SWTOR players have been rattling the sabers in the pursuit of more details about the upcoming character transfers to address the server population issues, and today, they got a screenful of information via a community blog post on the topic. All of the details have not yet been disclosed, which is making some folks a little nervous about what will be happening with their guild once the transfers hit. The post opens by noting that this will not be a free-for-all server transfer, rather, it will be a targeted and phased approach:

…we made the decision to strictly limit the initial phase of the Character Transfer Service to only allow transfers from selected groups of origin servers (where you’re moving a character from) to selected individual destination servers (where you choose to move a character to) based on the player populations of the origin and destination servers. In some cases, a large number of origin servers will be eligible to move to a single destination server. In others, very few origin servers will be transferring to existing high population destination servers. Remember, the goal here is to push almost every destination server to an active population that’s higher.

This should help assuage some of the fears that had been raised about the LFG tool being launched to barren servers. A few more facts we now have about the process:

• Server transfers start on June 12, 2012
• Not everyone will be eligible to transfer on day 1; the transfers will be staggered to reflect reasonable workload on the part of the dev team
• Once your transfer starts it’s estimated to complete in a few hours
• You won’t be transferring your characters off a PvP server to a PvE server
•  Your Legacy and associated unlocks will be transferred to your new server
• If you have already unlocked your Legacy on your destination server, the higher level Legacy will take precedence.
• Guilds will not be able to transfer to a new server; instead, guildmasters will need to transfer and reform it. And guld members will have to individually transfer over.
• If you have a guild bank, it will be re-granted to your new guild on your destination server by Customer Service
•  If your transferred character’s name conflicts with an existing name on a destination server, you will be asked to rename your character.
• Unless you have unlocked your Legacy on your destination server, you will need to rename your Legacy upon transfer (which conversely says that if you have unlocked a Legacy name on a server you are transferring to, that name stays put)

…because the process will be gradual, we cannot provide that information in advance. Depending on the number of characters transferred, the destination and origin servers eligible for transfer may be altered during the process. We don’t want to promise a destination in case it may change. Listings will become available as servers become eligible for transfer.

What We Don’t Know

•  Is there a minimum level of character eligible for transfer?
•  Is there a cap to how many bank slots / how many credits you can move on a particular character? And if so, does the character’s level impact those maximums?
•  If I move my highest level character off a server, do the remaining characters on that server retain the legacy levels and perks they had as part of that server’s legacy?
• If I don’t move immediately, will I have an opportunity to do so later? Or is it a limited time offer?

Where My head’s At

Well, at first blush, I’m bummed. You see, my original character is marooned on a PvP server with all my credits. And I’ve determined that I don’t actually really dig PvP servers though I am glad I tried one out. So I am crossing my fingers that she will, in the future, have the opportunity to move elsewhere to join the rest of my characters on a PvE or RP server.

Sigh. So basically, the initial wave of character transfers will not affect my playtime for the better. For now, I’ll have to keep aligned with my other servers to make sure I am in the loop on where folks are moving to. It will be nice to move with them to a server that has more opportunities for end game content completion, but I am bummed I will not be able to reclaim Anexxia at this point. And I have to again say publicly that I am more than happy to pay to move her in the future!

What about you? How are you feeling about the server transfers thus far from what we know now?