free-transfers
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Free character moves for March 28th
Bornakk, ye ol' blue poster, has announced a good bunch of character moves tonight. These moves will be active from March 28th (tomorrow) at noon PDT, and go until April 4th at noon PDT (next Friday). Get your character moves in fast if you want to take advantage of this, they often are shut off early.There are two transfer groups available.For the first transfer group, you can transfer from llidan, Mal'Ganis, Tichondrius, Gurubashi, Warsong, Mannoroth, and Burning Blade to Azshara, Maiev, Zuluhed, and Lethon.For the second transfer group, you can transfer from Argent Dawn, Zul'jin, Ghostlands, and Aggramar to Muradin and Sisters of Elune.Bornakk also tells us that the realms you can transfer off of have been chosen because they have had the highest sustained queues. The realms you can transfer to are the lowest population realms. This is an interesting tid bit of information from generally closed-door decision making.Enjoy your transfers!
Ever-enlarging WoW realms spell continued success
In a forum post about the ultimate downfall of WoW, Drysc pops in to explain that WoW still has a long lifespan ahead of it. People who say that the lack of new servers proves there are fewer and fewer new players in the game are missing the big picture. Back before The Burning Crusade was launched, Blizzard did a series of server upgrades that left each realm down for a few days. At the time, they said this was to make things ready for the expansion, but little did we know it would be to such an extent. Apparently these upgrades allowed Blizzard to keep pushing the maximum realm population up all this time, as more and more players joined the game. There are some relatively "low" population realms, of course, but only in comparison to the new much-increased maximum limit. As Drysc says, "aside from literally a handful of realms (I could count them on one hand), every other realm has a population that would have been considered high to overpopulated before the launch of Burning Crusade." Only recently have certain realms become truly crowded enough to merit free transfers to other realms.People always like to talk about the eventual downfall of the strongest player in any arena, but the steady growth Drysc is talking about continues, it looks like WoW will be the biggest 800-pound gorilla in the MMO jungle for a good long time to come.
Free character moves for Oceanic realms
In what must be extremely welcome news to players down under, Blizzard is offering free character transfers from overpopulated Oceanic realms starting today, Thursday, December 20th until December 27th or until transfer goals are met.Because they will close the transfers early if necessary, Drysc highly recommends that if you are planning to move your characters that you do so as soon as possible. If you wish to take advantage of the free move, go to this link, where it will ask you for your account info before proceeding.Blizzard has also opened a new PvE realm, specifically for this transfer. New character creation on Caelestrasz will be turned off until the transfers have been completed.The eligible Oceanic realms are listed after the jump.
Free transfers live from a few realms
As reported on the WoW LJ community, selected realms are getting free transfers to lower population realms. I will admit to being a tad disappointed that the realm where most of my alliance characters languish isn't one of those realms. But for the inhabitants of a super-crowded realm this can only be good news, and I congratulate you all for getting a chance to move while the offer is open. The complete list of realms who will be getting these transfers and the destination realms will be presented after the jump in case you can't access the links for one reason or another. If you are on one of the realms being offered the move, you have from Thursday, December 6th to Thursday the 13th to get your bags packed and make the trip to your new homes.
Free transfers open for select EU realms
Today free transfers closed for several EU realms and opened for several more EU realms. Today's transfers are planned to remain open until next Wednesday, the 14th, but the transfer list can be changed at any time, so if you want to take advantage of this, better sooner than later. Currently, players on Grim Batol, Outland, and Warsong may transfer off to Spinebreaker. Want to get started? Read the transfer FAQ first (remember -- this is a one-way trip!) and then head over to the character transfer page.
Impending free transfers to ease queues
As I'm sure many of you have noticed, server queues are back in a fairly big way. My own realm (Shadow Council) has been experiencing 500-ish person queues at peak times since a bit before Christmas. I know that's not huge, but we never used to have any queues at all. I've heard similar reports from many other realms, most of them worse than mine. It seems that Blizzard is aware of the problem, and planning on implementing some good ol' free character transfers from impacted realms. In the words of Tseric: In the past week, we have seen something of a surge and we are already in the works to provide Free Character Transfers for a number of realms to deal with spiking of queues. Obviously, we will deal with the most severe realms first, so if you do not see your particular realm on the first list, it does not indicate that you will receive no assistance for this in the future. Keep watch on the General stickies for announcements relating to Free Transfers within the next couple of days. Edit: Blizz have now announced specific transfers. The transfers will begin at 12 PM on Thursday, January 4, and run to 11 PM on Tuesday, January 8. Those of you on lleria, Anvilmar, Blackhand, Burning Blade, Daggerspine, Destromath, Draka, Durotan, Duskwood, Eonar, Executus, Garona, Greymane, Icecrown, Illidan, Kel'Thuzad, Mal'Ganis, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker, or Warsong will be able transfer to Nazjatar, Baelgun, Alterac Mountains, or Arygos (as usual, you don't get to choose; it depends on your specific realm). I'm assuming these are new realms, since I don't see them on the realm status page.Further Edit: Battlegroups have been announced. Nazjatar and Baelgun are in Shadowburn, and Alterac Mountains and Arygos are in Nightfall.
