I have a question regarding transferring of characters who may be on wildly different server types. The announcement indicates that we will not be allowed (at this time, under free transfers) to change server types (thus pve only goes to pve, pvp only to pvp, and I assume rp only to rp). I assume this restriction will also hold true for regions (thus, west coast to west coast only, and east coast to east coast only)

A bit of background before my question.

I have rerolled several times due to dropping server populations. As a result, I have characters I wish to keep on 4 different servers (2 rp east coast, 1 pve west coast, 1 pve east coast). I would much prefer to have these characters consolidated onto one server of my choice, rather than spread out among 4 different servers.

I believe I understand why you're handling the transfers the way you are, and I have no real argument against that. However, it seems that, short of paid transfers coming sometime in the nebulous future, even with server transfers I am stuck on 4 different servers (or at best 3, assuming the two east coast rp servers end up going to the same destination)

Is there any way you can accomodate people who are in my situation (of which I'm sure there are many, given the different server types and the number of people who have rerolled) short of paid transfers? Perhaps after the initial moving and shaking is complete, you could allow free transfers (for a limited time of course) to destination servers that are different than the source servers? Perhaps even putting restrictions on it (you must already have a level whatever character on the destination server before being allowed to transfer there).

Doing so would not increase the server population (because I already play there), it would just allow me to consolidate my characters in a fair and equitable manner.

That's pretty innovative. Glad to see another angle to it

I respectfully disagree. They have specifically stated that they would not be giving out the names of the destination servers because they will constantly be changing based on availability/population. We have 198 people in our guild. about 1/2 are alts. So we'll call it 95 people who need to transfer. Of those 95 roughly 60 are active (logging on and playing at least every other day if not every day). Those 60 people will not be guaranteed to wind up on the same destination server (if we are all understanding BW correctly).

I'll break it down in a hypothetical timeline for those who TL:DR the above text:

7:00am EST - GM and 5 officers manage to transfer to new destination server and get text messages and FB posts out to members with server name.

7:10am EST - 15 members manage to relocate to same server with Gm and officers

7:15am EST - BW changes destination server

7:20am EST - remaining members can not relocate to new server.

Guild is broken.

Scorpienne:

 

Dead wood?

 

I'm a GM of what was once an uber active, huge guild. That dead wood is as such because the server situation is terrible. When they look to come back, I'll want them on my guild's new server.

 

It sounds to me like this simply won't be possible. You either put in your transfer for X server during Y period of time, or you're screwed.

They need to learn that they can't just start and end stuff like this abruptley, this is critical for the games future. This is no rakghoul event where when it is ended people are missing out on a rare crystal, oh no, this is something that will affect subscriptions on a large scale.

Exactly. I don't know why BW just didn't say something like "OK, we're going to do a 4 to 1 ratio on transfers". If you are on dead servers A-H, you will be free to transfer to X or Y bigger server. This assignment fo server won't change for at least 2 months, to allow your old friends to re-subscribe and join you on your guild's new home."

Maybe that's how it'll actually be in execution next week. It doesn't look that way today, though.

Edit:

Jedi_Barbie: Yes, that's exactly what I was saying previously. It reads today like they are going to be essentially destroying existing guilds by this process.

I have a question/comments that I have not seen answered yet so I may as well give them a shot.

I'm excited to see a light at the end of this tunnel but I have a longer term question about character transfers. When I left my original server I randomly selected one of a handful that was higher population at the time, and now it remains as pretty much the only high population server. I would like to consolidate my new characters with my old characters but I highly doubt I would be allowed to move from a low pop to an essentially full server. On the same token I would imagine I could transfer my high pop characters to a new destination server but that's a pretty risky move. I've built a few friendships there and the server is rather developed in most regards but any server I move to has a good chance at being worse.

So my questions would be: Are all servers (regardless of current population) going to be available to move away from? Will there be future chances to move my old characters to my new, full server, in the future-- either for free or as a paid service? and finally, Will there be a time limit for the free transfers? Being able to wait a week and see where the servers are could go a long way towards making a positive choice.

QFT.

 

The more I read into and discover about this, the more fail is becomes.

 

Bioware, why don't you run some of your own scripts to determine what guilds would transfer without duplicate names? Transfer guilds with unique names together, then lesser priority to 1.) members' legacies and 2.) character names, and finally offer to put all of them into pre-sized servers or just to stay on low-pop servers.

 

Don't make us run around and do all of this legwork ourselves. You're the developer, and EA is the publisher, so time to own up and do this work yourselves to make sure server transfers are smooth. Stop unloading all this cr@p on the community for them to figure out and /faceroll on their own.

 

If you can't transfer entire guilds, then many guilds won't want to move. Solve the server pop issues without making people worry about being split up and losing their guild, legacy, and character names.

 

This is so FUBARED!

I agree. Im still a little confused why the onus is being placed on the players by Bioware.

I want this to work as I think its the only way to stop the bleeding until some changes and content come around. I am of the opinion however that their thought process and choices here are actually going to do more harm that good. Communities make MMOs work. They are the oil for the engine. This system flies in the very face of everything people have built up since launch. (Friends,Guildmates, PUG groups etc) Bioware obviously has the demographics on the servers and I can find no other reason why we are not consolidating into less servers through Bioware decided merges is a quite baffling and something I am having a hard time reconciling with the prior choice being the one thats "good" for the long term health of the game.

Another thing doesnt this announcement really fling a little egg on Daniel Erickson's face again?

"Super Servers"?

Really Daniel?

Exactly. I don't know why BW just didn't say something like "OK, we're going to do a 4 to 1 ratio on transfers". If you are on dead servers A-H, you will be free to transfer to X or Y bigger server. This assignment fo server won't change for at least 2 months, to allow your old friends to re-subscribe and join you on your guild's new home."

 

Maybe that's how it'll actually be in execution next week. It doesn't look that way today, though.

I hope we are all misunderstanding (by we all, I mean those of us that see this in a bad light) but I fear this will end up being just another poor decision adding to the list of Bioware/EA wants SWTOR to fail conspiracy.

I respectfully disagree. They have specifically stated that they would not be giving out the names of the destination servers because they will constantly be changing based on availability/population. We have 198 people in our guild. about 1/2 are alts. So we'll call it 95 people who need to transfer. Of those 95 roughly 60 are active (logging on and playing at least every other day if not every day). Those 60 people will not be guaranteed to wind up on the same destination server (if we are all understanding BW correctly).

 

I'll break it down in a hypothetical timeline for those who TL:DR the above text:

 

7:00am EST - GM and 5 officers manage to transfer to new destination server and get text messages and FB posts out to members with server name.

7:10am EST - 15 members manage to relocate to same server with Gm and officers

7:15am EST - BW changes destination server

7:20am EST - remaining members can not relocate to new server.

 

Guild is broken.

If you are on server A or B, you will goto server C or D....its not going to change to server E later. Your worry is unfounded.

Doing so would not increase the server population (because I already play there), it would just allow me to consolidate my characters in a fair and equitable manner.

Same have friends on PvE servers and I was really hoping to move to a PvE server with them, so I could play with them on my 2 50's that are on a PvP server.

I hope we are all misunderstanding (by we all, I mean those of us that see this in a bad light) but I fear this will end up being just another poor decision adding to the list of Bioware/EA wants SWTOR to fail conspiracy.

I wouldn't go as far as "wanting to fail" as it is just another example of poor planning/ technical incompetence - or both. Again.

What really amazes me is, they are savvy enough to be the FIRST MMORPG to actually import a pre-made guild into the game...yet they can't do it now via transfer

If you are on server A or B, you will goto server C or D....its not going to change to server E later. Your worry is unfounded.

That's NOT what the blog says.

I quote:

"However, because the process will be gradual, we cannot provide that information in advance. Depending on the number of characters transferred, the destination and origin servers eligible for transfer may be altered during the process. We don't want to promise a destination in case it may change. Listings will become available as servers become eligible for transfer."

Relax, you will be able to go anywere you want too.As long as it is a server they want you to move to for free.

Thats how i read it.Why should you not be able to go from PvE to PvP

BioWare is not going to say, nope sry, you made the char on a PvE server so thats were you have to be.

So relax dude.

it states on the blog,that you will not be able to go from PVE to PVP server. at least not with the free transfers.

Exactly. I don't know why BW just didn't say something like "OK, we're going to do a 4 to 1 ratio on transfers". If you are on dead servers A-H, you will be free to transfer to X or Y bigger server. This assignment fo server won't change for at least 2 months, to allow your old friends to re-subscribe and join you on your guild's new home."

 

Maybe that's how it'll actually be in execution next week. It doesn't look that way today, though.

That would be fine, but they'd have to 1.) make sure guilds transfer entirely and names are unique, and 2.) give people the option to opt out if they'll be forced to rename legacy/characters.

But it's still not an everyone-is-happy deal. What about guilds who do a lot of crossover and cooperative runs through Ops, etc? For example, we have a friendly guild who crosses over with us on Ops run. And we've had another from our past that did the same thing. There's no guarantee they can get transferred with us.

In the current state of affairs, all I can hope for is our server being a destination for other servers to transfer to us. And that's certainly not fair for everyone.

Ultimately I think Bioware needs to carefully and meticulously do something without disrupting everyone.

An alternative...

Perhaps they could start merging ENTIRE servers together that don't have any duplicate guild names, and without too many duplicate legacy/character names. And for those with duplicates, the original legacy/character creation date/timestamp would be the determining factor of who would need to rename.

If they don't let guilds stay whole, they're going to continue to shoot themselves in the foot and bleed subscribers just like they've done over time to Illum PvP.

I still think (imho) that server merges or the supposedly "super servers" mentioned earlier would be a lot better,

But

this COULD still be good news but there is so much potential for screw-ups

that i think we should wait and see how it is implemented before we rejoice or we cry.

This is exactly the situation we're working to avoid by limiting transfers. To quote the blog:

 

 

 

Our overall goal is that destination servers will have a higher active population than origin servers that are able to transfer to them.

Is there any chance guildmates could be split between servers during the transfers unwillingly if their origin server has a couple different options. Or will the players transferring be able to choose and ensure they stick together

What really amazes me is, they are savvy enough to be the FIRST MMORPG to actually import a pre-made guild into the game...yet they can't do it now via transfer

^^ C'mon, maaan...

^^ C'mon, maaan...

The guy you quoted has a very valid point. I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with him?

I have a question regarding transferring of characters who may be on wildly different server types. The announcement indicates that we will not be allowed (at this time, under free transfers) to change server types (thus pve only goes to pve, pvp only to pvp, and I assume rp only to rp). I assume this restriction will also hold true for regions (thus, west coast to west coast only, and east coast to east coast only)

 

A bit of background before my question.

 

I have rerolled several times due to dropping server populations. As a result, I have characters I wish to keep on 4 different servers (2 rp east coast, 1 pve west coast, 1 pve east coast). I would much prefer to have these characters consolidated onto one server of my choice, rather than spread out among 4 different servers.

 

I believe I understand why you're handling the transfers the way you are, and I have no real argument against that. However, it seems that, short of paid transfers coming sometime in the nebulous future, even with server transfers I am stuck on 4 different servers (or at best 3, assuming the two east coast rp servers end up going to the same destination)

 

Is there any way you can accomodate people who are in my situation (of which I'm sure there are many, given the different server types and the number of people who have rerolled) short of paid transfers? Perhaps after the initial moving and shaking is complete, you could allow free transfers (for a limited time of course) to destination servers that are different than the source servers? Perhaps even putting restrictions on it (you must already have a level whatever character on the destination server before being allowed to transfer there).

 

Doing so would not increase the server population (because I already play there), it would just allow me to consolidate my characters in a fair and equitable manner.

THIS THIS THIS THIS ^^

This is a perfect example of players like myself that saw not one but MULTIPLE servers go ghost town on us. We've rerolled servers more than once, hoping that the server we chose would have a stable population, only to find ourselves in the exact same situation as before....with nobody to play with.

For those of us lucky enough to have finally found one of the few servers that held onto a healthy population (a.k.a. Fatman, Jedi Covenant, Swiftsure, Jung-Ma, etc....) and have established that server as our new home, what becomes of us?

We play on those heavy pop servers NOW. We have legacy levels that are quickly approaching what we had on our original servers. Moving toons to those servers will not increase server load because we play there NOW.

But since we were pro-active and went through the stuggle to reroll from scratch, we might ultimately get the shaft when it comes to bringing our original toons to our new homes.

That leaves the option of LEAVING these high-pop servers to move to a potentially high pop one.

What kind of a public relations nightmare would you have on your hands if by creating new, high population servers you destroy the ones you already have?

I'm NOT paying extra to move toons to my current server. Not when I already paid for the game AND pay a monthly subscription fee. And if you think you can squeeze more money out of your user base by terming that function a 'convenience' then prepare to be shocked as another 400,000 subs leave the game.

You have plenty of players with toons scattered all over creation. Although this transfer feature will cater to the players that remained loyal to one server, it largely ignores the population that rerolled once or even several times to make the game truly feel like an MMO.

Let's hope as this transfer initiative progresses, you take steps to ensure it aids your entire user base instead of discriminating against a large portion of it.

That would be fine, but they'd have to 1.) make sure guilds transfer entirely and names are unique, and 2.) give people the option to opt out if they'll be forced to rename legacy/characters.

 

But it's still not an everyone-is-happy deal. What about guilds who do a lot of crossover and cooperative runs through Ops, etc? For example, we have a friendly guild who crosses over with us on Ops run. And we've had another from our past that did the same thing. There's no guarantee they can get transferred with us.

 

In the current state of affairs, all I can hope for is our server being a destination for other servers to transfer to us. And that's certainly not fair for everyone.

 

Ultimately I think Bioware needs to carefully and meticulously do something without disrupting everyone.

 

An alternative...

 

Perhaps they could start merging ENTIRE servers together that don't have any duplicate guild names, and without too many duplicate legacy/character names. And for those with duplicates, the original legacy/character creation date/timestamp would be the determining factor of who would need to rename.

 

If they don't let guilds stay whole, they're going to continue to shoot themselves in the foot and bleed subscribers just like they've done over time to Illum PvP.

I agree on some level you can't make EVERYONE happy, but I'm thinking if 30 guildmembers decide to return for one month in the next 2-3 weeks, and find out they can't possibly free transfer off of Kinrath to whereever I've begun the guild anew, they are simply going to leave for good.

Sure, a minority may choose to just transfer alone and start from scratch. Most won't, though. My guild was founded by dozens of people from the old SWG Tarquinas server. I also know my guild's situation is far from unique. The overall community of this game is much more mature and older then most. A lot of people are committed to gaming with each other.

These are the folks who will remain gone if they can't rejoin my guild on our new server.

As far as guild name goes, I'd be disappointed about choosing a different guild name, but it's FAR from a dealbreaker. All I care about is the people.

I just want the people in my guild now, and have been in recent history, to be able to rejoin us on our new 'active' population server. Hopefully, this isn't too much to ask.

That's NOT what the blog says.

 

I quote:

 

"However, because the process will be gradual, we cannot provide that information in advance. Depending on the number of characters transferred, the destination and origin servers eligible for transfer may be altered during the process. We don't want to promise a destination in case it may change. Listings will become available as servers become eligible for transfer."

i believe it is saying once servers A,B,and C move to server D...they may have to open up server G to accomadate servers E and F,because D is full. it makes more sense then what you are thinking.

Really looks like poor job. Guildbank transfer is NOT automatic. Guild transfer is NOT at all. Not enough time to inform members about transfer specifics.

Not good sign for guildmasters.

What do you plan on doing with all the origin servers that are no longer populated?

Do you plan on leaving them up indefinitely, or will you wind up closing down some servers?

It would be terrible for any new customers to come into the game, unaware that there are 10 healthy servers and 80 that aren't really used. Good chance they will roll on underpopulated servers and regret the decision.

this is good news ,i have 11 days left on my sub. if all goes well i may stuck around for a bit.

I've got 41 days left on mine and this announcement makes me think that will be it for me.