Free Transfers, once a month; why isn't it a thing yet?

[Deleted]

I said it on page 2 and i'll say it again....


BLIZZARD HAS SAID: CHARACTER TRANSFERS ARE A PREMIUM SERVICE, and are not in any way 100% needed for WoW. If you do not like your server, go re-roll. if you want to keep your toon, then pay the damn money and shut up about it....

someone please find me that blue post about it, its on MMO-champion somewhere.

Just re-roll or unsub, we don't need people who complain about premium WoW services.

So when your ah economy is barely alive,so when you can barely find any kind of guild,pve or pvp on your server,you can't go in a constested zone because your realm's faction balance is completely one-sided,can you really say with a straight fkin face that those transfers are not needed in any way for WoW ''100%''?
Please confirm your post,I have to see this.

[McTurbo]

i think it should be set transfers. blizzard knows the population of each server and faction.. let them choose what servers ar merged togeahter.. just keep everyone from the same server on the new server so as not to split friends that are not in the same guild.

Aka Garona Alliance dominated, transfers to bronzebeard horde dominated. (up to bliz if they want to rename server)
both populations double while adding more horde and more alliance to each side to try and achieve a balance.. if still to low on pop. add a 3rd server to it. friends are not seperated as all alliance are still on the same side (and horde are on horde) .. just different server with a whole lot of new people.

[Tziva]

I said it on page 2 and i'll say it again....


BLIZZARD HAS SAID: CHARACTER TRANSFERS ARE A PREMIUM SERVICE, and are not in any way 100% needed for WoW. If you do not like your server, go re-roll. if you want to keep your toon, then pay the damn money and shut up about it....

someone please find me that blue post about it, its on MMO-champion somewhere.

Just re-roll or unsub, we don't need people who complain about premium WoW services.

Everyone knows what Blizzard has said. This isn't a discussion about what is, this is a discussion about what should be. No one is debating what the current situation is.

"Shut up or leave" isn't really a good business plan for a company.

[Polarthief]

Sounds like I still get to ninja at least two eight tab guild banks and however many pugs I can get away with and get a reset button for it twice a year. Sign me up.

And anyone retarded enough to give you that much access DESERVES to get ninja'd from.

People need to realize that ninjaing only happens because the victims are retarded. Give people Master Looter and they may ninja, or force them to say the rules for looting in raid chat (if Blizzard sees said chat log, and the ML/RL breaks those rules, that's legit a scam and a suspendable/bannable offense, in addition to the items being given to the right players). Give people you don't trust access to your GB, and you can be sure you'll be ninja'd. HOW ABOUT I GO OUT ON THE STREETS AND HAND SOME RANDOM STRANGER MY BANK ACCOUNT AND CREDIT CARD?! SHOULD I BE SURPRISED WHEN I SEE FUNDS BEING DEDUCTED?! OH SHIT IT'S THE RANDOM PERSON'S FAULT FOR BEING GIVEN SUCH POWER!

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 05:47 PM ----------

Everyone knows what Blizzard has said. This isn't a discussion about what is, this is a discussion about what should be. No one is debating what the current situation is.

"Shut up or leave" isn't really a good business plan for a company.

In addition to Blizzard being well known for going back on their word.

"Cataclysm will be the hard expansion" *Everything nerfed shortly after launched patches so everyone can do it with ease*
"MoP will be the casual expansion" *Casuals get nothing but dailies and LFR; leveling has never been worse/more boring, especially for alts*
"We will never allow faction transfers" GUESS WHAT'S BEEN RELEASED?

[Deleted]

Sounds like I still get to ninja at least two eight tab guild banks and however many pugs I can get away with and get a reset button for it twice a year. Sign me up.

If you were any kind of ''WoW badass gangsta'' you wouldn't need a free server transfer to make trouble as you would probably make enough gold to actually pay for your transfers and ''ninja at least two eight tab guild banks and however many pugs I can get away'' as much as you want.

[Polarthief]

If you were any kind of ''WoW badass gangsta'' you wouldn't need a free server transfer to make trouble as you would probably make enough gold to actually pay for your transfers and ''ninja at least two eight tab guild banks and however many pugs I can get away'' as much as you want.

Except trading gold for a transfer is against the ToS.

If it wasn't, I'd be pretty happy. 100k for a transfer

[NotLuto]

they are definitely a slippery slope and one that needs to be addressed cautiously. GW2 offered free home world migrations for the first few months i played, not sure if they still do now or not, and while it wasnt bad at first it quickly became a problem (at least in our guilds eyes) in the WvWvW part of the game.

servers that were consistently dominating would get flooded with people who transferred from ones that werent doing nearly as good because they always wanted to be on the winning side. this led to several problems for both ends. the ones that were successful in WvWvW would get such an influx of players that the queues to get into WvWvW would become ridiculously long and the servers that werent successful would lose so many players they couldnt put up a decent enough fight due to be outpopulated.

generally what we noticed was that the larger WvWvW focused guilds would soon transfer to one of the low pop servers and within a week or two it would become the new hotspot because everyone would soon transfer to it due to its success.

How does it get addressed? "If you use the free transfer feature to move to make a profit on the AH, run off with a guild bank (not an issue if you're given full access or are the GM) or escape a bad reputation we will shake our fingers at you and put you in the box of shame."?

There was no realistic way to police it in Rift and with a population 17 times larger, it's even further outside the scope of reality for Blizzard.

[Deleted]

Except trading gold for a transfer is against the ToS.

If it wasn't, I'd be pretty happy. 100k for a transfer

Are you telling me he'd happily steal guild banks if he had the chance to but he still praises the ToS like some bible?

[NotLuto]

And anyone retarded enough to give you that much access DESERVES to get ninja'd from.

People need to realize that ninjaing only happens because the victims are retarded. Give people Master Looter and they may ninja, or force them to say the rules for looting in raid chat (if Blizzard sees said chat log, and the ML/RL breaks those rules, that's legit a scam and a suspendable/bannable offense, in addition to the items being given to the right players). Give people you don't trust access to your GB, and you can be sure you'll be ninja'd. HOW ABOUT I GO OUT ON THE STREETS AND HAND SOME RANDOM STRANGER MY BANK ACCOUNT AND CREDIT CARD?! SHOULD I BE SURPRISED WHEN I SEE FUNDS BEING DEDUCTED?! OH SHIT IT'S THE RANDOM PERSON'S FAULT FOR BEING GIVEN SUCH POWER![COLOR="red"]

The only times I've seen a gbank taken with the exception of ONE person has always been a trusted officer who has been with the guild for a long time or the GM. A guild bank ninja is like a real life con man. You know what "con" stands for in "con man"? It's not convict. It's confidence. A guild bank ninja is a confidence man. They put in the time, they earn your trust. They're your best friend, a business partner, a lover. They find something about you that's weak and they play off it. Are you stupid for trusting someone you love? Are you stupid for trusting your best friend? Are you stupid for trusting a business partner? It's called a long con.

Also, as an extremely successful and controversial pug raid leader in WotLK, it's easy to ninja and get away with it, it's even easier when you're made to explain your rules in chat. That's how you get your loop holes so only the good players get loot and the bads don't. People hated my rules the first few weeks because yes, it all but boiled down to my 10-13 friends in the group getting their loot first. After that, I couldn't keep people out of my groups. Can you believe people begging to join a raid knowing they won't get something because they don't reach the minimum DPS requirement I set forth? It happens with success and after the good ones got their loot, the bads eventually did. It's still ninjaing at the base, it just has rules to make it legit.

[Deleted]

How does it get addressed? "If you use the free transfer feature to move to make a profit on the AH, run off with a guild bank (not an issue if you're given full access or are the GM) or escape a bad reputation we will shake our fingers at you and put you in the box of shame."?

There was no realistic way to police it in Rift and with a population 17 times larger, it's even further outside the scope of reality for Blizzard.

Well you could also escape those if you deleted your character...guess the delete button needs to go to.
Also those free transfers to low population servers Blizzard does once in a while,anti-ToS too I guess.
Why should Blizzard keep name changing services and paying transfers even?Those encourage the kind of behaviour you describe right?Or are you saying money bieng involved magically stops people from making trouble?
By your logic everything needs to go.And your logic is wrong.There's no reason for Blizzard to adapt their game entirely to bad behaviour and they don't do it.
The actual reasonable solution would be to do something about the problem,not sabotage the game's progression.

[Polarthief]

How does it get addressed? "If you use the free transfer feature to move to make a profit on the AH, run off with a guild bank (not an issue if you're given full access or are the GM) or escape a bad reputation we will shake our fingers at you and put you in the box of shame."?

There was no realistic way to police it in Rift and with a population 17 times larger, it's even further outside the scope of reality for Blizzard.

I actually have a question to ask anyone who cares so much about the AH thing: "Who cares?"

Gold doesn't really hold much significance when all the vital stuff just keeps getting nerfed in price. To get ALL levels of mount (including 310) and Northrend, Azeroth, and Pandarian flying, it's only ~12.5k. Exclude 310 and it drops to ~7.5k. Of which as you level, you gain that, if not, more than that, with all the gold from quests, dungeons, kills, and stuff you vendor across the way.

Besides to a new player, the only big thing about gold atm is the BMAH and vanity items. Repairs, enchants, gems, food, and flasks are typically given to you by your guild. If you don't raid or are part of a serious PvP team, why do you need these items anyways? And if you "need" them for some reason, they really aren't that expensive when dungeons and LFR practically hand you gold (remember all those times you didn't get gear/got gear you didn't need in LFR? LOOKIT ALL THAT GOLD IT IS/BECOMES).

I don't see making a profit as that big of an issue anymore because of it. Should you still have money issues, change your professions accordingly so you can:

- Get ore/gems on a miner toon
-- Give ore/gems to a JC toon to get cut gems for your main's gear
-- Give ore to a BS toon if you're a plate user for plate gear

- Get herbs on an herbalist toon
-- Give herbs to an alchemist toon to make potions/flasks for your main's raids
-- Give some herbs to a scribe toon to make the shoulder enchant for your main's gear

- Get leather/scales on a skinning toon
-- Give leather/scales to a LW toon if your main uses leather or mail for your main's gear
--- Also for the leg enchant if you're a Melee, Hunter, or Tank

- Collect cloth on your main (or a tailor to collect it a bit faster)
-- Give cloth to a tailor toon to make you bags and cloth armor if your main uses cloth
--- Also for the leg enchant if you're a Caster or Healer
--- Also use said cloth to make greens to give to an enchanter toon

- Collect greens on your main (or BoP items on an enchanter to be vastly more efficient; make your main an enchanter for this reason if you want to be as efficient as possible)
-- Give BoE items you find to your enchanter for your enchanting needs

So where gold was needed for all this stuff, you're now self-sufficient in:
- Gems
- Enchants
- Consumables (feasts are usually supplied by RL anyways, but should they not be, take up cooking; it's very cheap nowadays anyways)

The only thing you'll need to supply (if your guild doesn't for some reason) is repairs, which, when you do a lot of LFD/LFR or Dailies, it isn't that bad at all.

[NotLuto]

If you were any kind of ''WoW badass gangsta'' you wouldn't need a free server transfer to make trouble as you would probably make enough gold to actually pay for your transfers and ''ninja at least two eight tab guild banks and however many pugs I can get away'' as much as you want.

The bad ass gangsta is always going to do it regardless of free or paid transfers. Opening up a guaranteed free transfer for everyone is going to create more people caring less about others. Look at what LFR did to the community. You can't ninja gear but you can definitely AFK through every wing and get away with it.

A twice a year, free transfer is perfect. I can pull two long cons a year.

[Conscious]

Blizz would lose out on a ton of cash that could have been made. I personally like the idea. One other problem that could pose is servers that have low pops will get lower.

This.

Services like that are the reason they stay having record revenues. They won't get rid of it until they absolutely, absolutely have to.

[NotLuto]

Well you could also escape those if you deleted your character...guess the delete button needs to go to.
Also those free transfers to low population servers Blizzard does once in a while,anti-ToS too I guess.
Why should Blizzard keep name changing services and paying transfers even?Those encourage the kind of behaviour you describe right?Or are you saying money bieng involved magically stops people from making trouble?
By your logic everything needs to go.And your logic is wrong.There's no reason for Blizzard to adapt their game entirely to bad behaviour and they don't do it.
The actual reasonable solution would be to do something about the problem,not sabotage the game's progression.

If all those features were gone, yes those things would happen less. I'm not saying they need to go. I'm saying they don't need to create an easier environment in which someone can do these things in.

And realistically, yeah you could delete your toon to escape but why? At that point you're just stealing to steal if you're going to delete a character at or near the level cap and if you're not at or near the level cap, who gives a damn that you stole 19 stacks of linen cloth and 12 stacks of copper ore?

[Tziva]

In addition to Blizzard being well known for going back on their word.

"Cataclysm will be the hard expansion" *Everything nerfed shortly after launched patches so everyone can do it with ease*
"MoP will be the casual expansion" *Casuals get nothing but dailies and LFR; leveling has never been worse/more boring, especially for alts*
"We will never allow faction transfers" GUESS WHAT'S BEEN RELEASED?

Semantics, maybe, but I don't think Blizzard goes back on their word so much as people take their word as Set-In-Stone-Forever. Blizzard makes choices for WoW based on the current game circumstances. Sometimes it makes sense to do things one way but there can always be a time when it makes sense to do things another way. Frankly I think it's a positive sign when a company is willing to change and adapt. Being inflexible for the sake of being inflexible is silly.

In the past, it didn't make sense to offer free or cheap faction transfers. People were willing to pay the money, there weren't a lot of dead servers, people didn't have a lot of alts to transfer, and there were enough players in the game to cover all the servers. But it isn't that game anymore. Empty servers are no longer seen as a cool new place to start fresh and build a community -- they are established servers whose population has died or is rapidly falling. Most players have an entire team of high level alts with years of history behind them and transferring all of them is an insurmountable cost. Many players would rather quit than play on a dead realm or shell out a hundred bucks to transfer their favourite characters.

In other words, Blizzards transfer cost and policy made sense in the past but it no longer does. It would be laudable, not wishwashy, for them to change their policy now.

[Polarthief]

Are you telling me he'd happily steal guild banks if he had the chance to but he still praises the ToS like some bible?

Get caught, and your account goes bye bye.

Also, "ninjaing" isn't a bannable offense because it was in the fault of the people who gave them such power.

The only times I've seen a gbank taken with the exception of ONE person has always been a trusted officer who has been with the guild for a long time or the GM. A guild bank ninja is like a real life con man. You know what "con" stands for in "con man"? It's not convict. It's confidence. A guild bank ninja is a confidence man. They put in the time, they earn your trust. They're your best friend, a business partner, a lover. They find something about you that's weak and they play off it. Are you stupid for trusting someone you love? Are you stupid for trusting your best friend? Are you stupid for trusting a business partner? It's called a long con.

Also, as an extremely successful and controversial pug raid leader in WotLK, it's easy to ninja and get away with it, it's even easier when you're made to explain your rules in chat. That's how you get your loop holes so only the good players get loot and the bads don't. People hated my rules the first few weeks because yes, it all but boiled down to my 10-13 friends in the group getting their loot first. After that, I couldn't keep people out of my groups. Can you believe people begging to join a raid knowing they won't get something because they don't reach the minimum DPS requirement I set forth? It happens with success and after the good ones got their loot, the bads eventually did. It's still ninjaing at the base, it just has rules to make it legit.

... Lol? Sorry, just going to put a "lol" here and nothing else because that's really sad. Sorry you have shitter officers in the guilds you join.

That's not true at all. You set rules, people agreed that if they joined, they would follow said rules. Your loot system followed said rules, so you did nothing wrong and there was no "ninjaing" involved.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:08 PM ----------

Semantics, maybe, but I don't think Blizzard goes back on their word so much as people take their word as Set-In-Stone-Forever. Blizzard makes choices for WoW based on the current game circumstances. Sometimes it makes sense to do things one way but there can always be a time when it makes sense to do things another way. Frankly I think it's a positive sign when a company is willing to change and adapt. Being inflexible for the sake of being inflexible is silly.

In the past, it didn't make sense to offer free or cheap faction transfers. People were willing to pay the money, there weren't a lot of dead servers, people didn't have a lot of alts to transfer, and there were enough players in the game to cover all the servers. But it isn't that game anymore. Empty servers are no longer seen as a cool new place to start fresh and build a community -- they are established servers whose population has died or is rapidly falling. Most players have an entire team of high level alts with years of history behind them and transferring all of them is an insurmountable cost. Many players would rather quit than play on a dead realm or shell out a hundred bucks to transfer their favourite characters.

In other words, Blizzards transfer cost and policy made sense in the past but it no longer does. It would be laudable, not wishwashy, for them to change their policy now.

In all of this, don't forget that it was MANUAL LABOR that Blizzard employees had to do to transfer people.

Now? It's all automatic.

[Anix]

I guess you want to play with friends

[NotLuto]

Get caught, and your account goes bye bye.

Also, "ninjaing" isn't a bannable offense because it was in the fault of the people who gave them such power.



... Lol? Sorry, just going to put a "lol" here and nothing else because that's really sad. Sorry you have shitter officers in the guilds you join.

That's not true at all. You set rules, people agreed that if they joined, they would follow said rules. Your loot system followed said rules, so you did nothing wrong and there was no "ninjaing" involved.

Officers are the ones with the bank access typically. Officers and GMs are statistically going to be the ones that take a bank, it has nothing to do with my experiences following those statistics and your experiences being the exception to the rule. Again, if it's a low level guild it's going to be different but who cares about 19 stacks of linen cloth being taken from the one and only bank tab?

If I design a group and a rule set meant to cleverly benefit my friends and I and prevent anyone else from getting loot, how is that not morally wrong? I did it for a year and I know it's wrong.

Ninjaing is a punishable offense btw. 24 hour suspension > 72 hour suspension > account termination. Took me one strike to realize I needed loop holes.

[Polarthief]

I guess you want to play with friends

By friends do you mean "real life" friends? If so, lolno.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21087143 if you actually want my legit motives for this (in addition as a way to solve the dead-realm problem)

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:14 PM ----------

Officers are the ones with the bank access typically. Officers and GMs are statistically going to be the ones that take a bank, it has nothing to do with my experiences following those statistics and your experiences being the exception to the rule. Again, if it's a low level guild it's going to be different but who cares about 19 stacks of linen cloth being taken from the one and only bank tab?

If I design a group and a rule set meant to cleverly benefit my friends and I and prevent anyone else from getting loot, how is that not morally wrong? I did it for a year and I know it's wrong.

Meh. I still haven't experienced that, even from our officers that have quit in the past. Know why? We don't make shitters officers.

I believe in the philosophy that if you don't carry your weight or don't benefit from the gear as much as others would, you shouldn't be given loot. If you see it as wrong, why'd you do it for so long? In all honesty though, no, it's not wrong. You followed rules that YOU AS A LEADER SET FOR EVERYONE. Nothing "wrong" happened. Both parties agreed on the rules set forth.

Seriously though, why should someone who sucks get good loot that "should" make them better but won't when you could give it to your 5x-higher-than-that-shitter guy instead and he'll get significantly more benefit out of it?

In a similar example: Why do we NOT give our Warlock T15 pieces over our Priest/Paladin? Because Warlock T15 is shit and the Paladin and Priest get a lot more benefit out of it instead.

[NotLuto]

By friends do you mean "real life" friends? If so, lolno.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21087143 if you actually want my legit motives for this (in addition as a way to solve the dead-realm problem)

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:14 PM ----------



Meh. I still haven't experienced that, even from our officers that have quit in the past. Know why? We don't make shitters officers.

I believe in the philosophy that if you don't carry your weight or don't benefit from the gear as much as others would, you shouldn't be given loot. If you see it as wrong, why'd you do it for so long? In all honesty though, no, it's not wrong. You followed rules that YOU AS A LEADER SET FOR EVERYONE. Nothing "wrong" happened. Both parties agreed on the rules set forth.

It's wrong because I set requirements high enough that it was realistic to be obtained but probably not going to happen by a pug. Kill an MC on lady deathwhisper and you don't get loot. I'd go out of my way to ensure that an MC was in a situation it would die. Also, the rules were only enforced when it was of benefit to me or a friend.

And I did it for so long because I got away with it and while it was morally wrong, it wasn't suspend me wrong. My and my friends loot > anyone elses.

What realm and guild are you in? Give me six months and I could con my way into an officer position and make off with your bank. The thing about shitty officers is you either don't make them officers because they're shitty or by the time you realize they're shitty, it's too late.