Free character moves for the US

by Eliah Hecht Dec 21st 2007 at 6:01PM

We've had some moves recently for Oceanic and European realms, but these are the first North American free character transfers I've seen in a while. As of noon PST today, and until 12:01 PM PST a week from today, December 28th, players can make the following transfers free of charge:

From: Arthas, Illidan, Mal'Ganis, Warsong
To: Azshara

As always, players are urged to make the transfer as soon as possible if they intend to, since the transfers do sometimes close early if desired population levels are reached. Drysc promises that the realms they choose for transfers are based on exact population statistics, which seems to imply that, out of the North American reals, the source realms are the most overpopulated and Azshara is the most underpopulated. Those of you on these realms, does that ring true? Do you plan on taking advantage of the transfers? Azshara folks, do you welcome the newcomers?

Tags: arthas, azshara, fct, free-character-transfer, illidan, malganis, move, na, pvp, realms, servers, us, warsong

Filed under: Realm News, News items

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Cheakerdoodels Dec 21st 2007 6:12PM

I play alliance on azshara and are farthest progressed guild has barely downed voidreaver. Trying to pug anything takes over 2 hours. So yes I am looking forward to people transferring here.

Ryan M Dec 21st 2007 6:14PM

Illidan is way overpopulated. Queues every night that are 275 and higher, Not going to transfer though cause I know too many people on this server.

Rapap Dec 21st 2007 6:33PM

Two weeks ago some realms got free transfers which ended last week. Guess you missed that.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3271178841&sid=1

Chris Anthony Dec 21st 2007 7:35PM

Two weeks ago WoW Insider reported on the realms receiving free transfers that just ended. Guess you missed that.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/12/05/free-transfers-live-from-some-realms/

davidus Dec 21st 2007 10:15PM

lol, owned

Rapap Dec 22nd 2007 5:02AM

I didn't miss it at all. I saw the post at wowinsider about it. The search didn't work though and I didn't feel like going back to find it so I just linked to the Blizzard forums

Lurchicus Dec 21st 2007 6:59PM

Illidan is always overpopulated... I don't know what the mystical attraction is other than it was one of the original beta servers. Every time they move a batch players off, a new batch shows up. I guess we're just too |337 there.

On any given evening you will see a queue between the 70's and 150's. I've seen it as bad as the high 800's on holiday weekends or after a patch.

This weekend should be interesting.

Cads Dec 21st 2007 7:02PM

I wish they would include Emerald Dream in one of these, so I can get my level 70 alts off that worthless server. And yeah, ED has frequently had queue times lately.

Avi Warner Dec 21st 2007 7:05PM

For the time you put into leveling a lvl 70alt, its worth a paid transfer if you want to play them on another server.

epsilon343 Dec 21st 2007 7:06PM

Arthas is definitely a full server, I get wait lines in the middle of the week and at odd hours of the day. My friend was on a trial account, took him four hours to log into the game. But no, I won't be transferring anytime soon. My first realm when I started playing was a "Recommended" realm and it was pretty empty for a while.

Dan Dec 21st 2007 7:11PM

> We've had some moves recently for Oceanic and European realms,
> but these are the first North American free character transfers I've
> seen in a while.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/12/05/free-transfers-live-from-some-realms/

Yup, 16 days (8 days since they ended on Dec 13th.) Been a while.

Dave Dec 21st 2007 7:36PM

Clearly the last round of free transfers didn't work.

I think Blizzard needs to suck it up and merge low pop servers to get them to a med-pop server and THEN give free xfers to full realms. Nobody in their right mind wants to transfer EVEN FOR FREE to a graveyard of a server if they've been on a server since launch. Most of the rest of the people rolled or transferred to the high pop servers for a reason, and it's foolish to think they'll want to transfer off.

Tichondrius still has a queue. It's not huge and it doesn't last long (usually 7p -8p has a 5 min or so queue) but that says to me that not a whole ton of people transferred.

But, because normal paid transfers are Blizzard's new cash cow... I know they're not going to take any significant steps towards really balancing realm populations by letting people transfer for free on any sort of regular basis to anything but the worst possible realms.

It's good if you can get an entire guild to pack up and move... but otherwise I just can't see why anyone would do it.

Warcloud Dec 21st 2007 9:04PM

Blizzard already extorted my money via a transfer AWAY from Azshara.

I would think it fair to have to pay for a transfer if I was doing it for more personal reasons. I want to transfer to play with some friends, or I want to play with a certain guild, etc., or I just feel like it. I had to pay to move because my hand was forced; I was on a dead server for months and Blizzard did nothing about it.

They are making a token effort with this free transfer TO Azshara. I can't see it making that big of a difference. Who would want to move there? Only the most hardcore queue-haters in the game. And I don't think Blizzard want it to succeed.

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