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Character Transfer, Server Populations and You


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When I started playing SWTOR there were no AP severs available. Being located in Hong Kong I picked a server in Europe. My question is, when/how/if ever will I be able to move to my character (level 50) from the European server to the AP sever I now use and have characters on.

I know there was a deadline before to move to an AP sever, but I missed it…. Doh….

I’d be willing (albeit grudgingly) to pay to do this…..

 

That is probably months away. From reading a few other threads you are not the only person asking when those paid transfers will happen. Bioware is not ready to release info on this right now. Best guess look for announcement after all the free server consolidation is over or around 1.3

 

 

Hmm.... We will see new origin servers today? :confused:

 

@ Yesterday

We know that everyone is eager for us to continue making more servers eligible for transfer, and we appreciate your patience. It is important that we fix the issue we've encountered - even though it is rare, we need to ensure smooth transfers. We'll continue making new servers eligible tomorrow morning and on a continuing basis, so if your server isn't listed, please keep checking the list periodically for updates (starting tomorrow morning). As we go forward, we'll let you know as much as we can about when we'll be making new servers eligible.

Edited by Stovokor
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There is banter, there is chat on the general channels. Progenitor players are welcoming all newcomers. I didn't feel alone, or isolated. it felt like I was on a vibrant server again.

 

All in all, I would say it has been a great transfer. it went off extremely quickly, with only a very minor hitch (that was sorted by a simple relog). And that was only the first few hours of the transfers.

 

I, for one, am a satisfied customer.

This is extremely exciting to hear! :D

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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.

 

----

 

Removal of item maybe difficult but not impossible.

 

Disband the Guild ?????????? Crazy ? WHy would guild Master every do that. The most stupid idea i have ever heard of. The member who have unsubbed may come back will have no idea what has happen to the guild. The menbers that that are already in the guild will just be left hanging while the GM transfers.

 

Whouldnt it be a better idea to ask for the guild bank to be empty the GM transfers leadership to an alt. Transfers to the new server and set up new guild and the new guild bank and customer support delete the empty guild bank on the old server?

 

Also the the people on the old server when they log in know who to contact on the new server because names may have changed.

 

Another thought is how can they check then how many tab the guild that does not longer excist have/had ? seams a very strange system.

Edited by GreggorZane
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The glich had nothing to do with the reason they went slow. The only reason they went slow is to drag out this process for as long as possible, since while they are doing transfers they dont have to do anything else.

 

Take off the tinfoil hat, will you.

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It really feels like we need to start setting the bar pretty low with this team. It's beginning to be the only way to avoid tremendous disappointment.

 

I really see no reason why the effects of these merges should range from so drastic to so small. It's pretty sad.

 

Actually, I've started setting the bar very low for these boards so as to avoid a constant head shaking motion. Honestly, I've never seen so many, that know so little, professing to know so much. Some of the dvivel I've seen spew forth on this thread alone makes me fear for the human race.

 

Bottom line here is you, I, or anyone else on this board have no clue as to either what is happening, or step one in how to pull it off, yet we see post after post with ridiculous assessment of how it should be done, or how it is failing based on, well, zero knowledge.

 

It will happen as their plan dictates, it is moving smoothly, there are no issues here beyond the voices in some people's heads.

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The Fatman shouldn't have been on the first round of transfers regardless of origin or destination. So many other servers that were truly hurting that could have used any type of boost.

 

Once again, you have no idea about anything here. How can you make that assertion? Because you, in your vast experience as a game developer, have that listed in your plan of action?

 

How do we know they are not using that particular server as the gauge for population size and therefore seek to max it out first? How do we know anything that would allow any of us to make such a random, uninformed statement as you have made?

Edited by Blackardin
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ah ok, so you've shifted now from it being no fault of BWs to it being a combined effort lol.

 

Ten pages? Really people? Ten pages over a silly little meaningless bug occurring in a major software renovation (wow, there's a rarity)? Nine pages on the semantics of the argument? LOL

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I work as a database engineer (no, not for Bioware, no interest in living in Texas) and I can readily imagine all manner of scenarios that explain why transfers are happening slowly.

 

1. The Transfer Process Itself

 

I think BW has even confirmed this much - that the process itself is intensive and presents a strain on their systems. For this reason it is necessary to throttle how many origin/destination server pairs are opened up at any given point in time in order to avoid an unacceptable impact on the performance of the system otherwise. Remember that while these transfers are happening - and stop and consider the LARGE amount of data assocaited with our characters (which includes all of their story decision variables, companion data, etc.) - the system (especially the databases) needs to continue working for everyone who is playing the game and not transferring.

 

2. Server Populations Need To Be Watched

 

It isn't enough to look at the population of people playing right now, at least not without a major caveat to consider. Just because someone isn't playing now it doesn't automatically mean they won't in the future or won't transfer. Someone may only play a few hours a week, and when suddenly placed in a more populated environment may decide to start playing more. Because of this it is impossible to precisely predict how the transfers are going to impact the load on the destination servers. BW could perhaps go by subscription numbers, but that got us into the situation of having too many servers with too low a population and could very well not be a reliable measure either.

 

The ultimate objective here is to have the right number of servers of each type so they are all sustaining a healthy population to facilitate people finding groups, friends, and guilds. Too many in this context is equally undesirable as too few. Too many equates into queues or poor performance on the part of the hardware, while those on the too-low servers are clearly already familiar with those problems.

 

Because we're talking about doing X and then determining what to do next based on how the players react to it there needs to be enough time for the players to react to it. Rushing was what got us too many servers, the last thing we need is more rushing now.

 

Lastly if Bioware maintains a pace of 10 servers a day on average, and is aiming to reduce the number of servers in half (from 213 to 116 or 117) we're talking about 12 days to get everything done. If they do it 20 servers a day we're talking about 6 days. Honestly when trying to measure or observe how players react that isn't a lot of time to collect data on how people are reacting - it is still rather "fast" in that there isn't a lot of time to make observations on your data and thus make adjustments to it. As much as I'm sure everyone wants this process finished so we can enjoy the final result, some things cannot be rushed and be as good.

 

Don't believe me?

 

Try slow-cooking corn beef in a crockpot versus rapidly cooking it in a microwave and let me know which one tastes better ;)

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I work as a database engineer (no, not for Bioware, no interest in living in Texas) and I can readily imagine all manner of scenarios that explain why transfers are happening slowly.

 

1. The Transfer Process Itself

 

I think BW has even confirmed this much - that the process itself is intensive and presents a strain on their systems. For this reason it is necessary to throttle how many origin/destination server pairs are opened up at any given point in time in order to avoid an unacceptable impact on the performance of the system otherwise. Remember that while these transfers are happening - and stop and consider the LARGE amount of data assocaited with our characters (which includes all of their story decision variables, companion data, etc.) - the system (especially the databases) needs to continue working for everyone who is playing the game and not transferring.

 

2. Server Populations Need To Be Watched

 

It isn't enough to look at the population of people playing right now, at least not without a major caveat to consider. Just because someone isn't playing now it doesn't automatically mean they won't in the future or won't transfer. Someone may only play a few hours a week, and when suddenly placed in a more populated environment may decide to start playing more. Because of this it is impossible to precisely predict how the transfers are going to impact the load on the destination servers. BW could perhaps go by subscription numbers, but that got us into the situation of having too many servers with too low a population and could very well not be a reliable measure either.

 

The ultimate objective here is to have the right number of servers of each type so they are all sustaining a healthy population to facilitate people finding groups, friends, and guilds. Too many in this context is equally undesirable as too few. Too many equates into queues or poor performance on the part of the hardware, while those on the too-low servers are clearly already familiar with those problems.

 

Because we're talking about doing X and then determining what to do next based on how the players react to it there needs to be enough time for the players to react to it. Rushing was what got us too many servers, the last thing we need is more rushing now.

 

Lastly if Bioware maintains a pace of 10 servers a day on average, and is aiming to reduce the number of servers in half (from 213 to 116 or 117) we're talking about 12 days to get everything done. If they do it 20 servers a day we're talking about 6 days. Honestly when trying to measure or observe how players react that isn't a lot of time to collect data on how people are reacting - it is still rather "fast" in that there isn't a lot of time to make observations on your data and thus make adjustments to it. As much as I'm sure everyone wants this process finished so we can enjoy the final result, some things cannot be rushed and be as good.

 

Don't believe me?

 

Try slow-cooking corn beef in a crockpot versus rapidly cooking it in a microwave and let me know which one tastes better ;)

 

This should be stickied, but unfortunately it will be passed over in this thread by the next ten proclamations declaring that they are just doing this on purpose to piss us off because its no more then a simple flip of a switch.

 

Thank you for posting it anyway.

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:( I have been reaing the patch notes on transfuring charactures and i understand what they are trying to aviod but the are not taking into acount of the sever sizes that there sending these trasfures to. I now have a level 50 on jeti councel and sence the transfures the pop on the fleet went from 150 to 250 in one night. Now the lag on the fleet is almost unbarable. just opening the mail box and tring to get items from it have become a chore. The ah was nice the items sold at a good price now the new comers are makeing the ah prices too low. There needs to be upgrades for the servers with high pop so the lag is ither bareable or not there.This sucks.

I also came to this server and made a toon because my server only had 10 to 20 people on the fleet and not enough people do do any level 50 ops. The transfures are not fair to those of use who have had to level new toons on other severs and have waited to transfure our toons to the severs we now have new toons on. My other 50's on my origenal server have money ,fully leveled crafting that i would like to be able to use on this server. I hope the game can fix these issues .

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

 

General

 

 

 

 

 

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Guilds

 

 

 

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I do see that you answered alot of questions here but you missed the main point which is a long term goal. Keeping all servers still open will only lead to this same problem occurring in the future. Why aren't you just consolidating servers on a mass scale and shutting others down to open as needed. Sure leave one or two low pop open. Otherwise all new people will just choose a server by name not by pop and be stranded on a low pop server instead of joining one that could replace people that are quitting? This makes no sense, am I missing something?

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This should be stickied, but unfortunately it will be passed over in this thread by the next ten proclamations declaring that they are just doing this on purpose to piss us off because its no more then a simple flip of a switch.

 

Thank you for posting it anyway.

 

I am sorry. Threaded transactions run with any sort of standardized threshold testing would let you know how many copies per server (threads) you could start and run without impacting performance to the clients.

 

Using the largest accounts as baseline high.

 

That should completely elimanate this sort of nonsense. Once a copy thread completes a new queued one starts.

 

The potential for DB issues is low. Especially since they are locking the accounts against change and not allowing you to be making changes to the state while copying and then only locking the account breifly while it hits those other transactions.

 

Any assumptions on complexity in my opinion don't make such sense. They probably discovered a bug the copy threading that resulted in resource usage spiking that might impact the server health and playability and needed to adjust that. I don't view these as db issues.

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Once again, you have no idea about anything here. How can you make that assertion? Because you, in your vast experience as a game developer, have that listed in your plan of action?

 

How do we know they are not using that particular server as the gauge for population size and therefore seek to max it out first? How do we know anything that would allow any of us to make such a random, uninformed statement as you have made?

 

You can blame Bio-ware for that too. a lot of people feel left in the dark which leads to speculation. which was one reason why Turbine had success with LOTRO in the early years they had people like patience and clover who were Forum PR specialists and kept devs and players in line and informed at times :).

 

The Fatman was used at one point as an example of servers that were healthy and in danger of overcrowding if people were allowed to transfer at will. Bio-ware while still an excellent game company has made some interesting choices a more experienced MMO company may not have made.

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I work as a database engineer (no, not for Bioware, no interest in living in Texas) and I can readily imagine all manner of scenarios that explain why transfers are happening slowly. -snip-

 

Good post very true. Some of us don't think that way sadly.

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This game have like gazillion of servers and they initiate the process by 1:1 ratio LOL?! Cmon sense Bioware this is basically server merges not server transfer. As a paying customer, they don't even give us a CHOICE. Why do the I effin cares anyway I'm going to unsubbed now that's a CHOICE I'm going to make. The game is dying :D
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