Yeah, I guess that's my only real disappointment with this announcement. People keep saying that we were all asking for this. I never asked for this. I asked for server mergers, because when that happens, the onus is on the developer to come up with a priority system for character names that's fair and comprehensible. Under a system like that, I could be fine with losing a character name I liked, because I'd figure, "Well, whoever got it probably deserved it just as much as I do, if not more so."

 

But doing it this way, they get to pretend as though the decision was yours, but obviously, when it's a choice between losing your main character's name to a level 5 toon that hasn't been played in five months and staying on a sinking ship (whose sinking BioWare has now expedited), that isn't much of a choice at all.

Sorry, but I have been a part of merges, and I have been a part of transfer/shut-downs, and transfer/shut-downs are superior by a large margin, imho.

I haven't been a part of a merge yet that wasn't buggy at best. Transfer/shut-downs, on the other hand, was extremely smooth.

Yeah and other people would plan accordingly by then creating a dummy to hold their name on every server not on the origin list. Awesome.

Guess what? I already did that!

Like I said, those of us paying attention pretty much already know how this is going to shake out. If you want to do that, you already can. So what's the harm in making it a certainty?

Sorry, but I have been a part of merges, and I have been a part of transfer/shut-downs, and transfer/shut-downs are superior by a large margin, imho.

 

I haven't been a part of a merge yet that wasn't buggy at best. Transfer/shut-downs, on the other hand, was extremely smooth.

I guess our experiences differ. I've been a part of some pretty smooth mergers. Guilds got moved over and everything.

No offense but he's been fairly polite to me even if we dont' agree over on a thread that I started earlier. Maybe your reading to much into his comments? It can happen its the internet..interpretations of whats being said can always vary.

thats what happens on forums though isnt it? I see it all the time especially on MMO champ, someone doesnt agree, you argue, next thread, you agree... you dont quite say sorry or get on as such, but you cut the sh*t and co-op to make a point.

Dont take that as me accusing you of anything by the way, i have no intention of it.

Just generally when someone decides their gunna quote eveything you've said in each small paragraph, and just throw as much opposition as possible to every point you make, you feel like you're being trolled.

Not to mention labelling something i personally feel quite passionate, and at the same time, annoyed about as "garbage", i'm bound to take offense to it.

This is my opinion

It doesnt match yours (as in yankfan whatever)

Doesnt mean its FFA to sh*t all over my post.

Bioware have done something i'm not happy about

I personally believe they could find that little bt of extra effort to accommodate guilds better out of goodwill to those who have stuck with this game in what has been fairly trying times for them.

Does that give some guy the right to pull my posts apart in some hopeless attempt to get me to admit i'm wrong?

Opinion cant be wrong. Just different.

Funny thing is, as much as i'm developing a sense on contempt for Bioware and EA, i cant help but constantly tell my wow guild how brilliant this game is. In every aspect i think its far better than WoW by miles, with maybe the odd thing they could adopt, trivial little things mostly.

More out of hope they'll "come to the light" and plat SWTOR

I have a question and im sure many people are in the same boat, rather then quit playing i decided to leave my old server behind And reroll on the fatman i now have a BM Geared toon on the fatman and several on my original server and half my guild has done the same while half remained on the dead server. are you saying under the current system there is no way for us to move all our characters to the same server. So we made new characters on the fatman and they are stuck there?

I want to be able to move them all onto the same servers is that possible or not?

Except that wouldn't work out very well since they wouldnt know exactly when their char is being transfered over so they could stil F themselves out of the name. Its kinda a flawed idea to create place holders for names due to transfer. Since you could forget to delete or when you delete someone is ahead of you in line and gets the name first anyway.

Oddly enough I ran into this issue this morning on PTS. My dummy character I made during 1.2 testing shared a name with the one I copied over. Today, when I logged in, the copied main was renamed to JGIUGHJGXWQERY. I deleted the correctly named alt, clicked on the garbage name and was prompted to rename it. Renamed back to original and ready to go. Unless someone is crafty in that 10 seconds between when you nuke and rename, you're safe as houses.

Given the restrictions on server types, it'd be trivial to cover all the bases by grabbing your name on all the not-origin servers.

Almost every MMO I've ever played There were server transfers. This is not a huge deal. There are plenty of examples out there to follow and I can't believe that BW would create code for a game and not anticipate this.

It sounds like most are getting upset because they have not released enough information to make you comfortable. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and IF they screw it up then we'll hammer them next time.

JMHO

I have a question and im sure many people are in the same boat, rather then quit playing i decided to leave my old server behind And reroll on the fatman i now have a BM Geared toon on the fatman and several on my original server and half my guild has done the same while half remained on the dead server. are you saying under the current system there is no way for us to move all our characters to the same server. So we made new characters on the fatman and they are stuck there?

 

I want to be able to move them all onto the same servers is that possible or not?

Not going to happen. At least not soon and almost certainly not for free.

thats what happens on forums though isnt it? I see it all the time especially on MMO champ, someone doesnt agree, you argue, next thread, you agree... you dont quite say sorry or get on as such, but you cut the sh*t and co-op to make a point.

Dont take that as me accusing you of anything by the way, i have no intention of it.

 

Just generally when someone decides their gunna quote eveything you've said in each small paragraph, and just throw as much opposition as possible to every point you make, you feel like you're being trolled.

Not to mention labelling something i personally feel quite passionate, and at the same time, annoyed about as "garbage", i'm bound to take offense to it.

This is my opinion

It doesnt match yours (as in yankfan whatever)

Doesnt mean its FFA to sh*t all over my post.

 

Bioware have done something i'm not happy about

I personally believe they could find that little bt of extra effort to accommodate guilds better out of goodwill to those who have stuck with this game in what has been fairly trying times for them.

Does that give some guy the right to pull my posts apart in some hopeless attempt to get me to admit i'm wrong?

Opinion cant be wrong. Just different.

 

Funny thing is, as much as i'm developing a sense on contempt for Bioware and EA, i cant help but constantly tell my wow guild how brilliant this game is. In every aspect i think its far better than WoW by miles, with maybe the odd thing they could adopt, trivial little things mostly.

More out of hope they'll "come to the light" and plat SWTOR

I can see what your saying and im not happy about how they'r ehandling transfers either. I like the game, I do like bioware but I think their leaders for the choices with the MMO is going down a dark and dangerous path in not being upfront and clear about equality for all players when it comes to the transfers. Even if its a sit tight we are doing more after this for free and doing them this month I'd be happy with that. But no they pretty much leave us in the dark like they have multiple times. Its pushed me to far. If they can't be clear and can't be fair I can simply take my dollars somewhere else. DDO is coming out with an expansion this month and I've not played in a while. While it doesn't offer some of the things SWTOR and other Big MMOs like its atleast enjoyable.

Im not in a guild at this moment but I have been with bioware & swtor since they first did pre orders hell even before that....and it'd just be nice to know that I"ve not been giving them money for them to not give a damn about me and only worry about those on the dead servers. I do think those on dead light servers should get a priority to get moved first but they're not being clear that everyone is going to get a chance to better their enjoyment of the game by moving servers. Its not just about the population but sometimes the type of people your on a server with.

Bioware needs to be more open and forthcoming with their plans instead of simply telling us to stay tuned all the time. Either get it all out at once to let it digest or dont say anything at all. The reactions will be the same in the end with a whole lot less enragement due half *** information.

Many guild leaders have contacted us with their concerns about coordinating their guild members in preparation for the free character transfer service and I wanted to take some time to explain how this process will work.

 

In order to ensure an optimal playing experience for every server, we’ll be offering direct transfers from one origin server to a pre-selected destination server. This means that the destination server will already be selected for the origin server. As mentioned in our blog post, all server types and languages will be respected. You will not find your PvE characters transferred to a PvP server, or vice versa.

 

Therefore, all guild members on the origin server will be eligible to transfer to the same destination server, ensuring that the guild has the opportunity to stay together.

 

As we mentioned in our blog, the character transfer service will be made available gradually, starting with a small number of origin servers and adding more until all servers eligible for transfer are available in the service. We know everyone is excited for the opportunity to transfer their characters, but it is critical that we do this gradually to ensure both a smooth transfer as well as a great player experience on the destination servers.

 

Eligible servers will be listed as they become available for transfers at http://www.swtor.com/transfer, which will go live on Tuesday. This is to prevent potential server load issues.

 

Please note that we will not be dividing the population of an origin server onto multiple destination servers for this free character transfer process.

 

Additionally, players need not worry about rushing to transfer as free character transfers between selected servers will remain available for as long as it is needed to help balance server populations naturally. Rest assured that if we ever decide to stop this free character transfer service, players will be given plenty of advanced notice.

 

We hope that this clarifies any confusion.

So basically, the origin servers that will be eligible first are the ones you're planning to close first. Why not just automatically merge the servers in the first place, if you only allow transfer from one server predetermined server to another one that's also pre-determined anyway? That would speed up the process of getting rid of the lowest population servers greatly.

Was kinda thinking the same thing.... if it's servers W, X, and Y that get free transfers into server Z, then why not just merge those servers into Z and be done with it? The end result is the same and would only require a database merge, plus, it doesn't leave you with a server with untransferred characters.

So basically, the origin servers that will be eligible first are the ones you're planning to close first. Why not just automatically merge the servers in the first place, if you only allow transfer from one server predetermined server to another one that's also pre-determined anyway? That would speed up the process of getting rid of the lowest population servers greatly.

Because it is much easier to transfer just the current players and make sure everything works compared to transfer everyone and end up with issues. You also have fewer naming issues this way. If you are Bob and Bob is already taken on your new server you could change to Joe. But if there is already a Joe on your old server that does not play anymore, you end up having to pick yet another name if it were a full merger vs keeping Joe with a transfer.

I understand that this is the way things had to go down. The active player base is spread out and this really is the best way to fix it.

I really appreciate the community team's effort in this thread in answering questions, you clarified a couple of things that worried me about the service, and I hope you'll be just as much help to my lingering questions.

Prior to game launch I was involved in the per-launch guild program, I pre ordered early and was in with the 2nd wave of head start folks on the server that my guild was assigned to. I had scheduled vacation to be part of the game's launch and primarily to finish my character creation by finishing chapter 1 and locking in my legacy name.

Looking at how this process is designed there is a very high chance that I will lose the names of my characters and my legacy.

I understand that I am under no obligation to transfer if my server is selected as an origin server, but I would be left with a choice of remaining on a dead server or of losing my identity, an identity that took a reasonable amount of effort to secure.

Also is this just a stepping stone to the future "mega servers" that were mentioned in a couple of interviews last month? If it is, how will that be done? Will these new servers replace the servers we are on, or will everyone need to transfer again?

Server merges=BioWare needs to sort out naming conflicts.

Server transfers=Players need to sort out naming conflicts because "they did it to themselves" *coughcough*

(quotes for emphasis, not to imply an actual quote.)

I understand that this is the way things had to go down. The active player base is spread out and this really is the best way to fix it.

 

I really appreciate the community team's effort in this thread in answering questions, you clarified a couple of things that worried me about the service, and I hope you'll be just as much help to my lingering questions.

 

Prior to game launch I was involved in the per-launch guild program, I pre ordered early and was in with the 2nd wave of head start folks on the server that my guild was assigned to. I had scheduled vacation to be part of the game's launch and primarily to finish my character creation by finishing chapter 1 and locking in my legacy name.

 

Looking at how this process is designed there is a very high chance that I will lose the names of my characters and my legacy.

 

I understand that I am under no obligation to transfer if my server is selected as an origin server, but I would be left with a choice of remaining on a dead server or of losing my identity, an identity that took a reasonable amount of effort to secure.

 

Also is this just a stepping stone to the future "mega servers" that were mentioned in a couple of interviews last month? If it is, how will that be done? Will these new servers replace the servers we are on, or will everyone need to transfer again?

Yes, you could lose your name. Get over it. Plenty of ways to modifiy it so that it looks similar.

http://usefulshortcuts.com/alt-codes/accents-alt-codes.php

Devs never mentioned mega servers, this was assumed by players. They will be able to increase the cap on existing servers so that say Fatman (random example) will now look to be standard when before it would be full.(also random examples as I do not have the exact numbers and am not quoting anyone)

Server merges=BioWare needs to sort out naming conflicts.

 

Server transfers=Players need to sort out naming conflicts because "they did it to themselves" *coughcough*

 

(quotes for emphasis, not to imply an actual quote.)

Naming confilcts are sorted. The first one on the server with that name gets it.

Yes, you could lose your name. Get over it. Plenty of ways to modifiy it so that it looks similar.

Yeah, because we're at fault that some spoiled brats demanded more servers at launch. It makes perfect sense to have to change your guild/character/legacy name because there's already a level 1 character, for example, with said name in your pre-assigned destination server. Screw all those that believed in the future of the game, pre-ordered it, got into Early Access and tried to get their desired names. They have no right to complain at all, how dare they!

Really...

Cheers.

It sounds like they are being too cautious. I am doubtful I will be satisfied with the results. I suspect my server will be a destination server and we will be sourced by a multitude of tiny, empty servers.

Whatever happened to mega-servers with higher population caps? More BS obviously.

Move us first BW, we are only 8 people left on our server...takes 10 secs.

right so curently we have eta on lists to come out on tuesday and transfers start latter that week? or even on the tuesday. So guilds dont know if they are going to have to move untill then , but with out knowing if u have to move , you cant put and plans in to affect , on top of this you dont know if u can put items on gtm , or even if u need to start orgnasing dividering up multiple guild banks , each with 3 tabs in , between guildys to move. bioware if you are rolling this out next week you know what suvers are going whare just tell us its so much easyer for us all to know. at least people can beguine to plan!!!

 

 

please give us the list of suvers that will be able to move and witch destination they will be moveing 2 !!!!!!

 

crazy wrighting sry all

I want to, but I wont.