Caleb, have you ever been in development or worked for any larger game companies? I have. I'm not saying your opinions aren't valid however, so I'll respond as appropriately as I can to what you said. First off, yes, it happens. As for if things can be looked out for during server transfers, actually it can. Many and i do mean, MANY, game companies have fail safes in place and do incorporate a backup routine before allowing transfers to other clusters, instances, however you wish to describe a machine to machine transfer. This goes back to my finger pointing to poor design, Wildcard could and should have put the necessary effort into making this a much less likely case, yet in the past week alone i've seen 20 posts on people who've lost their characters during transfers. This clearly shows the lack thereof of effort on the development team's part to fix the problem.
It isn't a point on if it happens or not, it's the point that it happens way too much on this title to be anything other than a matter of poor programming and irrefutable evidence of bad game design. Blizzard by the way, hasn't required "proof" regarding a deleted character in almost 7 years. Why? Because they have a backup system for their more than 3 million players that are actively playing. Notice, they can even restore a deleted character? Bethesda, I can't comment on. I lean heavily towards PC development and don't delve into the realm of cross platform development nor do I play on console, so I can't really say what their policies are there. What i do know however, is that on a PC platform, this is a complete and utter disappointment and/or joke.
I think it goes without saying that the gaming studios can't be held accountable for a bad pipeline or other interruption of internet service that may come up. However, it's a commonality among all gaming studios who present and host multiplayer games that require persistent saves, player tracking, etc, to design and keep the system optimal to avoid data loss. If we're splitting hairs, if I can't play the game because my character keeps being mysteriously deleted due to a bug that could have been fixed but hasn't, how does that become my fault? I purchased the game, I did my part in creating the character and beginning my adventures, I paid for the DLCs, i've done my part as an end user. If I am required to keep a library of screenshots why wasn't this told to me before I purchased said game? Where's the disclaimer? Since this is by your definition a "fair" requirement or approach, then where is my fair disclaimer on the box? This then becomes a legal matter now doesn't it?
Even in my early years programming, I came to a distinct realization that players don't like it when their pfiles disappear. Players also don't like being told to prove something after it's already happen, and being asked to prove it with screenshots that they can no longer get because the damn character is gone. Do you see where I'm going with this? If someone had told me that I had to take screenshots to play this steaming pile of crap, I'd have passed up that whole purchase in favor of a night out with my wife.
I've written several backup functions for several different projects over the years, and with the cloud being such a wonderful thing, there's literally no reasons or excuse not to back that stuff up, period, end of story.
That's why I'm frustrated, and I think that may be why alot of the others are as well. While I don't expect perfection on any level from any game studio, if you are going to put requirements like that up after I've already made my purchase, you've basically breached the ToS and betrayed my trust as a consumer. That, and the 4+ years this has been an issue clearly shows the rest of the community how much of a priority it has been for Wildcard. This shouldn't be happening, of all the things to hold most holy among the online games, the player files which keep your players actually playing should be ironclad backed up at all times.