WoW Classic Gets Paid Character Transfers

As part of the patch last week, which was primarily about battlegrounds and key rings, there was a mention that support for paid character transfers had been added to the WoW Classic client but had not yet been enabled.

Well, now that has been enabled.

Classic is as classic does

With Tuesday’s update the interface has been unlocked that allows players to pay to move their characters to different realms, at least within a given set of rules.  The announcement said the following:

Paid Character Transfers are now available for players in WoW Classic who are looking to relocate their characters to a different realm within their region. There are a few things to keep in mind before you take the leap into making a home on a new realm.

• Each transfer has a ninety-day cooldown.

• Gold transfer limits specific level ranges are as follows:

  • Level 1-30 can transfer with up to 100 gold
  • Level 31-50 can transfer with up to 500 gold
  • Level 51-60 can transfer with up to 2000 gold

• Characters cannot transfer from PvE realms to PvP Realms and RP realms cannot transfer to RP-PvP realms.

You cannot go from PvE to PvP, which I believe has been a long standing rule for character transfers, and you cannot transfer across regions, but otherwise you’re free to go where you want.  Is it time to abandon that PvP server?

The gold cap limit is both sad and amusing.  I have four characters past 30 and all told they don’t have 100 gold between them.  I’m going to be walking in Azeroth for a long time.

Reactions to this have been… mixed. The only real surprise for me was that nobody called it a “money grab” until the third comment on the announcement.  The move will certainly rankle as the addition of honor to PvP has made life miserable for some on PvP servers and the free character moves were all shut down on December 5 in the US and December 6 in the EU.

Anyway, there is now a shop button on the character selection screen where you can access this.  Of course, once you put together a cash shop UI it is a shame to waste it on just character transfers.  Bets on what goes in there next?

WoW Classic Free Transfers Coming for Specific Realms

In an attempt to alleviate the still problematic server queue issue with some realms, Blizzard announced in the forums that they will be allowing free server transfer from specific WoW Classic realms.

Classic is as classic does

The transfers will not only be FROM specific realms, but will players will also be limited in which realms they will be allowed to transfer TO.  This will include some fresh realms being spun up for just this purpose.  The single destination nature of the transfers (except for that French realm) should also keep guild mates from getting lost on the way somewhere.

For US servers the list is:

• Arugal → Felstriker
• Faerlina → Heartseeker (new realm)
• Stalagg → Heartseeker (new realm)
• Herod → Earthfury (new realm)
• Skeram → Earthfury (new realm)
• Incendius → Netherwind
• Thalnos → Netherwind
• Fairbanks → Arcanite Reaper (new realm)
• Whitemane → Arcanite Reaper (new realm)
• Bigglesworth → Anathema
• Pagle → Windseeker
• Grobbulus → Deviate Delight

For EU servers the list is:

English language realms

• Shazzrah → Dragonfang (new realm)
• Golemagg → Dragonfang (new realm)
• Firemaw → Earthshaker (new realm)
• Gehennas → Earthshaker (new realm)
• Mograine → Judgement
• Razorgore → Bloodfang

French language realms

• Sulfuron → Amnennar
• Sulfuron → Finkle

German language realms

• Lucifron → Transcendence

The exact timing of the transfers has not been announced as yet.  Blizzard has said that the new realms on the list will not be open to new character creation for the first day to help ensure that those who are transferring will be able to retain their character names.  If you’re not transferring to a new realm, then you might be stuck in that regard.

Blizzard further reminds people that in order to transfer your character cannot:

• Be a guild leader
• Have listings or bids active in the auction house
• Have any mail

Finally, Blizzard is prepping people for some delay when it comes to the transfers, which may take several hours to complete.  Also, if the destination realm fills up quickly, the transfer option may be turned off without prior notice.

Being too popular is a problem, but it is a better problem to have than not being popular enough.

I Find Your Lack of Server Transfers Disturbing…

I realize that you cannot have everything perfect at launch… but no server transfers?

I'm jumping on this meme early

With a game running… what is it, like 200+ servers?  You don’t think with that spread somebody is going to end up finding out their friends are on another server?

Was this an oversight, a sign of extreme optimism, or a rookie mistake for BioWare on their first MMO?

Granted, it isn’t like every MMO does server transfers… or does them well.  The last time I checked, to get a transfer in LOTRO you had to open a support ticket and wait a couple of weeks.  And it was like that with SOE as well not so long ago, and $50 a pop on top of that.

But I thought a big title like SWTOR would have this covered.  Ah well, history repeats.

Did Rift get the whole server transfer thing right early on?  I know not much further after release than SWTOR is now they were offering up the whole free transfer thing to let people get on to more active servers.

(All the Juanita Weasel pictures you could ever want are here.  And, of course, you can make your own with the blank here.)

Blizzard, Trion Worlds, and Obvious Juxtapositions

Now this made for a pair of eye opening announcements.

Last week Blizzard mentioned that it might charge a premium to allow players to group up and do instances with their Real ID friends on other servers.

Then today, Trion Worlds announced that they were going to allow free, once a week, server transfers.

On the surface, this is very easy to cast as “Trion = Good, Blizzard = Evil.”

I mean, Blizzard wants you to PAY to play with your friends!  Granted, they are such good friends you rolled up  on different servers, but they are still your friends!  And you have to use their dubious Real ID service to do it.  That is two strikes right there.

You want to shake your head in disbelief when you read this sort of thing.

Meanwhile Trion is giving us what we want, mobility amongst the many server silos.  Once a week, you can move.  Blizzard charges you $25 for the privileged, and I seem to recall that the you cannot move again for another 30 days. (And $25 seemed like a good price a couple years back, when SOE was charging $50 for character transfers.)

It is hard not to stand up and cheer for Trion Worlds.

But it makes you wonder what is really going on.

Because, almost assuredly, something other than the obvious is going on.

On the Blizzard side of things, you might wonder if they really want people to use this service.  Or if they want the overhead of server transfers.  As was pointed out over at Blessing of Kings, charging for them is a barrier that keeps only those who really want the service from using it.

The realities of having so many players means that sometimes you want to allow flexibility, but discourage it just to keep costs under control.  A certain percentage of server transfers end up in a call to customer services.  So even if the transfer is no more than a database entry, once a live human is on the line an individual transfer is probably a loss.

Not the best justification in the world, but I can’t tell you how much a customer service call really costs Blizz.

Meanwhile, here is Trion Worlds, with Rift a couple of months old now.  I have to wonder if they are being clever about dealing with a contraction of population, if the initial rush has peaked and they now have more servers running that are really viable.

Announcing server mergers is always viewed as bad news.

But announcing free server transfers, that is a huge win.  Not only will your population take care of your server mergers for you, how and when they want to (some people love to play on nearly deserted servers), but the good publicity makes Rift look like a game you really want to play.

Each announcement may be more a reflection of the situation in which the company finds itself.

Of course, this is speculation on my part, but it seems like reasonable speculation.  And it all seems like an indictment against this many separate servers architecture, which is the real problem with which both companies are attempting to deal.

What do you think is going on?