I have recently encountered a curious situation that pertains to server change restrictions and the new level adjustments brought on by the Shadowlands Level Squish.
Particularly, characters that were previously level 19 are now level 9. This creates a few interesting problems for characters that were once “Level 19 Twinks”. These characters, built specifically for the highest level of the first battleground bracket (10-19), are now too low to even join a battleground. An almost comical oversight that there are now characters that are revered/exalted with WSG, that cannot even enter it.
The above aside, the restriction that I have encountered that led to the authoring of this post is that these characters, being only level 9, are considered ineligible for server changes. The requirement being as follows: “You cannot transfer a character that isn’t at least level 10.” I found this quite odd given that these characters have been in existence, in my case, since Burning Crusade. Further, and having been eligible for realm transfers in the past are now ineligible.
Being someone that does not see a technical difference between the moving of a level 10 compared to a level 9, this simply seems to be an oversight. Likewise, given that I am an experienced player, any safeguards against new players spending money on a brand new character do not apply. I understand that I could just create a level 10 Rogue/Warlock/Etc., and would not go seeking a refund brought on by this oddity. Given that I am willing to pay the required cost for this service and understand the apparent shortcoming in my desire, I do not see why anyone would have concerns over this prospect.
To address some foreseeable concerns/questions in advance:
(Q1) Why do you even care about these level 9 characters?
(A1) Since these are characters that have been around for many years, they have items that are now simply unobtainable in the current version of the game (See e.g. Inferno Robe and Seal of Sylvanas). I still see some value in these legacy characters and merely sought to transfer them to my primary realm as they are currently staggered throughout different servers.
(Q2) Why not level to 10?
(A1) Well, sure. Perhaps this so called “issue” could be resolved by visiting Slahtz, the Experience Eliminator, in Orgrimmar, activating the Experience Gain, casting probably one spell and leveling to 10, and then do whatever I want. However, these characters have been in a completed form for some time now and I merely seek to move them as is to another realm for the sake of preservation.