Trion World has announced that it will soon allow Rift players to jump between servers without paying a hefty fee – or any fee at all, for that matter. Due sometime early this summer, patch 1.3 will let users freely transfer their characters to another server once per week. When relocating, players will be allowed to bring their items, currencies, achievements, titles, pets, and collections.

The only restriction appears to be in server selection itself. To prevent overpopulation and imbalanced factions, Trion will only allow gamers to join specific servers. Naturally, the list of viable realms will change as folks come and go. Additionally, users will be limited to servers in their geographical territory. For example, American players won't be able to join a European server.

Trion World says the service will remain free, and if everything goes well, it could become a permanent feature. "MMOs are all about playing with your friends no matter which server they're on, and that's why we're offering this as a free service to our subscribers," said Trion's Scott Hartsman. By comparison, Blizzard charges World of Warcraft players $25 for a one-time character transfer.

Interestingly, this announcement comes roughly a week after Blizzard announced that it plans to add a cross-server experience to World of Warcraft. Real ID friends of the same faction but on different servers will be able to join a party and queue for a five-player dungeon. Blizzard has received mixed reactions as it plans to block the feature behind some form of premium charge.