World Transfers

[Nosdracir]

I've honestly never tried (it's kinda tacky, IMO, and not at all lore-friendly). You could be right. It might still be potentially possible to get a free rename if somehow you could transfer your real character with the -1 at the end to another server that also has a character of the same name and a -1 at the end. It does get considerably more complex that way, though.



That definitely could work! You'd still have to pay for the rename token, but at least this way you can indeed push the inactive character out of the way.

Definitely no special characters or numbers. I tried making vault characters for my played characters several times, and Ingo2, Ingo-b etc. are forbidden. So I've got Ingowardrobe. For my chrome dome Hobbit Rilibald I made a partially hairless Kindabald and an extremely hairy Notrilibald.

I've got Ingo on about ten servers. One is 100 and the rest are levels 5-7 except one who has been levelling via festival quests for years and made it to 15. Many of them will be sacrificed and the value of their goods transferred to a survivor. Going to be a bit of a waltz to get the 100 Ingo to another server if Elendilmir is closed.

[Fratonia]

"When transferring a character who owns a house on a world, the belongings and the history of the ownership of that house will go with that character to its new world. This means storage capacity, Upkeep Prepayments, Ownership time and Grace period time will all be remembered and applied to the house you might purchase on your destination world. When you log into the new world with your Home owner, you will find an email that will inform you of your previous address and will contain an attachment of currency equal to the purchase cost of the house.

I still wonder if it matters who buys the new house on the new server. Does it have to be the old house owner or can it be another character? The dev notes are not clear about that.

Picking the surviving EU servers is slightly more complicated because of the three languages. It is said that all languages get at least 1 server each and there will be 1 role play server which is most likely English based. Picking the first four is easy. Whether the 5th will be an English or a German server is a bit more tricky, and if it is German, will it be role play?

Here are the logins per language:

English Total: 162919
German Total: 121432
French Total: 41361

Using that information, it is clear that among the 5 servers to survive, about 40000 more English language logins are needed than German ones, so one might surmise that the 5th surviving server will also be English, and therefore most likely Snowbourn. But that of course is just speculation.

It's even more complicated than that. Providing only one German server will make that server more overloaded than Brandywine. Happy lagging...

[Alianne_EU]

Providing only one German server will make that server more overloaded than Brandywine. Happy lagging...

And if only two English servers, BOTH will be not far off Brandywine levels. I'm really glad I'm not the one having to make the decision on the fifth EU server.

[Milogson]

It's even more complicated than that. Providing only one German server will make that server more overloaded than Brandywine. Happy lagging...

Yepp, Brandywine, your position as #1 server for logins is about to get busted.

If all German servers get merged, all of those 121k logins will go to exactly ONE server... yehaaaw...

*sarcasm off* No, but getting serious again.

How on Earth does Turbine believe that any of their server structures can under any circumstances handle a total of 121k logins per day?
Even if Turbine assumes a loss of about 20% (ie ~ -22k-24k logins/day) due to German players abandoning the game we are still talking about ~100k logins per day.

That is way more (+12->+15%) than any other server has to handle currently (ie Brandywine). And that server is situated in the USA close to the data centers, ie comparatively low latencies with a predominant US population.
If the lag-situation on Brandywine truely is as bad as reported, get ready for a German mega-shhhh*t-storm hitting the forums as soon as the transfers are completed.

Especially when the latencies over the Atlantic already include an average of +120ms at the current tiny loads on the 6-EU-DE-servers...
I don't want to see the latencies with the current tech at a load of +121k logins/day.

But maybe Turbine is calculating with a German hiatus for 4 months during the transfer period... who knows?

Haaaappy la-aa-aaaaa-ggggg-iing-ing-ing-ing... :O -o!

[Leixy]

You should assume that, after the first week of the transfers, about 5-20% of people will stop playing LotRO because they didn't like the transfer process.

Your 120k will become less than 100k a few weeks after the transfers happen.

[Tatharil]

English Total: 162919
German Total: 121432
French Total: 41361

Using that information, it is clear that among the 5 servers to survive, about 40000 more English language logins are needed than German ones, so one might surmise that the 5th surviving server will also be English, and therefore most likely Snowbourn. But that of course is just speculation.

Well it's a quite hard decision. 3 EN-server would mean 200% more servers for 30% more logins. on the other hand 1 EN, 1 EN-RP, 1 DE, 1 DE-RP, 1 FR would mean DE getting same amount of servers for 25% less logins than EN.
No wonder they didn't decide what kind of server the 5th would be.

[Milogson]

You should assume that, after the first week of the transfers, about 5-20% of people will stop playing LotRO because they didn't like the transfer process.

Your 120k will become less than 100k a few weeks after the transfers happen.

Like I had said, I already calculated with a ~20% loss of population so we drop from ~121k to ~100k logins.
Assuming the max drop-out rate of ~20%. If it is only a ~5%-7% drop-out rate, it remains at a staggering ~110k +/-2k logins per day.

Both assumed login rates are still a load above what Brandywine has to suffer currently.

The problem with the current situation (which I simply assume will result in one German server, as I am being realistic) is that the bandwidth across the Atlantic adds a significant latency (lag) for a low load-out server. With a full-load out server any PvMP, or even a normally crowded other lag-prone situation like DA, or Osgilliath, will be virtually unplayable with the current tech.

So a move to Amsterdam BEFORE server transfers is the only reasonable alternative I can see here.
But again, that won't happen.

Many EU-servers will probably find the situation unbarable... even with the possibility of activating the processing power of the now defunct servers.
The problem will continue to grow when ever more ex-multi-server EU-players are transfered to their new target server(s), yet the old servers still have to be kept running because not everyone has transfered over.

The EN servers will probably escape the brunt of the lag cause they will probably recieve two servers (they probably will have to, otherwise their situation is going to be worse than the German server merges). Yet still jumping from an average of 25-27k logins/day/server to a total of around 65-70k logins per EN-server (assuming two servers plus one EN-RP-server, and after losses due to players quitting) will still be a significant burden. Having only a single EN server is no real alternative, as the load of around 135k logins (after ~20% player losses) is simply far too much for any server to handle.

That's why 6 EU-servers would be a lot more preferable choice (but again, I accept reality... Turbine has decided and probably won't budge on this).

[Mar-Evayave]

Definitely no special characters or numbers. I tried making vault characters for my played characters several times, and Ingo2, Ingo-b etc. are forbidden. So I've got Ingowardrobe. For my chrome dome Hobbit Rilibald I made a partially hairless Kindabald and an extremely hairy Notrilibald.

I've got Ingo on about ten servers. One is 100 and the rest are levels 5-7 except one who has been levelling via festival quests for years and made it to 15. Many of them will be sacrificed and the value of their goods transferred to a survivor. Going to be a bit of a waltz to get the 100 Ingo to another server if Elendilmir is closed.

lol Those names are very funny. xD I'm not a fan of silly names, but those ones are pretty good.

The biggest problem I've had with naming (since I started playing) is with some of the more common names I've used, like Siennah or Fay-alternatives. Usually adding an H somewhere has solved the issue for me, and after so many years with a bunch of extra H's, now it would seem weird to remove the H. As such, I'm likely to just leave my characters the way they are. I've got a few different Fay alts (Fayeh, Fayah, etc), and I've got a couple names I'll probably get rid of because they are just storage/crafting mules (that I will no longer need once I transfer my Ridder characters over).

But for those who are already on a big server (like Landroval) and who want a different name, in theory they should be able to transfer off and then transfer back in (after using a rename token) to bump inactive character names out of the way. It doesn't seem as though my method would work exactly as it is, and instead players would have to buy a rename token before transferring back, but it does seem possible in the very least.

Which server do you reckon you'll move Ingo to? Is that name common enough for other people to have used it too?

[Fratonia]

And if only two English servers, BOTH will be not far off Brandywine levels. I'm really glad I'm not the one having to make the decision on the fifth EU server.

Like I said earlier. They should put at least 6 servers to EU. 3x EN, 2x DE, 1x FR to cover the load at least. This will still piss off some people because for example FR will be losing their RP server.

[Lilka]

Point just made on main forums: - the server staggering could lead to three-way name clashes.

Lilka of Laurelin is inactive.
Lilke of Eldar eagerly awaits transfer to Laurelin.

However, Gilrain is allowed to transfer first. Lilka of Gilrain (perhaps created in the next 5 minutes by someone with a bad sense of humour) gets in there first, purely because their server was allowed to go first.

So maybe we should be reserving our names on all servers

[ainor]

I think you're failing to take into account that EN EU servers aren't just for those with English as their first language - my kin, although it has a significant population from the UK, has an equally sized Dutch contingent, as well as several from Serbia, Finland, Sweden etc. Our server also has a large Spanish community, and since the Russian servers closed, a Russian community too. You say that there should be an 'EU-allotherlanguages', but that smacks of ignorance of what things are actually like on an EN server.

The reason why I believe that the remaining EU servers should be EN-RP, DE, FR, EN and EN is because there is such a significant number of players that originally chose to come on to EN servers, rather than DE and FR, that there will be a significant overload if all non-DE and FR, and non-RPers end up on one server, that we may end up in the horrible situation of having as many players as Brandywine, and being unable to move for the lag. While, if there were 6 servers staying, I'd recommend a DE-RP server in addition, I don't think its likely.

Good points and signed. Ending up with just 1 (one!) non-RP EN-EU server would truly be horrible with massive overpopulation and lag!
We can only hope that T is aware of this.

Edit: Posted before I read the resent interesting posts by maartena, Milogson and Tatharil (stopped reading cause I got so tired of the naming discussion )
But the above post still sums up my opinion. And I do agree that 6 EU-servers would be a lot more preferable!

[Elennare]

I have a question about Title Picker Box. Tell me, please, will you make Russian names of servers (Mirkwood, Fornost, Aglarond) be able to be chosen as a title?

This question is very interesting for the part of the Russian players!

I know the title "of Mirkwood" is already available for some elves (from Mirkwood), but there are a few other different deeds grant the same titles. Maybe we have a chance?

[Tuco]

But for those who are already on a big server (like Landroval) and who want a different name, in theory they should be able to transfer off and then transfer back in (after using a rename token) to bump inactive character names out of the way. It doesn't seem as though my method would work exactly as it is, and instead players would have to buy a rename token before transferring back, but it does seem possible in the very least.

I think you can do this without buying a rename, if the fates allow. Transfer Oldname off your current server to one where you can keep your name (one of the other surviving servers), create a new Oldname on the old server, then transfer the real character back to become Oldname-1 with a free rename token. Of course if your new name is not available on the old server but can be supplanted, you'll need to do another do-si-do to another server to bigfoot the new name there and then transfer back.

The potential chain looks like it can get pretty long. I looked into this for a whimsically-named character on an EU server whose name would not pass muster on Laurelin, but who has a Steed of the Hunter and a Dusk-watch, so I don't want to just mulch him. Looks like a lot of people also took this name on the top five EU servers, though, so it'll make it hard to do the transfer with name change delicately. The one on Laurelin is really old, so if I transferred there directly I'd get the unwanted name. Maybe I should do that, then send the GMs a challenge on the lore-inappropriate name.

[Jarolas]

Our kin on Snowbourn has just celebrated its 8th anniversary in LOTRO. It's a wonderful achievement and pretty heartbreaking to think that the server which has been so fundamental to us may be on a screen somewhere being readied for execution. I really hope that every established kin on a dying server has a good plan for resurrection in their new server, and I equally hope the LOTRO community is ready to support those players who find themselves suddenly kinless or in an unfamiliar environment.

[Xhiu]

Xhiu, you know that no character on bullroarer, no matter how they got there, can be transferred/copied/moved from Bullroarer to any live server. Please do copy characters to Bullroarer to test the launcher version of the character copy/move utility.

You are correct. However, it used to be that no EU server could copy to BR. Then that changed.
After that EU and NA could not copy to BR on the same day. Someone needed to flip the switch.
Now all servers can copy to BR at the same time. THAT function could be used to allow transfers from EU to NA and back. I'm not saying it would be easy, or that coders have time for that. I just thought if the transfer/copy function was moved into the game the work involved in making that happen could, potentially, work to allow the cross server transfer.

Since I've never seen the inside of the spaghetti code that is lotro, let alone be able to read what it says or how it functions, It could be like grafting an orange branch onto an apple tree. /shrug

[Xhiu]

Our kin on Snowbourn has just celebrated its 8th anniversary in LOTRO. It's a wonderful achievement and pretty heartbreaking to think that the server which has been so fundamental to us may be on a screen somewhere being readied for execution. I really hope that every established kin on a dying server has a good plan for resurrection in their new server, and I equally hope the LOTRO community is ready to support those players who find themselves suddenly kinless or in an unfamiliar environment.

oh ohohohoh
Yes, rez date needs to be added to kin stats. Make it so, L.O.T.R.O.

[Thurallor]

I have a question about Title Picker Box. Tell me, please, will you make Russian names of servers (Mirkwood, Fornost, Aglarond) be able to be chosen as a title?

This would be a nice gesture for Russian players and easy for Turbine to implement, so I hope they do it.

[Xhiu]

I'm guessing the rank of the kin will not be mitigated for testing for the purpose of buying kin houses. Its one and done, I guess? No? I have 2 kin houses I can use atm but going to low pop servers and getting new kin houses for testing would take a great deal of time.. like months, to get to rank 7, no?

[Ellyllon]

When the transfers are complete & we're down to 5/5, I hope they come up with a way to switch servers *without* logging off & back on again. I'm just realizing, after server-testing, what a pain that is!

[maartena]

I'm guessing the rank of the kin will not be mitigated for testing for the purpose of buying kin houses. Its one and done, I guess? No? I have 2 kin houses I can use atm but going to low pop servers and getting new kin houses for testing would take a great deal of time.. like months, to get to rank 7, no?

Yep, 3 months.

The upside is of course that no one else can do this either, so if you found your spot it is likely not going to be claimed unless an existing kin on the server reaches rank 7, or a migrating kinship gets there before you. But there is not going to be pre-claiming of kinhouses, unless someone got smart and made a toon 6 months ago when this was all announced, leveled it up to make money to buy a kin house, and happen to guess the right server.

[Menathradon]

It's August 3rd.. will we be hearing of the servers closing during the patch or before? or after the patch in the mail?

let me know!

[maartena]

It's August 3rd.. will we be hearing of the servers closing during the patch or before? or after the patch in the mail?

let me know!

The announcement said patch notes will be available during the downtime.

Also realize it is Sunday August 2nd at Turbine. Although Turbine operates 24/7, 7 days a week, the regular office staff such as Frelorn and Vyvyanne generally do not, besides maybe doing the announcement that Frelorn did today (something he probably just forgot on Friday).

You will see the announcement some time during August 3d on Eastern Standard Time, which may already be August 4th in Australia.

[Milarien]

When the transfers are complete & we're down to 5/5, I hope they come up with a way to switch servers *without* logging off & back on again. I'm just realizing, after server-testing, what a pain that is!

Agreed! ...

[XanThorSr]

Friends list only have day/month. How will I know if a player is inactive from this years date or another past year?

Example: I Added a players name to my friends list. A name I have always wanted since starting. My friends list shows they last played in January. How do I know its this January or another past January?

If you are in a kin, look at the list and see if there are some members that haven't logged on in a long time. Add them to the friends list, then edit the friends list by date. Then you can see if that player that you are trying to determine the age is above or below the kin member.

I did this, had a kin member that last logged on 1208 days ago. When I added the player I was trying to determine the age, he appeared below the kin member. This way I knew for sure, he logged on over 3 years ago.

[elderlygamer]

The announcement about which servers will close is supposed to be sent in an in-game email. Some of us will be at work tomorrow. Can someone who will be in-game please post the list of servers and their statuses in this thread so those of us at work can either mope or do a happy dance? Thanks.

Also, is there a reason the message is only being sent in-game? People who left the game due to an empty server would probably want to know that servers were being merged. If they don't play any more they might never get the news.