Stuck on Ithil and No help on the Horizon

Hey Everyone,
I'm hoping someone out there can give me some good news about being rescued from the shipwreck known as Ithil as my main character is still clinging to a piece of driftwood in a silent ocean there.

Here's what happened. COVID. Yes, COVID. I'm a teacher which meant that my work which usually took place in a live classroom suddenly went virtual, and my time and tolerance for doing leisure activities online shrank. Significantly. While I still stole some time to play on occasion, things got very complicated, so my last login for my main character was on May 16th. Unbeknown to me, Standing Stone Games had decided to close down the Ithil server where my characters were playing. I never received any emails to that effect, nor was I able to get into game to read any notices given my increased workload in real life. I didn't log into these forums or check reddit, so I was blissfully unaware of the goings on that would turn into a two month journey into the void. Instead, my work colleagues and I were stranded on COVID Island, bedraggled, exhausted, and too focused on our surroundings to see the sinking ship in the distance. I think Gaiagil called to me, but I could not hear her over the roar of the wind and the crashing of the waves.

Please don't tell me I should have paid attention or that one month during a historic pandemic was enough notice for killing off a server. A simple email would have pulled me in to do what needed to be done. I finally became aware of the situation just after the closure and started asking for help. Did Gaiagil shut down the kinship or abandon her houses? No, she didn't know about the impending storm. I have now made five requests for help. My first was on 6/21. When I didn't hear anything, I made a second request on 7/6. I rejoiced when I received a reply on 7/12 where a kind elf named Adahrel offered to manually disband my kinship and transfer Gaiagil and all her belongings to my new home on Anor. I was also offered premium writs to compensate me for my premium home and kin house. I waited. The waves crashed against the shore of my island, but I heard nothing more. Attempts to transfer my character met with failure. I tried cleaning chests and bags, but nothing worked. I sent the third request on 7/26. Silence. Not even crickets. I waited. On 8/1, I sent in yet another request. Nothing. Today, I sent in my fifth request.

I've been playing this game for 14 years and invested in VIP status early on, back when the deal was a lump sum of a significant amount. I guess I expected better treatment. I feel very abandoned right now and very frustrated.

Has anyone found a way to break through the silence? Is there a compassionate moderator out there who might take pity on me and save me from this plight? If Gaiagil is gone, let me build her again. Gift me with writs to replace the lost houses, gold, and items. Or, simply transfer her to Anor so I can move on.

Anyone?

Gaiagil

I would message Cordovan, LOTRO Community Manager or hope he sees this post. But it would probably be sometime Wednesday, August 18th when he'd see it.


Customer Support is an ongoing issue that SSG is aware of and is trying to improve but there is a back log on every server. Hopefully with time they can actually have a Customer Support that people can believe exists but hopefully between now and then Cordovan can point you in the right direction.

That is horrible! It is sad that Standing Stone felt they had to rush the closure of Ithil so much that they stranded people there. I found the entire process from start to finish to be unpleasant.

I hope you get some help soon! I hope next time they shut down a server, we get more notice and a more seamless transition without such major problems for players.

Thank you, Harvain. Great advice!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by elf-friend46

Thank you, Harvain. Great advice!

---

Welcome!

Hopefully you get such resolved soon.

I think this should be a fairly straightforward thing to resolve, it will just take time. The only issue is that you own a kin house--that holds up transfers for whatever reason. Probably to save people from losing a lot of money by accidentally transferring a character they forgot was the purchaser of the kin house. Or maybe some assume the house will transfer with them.

Either way, yeah, I think it would just take a manual kin disbanding by a GM. And that GM actually following through, of course.

This should be fixed. I like playing on Legendary, have played since beta, but since I missed whatever deadline my characters are locked on a normal server. I hope SSG fixes this ASAP for you and your Kinship.

BlackDrake,
I hope you find resolution too. I'll keep everyone on this thread posted on my situation. There may or may not be a ship on the horizon. Gaiagil is frankly too exhausted to tell and could be experiencing delirium at this point.

Cheers!
Gaiagil

I wish I had some advice to give or a direction to aim Gaiagil in, but sadly I do not. It seems like SSG rushed the closure of the server and subsequent opening of the 2 new legendary servers. I am deeply concerned about the treatment of a VIP subscriber. Perhaps they could pull someone off the new servers and have them devote time to resolving problems for a while. Come on SSG, this is no way to treatment customers!

SSG finally responded to my help ticket several weeks ago. I had been e-mailing SSG weekly trying to get a response/action.

The admin managed to "sell" the kinship houses that were blocking transfer off Ithil for this and two other family accounts stuck on Ithil

We were able to successfully transfer characters from Ithil to Anor

Several issues noted:

1) Premium Belfalas Kinship Houses - got 80% of the Kinship House value in Premium Housing Writs
2) Premium Belfalas Houses - got 0% of the House value in Premium Housing Writs (had 5 houses worth at total of ~90 Premium Housing Writs). Other family members had 5 houses worth 85 Housing Writs
3) 90% of Housing Decorations appear to have transferred correctly. Certain items purchased at various festivals did NOT successfully transfer. Notably, all items purchased with Figments or Motes did transfer and did get refunded to the correct accounts.

Above issues were common to all three accounts. Each account also had some unique issues related to the transfer of housing items. The losses of decorations does NOT appear to be "house" specific. For some items earned by Deed completion and placed in one of the Premium Kinship or Premium Houses, most items transferred but one or two got "lost" (i.e. 5 alts earned the Deed item, but only 3 or 4 were transferred)

I have had a new help ticket in for ~2 weeks with details of the issues documented, with no response yet.