wow-classic Paid Character Transfers Considered for WoW Classic

[Stan 5,018]

Paid character transfers are not off the table for WoW Classic, but no other services beyond that are considered. 

Long story short, I've recently transferred my character from Shazzrah to Dragonfang to avoid long wait times and it's been a blast. The realm has no queues and you don't need to wait 15 minutes for mobs to respawn. Blizzard recently announced Free Character Moves to populate the new servers and the most common questions players keep asking is how dead the server is and if it's worth transferring the characters over.

What most don't realize is that paid character transfers might be available in WoW Classic sooner or later, so even if you move your characters for the sake of leveling to a server that potentially becomes "dead", it's more than likely that you will be able to transfer your characters elsewhere in the future at a cost.

To back this up, we have a couple of responses from Classic developers (taken from the latest Reddit AMA). We learned that:

1. Paid character transfers are considered for WoW Classic, because they were available in original WoW.
2. They might be limited to players who have reached higher levels.
3. Realm identity is very important for Blizzard and they will look into rules that were in place back then and discuss the implications of players moving to a new realm.
4. No other services beyond paid character transfers are considered for WoW Classic.

Blizzard (Source)

Do you have a contingency plan to deal with a larger-than-expected population? Suppose as many people create characters in the 24 hours before and after launch as have done so already -- how quickly will you be able to add new servers?

We have contingency plans in place to bring up additional realms quickly if needed. We may also integrate character transfers (this ultimately became a service in original WoW.)

As you can imagine, it's difficult for us to gauge how many people will come to play Classic and stay on to experience max-level content. Ultimately, we want to see realms with healthy stable populations so we'll try to match demand without inadvertently creating low population realms in the process.

I hope that the character services stays limited to server xfers, because things like Character Boosts would break my heart.

Character Boosts are not in keeping with Classic. We don't want to break any hearts.

Piggy backing on this...will PAID transfers also be a thing should a server drop heavily in population and a player wishes to move to find more activity or reconvene with friends on another server.

We're considering integrating a character transfer service once players have reached higher levels. This was available in the original WoW. We'll look at the rules we imposed at that time and also discuss the implications of players moving to a new realm. We believe realm identity is an important aspect of Classic so any guidelines around transfers should support this belief.

Will there be paid services for Classic?

We aren't considering other services beyond character transfer at this time.

[Migol 425]

Quote

 

What most don't realize is that paid character transfers might be available in WoW Classic sooner or later, so even if you move your characters for the sake of leveling to a server that potentially becomes "dead", it's more than likely that you will be able to transfer your characters elsewhere in the future at a cost.

See this to me is wrong.   If a server (Retail or Classic) is dead, it's not the fault of the players who remain.     Blizzard should take responsiblity to do more server merges and/or provide free transfers from dead realms (again, classic or retail).     Saying the customer who's already paying a $15 a month subscription should pay another chunk of cash to move off a dead realm is just greed.

Moreover, the people who realize that this is a danger because of Blizzard's bad track record are probably not biting on the transfers because of this.     /Whitemane forever

Edited September 13, 2019 by Migol

[Bobbis 208]

8 hours ago, Migol said:

See this to me is wrong.   If a server (Retail or Classic) is dead, it's not the fault of the players who remain.     Blizzard should take responsiblity to do more server merges and/or provide free transfers from dead realms (again, classic or retail).     Saying the customer who's already paying a $15 a month subscription should pay another chunk of cash to move off a dead realm is just greed.

Moreover, the people who realize that this is a danger because of Blizzard's bad track record are probably not biting on the transfers because of this.     /Whitemane forever

This... they can clearly do free transfers since they've always offered them from full servers as they are again with classic. It should be in their interest to do the same again to keep players happy. Having to pay for xfers is what keeps realms dead since most people have an alt or a few (or an army...) and won't / can't pay to move them all.

[CaperfinWoW 21]

12 hours ago, Stan said:

Paid character transfers are not off the table for WoW Classic,

 

Called it! I am actually super happy about this, it opens up so many possibilities ?

[Sharknad0 67]

I am really happy about this. I think mergers hurt a bit more than allowing paid transfers. People like choosing servers based on Alliance to Horde populations. My guild transferred to Kargath at the beginning of MoP because it was alliance heavy, well populated, and Frostwolf had completely died. Not long after, they merged a horde heavy lower pop server and we got out numbered heavily. It was really frustrating. I wasn't able to get a hold of my friends to find out what server they were going on. Now, they are all on a different server and I really would like to transfer there sooner than later.

[dsc 18]

NO  no,no,no.

 

Pick your server, become part of it, grow it.  re-level if you want off. Paid server transfers will make MT sniping worse as the latter patches come.

 

EVERYONE knows the score headed in, #NOCHANGES.

[Znifler 58]

On 9/13/2019 at 2:10 AM, Migol said:

See this to me is wrong.   If a server (Retail or Classic) is dead, it's not the fault of the players who remain.     Blizzard should take responsiblity to do more server merges and/or provide free transfers from dead realms (again, classic or retail).     Saying the customer who's already paying a $15 a month subscription should pay another chunk of cash to move off a dead realm is just greed.

Moreover, the people who realize that this is a danger because of Blizzard's bad track record are probably not biting on the transfers because of this.     /Whitemane forever

I disagree completely with your opinion here. If you pick a server that isn't full or high now, prepare for low numbers in 6-months a year from now. If you sit there and say "well everyone is gone now buu, transfer me." Well, it's your own doing. I think the majority will be gone from Classic in 1 year tho - my opinion, and it might be wrong. 

Though I prefer less players = less hassle and fighting for the mobs etc. Strange thing is, I prefer playing Classic (and in retail for that matter) uninterrupted by players when questing, since they don't really give anything. Phasing when doing quests in Retail is a nice thing. Stacks of people can't break the immersion. Having 300 people on top of a questgiver, or farming the same mobs makes it less epic and immersive. Hell, it's harder when there are no people too. You can't just group and farm mobs etc. Finding people for raids and pvp is a nice thing, but that's because you actively seek others, not when you roam the world and wanting to be left alone. Put it like this. The Garrison was a nice addition to the game, cause it was yours and yours alone. You could invite people in if you wanted to show it off or do battles there against mobs and so on. The legion version was cool, but it was filled with players - for no reason at all. They gave nothing other than that, filling the space. The NPCs did they jobs, immersed the place, gave quests or let u do other things. The players simply did nothing other than what you did - quest and talk to NPCs. So why have players there? You feel a lot more epic if it's only you there, not 200 more of you. MMORPG aspect can be outside stormwind and inside major cites etc in the open world, or in raids and dungeons. In other words, every place other than when you quest - unless you chose too. 

Simply put: It's a lot more immersive when you quest alone. With others it's usually more rushed and you do not bother to read or listen to things. Imagine being able to phase out completely when doing world content, like Warmode can for PvP. Would be an interesting thing. I iknow this is a delicate matter for people who 'love interacting', and don't get me wrong, I play with 2 friends every day in WoW via Discord, and got stupid amount of friends in the bnet list. Sometimes it's even annyoing to get whispers after playing in 2s or 3s some days after because they want to play more, and you feel like you have to say yes - especially when they ask often. It almost becomes a commitment.

When it comes to doing new quests, it's nice to be left alone, and immerse.