IF Blizzard really did not mail the players some kind of warning beforehand, that really is a fail on Blizzards part.
But I suspect they did, and the problem is just peoples overzealous spam filters.
My reasoning is if Blizzard really did not email the players beforehand, we’d be seeing a LOT more of these kinds of posts.
I made a thread about being forcefully moved too. I haven’t received any e-mail about a free transfer. It came as a chock when I bought game time about a week ago and noticed being moved.
That’s true … but I wonder if it’s because a lot of returning players haven’t logged in yet. I absolutely understand that players have to be moved elsewhere if a realm is closing but not cross-language.
I couldn’t agree more with that, Blizzard should have emailed all customers that the realms were closing and allowed them to get some free time, a couple of days, to move their characters to the place they wanted them.
A GM just answered my ticket. They apparently don’t do emails. They only communicate these things through the forum. Full answer in my forum thread. Blizzard moved my characters to a non-PVP server
So remember guys. Always have your weekly look into the WoW forums. Even if you’re not playing at the moment /s
They may be helping people who were sent from French, German etc realms to English realms but as they say in the ticket, they cannot move you from a PvE to a PvP realm. At least they kept you on an RP realm.
I regularly check my email inbox, as I also use it for business purposes, just as regularly I check the spam folder. I am pretty sure that nothing has come through to me from Blizzard.
I opened a ticket ingame. Unfortunately, the processing time ist 11 days at the moment.
I’ve had a quick look at the German forums and can’t see anyone posting about this so it doesn’t seem like a general problem, maybe a mistake that happened to a couple of people. However, all you can do is keep your ticket open.
No. This happened to a lot of players and there were quite a few threads on the German forums. Blizzard sent all characters from closing realms to Morgraine, regardless of language, except for characters from Celebras and some from Zandalar Tribe, that got send to Hydraxian Waterlords. They apparently realized their mistake and quietly opened free transfers from HW and Morgraine to German, French and Russian servers (HW only German, as only German players were transfered there). I personally told a few people about the free transfers from Morgraine to Transcendence and Patchwerk and HW to Lakeshire, while they were still open. Most threads regarding this are a bit older, because the problem has existed since August 10. Free transfers from HW to Lakeshire are still open, by the way, while transfers off Morgraine are not.
Additionally, some characters apparently just disappeared (https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/de/wow/t/celebras-char-kommen-nicht-an/199216/18) and Support said they can’t be restored.
Since this whole realm consolidation was and is a total mess, I hope Blizzard will help move OP’s characters to a German realm.
And by the way: Blizzard absolutely did not write any e-mails regarding this.
Ah, apologies. I didn’t go back far enough.
I agree. I kept thinking what if it was me and I came back to the game to find myself on a realm where I didn’t understand anyone and the quests were all in a different language. I really hope Blizzard can sort it out.
Hey folks,
I have finally received an answer from customer support, but it leaves me completely shocked.
I wrote the ticket in English, as I ended up on an English server. (I always translate texts into English with DeepL, the AI produces super translations. A little tip for people with similar problems).
The answer was a text from an Irish GM (at least he writes that he is based in Ireland) in a lousy and poorly understandable German littered with emojis. Three quarters of the text consisted of him explaining the long ticket waiting times.
(which he says is partly due to the huge success of Diablo Immortal, no joke).
I’ll post the original text in the German forum, because a lot of people have the same problem at the moment.
The answer to the actual question was as follows: "Please note that the customer service cannot give out free transfers, as these are normally subject to a charge.
But I should check the login screen regularly to see if free transfers are offered, but they don’t know when and for which server, so maybe I’ll be lucky.
The situation makes me pretty angry, Blizzard just transfers my chars to a foreign language server without letting me know and then makes me pay 25 euros to reverse it.
Let’s get something straight: I don’t think Blizzard did this on purpose to make money. But that’s exactly how it looks to outsiders now. And this fact is really shameful for a company of this size.
In combination with the unbelievable support (I don’t blame the GM personally here, I would also be overwhelmed if I had to give support services in English. But Blizzard should make sure that something embarrassing like this doesn’t happen. Then please write in English, that can be translated back well) really keeps you from getting products from Blizzard.
Thanks for your support and sorry for my bad English. I hope you still got the point
PS: I didn’t see that my characters were transferred until after I activated the game time. Is there any way to see the server status of the characters without reactivating the subscription. Otherwise I’m sure many others will fall into the trap.
Best regards,
Hangard
I’ve been trying to think what more you can do … all I can think of is to reopen the ticket and ask for it to be looked at by a manager. I don’t think free transfers will help as they would be offered to other English realms.
Maybe. If they are aware of the issue, they might reopen transfers to German realms as well. There are currently some cross language realm free transfers open anyway. I sincerely hope they will adress this soon!
Yes, but they’re not going to open free transfers from realms that are receiving people as they’re trying to increase the population there which is why the GM’s reply is odd.
I don’t think the GMs’ manager wouldn’t be able to do anything as transfers aren’t done by them but they may be able to pass it on.
I also wonder if making a ticket to German customer support might get a better response …
There is anpther one…
I doubt it, but worth a try.
i’m in the same boat, i wasn’t playing for a long time an started again a month ago, but right after the free transfer was disabled.
I wrote a ticket to the german support, but they couldn’t help me and got the same response that free transfers are not given bei GMs. So now i’m stuck on an english realm and even if the language would not be problem, i still like to write in my mother tongue in my spare time.
I hope the will be a solution to this problem soon
There are now a few players on the German forum who have the same problem. They have also written tickets and received the same answer (there seems to be only one overall support for the EU).
They all got exactly the same answer from the same GM.
I don’t want to attack the GM personally.
But it’s just copy and paste answers that only serve to throw people off. The tip that there are always free server transfers doesn’t help, because the Sevreralliance isn’t really busy. Which means that it is very unlikely that you can get away from there with a free transfer (which, as far as I know, serve to regulate the server population).
I’m also puzzled by the paragraph about the customer service not being able to give out free transfers. As it did with my unwanted transfer to Mograine.
I also explained this to the GM again when I got feedback from him. And back came the same answer as to the first ticket (with the same greetings: “Game Master Xambondar at your service! 
I hope you still have nice weather like we do in Ireland” - by the way, it’s raining in Ireland these days).
I’ve always had very good experiences with Blizzard support, but this is almost call centre level. I honestly don’t know what else we can do. I don’t think any help will come from Blizzard.
For me, however, this means that I can’t play like this. It takes too long to level a new character and I don’t want to pay the 25 euros for the transfer (per character).
Best regards,
Hangard
The move was from a server consolidation, where all characters were moved to one destination after a management decision. Not a GM decision. It’s not considered a “free transfer”.
Found two more on the German Realm Consolidation thread…
And anorher one: https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/de/wow/t/charaktere-sind-auf-einmal-auf-englische-server/204874. This really should be fixed…