Transfers

[dragonbreath13]

Since free transfers will be available soon, possibly with improved item transfer, would it be possible to go ahead and open up free transfers for those of us who don't mind losing these items?

[ReadStar]

It never said transfers would be free.
"We are working on both improved server transfer tools and upgrades to our environments to improve playability." is the exact quote.
By the sounds of it transfers will be able to move more things, like Wardrobes or something akin but will cost the same amount...

[dragonbreath13]

While they did not say that the transfers would be free, I expect that they will be since they are looking to close some of the servers and will allow players to transfer characters even after the server is closed.



There will be no forced data merge from one server to another, or to combine two servers. When/ if players move, they will make the choice themselves of which of the available worlds they want to move each of their characters and account or kinship to. Yes, we are likely to close a number of servers to play, but only after a large grace period and even after that the characters will remain available to be moved to another server to play on indefinitely. We have an idea of the servers we will wish to keep and which to close, but that list is not yet set in stone and may be subject to change as we see the results of transfers and some of the hardware investigation we are doing.

[Thodorin]

It never said transfers would be free....

2015/01/07:

The Server moves will be started with a listing of preferred servers, their new locations and an opening of free transfers to the servers. ....

[Beaniemooch]

They will be free but I believe they want to be a bit more organized before they start the migrations.

[Grimdi]

Would be a bit stupid to open free transfers before the list of preferred servers is known.

[Xhiu]

Would be a bit stupid to open free transfers before the list of preferred servers is known.

Why?

Because people would empty the low pop servers before hand? Because crowded servers might fill up servers that would otherwise be on the chopping block?

I assume (yes assume) they will pull a list of TO: servers before they give us a list of FROM: servers. As in, you can go to server x if you want. You cannot go to server y for the time being.

Then after the dust settles you will see, if you are on z, a or q server you will need to pick a server from the TO: list.

If you wanna go now, go. If you are going you certainly would want a free transfer. Doesn't seem stupid on either front to me.

Not in the plans I can go with. Stupid, no.

[Vyvyanne]

I would like to allow people to start migrating to the higher population servers for free before the transfer improvements are added, for those that wish to do so and aim to do that soon. I am just doing some double checking on concerns about overcrowding before I do so. Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available, so that is not the concern. We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet, so we want to make sure we are not going to make performance worse before that happens by encouraging a mass migration.

Expect some updates from me on transfers in the next week.

-Vyv

[Everyone]

We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet...

Is this an admission of the lag and its existence due to outdated hardware?

[peachykins]

I would like to allow people to start migrating to the higher population servers for free before the transfer improvements are added, for those that wish to do so and aim to do that soon. I am just doing some double checking on concerns about overcrowding before I do so. Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available, so that is not the concern. We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet, so we want to make sure we are not going to make performance worse before that happens by encouraging a mass migration.

Expect some updates from me on transfers in the next week.

-Vyv

Now if a person has characters on a populated server already say Brandywine & more & more people keep moving to that server & now the person feels it's too populated for them, will there be transfers offered for free to move to a less populated server?

[istvana]

>Is this an admission of the lag and its existence due to outdated hardware? <

No it is a statement that the current hardware may be inadequate for servers jammed with twice as many people after the transfers.

And Peachykins what makes you think there will *be* any relatively uncrowded servers left - at least until the people that begged for more populated servers see just how bad it can be with too many people and start leaving the game.

I understand the reason for reducing the number of servers but I really hope they will try and leave at least one low/medium population server for those of us that prefer that style.

[Mar-Evayave]

I would like to allow people to start migrating to the higher population servers for free before the transfer improvements are added, for those that wish to do so and aim to do that soon. I am just doing some double checking on concerns about overcrowding before I do so. Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available, so that is not the concern. We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet, so we want to make sure we are not going to make performance worse before that happens by encouraging a mass migration.

Expect some updates from me on transfers in the next week.

-Vyv

Oh, wow, so this is happening soonerish? I wasn't expecting the free transfers to start until much, much later this year. Now I am super psyched! I am dying to get my Ridder toons to Landroval. I miss playing them so badly, but can't stand to be on Riddermark for so long...

Also very happy to hear that our account items will not get lost. Once the transfer improvements are made (if they can be made), will free transfers still be available? For example, can I safely transfer 9 of my toons now (well, now, as in whenever free transfers begin) and then bring my 10th over once the improvements are made (weeks or months later)? If so I'll just leave my lowbie Beorning to babysit the account items and then drag her over by the scruff of her furry neck later.

Oh, um, also... what happens to kinships? I am a leader of a kinship of friends on Riddermark. We don't play much anymore, but I would very much like to preserve the kinship name and rank and whatnot. If I transfer the leader of the kinship... what happens to the kinship? :/

[peachykins]

>Is this an admission of the lag and its existence due to outdated hardware? <

No it is a statement that the current hardware may be inadequate for servers jammed with twice as many people after the transfers.

And Peachykins what makes you think there will *be* any relatively uncrowded servers left - at least until the people that begged for more populated servers see just how bad it can be with too many people and start leaving the game.

I understand the reason for reducing the number of servers but I really hope they will try and leave at least one low/medium population server for those of us that prefer that style.

Well IMO Brandywine is pretty populated & if many decide to go to Brandy, I am not so sure I wanna stay there. Also need to know if there is gonna be a limit to how many can go to Brandy or they just gonna let as many who want to go there go.

[atmonello]

They have closed the transfers to Brandywine before, they could do it again, especially now those are gonna be free.

I transferred there few months ago, and despite the great overall community and the feel of being part of a MASSIVE multiplayer game again, the lag is unplayable.
Last night, it took more than 15 seconds just so the GV map started loading after I right-clicked it. And during a RvR it took nearly a minute to use a potion.

So, yeah, make those free transfer available without even adding improved item transfer for those who want, but allow some transfer to some more middle-populated servers as well.

[Vyvyanne]

I know there are reports of lag on Brandywine especially in the PVMP areas. I play on Brandywine and do not experience these issues, but I may not be playing in the areas, at the times players are running into problems. So I am gathering info on that to determine if we have an issue on that particular server that might be made worse by moving more players to it before we improve our hardware infrastructure. Yes hardware can affect performance and newer hardware and a better location could do improve upon latency. Player population is not always the cause for latency.

What I dont want to do is make everyone's experience worse in the meantime.

As for free transfers after improvements are made. Yes, after we improve the transfer process the plan is to keep transfers to the most populated servers free for some time to allow players to move over to those servers using the new tools. How long those will remain free is still to be determined.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Since free transfers will be available soon, possibly with improved item transfer, would it be possible to go ahead and open up free transfers for those of us who don't mind losing these items?

I believe what Turbine is going to do is similar to what some other games have done. Turbine is going to close some of the servers. Customers with characters on those servers will be allowed to transfer their characters to some or perhaps all of the servers that are going to survive at no cost. A customer that does not move their characters off a server that is closing will have their characters transferred to the target server that Turbine predefined.

It is possible that Turbine will do it the way Swtor did their merger. Swtor created a whole new set of servers with their own names. All the original existing servers were being closed. Everybody had to transfer to the new servers. Several of the original servers were designed to be merged into one of the new servers. Players were given some time 4-6 weeks to transfer their characters at no cost from the original servers to the replacement servers. After the end of the free transfer period, you had to wait for the merge to take place. When you went to create a character, Swtor wanted you to create a character on the replacement servers. I started playing Swtor during the time when all the original and replacement servers were on line. As a new arrival, I was not permitted to create a character on any of the original servers that were going to be closed. I believe customers that were playing before this entire process started could create characters on a original server if they already had a character on the server. I was not eligible for free transfers because all lived on a replacement server. Swtor had both free and paid transfers available at the same time.

[Everyone]

I know there are reports of lag on Brandywine especially in the PVMP areas. I play on Brandywine and do not experience these issues...

It's mostly in the Moors, but usually people are lagging in Bree... how have you not noticed this? o.O

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

As for free transfers after improvements are made. Yes, after we improve the transfer process the plan is to keep transfers to the most populated servers free for some time to allow players to move over to those servers using the new tools. How long those will remain free is still to be determined.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this imply that there will be a time at which free transfers will not be available after the early phase? If that's the case, then this would mean players on servers that were going to be closed would then have to pay to continue playing - which strikes me as a tad unfair, especially considering some of the examples I heard (people away on army service, long voyages, work placements etc.) who won't be able to access their account during the first phase, and thus will be disadvantaged due to no failing of their own, other than their earlier choice of server.

Secondly, in your previous post, you mentioned that you're working on tools which will allow account bound stuff to be transferred with characters. This is all well and good, but what about the character bound stuff? Those people who paid TP to get premium wallets will not be able to transfer all of the items in the wallet that are bound to their character, while those who didn't buy the wallet get to keep the stuff. This seems to be doing a disservice to those players that have spent money on the game, particularly those who are VIP or who have bought TP in the past.

[pittcrew1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this imply that there will be a time at which free transfers will not be available after the early phase? If that's the case, then this would mean players on servers that were going to be closed would then have to pay to continue playing - which strikes me as a tad unfair, especially considering some of the examples I heard (people away on army service, long voyages, work placements etc.) who won't be able to access their account during the first phase, and thus will be disadvantaged due to no failing of their own, other than their earlier choice of server.

Secondly, in your previous post, you mentioned that you're working on tools which will allow account bound stuff to be transferred with characters. This is all well and good, but what about the character bound stuff? Those people who paid TP to get premium wallets will not be able to transfer all of the items in the wallet that are bound to their character, while those who didn't buy the wallet get to keep the stuff. This seems to be doing a disservice to those players that have spent money on the game, particularly those who are VIP or who have bought TP in the past.

If it seems unfair or iffy, I wouldn't worry about it. Turbine will figure it out. They will not make people charge to move a character from a server that has been closed; that would be the worst business decision ever, alienating all players who don't play now, so don't worry about it. They will almost 100% give a permanent free transfers for any character that is still on a closing/closed server.

I think she was referring to it being free for everyone, not just people on closing servers, and since they haven't been announced yet, I don't think they would limit who can transfer for free.

Also, any character bound stuff in your wallet has and will transfer with the character, so don't worry about that. It's only account-wide stuff, which is very very rare to exist and not be put in the wallet, regardless of owning Premium Wallet or not. The main I can think of is the Rift Armor Gems... (meaning they dont go in by defeault. Marks, Meds, Seals, and even Instance Tokens do go in I think, no matter your wallet status)?

[Vyvyanne]

If it seems unfair or iffy, I wouldn't worry about it. Turbine will figure it out. They will not make people charge to move a character from a server that has been closed; that would be the worst business decision ever, alienating all players who don't play now, so don't worry about it. They will almost 100% give a permanent free transfers for any character that is still on a closing/closed server.

I think she was referring to it being free for everyone, not just people on closing servers, and since they haven't been announced yet, I don't think they would limit who can transfer for free.

Also, any character bound stuff in your wallet has and will transfer with the character, so don't worry about that. It's only account-wide stuff, which is very very rare to exist and not be put in the wallet, regardless of owning Premium Wallet or not. The main I can think of is the Rift Armor Gems...?

This If your server is ever closed, you will always have the option to move characters from that server to another open world for free. But transfers between already high populated worlds may not remain free, as we do not want to encourage a constant hoping back and forth between servers.

As for character items, we are working on making sure everything your character or account has will move with you. There may be some edge-case items that will come out in testing, but we will have a clear listing of what those items are.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

This If your server is ever closed, you will always have the option to move characters from that server to another open world for free. But transfers between already high populated worlds may not remain free, as we do not want to encourage a constant hoping back and forth between servers.

As for character items, we are working on making sure everything your character or account has will move with you. There may be some edge-case items that will come out in testing, but we will have a clear listing of what those items are.

This is encouraging to hear - and the part about not having people pop back and forwards between high population servers is completely understandable If everything that's in my wallet and my inventory comes with me, then that's my main concern about the transfers soothed


While we've got your attention on this thread, is it possible for you to give your verdict on several other issues associated with transfers? While I know that you may not have figured out the feasibility of these things yet, it would be good to hear what is going to happen to:

- Kinships. My whole kin is likely to move to the same server, but I assume that the kin will lose its rank 10 benefits and its kinhouse. The latter is a separate question, but regarding the kin charter, would it be possible to create an item which would allow the kin leader to recreate the kin, at the same rank, on a different server?

- Housing. As I'm sure you're aware, many people use their houses as storage, and others have kin houses on low level alts (encouraged by the reduction of kinship membership to just requiring one) for extra storage. Additionally, kin houses often have some precious items (eg. the Tower of Orthanc, Draigoch's statue etc.) which are bound to players who may no longer be active. What's the plan to ensure that people do not lose out with housing, especially considering that its likely to be the case that on more populated servers they will not be able to find a kin house in the same location that is free?

- Names. This is the most important of the remaining issues - with the current method of transferring, any character that already has a name-twin on another server will get the -1 after their name and will be given a free rename token. Yet I know that many people, including myself, have had our current names for many years, and have become attached to them. A quick scan of other EU servers showed me that on all of them, the name of my main has already been taken. Is their a plan to ensure that active transferring players don't get forced to have a different name because of long inactive player on the server they are transferring to? And how will you ensure that players can retain their sense of identity with their character if someone else, that is active, already has the name?


I'm aware that this is a lot of questions, but I think all of these things need to be answered in order to assuage the fears that I've heard within my kin, and across world since the release of the Producer's Letter. While I'd be surprised if you had the time to reply to all of these things now, if you could just let us know that these issues are being considered, and that there will be consultation on the issues before they go ahead (in case something obvious is missed), then that would be great

[Celembar]

I would like to allow people to start migrating to the higher population servers for free before the transfer improvements are added, for those that wish to do so and aim to do that soon. I am just doing some double checking on concerns about overcrowding before I do so. Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available, so that is not the concern. We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet, so we want to make sure we are not going to make performance worse before that happens by encouraging a mass migration.

Expect some updates from me on transfers in the next week.

-Vyv

I'm pretty sure this has been said but I'd just like some clarification: will we be able to transfer from and EU to an NA server ?

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

I'm pretty sure this has been said but I'd just like some clarification: will we be able to transfer from and EU to an NA server ?

Just in case you don't get a reply, this has already been clarified since the Producer's Letter came out, and you won't be able to transfer from an EU to an NA server, or vice versa.

[Mar-Evayave]

I know there are reports of lag on Brandywine especially in the PVMP areas. I play on Brandywine and do not experience these issues, but I may not be playing in the areas, at the times players are running into problems. So I am gathering info on that to determine if we have an issue on that particular server that might be made worse by moving more players to it before we improve our hardware infrastructure. Yes hardware can affect performance and newer hardware and a better location could do improve upon latency. Player population is not always the cause for latency.

What I dont want to do is make everyone's experience worse in the meantime.

What about other servers? Brandywine may be worst off, but Landroval and others have the same problems. There were many nights in the Moors where the lag was simply unreal. No one able to move, nothing but marching ants around skills, even rubberbanding.

If there is an issue on more servers than just Brandywine, I'd hope for all of them to get fixed, not just Brandywine.

[Vyvyanne]

I will have threads on transfer details including Kinships, Housing and names as well as schedules in the coming week.