Free or Discounted Realm Transfers for PvPers

[BeastmasterGuardian]

Recently, on the official forums, I got into a round robin of a discussion about Blizz actually offering Free or Discounted realm transfers for people who hated being on their PvP Realm. I kept telling them Blizz will NEVER offer such an option (and they shouldn't) and I was right Let me share with you an answer directly from Blizz when I pretended to ask for a Realm Xfer (which I never needed since I like my PvE and my PvP realms):

Greetings -----,

Game Master----- here. I hope this message finds you doing well.

I'm afraid that we can't offer any discounts for transfers large amounts of characters, however, something you may want to consider is the character migration option, which allows you to transfer characters from high population realm to low population realms, for free!

To take advantage of these transfers log into Account Management https://www.battle.net/account/management, select your World of Warcraft license, and at the bottom click on Free Character Migration. Eligible characters will be listed. Please see the Free Character Migration Disclaimers and FAQ https://us.battle.net/support/en/art...aimers-and-faq for more info.

I hope this helps you along in your journeys! If you need more help or have any other issues, don't hesitate to let us know. <3

Best wishes,

Game Master -----
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
http://battle.net/support

So, it looks like PvP will still happen on a PvP realm and people who hate it will either get lucky with a free migration or pay the $25. I would say that I hate to say 'I told you so', but it turns out I am rather enjoying being right and being smug about it So, for any of the PvPers that hate their realms after CRZ, get that $25 ready cause BLIZZ HAS SPOKEN! lol *falls over laughing*

[Deleted]

Recently, on the official forums, I got into a round robin of a discussion about Blizz actually offering Free or Discounted realm transfers for people who hated being on their PvP Realm. I kept telling them Blizz will NEVER offer such an option (and they shouldn't) and I was right Let me share with you an answer directly from Blizz when I pretended to ask for a Realm Xfer (which I never needed since I like my PvE and my PvP realms):



So, it looks like PvP will still happen on a PvP realm and people who hate it will either get lucky with a free migration or pay the $25. I would say that I hate to say 'I told you so', but it turns out I am rather enjoying being right and being smug about it So, for any of the PvPers that hate their realms after CRZ, get that $25 ready cause BLIZZ HAS SPOKEN! lol *falls over laughing*

Well .. to be fair .. you shouldnt put it this way it sounds like flame bait..

Despite that i agree .

[BeastmasterGuardian]

Well .. to be fair .. you shouldnt put it this way it sounds like flame bait..

Despite that i agree .

Make no mistake. I am absolutely loving the response from Blizz. How people take it, is entirely up to them. I can say that no where in my post did I verbally abuse or name call any of the persons wanting the free xfers. This was much more of a generic "I told you so"

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

Sooooo..... can I, or can I not transfer my alts from Kazzak to Frostmane FO FREE ?

EDIT: Ah no, it seems like I can't.. I checked the FCM in the battle.net-page and I have nothing

[Fenixdown]

Or they'll get a friend on a PvE server to invite them to a group, and get CRZ shifted over to a PvE realm. For free.

Boom. Who's laughing now, tough guy? :P

[BeastmasterGuardian]

Or they'll get a friend on a PvE server to invite them to a group, and get CRZ shifted over to a PvE realm. For free.

Boom. Who's laughing now, tough guy? :P

I love it! I will absolutely love that idea too Anything that keeps me from having to shift into aquatic form to swim through all the PvP tears

[loki504]

oke you if i understand it correctly you just posted it here to start a flamewar? because there is not really someting to discus if you ask me

[Deleted]

so your taking the word of one gamemaster as gospel? because blizz NEVER change their policies atall? I once had a GM tell me they couldnt fix my quest because GMs cant interact with quests ingame. The next GM not only fixed the quest for me but ported me to a safe spot too.

I could care less about free transfers, if you wanna move just load up 1 toon with heirlooms and pay to move him. But to say that blizz are never going to offer free transfers based on one GM's sayso is a little foolish. Then again based on the way youve set out your post im guessing foolish is what you where going for.

[Ayonel]

Well, I was on board with the general idea of 'suck it up, you rolled on a PvP realm', but since my wife decided to play again, i have to admit that it is impossible for her to do even the beginning quests in Mt Hyjal. Even with me trying to guard her, hoards of 90's descend and one-shot her. (And it doesn't matter which faction you're playing) Sure, we are a bit carebearish, but don't mind some world pvp. But on our barren realm, Balnazzar, non-CRZ areas are barren, while CRZ areas are almost unplayable.

So, she transferred. And I transferred a couple of toons as well. And, you know, its actually much more fun. I do think that the fee is too high, and that they should offer a bundle/discount if you bring all your toons over, but this has to be such a cash cow that i see why they dont.

The way I see it, Blizzard has a huge interest in the current state of things, as I am sure they will be making a lot of pure profit with huge numbers of transfers over time. And like mobile armory, once enough people have paid for it, or the Player base shrinks, they may discount it or do it for free.

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 11:01 AM ----------

... just load up 1 toon with heirlooms and pay to move him.

Yep, that's what I did. Loaded her up with looms(I have all of them at this point) and gold, bags and mats, and moved her over. As a one time thing, it seems well worth the cost to get established on a new realm.

[Beat5beat]

I kept telling them Blizz will NEVER offer such an option (and they shouldn't) and I was right

Except you weren't right. Nowhere in your response from a gamemaster does it say they will NEVER offer that option. So, no you weren't right.

Will they offer it in the future? Most likely only if they feel they are losing money by not offering it.

To out and say they will NEVER offer it, is just idiocy and shows you have no understanding of economics.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

oke you if i understand it correctly you just posted it here to start a flamewar? because there is not really someting to discus if you ask me

I wasn't trying to discuss anything. I was just interested in sharing my findings.

so your taking the word of one gamemaster as gospel? Then again based on the way youve set out your post im guessing foolish is what you where going for.

I will absolutely eat my words if I ever see Blizz offer free realm xfers for PvPers who can't handle it on their realm. The smart ones have just dealt with it and transferred already.

---------- Post added 2012-12-28 at 09:17 AM ----------

To out and say they will NEVER offer it, is just idiocy and shows you have no understanding of economics.

I would imagine if it was going to happen, it would happen already. Honestly, I am guessing the personal attacks are the persons currently stuck on their PvP realms who have gotten similar emails. That's ok. It just reaffirms my position that PvP happens on PvP realms and Blizz is only interested in making money on transfers. They do the High to Low pop thing for free, not like it really matters with CRZ

[GKLeatherCraft]

I don't see the reason for this thread? We knew blizzard wasn't going to offer them anyway, so you decided to just ask 1GM about it and come here with that? And we've seen plenty of times were one GM has given a different answer to a second

It really does seem like a flame bait thread really with an "answer" given for something that wasn't a question, I'm honestly curious what the threads intention was?

[BeastmasterGuardian]

I don't see the reason for this thread? We knew blizzard wasn't going to offer them anyway, so you decided to just ask 1GM about it and come here with that? And we've seen plenty of times were one GM has given a different answer to a second

It really does seem like a flame bait thread really with an "answer" given for something that wasn't a question, I'm honestly curious what the threads intention was?

My purpose was to share my response from Blizz about a request to offer free or discounted transfers. I will be beyond shocked if they decide to pass on the $$ to give the service away I'm still not sure why the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is "flame war". I'm just sharing my response from Blizz and trying to ease the pain of those still on their PvP realms looking for a way out.

[Zogarth]

I am one of those who think that faction/server transfer should be free to start with, so I still find Blizz scumfucks for not giving it. Just another cashgrab.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

I am one of those who think that faction/server transfer should be free to start with, so I still find Blizz scumfucks for not giving it. Just another cashgrab.

It is very much a cashgrab. But, it also keep the altoholic whimsters from just randomly switching servers everyday to suit their own needs and tossing realm economics out of whack. If it were free, your account would get hacked, realm transfer, sell it all off, and then your gold could be sold on the realm where they were "short stocked". Forcing a fee is the only way to keep realms from getting overloaded or account hackers from just wreaking havoc.

[Rivellana]

A couple things...

I like you, but it's just a fact of forum communities that posting something saying "I told you so" is actively inviting trolling, flaming, and arguing. People tend to look at it as someone acting like they're better than other people. I'll keep an eye on the thread. We like to keep all threads open as long as we can, I just hope this one provokes discussion instead of arguments.

I'm personally on a rather dead PvP realm and I'm not a fan of CRZ at all. However, I've been on the server since I started playing the game nearly seven years ago, all of my toons are on it, and I can't even afford to transfer one character let alone all of them. Would I transfer if I could afford it? Probably not, unless something happened and I had to leave the guild I'm in...I like them alot. The difference is that I usually just suck it up. If I'm leveling in a CRZ zone and a bunch of 90s feel like coming and ganking my lowbie, I usually either log off, go to a different area, or run an instance instead. I've occasionally called for help but usually it's easier to just do something else.

I agree with you that Blizzard won't ever offer free server transfers, or they would have done it already. They make too much money from it to change that. The problem, I think, is that they do not offer Free Character Migration for enough people. I'm unsure what their requirements are to meet it but I don't think they make enough people eligible for it. It seems to me they only offer it to the really high population realms to try to get people off of them so there's less of a queue time, because they know the people on those realms are unlikely to want to pay to transfer but might leave if it's free. The really low population realms where people are going to want to leave, they make them pay to get off.

The one time that Free Character Migration was offered to my own realm was several years ago and it helped cause the death of my server. The realm was probably medium/high pop at that point, but many people took advantage of the migration and entire 25 man guilds left. It really started the slow death of the server which has continued ever since. It's now low pop and there's a total of 2-3 raiding guilds on Alliance side and maybe 7-10 on Horde side. Most of those are guilds that haven't even gotten halfway through normal modes of the current raids yet.

If they offered Free Character Migration to more people, tons of people would take advantage of it...so they'd lose too much money for them to consider doing something like that.

[Zogarth]

It is very much a cashgrab. But, it also keep the altoholic whimsters from just randomly switching servers everyday to suit their own needs and tossing realm economics out of whack. If it were free, your account would get hacked, realm transfer, sell it all off, and then your gold could be sold on the realm where they were "short stocked". Forcing a fee is the only way to keep realms from getting overloaded or account hackers from just wreaking havoc.

The whole "But what if..." is just a bad excuse. And of course there should be a cooldown on transfers. Also, there is already a 50k gold limit to how much gold you can transfer. And the economics would just normalise with this new change of hackers transfering gold/items.

[TheWindWalker]

You know, I forgot about the whole "Free down, costs to go up" model they have going on.

Does anyone know if you can load up a toon with heirlooms and gold and transfer them from a high-pop to a medium-pop server or is it "to low-pop only?"

[BeastmasterGuardian]

A couple things...

I like you, but it's just a fact of forum communities that posting something saying "I told you so" is actively inviting trolling, flaming, and arguing. People tend to look at it as someone acting like they're better than other people. I'll keep an eye on the thread. We like to keep all threads open as long as we can, I just hope this one provokes discussion instead of arguments.

I'm personally on a rather dead PvP realm and I'm not a fan of CRZ at all. However, I've been on the server since I started playing the game nearly seven years ago, all of my toons are on it, and I can't even afford to transfer one character let alone all of them. Would I transfer if I could afford it? Probably not, unless something happened and I had to leave the guild I'm in...I like them alot. The difference is that I usually just suck it up. If I'm leveling in a CRZ zone and a bunch of 90s feel like coming and ganking my lowbie, I usually either log off, go to a different area, or run an instance instead. I've occasionally called for help but usually it's easier to just do something else.

I agree with you that Blizzard won't ever offer free server transfers, or they would have done it already. They make too much money from it to change that. The problem, I think, is that they do not offer Free Character Migration for enough people. I'm unsure what their requirements are to meet it but I don't think they make enough people eligible for it. It seems to me they only offer it to the really high population realms to try to get people off of them so there's less of a queue time, because they know the people on those realms are unlikely to want to pay to transfer but might leave if it's free. The really low population realms where people are going to want to leave, they make them pay to get off.

The one time that Free Character Migration was offered to my own realm was several years ago and it helped cause the death of my server. The realm was probably medium/high pop at that point, but many people took advantage of the migration and entire 25 man guilds left. It really started the slow death of the server which has continued ever since. It's now low pop and there's a total of 2-3 raiding guilds on Alliance side and maybe 7-10 on Horde side. Most of those are guilds that haven't even gotten halfway through normal modes of the current raids yet.

If they offered Free Character Migration to more people, tons of people would take advantage of it...so they'd lose too much money for them to consider doing something like that.

I like you too. I would love to see some dialogue come from this, but honestly, it will still most likely end poorly. You can feel free to close it if ya want. I just wanted to share my response from Blizz and show that they have no interest in reducing or removing the price for the exact reasons you mentioned Also, kudos for sticking to your guns and "sucking it up" (as you put it) when CRZ increased the amount of World PvP. I think that is the thing most people miss. If 500 new people rolled a toon on the server and just did a mad dash to 90, it would be a full realm again, much the same way CRZ populates zones. World PvP is gonna happen now whether people want it to or not I for one am glad to see World PvP back in swing and might just have to roll a toon on your realm to come hang out :P

[h3lladvocate]

GM != Blizz. Let me state that once and for ALL. For the most part, GM's are the same as any customer service rep from, well, any business. They have a script and a set of tools, that's it. They do not make any company decisions, just are knowledgable (hopefully...) about the current policies of the company. I bet if you asked a GM if you could faction change to Horde from Alliance, you'd get a similar, copy-pasta response as above. I'm not trying to rag on GM's, they're pretty cool and helpful and my friend is one, but they also aren't speaking FOR Blizzard, they just know all their current policies and have the tools to fix problems for their player base.

Now, I doubt that they will ever offer discounted rates for PvP realms (you did sign up for PvP, I know I did =) ), but things could always change.

Thought, I'd like to see some sort of global free transfer system... Kind of silly that I've played on one server for 7 years, server starts to die, and if I want to move, its 25 PER character... 10*25 = too much... (ok, not transferring all 10, but you know what I mean...). Like once a month free transfer per account, but with like super gold restrictions (or even item restrictions). Would be nice to be able to migrate some of my alts to my main server. They have some cool vanilla/bc things I'd like to show of xD

On another note, does anyone find it ironic the statements some of the blues post? Especially the comments on CRZ. Ironic how "the game was never designed to have empty zones", yet at the same time, it wasn't designed to have 100% all full zones either. Playing on a PvP realm in vanilla vs now, there is a lot more high level ganking now, and I suffered through STV gank-fests