Transfer Restrictions and Free Character Transfers Now Available -- Updated Nov. 22

They way that Blizzard handled Earthfury is just SHAMELESS!

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yeah im currently on earth fury, literal ghost town and want out but all the pvp servers are still locked :confused:

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kind of a no-brainer to merge eranikus and earthfury

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You would think, and who knows maybe that is ultimately their plan but it would be nice to hear from them about it. Maybe they will open it up as a free xfer destination once wrath drops and Q times naturally come back as a problem for the megaservers? Or maybe we will be left hung out to dry on a dead server with no other options to xfer to, paid or notā€¦

I had the exact same issue, paid transfer went through, waited over 50 hours with nothing. Opened a ticket, said it would take 12 days to get back to me, after Wrath launches. They closed the ticket and issued a refund when I just asked about when the transfer would complete and if there was anything else I needed to do. So instead of helping, then are just refunding and closing tickets, because I guess they need more people on the support staff?

Really, this is a 15 year old game, which Blizzard had a great lesson of what not to do at TBC launch. Just feels bad to deal with this, canā€™t play with my friends in a MMO is strange.

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I may be dull but Iā€™m not understanding the problem of servers becoming untenable without at least some company negligence involved.

Blizzardā€™s server transfer features are under their domain, and as I see it, thatā€™s the main reason weā€™re seeing these issues. Theyā€™ve used the example of a server with a 60 Horde / 40 Alliance split as a hypothetical in a previous post.

The idea they present is that when a small subset of the minority population becomes dissatisfied with that 60/40 split, they choose to leave the server, creating an even larger server split, which then exacerbates the dissatisfaction problem further, creating this unstoppable snowball effect on servers.

My thinking is that all these current ā€œfixesā€ just band-aid the problems rather than treat the actual disease.

Why isnā€™t there just a quota system in place for servers, with 45/55 splits being the absolute maximum difference in population enforced via some automated throttling? Say if Horde goes 1 percentage point over the 55% split and the server becomes 56 Horde / 44 Alliance, new character creation and transfers to the Horde faction could automatically shut down until a certain equilibrium is reached again and the minority Alliance side sees a healthier population.

You can also shut down or throttle down server transfers FROM servers / realms if those players are part of the minority faction, where their leaving the server could push the 45/55 equilibrium out of balance. It might block minority faction players from leaving realms for a time ā€“ surely ā€“ but when the equilibrium comes back, the throttle can then open back up for minority faction server transfers.

There are undoubtedly some issues with a system like that in place, but it doesnā€™t really matter what problems it creates or who complains about it if general server health is a number 1 goal above all else. Right now, several servers are just dead and unused, which is a far more insidious problem than the general or idle player complaints youā€™ll get from doing something like this.

You should weigh what your ultimate goals are here. You can enforce new norms. Of course, any new changes to the game are going to have naysayers and haters and people who are very critical. Thatā€™s natural.

Iā€™d honestly go as far as forced server transfers to alleviate the strain on queues and to enforce a server quota or dynamic of something close to a 50/50 split ā€“ almost like an eviction. This could even operate in context of the natural loss of subscriptions.

In the hypothetical of a 55 Horde / 45 Alliance server, if for one month Alliance players are quitting the game at an exponential rate and a serverā€™s equilibrium falls out of balance, you can start incentivizing Horde players with free server transfers to other servers that have the opposite problem (servers where Horde needs more players) while still restricting the minority faction from transferring off until equilibrium is reached again.

As player churn occurs naturally and server populations decline, youā€™d have the added benefit of being able to merge two servers / realms together that have the OPPOSITE trends occurring.

Example: If a 55 Horde / 45 Alliance server sees plummeting population, and another 55 Alliance / 45 Horde server sees the same problem ā€“ it becomes an easy marriage.

I fully concede that there could be a huge monetary component here. Unrestricted server transfers probably bring in a lot of revenue, and thatā€™s not a cynical note at all. The company has a duty to shareholders. We get it. Itā€™s a balance between the shareholders and the satisfaction of the player base.

Thereā€™s a significant possibility that even with alienation to the player base, unrestricted server transfers may still bring in far more revenue than a quota system that brings in more player satisfaction. Happier players quitting less often are still only paying $15 a month, and the analytics may show ā€“ who knows? - that even with a healthier server, people ultimately come and go as the content does. Once a particular piece of raid content is done with, people may lose interest. Thatā€™s generally the nature of the beast.

Cascading server issues may be a byproduct of unrestricted server transfers but with the added and unexpected benefit of creating more revenue for Blizzard. Itā€™s super easy for people to take the cynical viewpoint on that point, though Iā€™d view it more charitably and just call it a nice byproduct of an innocent enough feature / design. Itā€™s totally understandable if an idea like this just hurts your bottom line too much.

Again, I may not be seeing the full scope of the issue, but it seems like enforced and automated quotas of server factions would work fine. People will be upset, but over time it will become a cultural component of the game that people accept as normal, just like any change.

If paid server transfers occur at the same rate regardless of player satisfaction, and if it aligns with your companyā€™s end goals, Iā€™d venture a guess that a throttling / quota system might be much more enjoyable for the players. It might even keep subscription rates higher for longer. Maybe.

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All I wanna do is put one of my Sulfuras alts on Pagle with my main and my returning friends. Iā€™m already on Pagle, for the love of all that his holy grant me this kindness. This entire situation has been bonkers to follow.

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Is there any indication on when/if we may be able to transfer to some of these servers, I am hoping to join my friends playing on Mankrik, but it is still showing not accepting transfers at this time. If there is any information on this it would be wonderful, thank you.

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I have been playing on Mankrik for over this past year and had one more toon to transfer over to Mankrik from a dead server Myzrael. My whole guild and friends are on Mankrik. I do not see the harm for an already established account on Mankrik not to be able to transfer 1 alt toon. I mean its not like you are restricting me from making more on Mankrik, so this seems so illogical to me. Not to mention yur making $25 extra dollars off of me! : D Please reconsider transfers for already established accounts. Thanks

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What were the powers that be, thinking? Nov 13, 2008 game version but 2023 server tech, and the best solution they could come up with was Locking the server(s) ?!? Locked server + then allowing transfers to the 2nd fresh server 3 days after you opened it = |Garbage|

*lazy math joke for my fellow maths

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Iā€™m in the same boat. Have a toon on a dead server and want to transfer it to Whitemane to play with my friends and my main. Iā€™m already playing on that Whitemane. Adding my other toon to the server doesnā€™t change anything. Hopefully they change it.

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My friends and I play on Sulfuras and we have 3 more friends that where going to buy the boost and play with us when wotlk started. With the realm lock they canā€™t do that and Sulfuras does not have free transfers. So my friends and I are stuck unless we pay $25 per character. So give us on Sulfuras free transfers off or unlock the server for new players, otherwise we will just cancel our subs and play something else. I am sure my friend group is not the only one in this situation.

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This is the same issue I have. I am able to make new characters on Sulfuras to play as alts on the side with my friends, so why canā€™t I transfer my main as well for when the raid opens? Me bringing over another character will not affect the faction balance, I am still only one player. Not even asking for a free transfer, I am trying to pay for it.

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I accidentally used the free transfer from Grobbulus to Sulfaras back when the queue wait time was 3h+. Could I be allowed to bring them back freely please? I though it would be possible and this was just a temporarily thing to help the queue time. I didnā€™t even played with them on Sulfaras. (GalkĆ r and ElektĆør)

Thank you, I didnā€™t know where to post this since it doesnā€™t match the tickets list.

Iā€™m in the same boat, as are many, many people. Alts stuck on other realms from the one I plan to play at WotLK launch (which of course, is locked.) Blizzard has been dead silent about this since day 1 of the realm locks and as more time goes on, Iā€™m beginning to understand their position on this issue: they donā€™t care.

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EDIT: Character Boosts are now working on Eranikus as of 22 SEP!

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The lack of additional response with the game releasing shortly is really telling, and very sad for a lot of players. Extremely poorly handled.

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Please open up transfers, at least to players with established characters on the target realm. Iā€™m losing so many friends due to their main characters stuck on other servers, and not able to raid with their already built community.

Itā€™s not fun in a community driven game, to have communities forced to be divided.

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Please, transfer my character back to Skyfury. I transfered it to Angerforge because I tought you were gonna build 2 healthy, fun, well populated and no queues realms. Now we have 1 realm with queues and 1 dead realm. Iā€™m trapped in that boring and non sense realm Angerforge. Iā€™d rather wait 5 hours queue to play in Skyfury than wasting my time in the dead Angerforge.

Please, help!

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a MMo game that friends canā€™t play together. What a strange take

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