As LONG as there's a WILL there's a HOPE - It IS possible - YES, to move chars to US.

[Eithor]

Now TRY to read all of this (or nothing), TRY to THINK.
... Also please try to post creative and possible ideas/solutions(or don't post at all).

IF someone could write to both GOA and EA-Mythic and ask if the account/char-copy could be done in a more "manual" way(from Dyvet towards the US EA-Mythic servers. This will take some time ofc, but it's VERY POSSIBLE.

WOULD take time and manpower ofc, but hey.. Let them set a price for their efforts. About: 50-100€ per account. Sure kinda expensive, but should cover the cost for both GOA and Mythic.
People that got a dyvet/eu daoc account that ain't paying, and don't plan to start to subscribe due to the population-situation, would do this(ofc not all, but even some of those who moved to another servers would likely love to be able to move accounts or charcters to a us server.

MEANING?
Well, meaning that GOA actually could benefit from this, as well as Mythic... Both in a way to get cash they else wouldn't get, as well as humoring their playerbase.
EVEN able to transfer/copy say... 3 CHARACTERS per account would be worth much. We have earned our levels, ml's, championlevels and realmranks. Those of us that would pay to continue to have fun SHOULD have that option.

This "MANUAL" transfer/copy should take 2-4 weeks... IF GOA/Mythic put enough people behind it, it's not a question about if it's possible or not, because it is. It's time consuming task though, time = cash. WE could provide that cash(and honestly, even if it would take 1½ month I'd really REALLY prefer that over a dead server anyway).
Think GEAR was thinking something in this direction, about someone who'd have exceptional english writing skill (counts me out ), and that could deleiver this request in the best possible wording.

Getting quite tired of all the whining without any reasonable solutions to offer.
Especially since me myself posted a question about this in about 1½ year back, whom most players really didn't take seriously (might be something to do with some limitations as in looking forward and have somewhat of an mind for imagination):
https://forums.freddyshouse.com/general-discussion18/190661-question-idea-goa.html

It's said everything got a price, well what price would the playerbase, GOA and EA-Mythic deem good enough?
Who among us got these ubah writing skillzors(and at the same time have a intrest in daoc and "our" problem)?

 

[British]

Very good ideas there m8. I'd be more than happy to pay 50 euros to get my characters transfered instead of starting from scratch in the Us.

btw, if anybody needs anything translated in French ( if that can help communicating with GOA) give me a shout.

British

RIP Hemorragie, Hem, Qasar

 

[Thadius]

50 euros is about 20 British pounds?

 

[British]

50 euros is about 20 British pounds?

35 quids ish

British

 

[Thadius]

35 quids ish

British

That is a lot, considering what it is.

20 quid sounds more reasonable, with 1 free month on the US servers

 

[Eithor]

The cheaper the better... ALTHOUGH, my thinking is that if it is possible to open up this choice/path/solution, it's better then... Nothing, even if the price would be high.

Not like we have alot of options and could claim "i'd like the other way if this gonna be too expensive!", there is seemingly no other way, even this suggestion is still just a suggestion.

They (they as in goa & mythic) could make different choices possible:
1 account: 75€
3chars: 55€
1char: 35€

We must remember that it most likely HAVE to be PROFITABLE, or at least even out for goa & mythic. Else there's no use for them to put all the work into action.

Also the offer to do this could be limited to a timeframe, so it's a one-time opportunity, and thus also one-time focused solution by goa & mythic.
Everything that might minimize their strain, amount of time spent, amount of manpower and overall cash spent.

 

[Overdriven]

That is a lot, considering what it is.

20 quid sounds more reasonable, with 1 free month on the US servers

Only way I'd even consider doing this. I wouldn't pay for /char transferred, because the fact is I quit because no one played the servers I played on (Pryd/Caml) so they shouldn't(dare to) charge for per/char move.

 

[Eithor]

Hm, so you rather have no option over one that; got a cost attached to it, or/and is expensive?

 

[Imgormiel]

I don't mean to put a downer on your idea, it's a good idea. But as I understood things, it's unlikely to happen. I don't believe that GOA would give up their own customers without a fight. They have the license to DAOC from EA/Mythic and as long as that license is valid, then I believe it is unlikely that any character transfer will ever evolve.

IainC(Requiel for those that don't know - who no longer has anything to do with DAOC as a project) and Roaken have mentioned something about the process they are working on with Mythic to see what can be done. I don't believe despite the current update that they have given up entirely, and I don't believe that solution is likely to be forthcoming for quite some time. That is unless there is some volition for Roaken and his team to work with you guys with regards to this matter via FH. As yet that has not happened, and I'd say that's going to be a while before it does.

In my reckoning they are working on some viable solutions to present to you guys in a poll of some form, which has been the norm for GOA in the past and I would not expect any different approach in this instance either.

I am keeping my eyes peeled for now to see what will transpire

 

[Thadius]

Hm, so you rather have no option over one that; got a cost attached to it, or/and is expensive?

We have bought the licenses, paid good money on our accounts(in some cases, for 5 years straight). Why should we have to pay if the services is bollocks?

 

[civy]

If you want to attract attention of both mythic and GOA then I'd suggest posting in some of the warhammer boards. Both companies post daily and probably don’t want to see this cluster paraded in front of potential new customers.

 

[Imgormiel]

If you want to attract attention of both mythic and GOA then I'd suggest posting in some of the warhammer boards. Both companies post daily and probably don’t want to see this cluster paraded in front of potential new customers.

Constructive but negative, try it if you wish.

 

[Eithor]

Imgormiel, you might be right and you might not...
HOWEVER, I rather TRY to do something than just standing idle and just hope for it to go well (You know... I'm DG and standing idle ain't my thing really, and to once have been the number one/best runeplayer learnt me that it's when you give up, that is when you lose. Often enough not on my map at least, to give up ).


You're correct Thadius, to be correct won't help us at all though.
To pay for it might do it though.

Still it stand (atm) between nothing (meaning slow/fast decline in the dyvet pop, thus end of the server/gameexperience of old and decently new chars etc... Well the end of the fun that is) and a suggestion of a possible (but costly solution).

## Option1(IF suggestion would become a reality):
Pay and have some more years of fun (at the usa servers).

## Option2(unless Imgormiel got it right and goa manage to pull off some solution):
Losing out dear chars, into a server that is soon to become a pve server, then turn into nothing....



Now... I rather see ideas/suggestion if any...
WHAT can we do, that help us?

What should be, whats fair etc etc, won't help us.

 

[Bahumat]

I'm sure it's not a simple "Copy account A, paste into mythic". If you wanted a whole account to move you'd be paying loads of money. They'd have to move all your /20 chars + characters from other server's unless you specify against this.

Also if they do it for rvr players, they would have to do this for pvp players and they are 2 different server types. What I mean is the way they copy chars may not be the same, so they would have to figure out how to do this as well.

It'll never happen, warhammer is their current project so they wont waste time on this unless it's a 10 second job.

 

[Eithor]

Civy, I want to attract your, and as many daoc-dyvvet players (and former players) as possible, to be able to get the best possible letter written, with ideas and suggestions and possible solutions.

To try to contact goa & mythic before we phrased a message in best possible way... Well that would just be a waste.

Come up with the "right" prased suggestions.. AND then trying to answer them as we would be goa & mythic, from THEIR viewpoint, to further enhance the letter and make the suggestion more "waterproof", with say solutions to the problems that would arise from the suggestions we would send them.

Such a letter might put some small amount of "pressure" on goa & mythic, like "hm, this letter from the community is sharp, to the point and very seriously indeed", we at least have to give them a good answer, else this might hunt us forever on the WARboards, etc etc. As well as offer them a way to do this (cash/payment, options of account and/or character transfers/copies, limited period of time for the transfer/copies to be made - one time effort.

 

[Eithor]

Bahumat... Your words and thinking is quite negative, but still hold lot of truth in it (I was looking after creative positive responses of whats possible to do though, not another pessemistic doom-thinking, no matter how the truth/future of those words, might prove to be).

I'll humor you though(although, I'd rather see suggestions first, then we try to blow holes in them as you did now, else it will take a looong time if we breake down each suggetsion before we is finished with a "base foundation" of suggestions/ideas/solutions):

---------------------------------------------------------------
"They'd have to move all your /20 chars + characters from other server's unless you specify against this."
#### It could be limited or just that 1 server account is as said 75£ and each other server with chars one would like to get transferred would cost an additional of 25£, or maybe even 50£.
YES, the amount would be sickly high, but if SOMEONE really want to transfer his 67 level 50 chars from 7 different servers he could do so (for a sick amount of cash, yes, but it would be possible.. AND to goa & mythic, the amount of time and cash invested would be worth it.

If one can't afford that.. Well just transfer/copy 1 server account, or 3 chars, or even just 1 char.

---------------------------------------------------------------
"Also if they do it for rvr players, they would have to do this for pvp players and they are 2 different server types. What I mean is the way they copy chars may not be the same, so they would have to figure out how to do this as well."
#### YES, it's not simple copy & paste, we know that, thats why it would have to be in "MANUAL" way (and thus cost us cash, to get them to do what they should have done anyway, but won't do for free, apparantly).
---------------------------------------------------------------

"It'll never happen, warhammer is their current project so they wont waste time on this unless it's a 10 second job."
#### .... AND thats why we would pay for their extra service.
---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Bahumat]

"It'll never happen, warhammer is their current project so they wont waste time on this unless it's a 10 second job."
#### .... AND thats why we would pay for their extra service.
---------------------------------------------------------------

You look as though you are willing to put the effort into this so i respect that.

With regards to the above comment. I am not a business man, but it's time management that's the issue here.

Could EA provide people, or allow Mythic/Goa employee's time to do this?

EA will either hire people to do this (their salary may cause a loss of revenue, but they'd do it out of good faith for the players) - Or they'd allow current Mythic/Goa employee's to carry out the transfer. But that brings us back to Warhammer. Are they able to spare people for this, or is everything up to their eyeballs in work?


If I was in your position I would attempt the following.

Contact a GM and ask him "With the current status of Dyvet, and with all your knowledge, how would you approach character transfer?"
You'd need to hope he was willing to answer in depth.

The problem we have is we know it's possible, but why haven't they done this? There are lots of reasons we can list, but you'd need them to address the Core reasons, and ways round this.

Unless GOA/Mythic give you a bone to chew on, I cant really see this happening.

Good luck on this one

Bahumat

 

[Overdriven]

#### It could be limited or just that 1 server account is as said 75£ and each other server with chars one would like to get transferred would cost an additional of 25£, or maybe even 50£.

Yeah, right. Good luck with that.

 

[Tesla Monkor]

I hope it is possible, but I fear that the pricing is unrealistic. Just look at the amount of time it took them to restore those characters on Prydwen that were corrupted. No idea how many it was exactly, but let's assume at most 600 (which seems realistic imo). It took them nigh on 10 months to get everything sorted.

That equals 3 character/workday. I don't know about you, but I don't think the GOA will be interested in that job at that price. They'd have to hire external people to do the transfer, pay those, then reimburse GOA for the loss of the accounts and Mythic will have to say 'okay'. All in all I think it will be a lot more than 75 a character. Probably two-three times that to make it economically possible for GOA.

Still, who knows. Maybe something will happen - just don't hold your breath, or you will be blueer than a kobbie by the time you get a reply.

 

[Killder]

I work with databases every minute of every working day and have done for more years than I care to mention!

US chars are held in databases on US Servers, GOA chars are held in databases on GOA Servers.

I am regularly asked to migrate data from one database to another - whether they are the same type/structure of database or totally different is immaterial, it's my job to migrate it and I have yet to come across data that could not be migrated AND more importantly, the process automated ..... sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's difficult but it can always be done if you put the effort in.

IMO there is no question that an automated migration process could NOT be implemented there are only 2 things that ever prevent a business from doing it:

1. MONEY: the cost of putting a team together and producing an automated process far outweigh what could be made charging a reasonable price to customers for the service once it's implemented.

2. MONEY: implementing such an automated process would reduce the projected ongoing profit margin of the business compared to NOT implementing it.

GOA will not implement char transfer UNLESS they can make money from it - they are a business after all and to be honest, can you blame them - they wouldn't last long as a business if they didn't operate like this.

 

[Aiteal]

I am regularly asked to migrate data from one database to another - whether they are the same type/structure of database or totally different is immaterial, it's my job to migrate it and I have yet to come across data that could not be migrated AND more importantly, the process automated

so true
In the past I worked on a suite of local government database products for 4 years
Every time we won a new customer we had a data migration to do

be it from sqlserver to oracle
binary files from a dos system to oracle
or some crappy undocumented flat file system to oracle
it was all done

the other myth that needs busted is that goa and mythic's database structure are radically different
sure there will be differences to accomidate for internationalisation
but the idea that GoA rewrites large sections of code to account for their own database structure is laughable

programmers are by nature a lazy bunch of folks
GoA coders will not radically change the database structure just for kicks knowing that they will then have to go and rewrite the data access layer to account for this.

GoA's database structure will as closely mirror mythics as is technically possible

 

[atos]

Wont ever happen. I've already restarted and built up new stuff here. Would be all for nothing if I moved my old chars there.

 

[old.windforce]

if it could only happen, i would activate a second account again

 

[Laws]

Goa would more prefer to pull the plug on the cluster rather than admit defeat and hand their customers back to EAMythic. Which is sad really and not very customer focussed to people who have invested in most cases 5 years in the server and Goa.

What Goa neglect to realise though is that their customers here on DAOC will be reluctant to return to them for Warhammer or any other game if this happens.

These customers will also more than likely voice thier disapproval to friends family etc and put these people off Warhammer on EU servers.

I can see this costing Goa more in the long run rather than lossing the 300 or so customers they will by allowing a char transfer to US.

 

[Eithor]

Phew, starting to look like the other threads, ain't it enough to doom-talk there, i did ask for creative solutions/suggestions, not more of the ordinary stuff about goa doing nothing (no matter how true/untrue that might be), or not t post at all

 

[Eithor]

Now say (rememeber many got several accounts, bb's etc) that go could extract 500 (should be more, due to all the unactive players, but just to be modest we go with 500), and that in average they'd get 100€ per person (obviously less from some, and more from some).

500 000€ Huh, not that bad? Now those 500 could range between 250 and 1000+ instead (remember that excal used to have about 3000 players/accounts and prydwen 2500+ (at peak times), so it's very hard to estimate how many all in all, because over time many have joined and left the servers, so total accounts might be 10 000+, all in all? Since the 2 servers started until now?

Ofc it won't be as much, but it DO have some potential of an economical benefit for goa & mythic(if they could pull it of in a good way), not to speak of the enourmos goodwill they'd gain(which is worth alot in it's own way).

It could be done in several ways as some of you suggest.

 

[Bugz]

If they did it on a less professional level (basically charcopy your character over) it would be easily done within a matter of days.

 

[Golena]

They (they as in goa & mythic) could make different choices possible:
1 account: 75€
3chars: 55€
1char: 35€

No offence but if you think it's possible to employee people to do this work manually for this kind of money then you've never tried to actually employee someone, or your vastly underestimating how long it would take to do safely.

To transfer an account you'd probably be looking at upwards of £500. That number will quickly skyrocket the fewer people you get to sign up, and no offence but i'm not sure I see many people willing to part with half a grand simply to avoid the hassle of re-rolling.

Remember your not paying some chav off the street minimum wage to hit a few keys. He's going to need a computer to sit at. That means office space, a desk, a chair, a computer, a legal department to draw up his contract, a HR department to handle actually paying him, someone to actually recruit him, that involves someone to let him know about the job plus someone to inverview him to find out he's not a stoner likely to erase the entire database. Your paying him minimum wage so your going to need a safe front end which he can work with, training on how to use it, someone to test he can't erase the database on it before he starts. Now you also need a way of him getting the data from the GOA database so you'll need another application writing to allow him to get access to this. Need I continue?

It's a nice idea but doing it manually for any amount of money that would seem even slightly sane to you would be completely impractable.

 

[Overdriven]

GoA's database structure will as closely mirror mythics as is technically possible

I kept saying that Ignor and myself kept getting laughed at.


Killder, cheers for the PM reply. Helped.

 

[Eithor]

Golena, it might not be neccessary to be a financial burst for goa & mythic, just enough to make it worth the effort (remember goodwill and the increased monthly fee per added char/account for mythic).

Also, to help copy/transfer, it could be limited items in the inventory etc.
Very easy to create say a rr11 thane, with these and those artis etc for mythic. When getting used to it, it might just take a couple of minutes per char. Also both goa and mythic got all those things, they'll "just" need to borrow the time, the equipment they could borrow from themself since they already got it(shut down dyvet fro say 3 weeks, that aloen would freeup personal and their workstations etc etc, no need to hire external/extra personal).

But as said before, I'm/we're after viable solutions and suggestions, after we've gotten that, then we could breake those things asunder, then find some middle ground. Maybe 1-3 char per account etc.

After the initial pre-work, it might take 5 min per char, 500 chars, 2500 minutes. 10 people working with the copy/transfer 250 minutes of work per worker.

Me myself just as some of the other have worked with databases, and sometimes have had to transfer in a "manual" way, it's tedious work, but a few thosands done in a couple of days, for me alone. I'm sure there would be more factors in this transfer, but also there would be alot more people.