World of Warcraft: realm transfers for cash

Send to a friend Print

Dan Chiappini22 June 2006, 2:50 AM

UPDATE |Vivendi Universal Australia has issued an updated statement. See the full story for more info.World of Warcraft players will now be able to move their characters between virtual realms, allowing them to escape overloaded game servers, while reuniting multiple characters spread across realms, the game giant Blizzard Entertainment announced today. The catch? It will cost you. Quite a lot.

UPDATE 11.33 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time, 23rd June | Vivendi Universal Games Australia representative Bennett Ring has advised that the realm transfer system won't be able to go live straight away due to technical issues that Blizzard is still working on resolving. He could not confirm the date realm transfer will be made available, but did re-confirm that everything in our story and the original press releases sent to us is correct. Keep an eye on WorldofWarcraft.com for the appearance of the official announcement.

Until now, free realm transfers were sporadically offered but usually only once a new server was launched and was designed to help ease the spiralling population and performance load issues on busy servers.

This announcement allows players who have created more than one characters on multiple realms to reunite them, while still maintaining all their accumulated quests, wealth, items and Battlegrounds reputation.

The news from Vivendi Games Australia overnight will no doubt make users of the subscription based MMORPG with multiple characters very happy, but there are some limitations of the new inter-realm transfer system.

Specifically, you won’t be able to port characters to a realm less than 90 days old, you will not be able to transfer from a PvE (Player VS Environment) to a PvP (Player VS Player) realm (to stop unfair game mechanics), but you are able to transfer from a PvP to a PvE server.

You will not be able to begin a character transfer if your server already has an upcoming free migration on the cards, and finally, you will not be able to transfer to a server with a population deemed to be high or full.

This means if you’ve played a character to level 60 and started a character on a lower population realm you may not be able to move your new character to be with your level 60. You can however move the level 60 to the newer server as long as the above are kosher.

Transfers will cost US$25 ($34) per character and are limited to one transfer per character per six months. Blizzard suggests you research your new realm before you move, as you’ll need to wait the full six months before transferring back or to somewhere else.

The transfer process will take between one and 10 days to take effect, during which time the character(s) being moved will not be playable. Once moved, if your character’s name matches one already on the server, you will be required to change it.

The new service also allows owners of multiple subscriptions to, for the first time, move their characters between accounts, provided they own both accounts.

There’s a verification system is in place to avoid people selling high level characters on established servers. You may not give away or sell characters, and any attempt to do so will be a violation of the World of Warcraft terms and use and may result in warning, and temporary and permanent account suspensions.

Likewise, gold limits are in place to stop economies being flooded by ‘gold farmers’ and when transferring, level 10-30 characters may have up to 300 gold, 1000 gold for 31-50, and 5000g for players with levels 51 and above.

There are several other factors to consider before jumping into a move, so check out the official homepage for all the information. One of the most requested features has finally been implemented and we’ll be following closely to see how it alters the game and is received by the playing community.