Hello all, just resubbed after a 3 year hiatus and I find that my old stable of characters is gone. I'm playing the same account as before, so that shouldn't be the reason why my character have gone walkabout. I know there was the server merges last November, is that the reason? I only ever got a handful of character to their mid 20s and early 30s, and from what I see that wouldn't be any trouble at all to play through again, but those were still MY characters and I'd much rather pick up again with them.

 

So, can anyone explain to me what's the deal here?

Like you said, there were server merges, so have you checked all of the servers to see if your characters are on any of them? Assuming they're not, this sounds like an issue best brought up to Customer Support as they might be able to restore your characters if they somehow got lost in the shuffle.

Have you actually joined a server? You may find that, when you join a server your characters may re-appear - possibly needed renaming.

Here is how the servers merged with United Forces.

 

North America (West Coast)

• Harbinger
  
• Begeren Colony
  
• Bastion
  

Became - Satele Shan

 

North America (East Coast)

• Jedi Covenant
  
• Shadowlands
  
• Ebon Hawk
  
• Prophecy of the Five
  
• Jung Ma
  

Became - Star Forge

 

Europe – English

• Progenitor
  
• Tomb of Freedon Nadd
  
• Red Eclipse
  

Became - Darth Malgus

 

Europe – French

• Mantle of the Force
  
• Battle Meditation
  
• Darth Nihilus
  

Became - The Leviathan

 

Europe – German

• T3-M4
  
• Vanjervalis Chain
  
• Jar’Kai Sword
  

Became - Tulak Hord

 

When you login in the game (usually) automatically takes you to the character select screen for the last server you played on. Since it has been a while for you that may be acting funky. When you log in, at the top center of the screen it will say "Select Character - [sERVER]," where [sERVER] is the server that you are currently connected to. The launcher may be sending you to the wrong server. In the bottom left corner of the screen, where the "Quit" button is, is the "Server selection" button (right above the quit button). Clicking that will take you to the server selection screen and from there you should be able to identify on which server you have characters (the server selection screen indicates how many characters you have per server). If that screen shows that you do not have any characters on any server then you may be affected by a recent issue some people have reported wherein all of their characters appear to have disappeared and their account appears to be downgraded. This is a temporary issue that often resolves itself by closing the client, waiting a few minutes, then logging back in (or so some have reported). If doing the above doesn't resolve the issue then perhaps a call to Customer Service is in order. You can contact Customer Service by clicking the "Contact Us" link found at the bottom of this page, then click the help.ea.com link, then click "Contact Us" again... Or just follow this link since that is an incredibly convoluted process that makes it seem like EA/BW are trying to hide something.

 

Hope that helps and it's something easily resolved.

Edited July 4, 2018 by ceryxp
Typos

Unless you pay for them, they are not yours, check the T&Cs, If I stay inactive for 3 years, but I keep my Sub, they will keep my characters, if I was free to play, there's no obligation.

 

It could simply be that after 3 years of inactivity on your part ... your characters were deleted.

 

3 years is a long time to expect anyone to "keep your dinner warm" while they wait for you to turn up

 

Start from scratch, it won't take long ... well ... in most cases ... you need to play to level

Unless you pay for them, they are not yours, check the T&Cs,

Check the T&Cs yourself. Even if you *do* pay for them, they are not yours.

Guess I didn't buy the "keep your characters" DLC before I left, thanks for the answers, I'll try bugging customer support. Or just make a new stable, whichever really.

Unless you pay for them, they are not yours, check the T&Cs, If I stay inactive for 3 years, but I keep my Sub, they will keep my characters, if I was free to play, there's no obligation.

 

It could simply be that after 3 years of inactivity on your part ... your characters were deleted.

 

3 years is a long time to expect anyone to "keep your dinner warm" while they wait for you to turn up

 

Start from scratch, it won't take long ... well ... in most cases ... you need to play to level

 

Uhh, yeah, no. They don't do that. Except under a couple circumstances they don't delete characters for inactivity. You may lose your character names, either because of when they did the Great Name Release of 2013, or due to how they assigned name seniority during the server merge, but not deleted. The exceptions being that if the OP's account had been an unverified trial account they may have deleted the characters after a period of time, or if the account had been hacked it is possible they may have been delete, either by BW or the hacker, but those can often be restored. But I can definitively say that three years of inactivity on a verified account is not long enough for them to delete your characters since I was unable to play from June 2013 until December 2017, and when I came back all I had lost where a few character names.

Guess I didn't buy the "keep your characters" DLC before I left, thanks for the answers, I'll try bugging customer support. Or just make a new stable, whichever really.

 

There was no "keep your characters DLC".

 

It was simply so that subscribers kept their characters during the merge, and non-subscribers didn't.

Decision by Bioware.

 

Anyway, call customer support.

Edited July 6, 2018 by AlrikFassbauer

There was no "keep your characters DLC".

 

It was simply so that subscribers kept their characters during the merge, and non-subscribers didn't.

Decision by Bioware.

 

Anyway, call customer support.

 

Again, characters were not deleted during the merger. Non-subscribers were given lower priority when it came to keeping their character's names, but they were not deleted.

Check the T&Cs yourself. Even if you *do* pay for them, they are not yours.

 

why take me so literally?

 

In the context of the discussion, if he was Subed, his account would still be there.

Uhh, yeah, no. They don't do that. .

 

If they are not deleted .... and he can't access them .... where are they?

Sent in a ticket, rep said that I'm most likely logged onto the wrong account, despite using the same log in credentials as I've always had, and to call them too get things sorted out. Fingers crossed things actually get resolved.