World Closure Announcement

[SimplexMinded]

Oh drat. That doesn't work then. I'm sorry

That's okay, it sucks, but its a sacrifice we make to move to a server we'd prefer you know.

[TharbadThief]

I said one per region, but I did not say ONLY one. I suppose I should have worded it as At Least one.

Sorry that I feel compelled to comment on this, as it's a bit off-topic, but since you brought that up ... that really sounds like a politician trying to wash his/her hands of some claim that s/he made earlier. Not sure there is anyone here who actually thought "maybe she meant 2 when she said 1". Of course you should have worded it differently. There's a huge difference between "one" and "at least one".

But yeah, in the end it doesn't matter what was said. The only effect would have been that the speculation of the true number and name of the servers would've been a bit different. No permanent harm done there - just wanted to point out the importance of accurate, unambiguous information.

Also want to add here that I don't mind these transfers at all. I feel for those who are attached to their characters' names or home server but in general you seem to have thought pretty much all the things that I concidered as the most crucial.

[Nenuial]

To your Alternative 1 - Absolutely not. Just because the person who's home is that server plays 20 characters where the person coming in only plays a single character would mean the incoming player gets the name. Not fair to the person already on the destination server.

To your Alternative 2 - Sorry again can't have 2 with the same name EVER. No game I know of has EVER allowed this.

The system turbine has come up with is about as FAIR a system as they can get. Yes there are going to be cases of low level characters with your name. Guess what that is the other people who are transferring in that have gone in and reserved their own names and they just happen to have the same name as you.... Someone was bound to have to get renamed. This always happens in every game that consolidates servers.

1 - Not necessarily. First, there's no guarantee that the player with only 1 character plays more than the person with 20. Second, one could argue that the player with 1 toon likes that toon more than the one with 20. (I have many alts, but this seems equitable to me.)

2 - ACCOUNT versus TOON. Sure, no game you ever heard of has done this, but does that mean it can't be/hasn't been done?

3 - The low level characters you mention are NOT NECESSARILY people transferring who have already reserved the names. I've checked log in dates, and not all of them have been in the past year.

[paintpixie]

To your Alternative 2 - Sorry again can't have 2 with the same name EVER. No game I know of has EVER allowed this.

It can be done. But it would probably take an entire reworking of the naming system. You are right, it most likely will never be done, here.

The only place I've seen this implemented was that Disney Online Tinkerbell game...
The way that was set up was you had a separate username, but then you had characters that you could name, and anybody could use the same name because what showed up to friends was the "account name", not the individual character name. I'm not sure if they did/do this for all their online worlds. But Disney has very limited social interactions on their online games, so it might be more complicated for a real mmo.

I've also seen where you have to choose a first name AND last name. And that's made it really easy for a lot of people to get their chosen names. But I think having that implemented would be just as complicated and just as likely in this instance.

I feel sorry for the people who will be losing their names. : (

[Milarien]

You'll have to make us a lotro-German phrasebook

It might actually be pretty cool to see if I could brush up my very poor German by making a toon on one of those servers.

[paintpixie]

Sorry that I feel compelled to comment on this, as it's a bit off-topic, but since you brought that up ... that really sounds like a politician trying to wash his/her hands of some claim that s/he made earlier. Not sure there is anyone here who actually thought "maybe she meant 2 when she said 1". Of course you should have worded it differently. There's a huge difference between "one" and "at least one".

But yeah, in the end it doesn't matter what was said. The only effect would have been that the speculation of the true number and name of the servers would've been a bit different. No permanent harm done there - just wanted to point out the importance of accurate, unambiguous information.

Also want to add here that I don't mind these transfers at all. I feel for those who are attached to their characters' names or home server but in general you seem to have thought pretty much all the things that I concidered as the most crucial.

I read that comment as "at least one" when it was first made. So I guess, now you can at least be sure that somebody here did. To me, it doesn't sound like they are trying to wash their hands of anything. More that they are trying to clarify what they meant.


EDIT:

"In our selection we will have one RP per region (EU & US) and one world per language (DE, FR and ENG)."

There isn't ONLY one world per language, either. Which is why I interpreted the first part of the sentence in the same way.

[can0peas]

I'm not sure how this schedule came about, but I am pretty sure they aren't going to drag out to the last weeks of December. The servers will remain up and running till 2016, yes, but I am convinced they will have most transfers done and locked by Oct 1st when the transfers between the remaining 5+5 servers will once again become paid.

You made this schedule up right? Nothing official?

It is clearly stated that it is not official, but I 'made it up' from the only official timeline info I am aware of - https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers, quoted below:

"The new Transfer Service will become available with this patch. You will be able to access it through the launcher at the World Selection screen after logging into your account. There will be a button that says “Transfer” underneath the “Play” button. Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World. Free moves will begin later in August between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. This is just the beginning of the process.

We will be monitoring the transfers between those worlds for a couple weeks and if all is going well, we will move on to the next step of the process which will be to turn off Auction Houses on the first two of the sunsetting worlds and allow characters, kinships and shared items on those worlds to move to the ten remaining worlds.

Once again we will monitor the moves and if all is going well we will move on to the next two worlds and so on until we feel comfortable with opening transfers off of all of the impacted worlds. The theme here is a slow and steady migration."

Not from me or any other player; from Turbine. As I posted, "Now I believe that the schedule in Vyvyanne's initial post on the closures is a 'best guess/best intents' target and not necessarily a 'locked-down plan', and am also well aware that any problems with the transfer system may cause some upset". Until and unless a revised tentative schedule is posted by a Blue Name (and believe me, I would welcome it), I stand behind this post as the most accurate (and likely, a very conservative) schedule we have before us. If I were in charge, this is just the sort of schedule I would publicize (or at least not revise at this point) because no one knows if there will be troubles (which this schedule would allow for - there's quite a bit of 'slack' here) or not, and if things go as we all hope, the two week intervals will drop to a week or so very early on and the process be complete by late October or early November. I just would not commit to that at this point, when I might well have to backtrack.

Personally, I would wager that they will beat this by 6 weeks or more. And I would love for some Blue Name to say so. But I don't expect it - I think they have 'under-promise but over-deliver' locked into their heads on this, and are 100% correct to do so.

[ncc1295]

The way they have done it is really only the best for those who are not affected by it.

This statement is true of anyway you propose they decide. It's best for whoever gets to keep the name. But letting active players keep their name on their current server is also best for community and for Turbine. For community, because the majority of community on remaining servers is staying put. Making them wonder if the name they talk to tomorrow is the same name they talked to yesterday, every single day for months, is just ridiculous. Additionally, the man hours Turbine would have to spend sorting out mail complaints, "I sent 5000 gold to "Example" because I said I would yesterday, but someone took his name this morning and now they got it" would be silly. Meanwhile, someone who just transferred to a new server should have the reasonable expectation that just because someone has a certain name doesn't mean they are the person who had that name on another server.

tl;dr:
It's going to suck renaming and figuring out who is who for the people on the closing servers regardless. There is no reason to make it suck for the current players on remaining servers as well.

[Fratonia]

In such a scenario, Turbine's decision to award the more recently active character with the name is perfectly reasonable. However, if someone on a sunsetting world that IS active with my name transfers onto my destination server before I am ever able to, then they will keep the name forever. That is not okay with me.

Isn't that a bit selfish? The other player might just say the same as you if he had to wait and you are allowed to transfer first. #### happens. Before you ask - yes, I am on one of the servers that is last to transfer and I will lose some of my names. I just have to live with it and I will because other players have just the same rights.

[maartena]

Yes... you basically already made this point, but you have yet to provide a reason for why this would be unacceptable. The "top of the food chain" right now are the people on the 10 open servers and then each sunsetting server in turn. How is that more fair?.

There are a number of reasons why this is a a bad idea.

1) People that are on servers that are not moving have absolutely NO choice. They are there, and they may have a long reputation with that name. Incoming people have a choice of 4 (soon 5) servers to transfer to, so they can pick a server where the character name is not yet taken or the character is inactive.

2) If you take the name of an active character on a server you are moving to, what do you think that will do for the community. Not only will the person you took the name from probably hate you, if he is a known figure in the community or a member of a high profile kinship, there is a chance that that kin won't like you either.

3) It will create a lot of confusion. You may be honest, but not everyone is. People sometimes mail stuff to people - myself included - by just typing in the name and click send. If I talk to someone that is active and we discuss sending a big item like a 1st age symbol, and 20 minutes later when I am sending it.... YOU have come in and taken the name, you would all over sudden get the symbol. You may be fair and return it, but not everyone is. This causes more problems.

4) Any system that allows people to trump over another and keep trumping over another by having a more "senior" account is going to cause aggravation upon aggravation. One person takes a name, and a week later someone else takes another name. A name can change hands several times before it settles, and NO ONE will be happy besides the final taker. And he may not even be happy, as he may not even have realized he just did that, and was going to take on another name anyways. Now the name is not available to anyone but the FIRST person who BUYS a rename token.

5) Why would a person that plays 20 toons a little bit at a time, but manages to get half of them to 100 have any less rights to a name then the person that has 1 toon, and has uber /played because that is ALL he played? The person that played 20 toons may have had a lot more play time altogether, but because one person is focused on one toon, he should get the name?

6) Servers have different start dates. Meneldor is a beta server and old. Riddermark was only launched in 2010 and thus 3 years later. The players on Riddermark didn't have the same chance to gather the same /played as they are missing 3 years. How would that be fair? They all started AFTER 2010.


No, the way they are doing it is the right way. It's fair. To the point. Everyone knows exactly what to expect, and no one has to wait till 2016 to see if they can REALLY keep the name.

Vyvyanne also agreed with these points in another topic by the way, so it's simply not going to happen.

[Nenuial]

It can be done. But it would probably take an entire reworking of the naming system. You are right, it most likely will never be done, here.

The only place I've seen this implemented was that Disney Online Tinkerbell game...
The way that was set up was you had a separate username, but then you had characters that you could name, and anybody could use the same name because what showed up to friends was the "account name", not the individual character name. I'm not sure if they did/do this for all their online worlds. But Disney has very limited social interactions on their online games, so it might be more complicated for a real mmo.

I've also seen where you have to choose a first name AND last name. And that's made it really easy for a lot of people to get their chosen names. But I think having that implemented would be just as complicated and just as likely in this instance.

I feel sorry for the people who will be losing their names. : (

ESO is kinda like that: communicating with anyone is done using account names rather than character names. There ARE issues with this, to be sure, and I'm quite skeptical something like this would EVER come to pass. TBH, this whole thing is irritating, but I'll get over it (kinda like the dozens of Minstrel reworks I've been through, hehe)

[Silmelin]

We're moving from one server that is staying to another though, cut off is October the 1st, they last played mid October of last year

Have you tried creating a new character with that name on one of the closing servers? If it's not taken, you could transfer that one after October and grab the name. I haven't thought this through completely but if they turn off transfers from open servers that soon you will have to pay to transfer the real character later, get a rename token due to having the same name, delete your stand-in, and then use the rename token?

I do hope things will work out so you both get to keep your names!

[ncc1295]

It is clearly stated that it is not official, but I 'made it up' from the only official timeline info I am aware of - https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers, quoted below:

"The new Transfer Service will become available with this patch. You will be able to access it through the launcher at the World Selection screen after logging into your account. There will be a button that says “Transfer” underneath the “Play” button. Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World. Free moves will begin later in August between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. This is just the beginning of the process.

We will be monitoring the transfers between those worlds for a couple weeks and if all is going well, we will move on to the next step of the process which will be to turn off Auction Houses on the first two of the sunsetting worlds and allow characters, kinships and shared items on those worlds to move to the ten remaining worlds.

Once again we will monitor the moves and if all is going well we will move on to the next two worlds and so on until we feel comfortable with opening transfers off of all of the impacted worlds. The theme here is a slow and steady migration."

Not from me or any other player; from Turbine. As I posted, "Now I believe that the schedule in Vyvyanne's initial post on the closures is a 'best guess/best intents' target and not necessarily a 'locked-down plan', and am also well aware that any problems with the transfer system may cause some upset". Until and unless a revised tentative schedule is posted by a Blue Name (and believe me, I would welcome it), I stand behind this post as the most accurate (and likely, a very conservative) schedule we have before us. If I were in charge, this is just the sort of schedule I would publicize (or at least not revise at this point) because no one knows if there will be troubles (which this schedule would allow for - there's quite a bit of 'slack' here) or not, and if things go as we all hope, the two week intervals will drop to a week or so very early on and the process be complete by late October or early November. I just would not commit to that at this point, when I might well have to backtrack.

Personally, I would wager that they will beat this by 6 weeks or more. And I would love for some Blue Name to say so. But I don't expect it - I think they have 'under-promise but over-deliver' locked into their heads on this, and are 100% correct to do so.

No where in the post you quoted is a time frame of two weeks between closures established. Just that there will initially be two weeks to see if transfers are working right. After that, it could be every day, every other day, or every two weeks between servers, but they have given no information as to time frame. They also don't say it will continue to be two at a time indefinitely. Just that it will be two at a time until they are comfortable having all worlds be open for transfers. You're proposed schedule is based on it being 2 at a time indefinitely and it being 2 weeks between each indefinitely; which is 100% speculation.

[andracy]

this is absurd in my opinion. in my kin, we have ppl from most of the countrys, as following.

The United Kingdom 170
Sweden 31
Romania 23
Norway 17
Greece 13
Hungary 12
Finland 11
Poland 11
Turkey 10
Croatia 9
South Africa 9
The Czech Republic 5
Bulgaria 4
Ireland 4
Afghanistan 3
Albania 3
Israel 3
Bosnia & Herzegovina 2
Latvia 2
Lithuania 2
The Russian Federation 2
Serbia 2
Australia 1
Austria 1
Bahrain 1
Benin 1
Brazil 1
Estonia 1
The Faroe Islands 1
Iceland 1
Kuwait 1
Saudi Arabia 1
Slovakia 1
Slovenia 1
Uruguay 1

For all these members English is the easiest language to speak so for sure they will have all to go to the Laurelin or Evernight and if we exclude the RP than we have only one option remaining. I cannot believe that Lotro will have more non-English than English servers. What about SE of Europe? We don't speak French or Spanish and we will be forced to go in only one place left ... I would sugest that Snowbourne to be left to live.

[Minstracar]

To Vyv, Frelorn and the rest of the Turbine staff,

First off, sorry for the large font and garish color -- I just wanted to make this hard to miss in all the posts.

Please open new neighborhoods on each remaining server automatically when a new group of servers is scheduled to open transfers (or at least make sure there are several completely empty neighborhoods on each before the new transfer batch). This will give transferring Kinships a chance to grab whole neighborhoods as they may have on their originating servers.

Thanks, Minstracar

[Webfox]

...

3) Populations: Currently Brandywine's population is many times larger than the next largest world in either region. This is why it will be closed to transfer until we have it fully on new hardware and have seen improvements in it's performance. The other worlds have plenty of room to grow in their current location and will be even more suited to the higher populations once they are moved. However we will be monitoring all of it as we go along. One of the benefits of this move is that if we see concerns, we can put more hardware support behind and world that appears to need it.

We are all very sad to see the closure of the wonderful communities that have gown over the years in each of these worlds. We have done extensive analysis of both the current populations and play styles as well as the capabilities of our move, hardware and software. After taking all of it into consideration, we feel that this combination of servers is the right one. We hope that all of you stay with us and find that our community gets even stronger with the availability of more friends to adventure with.

What I don't understand about this and what has been asked by many others:
- Why 2 German servers? If any should be more than 1, it should be the English servers.
I'm pretty sure the English (speaking) community is much, much larger than the German community.
I'm just wondering about this and would like to know why this decision has been made.

I won't complain if the 1 remaining English server will be stable and not overcrowded, HOWEVER:
Vyvyanne claims the stability can be maintained by adding/upgrading hardware, so I'll put my trust in that.
BUT there's got to be overcrowding issues, and (for instance) reducing spawn timers (even) more isn't a good solution.

This pitfall seems so obvious I don't think the dev's/producers have missed it.
So I'm interested in what they have thought of to solve this issue.

If they did miss this issue or think such issues won't arise, then I SUGGEST to let Snowbourn migrate as one of the last worlds, as it is one of the most populated servers (according to speculation and unofficial tests).
By doing so, they can monitor the issues rising when the English server gets transferred to and decide to keep Snowbourn open anyway and allowing people to move there (also people who have moved to the other English server of course).
Yes, I'm writing pro-Snowbourn stuff as that is my server, but I'm also thinking of ways that can help as I'm concerned the 1 English server decision is a bad one and that will come to light.

[Nenuial]

There are a number of reasons why this is a a bad idea.

1) People that are on servers that are not moving have absolutely NO choice. They are there, and they may have a long reputation with that name. Incoming people have a choice of 4 (soon 5) servers to transfer to, so they can pick a server where the character name is not yet taken or the character is inactive.

2) If you take the name of an active character on a server you are moving to, what do you think that will do for the community. Not only will the person you took the name from probably hate you, if he is a known figure in the community or a member of a high profile kinship, there is a chance that that kin won't like you either.

3) It will create a lot of confusion. You may be honest, but not everyone is. People sometimes mail stuff to people - myself included - by just typing in the name and click send. If I talk to someone that is active and we discuss sending a big item like a 1st age symbol, and 20 minutes later when I am sending it.... YOU have come in and taken the name, you would all over sudden get the symbol. You may be fair and return it, but not everyone is. This causes more problems.

4) Any system that allows people to trump over another and keep trumping over another by having a more "senior" account is going to cause aggravation upon aggravation. One person takes a name, and a week later someone else takes another name. A name can change hands several times before it settles, and NO ONE will be happy besides the final taker. And he may not even be happy, as he may not even have realized he just did that, and was going to take on another name anyways. Now the name is not available to anyone but the FIRST person who BUYS a rename token.

5) Why would a person that plays 20 toons a little bit at a time, but manages to get half of them to 100 have any less rights to a name then the person that has 1 toon, and has uber /played because that is ALL he played? The person that played 20 toons may have had a lot more play time altogether, but because one person is focused on one toon, he should get the name?

6) Servers have different start dates. Meneldor is a beta server and old. Riddermark was only launched in 2010 and thus 3 years later. The players on Riddermark didn't have the same chance to gather the same /played as they are missing 3 years. How would that be fair? They all started AFTER 2010.


No, the way they are doing it is the right way. It's fair. To the point. Everyone knows exactly what to expect, and no one has to wait till 2016 to see if they can REALLY keep the name.

Vyvyanne also agreed with these points in another topic by the way, so it's simply not going to happen.

1) People on closing servers also have no choice. They also have developed a long reputation with that name. There is also no guarantee the name is available on ANY of the remaining servers.

2) Again, try the shoe on the other foot. The people/kins being forced into moving are going to hate the ones that already have the name. However, harassment and trolling will be dealt with accordingly by GMs and the usual issues.

3) Yeah, confusion will abound with this change. They'll have to really work on the Social menus, etc. so things don't go all wonky.

4) Yeah, no one is going to be happy but the person who ultimately keeps the name (if they even realize they kept the name)

5) Exactly.

6) Again, go by the most active players in the past 12 months, rather than strict seniority.

Ultimately, no matter what feathers are going to be ruffled. People will leave the game, people will deal with it and stay in the game. It happens, but that doesn't mean we have to like it OR agree that what Turbine is doing is best. (Again, Minstrel changes....)

[SimplexMinded]

Have you tried creating a new character with that name on one of the closing servers? If it's not taken, you could transfer that one after October and grab the name. I haven't thought this through completely but if they turn off transfers from open servers that soon you will have to pay to transfer the real character later, get a rename token due to having the same name, delete your stand-in, and then use the rename token?

I do hope things will work out so you both get to keep your names!

that is a rather complex way around it isn't it haha... I'll let my man know that that is a possibility for sure i'm okay swapping letters, my fiance's character name isn't as simple as that

[Firgrim]

Some don't want to be on a RP server & they shouldn't have to be.

Quite frankly Turbine is not giving much choice to people in picking a server, especially to the EU crowd.

I still say they went a tad overboard in the amount of servers there closing.

What, exactly, are you losing by playing on an enforced role-playing server?

From what I see, it appears you lose the right to name your character anything you want, and are restricted to naming it something that isn't what I call "lore-offensive." So you can make up a name that doesn't *seem* to be lore-inappropriate, but you're not required to do much more than that.

So, what's the issue here?

And true, you don't have to be on the server. There are options. You may find those options unappealing, but they are options.

[Fratonia]

What I don't understand about this and what has been asked by many others:
- Why 2 German servers?

Because the German speaking population is bigger than you think. If they would put all of them on a single server it would have more than 30 percent higher population than Brandywine. The German speaking crowd needs two servers.
EU should get a third EN server which makes it a total of 6 for EU. I fully support that.

[LegendOfKamikazee]

What, exactly, are you losing by playing on an enforced role-playing server?

From what I see, it appears you lose the right to name your character anything you want, and are restricted to naming it something that isn't what I call "lore-offensive." So you can make up a name that doesn't *seem* to be lore-inappropriate, but you're not required to do much more than that.

So, what's the issue here?

And true, you don't have to be on the server. There are options. You may find those options unappealing, but they are options.

I don't believe Laurelin will have 'enforced' RP. It will just be encouraged I suspect.

I think many people will go to Laurelin purely to avoid Evernight. Sad to say Evernight will likely become EU's Brandywine.

[Guhrasoh]

I'm pretty sure the English (speaking) community is much, much larger than the German community.

You may think that, but Turbine has the numbers.

[Thurallor]

We're moving from one server that is staying to another though, cut off is October the 1st, they last played mid October of last year

Couldn't you move to a third server, then transfer from there to your desired server in mid-October? You'd have to pay for the transfer, but you might get to keep your name.

[paintpixie]

I really do feel for the people who might be losing their names. So I just wanted to throw this out there:

If you are really attached to your name, and it ends up being taken, try sending an in-game letter to the person explaining the situation to them. It couldn't hurt. They might be willing to change their name for you. Try offering a name change token, if possible (can you gift cash shop items in this game somehow?), as that's really the right thing to do in that situation.

I think a little understanding from everybody is the best way to get through this. Toes are going to get stepped on. Try to just roll with it in good humor. These are people who could become your friends, you know? I think if we could come together as a community instead of fighting over names/servers/etc...it might just make Middle Earth a better place. You know? : P

[Nenuial]

I really do feel for the people who might be losing their names. So I just wanted to throw this out there:

If you are really attached to your name, and it ends up being taken, try sending an in-game letter to the person explaining the situation to them. It couldn't hurt. They might be willing to change their name for you. Try offering a name change token, if possible (can you gift cash shop items in this game somehow?), as that's really the right thing to do in that situation.

I think a little understanding from everybody is the best way to get through this. Toes are going to get stepped on. Try to just roll with it in good humor. These are people who could become your friends, you know? I think if we could come together as a community instead of fighting over names/servers/etc...it might just make Middle Earth a better place. You know? : P

It would be awesome if this were an option.