Is 30 dollars for a faction change/server change just too much?

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Honestly should be about 10 dollars or less. Why is a virtual change so important and why is it 85% of the price of a current expansion pack? Makes no sense.

[God Save The King]

Some product manager/exec at Blizzard did some analysis and figured out that $30 would maximize profits while being a round number.


The reason it's high is because people don't faction/server change all willy nilly. They do it for specific reasons, so they're willing to pay a premium. If I really want to join that 7/7M, 3/3M mythic raiding guild, I'll pay $30.

[enchiridion]

so...1. its $25 2. even at 30 it would be 50% of expansion price 3. it has a lot less to do with ease and a lot more to do with desireablility of said service, i guarantee if we went 6mo without anyone buying a server change it would come 50% off for a sale

[RobertMugabe]

Realms are an outdated system anyways tbh. They could just introduce like second names for the characters and remove realms altogether (they'd exist behind the scenes, but you can interact with anyone freely, join guilds etc).

Faction change costs are I think justified. I dont think they want players to change often, because this may cause imbalance (for example when humans were considered op in WoD everyone would just change to alliance)

[Elim Garak]

No it's pocket change

[God Save The King]

so...1. its $25 2. even at 30 it would be 50% of expansion price 3. it has a lot less to do with ease and a lot more to do with desireablility of said service, i guarantee if we went 6mo without anyone buying a server change it would come 50% off for a sale

Server is $25 (EU 20)

Faction is $30 (EU 25) (source)

I assume the poster is talking about US since they referenced 30

[Flatspriest]

It is $30 for the reason that it makes people ask if it is worth it. If it is worth it to you, then you don't mind the $30. If it isn't worth it, then you question the $30 price.

[enchiridion]

Server is $25 (EU 20)

Faction is $30 (EU 25) (source)

I assume the poster is talking about US since they referenced 30

ok the faction i didnt realize was 30 my mistake then, the rest of what i said still stands tho

[Super Kami Dende]

Could it be Cheaper? Yeah it could.
Does it need to be Cheaper? Nah not really.

Probably helps stop a lot of toxic server jumpers.

[moremana]

It is $30 for the reason that it makes people ask if it is worth it. If it is worth it to you, then you don't mind the $30. If it isn't worth it, then you question the $30 price.

This, if they made it cheaper, people would jump servers and factions continuously. Its kinda of like "population control"

[Swizzington]

Well it depends what point of view you're coming at it from. People are willing to pay it, so it can't be too much, and compared to the mark up on some foods, clothes, etc. it's no bigger offender. iPhones cost a couple of bucks to produce, and sell for several hundred.

You could argue that it's less acceptable for services like a faction change to have such high costs because there is no physical product and is entirely automated. I think you'd be right.

[Youn]

No it's pocket change

It's only pocket change if you're doing it with one character. Last time I faction/server changed ($55.00) I did it with 9 of my characters and 8 of my wives characters. That on the other hand was a little expensive.

It would be nice if there was a bulk rate.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

High for us, but ya as mentioned, it would be changed if they were sure a lower price would yield more cash.

[Kapral]

Seeing how some of the realms are wildly imbalanced, I think Blizzard should consider either dropping the price on faction / server change, or merge servers so the population would even-out. Or perhaps a pvp-off toggle switch? Cause players are getting older, and so getting more casual, not so many hard core players around nowadays.

[SirCowdog]

Honestly should be about 10 dollars or less. Why is a virtual change so important and why is it 85% of the price of a current expansion pack? Makes no sense.

Looked at objectively, yes, it's too much when you consider how little effort is required to actually perform the swap. It's copy/paste of character files in a database. We've already got cross-server functionality in a lot of ways, and the entire idea of having multiple servers is rapidly becoming obsolete and unnecessary.

Even only 5 years ago I'd say that server swapping was a good service. Now? Like many other outdated "features", paid character swapping is just another way to milk players for more money.

[deadman1]

It is $30 for the reason that it makes people ask if it is worth it. If it is worth it to you, then you don't mind the $30. If it isn't worth it, then you question the $30 price.

#hailcorporate

When there are dead servers it shouldn't be such a big gate to xfer. If they don't want people spamming it they can put a x# month lock on your account. Don't think they do this for you, they do it to line their wallets. There is a fine line between maximizing profits and extorting your consumers.

[Ech0544]

The price of faction change/ server change is stupid in that when I decided to return to the game to find my server dead and my friends playing horde on a different server I was looking at £234 to transfer my 6 characters and get them the same faction as my mates.

Irrelevant of what anyone says about population control or it needing to be high to dissuade regular use, that is just criminal, there are easier ways to go about stopping it being regularly used to server/ faction hop but still not rip off returning players or players who just want to change server and will never use it again more than likely, for example:

An accumulating discount for players that resets to 0 if you use it and hits max after a year or 2 and would apply to all transactions of faction change/ server change in 1 instance IE, transferring 1 char resets it to 0, transferring 10 chars at same time resets it to 0 but you get discount for all 10.

[Elim Garak]

It's only pocket change if you're doing it with one character. Last time I faction/server changed ($55.00) I did it with 9 of my characters and 8 of my wives characters. That on the other hand was a little expensive.

It would be nice if there was a bulk rate.

If you take some change from 34 pockets you get a hefty sum as well.

[Marrilaife]

The problems with the system are:

1. Dead servers Blizz gives 0 fucks about. MOP connections were 2 expansions ago and even those were very conservative, erring on the side of keeping servers too small rather than too big, then player exodus happened and those medium servers became very low.

2. No mass transfer discount. Just punishing people who like to play alts and want to move to a different server because their friends play somewhere else or the server became dead over the years. While doing nothing to repel 1-char serial server jumpers because for them it's a chump change. If they didn't want people transferring a lot they would never have lifted the transfer cooldown that was several months long at start, now it's like... 3 days. Just the price stays.

Generally it's a system made to milk players who got stuck on dead servers just because they play long enough they remember the times of 12 mil subs and milk altoholics for transfers / boosts to get their alts back. Don't even know why this game has 12 classes, 13 races, 36 specs to play and still punishes you so hard if you want to experience all that.

[Rynard]

The problem is some people have played the same characters since Vanilla. It would be like deciding to move to a new home, and just saying f it.. I don't need to take anything with me ill just start over.