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

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.