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

[Felaris Stormrage]

I am glad that the price hasn't fluctuated. When, I played Ultima Online they gave out 'server x-fer shields' as veteran rewards allowing players to freely move across shards. Not only did it make shard population unbalanced for the time being, but ultimately, made the game's player-base gather onto 1 shard, depopulating every other shard. I could easily see this happen to WoW.

[Count Zero]

Different strokes for different folks.

I understand, but the person I quoted's wording implied they think it costs a little too much, so I was a bit confused at the inconsistency.

[Lady Dragonheart]

$30 really isn't very much, even if you were to transfer several characters at a time. If you can't afford something as small as that, then you should really evaluate how much time you spend into the game, in all seriousness.

Also, sometime soon it looks like you'll be able to afford this transaction with gold. So, if you can't afford it in real life, then you can use gold as an alternative.

[Zoneseek]

$30 really isn't very much, even if you were to transfer several characters at a time. If you can't afford something as small as that, then you should really evaluate how much time you spend into the game, in all seriousness.

Its all about value. I think $30 is a ton for a faction change, so I would never bother. I'll go play something else instead. Not because I can't afford it, but because I won't pay $30 for that. Just like I wouldn't pay $30 for a big mac, regardless of affordability.

Personally my stance is simple. Never have and never will pay for services or shop items while there is a sub requirement. One day maybe ill get some of those store pets, but not until then

[Deleted]

I remember back in Guild Wars 1 you could just freely hop between servers at will at any time. Worked fine.

[Lady Dragonheart]

Its all about value. I think $30 is a ton for a faction change, so I would never bother. I'll go play something else instead. Not because I can't afford it, but because I won't pay $30 for that. Just like I wouldn't pay $30 for a big mac, regardless of affordability.

Personally my stance is simple. Never have and never will pay for services or shop items while there is a sub requirement. One day maybe ill get some of those store pets, but not until then

Well, then I suppose that you'll simply have to deal with it, then. You may not value transfers that high, but their marketing team believes that they should be priced that high. Unless there is reason enough to change it, they won't. Therefore, unless they actually change it, which they haven't since it was determined at that price, then it isn't overpriced in any aspect other than personal opinion. However, according to their marketing department, it is and has been set at the proper price.

Having an instance of "I won't pay that, so it should be cheaper despite an entire marketing team values it at that price" isn't a strong argument. It's been at this price for years, there's no real need to change it or alter it.

[therealbowser]

When I wanted to move to a new server with all of my characters, I transferred one with all the loot, and used the RAF thing on a throw away account to get the rest leveled efficiently. Only did it once though, and once was enough.

[darklogrus]

Im surprised you never see a sale like they did once in the past, 50% off was a lot better offer for whats being requested.

[Deleted]

$30 really isn't very much, even if you were to transfer several characters at a time. If you can't afford something as small as that, then you should really evaluate how much time you spend into the game, in all seriousness.

I don't think it's about the affordability. It's about value of the service you're receiving. You're basically paying for automated script to flip couple of values in a database.

And you're most likely paying for it because Blizzard is deliberately neglecting to care about your realm population, creating bad experiences on purpose.
It does not feel good to throw away hundreds of dollars because of that (the 30 bucks ramps up quickly if you have alts to transfer).

The value proposition would be much better if Blizzard actually did what they used to do and took care of the low-pop, dying realms. I've nothing against transfers being $30 if I feel like it's my decision to change server or faction. But if I feel like it's forced upon me due to shitty, forgotten server no one cares about in some corner of a remote datacenter... I'm not going to be too happy about it.

It's about customer experience. And my experiences have been pretty abysmal.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

At least I provided evidence to support my opinion on this subject. Here's your original quote: "{Server transfer fee} is that high because people pay it. I wouldn't doubt if it's one of the reasons why WoW is still such a cash cow without the sub numbers of the past." I refuted this by mentioning that server transfers are likely a very small portion of WoW's revenue when compared to recurring subscription fees. Now, if you want to simply dismiss my argumentation simply because it's based on information neither of us will ever know (since Blizzard will never release this data to its players), that's fine. (IMO) It's a fairly flimsy cop-out but obviously I cannot change your perspective so I won't bother wasting any more of your time.

"one of the reasons" taken from you as "equals the more than all sub money" is pure delusion. I do not dismiss your argument. I simply said it is a guess. Because it is. You guessed. You might be able to put 2000 words around it and call it an educated guess but in the end it is still you guessing. That is all I am saying. But apparently you have a major problem with that. But that isn't my problem. You were never trying to change or discuss a perspective. You were simply throwing an internet baby rage because someone said you guessed when you insist on being right because you just want to be right.

You may be right. But end of the day it is just a guess.

You guessed.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I don't think it's about the affordability. It's about value of the service you're receiving. You're basically paying for automated script to flip couple of values in a database.

And you're most likely paying for it because Blizzard is deliberately neglecting to care about your realm population, creating bad experiences on purpose.
It does not feel good to throw away hundreds of dollars because of that (the 30 bucks ramps up quickly if you have alts to transfer).

The value proposition would be much better if Blizzard actually did what they used to do and took care of the low-pop, dying realms. I've nothing against transfers being $30 if I feel like it's my decision to change server or faction. But if I feel like it's forced upon me due to shitty, forgotten server no one cares about in some corner of a remote datacenter... I'm not going to be too happy about it.

It's about customer experience. And my experiences have been pretty abysmal.

This is all reduced to a matter of opinion in the end when you take to this point of yours. Arguing that customer experience is poor, solely from anecdotal evidence, no less, isn't a strong case in negotiating market price values. By this instance, they should improve customer experience (which they are by allowing the use of gold to perform this transaction, aside from real money), so this argument is entirely invalid when trying to negotiate market value and general price, especially since they are doing something about it.

[Noxina]

People thinking they are charging 30$ because they are greedy, don't really understand how things works. They would have earned a lot more money if they put it down to 10$, simply because then it would only be "pocket-change", and people would do it whenever they felt like it, 30$ on the other hand is starting to be some money (over an hour of work to earn in), so it is less common to do it, unless you want to join a specific guild or join up with some new friends you've met.

[Deleted]

This is all reduced to a matter of opinion in the end when you take to this point of yours. Arguing that customer experience is poor, solely from anecdotal evidence, no less, isn't a strong case in negotiating market price values. By this instance, they should improve customer experience (which they are by allowing the use of gold to perform this transaction, aside from real money), so this argument is entirely invalid when trying to negotiate market value and general price, especially since they are doing something about it.

Yes, absolutely agree - value propositions like this are always subjective.
That's why I said "my experiences" - sorry if it sounded like I was talking on behalf of larger population. I wasn't.

I have no idea what non-anecdotal evidence would be in this case. I don't think you have the other side of this either (unless you work at Blizzard).

However, the root of the issue is still Blizzard ignoring realm population these days. There are no more free-transfers to fill up abandoned realms or to ease up queues on the high-pop ones. They've haven't done those in ages.

This forces people to decisions between using the added value services or investing the time to re-roll/re-leveling. It sucks.

Personally I'd be equally pissed off if I had to pay gold for having to use the service. It's not about the cost.

[rayvio]

yes it is far, far too much. having some cost is understandable but having such a high one is beyond taking the piss, especially when there's no discount options for multiple characters or accounts (say if someone was transferring all of their characters to a different realm or if a whole guild are moving). they should at very least make transfers cheap to lower population realms (regardless of what realm the transfer is from) or if the faction transfer helps to even the imbalance on that realm

[Lady Dragonheart]

Yes, absolutely agree - value propositions like this are always subjective.
That's why I said "my experiences" - sorry if it sounded like I was talking on behalf of larger population. I wasn't.

I have no idea what non-anecdotal evidence would be in this case. I don't think you have the other side of this either (unless you work at Blizzard).

My information piggy-backs off of the fact that they haven't ever (according to my understanding) changed the cost of the service, and that it is, in fact, for a good reason. They have a very in-depth marketing team and they haven't ever needed a reason to change the cost, and I agree with that decision from a businessperson perspective. People complain about the individual experience, but blame the cost which isn't relevant.

However, the root of the issue is still Blizzard ignoring realm population these days. There are no more free-transfers to fill up abandoned realms or to ease up queues on the high-pop ones. They've haven't done those in ages.

This forces people to decisions between using the added value services or investing the time to re-roll/re-leveling. It sucks.

No, they haven't been ignoring it. They implemented CRZ, the LFG chats, LFR/LFD tools, and are constantly adding more and more multi/crossrealm functions, abilities, and user-friendly aspects. This is not ignoring the problem, but directly engaging it from a developmental standpoint.

Personally I'd be equally pissed off if I had to pay gold for having to use the service. It's not about the cost.

Then don't criticize the cost by stating that it needs to be reduced, since you're stating that it isn't the issue. Also, it isn't being forced, it is merely a new paying option for players. Adding a gold paying option is just that, more options, more player support, and better personal experiences for those that appreciate the new options to pay in that manner. Just because you may not like it, it ultimately wouldn't effect you if you choose not to use it, so don't condemn it when all it is is nothing but another option.

[Osmeric]

How many hours would it take you to level up a new character?

What's the value of an hour of your time?

Can you multiply?

[Spiral Mage]

It was stated a long time ago that the cost was intended to be steep enough (as others have said too), that the player will take the decision seriously and not just do it back and forth every chance they can get. (Though, there's also an internal cooldown on it, too? I don't see why that can't be made to be penalizing enough.)

But that was the official reason given to the costs.

Though, that hasn't stopped some people. I saw one person changing back and forth literally as soon as he could, every time he could, for quite awhile. It had to be a few hundred dollars. Man, I bet alot of us wish we had enough money to blow on doing something that stupid over and over.

[Relapses]

"one of the reasons" taken from you as "equals the more than all sub money" is pure delusion. I do not dismiss your argument. I simply said it is a guess. Because it is. You guessed. You might be able to put 2000 words around it and call it an educated guess but in the end it is still you guessing. That is all I am saying. But apparently you have a major problem with that. But that isn't my problem. You were never trying to change or discuss a perspective. You were simply throwing an internet baby rage because someone said you guessed when you insist on being right because you just want to be right.

You may be right. But end of the day it is just a guess.

You guessed.

You cannot have a discussion about this without guessing. We're talking about something for which Blizzard will never release data. It's kind of silly to repeat that "I'm guessing" when there's no point in even having this fucking conversation if I'm not.

[Deleted]

Then don't criticize the cost by stating that it needs to be reduced, since you're stating that it isn't the issue. Also, it isn't being forced, it is merely a new paying option for players. Adding a gold paying option is just that, more options, more player support, and better personal experiences for those that appreciate the new options to pay in that manner. Just because you may not like it, it ultimately wouldn't effect you if you choose not to use it, so don't condemn it when all it is is nothing but another option.

I'm criticizing their practice of modern highway robbery. I'm wondring why you're defending that practice. Forcing the people who are most likely to need it into their 'pay or gtfo' system, while abandoning the solutions they used before the payment option was available. It's scumbag business practice.

No, they haven't been ignoring it. They implemented CRZ, the LFG chats, LFR/LFD tools, and are constantly adding more and more multi/crossrealm functions, abilities, and user-friendly aspects. This is not ignoring the problem, but directly engaging it from a developmental standpoint.

None of which actually help when your server is ghost town and it's impossible to recruit enough people to keep a mythic raiding roster. That is blatantly ignoring the problem. Engaging it from development standpoint would have been to enable free transfer from high-pop realm to dead server. Done. I bet that cost would be lower than developing all those technologies you mention (which don't help at all). The solutions you suggest seem insanely complicated, expensive and miss the mark completely.

[Niwes]

I'm not strengthening your arguments, you asked me for my personal experience (after making an incorrect supposition) and I provided it to you. You can feel they're "being greedy" but without a paywall for server transfers, the idea of server identity wouldn't exist at all. There's arguments about the fairness of the cost (literally the reason for this thread) but I think (for the reasons I mentioned) it's perfectly fine the way it is and there's likely more harm to be done to the game if it were lowered. Additionally, as I said in the very first post I made in this thread, you'll soon be able to use in-game currency to buy transfers which will make it slightly less foreboding for players who are financially strapped but may be sitting on millions of gold on a mostly dead server.

you just dont get it...

1)
as i mentioned before: thats all marketing BS. you can solve your "great wall" problem easy technically by just set transfer-cooldowns of 3-6 months (you can even increase cooldown for every transfer of same toon, just as an example). no fotm ping pong transfers. there is NOTHING the high prices do, what you cant do technically. besides the high profit, ofc.

2)
you seem to be one of that persons that are too stupid to realize blizz is makin 5 more bugs with EVERY token used. when player A is so happy that he pay his month with gold instead RL money, what do you think from where the token he buys in the AH has come ? right: from a player B that paid 5 bugs more than for an subscription month (the one from player A, blizz lost). boing: blizz has earned 5 bugs more, as if they both paied their sub. ppl are too stupid to get this. and with services for ingame gold, it will be exactly the same. the whole token thing is just there to compensate sub loses without increase sub price (what ppl would drive away).

so, i think you should learn to be not that dellusional. i have no problem being a blizz fanboy, what you obviously are, when you paying 40+ transfers (lol). but not gettin the reality, just seems stupid to me.