Character Transfer, Server Populations, and You (Part II)

My situation is a little different. I play both Imperials and Republic. Both of the servers i played on (Swiftsure and Daragon Trail) were West Coast PVP and both had the same destination server. I moved all my Republic to the Bastion but i no longer have slots left open. I now have a 50 Sorcerer and a 41 Sniper that i would like to move to different servers. This may also answer why the cant just merge, some people have too many characters to merge to just one server given the current limit of 8. i am hoping they give me the opportunity soon to move these characters to a server where i can play them. It is never as simple as it appears but it is hard to be patient since I couldn't play most of Republic for months on the dead server and now i can't play my imps. I am sure it is tough coming up with and implementing solutions quickly enough for everyone but i hope this gets resolved soon. I am happy to have all my Republic together though so i am prepared to wait a little longer for my Imps.

I think they now have a plan for making sure nobody loses their toons. Way too late though.

And they must think it will not be popular, or they would have announced it already.

It is really surprising to me that they didn't plan for this years ago. Every mmo has gone through the same growing / contraction pains (except WoW of course). Considering that track record, any intelligent dev would have been ready for this a looong time ago.

Something was really messed up in SWTOR's management / design area. They had industrial strength blinders on. And sadly, that may still be true.

Ive just got back after 3 months away and found out im virtually the only person on the sever Goluud Corridor (EU) so i decided hit the forums and found this ominous thread *** is going on server shut downs i take it please could someone advise me where to transfer to on the English EU servers thanx

http://www.swtor.com/transfer lists all the origin servers, and their destinations.

Good luck, and welcome back.

If they don't announce anything until it goes live, you are in the same position that everyone was in when origin/destination servers were announced.

Let's just say that they announce that all excess characters will be transferred to s specific "overflow" server. Some possible problems arise:

People create 8 dummy names on their original destination server so that their characters all get transferred to the overflow server (while not a problem in itself, it essentially allows people more of a choice of where to go than they allowed everyone else).

and/or

People create 8 character names on the overflow server and some people forget to delete the names when the characters are transferred and are unable to transfer, causing customer service headaches.

If they announce that destination servers will have character slots increased to 16, people will be upset because they can't reserve all their names now.

I don't see where it has been "clearly stated that all the origin servers will be closed by/around the end of the month" (unless you mean "locked" (to new players), which has already happened.) Although it may seem logical that dead servers will eventually be taken offline, that is not part of the current announcements. All they have announced is that automatic transfers will take place.

I called SWTOR Customer Service to ask what will happen to my origin-server characters when automatic transfers commence. (I cannot voluntarily transfer them without deleting characters on the destination server because I already have 8 characters there.) The representative explained that my characters will remain on the origin server, and I will be able to continue playing them on the origin server, desolate as the server may be.
Whatever Bioware plans to do with characters such as mine, locked in limbo on abandoned servers (my "own little fiefdom" ? I like it ), it will not be happening at the end of this month when automatic transfers are issued.

Well, don't be disappointed if that doesn't turn out to be the case. Custserv might not know what will actually happen, or they may have been told not to say anything. If it is the case, though, that would probably mean that the next phase in the transfers is coming very soon after automatic transfers because they wouldn't transfer everyone they possibly could off the origin servers just to keep them available for play for characters they couldn't transfer.

I refused to participate in the initial round of free Server Transfers in order to preserve my name in tact. Unlike many players, server population does not matter one whit to me as I chiefly am engaged by the splendid Bioware Storytelling and play primarily solo or with a single friend. I would have played this game (preferred it even) if it had been a single player game of Knights of the Old Republic III. I am definately more interested in maintaining my character concept I have imagined, rather than being swarmed with other players trying to mimic the WoW experience (which I did not enjoy or I would have stayed there).

I chose to stay on the dead server in order to keep my name. Now I am being told I will be forceably evicted and moved to the destination server against my will.

The way it was previously presented, those of us who made the choice to move would be treated as the second class citizens. There is no longer a choice. There is no longer a transfer, because there will no longer be two possible servers at the close of it. This is what is known as a Merger, and in a Server Merger, two servers and combined into a single server. Mine may be the inferior population server, but not no mistakes, I'm not leaving my server to go to another; my server is entirely combining with a second.

Every other company I have seen run Server Mergers has handled naming collision in a much more appropriate manner than Bioware did with their initial Optional Transfers, and I would like to point out that those of us who were given the option to stay behind and keep our names are now losing that option.

When SOE did Mergers with Everquest, and also with DC Universe Online, naming collision was resolved based upon Active Subscriptions being first priority. Somebody's new Free-to-15 Trial Character should not hijack my name when I am forceably ripped from my home. Neither should somebody who cancelled 5 months ago and has not returned. The customer you do have at this moment is more valuable than the customer that you could maybe have in the future. Do not gamble the subscriptions of the players who have stuck with you based on the value of 'maybe that other guy will come back later'. Reward loyalty.

For cases of two active subscribers placed in naming collision, any Character Investment way of deciding will be deemed fair. Highest level? Highest gear score? Most played time? Earliest Creation Date? I will begrudgingly surrender my name to anyone who exceeds me in any of those catagories; they would be justifyably as attached to their character as I am to mine. If I lose my name to an inactive account, or to somebody's level 1 GTN mule, or their Freebie Trial character, when I was denied my option to stay behind chained to my tree and hold onto my separate server, I am quitting. It's not an issue of name, but customer service.

I appreciate that you're trying to help, but when you close our servers, don't further punish us because we weren't the lucky 'destination' you drew out of the hat. If 2 or more servers are becoming 1, then it's a merger and it needs to be treatest as such.

Yeah the announcement said later this summer not month, so my memory failed there, but why would there be automatic transfers if the servers were going to remain open?

I kinda like the idea of having my own server all to myself. I think I'll fill up Jedi Covenant with characters so I get stuck on Eidolon Security.