What is causing the division is that every time an APAC player doesn't get their way they right away start accusing non-APAC players of "ruining" their server. How many APAC players actually like the fresh start server approach? How may non-APAC players were supportive of ways to get the APAC players back on a server that worked for them. The region bashing goes both ways but a lot of the blame goes to just a few APAC players at this point. Certain APAC players are blaming non-APAC players for the decisions made by Broadsword to look at limiting the inflow of credits. This had nothing to do with any non-APAC players. It was a Broadsword decision. Pretty much everyone knows that Bioware (and now Broadsword) never listen to the players so blaming non-APAC players for Broadsword's positions is completely unfair.

It's sad to hear that you too now are willing to accept the destruction of the economy of the only economically viable server in the game. I doubt it will draw in more than a few APAC players most of whom have wanted all along to take advantage of the server to boost their credits and dominate the markets. Best wishes for you and those of your colleagues who playing with a low ping was more important than destroying the server economy. I herby withdraw my support of any free unrestricted transfers to the APAC server from anywhere. If you are going to bring over billions of credits you can pay the CCs to do it.

It's too bad they didn't think ahead when launching the server of a way to transfer legacies over even if it left behind credits and items. That would have been a lot better than where it is at now with the uncertainty. They clearly are concerned about the economy and it is very unlikely they are going to allow unlimited transfers of credits anyway. They have already said that the economy in the game is something they are concerned with and watching closely on the server. Even now it's not to late to do a down and dirty transfer of character legacies (the legacy data should be independent of the character's possessions) and boost the server population. The economy on the server is healthy right now but it does need to be a home for people with terrible pings to other servers too. There is no reason it can't achieve both those goals.

I'd put snowballs at the bottom of the list precisely because you almost never see them used outside a few weeks a year. The issue with mounts is an everyday occurrence. There is no way they would remove the disruptive mounts since many people payed actual money for them but muting them on a player by player basis is something they could do to "get rid" of these complaint threads.

Anyway, regardless of the semantics, there are two solutions 1) disable all disruptive items server side 2) disable disruptive items client side Technically there is a third but more complicated way which would use a tag based system to disable them client side for only certain players (tying it into the ignore list might be a simpler way to do it rather than lots of toggles). Snowballs, loud mounts parked on top of RPers, large mounts parked on top of vendors, etc are all things that could be fixed with a client side "mod" without affecting everyone.

Mounts from planetary vendors cost next to nothing as well. By the time you reach level 10 and can use a mount, you should easily be able to afford one. There are already too many mounts in game. We really don't need any more.

you were in such a hurry to reply you didn't comprehend the bolded/underlined part

No one is suggesting this. They are suggesting modifying the visual appearance associated with being hit with a snowball (most people anyway). Just like changing the appearance of a mount to be smaller so it doesn't block the view of the vendor or quieting it's loud sound. These are client side changes that would affect only the people setting those flags. Everyone else could enjoy the "visuals". It's not unlike appearance MODs in other games. You say RPers should go somewhere else to RP, maybe the people who want to be disruptive should have to go somewhere else to be disruptive (special "disruptive" zones). As far as most things go, just having them in the game isn't disruptive, but how people are using them is. Allowing client side changes to block these things makes more sense than outright bans.

How about making the event companion purchasable with GS tokens (I'd be a lot more likely to spend the tokens on a companion rather than a cheesy reskin or customization). That way if you don't want them you don't have to buy them. There's plenty of other stuff for those not wanting companions to buy.

Can we get an opt out for people on large mounts standing on vendors (maybe make them invisible or shrink them down to tiny size). How about an opt out for people standing in the middle of RP groups with loud mounts or using any of the other "disruptive" forced participation. It's all pretty much the same, other people getting their fun by reducing yours Since a lot of the "disruptive" behavior is based on displays on your client machine, it would seem to be something relatively easy (not easy but relatively so) to incorporate into the client side software.

Sure. I like this idea for application to all server transfers. That way players interested in playing or moving to a different server can do so effectively for free if they don't bring tons of credits with them. That solves the issue of players creating a character on the "wrong" server as well as players that are dissatisfied with the gameplay on the server they are on because of changes over time. Moving lots of characters (and even items - I've rethought my position on this and with sufficiently strong credit transfer limits for the free transfers, price rises should be limited in the short term while the economic changes work themselves out) between servers is a lot less problematic than lots of credits. While I'm not an APAC player, I was able to play the game with less than 100 million credits for most of the time since launch including PVP and raiding without running out of credits, though I don't focus on any one particular game play mode.

Well Trixxie, it seems like there are some APAC players that transferring all their wealth to SV is more important than better ping so how about this update to your idea: Free transfers of all APAC characters until you reach a legacy max of 250 million credits (minimum character level of 20 to keep people from using throw away characters to transfer tons of items). After that, all transfers are full price. That way the people who want to transfer over for the experience of playing on a low ping server can transfer lots of characters while those for who it is more important to have lots of credits, can only transfer a few (or pay a lot to do it). The transfer cost should limit the influx of credits in much the same way as giving free transfers with limited credits.

Most likely to keep people from stockpiling them before an expansion to be able to fully upgrade immediately thus bypassing the grind BW/BS intended to stretch out game-play since expansions are so limited in content.

The lag issues are new. They started with the AWS update. When I placed them there, they had lag similar to the current lag on SV. Now SV is much better than EU.

The reason the remnant gear is now destroy only is that people were vendoring too much of it and it blew up the game economy. Adding something else you could sell would have the same effect.

Alright since we won't agree on item restrictions, I'd start with no more than it takes to open up 1 stronghold fully (about 2.5 million per room times 9 rooms = about 25 million) with any single character with a legacy max of 250 million (~10 strongholds).

It's been a while for me as well, but at one point it was possible to buy an item on one server then refund it on another. I don't know if that was changed or not. If it hasn't it should be. I'm not convinced of this. One would expect that a highly populated server like SF would have enough supply to prevent monopolies, but they exist there as well. It depends more on how easy it is to get into the "business". Crafting low end gear that uses low level mats is a lot easier to jump in and out of than crafting high end items that take large numbers of fairly expensive mats. It comes down to whether someone thinks there is enough reward to put in the effort to break a monopoly (which can be a lot of effort).

My bigger concern on transferring effectively unlimited stacks of items is that it is used to get around the credit restrictions. Mats that are gathered have no player cost, so selling them to a vendor is pure profit even though the payout per item has been reduced. It would be easier to code restrictions for all stacks than to pick and choose which stacks to apply it to. Some crafted items could be a problem if they are made from items that are much easier to obtain on the source server (such as PVP and Operations mats where server population plays a significant role in how easily they are obtained). Stuff made from grade 10 mats and below will never sell for significant amounts of credits anyway (the mats themselves are actually more valuable), but special materials can be quite difficult to obtain on a low population server (and the APAC server likely will always be relatively low population - what is and is not a viable population is open to quite a bit of debate). I'd rather see transfers opened up sooner with stronger restrictions than later with less restrictions and you could really do both. Start with more restrictive transfers then open them up more as you see what the influx of items/materials does to the server economy. Again, I think whatever restrictions are decided on should be applied to all server transfers not just specifically to the APAC server. It's pretty clear that the controls added to the other 5 servers are having a negative impact on new players (based on the number of complaints I've seen in the forums about the cost of just leveling on SV). Which was something many of us were concerned about when they implemented the quick travel fees and increased repair costs (but were told how "easy" it was to accumulate credits). That's a valuable piece of information that was gained from the "fresh start" aspect of the server. Like I said before, a "transfer" that moves all legacy unlocks and progress to the new server is something that can be done without any risk of destabilizing the server.

I'm sure its not a regional issue and is why some restrictions are needed.

I fully agree with #2 and partially agree with #1. There can be short term restrictions on items that are not detrimental to APAC players and yet don't allow the server to be flooded with items to the point people can start creating monopolies there (I know you don't agree but I think this is a real possibility that can cause far more damage than you believe and is almost impossible to reverse once it happens). CM items, gear, and other things that people don't have hundreds of are of no consequence and should be transferred normally. I'd even go so far as to say you could transfer legacy currencies at a level consistent with the number of characters you have (if you had 1000 of the currency and 100 characters you could move 10 with each character). Also all resell cooldowns should terminate on transfer to keep people from trying to refund items on the new server.

So should I get special consideration for moving my characters from the EU servers to the US servers. My ping to the EU went through the roof after the AWS upgrade (almost double the ping and lots more unstable) so I'm disadvantaged there now with lots of characters "trapped" there. Where exactly do you draw the line at giving special considerations to "disadvantaged" players?

I agree with this mostly, though I would not call it a "fresh start" server but a server with some semblance of a functioning economy. I think right now you have a lot of players that were complaining about the economy on the other 5 servers playing on SV because the economy is mostly working correctly (the ping to SV is much better than I expected from the US based on the playtest - and for me at least, the EU servers are much worse). That's not to say they should block transfers but rather they should consider the impact and take smaller steps. A straight up transfer of legacies would be a good start (that could happen basically immediately). The transfer of billions of credits (I know you don't support this but others are calling for it) and hundreds of thousands of items can be taken more slowly as it doesn't impact playing on the server. The last thing Broadsword should do is allow transfers to break the server just to appease a small group of "I want it all now players" (again, not including you in this group) just so they have to fix 6 servers instead of 5. It's not an all or nothing situation.

Not much you can do about closed accounts, unfortunately. If there was a way to tell which "new" players had closed accounts, they should get some kind of bonus as well. What I am seeing is two different groups of APAC players, those that just want to play on a server with good ping and their existing legacies and a second group that very much seems to be looking to make a profit out of the situation. I am happy to help out the former but very suspicious of the motivations of the later.

And none of that matters. If the character was created on the APAC server before it closed, special considerations should be made. If it wasn't no special considerations are warranted other than perhaps a reduced cost transfer.

That only applies to the players that were forced to move. Very few of the current APAC players were even around back then. Ones that were should get some special attentions (though not through the transfers themselves). Just being in the region shouldn't be a benefit (outside the improved current ping).