1800cc per character for transfer?

[ClamTheDuckDown]

I was excited to hear about character transfer. I've been playing this game since pre-launch. Needless today, I was among the people who had to abandon their lvl50 toons to create new toons on more populated servers a few months after launch. The server merging happening at the end of 2012 didn't do me any good. I still have 2 lvl50 toons on the original server where many of my friends have returned for patch 2.0, and 6 other toons (2 of which are 50) on another server. When I read the patch note, I thought that 1800cc is for transferring all toons from one server to another. It turned out that I would need to pay that amount 6 times to move all of my character to the original server so that I can game with friends.

 

This is outrageous. Hadn't they created too many servers at launch, OR had they let me choose which server to transfer to during the free transfer, I wouldn't have to worry about this. Now they are expecting me to pay 10800cc (near $80) to amend to their own fault? Is this punishing their hardcore fans? I was so naive to resubscribe after 2.0 and bought the expansion hoping that one day my toons would be united on one server. With the way the game is nickle and dime me like this, I might as well quit and let my subscription expires in 4 months (bought the 6 months sub + over 6000 worth of cc, still have over 3000cc left).

[SithKoriandr]

I've never seen a cheap server transfer on any MMO I've played, if it was an option At best, CoH gave 1 free server xfer a month to subs.

[Andryah]

When I read the patch note, I thought that 1800cc is for transferring all toons from one server to another. It turned out that I would need to pay that amount 6 times to move all of my character to the original server so that I can game with friends.

 

The price, and the fact that it is PER CHARACTER has been known for some time now. Where have you been?

 

And you cannot go back and make the server proliferation at launch the issue, as they merged all of those 9 months ago.. and they did it to a specific formula that aggregated characters to fewer servers, not the reverse. If you have characters spread all over the place, that's because you have been creating characters all over the place.

[ClamTheDuckDown]

I only created characters and played on 2 servers pre-free-transfer. After the free transfer, they characters still happened to be on 2 different servers (didn't you read my post?). When my original server lost most of its players, I had 2 options: Quit the game like most of my friends or start anew on a different server. I chose the later and continue my sub for nearly a year. Now I'm getting punished for sticking to the game? Plus Im willing to pay that 1800cc if I can do that for all characters once. That price is reasonable for people who only level one toon. People who have been playing since pre-launch are likely to have at least 4 toons by now. If this is how bioware treats hardcore fans, then I rest my case. Edited June 26, 2013 by ClamTheDuckDown

[Andryah]

I only created characters and played on 2 servers pre-free-transfer. After the free transfer, they characters still happened to be on 2 different servers (didn't you read my post?). When my original server lost most of its players, I had 2 options: Quit the game like most of my friends or start anew on a different server. I chose the later and continue my sub for nearly a year. Now I'm getting punished for sticking to the game? Plus Im willing to pay that 1800cc if I can do that for all characters once. That price is reasonable for people who only level one toon. People who have been playing since pre-launch are likely to have at least 4 toons by now. If this is how bioware treats hardcore fans, then I rest my case.

 

Gee.. I have 20 characters on one sever, and 8 on a second server and I don't feel punished, nor do I feel any need to transfer any of them.

 

Yes I read your original post and this retread. I stand by my comments. Stop playing victim IMO.

 

Of course....you are free to feel punished if that makes you feel more special. But that's on you.

[ClamTheDuckDown]

You don't feel punished because you don't need to use that feature. I need that feature so I feel punished. Your feelings are different than my feelings, duh!

 

Let's just count post-lvl50 toons. I have a powertech and a shadow on the original server. Then a sniper and a marauder on the other server. If I transfer all of them onto one server, I would be able to take advantage of the legacy unlocks due to the diversity of the classes I've leveled. Plus each character has their own set of crew skills that would benefit me even more of they are all on one server.

Edited June 26, 2013 by ClamTheDuckDown

[branmakmuffin]

I only created characters and played on 2 servers pre-free-transfer. After the free transfer, they characters still happened to be on 2 different servers (didn't you read my post?). When my original server lost most of its players, I had 2 options: Quit the game like most of my friends or start anew on a different server. I chose the later and continue my sub for nearly a year. Now I'm getting punished for sticking to the game? Plus Im willing to pay that 1800cc if I can do that for all characters once. That price is reasonable for people who only level one toon. People who have been playing since pre-launch are likely to have at least 4 toons by now. If this is how bioware treats hardcore fans, then I rest my case.

Punished? It's your choice to do it or not. That's hardly a punishment.

[Crezelle]

I only get to move 2 out of my 5 toons now.. FFXI was a $27 flat fee for as many as you needed at the time? Then again they charged $1 extra month for each character over 1 in the subscription

[ClamTheDuckDown]

What choices did I have? Like I said I only had 2 options: quit the game or moving on to servers with people to play with (seriously there were 5 people on the fleet when I left). It's easy for you to say when you don't have to deal with it.

[Darth_Moonshadow]

What choices did I have? Like I said I only had 2 options: quit the game or moving on to servers with people to play with (seriously there were 5 people on the fleet when I left). It's easy for you to say when you don't have to deal with it.

 

Why not just save your money? Game is free to play, so letting your sub lapse won't cut you from the game.

 

/shrug

[DarthTHC]

I've never seen a cheap server transfer on any MMO I've played, if it was an option At best, CoH gave 1 free server xfer a month to subs.

 

I think you missed OP's point.

 

OP was one of the players backed into a corner by BWEA.

 

He bought the game. Signed up. Subscribed. Played. Leveled a bunch of characters. Did everything BWEA wanted him to do!

 

Then people started leaving. His server became empty. He was no longer playing the MMO advertised. The only recourse at the time was to quit playing or to roll a new character on a new server.

 

There were no transfers at that time. BWEA was working on them but they didn't tell us which servers would transfer where. So in creating new characters on a busier server, you know, to get the MMO experience, he had to guess.

 

In the end, BWEA did server merges, yes. But they didn't give anyone the choice of where to go. They simply decided W, X, and Y go to Z, period. LIke it or lump it, your only choice was to go early of your own volition or be forced when they shut down W, X, and Y.

 

This left people like the OP screwed. They now had characters on two different servers with no way to get them back together again, as many of us tend to do with our characters. This is NOT OP's fault, nor any player's fault like him.

 

He didn't cause his original servers to become ghost towns. He could do nothing but guess when he re-rolled his characters to get an honest to goodness MMO experience.

 

Now, for being a loyal player of this game for so very long, if he wants his characters to be on the same server, he has to pay 1800 coins each, or something around $80 if I read that right, to fix a problem he was not responsible for creating.

 

That is harsh. That is cold. That is a horrible, horrible business practice on BWEA's part.

 

And THAT is the source of the complaint.

 

The notion that the fee was known to be per character in advance is irrelevant. BWEA did the OP and everyone like him dirty with this move. It's just plain wrong. They should fix the problem they created without charging players money to do so.

Edited June 26, 2013 by DarthTHC

[ClamTheDuckDown]

Why not just save your money? Game is free to play, so letting your sub lapse won't cut you from the game.

 

/shrug

 

That's my plan (thought when the sub lapses, I won't like touch the game). The topic of the thread is reasonable fee for people with similar situations like mine.

[Knockerz]

I only created characters and played on 2 servers pre-free-transfer. After the free transfer, they characters still happened to be on 2 different servers (didn't you read my post?). When my original server lost most of its players, I had 2 options: Quit the game like most of my friends or start anew on a different server. I chose the later and continue my sub for nearly a year. Now I'm getting punished for sticking to the game? Plus Im willing to pay that 1800cc if I can do that for all characters once. That price is reasonable for people who only level one toon. People who have been playing since pre-launch are likely to have at least 4 toons by now. If this is how bioware treats hardcore fans, then I rest my case.

 

You should have though it through before you started leveling on a new server. There was the risk that your friends would return and obviously your new characters that you level would be on a different server. Point is once you start leveling many characters on a new server you better be confident you won't want to switch back to your old or a new server. Otherwise, prepare to pay a lot of money to tranfer characters between servers. I know this cause in wow I transfered my armada of characters twice to Dragonmaw, then to Illidan. Although it was full character transfer to Dragonmaw, but it was at least half of my characters. However, I did tranfer all of my characters to Illidan regardless of what server they were on. This was for max level characters.

 

As Andryah menton it's per character. This was common knownledge on the forums for months and almost all mmorpg that have character transfer services is always per character. Lastly, you can transfer one character for free every 3 months if you have a fob and montly subscription. That is alot better than in wow. I plan to transfer my last character in three months from now because ultimately it's just an alt that I rarely play. However, in your case you can tranfer 4 characters for free per year. Your just impatient and don't want to pay like every one else.

[ClamTheDuckDown]

...

Now, for being a loyal player of this game for so very long, if he wants his characters to be on the same server, he has to pay 1800 coins each, or something around $80 if I read that right, to fix a problem he was not responsible for creating....

 

Thank you so much for your understanding. However the $80 estimate is to transfer all 6 of my toons over to the original server where all of my friends and 2 of my lvl 50 toons are. 1800cc is about $17 I think.

[Andryah]

Thank you so much for your understanding. However the $80 estimate is to transfer all 6 of my toons over to the original server where all of my friends and 2 of my lvl 50 toons are. 1800cc is about $17 I think.

 

And you need all your characters on one server why???

 

I get that you "want to" but why do you "need to"?

[Darth_Moonshadow]

That's my plan (thought when the sub lapses, I won't like touch the game). The topic of the thread is reasonable fee for people with similar situations like mine.

 

Your situation isn't very common, though. Most people simply move one toon that has the most stuff and reroll the rest or they move on completely.

 

And 1800 coins is roughly like $15-$17 bucks. That's a freaking steal compared to most games. And other games that offer free transfers have horrible server stability. You'd end up on a dead server that was full one week because whatever game celebrity guild up and left the day before.

 

Just move a toon at a time. You don't need 8 55's all at once. Hell, one toon carries your entire legacy to the new server, so you keep the Collections and perks anyway. You barely lose that much. Plus, by moving one at a time, if your friends return, you can play with them instead of moving all over again.

[ClamTheDuckDown]

You should have though it through before you started leveling on a new server. There was the risk that your friends would return and obviously your new characters that you level would be on a different server. Point is once you start leveling many characters on a new server you better be confident you won't want to switch back to your old or a new server. Otherwise, prepare to pay a lot of money to tranfer characters between servers. I know this cause in wow I transfered my armada of characters twice to Dragonmaw, then to Illidan. Although it was full character transfer to Dragonmaw, but it was at least half of my characters. However, I did tranfer all of my characters to Illidan regardless of what server they were on. This was for max level characters.

 

As Andryah menton it's per character. This was common knownledge on the forums for months and almost all mmorpg that have character transfer services is always per character. Lastly, you can transfer one character for free every 3 months if you have a fob and montly subscription. That is alot better than in wow. I plan to transfer my last character in three months from now because ultimately it's just an alt that I rarely play. However, in your case you can tranfer 4 characters for free per year. Your just impatient and don't want to pay like every one else.

 

This is my first MMO ever so I had no prior knowledge on the obstacles I would face when rolling new toons on a different server. Plus, I didn't have any other choice anyway, did I?

 

I've read the patch note again. Where does it say I can transfer a toon for free every 3 months? And didn't I mention that I'm willing to pay? But $80 is too much while I've already spent near $500 on this game since launch.

[DarthTHC]

And you need all your characters on one server why???

 

I get that you "want to" but why do you "need to"?

 

Because that's what most MMO players do. That's what we expect. It's perfectly reasonable (assuming we wouldn't break the cap).

 

If I were in this same boat, I'd be gone. There is no way I'd pay to transfer the 3-4 high level characters I would have had to leave behind to my new server. It would expect BWEA to handle that because it was THEIR fault that the servers became ghost towns, not mine.

 

The players did nothing wrong. They constantly asked BWEA for guidance. For information about when server merges were coming. For information about what servers would merge where. BWEA was silent, leaving players to guess.

 

It's garbage that BWEA is charging players to fix this problem. Horrible.

Edited June 26, 2013 by DarthTHC

[Xanatex]

I'll throw my two cents in. First, although I agree that you got screwed, you should realize that ~$18 isn't that much for a character transfer compared to most other MMO's. It's actually kinda cheap. To defend BioWare, having people transferring their toons all over the servers is a little hectic, and it can destabilize server populations. By throwing a price on it, it monitors the transfers so that people don't just switch around for the heck of it. It's there for reasons precisely like the OP's problem. However, as a Founder myself, I can understand how someone would feel about having their characters split because you had to guess where to put them. I remember that time pretty well, and to be honest I got lucky. But, for those of us who have been loyal subs, I think BioWare needs to put in a discounted package for moving multiple characters, with the discount increasing with the size of the legacy. $18 is cheap for a toon transfer though, as I know in "some" games, it costs nearly $80 just for one, but for those who have been screwed since spring of '12 there should be another option. BW messed up in the beginning, and although this technically "fixes" their screw-up, it doesn't feel like a service to those that were hurt. More like, "Alright we'll allow you to get what you should have gotten originally, but you have to pay us to make it happen." /shrug There's arguments on both sides.

[branmakmuffin]

I've read the patch note again. Where does it say I can transfer a toon for free every 3 months?

500 CC included with sub + 100 if you have the sec key (which obviously not everyone has) = (600 CC per month) x 3 months = 1800 CC, enough for a character transfer.

[ClamTheDuckDown]

Your situation isn't very common, though. Most people simply move one toon that has the most stuff and reroll the rest or they move on completely.

 

And 1800 coins is roughly like $15-$17 bucks. That's a freaking steal compared to most games. And other games that offer free transfers have horrible server stability. You'd end up on a dead server that was full one week because whatever game celebrity guild up and left the day before.

 

Just move a toon at a time. You don't need 8 55's all at once. Hell, one toon carries your entire legacy to the new server, so you keep the Collections and perks anyway. You barely lose that much. Plus, by moving one at a time, if your friends return, you can play with them instead of moving all over again.

 

So if we have a flat-rate for character transfer (no matter the number of toons), wouldn't bioware still earn 1800cc from most people with 1 toon AND still able to help bad-luck-brian like me? That's my exact point right there.

Edited June 26, 2013 by ClamTheDuckDown

[ClamTheDuckDown]

500 CC included with sub + 100 if you have the sec key (which obviously not everyone has) = (600 CC per month) x 3 months = 1800 CC, enough for a character transfer.

 

That's not "free" at all. While other sub players get to spend that 1800 on the market. I have to use that amount to transfer a toon. So to bring myself to the level of other sub players who do not need to transfer, I still have to pay for that 1800cc.

[DarthTHC]

I'll throw my two cents in. First, although I agree that you got screwed, you should realize that ~$18 isn't that much for a character transfer compared to most other MMO's. It's actually kinda cheap. To defend BioWare, having people transferring their toons all over the servers is a little hectic, and it can destabilize server populations. By throwing a price on it, it monitors the transfers so that people don't just switch around for the heck of it. It's there for reasons precisely like the OP's problem. However, as a Founder myself, I can understand how someone would feel about having their characters split because you had to guess where to put them. I remember that time pretty well, and to be honest I got lucky. But, for those of us who have been loyal subs, I think BioWare needs to put in a discounted package for moving multiple characters, with the discount increasing with the size of the legacy. $18 is cheap for a toon transfer though, as I know in "some" games, it costs nearly $80 just for one, but for those who have been screwed since spring of '12 there should be another option. BW messed up in the beginning, and although this technically "fixes" their screw-up, it doesn't feel like a service to those that were hurt. More like, "Alright we'll allow you to get what you should have gotten originally, but you have to pay us to make it happen." /shrug There's arguments on both sides.

 

Why should customers have to pay to fix the vendor's screw-up? Put this into any other context and you wouldn't think it's just fine to pay.

 

You take your car into the dealer for an oil change. Their porter runs it into a wall. Are you going to pay their bump shop to fix it?

 

You go to a nice restaurant and order a wonderful meal. The server brings it out and it looks great... except for the hair sticking right out of the middle of the smashed potatoes. Are you going to buy a second plate to fix that problem?

 

You purchase a new iPad, get it home, unbox it, and find that the screen is about 10% dead pixels. Are you going to rush right back to the Apple store and buy a new one to replace it?

Edited June 26, 2013 by DarthTHC

[ClamTheDuckDown]

I'll throw my two cents in. First, although I agree that you got screwed, you should realize that ~$18 isn't that much for a character transfer compared to most other MMO's. It's actually kinda cheap. To defend BioWare, having people transferring their toons all over the servers is a little hectic, and it can destabilize server populations. By throwing a price on it, it monitors the transfers so that people don't just switch around for the heck of it. It's there for reasons precisely like the OP's problem. However, as a Founder myself, I can understand how someone would feel about having their characters split because you had to guess where to put them. I remember that time pretty well, and to be honest I got lucky. But, for those of us who have been loyal subs, I think BioWare needs to put in a discounted package for moving multiple characters, with the discount increasing with the size of the legacy. $18 is cheap for a toon transfer though, as I know in "some" games, it costs nearly $80 just for one, but for those who have been screwed since spring of '12 there should be another option. BW messed up in the beginning, and although this technically "fixes" their screw-up, it doesn't feel like a service to those that were hurt. More like, "Alright we'll allow you to get what you should have gotten originally, but you have to pay us to make it happen." /shrug There's arguments on both sides.

 

Regarding destabilizing server population. As far as I know, you can only play one toon at a time. If move all of my toon from one server to another server that I also have a couple of toons on, the server will still only have to cater to one me and one only.

[Darth_Moonshadow]

So if we have a flat-rate for character transfer (no matter the number of toons), wouldn't bioware still earn 1800cc from most people with 1 toon able still able to help bad-luck-brian like me? That's my exact point right there.

 

True, but that would still have ramifications on server populations. One or two characters being transferred wouldn't make too much trouble, but 14 being moved would cause a problem, especially if they are all one side or if it's an entire guild being moved. It's not always about how much money Bioware gets, but how you actions will impact everyone around you. You start throwing server pops out of whack, then you may end up either on a dead server once again or on a server so popular, you have queue times, thus leading you feel frustrated because you're sitting in a queue when you want to play.