3.1 PTR GUIDE

I’m as curious as the next guy about what will happen in the next patch. That’s why the PatchTestRealm is a great way to check out what’s new and how it works.

My last PTR experience was with 2.4.3, it was a while ago. Coupled with Blizzard’s new Launcher, things have been somewhat confusing.

I wrote this guide to hopefully help at least one person how to install the PTR.

I’m on EU servers and using Vista on my computer.

First thing I did was go to the PTR site and scroll all the way down to the bottom. You’ll see this picture.

You’re after “Character Copy”. Click it and sign in to your account. You’ll get to a new page. There you can “Download the client” and “Copy a Character”. First download the client, I saved it to my Desktop. Mind you, the client you’re getting is 3.0.1. This is intended.

Run the file as Administrator by right-clicking the file and choosing that option. A new window will pop up and you’ll begin to download the client. After that’s done you’ll have to install it, make sure you have enough space. I saved it to my Desktop again. When the client is downloaded and installed, you will automatically download the patch to update to 3.1.

When you’re downloading, you will notice that it sometimes seem to freeze. This is not the case. There’s a button on the download window called “Downloader”. If you click it, a new window will appear where you’ll see the patch being downloaded.

While the client and patch are getting installed, you can copy your character to the PTR. Go to the page where you got the client and click “Copy a Character”. This part is not difficult and should only require you to follow the steps that appear. It may take a few hours or days for Blizzard to approve the character copy. It depends on how popular the patch is. Don’t be surprised if your character doesn’t show up on the character list in the first few hours. Patience is a virtue.

That’s it! Enjoy all the PTR goodies and please, if you have a profession, don’t put up stuff on AH for thousands, even hundreds of gold. It’s a waste of time for everybody.