Free character transfers announced for Warhammer Online
by James Egan 
Oct 30th 2008 at 2:30PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, News items, Races, Roleplaying
Free character transfers were just announced for Warhammer Online, for characters on low population servers who'd like to move to high population servers. The service will be put into place in the coming days. The character transfers will be done in the Mythic Account Center, which will have a Character Transfer button, just below "Activate a Key" and "Validate your Email Address." In addition to Free Character Transfers, Mythic also announced Guild Transfers. This comes with its own set of caveats as the transfer cannot be reversed, with details to be listed on the Character Transfer page.
There's an added bonus for characters moved to higher pop servers -- a Realm Population Bonus of 20% experience and renown. The Warhammer Online Herald will update the playerbase once the Free Character Transfer service goes into effect. Until then, see the WAR Herald announcement, which lists further details on the transfers and lists the source and destination servers eligible for Character Transfers for North American and Oceanic regions.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nadril said on 2:51PM 10-30-2008
Really happy about this, as my server (Ungrim) is one of the four destination servers! Should help a lot.
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Abriael said on 3:16PM 10-30-2008
The guild transfer functionality is expecially sweet, am I wrong or it's the first time this is implemented in a MMORPG?
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Walters said on 3:26PM 10-30-2008
First time I've ever heard of it. And I agree - it's a brilliant move! Not wanting to leave their guild (or, if they're in charge, not wanting to go through the hassle of organizing a piecemeal migration) is probably one of the #1 reasons people don't take advantage of server transfers. This is especially important in a game like WAR, where your guild has stats, progress, and rewards of its own. If transferring servers meant losing all those because the guild had to be re-formed on the other side, no one would ever try it.
Simons said on 3:19PM 10-30-2008
I still find transfers from low-pop to high-pop an interesting choice. Most games start out trying to do it the other way.
Where is Mythic headed with this? If they are planning to merge servers, this would be a mandatory relocation process. But it's voluntary, so I'm not clear on what they expect the future to be like on those low-pop servers they're further draining.
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lethality said on 3:24PM 10-30-2008
I am sure there will then be a mandatory server merge of the remaining low pop servers.
Abriael said on 3:46PM 10-30-2008
I think it's pretty simple. Why people would try their luck by leaving a lively server to enter a low pop one?
Mythic is maximizing the effect of the move by letting the ones unhappy with their server move to greener frields.
mikejl said on 3:50PM 10-30-2008
I think Mythic, in fear of overpop login queues, put out too many servers initially. And this is their way to remedy the situation.
Hardy said on 4:02PM 10-30-2008
Yes. Most likely it's because they overshot how many people would go on the game in the beginning, which in a sense was a good thing as it make the release of the game really smooth.
However obviously the numbers are lower now, and instead of evening out all servers, they're trying to fill up the biggest ones, spill some into medium ones, and leave the low ones dead.
What will they do with the dead servers? Who knows. Close them? Use them for another game?
It could be a cost saving measure as maintaining a server is pricey.
Either way, I think this is a brilliant move, especially the guild transfer.
ON TOP of the fact it's all free. They aren't money grubbers like Blizzard, or pick and choose either.
Ding Dong Dang said on 4:10PM 10-30-2008
its a nice spin, instead of doing server merges. But honestly its the same exact thing. Fastest server merges ive ever seen on a MMO.
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JP said on 6:08PM 10-30-2008
lol. you're the pathedic troll form mmorpg.com. And you got pwned by the sites admin. Who pays you to spin this, dindongdiddler?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/209926
Jeremy T said on 5:14PM 10-30-2008
This is essentially a "soft" server merge - they're giving guilds and players a few options before they shut them down. I suppose it looks better from a PR perspective to have abandoned (but running!) servers as opposed to actual server merges.
I just saw the list - there are *22* low population servers that you can move from, and there are 8 servers to which they can move. This is out of 55 or so servers total - which means that almost *half* of the servers are being abandoned.
Now, I'm no rocket surgeon, but this sort of thing happening in the game's second month can't speak well for their initial subscription estimates.
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Abriael said on 5:33PM 10-30-2008
You are no rocket surgeon and it shows. Apart from the fact that 22 in 55 is quite far from *half* (funny how you use the "*" to try and show the situation as worse than it actually is), they just had a very high initial server count to accomodate the influx of first timers coming in the first days, which for an highly hyped game is a good idea. 33 servers with an healthy population after lil more than a month (and that's just in the US), with the game still selling strong (and with tons of people still checking on it, you can notice it easily by the fact that it's the game that receives the most hits by FAR in sites like MMORPG.com) speaks definately well for their initial subscription estimates.
Bossy said on 7:27AM 10-31-2008
These are nothing more than server mergers. The fastest in the industry and proof (everyone can see the low/low status servers) that stats taken from thousands of WAR players are freigthning true:
http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/
WAR is heading right on the track to sub 200K subs and EA is doing the damage control of avoiding the correct number of subscriptions and talking of "800 K created player accounts".
Just as if we didn't know the game is already at 50% of its initial populations.
Reason? very simple : Marc Jacobs thought he had a wow killer and thought he would have 1.2 million players before the launch of WOTLK. Everything was cut for a september release.
Now they have a little problem: far too many servers, far too many copies shipped to retailers. Just talk to the retailers: in Belgium they have masses of unsold stock. Good enough to live thorugh the complete winter season and beyond.
Grotesk really. Every person willing to try the game will see it could never achieve a 20% market penetration.
Result: server merges after 6 weeks. Big hurray for EA Mythic.
Abriael said on 8:17AM 10-31-2008
Poor bossy, you continue to bring in totally baseless numbers and doomsaying. Maybe you're pissed that warhammer is better than your random game of choice?
Fastest server consolidation in the industry, where ALL games launched since ultima online (wow included) had and have several underpopulated ones, demonstrates just one thing, that Mythic cares for their players' enjoyment, and doesn't care squat about the doomsayers like you :D
I'm sorry, must be terribly frustrating to cry misery in the wind with everyone laughing in your face :D
Hmmm said on 10:42PM 10-30-2008
Make one a free trial server once they are done. I am not going to pay for this game until I get a chance to test it. There are too many mixed reviews to warrant the purchase. Once AoC'd, twice shy.
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drypulse said on 5:10PM 10-31-2008
heh i love it. can't wait to hear jacobs run his mouth some more about how his game is the best thing ever. what a joke.
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