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

I do have 1 question.

With all the conjecture and speculation with name collision and losing beloved character names, do we actually know how bad the problem IS? As oppose to how bad it MIGHT be?

I didn't want to transfer my chars at first, but now... I SURE WON'T TRANSFER THEM!!! I'm a RP gamer, so I don't like all that grinding-pvp crap. It bugs me that there are only 3 RP english servers (Europe) and very few on the US. Finally when I decided to try transfer my chars, they only let me move them to THE PROGENITOR... Who would in his sane mind play in a server with such a pathetic, stupid, poorly named server? They could've come with Kryat Dragon Pearl, or The Maw or something else... but nooooo, THE PROGENITOR...

Then I come to this forum, a thing I have not done since the game release, to find out char transfer does not let you transfer all your chars to the same server, so you have to pay later to do that... nasty. If I have to pay to move my chars to the same server I'll wait

Why is it so difficult for BW to give us - their paying customers - a straight yes or no answer, to if they are planning on increasing our transfer options before the automatic forced move ? It's not a difficult question, they must have an answer if they are working to a plan of automatic moves by the end of summer.

Just because you don't place importance on character names doesn't mean that anyone who does is wrong. People paid $65 for the game at launch, and one of the benefits of this was having the privilage of taking their character names without filling them up with symbols or double-letters. Now, because EAware vastly overestimated the game's numbers, we have all these server shutdowns and countless people being forced to change their character and legacy names. Now, people who bought the game for $20, or, more likely, individuals who took advantage of the free trials or free-to-level-15 offer and never logged in again have taken the names of people who have paid for and actively supported this game for half a year.

To address your second point: several other MMOs have implemented a system where if someone never logs into their game at all for some amount of time (6 months, a year), their character names will be put into limbo, and other people who are actually going to play the game are free to take them. If no one does and they return, they get to keep their names - if not, they get a free rename. No deletion would ever occur. The system works, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Why should people who are never going to log in again get to sit on character names? If names really don't matter, why is there so much emphasis on them, both in-game and in the naming restrictions and rules?

Finally, your suggestion of "deal with it or don't play" might be true in this situation, but only if EAware has no intention of listening to customer complaints or responding to feedback. People have successfully enacted change countless times throughout gaming history, let alone human history, and if everyone had the attitude of "suck it up or leave", the world would be a grim place.

Sorry, it's really hard to care about this. Use a slight variation of the name, put in a ' or something, and it's almost good as new.
Bioware is not --- nor should they --- delete people's characters just becasue someone else is upset over a name. Just not gonna happen.

Same advice for you that I had to deal with also when dealing with forced server changes and having to play on overcrowded servers; we both have only one option: Deal with it or don't play.
I'm choosing to stay and play anyways, even though i have to bypass a lot of missions becasue the overcrowding and kill stealing makes many missions (esp. bonus ones) unplayable.