Because the differences between NR Begins and its Beta don't come down to a mere 1-60 grind.
The progressive content release, the consequences of the instant 55 and the corrections of some bugs, among many other things, will make, all things being equal, a NR Begins character worth more than what a NR Beta one would. Unless of course you want to restore your beta character that you levelled from 1 to 60 naked ? In this case I guess the two 1-60 grind would be equivalent, but there would be no point.
The way Nostalrius is going to develop for the next months / years is way different to what it used to be during the beta.
The progressive content release, the gear nerf and many other things like the respec cost (it was free for a looooong time during beta) or the absence of the instant-55 feature that beta used to have will definitely be game changers.
I feel awful for the new players having to grind to 60, while the beta testers might get all their characters back, potentially with their professions maxed out etc, given that they had it easy back in the days.
Many people had rerolls spread over different accounts, and the staff will have absolutely no way to enforce any limitations due to the impossibility to know which account belongs to whom (if I have 10 characters on different accounts, good luck identifying me).
Not to mention the PvP competition. Despite the honor formulas being Blizz-like and the impossibility to get to higher ranks without a sufficient amount of ranked players, the small population + instant 55 made it quite easy to tag you and your friends 10 rerolls in the competition each week (the 25 HK limitation was disabled, at least when I was playing) to artificially increase your relative position in the weekly PvP ranking.
The small population in itself made the competition flawed, it was easier to wait for a member of your faction to get the rank they were aiming for so that you could get yours the weeks afterwards rather than actually compete with them. In the long run, almost everyone would get to their goals. Of course they had to be realistic, but it wasn't enough on retail.
The new players would be surprised to know the percentage of players having reached the ranks 10-11 during the beta, I don't think it would compare to retail.
The honor formulas fortunately made it very hard to progress beyond the ranks 12 and above, the small pop became a disadvantage for the hardcore players from that point.
Same goes for the bugs fixing in general. Although not perfect, NR is a very well scripted server overall. But everything have not been done it a day.
During a huge period of time, you could just TP inside instances, and characters who didn't take part into a fight could loot. Add up an instant-55 feature, and you canimagine how easy it was to gear-up a reroll.
Someday a newly scripted boss casted a spell every 3 or 4 seconds instead of 2 (iirc), and the day after that the staff fixed that and deleted all the gear that had been looted from him, so I'm not saying it was a complete mess back in the days.
The staff always had the willingness to be close to retail and to ensure there were not abuses, but the server features back during beta created issues and the staff did not always have the ability to prevent them all.
That's why restoring beta characters, even if it's done in sufficiently long time after release in order to keep some balance on the server, is unfair as the conditions in which the gear was acquired will definitely not be the same during Nostalrius Begins, thanks to, amongst many other things, the progressive content release and the hopefully higher population.
It amazing how old beta testers posting here are whining about their old characters and always fail to mention the uncomfortable details.
You had more than a hundred days of /played on Nostalrius ? So did I. Get over it.
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