When we launched Season of Discovery, we made some bold decisions, one of those was the creation of Enforced Faction Balanced PvP Realms. When we did this, we did our best to communicate some caveats that this may not end up being the experience you want from World of Warcraft, as PvP realms can be an intensely challenging experience at times. While we are very happy with how the faction balance system has worked out, we know from player feedback internally and externally that the reality of a balanced presence of both factions on a single realm, and that individual layers will not always have equal factions, means that some folks have now decided they would instead prefer a PvE ruleset, but have characters locked to these PvP realms.
To that end, we genuinely want everyone to have the best time they can in Season of Discovery, so over the next few weeks, we will be periodically opening Free Character Transfers from PvP realms to PvE realms. These transfer windows will open and close fairly rapidly, and we offer no guarantee that you will be able to transfer. The reasoning for this is simple; we need to ensure that one faction doesn’t disproportionally leave a realm, undoing months of hard work with realm faction balance.
These transfer options will be periodically available starting Tuesday and will open and close throughout the rest of this week.
As always, thank for you joining us in Season of Discovery. We’ve experimented a lot and learned much that will ultimately lead to bigger and better things.
I cannot wait for new endless whining threads about “my friend transferred, but I didn’t make it. Open transfers, Blizzard!”
And btw, Blizzard, because probably there won’t be any fix to help balance CATA servers, so there is no point to playing it. SOD is my last reason to pay subscription and if you mess up servers balance with free transfers again, say bye bye to my money.
With that said though, it won’t be an option for everyone, since that’d mean people have to abandon their guilds/friends if everyone is not on board with transferring to a PvE realm.
Is there any possibility of working on solutions to some of the issues that players (like myself) are experiencing, such as not being able to gain Emerald Wardens reputation in Incursions due to extensive amount of ganking in and around those areas? Perhaps in time, unlock certain class altering rewards like runes, Wolfshead helm and Catnip, and make them available through other means? It’s a bit of a bummer to not be able to obtain these since they’re just too valuable for the intended gameplay for certain classes and specs.
Two things I’m thinking of is either to fully disable PvP in the area surrounding the Incursion questgiver, around the portal and definitely inside of it.
If not that. Make class altering rewards obtainable through open world quests, much like other forms of rune acquisitions. Like having to find a npc hidden somewhere, that can teach you the techniques that these items carry for a service in return, and send you out on a quest. I can only speak for myself on this one, but that type of rune acquisition has been my favourite this far.
How do you actually initiate the free transfer, assuming it is avaiable? And how do you check if it is available (on and off, but how do you see that)?
I checked my characters on several PvP servers, both Alliance and Horde. There is nothing visible in the character interface (as in a free transfer button) and the shop includes only paid character transfers.
Could also be that it’s not open for your faction. If your faction is lower than the enemy faction, it’s possible that only the enemy faction will get free transfer at first. When enough people of the enemy faction transfer it should open for you too. I would keep checking once or twice a day for this week, to see if it opens up.
Yes, was wondering how is it done normally, if anyone done it. Will it be a button with “Free transfer” in Shop? Will a new button show up next to each character on the realm? Is it done from the account management interface on blizzard website?
I can’t start a char transfer (as Iskender was mentioning) and to check if the option is there or not.
I transferred my char back in classic wow, and I could see the free transfer option available under the shop in character selection screen. If its not there, you don’t have it. (yet).
Goodbye PvP whiners. Next time choose your server carefully. I’m glad there won’t be any hand holding being enforced but instead the people whose hands need holding can get the heck out of here for free.
Because you’re on a PVP realm. This suggested method wasn’t introduced until late Retail WoW with PVP War mode which doesn’t exist in Classic - which is entirely divided into PVP and PVE realms. You chose to enter a PVP realm.
On PVE realms though disabling the PVP flag will not flag you for PVP until you enter instanced battlegrounds or red zones or attack flagged toons. That is exactly the content you’re seeking.
Yes, this is the very solution that is offered to you: A FCM that is randomly unlocked and given from PVP to PVE realms.
They would have to consider doing this not only for this but everything that involves a PVE aspect in the game, while you enrolled into a PVP realm. The easier solution is to allow you to move from a PVP realm if you do not wish to do PVP.
After opening the shop, a token will appear with “Free Character Transfer” with a warped portal that is different from the other tokens to the paid services.
While the in-game shop is available in the WoW Classic client, Blizzard does not have the ability to disable it for specific servers (such as SoD realms).
You meant this point? I proposed in the past to allow guilds to tick “Yes we want to irreversible guild transfer if the leader does so in a free character migration” but Blizzard has stated several times publically, that if the individual guild members wish to transfer they must do so when the window opens.
That is why I did not say anything, if you want to see this part changed, please suggest here or through the ingame box again and maybe they will change their minds.
Here we go folks, free (but random) transfers will be opened from PVP to PVE.