Server Transfers coming June 12th

Raphael

http://www.swtor.com/blog/character-transfer-server-populations-and-you

WIll be from certain servers to certain servers at least at first, and while no mention is made of cost, there's a sentence that implies it will be free:

Future versions of the Character Transfer Service may allow more options in your choice of destination servers and may require a transfer fee.

So, here's hoping they manage to correctly allow everyone to transfer off the almost dead servers and onto the more alive ones. Type will be locked - no transferring PvE to PvP. Hope that holds for RP servers.

Oh, and Guilds don't go with you, Legacy stuff does (though the higher legacy wins if you have it on both)

Vicxas

Read this last night, interesting that they're sticking with the specific server xfer. It kinda defeats the purpose of moving over to your friends server.

This particularly annoyed me, it screams we dont give a fook about what you wanna do, you'll do what we want you to do.

We understand that some of you may be looking to consolidate characters from a variety of origin servers onto one server, and others may be anxious to move to a specific server to be with friends. With the restrictions of this initial service, that may not be possible. We still believe that you will enjoy playing on a higher population server and hope you'll take advantage of the service

ZeitgeistGlee

Dead to living server transfers will probably be free but outside of that I can't see EA missing the opportunity to gouge people with fees.

Given how badly PvP on PvE servers has failed I see no real issue with offering people a choice in where they transfer including cross type. If BioWare are so keen to develop a living, organic community of friends it makes no sense to restrict travel to accomplish that.

Again as usual this is a case of devs claiming to listen and then doing entirely their own thing.

Raphael

So, guess the server to server transfers aren't going to make a huge difference in getting together with friends - in europe english they're basically picking one server of each type and moving players on all the other servers of that type there. Servers of choice are:

PvE - The Red Eclipse (Eye of Ashlanae, Ludo Kressh, Goluud Corridor, Rogue Moon, Sluis Shipyards, Dxun Battle Circle, Kellian Jarro, Flames of the Crucible, The Arkanian Legacy transferring)
PvP - Tomb of Freedon Nadd (The Shadow Runner, The Kumumgah, Senator Contispex, Uthar Wynn, Ula Vii, Tassaa Bareesh, The Exile's Crystal, Kai-kan, Starstorm One, Ahto City, The Ravager, Niman, Hex Droid, Scepter of Ragnos, Chuundar, Trayus Academy, Tott Doneeta transferring)
RP-PvE - The Progenitor (Trask Ulgo & Shaltin Tunnels transferring)

We may see a second PvE server surviving (10/20 amalgamated onto Red Eclipse), and possibly another PvP one (15/20), but it looks like they're going for some serious crowding in. Both Red Eclipse and Freedon Nadd made it to heavy last night between 8 and midnight.

Still nothing on Basilisk Droid, but from the looks of things ye'll be shifted into Freedon Nadd this week or next week, or maybe crowded into a second server.

Shiminay

I shall have to log in at some stage next week and see what happens My main Guardian (which I haven't played in ages) will be moving to Progenitor from Trask Ulgo and I have a BH alt on Basilisk.

Raphael

I'm looking forward to jumping on at the weekend and seeing people in the game again, will also be keeping an eye on torstatus.net to see how the numbers look on the other destination servers.

Cina

I moved my Sage who I haven't played in months onto Freedom last night, 300 people on the Republic Fleet.

Once the Euro's start finishing up I'll look for a guild and hopefully get going again. Hopefully they'll sort out transfers from BD soon so I can move my BH too.

Nody

Raphael wrote: »

I'm looking forward to jumping on at the weekend and seeing people in the game again, will also be keeping an eye on torstatus.net to see how the numbers look on the other destination servers.

From my previous experience I'd guess the numbers (completly made up for illustration purposes) will go along the lines of 700 (server transfer), 1000 (a week or two as people log in to check around, play some again), 300 (month or two on as people realize that the game is still the same even with people around).

Cina

The game addressed 80% of the issues in 1.2 but unfortunately it had also lost a massive amount of subscribers by then and a lot of the servers were already dead. It's a much more complete game than it was before and 1.3 should improve it even further. I still enjoy it a lot.

I feel if they can get 6 to 7 servers highly populated at least then they can keep it going and hopefully get more people playing the game again.

Raphael

Yeah, if nothing else, shoving all the active players onto less servers (Think we'll have 5/6 left in Europe-English after all this) servers will get numbers back to sustainable, and let those of us who still enjoy the game have enough people to play it with. Even if no one comes back, it'll help them keep what they have happy.

I'm guessing at this stage they're waiting to see how busy Red Eclipse and Freon Naad are over the weekend to judge if they want to shove the remaining servers into them, or stick with 2 servers in that type.

ZeitgeistGlee

Progenitor will certainly benefit from having a few more bodies on the server, and the fact Trask Ulgo was the unofficial "hardcore" RP server should also hopefully mean there's a bit more RP to be had for those seeking it. Hopefully these merges should go some way to restoring player activity to the game, because lord knows we need it.

Raphael

I never had any trouble getting RP on Progenitor, but it'll definitely help having more people around. My only concern with the RP communities is disagreement over who "owns" certain spots - there's a building on Voss that was being used by people on Progenitor and on Trask as a regular RP venue with premise attached to it, frisntance.

Also, Basilisk Droid just got announced as going to Freon Nad, so it looks like they're only going for 1 RP, 1 PvP server in EU-English. Might still be 2 PvE servers, guessing they'll decide that based on the population of Red Eclipse over the weekend.

They're also asking people on the RP-PvP server what they'd like them to do, since there's only one and its dead, prevailing opinion is choice of RP-PvE or PvP

Vicxas

Glad to see the Progenitor getting some love. Waiting for xfers to come to Nightmare lands, the server is flagging a bit.

Dubhthamlacht

I moved my trooper and Inquistor to Freedon Nadd last night. Both guilds I was in (empire and republic sides) on Basilisk Droid had gone into hibernation so very unsure if they will make the move to Feredon Nadd. Has anyone else made the move?

Have to say it was fantatsic to see the zones alive with people. For example, tatooine had nearly 40 empire players and republic fleet had +300.

ZeitgeistGlee

Yeah that's pretty much what I was saying Raph, there's a good RP community on Progenitor as is, but getting the unofficial "heavy RPers" from Trask should give people a bit more choice in the type of RP they pursue and allow for bigger scale events.

I'm also really curious to see how this is going to factor into BioWare's "super servers" plan. I wonder will it eventually boil down to one of each server type in each region (I know we're sort of heading to that already). Certainly if the servers can handle it they're better off.

Cina

Ooh Basilisk has transfers now too. I'll send my BH over, means I'll have my BH and Sage sitting on the same server. Excellent!

Eoin247

Nice, i'll transfer my characters from Basilisk Droid when i get back from holidays. Hopefully the warzones wont be dominated by one faction. That was one of the only upsides of Basilisk Droid.

Cina

So I have my sage and PT on Freedom Nadd now and it's great, constantly 300 - 500 people on BOTH fleets, lots of groups and OPs, and in all the warzones I've done I haven't been up against my own faction once.

Hell, there was even a 10 minute queue to join at 5pm yesterday!

I really hope this keeps up, I reckon the people on it at this stage are the ones who stuck with the game through the low populations so hopefully the server population remains nice and healthy.

Dubhthamlacht

Cina wrote: »

So I have my sage and PT on Freedom Nadd now and it's great, constantly 300 - 500 people on BOTH fleets, lots of groups and OPs, and in all the warzones I've done I haven't been up against my own faction once.

Hell, there was even a 10 minute queue to join at 5pm yesterday!

I really hope this keeps up, I reckon the people on it at this stage are the ones who stuck with the game through the low populations so hopefully the server population remains nice and healthy.

Yep, it's been great the past few days on Freedom Nadd. There was so many people on Republic Fleet there was seperate instances. Empire Fleet was similarly packed. I've had no problem getting a party for running flashpoints or heroic 4's when leveling up on either faction. Disappointing that it's taken six months to get to this point. Bioware should have reacted sooner but at least the game is now full of people who really want to play it after having put up with the deathly low populations

Vicxas

Does anyone have the xfer blog for the dead servers to the new server, want to see if Nightmare lands has been added.

Raphael

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=477706

Full list on the Bioware forums

Vicxas

Nightmare lands added to destination servers. Boom!

ZeitgeistGlee

Vicxas wrote: »

Nightmare lands added to destination servers. Boom!

Congrats mate, what server is NL transferring to?

Vicxas

No, NL is a destination server so ill have more people to play with, thank christ as it was well dodgy for a while

ZeitgeistGlee

Ah right, well that's good, dead servers are no fun.

Raphael

Hopefully the end result of these mergers is no more dead servers, given they're down to ~10% of the amount before they started. Unless people decide they want to stay where they are, in which case I really don;t understand those people.

Vicxas

Arent they removing the dead servers?

ZeitgeistGlee

I imagine they probably will, no sense in wasting space hosting dead servers.

Raphael do you know if they're actually letting people stay on the transferring servers?

Nody

Raphael wrote: »

Hopefully the end result of these mergers is no more dead servers, given they're down to ~10% of the amount before they started. Unless people decide they want to stay where they are, in which case I really don;t understand those people.

What about people no longer subscribed? Once they come back they'll need to pay to move to a populated server (or so I'd guess) due to missing the move window.

Raphael

At the moment, the moves are completely optional, people can stay, and they aren't removing the origin servers. Essentially, the reason why they're doing it this way is PR. Server merger and server closure looks really bad, so while what they're doing amounts to merging servers, on paper it's different, and that apparently justifies the wasted server space.

ZeitgeistGlee

I'd be very surprised if Bioware actually let people stay on the transferring servers. Those who aren't subbed at the minute will probably have their characters put in limbo and given the option to transfer when they resub.

Raphael

Right now, they are. And if you look at the Official Forums, you'll find people who are happier staying on their server (People who play just with friends, and aren't interested in other people, or enjoy the Single player game so much they're happy to pay for it and like not having people around)

They've stated several times that the transfers are optional, it'll be a while before they go for full mergers, imo.

@Nody: Wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, alright.

Cina

Yeah but it also looks bad from a PR perspective if a look of people looking at the server status on the site see "Light" for 85% of servers at peak times. 10 Servers with standard/heavy/very heavy (which is the case right now) would look a lot better.

ZeitgeistGlee

Cina wrote: »

Yeah but it also looks bad from a PR perspective if a look of people looking at the server status on the site see "Light" for 85% of servers at peak times. 10 Servers with standard/heavy/very heavy (which is the case right now) would look a lot better.

I was thinking exactly the same, it really makes no sense not to do a full merge.

zuroph

Haven't they talked about mega servers? I presume the merge won't happen til then when no 1 gets a choice, and this is a step on the way

Vicxas

zuroph wrote: »

Haven't they talked about mega servers? I presume the merge won't happen til then when no 1 gets a choice, and this is a step on the way

Would be interesting to see an EVE like mega server where everyone is on the one server but different instances.

ZeitgeistGlee

It'll probably get to the stage where every region has one server for each type and everyone is instanced, which realistically is what's happened in Europe with these voluntary mergers. I doubt it'll ever end up as being just one instanced server simply because strict PvEers and PvPers can never coexist peacefully. :P