ArenaNet - Please Hear This: $9.99 fee for 2nd Account Slot Merge

For ArenaNet and All,

I know there is a large population of us out there that have either purchased a second account to play on or have acquired another account from a friend or family member.

I have recently inquried with A-Net asking if they could take the PvE character slots from my second account and add them to my main account for this fee of $9.99 (or even a different fee if necessary). No transfer of fame or main storage or anything else - quite simply a PvE character and everything on it to be transferred over (no adding of fame or anything else complicated). Honestly I'd even be willing to pay a larger fee if this took more work than what a $9.99 overhead cost would cover.

I have been denied this request by A-Net and was hoping to get some support from everyone here, even those that don't have second accounts at the time, saying that this feature would be greatly appriciated by the guild wars community.

I do everything I can to support A-Net and the community here. I even donated a dollar when the guys here requested it in my support. I'm simply asking back from you A-Net that you simply provide me the opportunity to transfer over the time and energy put into one account to another - and most especially - to give you more of my money!

Please everyone chime in so that those of us with a second account can get recognized and hopefully A-Net will happily do this for us!

Thank you all. Thank you A-Net.

Justin

(Closed to prevent random thread resurrection. Please PM a mod if you wish to open this thread.)

Explain how they would do this.

Well, they are offering an extra slot for your account at the cost of $9.99.

Once this 'empty' slot is created they could just copy the character data (armor, invetory, xp, etc) over from the second account into the empty slot.

Seems straightfoward to me.

Justin

What I don't get is why it's a big deal in the first place? Even if you have 1 account and 50,000 characters, you still have to re-login to switch.

Lmao I want that account.

I said the same in another thread. Someone pointed out that if the character has a different fame rating, what would happen? I suppose there could be other issues, too. However, I think that having the transferred characters inherit the settings/ratings/whatever of the account they're transferred to would be reasonable. If someone doesn't want that to happen, then they don't merge accounts.

Anet has said they won't be doing this, though.

What's the big deal? Well, if you can't merge accounts, it means you have to buy multiple copies of future chapters if you want all your characters to have access to the new areas.

I think one problem of having 2 accounts is that if you unlock a skill its only on that account so you will need to unlock twice if you want it on both.

+ unless i have gone mad you dont re-login to switch charachter on that account.

(EDIT, theres alse the guild problem. Several people in my guild have 2 accounts meaning we have more people in the guild than are in the guild, errrr so to speak)

I would really like if they could do it. I have zero fame on my second account, and about the same amount of faction. but i would love if I gave them 9.99 so they could put the one char I play on that account(my warrior) on my main account. I dont want to buy 2 copies of factions, and Im tired of the incesent relogging in and out and trading with friends to transfer stuff to her. I guess I'll be making a new warrior when factions comes out, pity to waste all that time on the old one

right

account A has top rank with everything unlocked.

account B has 4 presear characters.

merge for instant top rank/full unlocks/FORGET IT

Because it would make it so you don't have to be running 2 copies of the same game at the same time...(no more reg editing as well) if you wish to give a drop you got on account 1 to a char you have on account 2. There would be no need to trade with yourself as all you chars would be in the same game... and you could just stick it in your storage and retrieve it. Also, now with the way skills work (available from any skill trainer once they have been unlocked)...you wouldn't have to unlock twice. (except for the elites of course)...Furthermore, you don't have to unlock runes and weapon mods twice either. There is a huge difference (and convenience) between having 1 account with 10 million chars on it and having multiple different accounts.

LOL. Yeah. Perhaps gets the lower of the two would be better.

I have a 2nd account.

It's a simple /unsignage! from me personally, for this suggestion.

(we did just get the slot purchase thing. I guess its only inherent to move to the next "we want" idea. got no problems with that. good luck!)

I'll say /signed for a few simple reasons:

A) I don't want to have to buy multiple copies of each expansion.

B) I haven't bought fissure or anything REALLY expensive on my second account, so I wouldn't mind restarting the characters ... apart from the fact 2 of my second-account toons (monk and mesmer) have 15k armor and holiday items (pumpkin crown, yule cap, horns) that simply CANNOT be replaced ...

C) My second account is collector's edition ... yes, this sucks, but i'd take the no-transfer-of-CE if I could merge the two.

I don't care if skill/item unlocks transfer, fame transfers, faction transfers ... they are just PvE toons that I would like to have a home for on my main account. I would honestly pay the full price of a new game to have the ability, or buy 2-3 new slots, or whatever it would take.

As it is, i'm not going to buy anything extra for the second account ... and hope that ANet would make some sort of concession for those of us who have bought multiple copies (aka, given them MORE money than the average player). I'm not going to whine and cry if they don't, but I can always be optomistic

Well, it will be good of Anet to add this feature, be it for free of for a fee..especially after all of the unwarranted complaining after the announcement of purchasing slots..BUT there are several things that may have to happen that will probably make the ungrateful people around here unhappy:

1) Delay in merging caused by the sheer number of people with 2 accounts AND all of the data that needs to be merged.

2) Not getting combined fame.

3) Not getting the same level of unlocks on all characters.

4) No refunds after having purchased a second account!

yeah.. it's kinda like this:

account A has 4 character slots with top rank and everything unlocked

pay 9.99 for one new character slot and roll new pre-searing character with top rank/full unlocks/FORGET IT...

oh wait...

:-)

what's wrong with ur 2nd acc?

just use one for play and another for item storage/PS char etc..


u can log the 2 accs at the same time when u need to trade and bring ur 2 chars

They should *not* allow the merging of accounts. In my opinion they *should* allow you to cancell an account that you own (it will no longer be playable, all characters on it gone) and add 4 EMPTY slots to your account.

there are advantages to having 2 accounts still. not the least of which is having an extra account to loan out to friends you want to introduce to the game. and in this way allowing them to have access to more while still playing with you... so 2nd accounts will not be unheard of, but they will be rarer now. since it seems most got the 2nd account not for friends or family to play with them but for the simple reason of having more storage then they should have, OR for laundering gold from unscrupulous sources....

IN any case. sorry for your bad luck, however I do hope this is NEVER implemented. as the Abuse factor it too great a risk for such a minor issue.

And what *reasons* do you have, other than because you say so.

Why not, its the same person?

Its no different from the person just having 8 slots with all chars on, than 8 slots over 2 accounts, still the same player.

Among the many other things that $50 goes towards, one of things that you're buying when you buy each game is a little slot on their server space, and the $50 for Factions pays for more slots, and also upkeeps the new servers they've bought to run the Factions part of the game. If you pay the $50 for GW A, then you had paid $50 for GW B, then you paid $50 for GWF A, then you pay $10 to merge GW B with GW A/GWF A. Then they're loosing $40 that they would've gotten if you had also bought GWF B, because your GW B accounts would have access to Factions, even if you didn't get 2 more slots from GWF B. If you multiply the number of people with second accounts by the $40 they would lose per person, then you've got Anet losing a lot of their income.

The next dilemma is this. Say you want to justify that if you buy all four games, GW A/GWF A and GW B/GWF B, then you should be able to merge, because both accounts have access to the same thing. Well then, you would have 12 characters, along with any char slots you've purchased all on the same account and all with access to the same things, GW/GWF. Now this is all fine and dandy until about 6 months down the line when Ch.3 comes out. Now you've got two accounts merged into one huge account, so you would only have to buy one copy of Chapter 3, where if you had kept your accounts seperate, you would have to buy two copies. Anet loses $50 per person here. This is the same dilemma as the one in the first paragraph.

So Anet would have to come up with a solution to merging that wouldn't drastically cut back on their profits. They always say they want to appease the customers and make them happy, and they were kind enough to do this by offering purchasable char slots. But Anet is a business, created for profit, so they have to draw the line when providing a service would mean losing potential profit.

If you can find a solution to the dilemmas I presented above, that wouldn't cut away at Anets profit, then throw it out and they might use it. But I don't think just saying you have to buy as many copies of the new chapter as you have accounts merged into your mega account, because if you have two accounts merged, that's you paying $100 per chapter. Now over time people with merged accounts would get tired of paying $100 every 6 months faster than they would get tired of paying 2 sets of $50 a month, because if you have two accounts and you get tired of paying $100 every 6 months, then you still have the option of just ceasing further upgrade of one account and going on to keep paying $50 a month to upgrade your favorite account. So where people with a merged account would quit all together faster than people with multiple unmerged accounts, Anet again would lose potential profit far down the line from merging two accounts into one.

What solution could be created that would allow Anet to make profit and also provide the merging service? Suggest one if you have it, but please don't say you think they should also offer the ability to unmerge accounts, because whether you know it or not, that's a whole other can of siege wurms that would cause much more trouble than it's worth farther down the line.

Ya, that's what I do. And also with Guild Storage being available for unlocking once factions comes out, if your two accounts are in the same guild you won't even have to bother getting the two instances of GW running at the same time to transfer items between accounts.

the difference is one way you are adding to an existing account and the other way you are lifting a whole nothing account to the top in one move.

Just so we're clear:

The character slot that's merging loses all of the unlocks, fame, etc., from that account, but gains the unlocks and fame from the "merged-to" account?

This would make sense, and seems like it's plausable.

Of course, it's Anet's decision in the end. Luckily, it's pretty early in the history of Guild Wars (before Chapter 2), so it might be better to cut your losses now, don't buy Factions for both accounts, and buy multiple slots instead.

And what is the problem there? The top rank/full unlock was done by the same person. It's not as if someone else is getting work done for them.

Merging two existing accounts would be very convenient. Even just being able to add the CD key of one account to another account would solve many problems for me.

When I first bought my second account I ran into the problem of not actually having a second email address to register it on. I had to get another gmail sponser and maintain a useless email address. When I transfer things from one account to the next, I have to rely on in-game help, which I don't always have on hand. After all, my computer is the only one in the house that runs Guild Wars. My room mates aren't going to let me touch theirs, and one of them can't even run the game.

I don't really care about what I unlock because I'm just PvE, but honestly, what is the big deal with giving your unlocks to your other account. You earned it. It's no different from Having a high level character unlock all the necro skills on his secondary, then making a necro with those benefits, both characters on 1 standard account. How can one favor redundancy and have a problem with that?

It's not as if it isn't technically possible. My girlfriend happened upon a bug with her two accouts that shows they can do it. Check it out. Why did they think 4 slots would be sufficient in the first place? I can understand the cost of server maintenance, but surely charging us for merging accounts can cover that. 4 slots for 6 classes and PvP only characters. Of course people are going to want a second account! Now Factions adds 2 slots and 2 classes, which is quite reasonable.

I don't care if they don't gain extra money from selling Factions to me twice (incidentally, they're not going to anyway). What about my f**king money?! In fact, if I purchase Factions twice, that's 4 extra slots on their servers, whereas if they simply merge my two existing accounts and make Factions work on it, they can just give me the normal 2 extra slots. They aren't even taking a loss!

I'm /signing this with a big fat marker.

/Absolutely signed!

Reason 1: If I had known we could put more slots on one account, I would have never went through the pain of buying and using a second account.

Reason 2: So I don't have to dump $100 to buy Factions (and every future chapter as well) for each account.

Reason 3: So all my unlocks and titles can be organized on one account instead of spread across two.

I've been playing since May of '05, and have spent the majority of my time in PvE. It was inevitable that I'd run out of room. So I purchased another account to have one character of each profession. I love my Ranger and Necromancer, and I simply can't buy two slots and re-create them on my main account - I've put too much work and time into these characters. I don't care what the fee would be, but if somehow a one-time merge were possible, I'd put my second account's characters on my main in a heartbeat.

Edit: Something else I forgot to mention that I feel is important. Right now, my second account is occupied by a PvE Ranger, and PvE Necromancer. Rangers and Necromancers are going to be extremely fun to play in Cantha (Broad Arrow, Animate Flesh Golem, need I say more?) And there is no way, sadly, that I will spend an additional $50 just to have access to Cantha on those two characters. Doing that would be just wrong in my opinion. My Assassin and Ritualist are going to be on my main account, so there would be no other reason to buy Factions for my second account than to simply play in Cantha with my Ranger and Necromancer. And there's no reason to make PvP characters on that second account, since all my work going into unlocking things was done on my main account.

I understand not everyone is in this dilemma, but at least try to look at it from the perspective of those who do have this problem. This new idea of purchasing slots puts the many with multiple accounts in a worse predicament than before.

Please ArenaNet, listen to us on this one.

The ability to transfer characters leads to character selling, as it stands a character is tied to an account so selling it would mean selling your copy of the game as well. I believe this should remain in place as a deturant.

I read some news that Factions will introduce 2 new slots, and I imagine more and more slots will become available as more expansions come out, aside from the fact you can buy extra.

I understand the desire to combine your progress, but I value the deturant more.... but I don't have this issue, so this is just my bias opinion.

There's no difference. Two accounts or one aside, they're still being owned and played by the same player. I fail to see how your argument has ANY logic at all.

I agree, the ability to transfer characters would lead to that. But the ability to merge 2 accounts and make 2 CD keys behave as 1 would not.

In fact, I imagine there may be another fee for account separation.

That, I feel, would be the solution. Not a character transfer, but a literal merge where both accounts will opperate as one.

So your basicly trading the 50 dollar cost of an additional game for 4 character slots, if it was unmergable it can still be used as a sales tool, just an extra step and cost, and if your going to lose the use of one copy of the game to merge them, then you should be able to transfer up to 4 characters, and gain 5 character slots inclusively, 50 dollars (cost of the account) for 5 slots + merge.

I think that is a rather complicated and problematic option though, as GW may not want to turn copies of their game into character slots for merges, not that it wouldn't work.

If ANEt won't allow the merging of 2 accounts, I can see only 3 options:

1. Just treat it as extra storage space

2. Fork out for a 2nd copy of Factions to give it full access (probably ANEt's favoured option)

3. Sell the 2nd account on and use the money to buy the extra slots on account 1.

Personmally I'd lean towards option 1 or 3 as no way am I buying 2 copies of chap 2, then chap 3 etc.

I'll /sign as support but I dont think it will be feasible to do without a large opportunity for exploits.

Having 2 separate accounts is like being two separate people. Literally. The accounts are associated with different e-mails. Not to mention, considering the accounts are 2 completely separate places for storing your characters, I believe you SHOULD have to buy two coppies of GW:F and future chapters. How the hell are you going to use one CD key on 2 accounts.

*gasp* there comes another difference in accounts, the CD keys. What happens with that?

So whats going to happen when you merge? Which e-mail will you log in with?

Then comes up another point... how do you prove that you own both accounts?

What if you bought the account off a friend who lives in Japan or something? you cant change the e-mail associated with the account.

What if your accounts have 2 different passwords?

There are so many differences between accounts, so how do you expect to merge them? Merging 2 accounts is like trying to merge an apple and a banana to make one super-fruit, but its not going to happen.

Nobody has complained this badly about merging accounts since the ability to purchase character slots came about.

Sorry, but buying separate character slots is CHEAPER. ZOMG 1 account=$50
1 account=4 characters
1 character=$10
4 new characters=$40! You save money this way. I'm not wasting it on buying another account and merging it (not as if i feel it would be possible anyways) compared to Anets idea.

Go ANEt! Great idea!

I'm in the same boat in that I've put too much time into three of the characters on my second account to lose them. Buying new slots for the first account doesn't solve that problem. I'd be willing to pay to have my two accounts merged, even though I've already paid for the second account and would lose storage in the process.

I'm still not clear on how merging accounts could lead to exploits.

Time is money, so to speak. And some of us have spent lots of hours developing characters on other accounts.

Read the rest of my post before saying anything. Itd be damn near impossible to do in certain circumstances. Even then itd be hard. I'm for the "+character slot" idea rather than the "merge account" idea.

Well, I don't know what kind of data structure they use for these accounts. But from what I'm learning right now (Data Structure and Algorithms), merging accounts is going to be a lot harder than just adding empty slots in.

I'm not saying buying extra slots isn't good. We certainly know that its cheaper, but there are so many people who have already paid for a second account. I bought my second account about a month ago. If I had known I would soon be able to buy character slots, I wouldn't have done that.

I don't see what's hard about merging accounts either. When you add Factions, you simply put in a CD key and it becomes unlocked. With a second account you could do the same. Log into the account that you consider your "main" account, input the CD key of your other account and your characters are transfered over to that new account. It uses the email address and password of the "main" account. Unlocks can become shared, or they can just completely reset the unlocks from the second account and use only the ones from the main.

The only trouble I see is the storage space. They could give you twice the storage space and that would be the easiest way to manage that merge. Otherwise we have the difficulty of trying to fit the contents of two storage spaces into one storage space, which requires relocating the items somewhere. Perhaps when you visit the Xulani Agent she opens up two storage spaces and warns you that in so many days, the contents of the second storage will be wiped forever and you will lose the storage space. That gives you time to transfer them properly.

At the very least, I think they should offer this option to merge accounts on a temporary basis, just so that those of us who bought extra accounts aren't completely screwed.

Why would you pay money to move character accounts when you could just...not move your characters?

Which is only fair- You worked for that rank and unlocks. Adding characters from your second account to it is basically the same as adding new characters to it, it's just that you have a small history with the transferred characters, and the transferred characters have some time played and items on them(which means you don't have to completely redo pre-searing, ascalon and all the beautiful but lame parts of the game)

I am very much for this idea. /signed.