Character Transfer, Server Populations, and You (Part II)

[Tiralyon]

You still have time to take the optional transfer before the deadline for the reward, I believe. Since you know you are going to get moved anyway, why not go ahead and grab the bonus now?

 

Strictly because I do not want to lose my character names.

[JimG]

BW, you need to increase the list of destination servers. For example, you only have 2 PVE destination servers for the West Coast. You need to start sending people to a 3rd server. The Harbinger has more than enough people now. A lot of people from the East Coast play on West Coast servers because they play later at night.

[Tiralyon]

He doesn't care about that. He only cares about his name. IT's name before all else. Funny really, but I guess to each their own.

 

I've used them going all the way back to UO, so no, I do not feel like losing them to a level 1 that is never logged in on the only destination server I was given as an option. I've checked the others, also held by level 1's. I've asked BioWare if they could reset the name on the inactive character and received a mostly canned response.

[LordRichardEW]

They should be. If these guys aren't worried about pissing 'Zannis' off, and everyone else, then they have no one to blame for their own failures but themselves.

 

So going on what he said and your response, you want them to have a group whose sole reason for being is to sit around coming up with ways to just piss you off Zannis?

[Tiralyon]

If you're names are taken on the destination server, you won't get them back no matter who you call.

 

It's the easiest and fairest solution whether you see it that way or not. Giving it based on who had it first chronologically is ridiculous because potentially it could result in you taking someone's name and then you losing it to someone else anyway. So, the most logical and sensible solution when looking towards the future is to use the current system.

 

People who have names on an inactive account shouldn't be able to keep the names, after a while anyways. If the player does not resub after a certain time frame (like how blizzard does it) the name should be able to become available to another player, they can then buy a name change.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Tiralyon

[Neloth]

Good work BW, it took a while but nice to see the wheels rolling

[DredSithis]

Its just a name use Alt letters to make it or you might wanna come up with a name others wouldent use. Its your faults not Bioware

[Aricus]

I've used them going all the way back to UO, so no, I do not feel like losing them to a level 1 that is never logged in on the only destination server I was given as an option. I've checked the others, also held by level 1's. I've asked BioWare if they could reset the name on the inactive character and received a mostly canned response.

 

UO! I played that loved it back in 97-2002. I have some character names that I used back then and some I made up recently. But I don't play MMOs for names I play for entertainment in the game. I don't care if a name I used for more than 10 years was taking up by someone else (that had happened to one of my characters). I just simply make another name or use an old one I've used in the past.

 

What's you're asking for is an entitlement. As you just said yourself you don't' want to lose them to a level 1 or even someone else (who knows they could be actively playing at 50). That just saying you feel as if you deserve those names and are entitled to them. Sorry buddy but I am sure you don't own the copyrights to the names you're using.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Aricus

[AllisonBerryman]

What happens if your destination server is already full of 8 toons?

 

We will have more details and answers to questions like this one as quickly as possible. I know there will definitely be questions, and as soon as we have the information, we'll let you know! We know your characters are important to you and will work to ensure the transfer process is a smooth as possible when we begin automated transfers later this summer.

[MidnyteTragedy]

This does not make me happy at all. They are knowingly and willingly screwing over part of their customer base.

 

Not only will a good chunk of people their their character and legacy names, but we're all getting squished into overfull and laggy servers.

 

I have a hard enough of a time grouping with one other person in a flashpoint on a dead server and totally lagging out. I've held off on transferring as there is a good chance playing will be impossible on a heavy pop server.

 

They really should have considered having say two medium pop servers instead of going for the Very Heavy / Full single servers. I would have thought when a server said 'Standard', that's what the population ideally should be on a server, not Very Heavy or Full. (I'm particular to light pop servers, but that my personal preference.)

 

This whole mess is quite frustrating to say the least.

[Zannis]

So going on what he said and your response, you want them to have a group whose sole reason for being is to sit around coming up with ways to just piss you off Zannis?

 

No, they need to have discussions on how to keep their players happy. Their decisions don't reflect this.

 

You should look into improving your analytic thinking and reading comprehension skills.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Zannis

[Ipea]

We will have more details and answers to questions like this one as quickly as possible. I know there will definitely be questions, and as soon as we have the information, we'll let you know! We know your characters are important to you and will work to ensure the transfer process is a smooth as possible when we begin automated transfers later this summer.

 

Please im begging.....Can we get some info about moving region to region i want to play the game but i no longer live in the US and want to play on an Eu server as i now live in the UK...PLEASE PLEASE will this be able to happen, Move from US to EU

[Parali]

Greetings,

 

We noticed that our community is concerned about character slots and additional transfer options. Here's what Lead Game Designer Daniel Erickson had to say about additional character slots in a recent Community Q&A:

 

Fireblazer: Any chance we will be able to get extra character slots for a server in the future. Maybe as part of the legacy system?

 

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): There will definitely be more slots appearing in the near future. Stay tuned for details.

 

We are currently talking about the free character transfer process only, but later options may be available, as mentioned in our article, "Character Transfer, Server Populations and You":

 

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.

 

We don't have a timetable right now, but as soon as we have more information we will let you know. Thank you!

 

[Izorii]

I really dont get it. We have free transfers, the origin servers are being locked down so no new players can join. Yet there is still this illusion that people dont have to transfer and can stay where they are. Why not just come out and announce server mergers and sever closures a server is not going to be kept open if it only have 10 active subscriptions no matter how much they want to stay put.

[TxAstarte]

Ham. fisted.

 

I already transferred my characters off my dead server, but this strikes me as a completely hamfisted maneuver.

 

You're closing down ALL those origin servers to new characters. Why not just do the effing merge in the first place if you were gonna mandate effectively that those servers would have NO population support.

 

I mostly like being on the higher population servers, but they are a bit too busy in some ways. A nice stand pop would be a good target to shoot for.

 

Instead, you shoot the folks who stayed where the were in the foot. Not even your own feet.

 

Reprehensible.

[Aricus]

This does not make me happy at all. They are knowingly and willingly screwing over part of their customer base.

 

Not only will a good chunk of people their their character and legacy names, but we're all getting squished into overfull and laggy servers.

 

I have a hard enough of a time grouping with one other person in a flashpoint on a dead server and totally lagging out. I've held off on transferring as there is a good chance playing will be impossible on a heavy pop server.

 

They really should have considered having say two medium pop servers instead of going for the Very Heavy / Full single servers. I would have thought when a server said 'Standard', that's what the population ideally should be on a server, not Very Heavy or Full. (I'm particular to light pop servers, but that my personal preference.)

 

This whole mess is quite frustrating to say the least.

 

I admit that there's been some server lag recently in the past two days or so. But that has to due with other issues, not with the server population. I've been on Fatman for a few months and it's always been heavy/full but never laggy until two days ago.

[Tiralyon]

UO! I played that loved it back in 97-2002. I have some character names that I used back then and some I made up recently. But I don't play MMOs for names I play for entertainment in the game. I don't care if a name I used for more than 10 years was taking up by someone else (that had happened to one of my characters). I just simply make another name or use an old one I've used in the past.

 

What's you're asking for is an entitlement. As you just said yourself you don't' want to lose them to a level 1 or even someone else (who knows they could be actively playing at 50). That just saying you feel as if you deserve those names and are entitled to them. Sorry buddy but I am sure you don't own the copyrights to the names you're using.

 

You're missing the point. I'm not asking BioWare to reset someone elses name that is still playing. I'm asking for a name to become available that is on an account that is not subbed at all. That is not at all unreasonable. I've go onto the destination servers, several names are held by level 1's. I've gone back a few times to see if they've logged in and they're not. So someone who played for their free month but never bothered with that alt and then let their time run out, should get to keep that name for good even if they don't come back? I see your point and I agree to an extent, but I don't think what I'm asking for is unreasonable at all.

[DredSithis]

This does not make me happy at all. They are knowingly and willingly screwing over part of their customer base.

 

Not only will a good chunk of people their their character and legacy names, but we're all getting squished into overfull and laggy servers.

 

I have a hard enough of a time grouping with one other person in a flashpoint on a dead server and totally lagging out. I've held off on transferring as there is a good chance playing will be impossible on a heavy pop server.

 

They really should have considered having say two medium pop servers instead of going for the Very Heavy / Full single servers. I would have thought when a server said 'Standard', that's what the population ideally should be on a server, not Very Heavy or Full. (I'm particular to light pop servers, but that my personal preference.)

 

This whole mess is quite frustrating to say the least.

 

Its not the amount of people on the server that makes you lag in a group its your comp need a better one or upgrade yours not biowares fault

[Brixt]

Can't say I'm surprised at this move, but at the same time, I'm disappointed and upset that we've been lied to from the get-go. Why tell subscribers they would have the option to remain on their existing servers if you did not intend to allow them? I understand that business is business, but at the same time, lying to subscribers for months is kind of a boneheaded business move. This is terrible customer service.

 

I have more than 8 characters on various servers all pointing to the same overcrowded RP server. (Oh, and I already have some characters on said overcrowded server.) I also have several favorite characters whose names are unavailable there. My husband and I play this game for the RP element, not for the end game content. (If that's all we cared about, we would've stuck to WoW.) We don't want to change their names; we picked them for a reason. Hell, one of the servers I started playing on I picked *specifically* because the name I wanted was available.

 

Guess I'll be letting my subscription run out and not bother to renew at the end. I'm disappointed; I thoroughly enjoyed this game and am one of the few people who never complained about it. If you had been honest from the start, I may have been more understanding; but the fact that, due to your own poor planning, you opened more servers than necessary and are now punishing the users for your mistake (and lied about it), you have made me lose confidence in Bioware as a company after being a loyal fan for over 10 years. Congratulations!

[G_Vega]

Later this summer, any remaining characters on selected origin servers will be automatically moved to designated destination servers. We will provide additional details regarding the automatic character transfer process at that time.

 

Since you are squeezing multiple servers into 1, what will you do when someone like me has more characters than we are allowed on the "destination servers"?

 

Currently, I have about 6 characters left that would need to fit into the 3 slots that are remaining on Correlian run. Houston, there is a problem.

[chritie]

People who have names on an inactive account shouldn't be able to keep the names, after a while anyways. If the player does not resub after a certain time frame (like how blizzard does it) the name should be able to become available to another player, they can then buy a name change.

 

At some point, I'd venture to guess that this will be the case. However, the game is still in it's infancy and trying to find it's player base. So, if people leave and are waiting for the bigger content update set for later this year, I'm guessing BW wants to have their accounts the way they left it.

 

I wouldn't expect this kind of automation until some more bugs are fixed as they will(hopefully) have priority over small comforts and maintenance things such as recirculating names.

 

Also, to do something like this they'd likely need to do analysis of exactly how long to wait before the name cut off kicks in. Picking arbitrary times will result in more unhappy people. So, if 90% of resubs occur within 3 months of their unsub date, then they'd have to set it at like 6 months for maximum coverage, at least that's my thoughts. They could just slap a 1 month and call it good.

 

On a different vein and to act as a foil, I've been using the same 3 names in games for about 10 years and no one has ever had any of them. So I've never had to deal with someone taking a name that has been mine for so long. I get where you're coming from, but as a developer, I can see where they're coming from.

[Sivn]

Fair enough.

 

But hurry up with allowing us to move our characters to any server please.

 

I want my lvl50 BH on the server i dont play on moved to the server i do play on.

[Lord-Maknoe]

Ok so I have a question and I haven't been able to find a solid answer on any blogs or anything. (Also I pre-apologize that the description of my problem is a little long)

 

Pretty much, I have seven different characters and a guild of my closest friends on both empire and republic in this game all on the same origin server. The biggest problem I have (and the biggest problem I see), is that I need ALL of my characters, and my friends characters to be put on the same server. So if some customer service representative could do that, I still have the problem that half of my friends aren't even playing the game right now, so can't be placed on a server. From what I understand, I can't pick the destination server I go to, let alone the rest of my guild. Even if we all got on the same server, I would have to look up and find all of their names, just to put them on my friends list, and then wait for them to get their subscriptions to "Start" the guilds again. From what I understand, if I can't solve this problem soon enough, then we will all be automatically relocated to a destination server that is not of our choice, and we can only hope by chance we get on the same one. Meanwhile until then, I have to deal with a highly diminishing server population, making it so I can't even get in a simple warzone anymore.

 

If someone knows something, or has some advice on how I can deal with this, it would be greatly appreciated. This entire thing, is the only thing keeping me from using server transfers.

[Aricus]

You're missing the point. I'm not asking BioWare to reset someone elses name that is still playing. I'm asking for a name to become available that is on an account that is not subbed at all. That is not at all unreasonable. I've go onto the destination servers, several names are held by level 1's. I've gone back a few times to see if they've logged in and they're not. So someone who played for their free month but never bothered with that alt and then let their time run out, should get to keep that name for good even if they don't come back? I see your point and I agree to an extent, but I don't think what I'm asking for is unreasonable at all.

 

Just because the person(s) doesn't play does not mean their account is inactive. The sub is still active and since they pay BW $15 they're entitled to the characters they have created. Hell I have 3 characters that moved to a destine server however; like many others I am waiting for the paid or free choice of character x-fers. So while those three characters on the new destined are inactive, my account, however, is still active as I play a lot on the Fatman server. So who knows.. Perhaps the character names you seek may be the ones I am using on the inactive server.

 

Can't just assume that the account is inactive due to the fact you don't see the names logged on.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Aricus

[Kapono]

If I lose my character names, I'm unsubscribing. Being forced onto a server where I'll be surrounded every second by people stealing kills and ninja'ing resources would suck enough, but the lack of my chosen character names would cross the line completely. I've used them for years, and I'm not giving them up.