World of Warcraft: Classic has finally added in paid character transfers. These transfers work to move your character from one realm to another, for whatever reason you might prefer.
The addition isn’t novel, as it’s an option in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth to be able to do this. However, the addition does come during what many players have been considering a population crisis on a variety of realms.
Given that there are two factions in the game between the Horde and the Alliance, the possibility exists for a realm to have a population that heavily favors one of the factions. On some realms, you may end up with significantly more of one faction than the other, which can be an issue for a variety of reasons.
A major factor of this is Player-vs-Player realms, where a core mechanic is World PvP. It can be incredibly difficult to maintain a decent World PvP atmosphere if one side outnumbers the other significantly. There have even been issues on some realms where a faction has overtaken the other’s capital city for hours at a time, effectively rendering a vital hub completely useless.
Population issues don’t only affect PvP realms and World PvP, though. There are many realms that are overpopulated, creating lengthy queues to sign onto play. Oftentimes these same realms suffer from issues with latency and connection, forcefully disconnecting players and then making them wait to sign back on again. Combining this issue with the faction imbalance can sometimes make a server barely playable.
The opposite is true as well, of course. Underpopulated realms can be difficult to find a community to play with, whether it be a guild or just a group of friendly faces. This is especially important with Classic’s more group-based difficulty, making some of the higher content incredibly difficult to achieve due to a lack of people to join in.
Blizzard was offering free realm transfers for a time to help deal with these population issues, but it was a limited time offer. Now they’re finally implementing the normal system that we see in modern WoW, complete with the price.
If you’re wanting to transfer your character over to another realm, regardless of the reason, the service will cost $25.00, nearly twice of the monthly subscription fee. This transfer can also be used to place your character on another account, if you’re migrating accounts or gifting your friend your character for some reason. With any luck, this service will help bring an end to the population unbalances.
