Posts with tag transfers

As I write this, I am dreading the week to come. After many months of going back and forth on the matter, I have decided to leave my guild for greener pastures. I'm reluctant to leave, though, since I do like my current guild; the people are nice, the raids are fun and we have a raiding philosophy of "work with what you've got" that I have always enjoyed. Still, for everything that I love, there are shortcomings and I am willing to risk losing what I have to see if my perfect guild exists somewhere out there.

So off I go to a new guild and server where I know no one. I'm scared -- scared I won't be good enough, scared they won't like me even if I am and scared I might be making a huge mistake in leaving my friends. You just have to swallow those kinds of thoughts, though. As a raider, I'm no stranger to moving around, and I've come up with many ways to deal with it.

One thing I do to cope is heading up to the spot you see in the picture before I transfer. This is my favorite hiding spot in the game, only accessible by players meticulous enough to complete the Higher Learning achievement. Up here, I will sit and eat some cake, then after I've had my fill, set out my little green rag doll on the bed and /sleep. The reason for this is so that when I log back in after my transfer has gone through, I know exactly where I'll be and I can pretend I'm waking up from a dream (or nightmare) to a new, promising day. I'm not sure why I do this; maybe the familiarity? It's really all quite silly, but I've been doing it for well over a year now and it seems natural.

Do you have any strange habits or rituals you do in game?

As of yesterday afternoon and lasting through January 28th at 2:00 PM PST, a number of free realm transfers have opened up in the US in an attempt to repair some harsh population imbalance. Bornakk does warn, however, that if they fulfill the transfer quota before January 28th, they will end transfers early so they don't end up in the exact same situation on opposite ends. If any of the below transfer offers suit your fancy, get it done before it's too late.

What's interesting is that in a few of these instances, they're only extended the offer to Horde players. These servers include Illidan, Mal'Ganis, and Warsong. Considering Mal'Ganis is home to the infamous Goon Squad, this isn't the most surprising thing in the world. Interesting, yes. Surprising? Not in the slightest.

For further information on the available transfers, hit the forum thread. You can also check out the source and destination realms behind the cut below.

Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.

For years Blizzard has claimed that there would be no chance for faction changes. They didn't use the word "never" but they did say there were no plans on doing it. Much has changed since the Blizzard/Activision Merger. Well, the time has come, and what has become of it. I honestly can't tell you if the impact has been good or bad, but there has certainly been an impact.

If I haven't mentioned before, I play Horde. The first night that transfers came out, a number of my friends and guildies swapped characters over from Alliance. Good to see an influx of variety, but much attention turned to leveling forgotten alts. I don't know anyone who has transferred from Horde to Alliance. Given a better opportunity, I'm sure there are plenty who would make the switch.

Faction changes have had an interesting effect on guild on my server. A number of raiders from the top guilds swapped factions and joined forces with the top guilds on the Alliance side. The Alliance guilds have always been front runners in progression and this move has served to make them stronger. That's excellent for them.

Just a heads up for you faction transfers, though you've probably already realized this if you have made a transfer: many of your faction reputations will transfer over just fine, but not so for any Argent Tournament progress you've made. Argent Tournament reputation and gains will not transfer over if you change factions. Kisirani says that Blizzard couldn't think of a way to do it technically, and so (as we understand it), anyone who transfers factions will lose all of their current Argent Tournament standing, and have to make their way back up through the ranks to Champion. Many other reputations have changed just fine, and you can find a list of all the changes as you cross over from one faction to another on the faction change FAQ. You will bring items over with you -- any seals earned on one side are still valid on the other. But if you want to grind out more, you'll have to go through the ranks again.

Seems like a bummer for faction changers (especially those who didn't know about the problem before they did the transfer), but on the other hand, I don't believe Blizzard would have let this go if they had any way to fix it. Short of just granting ranks to all players who transfer, assuming they have no way to track where players were at in terms of which cities they'd champion-ed for, I don't know what other solution there would be.

Update: A little more information: you also lose all of your Silver Covenant or Sunreavers rep as well, so you'll have to re-earn that from the beginning, too. As players have said in the thread below, it's not a huge loss, but it's an annoyance for sure.

Eyonix has just announced that lockout time for paid character transfers has been reduced to 3 days from its previous 30. This means that you can now transfer your character to a new realm using the paid transfer service once every three days instead of once every thirty.

This is especially useful for raiders and PvPers who move to a new realm to join a guild, and then find out that the guild doesn't work for them. There are also tens of thousands of horror stories about people moving between servers only to find that their new guilds disbands a few days later. This will be a significant boon to people who find themselves in that situation.

The cost of the paid character transfers remain at $25 for a one way ticket.

In honor of patch day, Blizzard have opened up some free character transfers on many US realms. These are open now and scheduled to run until Tuesday, April 21 at noon PDT.

• PvP:
  • From: Blackrock, Tichondrius, Emerald Dream, Lethon, Warsong
  • To: Ursin, Ysondre, Nazjatar, Gul'dan
• PvE:
  • From: Aggramar, Borean Tundra, Aerie Peak, Azuremyst, Proudmoore, Bronzebeard, Anvilmar, Alexstrasza, Blade's Edge, Silvermoon, Dragonblight, Bladefist, Antonidas, Arygos, Cairne
  • To: Nesingwary, Garrosh, Winterhoof
• RP:
  • From: Feathermoon, Cenarion Circle, Earthen Ring, Argent Dawn, Moon Guard
  • To: Wyrmrest Accord

I worry about their servers slightly, between patch traffic and these character moves, but we'll see if they can take it. This is more server transfers than we usually see at one time. I'm intrigued to see Arygos on there, since it really doesn't feel like a high-population realm to me, at least not on the Horde side. So who's moving?

There are a handful of free EU character transfers to report on today, all focused on the faction differences on the realm Magtheridon.

Now Magtheridon was always a pain in the butt in the days before his colossal nerf. It was a big challenge when BC was released to coordinate a couple groups of five people to click on cubes all at one time. I'd always say on vent very calmly: "Three, two... one... click-click-click. Good work. Break." Or "Three, two... one... click-click-click. Terrible. Wipe it."

Does that obnoxious and repetitious pattern which still haunts me in my dreams have anything to do with the character migrations? Probably not.

The full list of realms after the break.

In a discussion of new realm transfers opening up, we get this tidbit: from now on, new realms will be created with the AQ gates already open. What that means is, there will be no races on any newly created servers in the future to be the first to gain the Scarab Lord title, for one thing. Those servers will have no Scarab Lords until one transfers there, because it will be impossible to complete the quest chain necesssary for the title. It also means that if you missed the title on your original server but were going to try and transfer to pick it up, you can forget it. Unless you can find a server that's currently active that doesn't have the gates open, I suppose.

The way the statement is phrased is a little odd: By automatically opening the gates and allowing immediate access to the Ahn'Qiraj instances, we would like to promote the higher level content that is available as well as ensure a smooth overall experience for players on these new realms. I suppose they just mean the 20 and 40 man instances that are already there, but it seems odd to call level 60 raids higher level content at this point.

In their continuing efforts to bring some faction balance to Magtheridon (EU), Blizzard has refreshed free character transfers off of the server for Horde, and onto the server for Alliance. These transfers are scheduled to run from today until Feburary 10:

• Magtheridon -> Haomarush, Tarren Mill, Trollbane, Zenedar, Silvermoon (Horde only)
• Aerie Peak, Aggramar, Alonsus, Arathor, Azjol-Nerub, Bronze Dragonflight, Bronzebeard, Eonar, Hellscream, Khadgar, Lightbringer, Kilrogg, Kul Tiras, Silvermoon, Terenas, Turalyon -> Magtheridon (Alliance only)

In addition, the following transfers are now open for European players of either faction:

• Al'Akir, Stormscale -> Vek'nilash, Xavius
• Burning Legion, Grim Batol -> Boulderfist, Trollbane
• Crushridge, Sylvanas -> Chromaggus, Haomarush
• Kazzak, Ravencrest -> Laughing Skull, Sunstrider
• Outland, Twilight's Hammer -> Daggerspine, Lightning's Blade
• Ragnaros, Shattered Hand -> Kor'gall, Shattered Halls
• Argent Dawn -> Steamwheedle Cartel, The Sha'tar

These also are scheduled to run until the 10th of this month, and like all other transfers may close early if the desired population levels are reached.

Magtheridon players, have you noticed an improvement in the faction balance since they started pumping Alliance in and Horde out? WarcraftRealms is now showing a 1:16 population ratio overall on that server, which is much better than the 1:67 ratio it was showing when the transfers started (but still pretty bad).

Our good buddy Zarhym (is he our good buddy? I have no idea...) posted a list of free character transfers for several high population PvP realms.

These moves are currently open and will go until Tuesday, February 10th at 8:00 p.m. PST or until they've reached their internal quota, whichever comes first. You can initate the character transfers by going to your account management page on worldofwarcraft.com.

Please be sure to move early if you want to. With the high latency and login queues on the realms we've seen many of these free transfer offers shut down early lately. Take advantage of this soon and be sure to bring over all your characters.

The full list of servers is after the break.

Well, they promised a new RP transfer server, and here it is. Not only that, but to go along with it, they're giving us another brand new PvE realm, a transfer one this time.

These transfers opened up last night at 11 PM PST, and are scheduled to close on Friday, 1/23 at 9 PM PST/midnight EST (but could close early if enough people transfer, so go soon if you intend on going). The details:

• Source: Aggramar (Alliance Only), Alleria (Alliance Only), Area 52, Argent Dawn, Azjol-Nerub, Blackhand, Bloodhoof, Cenarion Circle, Cenarius, Dalaran, Doomhammer, Dragonblight, Earthen Ring, Emerald Dream, Feathermoon, Garona (Alliance Only), Garrosh (to Wyrmrest Accord only), Hellscream, Icecrown, Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, Moon Guard, Silvermoon, Twisting Nether, Whisperwind, Zul'jin
• Destination: Winterhoof (PvE), Wyrmrest Accord (RP). Both realms are in the Emberstorm battlegroup and the Pacific time zone.
  

There's a note in Zarhym's post to the effect that Wyrmrest Accord is in fact an RP server, and the RP rule set will be enforced there. Probably best to go to the other server if you want to grief RPers, roll a character named "Arthuss," or otherwise do non-RP-server-friendly things.

We've been paying pretty close attention the server issues lately. From the missing mail a few months ago, to instability in instances, to the creation of a new U.S. PvE server.

Zarhym has come out and said there are no PvE realms under populated, and that's the reason why Blizzard has introduced a new PvE realm, and not a new PvP realm. He goes on to point out that while some PvE realms are not having queues, they are only a few hundred people away from having to suffer through them every evening.

And while there are PvP realms that have queues, there are "several PvP realms that are a little too under populated."

So what does this mean?

Aren't you EU players just lucky lately? Here's some more free character moves for you to make -- apparently the population situation on the EU realms must be bad, because I think this is the third (at least) round of moves Blizzard has made in that region. Here are the latest ones, to be in effect now through the ninth:

Drak'thul, Grim Batol, Sylvanas --> Bladefist
Al'Akir, Neptulon, Ravencrest --> Deathwing
Burning Legion, Crushridge, Twilight's Hammer --> Dentarg
Magtheridon (Horde only) --> Zenedar, Haomarush

A lot of these are the same transfers offered previously -- in fact, all of the realms Blizzard is transferring from have been offered transfers before, though the realms people are being transferred to are switched up a bit. Anyone out there who didn't transfer in the first go-round but is willing to transfer now?

If the issues continue, Blizzard might have to come up with a new way to control the realm populations -- there's always the option of splitting up a big realm, though neither Blizz or players will probably enjoy going through that. But they've got to get rid of the queues somehow, right?

Bornakk posted an update on some of the free realm transfers that have been going on.

• All transfers to the Drak'Tharon realm have been shut down.
• They have extended the timeframe to transfer to the Oceanic realm Gundrak.
• Saurfang is now also eligible to transfer to Gundrak.
  

Transfers to Gundrak will now close down on Monday, December 8th at 12:00 p.m. PST. Be sure to transfer early (like, tonight) if you want to. They have been shutting down transfers early when their quotas are met.

The full list of eligible transfer realms after the break.

We're just now coming out of our Thanksgiving turkey-induced haze here at WoW Insider, so if you've seen this already, forgive us, but Blizzard announced late last week that there's relief on the way for EU characters tied up by queues -- they've got a whole mess of free migrations in the mix. We've got the whole list of transfers after the break as well.

Argent Dawn appears to be in the worst shape, as Blizzard is sending players from that realm onto three different realms. Magtheridon seems to be the least busy -- all they're transferring off there is the Horde-side players. They're also transferring players off of a few different realms to the newly-created one, Chamber of Aspects, so if you're looking for a new start, there you go.

These migrations are going until December 2nd, so now's your chance, EU players, if you're on the selected realms and have been waiting to jump ship.