Guild transfer service coming soon
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 23rd 2011 at 1:00PM
Good news for those guilds who want to move to a new realm -- Blizzard will soon allow the ability to transfer the guild and its structures easily with a guild relocation service.
It appears that there won't be a single massive "transfer my guild button" that moves everyone over all at once, but instead, each guild member will have to pay their own way over to the new server. Once they get to the new server, all their guild bank, guild reputation, and so on will be over there.
Blizzard's full statement is as follows:
It appears that there won't be a single massive "transfer my guild button" that moves everyone over all at once, but instead, each guild member will have to pay their own way over to the new server. Once they get to the new server, all their guild bank, guild reputation, and so on will be over there.
Blizzard's full statement is as follows:
Nethaera
We want to give everyone an early heads-up regarding our plan to implement a guild relocation service for World of Warcraft. The idea is for a guild leader to be able to transfer a guild to another realm. The guild structure remains intact, including the guild leader, guild bank, ranks, and guild name (depending on availability).
Guild members who decide to relocate with their guild may initiate their own paid character transfer. Upon a successful transfer they will automatically be part of the guild when they first log into the new realm. Their guild rank and guild reputation will be intact.
Guild leaders who do not want a change of scenery may also choose to pick a new guild name using another new service. These services are in development and we will be providing additional details at a future point in time.
As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the guild relocation service in a way that will not disrupt the game play experience. Please note that this feature will require extensive internal testing, so you may see bits and pieces of the service appear on the public test realms.
Guild members who decide to relocate with their guild may initiate their own paid character transfer. Upon a successful transfer they will automatically be part of the guild when they first log into the new realm. Their guild rank and guild reputation will be intact.
Guild leaders who do not want a change of scenery may also choose to pick a new guild name using another new service. These services are in development and we will be providing additional details at a future point in time.
As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the guild relocation service in a way that will not disrupt the game play experience. Please note that this feature will require extensive internal testing, so you may see bits and pieces of the service appear on the public test realms.
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
oniryuujin Mar 23rd 2011 1:04PM
Is anyone forseeing in a future Dramas Mamas "Guild Master guild transferred with everything in the guild bank.....by himself"
Elleyna Mar 23rd 2011 1:06PM
There's not much really stopping a guild leader from doing this right now, this just makes bag space a little less of an issue.
Noyou Mar 23rd 2011 1:35PM
Yeah. This potentially could be bad. A guild leader could take his newly max level guild and all it's spoils to whatever realm he wishes. Hell, probably sell it on Ebay. He could even petition to get the name changed (just found out you can only do this once per account) so you would never know where he went. Yeah he could do it now but would be penalized all his guild rep not to mention it would take a while to loot and mail off everything to an alt then mail it back or sell it. This makes it nice and tidy. Just one paid transfer. See ya! Interesting dynamic indeed.
Vector Mar 23rd 2011 5:44PM
My thought is this: If you are worried about this abuse from your guild leader, you are in the wrong guild. If you can not trust your guild leadership, that says so very much.
omedon666 Mar 23rd 2011 8:22PM
Screen your guild as much as they screen you. Don't join that guild.
jsbeam Mar 23rd 2011 1:04PM
That seems complicated just reading about it so kudos to Blizzard for trying to implement it.
Valdrix Mar 23rd 2011 1:05PM
I think this will be a great new feature that can help keep a good guild together.
Zoquara Mar 23rd 2011 1:04PM
Nice. Hopefully my guild never moves again, however!
Elleyna Mar 23rd 2011 1:05PM
I don't think this is the kind of guild transfer people were asking for. It's a step in the right direction, but I think more people want something that transfers every character in a guild all in one payment.
Boom Mar 23rd 2011 1:15PM
Blizzard would never go for that unless the cost was commensurate with the number of members in the guild. Huge loss of revenue for them otherwise.
thebitterfig Mar 23rd 2011 4:26PM
There is precedent for a lower-price on a mass transfer of toons, and it's seen in something every player has to deal with: the base subscription price. Consider: you can buy one month of gametime for $15, three months for $14 per, or 6 months for $13 per.
For a guild transfer of 100 toons, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the per-toon rate to be reduced from $25 dollars to $22 dollars. Or if a single player could transfer all up-to-10 toons on an account for a $100-150 dollar fee.
They actually probably wouldn't lose money on this, since they'd probably convince people to transfer more toons total. A hypothetical example: Johnny is transferring his Warrior main and his Priest alt along with his guild which is switching servers due to server economics and to increase the pool of potential recruits. Fee: $50. He's got a at-or-near max level hunter, druid, and warlock, but only plays them sometimes and doesn't feel it's worth the effort to transfer them all. If Blizzard offered him a discount where he could transfer all his toons, including his even lower alts in the level 40-70 range, for let's suppose $125, Johnny would, and Blizzard would probably see a higher net profit.
mark Mar 23rd 2011 8:23PM
and if it was something like £50 then anyone wanting 4+ characters to move could make a guild specificly for it
etr Mar 24th 2011 7:21PM
Blizzard won't do this (one payment guild transfers), but not nec. Because if the money. Doing this would require users to share account info or otherwise do real-life coordination of all the pages and approvals, which is a huge security issue or just too much work. If you're worried about your GM rage-transferring your guild, just think how much you'd like it if he rage-transfers your toon to another realm (then kicks you for fun). Now Blizzard has modified your account without your consent and things go downhill from there.
BooCat Mar 24th 2011 6:35PM
I feel that every account should get one free transfer
Zoquara Mar 23rd 2011 1:05PM
Sadly..... Yes.
murmaiderxx Mar 23rd 2011 1:10PM
Yes!! this will help out greatly to add to our ranks. My guild is on a low pop side of our server, it only became that way when faction transfer became available. We are a high level in guild (currently 19, close to 20) and most people on the server are spread thin due to people wanting to start their own guilds. If we could relocate to a higher medium pop server that would help greatly our recruitment. I don't know everyone else's thoughts in the guild about it, since we will have to pay to transfer BUT it helps my thoughts because I really didn't want to start fresh elsewhere without the people I like raiding with; we have played together since mid BC.
ahsanali Mar 23rd 2011 1:21PM
While this is good news, I think its indicative that Blizzard has given up on trying to balance realms. There is now one less reason for guilds to stay on the losing side of a faction imbalance.
loop_not_defined Mar 23rd 2011 5:01PM
So, implementing what is clearly a great benefit to the player base is...indicative of Blizzard giving up?
This is why I've stopped reading the forums. People whine about *everything* and it's causing my eyes to roll out of my head.
Sleutel Mar 23rd 2011 6:58PM
Honestly, the way that Blizzard has tried to deal with faction imbalances in the past (limited-duration transfers, ended with no warning, between specific realms) has always struck me as, well, stupid.
Ideally, this is the system I would like to see:
1.) Blizzard maintains three lists of realms:
(a) Realms with >X% of max-level characters as one faction, where X is the percentage at which realm PvP becomes unbalanced.
(b) Realms with >Y total characters, where Y is the number of characters at which server performance starts to suffer.
(c) Realms with
Artificial Mar 23rd 2011 10:54PM
Implementing something like this is pretty much required for Blizzard to deal with faction imbalances. If there's no way to transfer guilds, you make a significant impediment to solving faction imbalances because no one wants to move. Implementing this is proof positive that Blizzard has *not* given up on the problem and is indeed implementing means to help solve it. This won't solve it in and of itself, of course, it only enables the problem to be more easily solved. The solution comes in making sure there are significant costs to being on the larger side of a faction imbalanced server, and significant benefits to being on the smaller side. For example, the changes to Wintergrasp back at the end of WotLK that made sure you could only really count on participating if you were on the smaller side. Without stuff like that, the faction imbalance problem cannot be solved. Nothing else will cause people to want to leave the larger side and join the smaller side. With stuff like that, imbalances will solve themselves, *but only if there's some easy and non-penalizing way to transfer to the smaller side to enjoy those benefits*. This move by Blizzard for guild transfers enables that kind of move. It's proof positive that you'd dead wrong -- Blizzard is working on solving the problem, and they've just implemented another piece of help do so.