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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGuild 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 4 of 4)
Amaxe Mar 24th 2011 1:27AM
I've heard many guildmates over the years lament of the lack of a guild transfer... mostly wanting to go from PvP to PvE. So its good that they have something they want to try.
I guess people can abuse anything of course, so it will be good to see what sort of safeguards are in place.
I guess you can put me down as "cautiously supporting"
Zaqdorf Mar 24th 2011 10:02AM
I see this as a great way for all your ninja guild leaders to make a clean getaway. Guild leader takes said guild into RAID, then ninjas the best piece of gear and decides to move to a new server and change guild name. Watch and see if that doesn't happen.
Scritch Mar 24th 2011 1:51PM
I'm actually pretty ecstatic about the possibility of transferring a guild to a different realm. There are some realms that have really gone to crap lately, or aren't what they were years ago...and it would be great to pick up and find greener pastures. The only thing that keeps me on my realm as it is, is my guild.
Also, i couldn't possibly afford to transfer the nearly 20 high/max lvld toons I have on that realm, so it would give me a new set of goals to lvl toons again.
I look forward to this, should it not be expensive!
etr Mar 24th 2011 7:46PM
Gah, another victim of smart phone editing.
My point was, transferring a toon is basically a change of account, not of character status. No one but the account owner is authorized to make account-level requests, so your Guild Master has no authority to request your toon be transferred, no matter what amount of money he pays. If Blizzard transferred you to a new realm without your explicit consent, you would complain to Blizzard and probably ask for money and items back (for lost play and any items lost in the transfer). The fact that the requester is your GM really doesn't matter.
To move a whole guild, the process would still have to require each person to log into battle.net and request/approve/agree to the transfer. Which is really the exact same process as the service they announced, minus the "quantity discount". I'm sure they could add such a discount (like they have done previous free realm transfers), but I'm not clear how accounting-wise you'd work that out. The terms of service are pretty clear that your account is your account and they don't want you having other people (except perhaps parents) managing it on your behalf.
Given all that, the work to move a whole guild is probably MORE work than moving the individual toons. (I'm not arguing whether $25 is the appropriate charge, just saying I don't think there's any actual cost/effort savings to Blizzard for moving a guild vs. moving individual toons).
khronyk Mar 24th 2011 10:26PM
Are they serious... I really hope this is port of their usual april fools.
Jeremy Mar 25th 2011 6:36AM
I have had friends hacked, their characters have been transferred off server. I imagine it has something to do with bringing large amounts of gold to a steadier customer base on a high population server.
Now, as far as how 'stupid' a gold seller has to be to make items easy to restore, I'm not sure why he'd care one way or the other as they just duplicate all the items and gold that were deleted and mail them back to the appropriate character. So long as the gold seller has covered his tracks once he's liquidated the hacked character's assets, he's fine.
AestuFarbeZeida Mar 27th 2011 10:37AM
The playerbase is in decline. So how does Blizzard reward their most loyal customers? Gouge them harder - make what was formerly free, now a paid service!
Paid guild services also make clear the real danger of paid services - that Blizzard now has a monetary incentive to NOT fix problems with the game. Why fix serious problems with realm population and faction balance when you can charge customers more to work through those problems?
Guild xfer services will also have a snowball effect on WoW's decline, and here's why:
1. "We've decided to xfer the guild. Everyone needs to be on the new realm in a week."
2. 10% of the guild, say, five players, say, "Eff that, I'm not paying $25, and I have buddies on this realm. But without my formerly guild I don't have a reason to play, so I quit."
3. Guild arrives on new realm. Tries to recruit. They recruit some new people, with no connection to the guild; some are loyal, some are not; some members are welcoming, some are offish. Guild members don't like the changes and miss their former friends and community. More quit.
4. Mass recruitment and revolving-door syndrome.
5. Gdisband.
Make no mistake, we WILL see this story play out time and again. And it WILL snowball...and the decline will accelerate...and Blizzard will respond with creative new ways to further drain a depleted playerbase.
What Blizzard needs to do, they've needed to do for some time, is consolidate realms so that server communities can be sufficiently broad and vibrant to retain players and rebuild.
But why solve a problem...when you can make money off NOT solving it?
demonofshadows81 Apr 30th 2011 3:56AM
i honestly think they should add faction change to that list aswell, i have a guild and many of my guild mates would love to switch to horde but dont want to deal with restarting from scratch when we have 7 bank tabs, and are a lv16guild