server-transfers
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Trion Worlds releases more juicy details on RIFT's free shard transfers
Tomorrow marks the launch of RIFT's patch 1.3, Waves of Madness, bringing with it a wealth of new features. But forget new raids, guild banks, vanity items, and all that hullabaloo. Everyone knows this patch is all about one thing: free shard transfers (for both lone players and guilds alike). Hyperbolic, you say? Blasphemy! With this in mind, RIFT's Project Manager FireCait dropped by the forums today to fill players in on the finer points of server transfers. For instance, characters can be transferred once every seven days, though they must be level 15 to be eligible for transfer. Any character on any server can be transferred, but the possible destination servers will be limited based on faction population. And lastly, select shards will now be designated as Trial shards. Only Trial players will be able to roll new characters on these shards, and subscribers on these shards will be able to transfer off at any level, circumventing the usual level 15 requirement. For the full details, as well as the starting list of eligible transfer destination servers, check out the forum post!
DAoC rolling out new website, allowing server transfers
As Dark Age of Camelot counts down to its 10th year anniversary in October, Stuart Zissu breaks out a few early presents by revealing four "big ticket items" in his latest producer's letter. An upgraded new player experience is on its way for the game to help new and returning players get up to speed for epic RvR battles. Dubbed the "New User Journey," this extended tutorial will give pointers on everything from pets to crowd control. The team's also hard at work on a new website for the game, which should be coming soon. Or "soon." The new website will operate in conjunction with the third big ticket item, which is a DAoC wiki. Zissu put out a call for players to help fill the wiki once it's up and running. Finally, players on the Glamorgan cluster will be able to transfer to Ywain in the near future. You can read all of the nitty-gritty details of these items on the Camelot Herald.
Aion launches paid transfers and new website
Aion server drama (or two-hour dredgion cues) getting you down? Help is theoretically on the way, as NCsoft's previously announced paid character transfer service went into effect today. The Korean MMO giant is rolling out the process in three stages "to make sure that transfers go very smoothly." Balance caps are in effect to keep server faction populations as even as possible, and NCsoft indicates that it is keeping a close eye on the proceedings. In other Aion-related news, the official website is live again after an extreme visual makeover designed to bring social networking functionality and game-related content to the forefront. The site's art assets have also been updated to reflect the game's newest patch, so head over and explore the new digs.
Star Wars Galaxies to allow free server transfers to a galaxy not so far away
Servers can feel awfully restrictive when you're on Server A and your friends are all on Server B. The team behind Star Wars Galaxies is no doubt aware of this, but if you've long been locked away from playing with potential friends or just stuck in a server you'd like to leave, there's good news. Free character transfers between servers are being launched on April 26th, allowing players the freedom to move characters with impunity. Eligible characters must be at least 90 days old and on a game account currently in good standing. In addition, the character to be transferred must be on one of the original 10 ground planets (Corellia, Dantooine, Tatooine, Endor, Dathomir, Lok, Naboo, Rori, Talus, or Yavin 4). Assuming those conditions are met, any player will be able to execute a free character transfer upon logging into Star Wars Galaxies. For more details on the free service, check the official announcement. (And no, Starsider is not an eligible destination.)
Wings Over Atreia: Milking the cash cow
Although it is so far out on the scale of probability that it is tipping into impossibility, there is a remote chance that some player in Aion does not know about NCsoft's cash shop. After all, we are often assaulted with advertisements for new goodies offered at the NCsoft Store front-and-center on the launchpad; if you have logged into the game any time in the last couple of months, you have seen offerings of cosmetic clothing, exclusive pets, and weapon skins. Now I can understand ponying-up for a character name-change since the user is asking for a smidgen of change in code. Changing gender -- sure, why not? Server transfers definitely involve a bit of work, so making this a paid service also makes sense. Cosmetic surgery, however, is harder for me to accept since I have played a game that offered it in-game as a service performed by a specific class. But what about all of the extra items? The little perks, the fluff, and limited-time deals? Grab your wallet and join me past the break for a discussion on fleecing customers (I mean offering deals, really) and to see some items that I personally would like to implement.
Paid server transfers coming to Aion
Ever since Aion's server merge and limited free server transfers last summer, the possibility of paid server transfers has been hanging around in the background. The possibility is about to become a reality. This morning, the Aion community team announced that the service will be live in just a few weeks. Details are few at the moment, but the core questions of "when and how much" have been answered. Daevas can start switching servers on April 27th for a fee of $24.99. Players will almost certainly have questions regarding the specifics of this service, so the community team is working on a FAQ to be released closer to the 27th. You can view the notice on Aion's announcement page.
Updated: Latest round of Aion server transfers botched
Aion players have been anxiously awaiting this week's round of server transfers. They waited for their chance, paid their subscription fees, and looked forward to server transfer day. That day was supposed to be today -- the Aion servers were down for maintenance with server transfers being part of the deal. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the system somewhere. When the servers came back online, players found themselves on the same old servers. Aion's Community Manager Andrew Beegle has been keeping frustrated players up-to-date via Twitter, and the latest update from about an hour ago indicates that the transfers won't happen today. "Greetings Daevas! We had to postpone transfers due to some technical difficulties. We will have a new date for the transfers ASAP. " We'll keep an eye out for that new date here at Massively. [UPDATE: We've heard from NCsoft, and Aion players will be happy to hear that the server transfer issue will be cleared up very soon. "The transfers will be executed at 10am CDT tomorrow for North America and 10pm CDT tonight for European territories."]
Aion developers acting to correct server imbalances
Aion's July community address mentions the upcoming 2.0 patch, of course, but that's not what grabbed the attention of the fans. The recent server merge created some predictable imbalances, and the Aion team has made a few decisions on how to begin rectifying them. NCsoft's Lance Stites, who penned this month's address, tells fans that server transfers have been temporarily disabled while the devs sort things out: "All the associated Aion teams are working on a solution to allow character transfers to resume with appropriate limits in place to prevent radically unbalanced servers." Furthermore, race creation is "selectively" limited on each server, in the hopes that it will help balance things out. "For instance, if you're playing on a predominantly Elyos server, Asmodian creation will be the only race available for new characters," says Stites. The situation is only temporary, and hopefully only a first step in sorting things out on the newly-consolidated Aion servers. Take a look at the Aion site for the full July community address.
Breakfast Topic: How realms evolve (or don't)
While writing a recent news post on Blizzard's decision to open free transfers to Drak'thul, I nosed around the server's forums to see what the inhabitants thought of the coming flood. As a server that was converted from a PvP to PvE realm, opened to transfers, and listed as a Recommend realm to boot, Drak'thul's undergone a fairly drastic set of changes, and all within a short period of time. As you'd expect, player feelings on the subject were mixed, but there was one former Drak'thul player who really got my attention. Drak'thul, he/she claimed, had been home to some of "the most mean-spirited PvP (he'd) ever experienced on ANY realm." It sounded like a tall claim, but there are a lot of other threads on the forum with oblique confirmations; players recall Alliance towns and quest NPCs "being camped 24/7," and holiday events and Alliance leveling zones being swarmed by opportunistic Horde players. Drak'thul became a low-pop server with a murderous faction imbalance -- Warcraft Realms listed the server's active population as 94% Horde before transfers were opened -- and I wonder how much of that be traced to the relentless ganking and camping campaigns three years ago. I look at realms like Cho'gall with equally crushing faction imbalances, some of which started out with fairly balanced faction ratios, and wonder -- how the hell does this happen? What spurs the departure of so many players from a specific faction? Is it really that simple as a relatively small number of players exercising such an impact on what happens to everyone on the server?
Free realm transfers announced
Blizzard poster Turrit announced yesterday that free realm transfers are being made available to address faction imbalance and overpopulation issues on the following PvE realms: Aggramar (Alliance only) Area 52 (Horde only) Blackhand Hellscream Stormrage (Alliance only) Thrall (Horde only) Undermine Destination realm: Drak'thul The free transfer period will run from Tuesday, May 25 (today) to Tuesday, June 1 at 11:00 a.m. PDT. However, Turrit did make a point of mentioning that Blizzard has a transfer goal in mind, and if it's reached, they may shut the free transfers down early. If you're on any of the affected realms and have been considering a transfer, this might be a good chance to save yourself $25. To my surprise, it turns out Drak'thul was actually a PvP realm until very recently, and after a quick look at WoW Progress's list of U.S. realms, I have to agree it looks like the server needs some love. While it's possible the page hasn't been updated, it's apparent that the Drak'thul's raiders are struggling -- and there's some rather illuminating commentary in this thread (I'll grant I can't verify the accuracy) on how some of the server's troubles may have gotten their start. Two things come to mind: Blizzard's observations a year ago concerning only PvP realms being low-pop, and: what's happening on Cho'gall. Interesting. The full announcement is past the cut.
City of Heroes extends free transfers yet again
City of Heroes players have been heavily anticipating the upcoming double experience weekend for understandable reasons -- there's no finer chance to get a character leveled, or take a character who hasn't been played in a while and bring them up to new heights. As the developers have been wont to do of late, they decided to sweeten the deal a fair bit -- specifically, they've decided to add in a healthy dose of moving your character wherever the heck you want. That's right -- after the last extension, the team decided to further lengthen the period allowed for free server transfers. February 28th was originally slated to be the final day, but with the weekend so close, they've pushed it ahead another week, ending either on Sunday or Monday. (The official announcement says "Sunday, March 8th." This is doubtlessly a typo, as the calendar forbids such an interaction from taking place.) An extended transfer period means that everyone you play should be well-positioned for the double experience weekend, as well as the upcoming changes to the game. So get your smackdown on in City of Heroes wherever you want, and ramp up for the big changes just over the horizon. [ Thanks to Skystreak for the tip! ]
Free transfers in City of Heroes extending another month
Back in December, City of Heroes announced that players would be allowed to transfer characters between servers for free until the end of January. Aside from the small but vocal part of the population that was certain this was a prelude to server merges, it was met with praise and good will by the playerbase. Paragon Studios has apparently decided that what's fun the first time is even better the second, as they've decided to extend the free transfers until February 28th for all players. Of course, there are certain slight catches -- as before, you can only transfer six characters from one server to another within a week, as well as not being allowed between American and European servers. You also lose your Supergroup affiliation, any accumulated Prestige, and possibly even your name depending on the server you choose. The full support page details all of the possible wrinkles, as well as warning against trying to transfer characters with names shorter than three letters (unless you don't mind losing the name). Having more chances to play with friends on other servers is always welcome, so kudos to the City of Heroes team for extending the free transfer period!
Breakfast topic: Do you wish there were worldwide realms?
One of my big beefs with MMOs is that I have friends all around the world and can't play with them. For example, most of Team WoW.com play on US realms, a couple on Oceanic and me and the T in the EU. Of course the biggest problem with playing any MMO will be timezones (especially if you like to raid) but that doesn't stop some titles having just one massive server, regionless servers or allowing you to change realms on the fly. Sadly WoW has none of these and it frustrates me that there's such a divide, even though here in Europe there are cross-language battlegroups and more servers than you can shake a stick at. However given the number of players across the US, EU and China I can understand the reasons for it.So readers, putting aside region restrictions, logic and languages for a moment, do you wish WoW had just one giant server? Would you like the ability to move from server to server for free at a moment's notice, depending on where your friends were playing? Would you rather the game was a bit more like Guild Wars in that it didn't matter where you purchased the game from?
Another round of Warhammer Online free character transfers begins
Maintaining a balanced server population is always a tricky issue in Warhammer Online, hence the periodic need to have characters transfer to different servers. Mythic Entertainment has announced that another round of free character transfers begins today, February 19th. The source and destination servers are: (Red Eye Mountain, Ungrim --> Monolith, Iron Rock, Ironfist), (Sylvania --> Volkmar, Gorfang, Vortex), and (Azazel --> Volkmar, Gorfang, Magnus). As an incentive to get players to make the jump to these servers, they'll reap a 20% experience and renown bonus for a limited time. Have a look at the Warhammer Herald announcement for more details, as well as their FAQ on free character transfers. Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Star Wars Galaxies announces the post-transfer server list
In an article on the official Star Wars Galaxies website, the developers have unveiled the servers they've chosen to be highlighted in a post-merger era. We discussed the server merger decision early last month, and noted their plans to decide 'later' which of the servers would be options to transfer into. Now complete details for the free character transfer service are available, and which servers are getting the thumbs-up will probably come as no surprise if you're a part of the SWG community. Here's the list of servers that can be transferred to starting January 13, 2009, and ending on March 31, 2009: Ahazi Bloodfin Bria Chilastra Eclipse Europe-Chimaera Europe-FarStar Flurry Gorath Radiant Shadowfire Starsider Sunrunner If you have a character on a server that's not on this list, it doesn't mean your server is being shut down. That said, if your server isn't on this list it's likely to get mighty lonely on there starting early next year. Full details on the free server transfer program are available, including questions of transferring between destinations servers.
SOE releases FAQ on Star Wars Galaxies free server transfers
The official Star Wars Galaxies site has a followup to Producer Chris Fields' announcement that free server transfers would be coming to the community. They now have an FAQ up, attempting to answer some of the the numerous nitpicks players will have with this daunting project. The actual transfers won't kick off until early next year (as originally indicated by Dotanuki), but it sounds like they're already prepping players for server closings. One of the FAQ points is "Where can I find a list of servers that will be offering a free transfer?" This would seem to indicate certain servers are seen as stable enough to keep 'whole', while others should probably be emptied.The document notes that the server transfer list won't be made available until about a month before the project starts, as the developers track detailed server information. Other notes about the project: Houses need to be packed up; they won't automatically transfer to a new server with you. Yes, that probably means you're going to lose your house's spot. Vendors need to be closed out and their inventory removed. Vendors will be destroyed by a server transfer. Players will need at least one slot free on their new server to transfer an existing character in. Players with an unlock slot (from the pre-NGE days) will be able to transfer three characters to their new server even if they didn't unlock a slot on that new server. Full details are available on the official site, and we'll continue to watch this ambitious reorganization of the SWG playerbase as it unfolds.
Twenty two U.S. servers open for free character transfers
Normally there are only a handful of servers involved when Blizzard opens the door for free character moves. However Bornakk announced today a total of 22 U.S. servers that you can move off of. There are various groups of servers, labeled "Source A" through "Source E", that are allowing free moves to destination servers, labeled "Destination A" through "Destination E."If you are interested in taking advantage of these free moves, get in quickly as these offers have been known to close down once Blizzard meets their transfer goals. The transfers begin tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. PDT and end at 12:00 p.m. PDT on November 4th (election day, next Tuesday). You can begin the transfer process by visiting https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/character-move.html when the transfers are available starting tomorrow.The full list of servers are reproduced for you after the break.Good luck if you're moving!
Free server transfers, Halloween fest coming to Star Wars Galaxies
Another producer's letter from Christopher "Dotanuki" Field brings amazing news to the Star Wars Galaxies faithful: free server transfers are coming! Here's what the man had to say: "To help address the server population concerns that have been brought up by the community we will be implementing a Free Character Transfer program early next year. I do not have specific dates to announce now, but I do know that it will only run for a limited time. Any transfers made before the program kicks off will not be refunded."Field goes on to describe the brand-new Halloween event coming to the game. It's slated to run from October 14th through November 7th, and is called "the Galactic Moon Festival." Moenia and Mos Eisley will be redressed for the event, turned into 'haunted attractions.' There are going to be numerous gifts and trinkets associated with the event, including a dramatic house painting for players to enjoy. Jabba is apparently behind the event, and as a result SWG players will get costumes, fog, spiders, gravestones, scarecrows, and much much more. Read through to the letter for full details on this exciting holiday event, and even more on the upcoming Hoth instance!
Anti-Aliased: PvPissed
It's in the nature of every MMO player to snap at change -- it's what we do. When the patch notes reveal that Class X got a decrease in DPS to make them of a "more balanced power", you can expect all players of Class X to lead a revolt across the forums with pitchforks and torches. This behavior has become so commonplace that we tend to just ignore it after a while.But for once, the intense flaming power of the World of Warcraft forums is being put to good use, if you ask me. Blizzard has announced that they are letting players transfer from standard servers onto their Player vs. Player servers in an outstanding reversal of their original policy on the matter. Now anyone on a normal server can just waltz up past the Gumdrop Mountains to find Queen Frostine and ask her to use her transporting powers to send them to what could be construed as MMO 4chan. (That Candy Land reference was for you, James Egan.)
Oceanic Alliance characters to get free PvE to PvP transfers
If you're a regular reader of our Guildwatch feature, you may remember hearing about the woes of the Oceanic PvP realm Thaurissan on the last Guildwatch. The server is incredibly Horde heavy, with an estimated 14 to 1 imbalance, and the server denizens say it is genuinely near impossible to get 25 people together to do raid content on the Alliance side. Unfortunately , we also know that Blizzard is still firmly against PvE to PvP realm transfers, which may be preventing Thaurissan from getting the influx of new blood they need. However, for the sake of Thaurissan's Alliance, they have suspended this restriction. Starting today, June 12th, and ending no later than June 19th, Alliance characters (and only Alliance characters) from the Oceanic PvE realms Nagrand, Aman'thul, and Khaz'goroth will be eligible for free transfers to the Thaurissan realm. Blizzard reserves the right to close transfers early if they meet their goals, so if you're eligible and you want to go, you'd better get that request in now. This is not the first time they've done this type of thing. Over two years ago, a large cluster of PvE realms were given the opportunity to transfer to the Black Dragonflight and Dalvengyr PvP servers. Thus, it seems that they can be convinced to waive their restrictions on transfers, but that a chance to do so may only come up once every 2 years. Good luck to everyone transferring to Thaurissan, and hopefully this gives the Thaurissan Alliance the shot in the arm they need to get their end game going.
