Server Transfer and Character Renaming – woot!

Discussion on the boards about … Holy Mother of Pearl … could it be?  Yes!

Server Transfer and Renaming features being tested.

It’s … about … time.

Quoth Lighthouse:

Starting on Tuesday, July 17th, the Training Room Test Server will have two new game features enabled for testing: Character Transfer and Character Rename.
Character Transfer will allow customers to move characters from one server to another.
Character Rename will allow customers to rename a selected character.

Both of these features are not part of Issue 10: Invasion. Although we are beginning to test them now, we anticipate that they will not be enabled on the live service until after the launch of Issue 10.

We estimate that both features, Character Transfer and Character Rename, will carry a transaction fee of $9.99 each per use (there will be no fee for transfers to or renames on the Training Room). Should a Character Transfer have a name conflict on the destination server, a free Character Rename will be made available to resolve the conflict and rename the moving character.

So, at $10, not something people will do casually.  But it would be very nice to be able to do it — and, honestly, to the extent that I do any teaming, I would be willing to shift most characters someplace else for some sort of group TF/SF activity.

We feel the price of these features is enough to prevent potential abuse, but also reasonable enough to not be prohibitive for those who want to improve their gaming experience by moving servers or changing a character name.

I’m sure people have detailed it somewhere on the boards, but lacking the motivation to ferret it out … what sort of “potential abuse” is there in server transfer?  (Or, really, in renaming?)

Will “GenericHero003497” be able to rename him/herself, I wonder?

Interesting bit here:

IMPORTANT! Customers who are interested in taking advantage of the Character Transfer service should know that it is possible in the future that we may make changes to the game that would remove the need to Transfer servers. One example of such a change would be a “server-less” game configuration where all players can group with anyone, without the restriction of which server they play on. We are not committing to this “server-less” configuration, and in fact there are no plans to implement a “server-less” environment this calendar year, but because we are charging a fee for these services, it is important that our players understand that the possibility exists. We want to be very clear in this regard so that those who do decide to make use of a Server Transfer, when it becomes available, understand that they may not need it in the future.

I have no idea how something like this would work (various DC “Crisis” comics would indicate the answer is “badly”), but … well, good on them for giving a warning.

Some official ramificaitions:

All purchases are final and non-refundable.

Any disputed credit card charge can lead to a permanent account closure. Please ensure that the card on file that you are using is the correct one you wish to make the charge to!

Keep in mind that after the character is moved, your Friend’s list of players on that server will no longer be valid and you will be removed from any Supergroup that character was included in.

Taskforces or Strikeforces in progress will be abandonded.

Kiosk stats will be preserved, but rating positions will likely change.

We cannot guarantee that your character’s name will be available on the destination server you move to.  Should there be a name conflict, your character will be issued a free character rename to change the name.

Some other Red Name (mostly Lighthouse) observations on this:

• It could be, in the future, be a Vet Reward.
• It’s cheaper than other MMORPGs … though I still don’t understand the pricing.
• Is it time for another inactive name purge?  Maybe.
• No copies, just transfers.  Hmmmm.  Not sure why not, though.
• Once you move, your name is freed up on your old server.  Some interesting RP possibilities there (“I want to keep Lvl 50 Psi-clone, but start off a new Lvl 1 Psi-clone, too.”)
• Friends lists won’t be updated (in the case of renames) until you zone or log.
• Worried that “Psi-clone” is already taken on Virtue, and you’re afraid if you move him you’ll have to rename him to something else?  Try creating a character there by that name first and see if the name is taken.

I have no idea how much advantage I’m liable to take of this feature at the moment.  $10 is enough to make it not something I’d do casually, but if I really wanted to move some folks onto Champs, I have some other character (which I don’t want to delete) that I could move elsewhere (which would cost me $20, which is steep, but not utterly, completely out of the question).

Anyhow … it’s definitely something that’s been asked for, and I’m glad it’s here.