ability to transfer characters from one account to another

The problem is that the first transfer would take unknown hundreds of hours. That's the time it would take to build a tool to do the transfers. After that, they're golden. They just don't want to invest the time to build the tool.

I think if you could move a toon from one account to an other account it would need to be naked toon. No stuff in /claim and without no trade gear/items. Or else its to easy to /claim a lot of the items with 999 in /claim and then move it to a new account. That way you save a lot, much more than the move would cost.

meh. That was never a concern before.

Several years ago, they laid off the only person that knew how to do it. Since then, no cross-account transfers.

The items in /claim are account linked, not character linked. So if it was a 20 year old character moving to a freshly created account, with no expansion purchases, there would be nothing to /claim anyways.

Can you imagine the outcry though if they offered transfers at $500? Probably not worth it for the few that would pay for that.

I would expect it to stay with the account and no character transferred off the account would have it. Seems obvious to me since paid time stays with an account and doesn't move with toons.

Where did you see this? Other than rumors.

And if they laid off the only person that could do it then why did it not stop immediately but instead dwindled over many months?

It started slowing down in Feb 2016 when they discontinued the patcher working on Windows XP (could that have broken the process?)

and got fewer and fewer transfers (almost like there was someone trying to do it manually) until in August 2016 no one could get the transfers done. And none since then.

So we have no set reason.

All we have is 6 years of speculation.

Edit and a firm "NO" from the lady that is.

It might be a rumor but it is generally believed to be what transpired. This was the first time the rumor included "laid off" but the gist is the same.

They did not have hirelom gear back then or as much in /claim

I will explain it for you. Claim stuff from the 999 list. = bags, mounts, mercs and several port items. Then you move hirelom stuff you do not longer need or use on main. Again several bags and other stuff. Move toon to new account. Sell new account. Get rich. Rinse and repeat

It was available early Agnarr, I think until velious / luclin?

Literally this. As comical as that answer is.

You DO realize that the 999 stacked items don't transfer, right? They are tied to the account. If you claim a single one, YES, it can transfer. Who cares? Is a 20 slot 100%WR bag going to break the game? Is the ability to claim a bundle that gives three random pieces of defiant armor and a few xp potions, going to break the game? Nope to both.

I don't remember exactly when it happened. And I'm not interested in digging through years of dev posts to find it. But it is "generally believed" that the person that knew how to do it, and the only one at that, was one of the two dozen or so people laid off several years ago. Twitter was all abuzz (atweet?) with it at the time as well. At least one of the people laid off was very vocal about it, until his social media accounts were silenced.

At any rate, no we do not know for certain that is the reason. But the stoppage and the mass layoff were timed at roughly the same time, if memory serves.

You're probably right.
We've talked about this a lot though, over the years, in guild, groups, fellowships etc
Pretty much everyone would pay something, usually around the $50 mark to move one or more toons.
A handful have said they would go to $500
One would pay $1k
That's why they need to do some proper research and costings on it.
The demand is there.
Only DBG knows how much it would actually cost and whether it's tenable

As ever, it would be great if they shared that info with us
If nothing else, telling us that it could not be done, technically speaking, at any price, or whatever the issue is, would shut down threads like this that pop up pretty regularly

well, iirc the big /claim stuff started in HOT.. so what, 10? years ago? and it was all 999 items.. and they stopped doing transfers 5 years ago? so plenty of characters transferred in those 5 years. I know I moved 2 within the year before they stopped. I had no problem with anything I owned on a character transferring with that character to the other account.

Then theres the people that pay for 12 accounts lol. Some of you people have way to much money. Send some to Flatchy! Im trying to help unwed dark elf mothers get their start!

They will transfer once they have been claimed and given to a character which was the point of the post you responded to.

No it isn't. If there was enough demand, DPG would have re-implemented account-to-account transfers. Argue all you want but that's the bottom line.

He worded it such that it gives the impression he believes the ability to claim them transfers with the character. It does not. And in a later post, I even specifically said what you just did. Claim them, transfer the character, and the claimed item in inventory goes with.