FREE Character Transfers are Coming!

[JeramieCrowe]

How did they move the Aus players then? If they can do it for one lot, they can do it for the rest? Are we back to being 2nd or 3rd class again?

 

They did it all manually, by hand, one player at a time. It would take longer for them to get to you this way, for the rest of the population, than simply waiting a month for the automated software.

[Sporin]

They could hire the 1,000 people EA dumped because of BF3/SWTOR... think of it as compensation.

[JeramieCrowe]

They could hire the 1,000 people EA dumped because of BF3/SWTOR... think of it as compensation.

 

Please don't spread falsities. Any layoffs were neither because of BW, nor did it affect BW at all. Blizzard just laid off 600, but did not affect the WoW team. It would be the same as me blaming WoW for the layoffs.

[Timesjoke]

Hate to say this, but it sounds like you might be better off on an EU server.

 

Not true, actually. Because you have a non-standard play time, you might consider moving to a server with a different time zone designation, one that has peak hours that correspond more often with your availability.

 

First of all every other MMO I have played during the day has other people actually playing it, I have zero issue with finding a group on WoW during the day, ran 10 man DS yesterday with a pure pug group and downed 6/8 in a little over 1.5 hours. We died a few times but overall it was a good time.

 

Second, how was I supposed to know the server I selected would be dead a couple months later and if I do try to change servers, how do I make sure the one I am moving to has people that play during the day? There are no tools available to let me know where I can move to so the ability to change servers does not address the needs people have to find other people to play with at all.

 

 

 

Something of this nature is generally a poor reason to institute cross-server lfg functionality.

This is the exact reason to institute cross-server LRG tools, in fact it is the only reason to create such a tool.

 

This is supposed to be an MMO, but there is not enough people on the servers to allow us to group up so creating the tool will help us experience the game by finding other people who also want to raid but can't find enough players on their servers.

 

This is not an MMO if the only time to actually get a group together is during a narrow 2 to 4 hour period of time during the evening.

[Sporin]

Please don't spread falsities. Any layoffs were neither because of BW, nor did it affect BW at all. Blizzard just laid off 600, but did not affect the WoW team. It would be the same as me blaming WoW for the layoffs.

 

What part is false? Didn't the lay off x-amount? Isn't (in both cases) that the parent company? Wouldn't both parent companies be effected by the performance of the various parts of that company? If you believe there is no knock-on effect then thats grand. I know what I believe. thank you.

[JeramieCrowe]

First of all every other MMO I have played during the day has other people actually playing it, I have zero issue with finding a group on WoW during the day, ran 10 man DS yesterday with a pure pug group and downed 6/8 in a little over 1.5 hours. We died a few times but overall it was a good time.

 

Well, once TOR launches in China, too, you'll have your daytime pop like WoW.

 

Second, how was I supposed to know the server I selected would be dead a couple months later and if I do try to change servers, how do I make sure the one I am moving to has people that play during the day? There are no tools available to let me know where I can move to so the ability to change servers does not address the needs people have to find other people to play with at all.

 

Well, you just mentioned you've played other MMOs, so if you rolled on a server without a thought to the typical "launch surge/dropoff" that happens in every single MMO ever launched, that's no one's fault but your own. Transfers are coming, and within the typical 4 to 6 month timeframe.

 

Even your beloved WoW had low-pop servers 3 months after launch just like this.

 

This is the exact reason to institute cross-server LRG tools, in fact it is the only reason to create such a tool.

 

This is supposed to be an MMO, but there is not enough people on the servers to allow us to group up so creating the tool will help us experience the game by finding other people who also want to raid but can't find enough players on their servers.

 

This is not an MMO if the only time to actually get a group together is during a narrow 2 to 4 hour period of time during the evening.

 

The LFG tool coming in 1.3 will be here AFTER server transfers and culled low-pop servers. Thus, once 1.3 gets here, X-Server will be completely unnecessary. PvP queues will be X-Server, however, as it doesn't harm the server-specific loot table/economy that's currently in place.

[JeramieCrowe]

What part is false? Didn't the lay off x-amount? Isn't (in both cases) that the parent company? Wouldn't both parent companies be effected by the performance of the various parts of that company? If you believe there is no knock-on effect then thats grand. I know what I believe. thank you.

 

Pretty sure there are plenty of failures with EAs own games that contributed to that. Since no one in BW was laid off, I'd say the proof is in the pudding.

 

Besides, what's even more to blame for layoffs than any game's failure is the overall economy itself. There have been LOTS of layoffs worldwide, and had little to do with the success or failure of the company's product.

Edited May 1, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[Quilland]

I mentioned the server transfers in a OPS group I was in on Krayiss Obelisk (one of the ghostliest ghost town severs).

 

The immediate response to 'some time in early summer' was "Did they say what year?"

 

It really is unconscionable that Bioware didn't realize they would have a falloff in subscriptions after the first month or so. Every other MMO in the past 5 years has had that problem. It was the height of arrogance or unbelievable stupidity to think they would not have the same problem. The term 'early summer' is distressingly vague and Bioware's track record has not been good so far on getting things right.

[Sorrasht]

They did it all manually, by hand, one player at a time. It would take longer for them to get to you this way, for the rest of the population, than simply waiting a month for the automated software.

 

Sure they did bro, sure they did. I imagine they even typed each line, going item by item. Amazing how the same people are here everyday defending windmills (not unlike Don Quixote) while different people show up everyday smacking reality right in their faces. Yet they look like government official stating "everything is ok, move along" while millions of people quit their RL game. AKA unemployment. These people prolly tell people to just emigrate. Easy.

 

But no... we're all ignorant muppets and they lack "technology" to implement mergers/transfers. What is that? Are they buying new racks, routers and switches? Their supplier takes 2 months to deliver? Or they just can't figure out which cable goes where?

 

Maybe i should send them my CV, along with some coding 101 so can they script stuff instead of manually transfering table lines for each player... if you trully believe they're that cluless (which i personally don't).

 

This gets more surreal each day.

 

Gonna go back to my 20m queues on my uber full Chuundar@EU server. Maybe today i'll find 4 people for a HM. One can only hope, reroll, or emigrate to another game, right?

[Jederix]

I haven't read this thread yet, but I will. I'm guessing we still have the same 20 or so people claiming that the only thing that is going to save the game are mergers.

 

You will not get mergers, no matter how much you cry for them. Not until the playerbase has dipped below profitable levels and the game is in its last moments. That time is not now.

[JeramieCrowe]

Sure they did bro, sure they did. I imagine they even typed each line, going item by item. Amazing how the same people are here everyday defending windmills (not unlike Don Quixote) while different people show up everyday smacking reality right in their faces. Yet they look like government official stating "everything is ok, move along" while millions of people quit their RL game. AKA unemployment. These people prolly tell people to just emigrate. Easy.

 

But no... we're all ignorant muppets and they lack "technology" to implement mergers/transfers. What is that? Are they buying new racks, routers and switches? Their supplier takes 2 months to deliver? Or they just can't figure out which cable goes where?

 

Maybe i should send them my CV, along with some coding 101 so can they script stuff instead of manually transfering table lines for each player... if you trully believe they're that cluless (which i personally don't).

 

This gets more surreal each day.

 

Gonna go back to my 20m queues on my uber full Chuundar@EU server. Maybe today i'll find 4 people for a HM. One can only hope, reroll, or emigrate to another game, right?

 

Amazing how some people don't even check before spewing crap all over the place. Here, let me help you:

 

Hey everyone, I'm pleased to announce that the manual APAC character transfer process is now complete. Many, many thousands of eligible characters were transferred, allowing many more players in the Asia-Pacific region access to servers with lower latency. To all of you with transferred characters, we hope you enjoy your new 'home'.

 

This marks the end of our first stage of character transfers. Now our focus turns to a more robust, automated and larger scale character transfer service, which is currently in active development within the studio.

[HeavensAgent]

It really is unconscionable that Bioware didn't realize they would have a falloff in subscriptions after the first month or so. Every other MMO in the past 5 years has had that problem. It was the height of arrogance or unbelievable stupidity to think they would not have the same problem. The term 'early summer' is distressingly vague and Bioware's track record has not been good so far on getting things right.

They did realize it, and even cited it as a reason not to increase launch servers when the community demanded it. They had an industry standard in place to handle the situation. What they had no way of knowing was that the legacy information tied to our characters would prevent the industry standard from functioning properly; it could move our characters, but not without risk of losing character information and/or character corruption. As soon as this was realized, they set to work on creating a method that would function properly.

[Timesjoke]

Well, once TOR launches in China, too, you'll have your daytime pop like WoW.

 

So you think the WoW population is all from China?

 

They will most likely have their own servers and to be honest, I get enough irritation with the frenchies spamming on my server as it is, if the chat will be taken over with chinese, that would not be very much fun I am thinking.....so no, that will not fis the populatiopn issue in the slightes.

 

The point is to have other people to play with, not just people logged onto the server you can't play with.

 

Well, you just mentioned you've played other MMOs, so if you rolled on a server without a thought to the typical "launch surge/dropoff" that happens in every single MMO ever launched, that's no one's fault but your own.

Insulting? Why do people like you always turn to insults to make up for your lack of a good arguement?

 

I played WoW at launch and never had this much trouble finding groups after reaching top level. Yes, during leveling there were issues, people all gain levels at different rates of speed so it was hard to find enough people at your level to fill out the run but there were lots of people at top level to play with at all times of the day. Sure it could still take time to get a good group, but at least there were other people to actually try to gather together.

 

 

Transfers are coming, and within the typical 4 to 6 month timeframe.

 

Even your beloved WoW had low-pop servers 3 months after launch just like this.

 

Apples and oranges, this all depends on your definition of low population. I had plenty of people to play with at max level in WoW, I have nobody on my server to play with on this game during the day. It seems SWTOR is creating a NEW definition for the term low population.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love this game in theory, the story and solo quests are great. They simply created about 70% too many servers and spread out the available player base too wide to make endgame possible for anyone who does not play in a narrow 2 to 4 hour window on their server.

 

 

The LFG tool coming in 1.3 will be here AFTER server transfers and culled low-pop servers. Thus, once 1.3 gets here, X-Server will be completely unnecessary. PvP queues will be X-Server, however, as it doesn't harm the server-specific loot table/economy that's currently in place.

Giving free transfers will not fix this problem in the slightest, people randomly choosing a new server does not gurantee you will get a good one now will it?

 

What if a lot of transfers are equal numbers swapping back and forth? Foir the server transfers to work they need to actually close most of the servers and to the best of my knowledge they are not willing to do that.

 

What does someone do if they use the free transfer and still are on a dead server and can't find a group to run with? Give up? Pay their money anyway even though they do not get to experience all the game "should" offer?

[HeavensAgent]

Sure they did bro, sure they did. I imagine they even typed each line, going item by item. Amazing how the same people are here everyday defending windmills (not unlike Don Quixote) while different people show up everyday smacking reality right in their faces. Yet they look like government official stating "everything is ok, move along" while millions of people quit their RL game. AKA unemployment. These people prolly tell people to just emigrate. Easy.

Different people each day, perhaps, but the same unsubstantiated conspiracy theories each time. You would think more people would actually look for similar posts before making their own.

But no... we're all ignorant muppets and they lack "technology" to implement mergers/transfers. What is that? Are they buying new racks, routers and switches? Their supplier takes 2 months to deliver? Or they just can't figure out which cable goes where?

They've stated they need to purchase and install the hardware for the task. What's in place currently is incapable of handling the load of general server transfers.

Gonna go back to my 20m queues on my uber full Chuundar@EU server. Maybe today i'll find 4 people for a HM. One can only hope, reroll, or emigrate to another game, right?

Alternatively, you could wait for transfers to be possible.

[HeavensAgent]

Apples and oranges, this all depends on your definition of low population. I had plenty of people to play with at max level in WoW, I have nobody on my server to play with on this game during the day. It seems SWTOR is creating a NEW definition for the term low population.

WoW quietly merged servers due to low population numbers on more than one occasion.

[Emrill]

sence GW2 beta has come out my server is dead. and raiding has stoped in my guild. we now know they can do transfurs they just did some but now they want us to wait. making us wait will harm this game even more. i dont know if i can wait till summer as of right all i have to do in game is stand around fleet once my dailys are done. and if thats all i can look forward to till summer ill end up finding another game to play.

 

I don't think judging this last weekends server population drop really holds water. It goes without saying that all MMOs probably experienced a drop to people playing the GW2 beta weekend. Also the game is still a couple months from gold with one or two more beta events between now and then. You should focus on if your server is consistently barren and not just last weekend.

[Powderhorn]

My server currently has 40 people online. Period. No WZs are going, no queues are popping, there is quite literally nothing going on. Summer begins Wednesday, June 20, 2012. That's a little less than two months away. And this is just the closest approximation to "free character transfers". I'll wager they're going to offer transfers from overpopulated servers like Fatman to underpopulated servers like Deadweight. Who in their right mind is going to go from a bustling metropolis to a ghost town? It's not like the gun laws are any different between the two.

[Mallorik]

I have to agree with Veluthurk, I've always had more difficulty running content during the summer. In WoW, City of Heroes, EQ2, and WAR, the population seems to be quieter. It may just be a matter of players continuing to play the same hours a week as usual, but varying that time throughout the day. This would account for a significant lessening of the population during what would normally be peak hours. Or it is possible that people actually play MMORPGs less during these summer months, for a variety of reasons.

 

In any case, if you do some searching you'll see that it's not just player perception. Those working in the industry have noted several times over the years that activity appears to drop over the summer months.

 

YEah when i first heard about this or noticed it years ago it didnt make sense to me either at first but it is true. In the summer time people are on vacation and doing alot of different things, they have less of a set schedule, work and school are all mostly on a schedule that you can work around, going to disneyland or water skiing isnt.

[Jederix]

At least I know for sure that there is no point renewing my subscription at this time. By July I will have long forgotten about this game as will the other 80% of the population that have left by then.

 

Way, way too little, way too late.

 

Exaggerate more. Really, it helps your case.

[JeramieCrowe]

Giving free transfers will not fix this problem in the slightest, people randomly choosing a new server does not gurantee you will get a good one now will it?

 

What if a lot of transfers are equal numbers swapping back and forth? Foir the server transfers to work they need to actually close most of the servers and to the best of my knowledge they are not willing to do that.

 

What does someone do if they use the free transfer and still are on a dead server and can't find a group to run with? Give up? Pay their money anyway even though they do not get to experience all the game "should" offer?

 

My evidence is not even anecdotal. RIFT had the very same posts, pop issues, and complaints precisely one year ago. The offered free transfers, closed low-pop servers like BW is likely going to do, and voila, problem solved.

 

The proof is there for anyone that doesn't just want to rant.

[JeramieCrowe]

My server currently has 40 people online. Period. No WZs are going, no queues are popping, there is quite literally nothing going on. Summer begins Wednesday, June 20, 2012. That's a little less than two months away. And this is just the closest approximation to "free character transfers". I'll wager they're going to offer transfers from overpopulated servers like Fatman to underpopulated servers like Deadweight. Who in their right mind is going to go from a bustling metropolis to a ghost town? It's not like the gun laws are any different between the two.

 

My server currently has 35. While people are at work. And school. Your point? You think this is different than any other MMO at 4 months old?

 

Incidentally, in the evenings, there's typically 150 on the Fleet every day on my server, too. So counts at this time of day are completely useless.

 

Also, they're more than likely going to offer free transfers from low-pop servers to standard servers, then cull a few low-pops. It's an MMO standard these days.

Edited May 1, 2012 by JeramieCrowe

[GreySix]

I get irritated if I see more than five on a planet. Stay out of my way. I own this planet. It's mine.

[HeavensAgent]

I get irritated if I see more than five on a planet. Stay out of my way. I own this planet. It's mine.

You have no claim. I see no flag. And if i did, I would burn it. So there; it's mine. Edited May 1, 2012 by HeavensAgent

[Mallorik]

My evidence is not even anecdotal. RIFT had the very same posts, pop issues, and complaints precisely one year ago. The offered free transfers, closed low-pop servers like BW is likely going to do, and voila, problem solved.

 

The proof is there for anyone that doesn't just want to rant.

 

I really liked what rift did and i think it worked well, i was originaly on a really low pop server so i rerolled to a better one, by the time i hit 50 again there was 2 hour log in ques at raid time. then they implemented the free server transfers, i advertised in the server forums (something swtor needs badly) for a new guild and found an awsome one on another server, moved to that server and had a great time.

[Kalevryn]

I am really curious how this will play out. I had the misfortune of ending up on a server that isn't the worst of the worst, but with only 75 empire, and a repub side that gets about 15 at peak times, it's frustrating.

 

A month ago I re-rolled to a higher pop server (Harbinger) in hopes that I could re-unite my 3 50's, and many game hours on Crucible Pits with the new character. Based on this Q&A, I see me having to pay to get my characters from the lower pop to the higher pop...... seems kind of BS if it shakes out this way. As much as I have put on a grin and tried to play through this lack of people to do anything with, I fear I may be at wits end with this population issue that has been allowed to get worse by the day.