Shouldn’t this be instant? I’m pretty sure that by 1.12 you could send stuff to your own characters without having to wait. It’s taking 1 hour for my own toons to receive stuff. Can someone confirm that this was added later, and if it is the case, which patch was it added with?
The [Mail] system
For a small price copper, you can send in-game mail to other players. This can be sent when other players are offline or online. An icon will appear near your minimap indicating if you have new Unread Mail. To read your mail, visit the postbox outside any inn. You can also send items through mail to other players as “attachments”. Sending mail is instantaneous, unless there is an item attached, in which case the message will take one hour to be delivered. Attachments are returned to the sender if the message goes unread for 30 days, or if the recipient does not remove the item from their mailbox within 3 days of reading the message.
You can also use a C.O.D. to send mail with items attached. This allows you to set a price for the recipient to be able to collect the item from the mail (ie. you can charge them for the item). When the recipient clicks the item to put it in their pack, a dialog comes up stating the price. If they say accept, then the price is deducted from their money and sent to you in a mail message. They may also select return which will return the item to you via mail. C.O.D. items expire from the recipients inbox in 3 days even if unread, so be sure they know that it is coming. You can C.O.D. items to your other characters on the same account also.
You may also send cash in mail. If you do not send an item, this arrives very quickly. For example, your character needs a bit of quick cash and you have another character on the same account with cash, switch to the other character, drop some cash in the mail, then switch back, and the cash should already be in your inbox. If your other character is on another account (say, your brother’s or sister’s), you need only log out to the beginning logon screen and proceed as normal. You don’t need to be on one account to send money or any such, but it is much faster and easier.
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Thanks, but this was the original system, I’m sure it was changed by 1.12 so that items to your own characters would be instant too.
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Well if you believe Fandom it should be instant for same account.
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I’m not sure on the accuracy of Fandom, but I do trust my own memory, and I am almost positive that mail to your own toons was instant in 1.12. It’s taking one hour for my bank alt to receive the items I’m sending and that doesn’t seem right at all.
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I believe this was not added until TBC, either pre-patch or some patch after that.
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Yeah, I’m fairly sure this wasn’t until post BC.
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After the 2.1 TBC “Black Temple” release, followed 2.1.3, a mini-patch which changed both mail retention and mail sending times:
- Read in-game mail will now be kept for thirty days instead of three.
- Any mail between characters on the same account is now instant regardless of money or items attached.
- Any mail sent from a character on a different account will now have a one hour delay regardless of money or items attached.
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Yes, I remember this change - and since I started playing just after BC came out, that means it’s ‘working as intended’ in WoW Classic.
It’s one of those little things where you could sometimes almost wish for a QoL change of Classic, but then again… it adds up, and before long it wouldn’t really be Classic after all. So no, not really.
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The wait is a good feature. It reduces the usefulness of bank characters and it actually makes sense to store items in your own designated bank.
It actually creates another layer of communication because you can ask someone else to help you transfer items by trading!
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Yeah, give me your gold, I’ll help you. (russian accent)
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Yet in the early days of WoW, when you sold an item on the AH, you got the mail with your money instantly, but this is not the case in Classic.
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Maeryn, thank you, exactly what I was looking for. I did some searches but drew a blank so I really appreciate you taking the time to find this information.
^^
This, I find myself asking friends. “Hey, can I trade you X? Then trade X back to my alt? Beats the one hour wait time.”
Just another little layer of communication.
I can recall selling things when nI first joined WoW ages ago. I got the sold mail instantly but still had to wait an hour to get the gold. I am pretty sure I have not imagined this.
That’s what I remember too
It does not make bank alts any less useful at all. All that is required is some basic time management. I usually dump everything in the mail that I need to send to my bank alt just before logging out, and then when I log back in later, or the next day it’s ready to store.
The fact that items take an hour to transfer is just one of those small semi-realistic touches that made vanilla WoW what it was.
Yes but it’s at least a 2 hour window that is an inconvenience, so it’s either worked around and incorporated during the play time or left at the end of the play session.
This is better than nothing. Trust me, if mail were instant it would devalue bags even further.
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