Hello, I was hoping a blue might respond to this. To whoever does, thank you! I might be spending a hundred dollars on this service, so I want to know a clear answer before I do.
In a few weeks, I plan on transferring all of my WoW characters to a different account (under the same BNET license)
They’re currently all on the same WoW realm, and I plan on keeping it that way. However after looking into this process, I’ve seen alot of people say that when they transferred their characters to a new WoW account, their character names were automatically changed even though they didn’t change the realm.
I also saw something about a 30 day cooldown incurred before the name can be reclaimed, but this seems absolutely ridiculous to me - why would the person transferring to their same BNET account have to wait 30 days to get their original character name back?
Am I completely mistaken? I’ve scoured Google and the WoW support guide on this topic, and can’t seem to get a clear answer.
I’ve read that when you transfer characters to a new WoW account on the same BNET license, it’ll prompt you to change your character name upon login. But do I really need to wait a month to get my original name back, when I’m clearly the same person?
The only time you should be prompted to change your character’s name is if you are moving them to a different battle.net account or to a new server where the name is already taken.
In your scenario above, you’re leaving them on the same server and same battle.net, so no name change will be forced:
Thank you, I appreciate your answer. I guess blizzard updated their policy, because a few forum posts from 3-4 years ago were mentioning having to change their name despite keeping the same BNET and server.
Possibly, though for as long as I can remember, that’s how the system has worked. There could certainly be posts with different info depending on when and where they posted too.
Here’s a post from a few years ago where the person had my same issue. It looks like blizzard automatically changed their name, but upon login they were given the option to change it back to the original for free. But I’m still seeing a few other threads where they weren’t given that option, so hopefully a blue chimes in
Vrak is explaining in that post that they were not renamed, just flagged for rename (as you will be as well).
When transferring between accounts, the name will show as taken when the system checks (since it is taken currently by your character that is being transferred); and you will be flagged for rename as part of the process.
When you log in, just don’t change the name/re-enter the same name; and you’ll have the same name.
That is what the blue post you linked is explaining.
My guess is there is some kind of confusion there, Khenja, so I’d have to see the examples you are mentioning.
The system should work the way Perl outlined. As long as you are remaining on the same Battle.net account, and only transferring between WoW licenses on the same realm, you’ll be prompted for a name change, but since your where is the one that held that name, you can just reenter the name to claim it.
Understood, and threads like these are what made me concerned:
The fact that a lot of people are stating that your name shouldn’t be changed, yet is automatically changed regardless (despite being able to change it back) are worth mentioning. If you read the threads, there are a lot of people saying different things. Glad a blue chimed in.
A Blue also “chimed in” on the very post that got you concerned:
That specific circumstance was a transfer between accounts. The name is reserved on the first account, so when arriving on the second account, a rename is required.
Did you even read my original post? I was asking for new clarification regardless of linking the thread from 3 years ago. It’s perfectly reasonable, since every post and piece of advice I’ve gotten (including in this very thread) have had different answers.
Alright, and I hope you realize that there are two seperate types of “accounts” here in the first place: BNET and WoW. They’re two distinct types. The fact that you aren’t distinguishing between the two adds to the confusion and the vagueness of the blizzard page only makes it more of a headache.
If you scroll up, you’d see that a green poster said a name change wouldn’t be prompted. It turns out that one is prompted, even if only to change it back to the original. As I said, plenty of conflicting info. Relax. That’s what this forum is for, no need to play moderator. Enjoy yourself.
I would say because it doesn’t seem to have been a transfer between just WoW licenses on the same Battle.net account. It was between Battle.net accounts as well.
I don’t think it was specifically stated in that thread, but that was the issue and why they could not claim the name when they transferred.
I was responding to your more recent post, where you said this thread concerned you:
While this is a fair point, the Support article above is quite clear on this matter. The best advice I can give regarding your overall issue: the only official source is Blizzard. Not past forums threads, not what you read on the forums (including from myself), not people on Reddit, not guildmates.
Even Wowhead (especially their comment sections) is not official, though it’s probably the closest non-Blizzard source to it.
I understand your confusion on the issue, but try to tune out the outside noise. Trust the Support articles. Sometimes bugs happen, and sometimes Support articles are not 100% clear, but the vast majority of the time, they have the information you need.
And this is where we disagree. Here’s the support article:
Open that link and scroll down to the part titled “Consequences of a Transfer”.
Here’s the paragraph that concerned me:
“If your character’s name is taken on the destination realm, you will be asked to rename your character at no extra cost. This is applicable when you transfer a character to another WoW account while remaining in the same realm”
It seems to suggest that you’d have to rename your character regardless of transferring to the same realm between WoW accounts. The paragraph below it then goes on to say that the original source account would reserve the names for 30 days.
Logically, one would assume that if the source account would lock the names for 30 days, and if you’re prompted to create a new one on the new account, then you would have to wait a month before reclaiming the old ones.
You can read it for yourself, and that’s why I was asking about this. Thank you for your input, though.
Thanks for your response. In the comment above I linked the blizzard page on character transfers, it says that your achievements and mounts won’t be saved only if you transfer to an entirely different BNET account. I’m only transferring my characters to a different WoW account on the same BNET, so hopefully they remain the same.
I have a number of old wow accounts I don’t use and have not for years (and never will again very likely lol, but I am not going to delete them).
They are attached to this Blizzard account, but (obv) not this wow account. If I were to log into them, none of my mounts, collections from this account will be present there. This makes sense.
I doubt if I transferred a character from this current account to one of those other older accounts, all my stuff would suddenly appear. Just the few things that that one character had collected through completed quests and character specific achieves. Almost all my xmogs, most mounts, toys, pets…all that will not xfer. Otherwise I could just populate all those accounts with all my collections with a single character xfer. Presto!
Anyway, I am okay with being corrected here if I am wrong. I do not think I am, though.
Actually, unless I’m misunderstanding you, Lorethon, that isn’t true.
If you logged into Modern World of Warcraft on one of the other WoW licenses on this Battlenet account, you’d have access to all Mounts, Pets, Heirlooms, Toys, etc… Though some access may depend on if that particular WoW license was active or not, and may sometimes depend on the level of the character. For instance, you wouldn’t be able to use any mount if you weren’t a high enough level and have learned the appropriate riding skill.
Alternately, if you haven’t logged into any of those WoW licenses on this Battle.net account since specific systems were put in, like the Wardrobe and Transmog systems, they may have items on them that aren’t currently part of your collection and could be added to it if you logged the character in.
If I’m misunderstanding though ,please let me know.
This is my first time on this subforum. I’m surprised at how quick the blizzard responses are. That’s awesome that you guys actually care. Random, but it’s appreciated
