World Transfers

[gelleg]

since my main is on Brandywine I had hoped to unite my characters on that server. I do hope there will be free transfers to Brandywine at some point.

[maartena]

1) Can you share any information on how you will choose the order in which servers will be able to transfer? To me, using a randomised order seems the most fair, but it would be nice to know if you plan on opening transfers to the smallest servers first, etc. Obviously no one wants to be stuck on the last server to transfer and lose their house location, name, etc, but I don't see a (fair) way around this unless servers can all transfer at the same time.

Although my name isn't Vyvyanne, I will throw in my 2 cents.

Strictly looking at it from a technical point of view (but also from an organizational point of view) it makes most sense to KEEP the worlds with the largest communities and player base, and CLOSE the worlds that have the fewest. It wouldn't make sense for instance to close Brandywhine and keep Riddermark. The way they are doing the migrations is they will do it 2 worlds at a time as to not overload the system, and at the same time they will monitor to see where everyone is going. If there is some sort of mass organizing on the first 2 servers, and 80% moves to say.... Landroval, they may decide to close Landroval after the first 4 worlds because it is getting full. (Of course this is highly speculative, and probably won't happen).

Keep in mind that Turbine has never done this before. They have handled individual transfers MANUALLY until some time in 2014, when I transfered my toon from Windfola to Riddermark back in the day, it took 4 days because it was a manual request. They have since automated it with transfer tokens, but the amount of transfers was minimal. Maybe 50, 100 a month at most. Now we are looking at a situation where thousands of players will migrate at once, on a largely untested new system. This is why they will open up transfers between the 5 keeper-worlds first so they can really see how it works and performs when players jump from server to server. They need to make sure it works. And although I am sure they have an internal lab (not bullroarer but internally) that they can use to test stuff, you can't really know how it will all go down until you go live.

I would keep an eye on this website: http://lux-hdro.de/hdro-live-us.php

Over the coming weeks, it will start to get a little clearer which servers are starting to fill up.

2) I presume that a main motivation behind transferring several at a time would be so server populations can be monitored by Turbine, allowing any worlds that approach the size of Brandywine to be closed for transfer temporarily. Basically, is this the current plan - to deactivate transfers to servers that become too large? I'm asking because I know several players who don't want to play on a large world, but if this is implemented, it seems server sizes will all end up roughly equal. So I'm wondering if it's better to just let all servers (barring Brandywine) remain open for transfer for the whole period and see if one server establishes itself for this crowd? It also seems to keep it fair for servers who would transfer near the end of the process, especially if they had planned to move to Server A, only to find transfers to Server A are not allowed because it has become too large.

If you would rather play on the a more quiet server, I would recommend to wait. Wait and see how things play out. Keep an eye on the site mentioned above, and see where the logins are going to spread. When the transfers are nearing completion, you can check and see which world is the smallest, and move there.

Most importantly, they need to be sure it works right, they can't have problems with the system so it is better to migrate everyone over time instead of opening up the floodgates. If things go wrong when they open up transfers between the 5 remaining worlds on Monday, they can immediately address it, and fix it before they go live to the first 2 worlds to transfer. They will probably start with the least populated worlds first, which also lowers the chance of losing a name or address when it is your server's turn.

[maartena]

Headesk.

That's my point if the name is inactive it will be freed up. But will there be any way to see that before you transfer...

Create a new character on the target server with the name that you want. If you can get the name with that character, the name is yours for sure. No one can take it, just make sure you log on to the intro once, and for good measure (to have a little progress) I complete the first quest given. Skip the tutorial. When it comes time for transfer you can do one of two things:

1) delete the "name place holder" character, then transfer to the server.

2) transfer to the server first, become "Name-1", then delete the "name place holder" character, and use your free rename token to rename back to "Name".

The 2nd might be the safest way to do it, IF you have enough character slots to have both you and the name place holder on the same server. You can create name place holders on all character slots but 1, and then start transferring/renaming characters one by one.

[maartena]

Hi,
Don't normally post, but this is sorta important to me so ...

I'd like to suggest that rather than -1, I could get -Eldar appended (since I'm on Eldar now). I am a beta>lifetime>occasional player but I am quite attached to the names I stayed up all night for on opening day to reserve, possibly even using an early access option to get those names (not sure if this happened here or other games, but it is quite common in mmos)

Hope this could be floated at Turbine discussions.

Regards,

I think that ship has sailed. The program code for the naming conflicts has to be system wide and the same across all 29 servers. With adding server names to the name, they would need to change the code to include 29 new variables determining where the player came from, and an automated system starts becoming more complex.

This is why they solved it with a "Of Servername" title, you will be able to pick a title that matches the server name you came from.

[Herwegur]

Will the Wardrobe (and all item appearances copied into it) transfer? If I move all my characters simultaneously.

(if this has already been answered, can anyone please link the info)

[Galadhloth]

Will the Wardrobe (and all item appearances copied into it) transfer? If I move all my characters simultaneously.

(if this has already been answered, can anyone please link the info)

Yes, wardrobe will transfer. https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers It's listed under account data that will transfer. Not sure about all the dyes (that was not specified either way), but the items themselves will transfer.

[Decaran]

Although my name isn't Vyvyanne, I will throw in my 2 cents.

Strictly looking at it from a technical point of view (but also from an organizational point of view) it makes most sense to KEEP the worlds with the largest communities and player base, and CLOSE the worlds that have the fewest. It wouldn't make sense for instance to close Brandywhine and keep Riddermark. The way they are doing the migrations is they will do it 2 worlds at a time as to not overload the system, and at the same time they will monitor to see where everyone is going. If there is some sort of mass organizing on the first 2 servers, and 80% moves to say.... Landroval, they may decide to close Landroval after the first 4 worlds because it is getting full. (Of course this is highly speculative, and probably won't happen).

Keep in mind that Turbine has never done this before. They have handled individual transfers MANUALLY until some time in 2014, when I transfered my toon from Windfola to Riddermark back in the day, it took 4 days because it was a manual request. They have since automated it with transfer tokens, but the amount of transfers was minimal. Maybe 50, 100 a month at most. Now we are looking at a situation where thousands of players will migrate at once, on a largely untested new system. This is why they will open up transfers between the 5 keeper-worlds first so they can really see how it works and performs when players jump from server to server. They need to make sure it works. And although I am sure they have an internal lab (not bullroarer but internally) that they can use to test stuff, you can't really know how it will all go down until you go live.

Over the coming weeks, it will start to get a little clearer which servers are starting to fill up.

Thanks for the response! But I think maybe you misunderstand my question , so let me clarify

It of course makes the most sense to keep the largest servers open, but what I mean is (making it only one server to remain open for simplicity):

Let's say Snowbourn will be the only EU server to remain.

When choosing which servers will get to transfer first, is there going to be a method, or will it be random assignment? If we went by population (low -> high), Gilrain would pretty much be a guaranteed first server to transfer, leaving Evernight as a pretty much guaranteed last EU server to be able to transfer.


Obviously from the technological standpoint, it will make sense to allow the lowest population servers to transfer first, as it will allow Turbine to monitor any problems with the system, but this almost punishes those players who would be on the "bubble" servers (servers that might be large, but just not quite large enough to remain). These last-to-transfer servers are the players who have the highest chance of losing house location, name, etc, so I wonder if it's fair to pick server transfer order by size. That's why I thought using a simple program to assign a random order might be the most fair way to go, as we obviously can't all transfer at once

Is it a bit more clear now?

[Vyvyanne]

Vyvyanne,

I have a few questions that it would be nice to get some answers to, as I think it might alleviate some players' anxiety. I've read the whole thread, and I'm not sure my exact questions were answered anywhere, but apologies if they were!

1) Can you share any information on how you will choose the order in which servers will be able to transfer? To me, using a randomised order seems the most fair, but it would be nice to know if you plan on opening transfers to the smallest servers first, etc. Obviously no one wants to be stuck on the last server to transfer and lose their house location, name, etc, but I don't see a (fair) way around this unless servers can all transfer at the same time.

2) I presume that a main motivation behind transferring several at a time would be so server populations can be monitored by Turbine, allowing any worlds that approach the size of Brandywine to be closed for transfer temporarily. Basically, is this the current plan - to deactivate transfers to servers that become too large? I'm asking because I know several players who don't want to play on a large world, but if this is implemented, it seems server sizes will all end up roughly equal. So I'm wondering if it's better to just let all servers (barring Brandywine) remain open for transfer for the whole period and see if one server establishes itself for this crowd? It also seems to keep it fair for servers who would transfer near the end of the process, especially if they had planned to move to Server A, only to find transfers to Server A are not allowed because it has become too large.

We are starting with letting the remaining worlds redistribute first to allow players to choose to leave the largest ones if they wish making room for more players and also because we expect to see the smallest number of moves during this stage. Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there. The purpose of this is not to overtax the system by allowing everyone to slam into it at once and also so that we can monitor populations. If one of the destination worlds is getting overfull we can provide it with more resources or fix any issues we might run into. We do not expect any of the remaining worlds to be closed to transfers permanently. Once they are all on new hardware they should be capable of handling current population load, but while we work through the process we want to be able to respond and correct appropriately.

[Boskone08]

Vyvyanne, thank you very much for the replies. It seems that many of the choices Turbine is making are reasonable and appropriate, and that is very encouraging. I very much hope your confidence in the hardware upgrades are justified by their actual performance, but I have been disappointed far too many times to be confident, so your measured approach (and outbound-encouraged policy for Brandywine) look like good planning at this point.

[Fratonia]

It's a bad idea to share login info

Not only that, it's against the TOS. The risk of punishment may be minimal but I would never share user credentials with anyone no matter what type of login it is.

But it seems that Turbine has a lot of truble to catch up this simple math and make clear how the remainig 5 EU-Servers will be grouped. Look at this thread, many questions have been answered (even if only one player was involved) [which is good, no doubt!], but one of most discussed question in this thread is still without a clear answer.

Maybe they want to check who makes the loudest protests up front before deciding what server #5 will be?

[Theozor]

We are starting with letting the remaining worlds redistribute first to allow players to choose to leave the largest ones if they wish making room for more players and also because we expect to see the smallest number of moves during this stage. Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there. The purpose of this is not to overtax the system by allowing everyone to slam into it at once and also so that we can monitor populations. If one of the destination worlds is getting overfull we can provide it with more resources or fix any issues we might run into. We do not expect any of the remaining worlds to be closed to transfers permanently. Once they are all on new hardware they should be capable of handling current population load, but while we work through the process we want to be able to respond and correct appropriately.

So basically, players currently on servers that just miss the cut will end up at the back of the line and most likely lose out on their names/housing locations? I guess now I'm hoping Silverlode's population is even lower than it looks.

[elderlygamer]

Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there.

Ugh. this stinks for those servers near the top but who don't have enough people to stay open. Arkenstone perhaps?

/sigh

It's great for those on the really low pop servers but bad for the rest of us.

[Lostwillow]

Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World and for free moves between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. Now I'm wondering if this means we need to copy the toons to Bullroarer first and then transfer from there to the new world? Hope I'm reading this wrong and it's not the case.

[Decaran]

Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there.

Thanks for the quick reply and clear answer!

[Boskone08]

Look at this thread, many questions have been answered (even if only one player was involved) [which is good, no doubt!], but one of most discussed question in this thread is still without a clear answer.

The 'Surviving Five' for the EU and for NA have not been announced because I doubt they have made the final selection. If it were just population, it would be done, as Turbine has a far more accurate and timely pop count than anyone else. Other factors, like Net (or Gross) Revenue per server (with the pop numbers close, the #7 server could generate the #4 revenue) and any of several dozen more could be being weighed, with all sorts of reports and different weighting factors being considered inside Turbine. Several servers seem very obvious (and I expect are just as obvious to Turbine), but Servers #4 and #5 in each group may well be the topic of serious debate up to the very end, and with very good reasons.

[Scirocco]

Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World and for free moves between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. Now I'm wondering if this means we need to copy the toons to Bullroarer first and then transfer from there to the new world? Hope I'm reading this wrong and it's not the case.

No one copies from Bullroarer to anywhere. (I'm wondering how you can read anything in the announcements or posts in that way, in fact.)

As of August 3d, you can try out the transfer process by "copying" your character to Bullroarer. Your character on the original server remains where it is, and is copied, not transferred. This allows you to try out the transfer function for yourself and see what the result would be if you were really transferring to Server X instead of just copying to Bullroarer.

The first round of free moves is redistribution among the surviving servers. If you want to move off BW to one of the other 4 survivors for free, now is your chance to do so. Based on the posts, however, it doesn't appear that anyone will be able to move to BW from the other surviving servers during this same period.

[monk_tbd]

Several servers seem very obvious (and I expect are just as obvious to Turbine), but Servers #4 and #5 in each group may well be the topic of serious debate up to the very end, and with very good reasons.

I am not disagreeing that this might be the case but I would think the main reason they roll information out in stages is that they only have to manage part of the information during that time.
If everything would be published right away then there would be a lot more different topics to answer right away instead of being able to supply feedback in a more focused way.

So questions like Crick/Ark/Mene or 2DE/1DE-1DE-RP/2EN-1EN-RP might still need to be finalized and maybe even based on feedback here but the main reason for me is to channel information and be able to not have these questions being drowned out by complaints about how the remaining servers have been chosen.

[Tuco]

An excellent (IMO) idea that has been put forward repeatedly in various threads, with no Turbine response. One variation that I liked was to use an alpha, like -a, instead of a -1 (or 2 or 3), where the -a was 'translated' by the game into 'of Arkenstone' for display, with -b becoming 'of Brandywine', -c 'of Crickhollow', etc. (EU names for the EU servers) so each transferee could still retain their 'main name' but with a origin-specific extension. Since there would only be one character for Phred of Arkenstone, he could be transferred freely to any other server without generating a name conflict, even beyond his first destination (since we can do multiple transfers).

There's still a potential for conflict. Suppose your Phred transfers to Landroval and becomes Phred-b (translated to Phred of Brandywine for display). Someone rolls a new character on Brandy and is thrilled to see Phred is available. They then decide Brandy has become too crowded, and transfer to Landy, where they become... what? Not Phred-b (Phred of Brandywine) again, since you've claimed that name.

Remember that when the transfers start, only the sunsetting servers have character creation turned off.

[Ellyllon]

We are starting with letting the remaining worlds redistribute first to allow players to choose to leave the largest ones if they wish making room for more players and also because we expect to see the smallest number of moves during this stage. Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there. The purpose of this is not to overtax the system by allowing everyone to slam into it at once and also so that we can monitor populations. If one of the destination worlds is getting overfull we can provide it with more resources or fix any issues we might run into. We do not expect any of the remaining worlds to be closed to transfers permanently. Once they are all on new hardware they should be capable of handling current population load, but while we work through the process we want to be able to respond and correct appropriately.

That makes sense. Thank you for the clarification!

[Eirika]

since my main is on Brandywine I had hoped to unite my characters on that server. I do hope there will be free transfers to Brandywine at some point.

I believe they said no free transfers to Brandy but I think folks can transfer off for free...

Don't have a link for that though...could be wrong :-(

Lothhil, BW

[Marita]

Hi

I can't seem to see it anywhere but is there a date now set for the transfer of the EU servers away from states side back to the EU side please?

[Azmadais]

I have an urgent question regarding what transfers with you that I need to know the answer to. If it has already been answered in this thread, I apologize in advance; I don't check out the forums much.

Okay, so when you transfer your characters, will all of the items that are in that character's vault (regular bank storage, not shared storage) also transfer with them, including both character bound items and non-bound items? If not, does this mean you will have to take all of your items out of your storage vault and put them in your inventory in order to take them with you? My characters have nowhere near enough room in their inventory to be able to take everything with them if that's the case. What also has me scared is that my server, Dwarrowdelf is more on the inactive, low population side, and it is highly likely that it will be one of the servers closed down. I'm thinking of creating a few extra characters ahead of time so that I will be able to use them as mules to help me move some of my stuff. I have to hurry though before Turbine closes down the creation of new characters on August 3. Am I missing something and I'm just afraid for no reason, or is it a good idea for me to do what I'm doing? One more question, when you transfer, will you lose all of your money in your wallet and the only things from your wallet you keep will be server bound items?

[Xhiu]

There are a lot of low level Musician Hobbits, too. I don't think level should count at all. However, time of inactivity would be far more fair. (NOT per character, but per account.) If I understand this correctly, a character made back at launch, gotten to L10, & the acct never touched again would still be holding that name forever after, unless someone moves in with that name in an upcoming transfer. If we want that name, that's the only way to get it. That's why I think they should free up names from long inactive accts. (I'd go with 2 years+ rather than 1, personally.) I would not take them from lifetimers, or from any acct that has a current subscription, even if they haven't logged in.

I spent a lot of time last night logging my babies in on servers I don't play. I hope to be keeping track of them til the small servers close. Because I am greedy and a troll... well those may be but for a different reason.

IF you log into a server where I have a name that you want, send that toon mail and I will see if I can accommodate. If it is a toon I play a lot I'm probably going to say no. If it is a name I am particularly fond of, I might say not. On the off chance I don't care one way or the other, hold onto your rename token cuz imma prolly give it up... if it doesn't cost me anything, like cherished boa items or rl $$. I am probably not going to give up any names I have on Arkenstone, thats pretty much guaranteed. The only 2 that I can guarantee you won't pry from my ownership is Fhianna and Lorieth. These were made in beta and they are active. While Lorieth doesn't get that much play time she is my first toon. If I have to move and Lorieth is taken on your server I will ask. I don't expect a yes, but I will ask. I really don't expect a yes.

These are my rules. Nobody has to adopt them. People MIGHT be holding on to names on servers in case they have to move. I wouldn't immediately use my free rename until you find out what the case is.

If anyone reading this has something they want to add, I suggest you make it known here. We can be adult about this. Mine are handshake rules. In fact, if you plan on moving to another server it might be a good idea to see if that name you want is on a mule. It would be nice if there was a command in game that would send a form letter to the owner of said name before you move. I doubt that is in the works, though. Maybe a sticky in general, "I don't want your stuff but I'd like your name, of " Even an "I'll trade you Jim for Jym."

And I forget, are all characters getting free name change tokens for the duration?

[Jurny]

The BIG question I have for Vyvyanne is this:

When it turns out that I lose my name, and automatically take "Name-1", and after I have properly joined the server and add the character with "Name" to the friends list.... and I find out that character has not logged on for at least 9 months. Can I save my free rename token, wait 3 months based on the last logon date of "Name" use the token to claim the name from the inactive character "Name" and get the name back, as by then 1 year of inactivity has passed?

It would be a shame to see your name lost to e.g. a level 12 that hasn't logged on for 9 months... and then finding out you can't claim it after the character becomes inactive after 12 months. Also with paid renames you should be able to claim an inactive name.

Vyvyanne's response below to the question above has me a bit unsettled. To say the least.

Rename tokens do not work the same way as transfers when it comes to overwriting another name. We can look at making a change to this later down the line after the majority of transfers are completed, but for this time frame we feel it is better to give the players who are transferring the priority to claim their name from an in-active account, over giving that to a any player using a rename token.

Here I was thinking that once the moves are completed and the dust settles we would be able to live on whatever server we ended up on (stress free), and not have to worry about some 1 still being able to take our names, yet again.

So say I move to another server, take on a new name (forced to) and then decide to take a long, long, very long vacation (lol) from all the stress I've endured over the passed 7 months, and I don't return for lets say a year and 1 day. And I log in to find some 1 was able to take my name/new name while I was away!? Any 1 else see anything wrong with this scenario?


I thought this new transfer plan was a temporary thing and once it was done that the old transfer rules would come back into play. I sure hope they don't make it possible for people to just wait and perhaps watch/stalk names they still long for, to become inactive to rip it out from the other person?

Please just let it rest once this is all done and over. And go back to the old transfer rules!

[cdq1958]

I spent a lot of time last night logging my babies in on servers I don't play. I hope to be keeping track of them til the small servers close. Because I am greedy and a troll... well those may be but for a different reason.

IF you log into a server where I have a name that you want, send that toon mail and I will see if I can accommodate. If it is a toon I play a lot I'm probably going to say no. If it is a name I am particularly fond of, I might say not. On the off chance I don't care one way or the other, hold onto your rename token cuz imma prolly give it up... if it doesn't cost me anything, like cherished boa items or rl $$. I am probably not going to give up any names I have on Arkenstone, thats pretty much guaranteed. The only 2 that I can guarantee you won't pry from my ownership is Fhianna and Lorieth. These were made in beta and they are active. While Lorieth doesn't get that much play time she is my first toon. If I have to move and Lorieth is taken on your server I will ask. I don't expect a yes, but I will ask. I really don't expect a yes.

These are my rules. Nobody has to adopt them. People MIGHT be holding on to names on servers in case they have to move. I wouldn't immediately use my free rename until you find out what the case is.

If anyone reading this has something they want to add, I suggest you make it known here. We can be adult about this. Mine are handshake rules. In fact, if you plan on moving to another server it might be a good idea to see if that name you want is on a mule. It would be nice if there was a command in game that would send a form letter to the owner of said name before you move. I doubt that is in the works, though. Maybe a sticky in general, "I don't want your stuff but I'd like your name, of " Even an "I'll trade you Jim for Jym."

And I forget, are all characters getting free name change tokens for the duration?

I don't think it was said that all characters were getting rename tokens. I thought it was said that those who transfer character(s) and have conflicts would get a '-1' or higher appended and a token, with an inactive incumbent character getting the '-1' or higher when the migrant is active. From the Developer Diary: "Naming Priorities

With the new transfer process, when you transfer your character to a new world, the world will check to see if there is a naming conflict. If there is, it will grant the name to the incoming character if the character existing on the world has not been active for one year or more. The less active character will have a -1 added to their name and a rename token granted to the character. (Rename tokens have no expiration date.) This should prevent the majority of unnecessary renames for those transferring from the impacted worlds."