Guild services to be released within two weeks
by Robin Torres 
Oct 22nd 2011 at 6:50PM
Cory Stockton in the Open Q&A panel at BlizzCon announced that these services would be released in the next two weeks. He said the services are ready, but they didn't want to release them before BlizzCon.
So if you've been wanting to take advantage of these services, now is the time to finalize your plans.
The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KB3420 Oct 22nd 2011 7:13PM
So probably means patch 4.3 is done, besides raid testing it seems. And 4.3 coming pretty soon I hope?!?
kvanje Oct 22nd 2011 8:39PM
Not necessarily, this could very well be something that goes through the website to backend systems and doesn't rely on a patch at all.
Robin Torres Oct 22nd 2011 8:49PM
They did not indicate that it would be attached to a patch at all.
Philster043 Oct 22nd 2011 7:36PM
I don't understand the need for this. Seems like such a monumental hassle to begin with.
But more power to these guilds who plan on doing this, I guess.
PeeWee Oct 22nd 2011 7:40PM
Get those credit cards ready, people! For yes, you WILL be paying through your nose, as usual.
Mordok Oct 22nd 2011 8:50PM
Oh do I ever agree. The way I read this, the guild goes to another server and if you want to stay in the guild you have to pay Blizzard to change all your characters. This would cost some of us BIG MONEY just to stay in our guild. That is if I understand what I think I read.
One would think Blizzard is making enough money off us as it is.
Snuzzle Oct 22nd 2011 9:52PM
Well, you're still transferring servers or factions. Those services aren't offered for free (regardless of whether people feel they should be, they aren't). So naturally you have to pay to transfer.
This just allows you to keep your guild rep, infrastructure, and level. With level 25 guilds and folks exalted with them, it would be a huge detriment to ever try to transfer the guild off without this service: you'd be starting from scratch.
If your guild is on a dead/dying/faction-imbalanced server, this will be a blessing.
Otiluke Oct 22nd 2011 8:19PM
Well... Brazilian servers are coming up November 30th. Does this means that we will see patch 4.3 deployed on November 29th?
Link for the Brazilian Portuguese Box Pre-sale(Portuguese page, note the release date)
http://www.siciliano.com.br/produto/3648750/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-versao-totalmente-em-portugues-pc-mac/3648750?ID=C913DB977DB0A161603040585&FIL_ID=102
Donhorn Oct 22nd 2011 8:24PM
The only way I can see this coming in handy for me is if I decide to change servers and want to bring my bank alt guild with me. And honestly...
Priestess Oct 22nd 2011 8:46PM
For those of you who question why this even matters: Most of my guild has been playing together for years, and we have been sitting it out on a dead and miserable server that we hated hoping this would go live. When 6 months passed from the initial announcement and nothing happened, we left anyway, started over, and left most of our stuff, our level 25 guild, and a lot of alts, gold, and newer guild members behind.
Minutes after this announcement today, there was great rejoicing in our guild. We don't have to re-farm thousands of fish, rekill tens of thousands of critters, or watch our guild's level slowly inch up again, day after day, with just the 15 or so players we kept together hacking away at it.
It's not that you can't start over. Sometimes a new home is better for morale than your guild perks, gold, and purple pixels. But getting to bring your hard-earned guild with you just plain 'ol feels great.
If they make it so that people can transfer with a guild for less (or with a package for bringing multiple characters) I might cry for joy. My alt army will be so happy.
EverythingRuned Oct 23rd 2011 12:03AM
Before Cataclysm and the guild leveling system, there was no demand for this product. They've created a demand and can now charge for it!
I think the original request was for people to be able to transfer all of their characters for a reduced fee, or give everyone in a guild the option to transfer their characters at an extremely reduced/bundled rate. Which we still haven't gotten...
KB3420 Oct 23rd 2011 12:28AM
problem is, blizz is still going to rake in WAYY To much money from this service alone. If they refuse to offer any discount and its a straight up 25-30$ fee, i doubt many will choose it. Yea nice to switch with the guild and all, but pay for guild switch + all guild members pay for xfer. No discount? Rip off much?
you think $15 a month since 2005 was enough, guess not. I
Zapwidget Oct 23rd 2011 3:37AM
@KB3420
How exactly is that a problem? You said it yourself. $15 a month from the beginning. The subscription rate has not increased. the price of electricity, especially in California, has gone up dramatically. The price of gas has almost doubled in that time, but the subscription fee has remained the same despite the increased infrastructure.
So why is it a problem if Blizzard makes money? Do you want them to cut back instead? Or perhaps increase the monthly rate?
Priestess Oct 23rd 2011 10:03AM
@ you two grumpygills:
They're making money from people transferring every day, and they always have. Before, you were paying them to be allowed to keep the work you put into your character. Now that guild structures also require time and effort (if you care to be in a leveled guild) you are paying for your interest in keeping that work. As I think I pretty clearly illustrated, you can choose to not pay them to keep your character or guild, and make new ones on a new server. We have been releveling a guild, and I have personally leveled two new, identical-to-previous-ones characters on my guild's new server rather than paying Blizz $50 for the ones I had. You still get to change where you play, and it's still just your $15 a month.
But in many cases, the time invested in leveling a character, and now, a guild, is worth more to many people than the dollar amount that a guild and character transfer will cost. Yes, Blizzard is making money with this, but it's probably not a whole lot more than they would make from people transfering anyway, and they're making their game more accessible to the players who wanted this, which they didn't have to. I for one am willing to pay a certain amount of premium for ease of use and conservation of playtime invested.
Stryker Boh Oct 24th 2011 4:39AM
Here's what I think: It's not for the reasons everyone thinks it is. It's to answer a plea from the players, but not the plea that it seems everyone is jumping to the conclusion of.
Up until now, Blizzard didn't have the coding in place to transfer guilds at all (it does require some back end programming. Not just a simple copy/paste job). In order for Blizz to take two low population servers and mash them together would have created un uproar as people suddenly were guildless and all the hard work they'd done to get their guild leveled and all the mats they'd stored in their guild banks would be lost. Now, in the guise of "for the players to transfer their guild," they have the coding in place to make the transfer and keep all relevant information.
Another issue with the server merges: max number of characters. Say a player has 8 toons on server A and just happens to have server B as their second server with another 5 toons (they didn't pick well for population counts we'll say). If Blizzard wanted to merge those two servers the player would have 3 characters over the max character limit. One of the Q&A panels responded to the number of characters question with something akin to: possibly doing away with the per-realm cap and just sticking with the per account cap. This solves the second major issue with server merges.
The way has been paved. The bleak horizon of the low population servers that have been clamoring for Blizzard to do SOMETHING about it (and free xfers to the realms have in general failed miserably) has just become a little brighter. I believe the first tentative steps down the road to server merges has been taken.