Character transfers

[Kamylle]

So when are they happening? I have people leaving my guild to go back because they're tired of not having everything they need. We all miss our stuff and our credits. The economy is screwed in the opposite direction and no one wants to grind out entire legacies any more. Novelty has worn off. My girlfriend and I are also thinking of going back away from SV. So... when it happening?

[Darkestmonty]

Leave SV, the more people who stop playing the faster transfers will open up.

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, Darkestmonty said:

Leave SV, the more people who stop playing the faster transfers will open up.

That’s not remotely true. And will only hasten the demise of the server. Broadsword have a developmental timeline they are obviously following & it seems nothing affects it, even if it’s urgently needed 😞

At this stage, they have only just gone back to work. They will now spend a week or two getting back into the groove. This will entail them looking at data & our own forum & social media feedback. Then they will have to work on code to make non standard transfers possible (remember they have their own goal it seems to preserve/protect the economy on SV). 

Based on Jackie’s latest Twitter (X) post, it looks like mid/end of February or March before we will get transfers to SV. 
 

Edited January 6 by TrixxieTriss

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Based on Jackie’s latest Twitter (X) post

Well, that's reassuring.  Jackie posts that on the available-to-all resource that we all know and love, the SWTOR forums.

Too much sarcasm there, and I am truly sorry for getting stains on your screens.

And in any event, all she said (according to the words you posted) is that there's a dev stream, not a specific announcement about, well, anything.

[TrixxieTriss]

15 minutes ago, SteveTheCynic said:

And in any event, all she said (according to the words you posted) is that there's a dev stream, not a specific announcement about, well, anything.

That’s true. It could have nothing to do transfers. 

[DWho]

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.

[TrixxieTriss]

7 hours ago, DWho said:

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.

It would be too little too late. This is something that should have happened day 1 or at least when 7.4 was released. Then they could have said full transfers in 90 days. 

But now, I think too much time has passed for this idea to be accepted by the wider APAC community. Only full transfers will appease most of them now. And sadly, that will probably entail people wanting all their credits too because the devs messed up the launch so badly. Most new or returning players have since abandoned the server/game (again) due to low population issues caused by a poorly planned server launch. 

Honestly, at this point, I tend to agree with the people asking for unrestricted transfers. Broadsword have already messed the launch so badly, the server economy should be the least of their worries. Now it’s about the viability of keeping it open. 

[DWho]

3 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Honestly, at this point, I tend to agree with the people asking for unrestricted transfers. Broadsword have already messed the launch so badly, the server economy should be the least of their worries. Now it’s about the viability of keeping it open. 

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.

Edited January 8 by DWho
Updated Position

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, DWho said:

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.

I don’t know if you are playing on the server or not, but I can tell you from my perspective, group content has all but died on the server. 

It’s all well & good to want to protect the server economy, but there won’t be a server economy if there aren’t any players or a server. 

That’s why I think the main concern should be actually getting people onto the server than protecting the economy. 

If BioSword could open transfers tomorrow with economy restrictions, then sure I still support trying to protect it. But they can’t & it will too much time for them to for code it. 

I have to say I’m disappointed that you’re pulling support for free transfers just because of my comments supporting unrestricted transfers. If things weren’t so dire on the server, I wouldn’t have changed my opinion. Surely you can understand why I changed my position. 

Edited January 8 by TrixxieTriss

[TziganeNZ]

Is it perhaps possible that a reason why group content has all but died could be due to the fact that it's currently summer holidays in the APAC region, and people may well be away or doing other things than being stuck inside playing a video game (things like socialising with friends and families, having BBQs, going to the beach, going to the holiday house and relaxing, going overseas for holidays, etc)?

Anyone from the Northern Hemisphere will tell you how population always drops off June/July/August - their summer.

Edited January 8 by TziganeNZ

[TrixxieTriss]

27 minutes ago, TziganeNZ said:

Is it perhaps possible that a reason why group content has all but died could be due to the fact that it's currently summer holidays in the APAC region, and people may well be away or doing other things than being stuck inside playing a video game (things like socialising with friends and families, having BBQs, going to the beach, going to the holiday house and relaxing, going overseas for holidays, etc)?

Anyone from the Northern Hemisphere will tell you how population always drops off June/July/August - their summer.

Um, no.

Edited January 8 by TrixxieTriss

[TziganeNZ]

Ok, so you won't even consider any possibilities that don't fit a specific narrative. Can you truly speak for EVERY APAC player and determine that no, summer holidays has (have?) no impact on player population at all?  You certainly don't speak for me.

How utterly unreasonable is that position?

Edited January 8 by TziganeNZ

[DWho]

2 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Surely you can understand why I changed my position. 

Actually I can't. By allowing unrestricted credit transfers you are dooming the server to the same hyperinflation that has driven people away from the existing servers. Usually you stand on principles, but not this time apparently.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, DWho said:

Actually I can't. By allowing unrestricted credit transfers you are dooming the server to the same hyperinflation that has driven people away from the existing servers. Usually you stand on principles, but not this time apparently.

Better for the server to actually have some players even with potential hyperinflation than no server at all. 

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, TziganeNZ said:

Ok, so you won't even consider any possibilities that don't fit a specific narrative. Can you truly speak for EVERY APAC player and determine that no, summer holidays has (have?) no impact on player population at all?  You certainly don't speak for me.

How utterly unreasonable is that position?

I don’t speak for anyone except myself, family & guild. I certainly don’t speak for everyone in the APAC region. My opinions are my own.

As for summer holidays, if you lived in Australia, you’d know most of us have been house bound due to very bad weather here since before Xmas. And even if it wasn’t bad here, it still wouldn’t put that much of a dent in Aussie gamers participation. I know this because I’m a surfer & I still have time to do both when it’s sunny. 

That is why I totally disagree with your assumptions that it’s because of summer holidays. 

[xordevoreaux]

On 1/8/2024 at 1:31 AM, DWho said:

Actually I can't. By allowing unrestricted credit transfers you are dooming the server to the same hyperinflation that has driven people away from the existing servers. Usually you stand on principles, but not this time apparently.

Dead servers don't have hyperinflation. Trixie has seen the light on this. No sense protecting an economy to the point no one wants to venture onto the server.

[DWho]

6 hours ago, xordevoreaux said:

Dead servers don't have hyperinflation. Trixie has seen the light on this. No sense protecting an economy to the point no one wants to venture onto the server.

You're just as wrong as she is on this. No amount of transfers is going to make a difference and will drive a significant number of APAC players that like things as they are away resulting in a net loss of players. I'm done with SV at this point. I was playing a significant amount of time on that server but I'm done. It can live or die on APAC players as far as I'm concerned now. I am sorry for those APAC players that are enjoying themselves now as that will come to an end with unrestricted transfers of credits..

[Darkestmonty]

2 hours ago, DWho said:

You're just as wrong as she is on this. No amount of transfers is going to make a difference and will drive a significant number of APAC players that like things as they are away resulting in a net loss of players. I'm done with SV at this point. I was playing a significant amount of time on that server but I'm done. It can live or die on APAC players as far as I'm concerned now. I am sorry for those APAC players that are enjoying themselves now as that will come to an end with unrestricted transfers of credits..

open free transfers will. It will allow anyone from that region to fully transfer all characters to that server. Paid transfers won't have as big an impact but I have a feeling only paid transfers will be available first then free transfers if SV is failing to attract enough people.

[DWho]

4 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

open free transfers will. It will allow anyone from that region to fully transfer all characters to that server. Paid transfers won't have as big an impact but I have a feeling only paid transfers will be available first then free transfers if SV is failing to attract enough people.

That's making the assumption that there is a large group of players refusing to play on the server at all unless they get "full free" transfers (which would really be sad since they now have a server where they don't have to deal with terrible lag). It's much more likely they are already playing there because of the improved ping/experience and that the free transfers will add very few players to the server that are not already there.

[Darkestmonty]

7 minutes ago, DWho said:

That's making the assumption that there is a large group of players refusing to play on the server at all unless they get "full free" transfers (which would really be sad since they now have a server where they don't have to deal with terrible lag). It's much more likely they are already playing there because of the improved ping/experience and that the free transfers will add very few players to the server that are not already there.

look at SF and SS. I know a lot of people that have too many characters on SS that they won't bother even trasnsfering to SF even though it has a much higher population and lower  queue times.

Free transfers will allow people to move all their characters along with all their support items and materials.

Edited January 9 by Darkestmonty

[DWho]

4 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

Free transfers will allow people to move all their characters along with all their support items and materials.

That increases the number of characters on a server, not the number of players. It is players that are needed to populate servers, you can only play one character at a time. Having 100 characters does nothing to increase the population on the server.

[Darkestmonty]

37 minutes ago, DWho said:

That increases the number of characters on a server, not the number of players. It is players that are needed to populate servers, you can only play one character at a time. Having 100 characters does nothing to increase the population on the server.

Not everyone that wants to transfer will pay 1000 CC to transfer servers for a single character.

Not everyone that will pay 1000 CC will make that server their primary with just one character when they had to leave 40+ other characters behind with countless support materials.

Free transfers will allow people who want to transfer to do so and dedicate their full attention to SV.

Edited January 9 by Darkestmonty

[DWho]

3 minutes ago, Darkestmonty said:

Not everyone wants to transfer will pay 1000 CC to transfer servers a single character.

Not everyone that will pay 1000 CC will make that server their primary when they had to leave 40+ other characters behind with countless support materials.

Free transfers will allow people who want to transfer to freely do so and take all their characters and support materials.

Again, you are still talking about characters and not players. It is a pretty safe bet to say that 90-95% of the APAC players who will play on that server are already there and playing (which is what determines the server population). You are talking about an exceedingly small number of players which will have negligible impact on the population of the server (but a very outsized impact on the server economy).

My issue is with the belief that offering unlimited free transfers is going to somehow balloon the population of the server (the idea that it is better to have a broken server than a "dead" one). Mathematically, that is just not the case. Too few players are not playing there because they can't take all their stuff with them to make a difference. And before you say, "where's your evidence", there is no evidence to the contrary either.

Transfers to that server should follow all the same guidelines as transferring between any servers in the game (and transfers out should be blocked indefinitely). There's nothing more to say on the matter.

[Darkestmonty]

1 minute ago, DWho said:

Again, you are still talking about characters and not players. It is a pretty safe bet to say that 90-95% of the APAC players who will play on that server are already there and playing (which is what determines the server population). You are talking about an exceedingly small number of players which will have negligible impact on the population of the server (but a very outsized impact on the server economy).

My issue is with the belief that offering unlimited free transfers is going to somehow balloon the population of the server (the idea that it is better to have a broken server than a "dead" one). Mathematically, that is just not the case. Too few players are not playing there because they can't take all their stuff with them to make a difference. And before you say, "where's your evidence", there is no evidence to the contrary either.

Transfers to that server should follow all the same guidelines as transferring between any servers in the game (and transfers out should be blocked indefinitely). There's nothing more to say on the matter.

I'm not going to assume the percentage of players that are there are actually APAC players.

I know plenty of APAC players on SS and SF that haven't moved to SV as their primary server.

[Kamylle]

Still not finding anything online. More people have left our guild to go back and more people I know not in our guild are either leaving to go back or just cancelling subs all together. Any word yet?