From the 4/27/2012 Q&A:

http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-april-27th-2012

Arymono: When will character transfers be available for everybody?

 

Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services): We will be rolling out our Character Transfer Service in early summer. First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice. We know everyone has more questions about character transfer, and we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

And again...

DrakeAssaShin: What is being done to address low population servers?

 

Dallas: The Character Transfer Service, as mentioned above, will be offering free transfers from/to specific servers. This should allow the most motivated players to get onto a higher population server.

Big news for the SWTOR community, especially those on low population (and super high population) servers. I am personally very pleased that BW is making this first wave of transfers free; good costumer service move on their part.

 

No exact ETA on the date of these transfers, but I imagine that "Early summer" means sometime in June.

hopefully this will make some people happy. though i think they should force a few servers to close moving all the players. atleast people can not say bioware isnt listening and reacting in a positive manner.

 

sure it may be the summer before they come in , but i could see that being a logistics nightmare to move all those players properly

"Early Summer?" Sorry, too little too late.

GREAT NEWS!!!

 

 

hope people stop making posts about it now and be happy for once.

 

 

 

 

you got what you already had coming people now relax and stop with the posts.

 

 

 

 

oh no what next to post about?

Summer? Sorry my account will be prolly cancelled by then. Too late indeed.

im actually really pleased to see this information. a little bummed that the free transfers are only to specific servers though. I hope some good ones are on the list.

Summer? Sorry my account will be prolly cancelled by then. Too late indeed.

 

summer is only a few months away..and if you play a decent ammount you have a free month.. so i doubt a month or two more would kill ya

Free and paid for.

 

Does this mean free is from high to low pop servers, and paid for is going the other way? I hope not, and really can't understand why they don't just merge some servers. Surely character transfers will just exacerbate the problem on the low pop servers.

Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 have transfers in... the beta.

 

I love SWTOR and i don't plan to leave it, but we need it sooner.

Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 have transfers in... the beta.

 

I love SWTOR and i don't plan to leave it, but we need it sooner.

 

and from I have read....people are asking to transfer out of GW2:eek:

"The astronomical summer (Northern Hemisphere) begins Wednesday, 20 June 2012, and ends Friday, 21 September 2012."

 

So July. Wish I knew as to which servers would be available for the promo or free transfer so I could roll on them already. Guess I'll just keep to my new higher pop server for now and prob have to pay for my mara to be pulled over.

and from I have read....people are asking to transfer out of GW2:eek:

 

Dunno, didn't play it and don't plan to.

SWTOR is the only game i need.

This news is FAIL. Very disappointing as a guild master of a once greatly populated guild on a dead server.

 

He implies that, essentially, in order to ensure you get to go to whatever higher populated server you wish to go to, the possibility exists you'll actually have to PAY for it. Yeah, like I'm going to ask my poor suffering remaining guildmates to PAY to go to an active server. Right, that's going to work real well...

 

Good luck with that, Dallas Dickinson and Bioware. Congratulations on the hundreds of thousands of subs you'll lose by actually thinking you can charge people for a server transfer. Might even lose mine. Like heck am I going to pay to have my characters transferred in order to actually enjoy the game you guys screwed up the population distribution of.

 

Free transfers or bust, for this game.

 

edit: dissenting opinion above aside, I do actually appreciate you sharing the current plans for it. better then keeping us in the dark for X number of weeks further.

Edited April 27, 2012 by islander

Dunno, didn't play it and don't plan to.

SWTOR is the only game i need.

 

I wish it was the only game i needed. If I had a populated server, I suspect it would be.

Dude, you're pulling the trigger way to soon on this troll tactic. You needed to wait until server mergers. Now you're just going to dilute the impact of future troll attempts.

 

Nothing needed to be diluted.

 

It's what the market perceives along with future possible payers.

 

Shame you know 0 about marketing

"Early Summer?" Sorry, too little too late.

 

Oh for crying out loud...

What? You expect it to happen overnight?

There's just no pleasing some folks.

I wish it was the only game i needed. If I had a populated server, I suspect it would be.

 

I had to reroll to a populated server.

Kinda sad to leave my old chars dying in a empty realm (17 people in the Imperial Fleet @ Prime) but it's the only way to roll.

I had to reroll to a populated server.

Kinda sad to leave my old chars dying in a empty realm (17 people in the Imperial Fleet @ Prime) but it's the only way to roll.

 

See, I'm a GM so I can't do that.

Even if I did, part of me refuses to accept the fact I have to be inconvenienced due to Bioware allocating me to a now dead server without preparing for such a scenario ahead of time. I would give them static about paying for all this, but let's be fair - I'm currently playing the next 30 days for free, so... I'll schlep along on my dead server a bit longer.

I agree with those who have pointed out that this should have been something they should have foreseen. I don't expect transfers to happen over-night but I do expect them to happen sooner than July as some have said. And hopefully sooner than 1.3 though it sounds almost as if this is part of the 1.3 patch. I do agree that initial transfers, regardless of which server people are wanting to go too should be free and that a consolidation of servers needs to happen afterwards. It is pointless to try and incentivise transfers to low-pop servers as most people seem to be wanting to do the opposite. However this is all purely my opinion based on the ideas and knowledge given and present. I will continue to play the game as I have re-rolled to another server already, however I maintain my right to complain about the lack of certain features.

I'm sorry but this system needs to be out much sooner then just a vague "early summer" and we should get free transfers as well. I mean the free "we're picking the server you can go too" is not really what we are looking for. Really if you are going to do that then just merge the servers rather then offer a free transfer.

 

I mean I'd like to move one of my characters from a West Coast RP-PvE server over to an East Coast one as most of the RPer's decided to go and make an RP 'super server' on a East Coast server. This plan? Sorry sounds like I'm going to be stuck on a West Coast server and I'm going to have to stay there or pay a good sum of money (Transfers tend to cost $50 bucks and it wouldn't shock me if that's the going rate here).

 

Really BioWare this is your last shot, change the plan as I can already tell you that the player base is not going to be happy with the plan as is. Move up the time and or tell us when you are planning to do this. Or you are going to lose most of what's left of the player base.

It never ceases to amaze me how whiney some people are. After complaining for so long, Bioware gives you what you want and you still complain cause that's not good enough? Some people don't understand how much work goes into these games, it doesn't happen overnight. If your going to QQ and threaten to quit then do it! I'm sure those of us that are happy to hear this news won't miss you.....at all -_____-

Resub in the summer if it's too late OrNot. I don't know what else to say. Some things I guess can't be done over night. At least it's coming.

It never ceases to amaze me how whiney some people are. After complaining for so long, Bioware gives you what you want and you still complain cause that's not good enough? Some people don't understand how much work goes into these games, it doesn't happen overnight. If your going to QQ and threaten to quit then do it! I'm sure those of us that are happy to hear this news won't miss you.....at all -_____-

 

They arent giving us what we want.

 

What we want: Freedom to transfer our character from ANY server to ANY server.

 

What Bioware is giving us: conditionally free transfers.

 

It'll be largely unacceptable to most of my remaining guild. We're not going to move from a dead light server to a borderline dead 'standard' server, just because Bioware tells us that's where we have to go for free.

 

We're customers, and we have no shortage of choices. I'm not asking for free continual willy nilly transfers (although hey, Trion and NCSoft offer this), I am asking for UNCONDITIONALLY FREE first transfers for every character.

Edited April 27, 2012 by islander

/facepalm

 

To those taking issue with free transfers only to specific servers... are you serious?

 

Do you think they want everyone transferring to Swift, Fatman, or Tomb? By designating certain servers as free transfers, they can build up other servers to capacity and then move on to others. Its not really a hard concept.

 

But yes, if you are just dying to get on to one of the full servers, you have the option to pay for it

"Early Summer?" Sorry, too little too late.

 

Agreed, another couple months? No thanks....ah well, GW2 and Tera to play for awhile.