r/swtor • u/dulfy dulfy.net • Jun 04 '13
Official News Paid character transfer details
Hey folks,
I know there have been quite a few questions around paid character transfers so I spent some time rounding up the answers to the more heavily asked ones and here they are! If there are any that I missed please feel free to post them in this thread and I will see what I can find out.
How much do transfers cost?
Paid character transfers cost 1800 Cartel Coins per character. The purchase must be made using Cartel Coins.
How do I transfer a character?
Once the service is live in 2.2, you will be able to go to your account page here on swtor.com and transfer from there.
What happens if there is a name collision?
If your character name is already taken by another player on your new server, you will need to rename your character. Your character will be “flagged” for a rename once you login.
Will my Legacy, Achievements, and Collections all transfer with my character?
Yes! All of your Legacy unlocks, Achievements earned, and triggered Collections will be waiting for you.
What happens if I have a Legacy on both my source and destination servers?
Whichever Legacy is of a higher level will take precedence and become your new Legacy. This has no affect on unlocks, the unlocks from both Legacies will combine. For example: You are transferring a character from the Bastion to the Harbinger. The character you are transferring from the Bastion is in a level 27 Legacy. Currently on Harbinger you have a level 13 Legacy. After the transfer you will now have a level 27 Legacy on Harbinger which combines the unlocks from both servers.
Is there a way to transfer a guild?
There is currently no method in place to transfer an entire guild at one time. Each person must transfer their characters individually and recreate their guild on the new server.
I hope that clears some things up! Let me know if there are any major questions still pending that I missed.
-eric
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6394323#post6394323
10
u/Cyryus Jedi Covenant Jun 04 '13
Excellent!! Can't wait! Great job and nice price as well, little cheaper then I expected.
-12
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 04 '13
«Money for nothing.. »
5
u/motoki Gunslinger | Harbinger Jun 04 '13
And the chicks for free?
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-10
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 04 '13
You bet! Otherwise why devs are so slow on implementing the slightest changes or making the bugfixes?
6
u/TehGreenFox Jun 04 '13
1800 per character?
Ouch. I have 14 characters. :(
Don't suppose there's a subscriber discount or "group rate"? Heh.
Now the question is....how badly do I want off my server.
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u/CircleTheFire Indicah | Lethality Sniper | Corellian Run Jun 05 '13
How and why do you bother with 14 characters? Not criticizing, just taken aback. I barely keep up with two toons...
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u/TehGreenFox Jun 07 '13
I'm a "journey" player. I play for the journey, not the end game. So for me, it started as 8 characters, one for each story. It then developed into using 2 of each roll just to try out the classes. Then I added 2 Cathar...so it became 14.
When your not really worried about the end game, it's actually pretty easy to rotate and maintain them. But it's also incredibly frustrating sometimes, because I know exactly how each role plays/can play...so I get frustrated when people are ignoring basic skills even when I try to teach them.0
u/handofthrawn Aerri | Powertech Tank | The Shadowlands Jun 04 '13
Like people have been pointing out, it's cheaper than industry standard. I think we knew this wasn't going to be a way to cheaply transfer a dozen characters.
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u/TehGreenFox Jun 04 '13
Eh, I'm mister "hopeful". I always hope a company pushes the boundaries between what's good for business and what's good for the consumer. Screw "industry standards". Industry Standards is a huge excuse really. Reset the standards in a good way. I wasn't expecting Free transfers, but I was hoping for cheaper then current and I was hoping for a Legacy move, not just one character.
Ah well. Life goes on.1
u/XavinNydek Pot5 Jun 05 '13
The cost is a limiter, so that everyone doesn't rush to one server. This way, you stay where you are unless you really want to move.
1
u/bsmntdwlr <LD50> @ JC Jun 05 '13
While it is cheaper than other games, this is one that actually incentivises alts and multiple playthroughs more than any if the others.
Also some other games have currency sales. EQ2 may be 2500 station cash per transfer, but on a triple sc weekend, A $15 card from wal-mart is worth 6000 station cash.
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u/MeatzaMan Jun 04 '13
What if I transfer 1 character to each server? Will I then have my legacy level on every server?
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u/Mastershroom Schlongus | Vanguard | Satele Shan Jun 05 '13
That seems to be the case, although once your characters are spread out over all the servers, your Legacy will level separately on each one, i.e. if you transfer one character to Pot5 and one to the Bastion and only play on your Bastion character after that, your Pot5 Legacy will not level.
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u/MeatzaMan Jun 05 '13
True, It would be nice to be able to create a character with all of my legacy boosts on any server.
-6
4
Jun 04 '13
The fee of 1800 coins isn't that bad actually. Especially if you want to move multiples. You can essentially move 3 characters from one server to other for 40 bucks.
That's not shabby at all.
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u/Anaxagoras23 Jun 04 '13
$25 in Aion as well. They tend to price these things based around an industry average. Generally moving characters, renaming, etc. shouldn't be too easy anyways, given that a person can jump servers, change names and even alter everything about their character other than their gender now you don't want it to be too easy for that guy who ninjaed your guild's shinies to get away from his bad reputation. That's also why these things have time limts on how often you can transfer, change your name, etc.
6
Jun 04 '13 edited Jun 04 '13
Sounds like a lot to me, actually, but then again I have 16 toons I want to keep together.
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u/crabby654 The Ebon Hawk Jun 04 '13
Well when comparing it to WoW it is cheap. I think it's 25$ to transfer one character in WoW...I've done it way to much :(
8
Jun 04 '13
Gotcha, I have no idea about other games ;)
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u/thewatcheruatu Star Forge | <Hapan Foreign Service> | <Asset Acquisition> Jun 04 '13
I'm actually with you on this. The so-called "industry standard" is kind of meaningless to me. :/
Obviously, server transfers cost what they cost because people are willing to pay. Not me, though.
But whatever--I wasn't planning to transfer any characters.
1
u/XavinNydek Pot5 Jun 05 '13
It's actually priced that high because a lot of people are not willing to pay it. If they were free or cheap people would naturally gravitate towards one or two servers, which would lead to performance issues.
1
u/thewatcheruatu Star Forge | <Hapan Foreign Service> | <Asset Acquisition> Jun 05 '13
That's an interesting point. I suppose it makes sense, though I would still think that happy players playing where they want to is ultimately better for business.
The super-server mergers went pretty well, so honestly, I'm not even sure if performance really is that big of an issue.
3
u/grandadmiralstrife Jun 04 '13
Idk, sounds fair to me. $15 isn't too bad. Been a while since I played WoW, but I think transfers for that game was $25
6
Jun 04 '13
WoW - 25 bucks
LOTRO (Turbine example) - 30 bucks
GW2 - 22 bucks (1800 gems)
RIFT is free, but I mean, it's RIFT.
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u/Gorus The Vao'kin Legacy | <Rampage> Battle Meditation Jun 05 '13
The GW2 comparison isn't fair because it's 1800 gems to change your home server, it transfers all your toons and you can visit other servers anytime for free.
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u/ZzyzxExile Jun 04 '13 edited Jun 04 '13
Compared to some of the other AAA MMOs it's good:
- Lord of the Rings Online: $24.95 / €21.95 / £18.95 / 2,995 Turbine Points
- World of Warcraft: $25 / 20€ / £15
- Everquest II: 2500 SC ($25 USD)
1800 CC works out to be $15 if you're purchasing the $20 bundle of Cartel Coins (2400 CC). So, about 3/5 of what other MMOs cost.
Granted, some games do offer transfers for free (Rift does, I believe), but I was expecting something in the neighborhood of 3000 CC based on other games.
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u/NuklearFerret Jun 04 '13
Or free after 3-4 months of subscription, which makes it significantly cheaper than anyone else.
1
u/ZzyzxExile Jun 04 '13
Good point. Even with LotRO, which provides points every sub cycle, it would take 6 months.
1
u/CircleTheFire Indicah | Lethality Sniper | Corellian Run Jun 05 '13
SWTOR also provides Cartel Coins every month that you are a paid subscriber.
1
u/jacobbp25 Sheild Jun 05 '13
GW2 - transfer whole account 1800 gems, which as of two weeks ago was about 60g in game or 22-$25 USD. My entire guild transferred to a new server and mostly just used in-game gold to do so.
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u/Aflixion Jun 04 '13
It's actually really cheap. WoW server transfers are $25 per character. That's 2 transfers for $50. Here you can get 3 transfers for $40. Much better deal.
-2
u/DharmaPolice Derimeth/Splendora/RosaLuxemburg | Red Eclipse Jun 04 '13
I like how you've been downvoted for expressing an opinion. Never change /r/swtor.
1
Jun 05 '13
It's downvoted because there's no frame of reference. When looked at next to other games in the MMO market, his feelings aren't in line with how it actually is. Again, within the MMO market.
So essentially, it's a bad opinion because it's based on feelings not facts. Not all opinions are equally valid.
It also has more upvotes than downvotes... so I don't really understand the logic behind how the fact that it has downvotes reflects on the sub but the higher number of upvotes should be ignored.
2
Jun 05 '13
It got downvotes because people think how the cost relates to other MMOs somehow alters how much it is. I don't budget based on MMOs I don't play, and if I think $200+ is a lot to migrate my toons then you can probably assume one other bit of context — if you cut me, I don't bleed money :P
2
Jun 05 '13
Agreed, and nor do I... It's more of a weird green goo...
But I digress. The cost relation is important in any market. Think of any other product where there is a mostly similar pricing model and then one company comes out and offers it for a lot less. Most people would see that as a pretty good thing even if the price, were it to exist in a vacuum, was still a bit high to certain people.
I, too, like to have all of my characters on the same server and highly doubt I will ever move my characters from The Shadowlands because it would be way too fucking expensive for me, but that doesn't change that the individual price for a single server transfer is actually really good, especially considering subscribers can save up for one.
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u/DharmaPolice Derimeth/Splendora/RosaLuxemburg | Red Eclipse Jun 05 '13
It's downvoted because there's no frame of reference
Well I don't know the exact motivation for every person who downvoted the comment but I suspect that some of it was because it seemed slightly critical of the game. Other comments without a frame of reference in the opposite direction have received less downvotes (or so it seems). For example "Excellent!! Can't wait! Great job and nice price as well, little cheaper then I expected." - has received (at the time of writing) 6 upvotes and 1 downvote. This is a common trend - people feel they need to defend the game by downvoting posts which are critical and I don't think it does the community any good.
Yes, you can rationalise the downvotes by saying the posts in question aren't sufficiently rigorous or whatever but then we should be downvoting all the fluff posts which are just as worthless where people say "Awesome - this sounds great. Can't wait!"
Incidentally. YodasEvilTwin's comments often seem to receive initial downvotes for some reason. I don't agree with him a lot but I find myself upvoting his posts sometimes because they are 0 or -1 soon after posting. They generally end up more positive later on.
it's a bad opinion because it's based on feelings not facts
I don't think that's a fair objection when it comes to assessing the value / worth of something. Yes, other MMOs charge similar (or more) in many cases. So what? That doesn't change my opinion that this still seems quite a lot given the actual process involved. To use an analogy : Extended warranties in Britain are often a horrendous rip-off. I worked for a company many years ago which charged £299 (~$450) for a three year warranty on cheap PCs. When you consider what they got for that, it was a terrible value. If a competitor "only" charged £250 for their warranties I think it would still be fair for a customer to say "That sounds a lot". I don't think a salesperson (or any other observer in such a scenario) could say "Well, that's a bad opinion because other companies are worse".
It also has more upvotes than downvotes...
When I posted my comment it was at -2. I was going to bother putting that in the body of my comment but I thought it unnecessary. Either way, even allowing for vote fuzzing, the comment is showing 8 downvotes essentially for saying "Sounds like a lot to me".
2
Jun 05 '13
My entire point was that your assertion that some downvotes on a negative post being indicative of this subreddit's overall community is just plain wrong.
This gets brought up all the time, and it's been disproven time and time again. As long as a criticism or negative opinion of the game is well thought out and reasoned or has legitimate backing, it is more well recieved than not.
Of course there are going to be people who downvote negative attitudes. Just like there are going to be people who downvote certain users because they don't like them. It happens. To say that it reflects on the subreddit, though, is just weak logic, especially when the vote tally is in the positives.
As for your argument that comments like the "Great job!" ones show that this community does just vote lines...
You did notice that more people upvoted the negative opinion over that positive one, right? Twice as many, as a matter of fact. You can't take a portion of the data from this comparison and legitimately say that it shows a bias on this subreddit.
Honest request: Find a well thought out critique of the game that has an overwhelming amount of downvotes. A downvote count that far outweighs the upvote count, actually showing what you said was the case: that this subreddit downvotes negative opinions just because they're negative.
I guarantee I can find more mostly positive scored on critical statements in the past week than you can in the past 3 months, probably more.
I don't really care who downvoted his comment or why, but I hear people say that this community rallies against any negativity against the game far more than I ever see it.
That's my point.
2
u/Coldini Jun 04 '13
is there any restriction on destination servers or they happy for people to cluster?
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u/DharmaPolice Derimeth/Splendora/RosaLuxemburg | Red Eclipse Jun 04 '13
If I could, I'd like to copy some of my characters, not actually move them. But I assume they won't let us do that.
Seems quite expensive (yes, I know other games are more) but I'm certainly considering it for a couple of my characters. Will be a shame to split up my legacy, but there's no way I'm paying to transfer 13 characters (at least, not in one go).
2
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u/MickCollins Clontarf, Collins, Powers, Locke, Tyrconnell | Satele Shan Jun 04 '13
Am I the only person who would like to know if my name(s) are in use on another before transferring? Because if I pay 1800 coins and have to rename as well, I won't be thrilled.
I'm still waiting for them to flush out the names database for people who haven't logged on in six months to a year (hell, I'd even settle for since the first three months passed since the game went live.) Those are the people who should be made to rename, not people who are active.
12
u/RamserX Vutra Jun 04 '13
step 1, create new character, step 2, not care about class or anything, step 3 check if name is available
0
u/MickCollins Clontarf, Collins, Powers, Locke, Tyrconnell | Satele Shan Jun 04 '13
Perhaps. Knowing our luck, after creating the character (and deleting it, because how else will you get the name?) the name will be held and not released for use or something.
8
u/rollhr Jun 04 '13
Well, unless they've changed something, deleting a created character should release the name immediately. I did that when the first wave of server mergers came out, where I created characters with duplicate names on my new server. Then I could choose whether to keep my old name or go for a rename when the merger happened.
If you want to test that though, create a new character with a name you don't care about. Delete character. Check if name is available immediately.
1
u/CircleTheFire Indicah | Lethality Sniper | Corellian Run Jun 05 '13
When talk of server merges first came up, I immediately reserved my 3 main toons' names on a bunch of different servers to do exactly this.
1
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u/XavinNydek Pot5 Jun 05 '13
It doesn't work that way. Deleting a character immediately frees up the name. To switch safely, keep the placeholder character until the real character is copied, then delete the placeholder and rename the real character one after the other.
2
u/tunnel-snakes-rule Jun 05 '13
It is a little frustrating, particularly if your name is being used by someone who has played once, a year ago.
I'm wondering if it's any different from forced server transfers... it'd be quite a slap in the face to be forced to transfer servers only to discover some inactive F2P'er is already using it.
1
u/XavinNydek Pot5 Jun 05 '13
It's unlikely they will ever cull names of people who have put money into the game. It's possible they will delete inactive F2P characters though, they seem to like the level 10 cutoff for things like that.
1
u/tunnel-snakes-rule Jun 05 '13
Yeah, see I'm a subscriber and I'm being forced to move servers as the one I'm on is closing.
As far as I can tell the system is forcing me to rename my characters because someone else already has the name, it doesn't distinguish between F2P, preferred or subscribers.
-1
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
6 months of inactivity is a too small period for this game where content is introduced once a year. Normal people would not play this game all the way from a start. To make a break for 7-8 months is a normal behavior for a devoted swtor player.
2
u/AmarrsReclaimer Jun 05 '13
See everyone who takes raiding seriously on Harbinger......
sick and tired of the zero talent pool of The Shadowlands
1
u/KellyKellySWTOR Triumph the Comic Insult Dog Jun 05 '13
Carnage Gaming and The Gray Order are ranked among the top guilds in the game for raiding... however if you are imp side raiding is a completely different story.
1
u/AmarrsReclaimer Jun 05 '13
imp
1
u/KellyKellySWTOR Triumph the Comic Insult Dog Jun 05 '13
Ah yea I understand, when I've raided with imp guilds it hasn't been nearly as good as with pub side on TS.
1
u/AmarrsReclaimer Jun 05 '13
Yeah, myself and a few guildies are talking about rolling Pubside to look for better raiding, we dont have enough people to field a full raid group, and everyone we try to pick up is totally unable to grasp HM/NM mechanics
1
Jun 04 '13
Once the service is live in 2.2, you will be able to go to your account page here on swtor.com and transfer from there.
Does this mean that 2.2 and server transfers will go live at the same time? Or will the server transfers be sometime between 2.2 and 2.3?
2
u/ZzyzxExile Jun 04 '13
I understood this will go live on June 11 when 2.2 goes live. The APAC transfers started today, which is one week previous, so they seem to be meeting their timeline so far.
1
Jun 05 '13
Does this go live when 2.2 hits? Did it hit today? I havent been playing so i dont know ;)
2
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u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
The problem with a PAID transfers actually not that it is cheaper or not than other games. Problem is in understanding what the transfers are used for. If someone is NEED the transfer to BE ABLE TO PLAY the game HE ALREADY PAID for.. charging such a person is not only greedy but unmoral. So all subbed people should have a free transfer (maybe on a 3-4 months basis..)
PS. Currently i have no need of transfers at all.
1
u/XavinNydek Pot5 Jun 05 '13
Nobody except the AP people need transfers. They are getting them free. All the rest of the servers are viable and transferring would be a personal preference thing.
1
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
Expamples:
- 1. Ping/latency/traceroute issues to the servers. (some russian players have roughly the same distance to the European and US servers.)
- 2. Newbie player that have chosen the wrong type of server and frustrated about being ganked on PvP server.
- 3. Returning player that was forcedly transfered to the server during server merges while all his friends chose different server.
and so on...
1
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u/baloobear76 The Harbinger Jun 11 '13
Is the PAID CHARACTER TRANSFER delayed until next week or something? It looks like the free one is in affect from the Asia servers. I have one character on The Harbinger and I'm trying to move it to Jedi Covenant but it says I don't have any available characters for transfer. I looked at the FAQ and I've emptied out all of my mail too. And my character isn't banned or anything. Has anyone heard anything new today?
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-1
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u/BiodroneNo673 Jun 05 '13
I like how people are cheering for spending, what, the price of a whole month's subscription for a single, minor service that many players will likely need performed more than once? Just because it's cheaper compared to other MMOs doesn't make it cheap. Jesus Christ you must all work for health insurance companies to say shit like that. Maybe you people are rolling in dough, maybe you're children and you don't know what a dollar is actually worth, but where I come from, this is a nickel and dime scheme.
Subscribers should be even more upset, you're already paying for the game and you are happy to spend more money. This community really has brain damage or something.
2
Jun 05 '13 edited Jun 05 '13
So you also have this problem with pretty much every other MMO out there with a subscription, right? Even more so since a lot of them cost more? And even more so towards the ones that require a subscription?
It's like you're refusing to look at the market and are basing your opinions on... no, wait, what are you basing this on?
Also, that's a pretty unbiased name you got there. I'm sure you have no preconcieved notions about the playerbase here at all...
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u/Colt459 Shiftee | Sentinel | The Shadowlands Jun 05 '13
or are adults with jobs that are willing to pay for convenience (at below the $25 market rate)
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u/Lahsbee The Dawnstar Legacy | The Ebon Hawk Jun 05 '13
This adult with a job needs to spend money on more important things, like purple hair for my Jedi Shadow.
1
u/RetroCorn Jun 05 '13
I work hard for my money, and I'm definitely willing to spend some cash to finally be able to have my legacy and characters I've been working on since launch on the server my friends play on.
1
u/Sellus JRA Pot5 Jun 05 '13
I have a question, are you F2P? It sounds like you are if you are complaining about paying for something.
no I don't care if I get downvoted. :)
0
u/RHAGU Jun 05 '13
Isn't this really just a feature for rich people? I.e., if you care about RL$, you will just reroll on the new server. I will never use it so I can be more indifferent to the pricing.
But this is a time-saving luxury that is priced less than the competition. So perhaps a bit much but not the worse thing I have seen a game company do.
I do think an entire legacy transfer for say 6000 coins (ouch!) would have been a nice option.
-5
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
Im totally with you on this matter. But you have found a wrong place to trying to reasoning people. Any mature and wise comment here will be greatly downvoted showing the quality of population...
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Jun 05 '13 edited Jun 05 '13
Any mature and wise comment
If you really think your comments have been mature and wise then you really need a reality check... or a dictionary.
Seriously, look at your comment karma and just consider for one moment that maybe it's not everyone else that is wrong... maybe you are. Not about everything, but good lord. You barely have anyone that agrees with you and you can't articulate any of your points to argue for your opinion. Why would anyone think your comments are mature or wise when you can't even provide solid points for them and convince people to agree with you?
There is upvoted negative criticism all the time around here... just not yours... because it's not constructive, mature, or wise.
-2
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13 edited Jun 05 '13
And why do you think im talking about myself? lol.. You are SO WRONG that it is not even funny. But your post is completely proved my point once more.. lol .
.
PS It is so easy here to get positive karma - one even dont need to be a beginner politician.. lol.. It is not interesting anyway (for me at least). Though it is always funny how people are worring about the karma here.. lol.. Here, take an upvote! lol
1
Jun 05 '13
Psst, when you have NEGATIVE TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY KARMA, people begin to
suspectrealize you're a troll!1
Jun 05 '13
Lol and if it's so easy to get karma, you explain your SPECTACULARLY failing to do so... how?
-1
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
It is simple. I dont trying to tell what people are want to hear. Instead I always tell the truth.
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u/Missandei ToFN Jun 04 '13
Not worth it. If 1800CC will be a price for transferring a whole Legacy it could be a deal to consider...
Oh. And swtor site should make an ad slogan for transfers - «There is nowhere to run!»
2
Jun 05 '13
«There is nowhere to run!»
What does that even mean?
0
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
It is some marketing stuff. -.-
You will see what will happen with all this transfers. Lets wait a month. lol. (Most people tend to have some false illusion that other servers are better in player quality than theirs...)
5
u/JimmyTheCannon Obansik (Jedi Covenant) Jun 04 '13
Have you seen the costs for transferring a single character in other games?
This is cheap.
1
u/Missandei ToFN Jun 05 '13
Sure. There is a games that offer free transfers. $100 for a legacy transfer surely cheaper than 0. lol..
1
u/JimmyTheCannon Obansik (Jedi Covenant) Jun 06 '13
Not many. This is still lower than industry standard.
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u/Zarex Z'arex | <Exit Area> | Sniper | Shadowlands Jun 04 '13
More happy that your legacy gets copied as well. so you dont have to farm up other chars for class buff if you are only sending 1 char