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Character Transfer, Server Populations and You


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In a previous Community Q&A we talked about character transfers, and announced that they were coming in early summer. Character transfers are a complex process, but we're almost ready to go. Starting next week on June 12th, 2012, we’re allowing character transfers to occur between selected servers in order to provide a better gameplay experience for our players by ensuring population balance across the service.

 

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Edited by JovethGonzalez
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A compilation of questions and answers from the Community Team on this topic can be found below:

 

General

 

I have a question:

How will we be affected (if any) if say we are on an origin server, but have no desire to move, either because we like small servers, or we just don't want to deal with the xfer process?

 

You are not required to move when transfers become available; it's your choice if you'd like to stay on your server.

 

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My question is, can all of my 8 characters that are on one server move or only one of them?

 

If your server becomes eligible for free character transfers, you'll be able to move all your characters from that server onto the destination server.

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Joveth, what is the plan for RP servers ?

 

Will we be allowed transfers from RP-PvP to PvP servers ?

 

Hi Rogoo,

 

As mentioned in the blog post, we will be maintaining server types. So it will be RP-PvP to RP-PvP.

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OK, I see one big, big problem. Let me quote the article:

 

"We're sure many of you are interested to learn which servers are eligible for outgoing transfers and which servers are eligible to receive transfers. 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."

 

What I interpret this to mean, is there's no guarantee my guildmates will end up transfered to the same server as me (I'm the GM of a guild on Kinrath Spider)

 

I'd love to get clarification on this

It looks like this line is causing a little bit of confusion. Hopefully I can help clear that up! What we're saying here is that we're unable to provide the origins and destinations in advance because those lists may change internally as we watch the response to transfers. We'll be monitoring populations and how many players are transferring, which will inform our decisions about further origin and destination servers. We won't be changing the destination on you once it's announced, we just don't want to announce a pair too early.

 

Guilds

 

This is a good thing definitely. Only problem I foresee is that a guild of people who want to stay together happens to be on one of the origin servers. They allow us to move to a destination server for a day... two days... a week... whatever their timeframe is. But then that opportunity is limited in time and/or the destination server changes suddenly without warning and we still have half of our guild trying to transfer off the origin server or we have a couple integral members on vacation for the week and completely miss being able to transfer. Suddenly we either have to choose to keep the whole guild on a suddenly dead server or screw over a chunk of our guild members and leave without warning to them.

 

Like I said this transfer is definitely a very good thing and happy it is sooner then later. But not having some sort of guild transfer function could be problematic.

Many guild leaders have contacted us with their concerns about coordinating their guild members in preparation for the free character transfer service and I wanted to take some time to explain how this process will work.

 

In order to ensure an optimal playing experience for every server, we’ll be offering direct transfers from one origin server to a pre-selected destination server. This means that the destination server will already be selected for the origin server. As mentioned in our blog post, all server types and languages will be respected. You will not find your PvE characters transferred to a PvP server, or vice versa.

 

Therefore, all guild members on the origin server will be eligible to transfer to the same destination server, ensuring that the guild has the opportunity to stay together.

 

As we mentioned in our blog, the character transfer service will be made available gradually, starting with a small number of origin servers and adding more until all servers eligible for transfer are available in the service. We know everyone is excited for the opportunity to transfer their characters, but it is critical that we do this gradually to ensure both a smooth transfer as well as a great player experience on the destination servers.

 

Eligible servers will be listed as they become available for transfers at http://www.swtor.com/transfer, which will go live on Tuesday. This is to prevent potential server load issues.

 

Please note that we will not be dividing the population of an origin server onto multiple destination servers for this free character transfer process.

 

Additionally, players need not worry about rushing to transfer as free character transfers between selected servers will remain available for as long as it is needed to help balance server populations naturally. Rest assured that if we ever decide to stop this free character transfer service, players will be given plenty of advanced notice.

 

We hope that this clarifies any confusion.

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The only question/suggestion that I have Is why doesn't the guild bank move with the guild leader when they transfer? GM has unlimited access anyway, so if they wanted to ninja it they could anyway. I don't understand the reasoning behind needing to put a ticket in for the guild bank.

 

Also do we need to move all items out of the guild bank before the move and the ticket will only revive the slots the guild has purchased or will the ticket move all items and money from one guild bank to the new server?

 

There will be a full FAQ published on Tuesday to answer most of your questions, but I wanted to go ahead and answer these two.

 

1. Due to a variety of factors (including the naming and re-naming process after transferring characters), this was deemed to be the most efficient method in assuring that Guilds retain their Guild Banks on the new server.

 

2. Yes, you will have to:

  • Remove all items & credits from the Guild Bank.
  • Disband the Guild.
  • Transfer to the new server and reform the Guild.
  • Contact Customer Service to re-establish the Guild Bank and Guild Bank tabs.

 

Hopefully that answers your question.

Edited by Wekeltes
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So now will you give us cross-server LFG? Because there is no *********** way that enough people are going to transfer to a destination server to keep queue times low. Or are your EA masters just wanting you to make people pay to transfer where they actually want to go. Way to over-promise again.
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Hey Devs-

 

If 1.3 is focused around Group play, why the hell are you making it hard to move a GUILD, the only GROUPS some of us have been relying on for the past few months? I'm still holding on to a thin shred of hope that my server is targeted as a destination, because this seems like a bit much of a burden to shift onto your playerbase to rectify your post-launch kneejerk reaction to open way too many servers. Great option for you unguilded folks, but guilds are getting the shaft here.

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1.) I understand June 12th is your scheduled date. If that slips....I don't mind at all. At least we have a target to look forward to...instead of hoping for action soonish.

2.) I am keeping my sub.

 

Thanks for giving us a date BW. Believe it or not....it's a big deal. Better than being in limbo. If it's late...so be it...it's understandable. Being a ~mushroom~......not fun at all.

 

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BYE BYE INFINITY GATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Im seriously pissed we cannot move from PVP to PVE, seriously

 

I wanted to move my character that i have spend 6 months investing time in to play with a group of friends, now i cannot

 

Only option left to me is start again

 

Thanks Bioware

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Ahh, good on ya! Now all the QQers can move on to something else! :D

 

 

it'S double edged sword. I don't liek the idea of reforming the whole guild. And begging for my guildbank. and we all know how "good" is their customer service.

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Thank Gawd. I loved my Trooper Vanguard and I was just getting into the thick of things but the lack of server population caused me to re-roll another character on a high pop server in anticipation of the character transfer. This is very good news to me.
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it'S double edged sword. I don't liek the idea of reforming the whole guild. And begging for my guildbank. and we all know how "good" is their customer service.

 

It is pretty good. I've submitted more than 20 tickets, and received actual Live Chat 8 of those times within the same day. The last time was yesterday.

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Im seriously pissed we cannot move from PVP to PVE, seriously

 

I wanted to move my character that i have spend 6 months investing time in to play with a group of friends, now i cannot

 

Only option left to me is start again

 

Thanks Bioware

 

Ah hem .....

 

We understand that some of you may be looking to consolidate characters from a variety of origin servers onto one server, and others may be anxious to move to a specific server to be with friends. With the restrictions of this initial service, that may not be possible. We still believe that you will enjoy playing on a higher population server and hope you'll take advantage of the service, but you won't be forced to transfer. Future versions of the Character Transfer Service may allow more options in your choice of destination servers and may require a transfer fee. While we do not have a scheduled time frame for the launch of such a service, we are committed to making improvements to the Character Transfer Service over time to provide players with a great gameplay experience. Stay tuned to http://www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for more details!

 

You will be able to in the future. Just not in the initial wave.

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It is pretty good. I've submitted more than 20 tickets, and received actual Live Chat 8 of those times within the same day. The last time was yesterday.

 

8 of 20? and that's good?

 

I've got mostly bad experience with them.

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Ahh, good on ya! Now all the QQers can move on to something else! :D

 

And all the fanboys can go on to dousing other wildfires.

 

This should buy you a good day or so of actually playing the game before the rage returns and you feel the tug of the forums again.

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