Free Character Transfers? I am mistrustful

I'm old and cynical and my life experiences thus far really have taught me that you'll starve to death waiting for that free lunch.

So we get an announcement today that we can have a free character transfer, for 6 days. But, we'll lose SGs, Prestige, and all sorts of stuff and possibly our names too.

At face value it's fine. Great move to a server of your choice. Except that in the EU you can't move outside the EU. So unless you're fluent in French or German you have a choice of exactly two. The one you're on, Defiant or Union, or the one you're not on. If you're French or German and don't speak another language, then you're in even bigger stook.

Reading between the lines, I've noticed that other MMOs only tend to do this when servers are either too full, or too empty. It could of course be a nice Xmas freebie but seriously, if you're a vet of any standing on an English speaking server, you've got toons on both and probably not enough slots on either for all of them.

If you're on the NA servers, then great might be nice for you - but I doubt it. This is odd coming out of the blue with an initial: The server transfer service is unavailable. Now it is, and it's free? So, this just makes me go "Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, what are the blighters up to?"

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Or, y'know ... they could have decided to give us something extra for the holidays. But hey, unfounded paranoia works too; MMO players thrive on the stuff.

And if there were plans to close some servers, don't you think the devs would have made an announcement beforehand, so that players wouldn't waste their free transfers moving characters to servers that were on the chopping block?

I think the "blighters" understand that many of us are reaching are 36 character limit and with GR coming out in 3-6 months we need space for new characters. Giving us the free ability to transfer seldom used characters to seldom used servers seems like a win-win to me.

Can we get a link to what you guys are talking about?

This is the first I'm hearing of "free character transfers."

Oh... The Community Site.

This is part of the in game popup when you first log in

Free Character Server Transfers for the Holidays!

City of Heroes® is proud to announce that starting today character transfers between servers (within North American OR European server lists) will become free to all players and remain that way until Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:59 p.m Pacific Time (2:59 a.m. Eastern Time). Amongst other important informations to bear in mind before transferring any character:
*Transfers are not available between North American and European servers.
*You will be able to complete up to 6 transfers a week (7-day period) per account.
*Not all possessions will transfer over with your character.
*Supergroup affiliation, Prestige and access to your Supergroup base items will be lost since you’ll be leaving your Supergroup.
*You may lose your character’s name when transferring from a server. Visit our website at www.cityofheroes.com for more details on the 2009 Winter Event and the free character transfer service. Happy holidays from all of us at Paragon Studios!

Here you go:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/new..._transfer.html

Got a pop up in game that stated free transfers (up to 6 a week) from now until Jan 31st.

That is some quality paranoia. Also, all the "bad things" that happen when you transfer servers--those have never changed.

I'm tossed on this as well. On one paw, I'm going, uh-oh... on the other paw, with Going Rogue so close, and with an expected mass marketing push, this could be a way to for players to line up their ducks before an influx of new players hits.

This is a good way to "merge" servers w/o actually merging them. Those who wanted the merger can now move their toons around freely, and perhaps not post on it again.

Only problem I have is it will require me to buy more character slots on the server I am moving to. I wish there was a way to move the slots I have purchased also.

I think that the GR thing will be upon us soon and this is your chance to clean up on your main server is the most likely reason. Shame that you can't switch between EU and NA. I would have jumped that gun immediately.

Who knows, I might make a transfer or two.

I'll be visiting other servers with my main. Justice is first on the list. I'll just create a lowbie toon with its name on my home server to prevent it from being taken while I'm away.

I just wish the Passport badge was associated with server transfers. This would be the perfect time to add it, since the transfers are free for a while. I would have visited other servers long ago if Passport was awarded for it.

Enough with the logic, lets all start singing the doom song!!!

Awesome news.

Come to Virtue, we have lots of parentheses!

This is a nice gesture but one that I won't be taking any advantage of. My home is at Liberty and only have 1 free slot on it atm (can buy more slots but don't/can't right now). I wish we could move free slots to a server of our choice.

The only reason I'd see me using this free service was for the Passport badge but...looks like that won't happen.

Edit: Actually I think I will transfer one of my characters. I have a villy that I accidentally mis-typed/spelled his name...so now I can transfer him to a random server, create that same name on my home server and then transfer the real toon back, get a free rename token and take out the extra "i" that I have in the toon's name hooray!