Windows with cygwin or if you mount your Warcraft folder on a unix box. If you meet these requirements you can simply run the following two commands in your WTF folder to replace your character and server name in all files:

find . -exec perl -pi -e "s/Anúbereth/AnúberethOnTest/g" {} \;

find . -exec perl -pi -e "s/Earthen Ring/Test Server (EU PVP)/g" {} \;

Replace my character/server name with your name/server and you're done.

Another way to update character/server name in your WTF folder

See Migrate WTF script for copying your WTF to the test realm installation.

Running the PTR

To get back to the PTR, there are a few options:

• Start the Launcher and click "Public Test" instead of "Play".
• Get to the WoWTest folder and run that copy of WoW. It has a green "T" icon.

Please note that you must use the password you had when the PTR activated. Your account as a whole must also have been active for at least seven weeks before the PTR was activated, if not since the date specified on the Character Copy page.

If you would like to use the Launcher to access the PTR, but it doesn't show by default, click the "Show Launcher" checkbox in the lower-left corner of the login screen, log in and then exit out of WoW. The Launcher should then show.

If you're getting stuck at "Connecting" or "Handshaking" while attempting to log in, follow the upcoming instructions, remembering to try to log in after completing each step:

1. Reboot your computer
2. Follow the instructions at Are you having problems connecting to the game? (US Blizzard support article).
3. Check your firewall and/or router.
4. Rename the realmlist.wtf file in your WoWTest folder to something else (like realmlist.wtf.old).
5. Rename the WTF folder in your WoWTest folder to something else (like WTF.old).
6. Follow the instructions in the Reinstalling the PTR section.

If you're frequently getting disconnected, follow the instructions at the following US Blizzard support articles: Why do I keep getting disconnected? and Do NPCs and/or players show up as 'Unknown?'.

Patching the PTR

There are often a multitude of small patches required in order to get the PTR up to date. For most users, simply running the PTR (and/or the Launcher) will download and install the patches without any issues.

If you're having trouble getting all of the patches because the PTR is trying to download the same patch over and over, try this:

• Exit out of the PTR and any updaters/downloaders you have running
• Get to your WoWTest folder

You should see some files ending with "-patch". Run the highest -patch program you have. Make sure you run it as an administrator if you're on Vista. If you don't get an error when you run that patch, try logging in.

If you're still getting directed to download the same patch again, or are having errors patching, try reinstalling the PTR.

Reinstalling the PTR

The PTR patch should always be a clean install. If you have installed any patches previously you may receive the message "Unable to verify game version". Follow the directions below:

Quick instructions for a clean reinstall:

• Get to your WoWTest folder
• Delete or rename your WoWTest and WoWTest.tmp folders. Some people may not have a WoWTest.tmp folder, if you don't have one then don't worry about it.
• Run the repair tool on your regular copy of WoW
• Go back to the Download Client page, download the -downloader progam, move it to your World of Warcraft folder, run it, then run -patch file

Make sure you always run patches with administrator privileges and in the WoW Folder. Also make sure that your whole WoW folder is not set to read-only.

That's it, good luck, and don't forget to report all of the bugs you find with the /bug tool in-game!

Uninstalling the PTR

After the PTR is finished being tested, the patch will be pushed to the Live Servers. When that happens, you should uninstall/remove the Test Realm Client to get ready for the next Test Realm setup. To do so, follow the directions below:

1. Navigate to your WoWTest folder, located in your World of Warcraft Folder.
2. If you want to backup and screenshots or patches for archiving purposes, feel free to do so. The screenshots are located in the WoWTest\Screenshots folder and the Patches are scattered throughout your main WoWTest folder. You may also want to backup any Beta/Updated Addons you have installed on the PTR, which can be found in the WoWTest\Interface\AddOns Folder. You can simply copy/paste those to another folder of your choosing.
3. Simply, delete your WoWTest and WoWTest.tmp folders from your World of Warcraft folder. Some people may not have a WoWTest.tmp folder, if you don't have one then don't worry about it.
4. The PTR/TTR has been successfully uninstalled/removed and you are now free to join the Live realms.

Unsupported platforms

For Linux, see Wine. There's also an AppDB entry for the 2.2.2 PTR. No doubt Cedega and Crossover Office have their own support channels. Blizz do not support WoW on any of these platforms - however they've been known to be co-operative with those prepared to do the legwork to ascertain causes of bugs that are from upstream. Please, if you're going to use an unsupported platform to play WoW, caveat emptor and be prepared to do a lot of your own legwork if things don't go well. Just don't complain to Hortus in the Test Realm Forum, or to the Tech Support Forum, if/when things go wrong. Use your normal support channels for that.

Getting on the TTR (Tournament Test Realm)

After setting up the PTR correctly, you can then login to the TTR. Simply go to the Realm Selection Screen and select the "Tournament" tab on the bottom. The Tournament tab is located where the "Oceanic" tab is on the Live servers for the North American Realms. This will allow you to access the Tournament Test Realm and start creating level 70 characters for use in the Arena. Please note that the TTR may not always be up, and will probably only go up before an Arena Tournament launches.

Miscellaneous Information

• The main PTR website can be found here. It includes a link to the Official PTR FAQ, the Download PTR page, PTR/TTR Forums, and the Character Copy page.
• You can always find a copy of the latest test realm patch notes here and the complete Lua/XML Notes will always be found in a sticky in the UI&Macros Forum.
• When the PTR is officially launched, Gradina or Maaven will do a "PTR Introduction Forum run" as I like to call it. He will post a few stickies about the current PTR, like his FAQ, the Patch notes, and any other needed information.
• You can view the Tester's guide to the Feedback Tool by Sixen aka Elzix.

Template:Guides