World Transfers

[Mar-Evayave]

What about personal currency, trophys, bound rep/barter and such. And festival tokens. Did I miss where it said those would transfer?

If all that does not transfer, if players lose all their rep barter and such needed for gear, this game WILL die!

If I'm not mistaken, character currencies (like money, barter stuff, etc) have always been transferable. It was always the account-wide currencies that did not transfer. Those will with the new system, so I believe every currency you can possibly squeeze into your wallet should, in theory, transfer.

[elderlygamer]

Thanks for the heads up on this. It's nice knowing ahead of time exactly will happen, and I appreciate the detailed post.

[Rahukal]

I think Turbine has still left the most important question unanswered. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?

[Teslana]

They should give us some free slots instead of making us pay for all the extras.

I just wanted to add my support to other players suggesting that character slots should be made freely available to anyone forced to move server. I'm not in the situation of having a huge multitude of alts, but I can absolutely understand that anyone who has put so much money and time into the game might be extremely upset by being asked to pay up or delete many of their characters. And it's the time that is the really important bit, here, to me: real human lifetimes being happily spent in a game they clearly love very much. It seems to me that some of the most loyal and dedicated players are being punished most severely by the server-merges and that just doesn't seem right...

In short: the players are being forced to move - insisting they must pay to do so just seems so *wrong*.

[Ryvick]

Wow, I don't know who had the brilliant idea to squeeze 14 servers on 4 already existing servers but ... wow I am just at a loss for words.

There are so many parts of this transfer system that in post after post the devs are saying "We did what we could in the time we had" this is just a mess.

I guess we should start seeing executives fired starting Jan 1st?


GG Blizz thanks for lettuce snow! (Oww Deja Vu moment. Yes, I'm old)

[Neuromancer]

Greetings Citizens of Middle-Earth!

We are finally ready to reveal the details on the new World Transfer process, the consolidation of LOTRO's worlds, and their movement to a brand new data center. We appreciate your patience as we have worked to make the new transfer process as well-rounded, simple, and effortless as possible. The first part of this article will discuss our timeline and the second part will go over the details of the new transfer features themselves. So grab a goblet of Elvish Wine and kick back, because this will be a long one. Read more.

Turbine should just name the servers remaining after the server update/merger something new entirely. This way everyone "loses" their home world. Isnt really fair to force firefooters or Nimrodelidans to identify as brandywhiners or arkenstonians. Make everything equal, really give the game a refreshing makeover.. there also might be some prejudice from native server veterans towards the transfers. Seems this game has gotten trolly since I last remembered it, and this would be a preemptive measure to afford everyone equal footing/status.

Tons of Lotro lore out there (silmarillion comes to mind) where one could find names of things to rename the servers with. The titles are a great idea and would mean more in newly named servers.

[camenecium]

5 US and 5 EU is correct. In our selection we will have one RP per region (EU & US) and one world per language (DE, FR and ENG).

Do you mean there will be a newly-designated official US EN RP server per the Turbine Official Roleplaying Rules and Policy like Laurelin already is (and probably will remain) for EU? I would like that.

Will the transfer notice make it clear that Laurelin and potentially one other server in the US have this policy? It would be best if people who want such a thing know where to go--and people who don't want such a thing know where not to go.

[Zoraine]

I have pretty much full rosters of characters on Meneldor, Riddermark and Imladris - I hate the idea of being on a crowded server, kinda screwed there, but that's not really the question. My question is, if I *split* the characters from one server between two of the remaining servers, who does the wardrobe go with?

[maartena]

I have pretty much full rosters of characters on Meneldor, Riddermark and Imladris - I hate the idea of being on a crowded server, kinda screwed there, but that's not really the question. My question is, if I *split* the characters from one server between two of the remaining servers, who does the wardrobe go with?

There will be an option to transfer "server bound" items such as all items in a wardrobe to another server, but it will be the whole kit and caboodle. So you can transfer the full wardrobe from Meneldor to Server A, the full wardrobe from Riddermark to Server B, and if you would like to transfer the wardrobe of Imladris to either server A or server B, it will just add on top of the already existing (transferred) wardrobe on server A or B. If you have more items in your wardrobe than you own slots, you will have an overflow, which can be solved by removing items or adding extra space.

[keeker_ks]

On the naming system for transfers - since we know so many NA and EU servers are closing and many of us will be merging elsewhere naming conflicts are going to be many. Seems a bit unfair that the last folks to be offered transfers will be the ones most likely to have their names usurped by earlier transfers. I'm not sure there is a cleaner nor more equitable way to make sure folks get to keep their character names, but darn it that is really the pits for the final servers to open transfers.

My understanding is this - all servers staying open are named on Monday - both EU and NA. Those folks get first crack at transfers. This means those folks are going to have the highest percentage chance of keeping their characters names as well as the chance to create new characters on the servers remaining open with a higher chance of keeping unique names.

Those of us on a server closing - will have less and less chance to keep our character names as other server transfers open before ours. If you're on the last server to open transfers - you have the highest chance of having your character names already taken.

Seems backwards to me. Our servers are closing and we're being asked (well really told) to move our characters to another world and we are in the position to have to rename (or deal with a -# after our name) our characters. Like I said, not sure there is an equitable fix that makes everyone whole, but it doesn't seem fair that those of us moving have the biggest chance of losing part of our characters we hold most dear. It is bad enough that we won't be able to play on our "home" anymore, but to put us in the position to lose character names feels a bit like salt in the wound.

[camenecium]

If I have to transfer, I would be curious to check out Landroval and give RP a try, although the RP vs. non-RP cold war being referenced here does scare me a bit and make me worry I would considered a troll for not knowing the exact procedure. Is there any place that lists the RP guidelines for LOTRO?

There is such a place: Turbine Official Roleplaying Rules and Policy.

These rules are specifically about naming and non-OOC chat channels, not about how to actually role-play. For that, there are guides in various forums here (RP, Landroval, Laurelin) and many resources on the web generally.

I am in the US, started on Landroval, and moved to Laurelin in particular because I prefer the naming policy. The trade-off for no longer see L33tNinjaHobbit was less people in my timezone for fellowships and kinships; the population is still predominantly EU despite a steady influx from elsewhere over the years.

I've been asking around to see if people in Europe and on Laurelin have much lag since all servers are in the US now; overall the answer is no. With better hardware and bigger Internet tubes, I'm expecting US players on Laurelin will not suffer performance problems after the move. And I am hoping the transfers balance out the population with more NA timezone people assuming there will not be a true RP server in the US region.

Laurelin was an original EU server that moved to the US as part of the last data center consolidation. Now it's moving back East and many of its kind will not survive. It must be renamed Noldor, and 3 August 2015 shall forever be known and lamented as The Server-Slaying!

[camenecium]

I'm pretty sure there is a major trans-Atlantic cable that comes into NYC.

The Internet tubes between NYC and London are impressive; they service the traffic between the two biggest financial hubs in the world. I can't say from experience where Amsterdam fits into the picture by topology or performance, though.

Parts of New Jersey are also heavily wired into NYC as well; various financial companies try to camp as close as they can to the NYSE machines while being on the less expensive side of the river. A few milliseconds can mean lots of money in high-frequency trading. LOTRO is probably not quite that performance sensitive.

Where in Jersey will the US servers be? I could cross the Delaware and give them a warm welcome. What exit?

[camenecium]

I just had another thought...why not open one brand new server each for US and EU...people with maxed characterslots would have a place to go without worrying where to place 19 characters when ther are already 19 characters or having a 210 space shared bank filled with 420 items......just a thought...

The dev diary gives me the impression they aren't going down to Best Buy for the new hardware. I'd guess the 5/5 plan comes out of some heavy-duty number crunching based on cost, performance, and total population.

I would love to know the details: how many separate boxes, how much they're virtualized, what the increase in network and cpu and disk will be--all that data center nerdy stuff. Hopefully we'll get pictures. There's nothing as clean and geometrically pure as a fresh data center. Mmm. Ahhh.

I also hope we get all kinds of neat graphs and infographics as the process continues about things like how the population shifts and what the performance changes are like. I've found projects like these to be very exciting--and stressful and full of agonizing compromises. Although it'll be nice to make the popcorn and just watch it unfold from a safe distance.

[cdq1958]

The Internet tubes between NYC and London are impressive; they service the traffic between the two biggest financial hubs in the world. I can't say from experience where Amsterdam fits into the picture by topology or performance, though.

Parts of New Jersey are also heavily wired into NYC as well; various financial companies try to camp as close as they can to the NYSE machines while being on the less expensive side of the river. A few milliseconds can mean lots of money in high-frequency trading. LOTRO is probably not quite that performance sensitive.

Where in Jersey will the US servers be? I could cross the Delaware and give them a warm welcome. What exit?

Amsterdam would be across the Channel, from memory, and we are talking about a couple hundred kilometers, likely between London and Amsterdam.

It has not been stated where the NJ servers will be located. I've been to Jersey, but only the parts near Delaware and Philadelphia, PA. I have a Navy Man son stationed in CT.

[RJFerret]

Thanks Vyvyanne for the great feedback and responses, you have continued to impress.

One of the beauties of Lotro was the ability to have alts on different servers, although it cost more, as you had to purchase things like shared storage on each server beyond the character slots.

Thankfully I'm not in this position, but it seems forcing players to consolidate characters onto a fraction of the servers (with all the crowding and unpleasantness that will entail), and requiring them to pay extra for character slots for characters and slots they have already paid for, seems rather inappropriate.

That's like a landlord saying, sorry you rented a two bedroom, but the second bedroom has a leaking roof, instead of fixing it, you will move in together and I'll require a cohabitation fee.

Or an airline, sorry you bought two tickets, you'll have to share a seat and pay an overweight fee.

[HeirOfNumenor]

I don't think we're such a minority..I know lots of people that are altoholics...I am one of them and the news for us are NOT good at all! I know I don't have to move all my characters to one server but it doesn't help when MY favorite servers close that I would have free characterslots on Riddermark and Withywindle when I need them on Crick, Gladden and Meneldor when I have a full boat there. I do not understand how people can even think it's fair that I have to purchase slots again just to be able to play characters I already payed for! I bought a lot of character slots and now I get kinda punished for that? That's not how you treat good customers Turbine! There really should be at least some help from Turbine like somebody mentioned already!

But you didn't pay for all those extra characters - you only paid for the maximum number of characters that you have on one server (above the 2 free alts per server from F2P) - all the other toons on other servers ARE ALREADY GIVEN TO YOU FREE BY TURBINE. Turbine has given you the privilege of adding equal numbers of extra toons on as many worlds as you like - as opposed to EQ2 which limited me to a maximum of 6 toons - all bound to one server (had to pay extra to play on other servers - at a higher monthly subscription of $25 instead of $15, vs. just a one-time purchase).

We all have it so good, we don't even realize it....

That person who has 42 on every single server (if true), only paid for 40 extra toons on ONE server (remember 2 come with F2P) - and is getting 1,120 extra toons, at Turbine's expense. [40 toons x 28 other server worlds]


I have 10 toons on Vilya, another 8 on Nimrodel. BOTH servers are likely to close. I will transfer my 10 Vilya guys to a surviving server (A), and my choices for the 8 Nimrodel gals is to:

1) buy 8 extra slots to merge them onto surviving server A,
2) transfer them to surviving server (B), or
3) say goodbye and park them on Nimrodel forever (after transferring what goodies from them that I can).

[paintpixie]

Oh yikes. I'd hate to be the one cleaning up these forums tomorrow...

From what they released, it all seemed so smooth, so well-thought out. Introduce the players, and it becomes a mad house. I think maybe some people need to take a step back and take a few deep breaths. It will be okay. If Turbine wanted to, they could close all servers, or move your characters to whatever server they want without even letting you choose. Your characters are *their* property, let's not lose sight of that. You are playing by their leave, and you play by the rules they set forth. They didn't just randomly decide these things out of nowhere, yesterday. They have more information at their disposal than any one individual playing the game, they know what the best course of action was, they decided. Digging your heels in the mud and crying about the transfer isn't going to make it go away. The best thing to do is take a few deep breaths, and think about how this move is going to affect you and plan accordingly.

As somebody who plays on a low-population server (and loves it), I'm wondering what it will be like to play on a busy server again. I like feeling like I have an entire map to myself, but for some time I have really felt like I was playing in a ghost town, and I'm really glad that Turbine made the call to consolidate their servers. They have far too many, and they can't keep them open just for the people who have infinite characters. It will be nice to have a good auction house again. It will be nice to feel like I'm playing with other people.

Anyway, it's best not to panic in situations like this. They know what they're doing better than we do. At least, I hope so. ; P

[DiogoVP]

Sadly we do not see cross region transfers ever being a thing that we can offer. This is due to the original regions being set up in two different account systems, which allowed duplicate character IDs to be created. The transfer of a character to a world on which it might share an ID with another character can result in the loss of all character data. This is not a situation we want to see happen, especially to some of the oldest characters on the servers.

Hi Athena! I play on an US server and I do not intend to play on an EU server, but I have a suggestion that could provide an alternative people who wish they could transfer their toons from an EU to US server or vice-versa. What would you think about a service that instead of transfering the character itself between EU-US servers, transfer his characteristics? In that case, you could call it a doppelganger or twin character and that character would have all the characteristics of the copied character which would be all the traits, deeds completed, quests completed, inventory, wallet, housing scroll, appearance, class, etc...
You could allow one copied character per toon. That would mean that I could have one character in an US server and his twin on an EU server, so it would be like a character copy and not a character transfer and I wouldn't be able to copy a character that has already has a copy or is a copy. So by that, we would make sure I wouldn't be copying my characters back and forth between US and EU servers or having 3 or more copies of one single character.
What do you think of this idea? I don't think it's something you should implement soon, but it's an interest thing to think about, specially since it would allow the European players to ''move'' their characters from US to EU servers if they want without the fear of losing character data. Would you consider it feasible?

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Naming question -

If I have a main character (my first) named, say, "Bilbo" on the server getting culled and on the server I am moving him to I also named a character "Bilbo" (#2) and before I do the actual move I change the name of Bilbo #2 on the saved server so I get to keep my first main named character as "Bilbo" once I move him - will this work or will the name "Bilbo" be still 'taken' when I attempt to move?

Hope that makes sense.

[donxavier]

Only ten servers will remain to handle this wonderful game? Pity. I didn't realize that the player population had dropped off by that much. Still, moving to new hardware can only help things...I hope. Perhaps some of the pvp players will start to come back with the new Osgiliath PVMP map.

[Lenkamir]

hm, ever been to Green Dragon friday in the Shire, or Rivendell ever, even outside Hall of Fire Wednesday or the Tavern Games in Thorin's hall? XD Those are race specific weekly events. Bree is the... whatever comes hub really. Main men rp hub, but also a mash of odd rp. other races have other hubs. If one wants to stay true to lore that is.

Don't worry, I know there's loads of lovely role-play for those who wish to find it (I have too)! I was merely trying to emphasise that people who didn't want to role-play needn't avoid transferring to Laurelin, so long as they are respectful of what makes the server unique and special.

[Padhril]

I am physically in the US but I play on Laurelin. Hopefully I will still be able to play on Laurelin?

Of course you will (assuming that Laurelin is not going to be closed). The "EU" and "US" distinction is relevant in two ways: Where the servers will be physically located once the move has been completed, and, due to old technical issues, you cannot switch servers between zones. There is nothing hindering anyone from logging into whatever server they please from anywhere in the world, unless you live somewhere like North Korea where you can't freely access sites outside a limited area.

As for the physical distance US players on European servers are worried about: EU players have been dealing with that distance for years now, ever since the servers moved to the US. And players who are neither in the US nor in the Western part of Europe have been dealing with it since the game started. We've coped with it, I suspect you can too.

[Marancil]

We will see next week, but everyone keeps stating that the currently most populated servers will survive.

What if, just saying for arguments sake, what if Turbine does the opposite?

List low population servers as the "survivors" and have the high pop server accounts transfer to those? Maybe there are some advantages to that, like ensuring as many active accounts as possible. One might argue that if they force a big population to take action the resulting number of active accounts would be greater than if they force a smaller population to take action, if you have an account on a highly populated server that you are not using much, and that server is a survivor, you don't have to do anything, thus remaining a passive account, is that a good thing for Turbine?

Or what if they base their survival list on pure technical parameters like the most recently installed and updated server?

Again, we do not know yet, I just throw that in for you guys to discuss. I am sure you can handle both scenarios.

[Guhrasoh]

Using only 5 Servers for EU is quite stupid. Given that we have 3 different languages available you should make it 6 Servers, one RP and one normal per language. That would be perfect.

[LegOverLass]

Am I reading it right?

I will be able to transfer my characters to one of the new worlds for free? If I decide that this world is not for me I will be able to transfer again for free as long as I do it before the October deadline?

Would really like to know if this is true.