World Transfers

[cdq1958]

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



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 senario?


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!

Looking at it does not require them to act on it. Personally, I'm about as happy as I could be under these circumstances. Pulled off well, I'd say, would be a positive for Turbine. Well, here, being done without data loss or corruption, minimized numbers of transfers (where minimized is the fewest necessary), minimized naming conflicts, and yes, going back to the old rules fully once 2016 rolls in and we get past March or so.

[paebrain]

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

Where does this leave Vilya? A friend told me she had heard that Vilya has a high number of accounts, but very low activity. (If true, I attribute this to the trainloads of F2P players who came on after ROI and subsequently vanished.)

Is server size determined by the number of accounts, or the amount of activity?

[bucko39]

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.

Um...err...ok, I know folks are fond of nitpicking the dev and producer comments...but this really stuck out to me:

"SHOULD" be capable of handling the current population load? I'd feel more confident if that was "WILL" handle the current population load.

[cdq1958]

Where does this leave Vilya? A friend told me she had heard that Vilya has a high number of accounts, but very low activity. (If true, I attribute this to the trainloads of F2P players who came on after ROI and subsequently vanished.)

Is server size determined by the number of accounts, or the amount of activity?

Since any account can create characters on all available worlds, accounts here would be accounts with characters created on Vilya, when they were last played, how actively they are played (daily, weekly, monthly, and etc.) and how much revenue the account generated. I spend more time on Nimrodel than any other server. On a revenue per account basis, Nimrodel should be the most heavily weighted server for my accounts, if they break that down that far.

[cdq1958]

Um...err...ok, I know folks are fond of nitpicking the dev and producer comments...but this really stuck out to me:

"SHOULD" be capable of handling the current population load? I'd feel more confident if that was "WILL" handle the current population load.

I agree. The new hardware and virtual server architecture would not be worth it unless it guaranteed that it will handle the current overall population and should handle, through dynamic sizing, any reasonably anticipated future peak load.

[Ellyllon]

Um...err...ok, I know folks are fond of nitpicking the dev and producer comments...but this really stuck out to me:

"SHOULD" be capable of handling the current population load? I'd feel more confident if that was "WILL" handle the current population load.

Ya - that's not good if you're on a higher than low population server, know where you want to go, & will have to wait til the 'last round' to get there. It's also going to be strange & boring just hanging around waiting, while kin houses are snapped up, names taken, etc.

[Shrewd1]

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?

To be perfectly honest: No, I don't see anything wrong with that scenario. Unless you still paid your VIP sub during your very extended vacation, why would they have any obligation to reserve something for that long for a non-paying (and non-playing, for that matter) 'customer'? That sense of entitlement is beyond me. If it was up to me, I'd vacate every name that hasn't been 'played' (as in: logged in) for 12 months. There'd be a huge ####storm of course, which is why Turbine isn't going to do anything like you fear and this discussion is moot

[Boskone08]

I agree. The new hardware and virtual server architecture would not be worth it unless it guaranteed that it will handle the current overall population and should handle, through dynamic sizing, any reasonably anticipated future peak load.

From sad past experience, until your exact hardware (not some 'typical' or 'test' configuration) with your current software and your typical real-world demands (not some models or nice, polite benchmarks) are running, all you have are 'best guesses' - it is amazing how seemingly trivial loads on real systems become bottlenecks on specific hardware/software combinations. While the qualifications are hardly what we want to see (or what Vyvyanne wants to write), they are absolutely appropriate and necessary. The only thing weirder than the potential miss-matches of software and hardware are the amazingly unexpected things that those rack-a-fratzin' users ask the combination to do...

[cdq1958]

From sad past experience, until your exact hardware (not some 'typical' or 'test' configuration) with your current software and your typical real-world demands (not some models or nice, polite benchmarks) are running, all you have are 'best guesses' - it is amazing how seemingly trivial loads on real systems become bottlenecks on specific hardware/software combinations. While the qualifications are hardly what we want to see (or what Vyvyanne wants to write), they are absolutely appropriate and necessary. The only thing weirder than the potential miss-matches of software and hardware are the amazingly unexpected things that those rack-a-fratzin' users ask the combination to do...

That's true. They'll only know that should becomes will only after they go live. Thanks for the reminder. Decisions have to be made under uncertainty and legal had a say in the statement given to us. This is also why real life products go live with 'defects', known, unknown and unknowable. In economics perfect can never trump good enough for most customers, though the goal is to be great for all.

[Xhiu]

And here is a question for which I saw no answer or it was unclear that it was the answer:

To lessen the chances of item confusion or loss, it is recommended that you transfer any Kinship leaders first, then Home Owners, Shared items, and then other characters or all at once if they are going to the same world.

source
Most of the kin leaders I know, a couple at least have personal houses and kin houses. So if they transfer to a server they will be bringing 2 houses with them. Add to this, how can we get our neighborhoods back? I mean our kin has most of one neighborhood locked up. I can see where this can be a mess but is there any thought about this? Small servers coming to locked down servers, as far as housing goes, will need to scramble to regroup.

Way back a long time ago, when I was posting suggestions I thought might be brought to the table, I suggested that larger kins, with more than 20 accts or so, could bring up their own neighborhood.
/create kin zone
/name kin zone
list of names pops up.
1st name / 2nd name (not racist tsk tsk)
1st name variables Swift, Sw Ham, Hammo Sham et cet
2nd name variables Ham Hawft, etc
These two generated from name of kin
Last part of name depends on housing zone. Hobbit zone would be shire, delving, farthing, end, ton, farm, ings, and so on.
Display first selections:
Select none
Display second selections:
Select Ham
Display final selection
Select ton
New neighborhood Hamton

Create Neighborhood.
Restrictions: Must be rank 10 kin
Must have more than 10<20?> accounts

Swifham Delving?
Hammoshire
Swifty Pond?

Designers, you know you wanna create this.

Oh yeah, and if the leader doesn't want his house in his kin house neighborhood? Problem? Will the kin house know its a kin house and not a delux/standard when dropping the wide load on the new locale? Wouldn't an upgrade to housing be a good idea about now? Will permissions transfer? Will the kin/house chest magically appear in the house with all its contents or will we have to use the escrow broker? If escrow broker will the time be extended before decay so that the kin leader with his houses have time to move all the stuff to the new houses?

I am not the only one with a personal kin. I have a couple of accounts with me but not enough to make my own neighborhood, should that be dooable, or desireable. *hint: with this kinda neighborhood you could get rid of all kin houses but the kin house prime and turn them into deluxe houses. Nothing needs to change except the type of house given, e.g. allow the kin leader to drop his kin house at 4 Road and pick up the house at 2 Chalk Road as his personal house.

blah sidetracked my question...
tl;dr need more info

[Gandolf_TheOld]

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.

Because of what happens on Bullroarer and the E&G Tavern no character on Bullroarer can be transferred (copied, moved, what ever) off of Bullroarer. In other words do not move any of your characters to Bullroarer, you can copy, but do not move/transfer/what ever to Bullroarer. If you do, at the next character wipe you will loose all your characters, database wipes are a frequent occurrence on Bullroarer. I do think the copy feature will not let you move a character to Bullraorer, only copy.

[cdq1958]

And here is a question for which I saw no answer or it was unclear that it was the answer:

source
Most of the kin leaders I know, a couple at least have personal houses and kin houses. So if they transfer to a server they will be bringing 2 houses with them. Add to this, how can we get our neighborhoods back? I mean our kin has most of one neighborhood locked up. I can see where this can be a mess but is there any thought about this? Small servers coming to locked down servers, as far as housing goes, will need to scramble to regroup.

Way back a long time ago, when I was posting suggestions I thought might be brought to the table, I suggested that larger kins, with more than 20 accts or so, could bring up their own neighborhood.
/create kin zone
/name kin zone
list of names pops up.
1st name / 2nd name (not racist tsk tsk)
1st name variables Swift, Sw Ham, Hammo Sham et cet
2nd name variables Ham Hawft, etc
These two generated from name of kin
Last part of name depends on housing zone. Hobbit zone would be shire, delving, farthing, end, ton, farm, ings, and so on.
Display first selections:
Select none
Display second selections:
Select Ham
Display final selection
Select ton
New neighborhood Hamton

Create Neighborhood.
Restrictions: Must be rank 10 kin
Must have more than 10<20?> accounts

Swifham Delving?
Hammoshire
Swifty Pond?

Designers, you know you wanna create this.

Oh yeah, and if the leader doesn't want his house in his kin house neighborhood? Problem? Will the kin house know its a kin house and not a delux/standard when dropping the wide load on the new locale? Wouldn't an upgrade to housing be a good idea about now? Will permissions transfer? Will the kin/house chest magically appear in the house with all its contents or will we have to use the escrow broker? If escrow broker will the time be extended before decay so that the kin leader with his houses have time to move all the stuff to the new houses?

I am not the only one with a personal kin. I have a couple of accounts with me but not enough to make my own neighborhood, should that be dooable, or desireable. *hint: with this kinda neighborhood you could get rid of all kin houses but the kin house prime and turn them into deluxe houses. Nothing needs to change except the type of house given, e.g. allow the kin leader to drop his kin house at 4 Road and pick up the house at 2 Chalk Road as his personal house.

blah sidetracked my question...
tl;dr need more info

Thanks for the reminder, for one thing that I do want to be able to do, is to be able to have all of my accounts in one neighborhood. I have so many housing items now, collected by the 'little army' that grabbing extra kinship houses for the crafter kinship is becoming attractive. Splitting it into multiple kinships is not appealing and if I do that, they'll have to wait months for the lifetime rank to allow it. I will do that if necessary, though.

[cdq1958]

Because of what happens on Bullroarer and the E&G Tavern no character on Bullroarer can be transferred (copied, moved, what ever) off of Bullroarer. In other words do not move any of your characters to Bullroarer, you can copy, but do not move/transfer/what ever to Bullroarer. If you do, at the next character wipe you will loose all your characters, database wipes are a frequent occurrence on Bullroarer. I do think the copy feature will not let you move a character to Bullraorer, only copy.

I am wondering if they will open BR to let us test this via the Copy to Bullroarer function.

[maartena]

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.

I did the same thing, and actually ended up deleting half of them. I have tried many different servers over the years, and I had toons varying from level 4 and still in intro to mid-60s on a variety of servers. I am keeping anything that is over level 30 or so, but I pretty much deleted every toon lower than 30, and that helped clear some things up. I don't need to have ALL toons anymore.

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.

I am not going to ask anyone to change their name, whether they want to or not. First, rename tokens are bound and non-transferable. So in order for me to take on someone elses name, they would have to be given TP to buy a rename token. That can all be arranged (2x $7.99 on the store websites = 1200 TP, send the codes by email, a rename token is 995, and they get 205 TP for their trouble) but there is no guarantee they will actually buy a rename token, and there is no way for Turbine to enforce that, as you have no legally binding contract. Furthermore, you have no guarantee you will actually get the name, unless you are actually THERE when he renames. You could send the TP, and the person might decide to use the TP to buy a rename token, rename themselves..... at 8AM in the morning YOUR time, and you just arrived at work for a full day. You could find out that in the mean time, someone else came in and claimed the name. You can't blame the person you just bought TP for, because they did what they were told, although maybe not quite uncoordinated. And now you get to spend money again.

The other way is the same way: I play when I play. I usually START playing at 10 PM my time, till around midnight, and I am in PST. That means I start play at 1 AM on the US east coast, where most of the players are. I am not going to change my play time because someone wants me to rename my toon. Depending on the name, I might be perfectly willing to rename my toon if you send me TP for the rename token, but I will do it at a time of MY choosing, not yours. So if the other toon is on the east coast in the USA and not willing to be up between 1 AM and 3 AM, well... you may just have lost your name (again) when it comes morning, and there isn't much I can do about it.

Those will be my rules. I am never going to ask for a name. And if you happen to ask me and I oblige, it is on MY schedule, not yours.

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

Only those who are forced to rename get a token. Someone that has a name and doesn't have to rename, doesn't get a free rename token, they will have to buy one. (Or someone that wants the name, has to buy it for them).

[maartena]

I am wondering if they will open BR to let us test this via the Copy to Bullroarer function.

From what I am reading, yes. August 3d, Bullroarer will be open to copy characters to. What I do not know is if you can copy from ALL worlds. The verbiage make it sound it will only be from the 5 US and 5 EU worlds that have been selected to stay, but it could very well be that in the instance of Bullroarer it is for everyone.

I personally made a toon or two on Gladden, and plan to move em around servers a bit just to see how things go. No important name on those whatsoever.

[Eadreid]

Firstly apologies if this has been covered already, read the first few pages at work and just thought of a question to ask so not read the rest. Its regarding Kin houses and the items within:

I understand that we lose the house and all items go into Escrow to be re-acquired when we buy a house on the new server, and bound items get returned to their owners.

Now we are an old kin, been around since the start and as a result have acquired loads of trophies from raids, instances, events etc that are bound to a variety of people over the years. A lot of which no longer play the game. Are trophies such as this bound to those people? is there any way at all, via ticket etc, that we could get those items unbound? or are they bound to the kin leader whoever that is at the time of transfer?

Obviously if we were to lose those trophies, with a lot of memories, it would be far from ideal.

[Fratonia]

Now we are an old kin, been around since the start and as a result have acquired loads of trophies from raids, instances, events etc that are bound to a variety of people over the years. A lot of which no longer play the game. Are trophies such as this bound to those people? is there any way at all, via ticket etc, that we could get those items unbound? or are they bound to the kin leader whoever that is at the time of transfer?

Short answer - no. All bound items are returned to the owner no matter if he is active or not. If the owner doesn't exist anymore the item will be deleted.

[Gandolf_TheOld]

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?

Your answer lies in research, try this post, linked in the very first post of this thread

[Beaniemooch]

Firstly apologies if this has been covered already, read the first few pages at work and just thought of a question to ask so not read the rest. Its regarding Kin houses and the items within:

I understand that we lose the house and all items go into Escrow to be re-acquired when we buy a house on the new server, and bound items get returned to their owners.

Now we are an old kin, been around since the start and as a result have acquired loads of trophies from raids, instances, events etc that are bound to a variety of people over the years. A lot of which no longer play the game. Are trophies such as this bound to those people? is there any way at all, via ticket etc, that we could get those items unbound? or are they bound to the kin leader whoever that is at the time of transfer?

Obviously if we were to lose those trophies, with a lot of memories, it would be far from ideal.

If the characters that the trophies are bound to haven't been deleted then the trophies will go back to that person. They do not belong to the kinhouse. If the player doesn't log in and transfer to rejoin your kin you won't have the trophies anymore. If the characters that own the trophies were actually deleted, the trophies will also be deleted once the kinhouse is released by the leader at transfer time. There is no current way via ticket or otherwise to transfer ownership of bound trophy items.

[maartena]

Way back a long time ago, when I was posting suggestions I thought might be brought to the table, I suggested that larger kins, with more than 20 accts or so, could bring up their own neighborhood.

I think that is a Brilliant idea actually. It could be a rank 10 perk. I think a neighborhood has around 30 house spaces (kin houses included), so I would say the minimum for that would have to be 30 accounts, possibly even as much as 50 accounts for really the most active kins. The zones could be mostly "dormant" and only load up (just like an instance) when someone goes there so it takes minimal system resources, and if the kin is largely inactive it doesn't hog server resources.

For this to happen, I think the housing zones will need to be redesigned a little, for instance a kinship doesn't require 5 kinhouses, but maybe just one really big one in the middle complete with crafting facility, crafting guild vendors, forge/relic masters, a skirmish camp/hall, etc.

But yeah, we are digressing. That would be a nice topic for another forum, such as Player Suggestions.

[Gandolf_TheOld]

I am wondering if they will open BR to let us test this via the Copy to Bullroarer function.

Deleted original Post

See Post #728 below. That made original post oh so wrong...

Yep there will be test coping to Bullroarer

I stand corrected

[maartena]

Firstly apologies if this has been covered already, read the first few pages at work and just thought of a question to ask so not read the rest. Its regarding Kin houses and the items within:

I understand that we lose the house and all items go into Escrow to be re-acquired when we buy a house on the new server, and bound items get returned to their owners.

Now we are an old kin, been around since the start and as a result have acquired loads of trophies from raids, instances, events etc that are bound to a variety of people over the years. A lot of which no longer play the game. Are trophies such as this bound to those people? is there any way at all, via ticket etc, that we could get those items unbound? or are they bound to the kin leader whoever that is at the time of transfer?

Obviously if we were to lose those trophies, with a lot of memories, it would be far from ideal.

I asked that question, and the answer is no. (Vyvyanne replied to it a few pages back).

Anything that is bound will automatically be returned to their owners upon moving the kinship. If the player no longer is available on the server (because e.g. they moved servers a long time ago or they deleted their character, or they happen to move the day before YOU moved the kinship) the item will automatically fall into the fires of mount doom and is destroyed.

I had to return a Tower of Orthanc yesterday to someone that was bound. And I already know that this person had moved to Landroval several months ago, and therefore the item has now gone *poof*.

The reason they can't go unbound is because they are earned through hard work and sacrifice. I would have loved to be able to take that ToO to my new kinship house, especially since the person is no longer on the server anyways.... but alas.

[Eadreid]

damn thats what i thought would be the case but figured id check shame because we would lose some nice trophies gathered over the years and would be unlikely to get back.

Cheers for the answers

[maartena]

Where does this leave Vilya? A friend told me she had heard that Vilya has a high number of accounts, but very low activity. (If true, I attribute this to the trainloads of F2P players who came on after ROI and subsequently vanished.)

Is server size determined by the number of accounts, or the amount of activity?

probably by the amount of logins per hour, something that is also available here:

http://lux-hdro.de/hdro-live-us.php

If that is indeed the case, it looks like Riddermark might be the first to go along with Firefoot and Nimrodel each having around 3% of logins, followed next by Vilya, Elendilmir, Dwarrowdelf, Silverlode, Imladris each having around 4% of logins..... not necessary in that order.

[Arwen1793]

I was going to resist commenting on this as long as possible but can no longer.

Transferring people from one server and down the line is an absolute terrible idea. So many people have said time and time again that names and housing mean a lot to them. Turbines response is to ignore them. I feel awful for which ever server is the last group to transfer. It's extremely unfair that this group should have to wait while everyone else probably ends up taking their names, their kinship names, and housing. My kinship packed up already and was planning on going as soon as possible if our server were to shut down and now we realize, we may even end up staying on our server for a month or more. There could be better ways to handle the merges, transfers, whatever you want to call them. This is not one of them. IMO this is sloppy and not well thought out. I doubt they will delay anything now and everything is probably set in stone. It's rather unfortunate that it has to be this way.