World of Warcraft Classic launches today, the special retro version of the world’s most popular MMO that brings the whole experience back to how it was in 2004. It’s already hugely popular, and you’ll be able to find high-population servers, long queues and significant waiting times if you try to log in now. If you’ve started already on one of those servers with a high population, you may be looking to do a WoW Classic Realm transfer in order to move to a less overwhelmed server.
The important question is then, is the ability to change servers in World of Warcraft Classic an option? Can you change servers for free, or is there a paid option? If not, when’s server transfer coming and what will it include? We’ll try and answer all these questions.
Is there a free WoW Classic Realm transfer across servers?
At the moment the queues for almost any part of World of Warcraft Classic are pretty insane, but some servers are getting hit harder than others. As such, it’s entirely natural that players who dove into WoW Classic early would be desperate to try another server, especially if the one they started on is getting hit with ridiculous queue times and pings. If you don’t want to lose your character, you need to transfer to another Realm on a different server, but is that an option?
Unfortunately, and this will be of no comfort to the players suffers with long wait times for high population servers, at the moment there is no free Realm transfer option available on World of Warcraft Classic. Players are already desperately requesting the option to move from high or full popular servers to low population ones from Blizzard, especially as some players are reporting seven hour long queues. For now though, you’ll have to stick with it until Blizzard sorts things out. Alternatively, is there a way to pay your way to another server?
Will there be a paid WoW Classic Realm transfer instead?
We know for sure that, at least right now, there is no free way to transfer between server Realms in World of Warcraft Classic. But what about paid? In regular World of Warcraft, Blizzard has an option for a Paid Character Transfer Service that allows players to move their characters between servers, for a fee. The cost of each character transfer is $25 and it can take up to three days for Blizzard to move characters between servers. When the service was first introduced it could take up to six months to transfer characters, so it’s certainly better now.
On to the crucial question then, is this option available in World of Warcraft Classic as well? It may be a fairly high fee and could take a few days, but we’re pretty sure a lot of players would take it if the service was available, as it’d probably be quicker right now. Unfortunately, once again we’re sad to inform you that the paid character transfer service is also not available in WoW Classic. As it stands then, there is currently no way to transfer a character between servers. Your only option right now is to start a new one, sadly.
When will the server transfer option be added, either free or paid?
It’s certainly very bad news, for anyone waiting over seven hours to access World of Warcraft Classic on a high population server, to know that there is no way to move their character to another, less busy server. The big question is then, will a free or paid Realm transfer option be added by Blizzard? The publisher recently held a live AMA about WoW Classic to answer the many questions that fans had, and the discussion eventually turned to free and paid character transfers.
Despite being a full week before the launch of WoW Classic, one player correctly predicted the issues with overpopulated servers, and asked if Blizzard would have free character transfers between Realms if the queues became too unbearable. Blizzard responded with the assertion that “this is definitely one of the options we are considering.” However, this was a week ago now, and Blizzard still doesn’t seem to have this implemented, nor a response to the load wait times players are experiencing.
When the WoW Classic Realm transfer option is available, how will it work?
If queues become too dire, it’s entirely possible that Blizzard will be merciful and open up the option for free character transfers to players, at least temporarily. In the long term, in the aforementioned AMA Blizzard spoke about the possibility of adding paid Realm transfers, in the same manner as the type available in vanilla World of Warcraft. According to Blizzard, this transfer option will only be available “once players have reached higher levels.”
The main reason that the publisher gave for taking its time with implementing a server transfer option is that it has to “discuss the implications of players moving to a new Realm.” Blizzard says that it believes “Realm identity is an important aspect of Classic, so any guidelines around transfers should support this belief.”
Will we be able to transfer between PvE and PvP servers?
The potentially good news is that, if and when character transfers between servers happen, you may be able to move your character between PvE and PvP Realms. This option was available in vanilla World of Warcraft, so it would make sense if it was exactly the same in WoW Classic. Of course, Blizzard has to implement the option first.
