Service Fees: Reasonable or Outrageous?

[Pancha]

I would've transferred some of my characters to a server filled with friends weren't it for the transfer fee. I'm just unable to pay such a substantial fee in order to virtually change servers.

[whatthefudge]

I think they are a necessary evil.

[-Superman-]

none of the above i would say a bundle deal where for 2 days for 100euro you can move any amount of chars from that server.

Essentially : " Transfers should be $25 for all on that realm" You get to move them all for a set price. (numbers can certainly be changed.)

[Belloc]

The fee for the service made sense when it was introduced as most servers had a healthy faction/population balance.
Having suffered a sub hemorrhage since cata, the fee no longer makes sense. At all.

Population balance issues should be considered completely separately. If a realm is dead/dying, transfers/merges/something else should be considered. I'm willing to bet that Blizzard is working on solutions for these problems. If those solutions include free transfers, that's great. I don't think that's what they'll do, though, since they haven't really been doing it lately.

Something obviously needs to be done to alleviate those issues, but providing free transfers to everyone, even on a cooldown, will not solve those problems... they'll simply make them worse/swap them for other problems.

[Deleted]

personally i think they should give 1 free transfer after 3 months (max: 1) and if you want more transfers during the time period before you get another free one, it should cost 5-10.

[Granyala]

Blizzard have stated themselves that the sole reason for the fee is to discourage people swapping all over the place on a whim.

This. And I think it's superior to just "limiting" it.
However there should be a discount option when you want to leave your realm with all your chars.

[Ceece]

I'd prefer a free transfer, for any characters current on whatever realm, with 60 to 90 day cool-down. If you want to move servers again, you should purchase that afterward. These services and anything in the Blizzard store should be cheaper. If the game had no subscription payments, I can understand certain items having a higher price.

[Windfury]

I paid to transfer from realms that went to over 95% of the opposite faction twice. That's more than enough. Since Cataclysm with all the alts I have now plus a couple of guildbanks to carry gold I'd have to pay over $600 for a full realm swap, that's completely unreasonable. They need to do something that lets you swap a whole server of toons reasonably.

[Maelle]

I just shelled out for 2 faction and realm transfers this month - for the first time in about two years, I think it was about 90 euros.

My bank statement shall give me the frown of disappointment this month, it felt way to expensive, and I didn't feel good about the purchase at all.

Could do with being a touch less money, or they could throw in the faction transfer with the realm or vice versa.

[Flatspriest]

I didn't vote in this poll because it doesn't have any options I believe are fair. In my opinion, if you only have 1 character on a realm, it should be $25. The more characters, the lower the cost for each transfer. With a bottom of $10 per character since this is an optional service and not needed to continue playing the game.

[Luxeley]

From what I understand - the xfer process is purely automated, if not 100% then most definitely at least 80%. $25 is a rather exorbinate amount to charge, especially considering there is probably a greater need for xfers due to the growing concern of server imbalance. I could be wrong, but I do believe a lot of people who want to xfer want to xfer more than one toon. For example, if I pull my horde toons off a server that has been steadily dying over the past 6 months, I'd pay a ridiculous $225. If only xfer'd my 90's I still pay $100. Fortunately, I have alliance toons on a thriving server, but if I didn't, I'd play another game. This is the problem. If Blizzard slashed the price to $10, I'd be inclined to xfer 4 90's off the server, Blizz earns $40 instead of $25, everyone benefits. Or they could reward loyal repeat customers who remain subbed for a full quarter (3 months) with a 2 or 3 free xfers with the restriction of not going to an overpopped server. But no - this makes sense so Blizzard does not do it because they are 100% about the $$$$ - rape their customers for as much as possible, that is their motto. The bottom line problem is, the value of Blizzard's service and product has steadily declined and the price remains the same. Hence 1.3 Million less subs and trending downward...

[Deleted]

Cut the price down to like $5 for transfers and faction changes and I would be happy enough.

[Jeire]

If only we could get heirlooms across servers.

Yes if only these heirlooms were bind on account...oh wait I forgot account clearly means only your realm /facepalm idiotic wording

On topic Yes they are fleecing those who transfer with zero loyalty shown to long paying customers when it comes to this matter. 1 / 2 transfers a year is hardly taking the piss and is giving something back to their customers

[drwelfare]

I think the fee was reasonable when it came out.

Some of these dead or near dead servers need to be dealt with.

Id resub and atleast give it a try if I could get some of my chars off the servers they are stuck on. The money for paid moves keeps me from considering it.

[Acidd06]

id say make transfers free but have them on a "cooldown" but you can by pass the free "cooldown" by paying.

[Zaqwert]

I'm not sure why people are so adamanet to protect dead servers from dying.

There are too many servers and not enough players, that's the fundamental problem. They need to roll all the lowest population servers up together.

[mvaliz]

$250 to move all your characters? That's damn near the price of a brand new home gaming console system! You could buy 4 brand-new games at $60 each for that price! >_<

[Deleted]

The only thing they need to do is add in discounts for bulk transferring, I once transferred all my 9 characters to a different server and a different faction, it took a long time and a lot of money. Yeah, I can see how that's mostly my fault for being in the wrong place, but I think alot of people would take advantage of such a discount if it was there possibly meaning blizzard could make extra money when people might not have contemplated paying individually for all of their characters.

[Deleted]

if it only would be a reasonable prize, then maybe i would start subscribing again. Unfortunately dont have the money to transfer from a dying server...

[Deleted]

Not sure if I've remembered correctly, but I believe that back when Totalbiscuit was covering things related to WoW, he pointed out that the transfer fee was no longer justifiable because the adminstrative processes had been simplified.