World Transfers

[Srale]

This is not the point. If someone addresses me in English I will happily answer in English. However there are lots of people (more than you think) that do not speak English very well or at all. I want players to feel comfortable playing this game and one requirement for this is that they understand what is happening around them. It's easy for someone that uses English every day to expect the same ability from everyone else but this is just wishful thinking.

There are lot of people on Laurelin that don't understand english also. Should Turbine make servers for Italians, Spaniards, Russians, Turks, Dutch or even me and 3 other Croatian speaking people so we can understand what is happening around us? Or we are just less valuable?
Lucky for us non EN, DE, FR people Turbine did make player-created chat channels (they could add few more slots for that...) so we can use it and ignore all the rest if we like it.

[Derquin]

I really hope for a survival of DE-RP Belegaer as I must say right now I cannot imagine going through the kind of weekly roleplay-plots we had in our kinship alliance over the last years (plots that went on over several months and took a lot of preparations for the plotmasters on a weekly base) while having to constantly translate in another language. I might be rather fluent in written English if I have time to think about it but groping for the right words while trying to express the whole lot of personalities of my characters in the direct conversation with the others / leading a plot might be well beyond me if it is not to be reduced to standard wordings which I do not like.
That is a concern that at least some might share. Roleplay is as acting as a different person based on what one might think that imaginary person might act like. Not to have the right words to express yourself - and not producing unintended comical situations because of false / strange wordings which might lead to break any atmosphere one has tried to create is quite discouraging.


I must say the possibility of only one surviving roleplaying server (Laurelin would be my guess for the most international communities already there) seems all the more 'threatening' because I have seen it in other games who tried something like that and failed due to the lack of a lot of / some quite vocal players who aren't ready to accept other languages in open chats - languages, nationalities and all that lot that was flung on someone daring to write in a different language was quite exchangeable - the bashing on others because different languages was the same. I have seen such notions even in lotro over the years but far less than in other games.
It is sad and sometimes downright sickening and often enough the only solution was to turn off such chats completely and to speak your own language only in fellowship / kinship channel where none other could intervene. With roleplaying being an activity based on interaction / communication with others, that is often not a great solution. Often enough Events are meant to be open for all to join.
Would there be any rules to have to speak English in those RP-Channels (e.g. say, emote, RP)? Or would all other languages (have to) be accepted, too?



Besides the RP-Server / language question / problem the greatest issue I see in transfering is that housing might becoming a problem again if a lot of people are put together on a handful of servers. We have managed over the course of several months - in fact several years taking in the time before the cleaning up of closed up houses - to come together in the same neighborhoods as kinships, where you can walk from one house to another. Putting up different decoration themes to different corners of the neighborhood to be able to play a village in Rohan, Gondorian house etc as much as the housing system will allow. Having to spread across different neighborhoods again with the problem, that one has to leave the neighborhood first for summoning / changing to visit another home is quite annoying - actually almost the most annoying Transfer related thing as it will take quite a lot of time trying to get what we had with no garanty for success (some houses are almost always gone).

Wishful thinking but I would have liked it, if the transfer system would have been able to coordinate something like housing (e.g. of kinmates going to one server) / putting up new neighborhoods, too, if the houses are already gone and something like that.
It is great that some things are not lost in transfer (as paid upkeep, storage - I hope Mithril Coin Expansion is the same as ingame Gold Expansion) but if you cannot get the house you want... well for some Players housing is not just a teleport / storage Location...

Even without a great renewal of housing I was astonished to see some small updates (Gondorian furniture etc.) hidden in the last updates but at the moment the prospect of a probable renewed and fruitless hunt for houses is one of the most downcasting and gamebreaking issues I have - trying to keep the kinships togethers as they were.

[Solastrion]

I think the wisest thing we can do, is to start thinking of alternate names now to avoid the need for a last minute name change, that we may come to regret.

I call "dibs" on Purplemonkeydishwasher.

[Galwing]

Why would it be easier for a lifetime account owner to purchase more slots?

The point is, we've already paid for the characters we have, as well as additional costs for costumes, costume slots, horses, houses, and so forth. Why should we have to pay for them again?

Adding two additional slots and putting character slots on sale will help, but it is still feels like double-dipping for existing players. I've been here since the first alpha testing and invested a lot in many of my characters across ten of the fifteen US servers. Facing the possibility of losing part of what we have built up over the years is a valid concern.

I wholeheartedly agree with you!!! I am very upset about the whole thing and my husband is already talking about quitting if he has to buy 15 character slots AGAIN that we already paid for. 2 free ones is nice but it's a drop in the ocean for people like us.

[Beorthnoth]

I really hope for a survival of DE-RP Belegaer as I must say right now I cannot imagine going through the kind of weekly roleplay-plots we had in our kinship alliance over the last years (plots that went on over several months and took a lot of preparations for the plotmasters on a weekly base) while having to constantly translate in another language. I might be rather fluent in written English if I have time to think about it but groping for the right words while trying to express the whole lot of personalities of my characters in the direct conversation with the others / leading a plot might be well beyond me if it is not to be reduced to standard wordings which I do not like.
That is a concern that at least some might share. Roleplay is as acting as a different person based on what one might think that imaginary person might act like. Not to have the right words to express yourself - and not producing unintended comical situations because of false / strange wordings which might lead to break any atmosphere one has tried to create is quite discouraging.


I must say the possibility of only one surviving roleplaying server (Laurelin would be my guess for the most international communities already there) seems all the more 'threatening' because I have seen it in other games who tried something like that and failed due to the lack of a lot of / some quite vocal players who aren't ready to accept other languages in open chats - languages, nationalities and all that lot that was flung on someone daring to write in a different language was quite exchangeable - the bashing on others because different languages was the same. I have seen such notions even in lotro over the years but far less than in other games.
It is sad and sometimes downright sickening and often enough the only solution was to turn off such chats completely and to speak your own language only in fellowship / kinship channel where none other could intervene. With roleplaying being an activity based on interaction / communication with others, that is often not a great solution. Often enough Events are meant to be open for all to join.
Would there be any rules to have to speak English in those RP-Channels (e.g. say, emote, RP)? Or would all other languages (have to) be accepted, too?



Besides the RP-Server / language question / problem the greatest issue I see in transfering is that housing might becoming a problem again if a lot of people are put together on a handful of servers. We have managed over the course of several months - in fact several years taking in the time before the cleaning up of closed up houses - to come together in the same neighborhoods as kinships, where you can walk from one house to another. Putting up different decoration themes to different corners of the neighborhood to be able to play a village in Rohan, Gondorian house etc as much as the housing system will allow. Having to spread across different neighborhoods again with the problem, that one has to leave the neighborhood first for summoning / changing to visit another home is quite annoying - actually almost the most annoying Transfer related thing as it will take quite a lot of time trying to get what we had with no garanty for success (some houses are almost always gone).

Wishful thinking but I would have liked it, if the transfer system would have been able to coordinate something like housing (e.g. of kinmates going to one server) / putting up new neighborhoods, too, if the houses are already gone and something like that.
It is great that some things are not lost in transfer (as paid upkeep, storage - I hope Mithril Coin Expansion is the same as ingame Gold Expansion) but if you cannot get the house you want... well for some Players housing is not just a teleport / storage Location...

Even without a great renewal of housing I was astonished to see some small updates (Gondorian furniture etc.) hidden in the last updates but at the moment the prospect of a probable renewed and fruitless hunt for houses is one of the most downcasting and gamebreaking issues I have - trying to keep the kinships togethers as they were.

I don't see the language problem as insurmountable, though it might need a bit of lateral thinking. Laurelin is fairly tolerant of mixed languages in World (with the possible exception of when it all starts kicking off between the Serbs and the Croats ). It might help if Turbine could introduce some extra channels maybe, although it could be quite fun to see multiple language rp sessions in the Pony - in a funny kind of way it could make it easier to follow your own conversation if half the says were in German and you knew it didn't "belong" to your own group. For what it's worth, I suspect that if there is only one rp server, then it will lose any language designation it already has, so as not to deter transfers from the rp servers closing.

[Oelle]

would be kind of funny, if your client decides, in which /world you are.
if there were a /world and a /welt and a /monde etc and the language of your client would determine, which of those is your standard-/world... that would be nice. if one likes to read all the other languages, one could just join the others. but if i had to migrate to an multi-language-RP-server, because belegaer gets shut down, i would like to have different /worlds.
from times to times, i play neverwinter online. there, i can see, how people with different languages talk in just one channel. and i totally dont like it. just my personal preferences. but what i would not like even more is to see people like with names like easterbunny312 or sexyhexy666. so... if belegaer gets shut down, i would 'have to' migrate to the one left RP... but i still hope, that it does not.
immersion is bad with multilanguage. but its worse with stupid names.

[phaelan2]

One question my wife brought up is with regard to houses. She has individual houses on a number of servers, but currently you can only own a single house per server. With the mergers, will we be able to have more than one house on a server or is the one house per server rule still going to be in effect?

Note that storage is not her main concern. This is more of an RP thing; each house is personalized for her characters.

[Ellyllon]

Other than being an RP server, which has already been clarified (one from the EU & US each), what makes a 'specialized' server?



(1. Are we keeping the most active servers? In some cases, yes. The intention is to move the least amount of players while maintaining some of the more specialized environments.)

[maartena]

I think the wisest thing we can do, is to start thinking of alternate names now to avoid the need for a last minute name change, that we may come to regret.

I call "dibs" on Purplemonkeydishwasher.

You don't need to do a last minute change.

If I get name changes, I plan to walk around with "Name-1" until I think of something. The free rename token will remain valid forever.

[Liarie]

I really do feel for you. I've been playing MMOs since 1995 and I've been through my fair share of RP servers closing and merging with others. It's just awful, all around.

The problem is, I'm a roleplayer, I don't speak German, I refuse to play on Landroval (since I do not consider it to be an RP server with people with names like "Cheetos" running around). I refuse to play on a non-RP server.

If you get your way, where does that leave me and all the EU roleplayers who don't speak German?

[Mar-Evayave]

You don't need to do a last minute change.

If I get name changes, I plan to walk around with "Name-1" until I think of something. The free rename token will remain valid forever.

As will I. Perhaps someday the names I want will become available. Until then -1 will do.

I am curious though. Some people make characters but never log into them (resulting in the issue where you can't add them to friend lists on either freep or creep side, and you also get told the name is in use if you try to use it yourself). Will those characters still be subject to the name priority issue, assuming they were made over 1 year ago? I'm wondering how the "technical laws" will apply to those characters.

Also, what is the error message given when some portion of the name you want is in the list of no-no names? Is it an error akin to "that name is not allowed"?

I really do feel for you. I've been playing MMOs since 1995 and I've been through my fair share of RP servers closing and merging with others. It's just awful, all around.

The problem is, I'm a roleplayer, I don't speak German, I refuse to play on Landroval (since I do not consider it to be an RP server with people with names like "Cheetos" running around). I refuse to play on a non-RP server.

If you get your way, where does that leave me and all the EU roleplayers who don't speak German?

Frankly, I wish the same rules of Laurelin applied to Landroval as well. I don't care if people actually RP or not, but it is a bit immersion breaking when you see characters with names like Ipwnu running around.

We had one griefer a while back (last Winterstock, IIRC) who made a trash toon named Weatherstocksucks or something like that. :/

[Tuco]

I think the wisest thing we can do, is to start thinking of alternate names now to avoid the need for a last minute name change, that we may come to regret.

I call "dibs" on Purplemonkeydishwasher.

Oh, sigh. I should have called it earlier. But don't try it on Laurelin!

[SweetDemise]

Will there be a minimum level requirement for characters transferring from a closing server to a new one?

[Tuco]

Other than being an RP server, which has already been clarified (one from the EU & US each), what makes a 'specialized' server?

(1. Are we keeping the most active servers? In some cases, yes. The intention is to move the least amount of players while maintaining some of the more specialized environments.)

The RP servers are the only officially designated specialized ones, but there's an unofficial Oceanic server (Elendilmir). When the new servers opened up Riddermark was the place where a lot of PvMP players went (by general acclaim). They're now somewhere else; maybe Brandywine or Imladris or gone?. Gladden is sometimes considered the geezer server (OK, "mature" server, and I'm allowed to say "geezer" because I'm 69 y.o.). I won't mention the "goat joke" or "silly hat" servers.

I suspect the betting line improved a bit for Elendilmir, Imladris and Gladden since the announcement that specialized servers have gotten some attention.

[Ellyllon]

Isn't Gladden the third or 4th most populated U.S. server, anyway? That one may be possible, with a lot of cheering Geezers, I guess!

I'll be happy if Elendilmir gets a surprise pick, though I was getting excited about possibly moving to Landroval. (and if it's as I'm reading it, I guess I can hop around at leisure? That seems so unfair. I'll do it, but I'll consider myself rather rotten for it. - and I'm ok with that - )

[Trixie_Me]

If you transfer to a server and your name is taken by an active character, you receive a name change token. When you use the name change token, can you select a name that is assigned to an inactive character? It would seem to me that it would be the only reasonable thing to do since many people will be looking for 2nd, 3rd (or worse) choices.

[Ellyllon]

And wouldn't it just be simpler to free up all inactive names before the transfers? Maybe free up all inactives of 2 years, at least? (I think it should be inactive accounts, of course, not individual characters)

[LethalLethality]

The RP servers are the only officially designated specialized ones, but there's an unofficial Oceanic server (Elendilmir). When the new servers opened up Riddermark was the place where a lot of PvMP players went (by general acclaim). They're now somewhere else; maybe Brandywine or Imladris or gone?. Gladden is sometimes considered the geezer server (OK, "mature" server, and I'm allowed to say "geezer" because I'm 69 y.o.). I won't mention the "goat joke" or "silly hat" servers.

I suspect the betting line improved a bit for Elendilmir, Imladris and Gladden since the announcement that specialized servers have gotten some attention.

Gladden has ceased to be mature for a while. Not since last year when we were made the recommended server. Every night seems to be filled with lewd discussions or bacon and soap.

[Silmelin]

One question my wife brought up is with regard to houses. She has individual houses on a number of servers, but currently you can only own a single house per server. With the mergers, will we be able to have more than one house on a server or is the one house per server rule still going to be in effect?

Note that storage is not her main concern. This is more of an RP thing; each house is personalized for her characters.

I wonder this as well. What if you play on two servers and have a house on both, and one server closes down and you can't move to a separate server and have to move them all in together with your characters on the other server? What about all the storage you have unlocked for lots of gold/Mithril Coins?

It won't be an option for everyone to choose a different server, for example someone who is playing on a European server. Depending on your language you might only have one server to move to, but if you already have a house there, what happens then?

For example, I think there are two French servers now, one RP and one non-RP. I'm sure there are several who play on both and might therefore have houses with lots of unlocked storage and such on both servers. If one of them closes, what do those who don't know any English do? They'll have to choose the only French server left.


Is there a way to make it possible for us to buy more than one house per account? That would help out a bit, and we'd be able to have houses matching all our character as well

[peachykins]

Gladden has ceased to be mature for a while. Not since last year when we were made the recommended server. Every night seems to be filled with lewd discussions or bacon and soap.

Funny cause I haven't been seeing any lewd convo. Also Gladden is no longer the recommended server, Evernight is.

[infinitewhimsy]

I'm excited about this, despite myself. It sounds like raiders and PvPers will have a chance to find one another and reestablish "unofficial" servers as we once had.

[camenecium]

RP world rules will remain as they currently are for each region.

So there will only be one RP Supported server, Laurelin. I must have missed this while drinking from the fire hose.

I hope that distinction is made clear as part of the transfer process; I'd really like to see the Laurelin population grow in the North American timezones, and I assume we'll see lots of transfers from the DE and FR RP Supported servers as well. Looks like Laurelin is about to get quite a bit bigger.

Here's hoping that the ping rates to the new EU data center are good globally.

[infinitewhimsy]

Well...you can't transfer from Landroval (the unofficial US RP server) to Laurelin...

That is definitely something that needs considering. Maybe Turbine recognize Landy's status and mean for it to remain? There definitely needs to be a containment server in NA for those role playing types.


And why are the Euro players so readily upset about their RP servers? Has it been confirmed that there will be only 1 Euro RP server? I haven't read that.

[Beaniemooch]

I'm excited about this, despite myself. It sounds like raiders and PvPers will have a chance to find one another and reestablish "unofficial" servers as we once had.

What raids? The old ones, the broken ones, or the old broken ones?

And why are the Euro players so readily upset about their RP servers? Has it been confirmed that there will be only 1 Euro RP server? I haven't read that.

To that I give you this:

We are still resolving timelines on moving the worlds to new tech but it is looking like we should be moved over in the next 2-3 months. I will give a better timeline once I have it.

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).

[infinitewhimsy]

What raids? The old ones, the broken ones, or the old broken ones?

The old ones.

To that I give you this:

Ah, well. That sounds like quite the misstep.