World Transfers

[Olgomil]

This might have been asked already, but I might have missed it.
What will happen to my characters, which are on the American server, but I will be on the European server. Can I transfer them to the European server "world" i.e. from Riddermark to Laurelin?

Its not possible at all.

Sergio :-)

[Macroscian]

I would like the transfers to start up again. I've not seen any ETA on fixes since the last attempt, perhaps it was August 20. Not even sure there were any big problems, other than the servers lagging a bit.

[Marancil]

Mac, aug 20 was a thursday. Then came TGIF. Then came WEEKEND.

I am not holding my breath.

[lambowolf]

HEY TURBINE!

Would it hurt to just post an update of what the plans are?????

If you wanted to keep the transfers off over the weekend and monitor the log in issues of last week, NO PROBLEM

But bloody hell tell us this..

Sheesh!

[RJFerret]

HEY TURBINE!If you wanted to keep the transfers off over the weekend and monitor the log in issues of last week, NO PROBLEM

But bloody hell tell us this..

They did, not only that they apologized too, to quote the exec. producer in the announcement...

Due to the issues we have been seeing over the last couple days with logins, we have decided to turn the new transfer service off for the time being so that we can focus on correcting those issues before bringing the service back online and not risk errors.

We apologize for the delay and are doing all we can to remedy the situation ASAP.

[KaiHunter]

Anyone have an idea on when transfers will be back up, I did not feel like scrolling through 57 pages of drama and would appreciate it if a LotRO official/admin or forum official would please respond as I was looking greatly forward to playing my hunter on Landroval tonight after getting back from vacation but I cannot do so because he is stuck on gladden...

[Beaniemooch]

Anyone have an idea on when transfers will be back up, I did not feel like scrolling through 57 pages of drama and would appreciate it if a LotRO official/admin or forum official would please respond as I was looking greatly forward to playing my hunter on Landroval tonight after getting back from vacation but I cannot do so because he is stuck on gladden...

They don't normally work or post on weekends. You should hear more Monday if we're lucky.

[maartena]

HEY TURBINE!

Would it hurt to just post an update of what the plans are?????

If you wanted to keep the transfers off over the weekend and monitor the log in issues of last week, NO PROBLEM

But bloody hell tell us this..

Sheesh!

I don't know about your line of work, but even though the game runs 24/7, that does not mean everyone works 24/7. Turbine is not a hospital or police force, they run a game, not a critical service. A game. And just like most companies in the United States, Turbine employees get time off as what we generally refer to as "weekend". Vyvyanne and Frelorn are probably relaxing right now and will be back at work tomorrow.

Their weekend support staff keeps the servers running but they are not part of the team that communicates on the forums. Can you please let them enjoy their weekend, and wait till tomorrow? The game is running just fine right now...

[Meihan2]

Amen Maartena

[RJFerret]

Anyone have an idea on when transfers will be back up, I did not feel like scrolling through 57 pages...

Um, the post right above yours had the quote from the executive producer from the announcement.

[Marancil]

I don't know about your line of work, but even though the game runs 24/7, that does not mean everyone works 24/7. Turbine is not a hospital or police force, they run a game, not a critical service. A game. And just like most companies in the United States, Turbine employees get time off as what we generally refer to as "weekend". Vyvyanne and Frelorn are probably relaxing right now and will be back at work tomorrow.

Their weekend support staff keeps the servers running but they are not part of the team that communicates on the forums. Can you please let them enjoy their weekend, and wait till tomorrow? The game is running just fine right now...

Do they not have TGIF as well? I know we do...

[Shriya]

Well said Maartena!

[Tom58]

IMHO The transfers will be back when they get back. Short ,simple, to the point. Quit gripping and play yur game .

[Beaniemooch]

I don't know about your line of work, but even though the game runs 24/7, that does not mean everyone works 24/7. Turbine is not a hospital or police force, they run a game, not a critical service. A game. And just like most companies in the United States, Turbine employees get time off as what we generally refer to as "weekend". Vyvyanne and Frelorn are probably relaxing right now and will be back at work tomorrow.

Their weekend support staff keeps the servers running but they are not part of the team that communicates on the forums. Can you please let them enjoy their weekend, and wait till tomorrow? The game is running just fine right now...

And even in the United States most companies who are customer service-oriented businesses have customer service people available 24/7. It's called shift work.

[Ellyllon]

Is the gaming 'running fine' right now? I've had the weirdest issues with lag, with oddly timed 'reduced awareness,' & I'm hearing other people in chat reporting the same. I'm not on Brandywine - I'm on a soon-to-expire server. We've had strange issues with log ins, I've been bumped from the game several times, came back dead (when I wasn't in a dangerous spot) and other such things.

I don't expect them to abandon their lives or their weekends, but some updates would be nice.

[Daeranoth]

I don't know about your line of work, but even though the game runs 24/7, that does not mean everyone works 24/7. Turbine is not a hospital or police force, they run a game, not a critical service. A game. And just like most companies in the United States, Turbine employees get time off as what we generally refer to as "weekend". Vyvyanne and Frelorn are probably relaxing right now and will be back at work tomorrow.

Their weekend support staff keeps the servers running but they are not part of the team that communicates on the forums. Can you please let them enjoy their weekend, and wait till tomorrow? The game is running just fine right now...

I can see by this post that this person has never had to hold down a real job.
Most companies that provide a service, like Turbine, AT&T, Apple, and Staples just to name a few have call centers that take incoming calls 24/7. Those employees do get a "weekend" off it just that it might be in the middle of the week.

Turbine provides a service in the form of the games that they offer. That means that they should have support staff working 24/7 even if it is just a skeleton crew during the off hours. Also, they contract out to other companies to provide services that they need, mainly access to the internet. They to have staff working shifts in order to provide coverage 24/7.

But lets get back to the main issue. Turbine's lack of information to their subscribers. Turbine has never been good at providing timely updates either through the forums or through Facebook.

It's sad to say that do to this lack of customer service, I have just come to expect to be treated like a mushroom.

What's even worse, is that this lack of customer service a global problem in business today. But that's a topic for another rant on another forum.

[ShireDweller]

Is the gaming 'running fine' right now? I've had the weirdest issues with lag, with oddly timed 'reduced awareness,' & I'm hearing other people in chat reporting the same. I'm not on Brandywine - I'm on a soon-to-expire server. We've had strange issues with log ins, I've been bumped from the game several times, came back dead (when I wasn't in a dangerous spot) and other such things.

I don't expect them to abandon their lives or their weekends, but some updates would be nice.

I've been having the same issues as you this morning, also not on Brandywine but on one of the closing worlds.

[Ellyllon]

I've been having the same issues as you this morning, also not on Brandywine but on one of the closing worlds.

It's not the usual game lag, or seems different to me. It also has the unique ability to make me nauseous! 'Forward, back, urrrgh!' I notice it riding most often, but it's not the old, reliable rubber-banding, such as when you got stuck on a rock that you didn't see, because the server is in another dimension entirely. Anyway - it's been new to me. My daughter got dc-ed twice last night, & came back dead both times. I wondered if her Alternate Self had gone off the precipice of the world when she DCed, but she'd also gotten the 'reduced awareness despite being alone in the area.' I was actually nearby & didn't get it, so I guess I'm not sure how it works in the first place.

I assumed our old servers are on their last legs, coughing up blood & entrails, gaping rust holes in their sides, so I'm awaiting transfers with some hopes. Maybe Turbine is under attack, as Blizzard has been, because clearly something is amiss.

Either way, I'd like to hear an update on the transfers.

[Lagadelphia]

I can see by this post that this person has never had to hold down a real job.
Most companies that provide a service, like Turbine, AT&T, Apple, and Staples just to name a few have call centers that take incoming calls 24/7. Those employees do get a "weekend" off it just that it might be in the middle of the week.

Turbine provides a service in the form of the games that they offer. That means that they should have support staff working 24/7 even if it is just a skeleton crew during the off hours. Also, they contract out to other companies to provide services that they need, mainly access to the internet. They to have staff working shifts in order to provide coverage 24/7.

But lets get back to the main issue. Turbine's lack of information to their subscribers. Turbine has never been good at providing timely updates either through the forums or through Facebook.

It's sad to say that do to this lack of customer service, I have just come to expect to be treated like a mushroom.

What's even worse, is that this lack of customer service a global problem in business today. But that's a topic for another rant on another forum.

Did you really just compare Turbine with companies like Apple and AT&T? They are multi-billion dollar corporations so of course they have, and more importantly, can afford 24/7 support. Just how many people and how much money do you think Turbine has? I would wager that just one of the afore mentioned companies has more janitorial staff in one of their campuses than Turbine has total employees and you expect Turbine to provide 24/7 support? You lack perspective.

[Vyvyanne]

I am working on a longer update now to include estimated time frames, etc but all of that needs translation after I am done writing it, so it might be a day or two before it can go up.

In the meantime our Operations team is still looking into login issues to assure we dont see more of what we encountered last week before we turn transfer services back on. We are also working on another patch to resolve a few edge case issues in transfers that we found in the time it was on last week.

Like I noted in my original post about this transfer process. It will be a slow and steady process as there are a lot of moving parts involved.

If you are still seeing odd disconnect or login issues on the live services, please start a new thread on the subject so we can track it and look into it appropriately and post which server you are on when seeing it.

[Padrin]

many thanks for the info Vyv

[maartena]

I can see by this post that this person has never had to hold down a real job.
Most companies that provide a service, like Turbine, AT&T, Apple, and Staples just to name a few have call centers that take incoming calls 24/7. Those employees do get a "weekend" off it just that it might be in the middle of the week.

Turbine provides a service in the form of the games that they offer. That means that they should have support staff working 24/7 even if it is just a skeleton crew during the off hours. Also, they contract out to other companies to provide services that they need, mainly access to the internet. They to have staff working shifts in order to provide coverage 24/7.

But lets get back to the main issue. Turbine's lack of information to their subscribers. Turbine has never been good at providing timely updates either through the forums or through Facebook.

It's sad to say that do to this lack of customer service, I have just come to expect to be treated like a mushroom.

What's even worse, is that this lack of customer service a global problem in business today. But that's a topic for another rant on another forum.

You don't know what you are talking about. I am an infrastructure specialist for a large multinational company with resources and data centers in all economic zones, and I work over 60 hours a week. Don't judge me based on a forum post, because you have absolutely NO idea what my job is, and how "real" my job is.

I get it. I support systems that are critical. I support systems that when they are down, my company is losing $100,000 an hour while they are down, so I am WELL AWARE how critical around the clock support is, and because of that we have fully staffed support teams in all time zones that can jump in to a problem immediately, and resolve it before the next time zone even wakes up. Turbine has this kind of 24/7 support, and when servers fail, a whole lot of cell phones start ringing. But you have to realize it isn't the kind of support system a multi-billion dollar company like AT&T and Apple have in place.

And all this has NOTHING to do with the Executive producer of this game, and the Community manager, both of whom have been tasked to do the communication with the players. They are NOT a 24/7 critical staff, they are NOT required to answer questions 24/7 a day, and they do NOT run the servers.

Vyvyanne and Frelorn have actually been working their collective asses off, and they have been more then willing to provide updates throughout the week, and they have been much more communicative then previous staff. They have continued to update us on the transfers throughout last week, and now you are telling me they don't deserve a weekend without having to think about the game because you can't wait till after the weekend to hear about an update regarding your virtual characters inside a game? Shame on you. They are NOT 24/7 server operators to keep the game running. They are NOT the people who man the support phone who answer basic billing and support questions. They are the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and the COMMUNITY MANAGER, and although they have been posting outside of working hours (especially when there unplanned outages), it is not part of their job description. So please, get with the real world and give them their weekend like you and me.

On thing you need to realize is that this is still a GAME we are talking about. A GAME. Not a police force. Not a 24/7 ambulance post. Not a wallstreet trading company that needs 24/7 access to markets world wide. Not a cable news station that covers the globe 24/7.... No, we are talking about a GAME. Something purely pleasurable, something that no one is hurt by if it doesn't work for a few hours. The companies you mention above are the kind of companies that are poised to lose $100,000 an hour or even MILLIONS an hour when systems are down, and if you think that a game like LOTRO, which has been having to consolidate servers because there are fewer and fewer players are withing the SAME ball park as Staples, AT&T and Apple, you have no idea about the size of the company, the game, and what makes financial sense as to how to allocate support.

When something happens to turbine servers in the middle of the night, they will fix it. Will they have to call someone out of bed? Maybe. Does that person has to drive to drive through Boston in the middle of the night to reset a hardware piece? Possible, if remote access isn't working right. But Turbine doesn't have the budget to man a 24/7 call center, because they are NOT the size of AT&T, Apple, or Staples. And your $14.99 a month price point is no where near high enough to guarantee that. They have 24/7 back-end support that watch the servers closely, and if they need to allocate some more personnel, they will start calling people. But do they owe you a detailed explanation right there, right then as to what happened? Negative. You do not have that kind of SLA with Turbine.

Finally, my message to you is this. If you think that a GAME should have a Service Level Agreement that rivals AT&T or Apple, and needs a similar budget as AT&T or Apple, feel free to leave this game and play that game. You won't find one. And keep in mind you probably pay at least $75 a month for your AT&T powered Apple iPhone.....

[ShireDweller]

It's not the usual game lag, or seems different to me. It also has the unique ability to make me nauseous! 'Forward, back, urrrgh!' I notice it riding most often, but it's not the old, reliable rubber-banding, such as when you got stuck on a rock that you didn't see, because the server is in another dimension entirely. Anyway - it's been new to me. My daughter got dc-ed twice last night, & came back dead both times. I wondered if her Alternate Self had gone off the precipice of the world when she DCed, but she'd also gotten the 'reduced awareness despite being alone in the area.' I was actually nearby & didn't get it, so I guess I'm not sure how it works in the first place.

I assumed our old servers are on their last legs, coughing up blood & entrails, gaping rust holes in their sides, so I'm awaiting transfers with some hopes. Maybe Turbine is under attack, as Blizzard has been, because clearly something is amiss.

Either way, I'd like to hear an update on the transfers.

LOL at the image of the poor old servers gasping out their last breaths!

The looping back and forth while riding reminds me a watching a Vine clip - endlessly repeating the same few seconds over and over. That one makes me exit the game when it happens to me.

Also, thanks for the update, Vyvyanne, much appreciated.

[maartena]

I am working on a longer update now to include estimated time frames, etc but all of that needs translation after I am done writing it, so it might be a day or two before it can go up.

In the meantime our Operations team is still looking into login issues to assure we dont see more of what we encountered last week before we turn transfer services back on. We are also working on another patch to resolve a few edge case issues in transfers that we found in the time it was on last week.

Like I noted in my original post about this transfer process. It will be a slow and steady process as there are a lot of moving parts involved.

If you are still seeing odd disconnect or login issues on the live services, please start a new thread on the subject so we can track it and look into it appropriately and post which server you are on when seeing it.

Thank you so much for the update, this is much appreciated.

I have been logging in to the game all weekend on and off without any issues.

I have one question: In the bullroarer patch of early last week (when it was up for a few days), it was mentioned that you could transfer your shared account items from server A to server B, but you could not move them BACK from server B to server A for at least two weeks. However, you could transfer the shared items on to server C if you wanted to. For the short time transfers were live with the European servers, someone reported this exact behavior transferring between Evernight and Laurelin servers. Can you confirm the 2-week policy is part of the official roll-out?

(And is that done so people can't transfer shared items back and forth on a whim so they essentially "share" all of the "shared" items, and use them on different servers as they see fit, and just decide in the morning where they should be then? E.g. you want to dress up a toon on server B, so you transfer your shared items to B, then use the wardrobe, and when all done, you transfer it back to A. - Makes sense as to why you would want to impose a 2-week delay to prevent that kind of abuse).

[Zithlinraiss]

+1 Maartena! That's the most reasonable and coherent post I've read in a long time. I'm as anxious as the next person about what's going to happen but as you pointed out, it's just a game. Been pleased so far as to info being released. I have a wish list mind you, hint: deep discount on the char slots, but so far things have been on the upswing lately.