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Free character moves offered to select US servers
Higher population servers getting you down? Isle of Thunder too crowded to get anything done? You're in luck! Blizzard is offering free character moves from and to select servers as follows: Source Realm --> Destination Tichondrius --> Blackrock Illidan --> Mannoroth Stormrage --> Trollbane Blizzard notes that due to the unpredictable nature of free transfers, they may close down any Free Character Moves at any time and without warning if the target realm becomes full. So, if you plan on moving realms with friends or a guild, be sure to coordinate plans. These transfers are like Blizzard's paid character services, they're one-time, and one-way. If you change your mind after the free character transfer, you'll have to shell out the $25 USD to go elsewhere. As it stands, the free character moves have already begun, but will end on Thursday, March 21. If you'd like to get started, head over to Blizzard's Free Character Migration FAQ.
Shut Up And Take My Money: Thoughts on Blizzard's paid services
After playing for almost eight years, I've become accustomed to the fees that accompany World of Warcraft. It's just... part of the game. We pay a monthly fee so the developers can bring us new shinies and dragons to slay. We pay a monthly fee so our Community Managers can wrangle cats and serve as our voice. We pay Blizzard to keep WoW going. At what works out (in the US) to be about $0.50 per day, in my mind, there's never been a cheaper night of entertainment. Now, I wouldn't pose an argument against our monthly fee, but it's common to see complaints from the community about Blizzard's paid services for WoW. A character transfer is $25 USD, name change $10 USD, appearance change $15 USD, race change $25 USD, faction change $30 USD, and let's not forget about the various Guild Services offered at a price. Select services combine a few changes -- an appearance change allows a name change as well, for example. What is reasonable? Well, for cosmetic services like appearance, race, and name changes, the prices are fair. They're things that aren't necessary in order to play. If you're in a top 100 guild, at some point you may gain an extra edge in changing race to benefit from a racial. Who knows. If you're being harassed by someone in-game, it may be necessary to name change, even. Other than that, I can't think of a situation in which those services would be "required." Character transfer charges, on the other hand, should be looked at. Over on the EU forums, Taepsilum posted a great response to a thread on paid services that got me thinking.
25 percent off character transfers this weekend
Last weekend we had a discount on faction transfers, and this week Blizzard has confirmed that there will be a discount on realm transfers! Betting will shortly open on the nature of next weekend's sale. Realm transfers are offered all the time, of course, allowing you to pack your character's bags and shift them, their bank, their mounts, pets, and all their holdings to a new realm. This discount decreases the price from $25, £15 or €20 to $18.75, £11.25 or €15. (American prices are subject to tax in certain areas.) The realm transfer sale ends on July 23 -- Monday -- so get your skates on! Do check out the Character Transfer FAQ if you're curious about any aspect of the service. Importantly, you should note that a character transfer doesn't include a faction change, race change, class change, or appearance change. Also, a goblin doesn't really fire you out of a cannon. New horizons await! Through this weekend and for a limited time only, you can initiate a Character Transfer to move one of your World of Warcraft characters to a new realm for 25% off the regular price. To get started, simply click here. Alternatively, you can log in to your Battle.net account at www.battle.net, select your World of Warcraft account, and then click "Character Transfer" at the bottom of the page. Don't delay -- this offer ends Monday, July 23. source So, if you have ever fancied a change of scenery -- well, OK, not scenery, but the people steering the avatars within it -- or if you fancy going from a PvP to a PvE realm or back again, now's the time! Carpe diem, people. Who knows when this will roll around again?
How flexible is too flexible when it comes to gameplay?
Way back in the days of vanilla WoW, your character was something you were stuck with, as well as your talents. If you wanted to unlearn your talents, you were certainly welcome to do so, as long as you didn't mind paying a lot of gold to do so. Once you made a character on that server, it stayed there. Once you chose your gender, hair and facial features, you were stuck with them. If you chose Alliance, that character remained Alliance for good. Over the years, we've had a lot of small things introduced that allowed us a little more flexibility with the characters we love to play. You can change realms, factions, hair, gender, race -- you can completely change who your character is at the drop of a hat. Mists of Pandaria is introducing a host of new features intended to give the game some added flexibility by allowing characters to share achievements, mounts and pets across an entire account. This means that players are no longer limited to what character they play. You can switch between characters and still have the same benefits. There's just one thing that Blizzard has never, ever wavered on, one last point of rigid inflexibility when it comes to the characters we play: class.
Paid character transfers time restrictions slashed
Eyonix has just announced that lockout time for paid character transfers has been reduced to 3 days from its previous 30. This means that you can now transfer your character to a new realm using the paid transfer service once every three days instead of once every thirty.This is especially useful for raiders and PvPers who move to a new realm to join a guild, and then find out that the guild doesn't work for them. There are also tens of thousands of horror stories about people moving between servers only to find that their new guilds disbands a few days later. This will be a significant boon to people who find themselves in that situation.The cost of the paid character transfers remain at $25 for a one way ticket.
Breakfast Topic: Paid services
With the Azeroth-shaking announcement of paid faction changes, it seems like one of the last barriers to character re-customization have been broken down. Who would have thought that we could switch allegiances four years ago? The World of Warcraft has certainly come a long way since it launched. One of the big changes back then was allowing players to transfer realms -- initially disallowing PvE-to-PvP transfers but that restriction was eventually lifted. That was shocking news then, but then Blizzard opened the door for names and even gender changes.What we're essentially seeing is Blizzard's own clever version of microtransactions. Sure, we can't buy powerful items like those in free-to-play games (which will soon become endangered in China...), but we can pay real money to cater to our vanity or convenience. I've paid several times for server transfers, name changes, and even character re-customization. My wife grumbles whenever I shell out real money for those things, but I'm sure she'd pay to morph her former main, a Troll Priest, into a Blood Elf in a heartbeat. Even Matthew Rossi would pay good money to turn his Human Warrior into a huge-like-Rossi Draenei. There's only one problem, though -- they can't. Race change is one thing Blizzard hasn't given the go signal to... yet.Anything's possible, though. Years ago, Blizzard unequivocally said that they would never allow PvE to PvP realm transfers. See how that turned out. What other paid services do you think Blizzard lacks? You probably already know that I'm all for race change as part of character re-customization. But how about paying for levels? I mean, despite all the changes they've made to make leveling easier, I abhor it. I'd gladly shell out some cash to get a high-level character right off the bat. What other paid World of Warcraft services do you think the game needs or players want?
PvE to PvP transfer impact
Since PvE to PvP transfer option became available, I've kept a close eye on my own realm to see if there'd be any discernible change to transfer patterns both on and off. As far as I can tell -- no. I've seen a few people transfer off but there doesn't seem to be any more so than usual. Only a few players did so purely for the purpose of PvPing on a different battlegroup, and most of them, like Zach Yonzon, had previously been PvP-realm transfers or rerolls anyway. The flood of high-level PvE to PvP transfers gloomily predicted by many doesn't seem to have materialized. People who'd rather play on a PvE realm are doing just that, and most of the people who'd rather play on a PvP realm were already there (never saw that one coming, eh?). I thought at the time that Blizzard's decision would probably have its biggest impact, not on PvP players, but on PvE raiders who had previously been restricted to recruiting PvP-to-PvP, PvE-to-PvE or (much less commonly) PvP-to-PvE only. If you've ever been in a raiding guild which found great recruits from the "wrong" kind of realm, you're probably familiar with what a headache that was.I play on a medium population PvE realm that launched when Burning Crusade hit. Since we're not really at the cutting edge of either PvE or PvP content as a result, mine is probably a bad sample size as we're not a hotbed of transfers either way. So, I'm not sure if my own experience is representative. If you're playing on a medium-to-high population realm, either PvE or PvP, are you noticing any difference to the traffic patterns, on or off? If you're on a low-population realm, has your situation improved or worsened?
PvE to PvP paid transfers now available
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/PvE_to_PvP_paid_transfers_now_available_in_WoW'; Ever since paid transfers were introduced, quite some time ago, there has been one very prominent restriction: no transfers from PvE servers to PvP servers. The general reason given for this is that it wouldn't be fair; people who level to 70 on a PvP server have a significantly harder time of it that people who do it on a PvE server, and letting people transfer from PvE to PvP is just going to encourage them to level where it's safe easy and then transfer to go around ganking and raiding and whatever else they want to do. Well, that restriction is lifted: paid transfers from PvE to PvP servers will be available from now on. Blizzard's stated reason for this is that "providing a smooth and enjoyable experience for all players is always a priority for us," and that these transfers are being implemented "to provide players with more mobility and freedom to easily play with their friends." While these are valid reasons to a certain extent, I still think this will be pretty unpopular with players on PvP servers. [thanks, Nega]
Blizzard's maintenance interrupts some website features
The WoW login screen acknowledges that some services may be intermittently unavailable due to "website maintenance and upgrades." As we've reported, Blizzard sites have experienced maintenance periods earlier this week. The current news blurb says that they are working on the web infrastructure to provide "new features" and "increased performance and security." The features impacted are: account creation password recovery paid character transfer adding payment The message says that these services may be unavailable "intermittently." It does not indicate how long the website maintenance will continue, but promises to provide updates. The maintenance is also confirmed on Blizzard's home page.
Paid transfer and name change cooldowns reduced
European CM Thundgot announced today that the cooldown periods for both paid character transfer and paid character name changes have been reduced from three months to one month, effective immediately. The transfer cooldown was originally six months when the feature was introduced in June 2006, but was reduced to three in October 2006. In the intervening time, they've looked at server logs and so forth and come to the conclusion that moving it to one month would not have catastrophic consequences.This change appears to be effective on the US realms as well, so wherever you are, you can hop servers and adopt new aliases every month if you want to pay for it. Also, Thundy clarifies that as long as your last transfer/name change was at least 30 days ago, you are immediately eligible for transfer/name change now. He also said that "moving forward" the price for paid transfer is going to be 20€/£15, but given his phrasing and the fact that I'm on the North American realms, I can't tell if that pricing is new or not. Do any of you know? Edit: Not new; thanks.
Paid character transfers shut down
As someone who recently did a character transfer of my own, I have to admit I was nervous about the transfer considering some of the horror stories that I'd heard about long transfers, multiple charges despite cards being rejected, and more. However, it would appear that Blizzard has decided to take the entire process of Paid Character Transfers offline while they see what they can do about fixing it. Per Pavonum on the Customer Service Forums:As some of you have already noticed, the Paid Character Transfer service has been temporarily shut down so that further efforts may be made to ensure that its correct functionality is restored; our developers are currently working to repair the underlying coding issues that have contributed to the present complications for many players. While it is not known at this time when further updates shall become available, you may rest assured that we shall make you aware with all due haste at that time; for now, we are greatly appreciative of your continued patience. Thanks, folks. :) Obviously this isn't going to do much for those who have already had problems of getting multiple charges or characters caught in limbo between realms. But I am very glad to see that Blizzard is taking the system offline and checking to see what they can do to fix these problems moving forward from this point. Personally, I'd be willing to wait for however long they need to make sure the overcharge bug is 100% fixed. [via the Customer Service Forums]
Paid character transfer update (sort of)
Well, I have some difficulty calling this an update, since it was initially announced in August -- but since the initial announcement was rolled in with news about new realm openings, I imagine it didn't get the attention it deserved. So today, to much applause, Eyonix has informed everyone that paid character transfers will not be available to any realms not yet open for 6 months (as opposed to the previous 3 months). This will allow new realms some time to ramp up and approach other realms in content before potentially troubled by a flood of new (and better geared) players into the realm economy. Of course, there are still players complaining that 6 months is not enough -- but it's certainly a lot closer to what I would consider a reasonable ballpark.
Additional EU Character Transfers Opened
Today, Blizzard's European branch has opened an additional 25 realms to the paid character transfer service, bringing the total number of open realms to 61. So if you've been waiting to move to a new server, now you might have your chance. To move a character, you simply need to log on to account management, and then click the Paid Character Transfer button. However, it's probably worth reviewing the FAQ first (which has its differences from the US version) - you can only move a character once every 6 months, so it would be best to be certain first.
US Character Transfer Offline
No, it's not broken and there are no technical problems. However, the system apparently works on a queue basis - and when the queue is filled, it automatically stops accepting new transfer requests. CM Tseric informs us that the queue system is in place to ensure that the system remains stable. If you managed to sign up for a transfer before the queue stopped new transfers, you should still be in the queue to be transfered - but because the queue's been maxed out, there may be a bit of a wait. For the rest of us - if you have a character you'd like to transfer, you just need to check back to see if the queue has opened up.
More US Realms Open for Transfers
More realms opened up for paid character transfers yesterday, with even more planned for today and the rest of the week. Though it looks like most realms will be open for transfers by the end of the week, the rules for transfer availability remain the same. So we're still waiting to see whether players' complaints on the fairness of transfers to new servers will have any long-term impact on the transfer policy. In the meantime, Blizzard Europe's policy has a slight alteration - adding the opening of the gates of Ahn'Qiraj as a factor in opening transfers.
EU Launches Paid Character Transfer Service
It's no real surprise this service was heading to European shores, but it does surprise me that the rules are slightly different. While most of the US and EU FAQs are identical, there's a slight difference in when servers are allowed to be open for transfers. On US realms, transfers are available to realms that have been open longer than 90 days (assuming the realms aren't already high population, with login queues, etc). On EU realms, there's an additional qualification - if a realm doesn't yet have the gates of Ahn'Qiraj open at 90 days, transfers won't open until either the gates open, or the server has had another 90 days to work towards it. This means that transfers may not be opened for as long as 6 months. I wonder if this restriction would be enough to calm some of the complaints on US forums as Ahn'Qiraj geared players start to transfer on to realms where the gates have not yet opened.
The Results of Paid Realm Transfers
I've spent a long time looking forward to the idea of paid character transfers. I have two well-geared 60s on an old realm that I abandoned for various reasons, and I'm excited at the prospect of having them available for play on the realm I now call home. So I've always looked at the prospect of transferring as a way of regaining access to characters that I'd put a lot of time and effort into, but had to abandon in order to play with friends.However, one of my want-to-transfer characters is in full tier 2, with some Ahn'Qiraj gear. I'd be transferring to a server well Nefarian has not yet been slain nor the gates of Ahn'Qiraj opened. And I can't be the only one wanting to move such characters, for one reason or another. There are many impassioned cries by players on realms old and new - as characters far beyond the realm's progression transfer over and start changing the face of PvP and PvE. With the number of restrictions on the transfer service ($25 per transfer, can only transfer every 6 months, can't transfer to severs less than 3 months old) it's obvious they've thought about the potential problems. And it's equally obvious, with the effort put into rolling out this program, that it's not just going to vanish. So where's the happy medium between a free-for-all transfer and allowing players to rejoin friends on other servers without abandoning previous efforts? Blizzard seems to be listening to player concerns, but where it will go from here, and how open character transfers will continue to impact realm status, is still a mystery.[Fan art by Guillaume Bonnet]
Additional Realms Opened for Paid Transfers
Blizzard seems to be moving quickly to expand their paid transfer service, and has opened eight new realms to transfer from. So if you have characters you're interested in moving off one of these realms, you're in luck! Characters may now be transfered from Burning Blade, Durotan, Earthen Ring, Elune, Laughing Skull, Lothar, Medivh, and Shadow Moon. Realms also seem to be disappearing from the ineligible destination list, meaning there are more places you can transfer to as well. (I haven't found a specific list, but noticed a realm I have characters on - Duskwood - is no longer on the ineligible list, though it was yesterday.)
New Paid Transfer Destinations Opened
Blizzard has added seven realms to the list you can transfer from. For those wanting to take advantage of the service, servers Arthas, Dalaran, Magtheridon, Spirestone, Stormrage, Turalyon, and Zul'jin are now available to transfer from. I have two level 60s on a server that I no longer play on, so I am glad to see that they're opening up new transfer realms relatively quickly - even though neither the realm I want to transfer from nor the realm I want to transfer to are currently available for transfers. When they do open up transfers to and from my desired realms, I'll get back to you with a users' perspective review of how the service works.
Paid Character Transfer Feature Opened!
Blizzard has officially opened their paid character transfer service today. The official FAQ on the service appears quite similar to the leaked information we saw last week, so if you read that, there should be no surprises. However, there is, of course, a catch - at present, only five realms are available to transfer from: Altar of Storms, Argent Dawn, Demon Soul, Illidan, and Warsong. If none of those are servers you've been wanting to transfer from, you're going to have to keep waiting. Blizzard plans to add more realms to this list, but they're starting small for now. Ready to transfer? Head over to the account management page and click on the "Paid Character Transfer" button.
