Discussion: Clarification on Character Transfer
By
5arge,
Posted on: 2007-08-20 14:58 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Currently, our plan is to enable the Character Transfer service with no limitations. There will be no restrictions on which server you can or cannot transfer too. Of course, if you have no free character slots on a server, you will need to make room before you can transfer there.
Our main goal with the Character Transfer service is to enabler customers to play on the server they want to with the character they want to with their friends. We are sensitive to population issues and will continue to closely monitor server populations and server performance. Should transfers be seen as a contributing factor to a less than optimal gaming experience, we reserve the right to restrict transfers in the future to address such concerns
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This is a disaster waiting to happen. The Freedom server already has a "less than an optimal gaming experience" due to its population size. We've seen the overpopulation problem on Freedom during Double XP weekend when players couldn't even log onto the server. Now the reality is that every day could be like Double XP weekend on Freedom.
Is this transfer of characters without server restrictions also going to be accompanied by a server upgrade? If not, the "we'll fix it if it breaks" philosophy contradicts your claimed sensitivity to population issues, because the population size of Freedom is already a known problem. Unrestricted server transfers to Freedom will only make an existing problem much worse.
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Granted this is from a jaded prespective.
I think most of the character transfers going to freedom will be happening by people that have already moved and play on freedom. This wont really be too big of a server increase IMO.
How about varying the cost, depending on what server traveling to and from? Something like:
* classify each server as over-populated (OP), well-populated (WP), and under-populated (UP)
* OP -> OP: $9.99
* OP -> WP: $7.99
* OP -> UP: $1.99
* WP -> OP: $9.99
* WP -> WP: $5.99
* WP -> UP: $2.99
* UP -> OP: $9.99
* UP -> WP: $6.99
* UP -> UP: $4.99
A dynamic list of each server and its population category would be available at transfer time (and via the net). "Population" would be based on logged-in character hours per week, not simply how many characters exist on a given server. Actual cost would be displayed prior to the transfer request.
The goal, of course, is to use cost to help drive all servers to a well-populated state.
-- Rich
* Thresholds CoH: What to do When
* My Comics Collection
Wow... With that varying cost, I can afford to move 5-6 toons off of my regular servers to the one I'm currently playing on for the price of moving 3 chars at the regular rate!
What a bargain!
Nice idea, but won't be implemented.
Someone would have to acknowledge there was a server population issue on some of the servers in the first place, let alone start classifying them into those three categories.
Creative thinking, tho!
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Nice idea, but won't be implemented.
Someone would have to acknowledge there was a server population issue on some of the servers in the first place, let alone start classifying them into those three categories.
Creative thinking, tho!
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Thanks for your thoughts, Dr. Pulsar. Concerning acknowledgment, I think Lighthouse essentially did in the first post:
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... We are sensitive to population issues and will continue to closely monitor server populations and server performance. Should transfers be seen as a contributing factor to a less than optimal gaming experience, we reserve the right to restrict transfers in the future to address such concerns
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I doubt my varying cost idea will be implented as well, but wanted to share it anyway.
-- Rich
* Thresholds CoH: What to do When
* My Comics Collection
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This is a disaster waiting to happen. The Freedom server already has a "less than an optimal gaming experience" due to its population size. We've seen the overpopulation problem on Freedom during Double XP weekend when players couldn't even log onto the server. Now the reality is that every day could be like Double XP weekend on Freedom.
Is this transfer of characters without server restrictions also going to be accompanied by a server upgrade? If not, the "we'll fix it if it breaks" philosophy contradicts your claimed sensitivity to population issues, because the population size of Freedom is already a known problem. Unrestricted server transfers to Freedom will only make an existing problem much worse.
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My suggestion is to not jump to the conclusion that everyone will be rushing to transfer ONTO the busy servers. I know of many people, including myself, that can't wait to get away from the crowds and lag and such.
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Yeah, not sure why he's leaping to this conclusion. Could it happen? Sure. But I'm sure there are a fair number of people who will be trying to move off Freedom and Virtue, too. And I'm very happy where I am on Justice, so I'm not moving at all.
We're not all lemmings trying to hop onto Freedom and clog ur interent tubez.
~Missi
http://tinyurl.com/yhy333s
Miss Informed in 2016! She can't be worse than all those other guys!
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How about varying the cost, depending on what server traveling to and from? Something like:
* classify each server as over-populated (OP), well-populated (WP), and under-populated (UP)
* OP -> OP: $9.99
* OP -> WP: $7.99
* OP -> UP: $1.99
* WP -> OP: $9.99
* WP -> WP: $5.99
* WP -> UP: $2.99
* UP -> OP: $9.99
* UP -> WP: $6.99
* UP -> UP: $4.99
A dynamic list of each server and its population category would be available at transfer time (and via the net). "Population" would be based on logged-in character hours per week, not simply how many characters exist on a given server. Actual cost would be displayed prior to the transfer request.
The goal, of course, is to use cost to help drive all servers to a well-populated state.
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I think that is a great idea.
Freedom has been my home for 3 years and will remain so because all of my friends are there and none intend to leave. However I have alt toons on other accounts and it worries me that I might not be able to free up a toon on freedom tand move one from another server to replace it. However I will wait and see when it actually gets active.
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I think the most fun thing about these transfers is that I can now level a new alt on a quiet server then suddenly ambush my friends with it on my home server 
My biggest fear is still losing the name of my characters on my home server while I am away exploring other servers. Can we have some sort of reservation function built in?
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Champion Server
Tee Hee!
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I think the most fun thing about these transfers is that I can now level a new alt on a quiet server then suddenly ambush my friends with it on my home server
My biggest fear is still losing the name of my characters on my home server while I am away exploring other servers. Can we have some sort of reservation function built in?
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I'd say no if I worked at NCSoft (Which I don't). There's enough problem with people making a new character and then never playing that character again, that's a common way to "reserve" a name. Makes me wonder to this day if the name I wanted most for my dark/dark scrapper on infinity is a active villain (I know it's a villain, cause I tried adding him/her to my hero friend list), or a character that hasn't been seen in months or even years. If it's an active player, great. But, if they've never played that character, then why should they keep the name forever?
I Feel if you want to unfairly reserve a name, then there are ways to do it. Cheating IMO.
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This is a disaster waiting to happen. The Freedom server already has a "less than an optimal gaming experience" due to its population size. We've seen the overpopulation problem on Freedom during Double XP weekend when players couldn't even log onto the server. Now the reality is that every day could be like Double XP weekend on Freedom.
Is this transfer of characters without server restrictions also going to be accompanied by a server upgrade? If not, the "we'll fix it if it breaks" philosophy contradicts your claimed sensitivity to population issues, because the population size of Freedom is already a known problem. Unrestricted server transfers to Freedom will only make an existing problem much worse.
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My suggestion is to not jump to the conclusion that everyone will be rushing to transfer ONTO the busy servers. I know of many people, including myself, that can't wait to get away from the crowds and lag and such.
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Yeah, not sure why he's leaping to this conclusion. Could it happen? Sure. But I'm sure there are a fair number of people who will be trying to move off Freedom and Virtue, too. And I'm very happy where I am on Justice, so I'm not moving at all.
We're not all lemmings trying to hop onto Freedom and clog ur interent tubez.
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I agree Missi! If anything, most people are going to be moving west coast characters to east coast servers and vice versa to free up character slots. This has the advantage of ensuring you have a beefed up character to play if your server goes down!
There may be some players on low pops that head to Freedom, but I doubt there will be a population doubling. I think it likely that a lot of players tired of the lag and long load times on Freedom will want to move to a low pop server! I think when it is all said and done, players are going to get what they want: to play the characters they want to play on the same servers as their friends...
come to Triumph, we are the friendly server.
And we could use a little population boost.
So if I move multiple characters from one server to another will I be charged per character, or will there be a discount/reduced cost?
per character is the current plan.
My question is: how will this affect supergroups? Since they are currently on a server-by-server basis, will you simply be dropped from your current SG and have to find another one on your new server, or will the SG system be expanded to allow "all server" supergroups, with characters able to transfer servers and still participate in their SGs?
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The Pessimist says the glass is half empty.
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nothing is mentioned for cross-server SG/VG's so one would presume you would just be kicked from whatever you are on, on server A, and have to make/join/whatever a SG/VG on server B.
A lot of the transfers to Freedom won't just be the people who are desperate for Teams.
LOTS of Farmers/PL'ers/solo-PvP'ers will be wanting in too (all the Polls assert this).
I would imagine there are more than a few people who are interested in leaving freedom as well for greener pastures. Just depends on the numbers entering vs. leaving, we'll find that out when we find it out, if you got lots of disposable income and are willing to put up with tons of lag or whatnot more power to you. NCsoft will be happy for the income.
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My question is: how will this affect supergroups? Since they are currently on a server-by-server basis, will you simply be dropped from your current SG and have to find another one on your new server, or will the SG system be expanded to allow "all server" supergroups, with characters able to transfer servers and still participate in their SGs?
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They are not going to do this on Character Transfer. But, if they did it would help to slowly begin the fusion of the servers. The Market is stretched across all the servers. So, a mass server is partially there. I think they should consider doing this not just to help with the server fusion, but so there won't be so many complaints about people having to give up their SG to go to a more favorable server. Whether it's a server for population, location, or friends.
If it ain't broke set it on fire, then say it was a fault in the design.
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how about we wait and see? it seems like most of the people worried are those on freedom - and although there is clearly a decent amount of the game population there, don't forget there are other servers, with a not-insignificant part of the population.
i for one do not plan on using the character transfer service, because i play on triumph and like it.
if i had to guess, it would be that the people leaving freedom will be larger than the move to freedom, mainly because of the aforementioned lag issues already. its not like you can't find a team on other servers...
as for merging servers... the market is not a valid reason for doing so... period. some people prefer a smaller server anyway.
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My question is: how will this affect supergroups? Since they are currently on a server-by-server basis, will you simply be dropped from your current SG and have to find another one on your new server, or will the SG system be expanded to allow "all server" supergroups, with characters able to transfer servers and still participate in their SGs?
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When you transfer you will no longer bee a member of your SG, since it resides on the server you left. You will loose all presitge (as it stays with the SG) and you won't have access to stored enhancements (odviously since they are now on another server).
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Currently, our plan is to enable the Character Transfer service with no limitations.
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But can I transfer from the test servers to the live servers?
TA
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They have already stated that this wouldn't be possible.
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Correct, there will never be moves off the Test server to a Live server environment.
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Which is really too bad, in a way. I had some keen characters I would have like to have brought back from the dead. I just left their copy on test to play with when I get alt-sick.
I think that with a little organization this could be really great!
With a little bit of planning, this could really allow players to "customize" the environments on various servers so that people can play the sort of game that they want.
In other words, if all the people who are really into "pick-up" games, for instance, move towards a certain set of servers, then they will have little trouble finding teams.
People like me, on the other hand, who only play solo or with groups of Real-Life-Friends or with the other players in a particular Super Group, will settle in other servers; servers where I am not constantly wasting time declining tells from people begging me to bridge them.
Likewise people into heavy role-playing can move toward the same servers, as can people in similar time zones if they like. I'm sure there are many other factors the could come into play here.
The various servers could potentially develop very distinct personalities. That sounds very interesting (or possibly disastrous) to me.
I'm sorry. Why is it that Freedom people think we're all rushing over there? I missed it.
Just out of curiosity, are there any plans to make the "Passport" badge available to those who do the server transfers with their characters?
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I'm sorry. Why is it that Freedom people think we're all rushing over there? I missed it.
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Because most of the people on Freedom think it's the best of the best server, and that EVERYONE wants to be there.
I, however, realize this is hardly true, and can't wait to move some of my higher-up toons AWAY from Freedom. Personally, I think Freedom's the worst server. Since it's at the top of the list when someone starts an account, that's where probably 75% of new people go (that's part of why I ended up there). And, with all those new people, I'd say about 50% (or more) are idiots. Granted, I do spend some sleepless nights in Atlas watching the idiots...but even I can only handle so much.
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My suggestion is to not jump to the conclusion that everyone will be rushing to transfer ONTO the busy servers. I know of many people, including myself, that can't wait to get away from the crowds and lag and such.
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That was my thought. Who in the world is going to be transferring TO Freedom? If anything, it's Virtue that'll have more trouble with overcrowding.
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I dunno. I've got quite a few characters on Virtue that I'll be shipping off to other servers; they don't get much play, but I like them too much to delete them, but on the other hand there are concepts I want to play with my friends on Virtue now. This will allow me to free up slots without deleting concepts that I like.