Server transfers bedevil hopeful Season 2 contenders
by Matthew Rossi 
Dec 8th 2007 at 9:00PM
Players who transfered servers after earning their Season 2 titles are reporting that those titles vanished after a hotfix: Blizzard poster Pavonum responds that some folks who transfer might lose their arena titles.This mechanic is currently being examined in greater detail, so that further determination may be made as to whether its current functionality is in line with the design as envisioned by the appropriate developers; we regret to inform you, however, that any titles lost as a result of this mechanic are unable to be reinstated or reimbursed by the Game Master Department. Please accept our most sincere apologies, however, for any frustration or inconvenience this matter may have caused, and await word on any potential changes in the status of this functionality.
He later goes on to say that they're looking into claims that titles were lost not after transfer... the titles transfered intact, it seems... but rather after emergency maintenance. Have any of you transfered a character and lost an arena title recently? If the loss is just part of the risk one assumes when transfering that's one thing, but it would seem odd and easily correctable if the loss of a title came well after a transfer due to a glitch in maintenance, but I'm hardly an expert in the oddities of server transfer.
Thanks to Jagoex for the tip.
Filed under: Virtual selves, PvP, Forums, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nyx Dec 8th 2007 10:38PM
Just as long as the Scarab Lord titles stay put.
Baygul Dec 8th 2007 11:49PM
I have also lost my title due to the emergency maintenance that happened Wednesday morning.
Basically, from what I've seen, the majority of us had our titles with the server transfer and lost it after the maintenance, and Blizzard doesn't realize this.
Details:
I logged in the Tuesday morning of the beginning of Season 3 only to find that I had Duelist rather than the Gladiator title and Merciless Nether Drake I had expected.
I petition, it's answered within about 30 minutes, I am assured by the GM that there were no complications. So I did some investigating, petitioned again, this time I am again assured that there were no complications. I asked the GM if he could escalate the ticket and he refused.
I accept the fact that I may have in fact lost 70 ranks over night and dropped out of Gladiator ranking. I server transfer and DO NOT lose my Duelist title.
Later that night Blizzard publicly announced here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3168326937&sid=1 that incorrect titles had been awarded and later that night updated the post informing us that there would be a maintenance to fix this problem. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3168327791&sid=1
I head to sleep, wake up the next morning after the maintenance and find that I now have no title whatsoever. Blizzard's maintenance bugged out my title.
I petitioned that morning at about 8:00PM PST, it was answered and escalated at roughly 10:00PM. 5 days later it's answered by a GM Specialist, I explain the whole situation and he sends me my Merciless Nether Drake then tells me I can't have my title reimbursed. I argue why I lost it in the first place and he speaks with his supervisor. After a few minutes of being unable to work out a solution he has the supervisor speak to me himself.
Senior Specialist X messages me, goes over the situation to make sure he understands, and tells me he will be doing what he can over the next few days to have my title reimbursed, but there were no gurantees. That was about 1 week ago.
Now lets throw down a few different scenarios.
1. If Blizzard didn't screw up in the first place with their patch, we would all have our correct titles and awards.
2. If Blizzard employees weren't misinformed and didn't refuse to escalate my ticket, I wouldn't have server transferred before the maintenance and would still have my title.
3. If Blizzard's maintenance simply didn't screw up as bad as their initial patch period, I would still have my title.
Blizzard, you need to realize the fact that we HAD titles when we transferred. We didn't lose our titles. So no warnings you may have given us regarding the possible loss of titles with Paid Transfers would be valid. YOUR maintenance lost us our titles, and it is YOUR job to fix it. I didn't work all season and pay $25 to lose what I worked for.
Lucas Dec 9th 2007 1:20PM
Umm... Its only a title... get over it...
Also as I said in my other post you should lose your gladiator title if you're moving to a different battle group as the titles are only for their specific percentile in the battlegroup...
Jagoex Dec 9th 2007 1:57AM
A good company makes good games. A great company supports them and treats it's customers well. To me, this is one of those defining moments for Blizzard. Their actions introduce a hiccup in the mechanics of their own award system, and so it's only right that they return said rewards to the players that earned them. Lets hope they get it right.
Rydolomo Dec 9th 2007 4:28AM
I'm an optimistic person and I suspect that title loss was an unexpected consequence and probably not salvageable by the GMs at this time. Hopefully they can do an update run during maintenance but this might take time.
Probably not expected in the days when server transfers were not possible. Although I think a character's data would probably be some sort of multi field record so should transfer during a transfer.
Daryl.
Brian Dec 9th 2007 6:01AM
Sorry but I disagree with the whiners here. If you transfer you should loose all titles and rankings and start at the beginning again. Otherwise you could trade wins and transfer to a weaker battle group and abuse the system. In fairness Blizz should be clear about this and say "If you transfer all titles and ratings will be removed".
Dabura Dec 9th 2007 2:17PM
Your a retard, what about the Scarab Lord title? Scarab Lord takes a HUGE amount of effort, weeks if not months of work and a huge amount of teamwork, and as does arenas, so why should the titles be removed when you transfer? I bet you cant do arena for shit and cant get a title anyway, so you just want to punish skilled people for getting a title
ThorinII Dec 10th 2007 10:53AM
I agree 100%. They should tell you ahead of time, but to be fair to the new battlegroup, they should be reset when transfering.
Kalandrah Dec 9th 2007 6:40AM
I had a S1 title on my paladin, transferred servers several months ago, and retained it. Now I don't have it anymore. It has nothing to do with the transfer, blizzard just fucked something up with that hotfix.
As for saying that titles/ratings should be removed.. I'll agree on ratings (and they are, I think), but titles are personal awards for achievement. Saying those shouldn't transfer is like saying you should lose all your gear upon transferring too, because your new server might be weaker and/or poorer.
Lucas Dec 9th 2007 1:21PM
No its not... A title does nothing for gameplay, its just an E-Peen indicator.
Richard Dec 9th 2007 2:41PM
Kal:
Blizz already said that your arena titles do not persist after the following season.
So the only people with arena titles now are those that earned them at the completion of S2. Once S3 is complete, those who earned S2 titles will have them removed.
Lucas Dec 9th 2007 1:16PM
I think that gladiator titles shouldn't retain through server only if you're moving to a new battle group (thusly changing your standing in the percentile to nill). Also if they EVER take lukems' scarab lord title I will CRY. SCARAB LORD FOR EVER!
Jagoex Dec 9th 2007 1:23PM
Brian, you missed a very important fact. The titles weren't lost upon server transfer. They were lost upon an "emergency maintenance" that Blizzard performed just after S3 began, which failed to correctly read the awards they had already dispersed. Blizzard messed up, so these "whiners" have a very, very legitimate complaint.
Brian Dec 9th 2007 3:06PM
I understand totally that this was a screw up and I agree that if Blizzard haven't said anything before you should still have your title. But I don't think they should transfer between servers and that includes the Scarab Lord. Scarab Lords are unique to one per server. If you go to a new server and they have a Scarab Lord you should loose the title. Back before X realm BGs there was a lot of sever pride and you probably knew of your Scarab Lord before they got the title because they were in the top guild. That relationship was special for your server, if you ditch all the people on your server then you can ditch their effort too.
The Gate's was a server event for your server that made us work as a server to get the gates open. By jumping ship you are leaving all the folks you worked with for that title. And if some other Scarab Lord turned up on my server I wouldn't have any respect for him either? Scarab Lord? Whoop de do. Not on my server you weren't.
So yes you should still have your title, because Blizz have never said you would loose it on transfer. But I personally think Blizz should remove them on transfer. And for the oh so curious, yes I am crap at arenas and I still got my S3 hunter axe. Cry more. It's a computer game. It's not real life.
GamerJunkie Dec 9th 2007 7:08PM
Game-breaking bug! Let's shut all the servers down and fix it quick!
Gorthus Dec 10th 2007 7:40AM
This situation while not as dire is not much different from the fiasco with the 2.0 patch before BC where many people lost a good majority of their bank contents, I being one of them. Many people thought they got hacked, but it was definitely related to the patch. What happened was the bags in the bank slots for many people disappeared. This caused the items to be put in the overflow they have in the game for problems similar to this. After contacting a GM about the bags missing they restored them and I put everything back. I thought everything was fine until a few days later during maintenance all the items in my bank that were originally in the overflow disappeared which was roughly 90% of my bank items. It took multiple weeks and multiple petitions to get even 10% of my items back that were in my bank. Eventually they told me they wouldn't restore the rest and the stuff they did give back they wouldn't restore the enchantments on. This right here is another example of Blizzard being at fault and ignoring/blaming their customers for something their patch/maintenance did.
If it hadn't been for the fact of BC being a few months away I probably would have called it quits right then and there since I lost all my resist and tank gear(Mostly Tier 2 and a few Tier 3 pieces) which was literally years of work(I had been playing for two years at that point). Luckily BC was reset everything. But it makes you think about how all that work can just up and vanish.
The best part of all of this is I logged on the PTR a few weeks before the 2.0 patch went live and noticed my bank bags were missing and reported the issue. I'm guessing they either didn't read it or shrugged it off as a PTR-only bug.
ace danger Dec 10th 2007 8:13AM
I used a free transfer from bliz to move to a much lower population server. I farmed some honor (approximately 2500) while on my old server and then started the transfer sometime in the afternoon. After the transfer was complete, I logged in and checked my honor and it was reset to zero. I ticketed a GM and had to log before I got a response but eventually got an email saying "no honor restoration for you" but in more corporate-like terminology.
Also, I'm still listed in the armory (and in the WoW client) as being on my original server. That is a PIA because when I log in to play WoW, I have to hunt for my current server...tis very strange.
andrew Dec 12th 2007 3:12PM
yep lol im glad all 3 brackets in s1 in bg1 reckoning, glad in all 3 brackets in s2 bg1 reckoning, got my title on nov 27 patch, xferred to bg9 best bg in the world for pvp, and had my title.
emergency maint occured, and titles were rolled back and re-sent to the old servers (old data b4 xfers) and now all who paid 25$ to xfer were juked. thx blizz.
oxEz Jan 8th 2008 12:55PM
The thread on blizzard forums on this issue has been deleted, which means they probably never investigated.
I asked several times for an update on the thread, and never got one. They just let the thread die by itself.