World Transfers

[Radbug]

You should be fine according to the article to transfer. At that point, the servers will probably be closed to play but the option to transfer will remain free indefinitely.

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers

On October 1st, transfers between the remaining ten will once again become paid, however transfers off of the impacted worlds will remain free indefinitely.

That information is now woefully out of date.

[Fratonia]

That information is now woefully out of date.

This doesn't apply to the statement that transfers from closing worlds will remain free indefinitely. So Hammadryad could transfer his characters from Withywindle end of next year for free if he chooses to wait that long.

[Vyvyanne]

We have now turned on the EU remaining worlds for intra-transfer until tomorrow at around noon EST when all transfers will be shut off again until the next round.

[RJFerret]

On October 1st, transfers between the remaining ten will once again become paid, however transfers off of the impacted worlds will remain free indefinitely.

This is no longer the case, Vyvyanne has previously stated it might be pushed back, but now they are talking about having a limited number of free transfers rather than a date cut off, however they hadn't concluded that decision yet, so look for a future announcement/post.

The big question on my mind is how long we will have to use the free tranfer option when our servers actually close.

Forever. IE, as long as the game is operational, you could come back in 2017 and still transfer off a closed world free. When they renew the license, you could come back in 2020 and do the same.

Do I have to do this in this time or will it be turned back on again after they look at the data? I would prefer to wait a bit until they worked out the problems and not rush to do it. Sorry about this silly question but so much is going on I can't keep up! Thanks for listening.

You do not have to do it now, now is just to test the load on the systems. It's not a silly question at all, the info about it is buried in replies. Vyvyanne (the executive producer) mentioned elsewhere she wanted to have at least a month of free transfers available to everyone. They are discussing not having a cut off date but simply a number of times folks may freely transfer. So no rush, wait until you are comfy in a week or few.

[VeryBeary]

My overall experience with the transfers has been really good. I am noting a few issues here, not to complain, but for constructive feedback to the Turbine team.

--One character transferred, landing with a Name-1, but no rename token was offered. Sounds like I should file an in-game bug report on that. Luckily it is an unimportant character to me, should it somehow not get changed.

--I transferred several characters to one server, and they all made it but one. I have copied and saved the text in the transfer window that the missing one was definitely selected to move. However, when I tried it again today, that person made it safely over to their new server. I can report they are thrilled to be in a new and happier home ;-)...

--Wardrobe...I deleted all but eleven items from the server wardrobe I was leaving, after carefully cross-checking with the destination server what unique items I was missing. I did this to ensure I got those unique items and only those, and to make things easier for me to sort out. The items didn't show up for 24 hours, and possibly only after I did a "transfer shared items" process again. However, I realized after the eleven items showed up, that the count of items in the destination shared wardrobe was correct--so for some reason the new wardrobe items took a day to be visible, just fyi. I also note that the eleven items are also still present on the server they left, a remaining world, of course.

--Finally, I never got an email, even though I know Turbine has my correct email for the account. In all, I made five transfer actions, one on EU, when it was first available, three yesterday and one today in the U.S. sector, mostly involving multiple characters and shared items, all successful, but no email. It didn't matter to me, but I am telling you as a fyi.

Thank you very much! I am so delighted I was able to do this, and look forward later to moving characters and shared items from closing servers.

[Tarlywyn]

--Finally, I never got an email, even though I know Turbine has my correct email for the account. In all, I made five transfer actions, one on EU, when it was first available, three yesterday and one today in the U.S. sector, mostly involving multiple characters and shared items, all successful, but no email. It didn't matter to me, but I am telling you as a fyi.

Transfer emails seem to be linked to whether or not you receive regular Lotro newletters or not - an option given at account creation, but (as far as I can tell) not an option you can activate once an account is made. Out of 3 accounts I've tested, I've only received a transfer email for the account I get Lotro newletters for. Store purchase emails seem to bypass this restriction, as I get them on all accounts. Please either change the behaviour of the transfer emails to act like the purchase emails, or give us an option to activate Lotro newsletters (unless there's a way already I haven't discovered).

[Srale]

We have now turned on the EU remaining worlds for intra-transfer until tomorrow at around noon EST when all transfers will be shut off again until the next round.

I tested transfers off and on Laurelin - this time everything working like a charm. I trensferd freeps and creeps. It is cool that I can have more than 6 creeps now. Thanks!

[Shriya]

Transfer emails seem to be linked to whether or not you receive regular Lotro newletters or not - an option given at account creation, but (as far as I can tell) not an option you can activate once an account is made. Out of 3 accounts I've tested, I've only received a transfer email for the account I get Lotro newletters for. Store purchase emails seem to bypass this restriction, as I get them on all accounts. Please either change the behaviour of the transfer emails to act like the purchase emails, or give us an option to activate Lotro newsletters (unless there's a way already I haven't discovered).

I just looked under the "My Account" options. There is an option called Notification Preferences. I never looked at this option before, but I did now. It gives you the possibility to "Sign up to receive emails from Warner Bros.". Maybe that helps? Although I'm aware an account here on the site/forum, doesn't necessarily mean it's the same as your game account.

As for receiving the newsletters, I found an old newsletter and clicked the link to update my preferences. There I have the option to change my email address. It doesn't work though. I get an error message (There was an error saving your subscriber information. Please try again later.), so that wasn't helpful at all....

It seems not related to my game account though, so I doubt that it would help if it worked........

[Radbug]

This doesn't apply to the statement that transfers from closing worlds will remain free indefinitely. So Hammadryad could transfer his characters from Withywindle end of next year for free if he chooses to wait that long.

So it's accurate in some places, but not others?

What could possibly go wrong?

[Radbug]

UPDATE: After my initial hiccup, I have transferred 6 characters without a hitch, two at a time, with their associated currencies and shared currency all intact, plus one creep. My new house, bought on the new server with my old home owner has the right number of slots. The gazillions of relics stored in the LI UI are all there (wasn't sure they would move across).

Credit given where credit is due. Looks like a job well done.

[Tarlywyn]

I just looked under the "My Account" options. There is an option called Notification Preferences. I never looked at this option before, but I did now. It gives you the possibility to "Sign up to receive emails from Warner Bros.". Maybe that helps? Although I'm aware an account here on the site/forum, doesn't necessarily mean it's the same as your game account.

As for receiving the newsletters, I found an old newsletter and clicked the link to update my preferences. There I have the option to change my email address. It doesn't work though. I get an error message (There was an error saving your subscriber information. Please try again later.), so that wasn't helpful at all....

It seems not related to my game account though, so I doubt that it would help if it worked........

I thought this might have been it too, but the account I get newsletters on has the WB emails option 'unticked'. I've 'ticked' it on one of my other accounts to see, but I'll probably be leaving transfers till they open up again later.

Edit: you can change your email address through My Account - I've done this successfully, changing from a hotmail to gmail address.

Edit 2: actually the option to change the email address might have been through the My Turbine account area - I'll go check. Yeah it's in the Account Profile tab when you log in at https://myaccount.turbine.com/index.php

[slashmcbain]

When I came to the game there was no mention of servers being EU or US based so although I am from the UK I started my guys on Nimrodel(US server), have I got to stick with to the US servers with these transfers, could have sworn I read that somewhere, but can't find it now??
I'm not to bothered being on a US server, with the time difference it actually allows a few quiet hours of Deeding etc., but just thought it might be nice to move to a closer time set to myself.

[Radbug]

My overall experience with the transfers has been really good. I am noting a few issues here, not to complain, but for constructive feedback to the Turbine team.

--One character transferred, landing with a Name-1, but no rename token was offered. Sounds like I should file an in-game bug report on that. Luckily it is an unimportant character to me, should it somehow not get changed.

Did you check your alerts panel? The rename is done through that, it's not a physical item.

[Fratonia]

So it's accurate in some places, but not others?

What could possibly go wrong?

The timeline has changed but that doesn't mean that all statements are now invalid. We can't play any longer on the closing worlds once they are shut down. Therefore our characters on those worlds can transfer indefinitely for free to one of the worlds that remain. The closure date may not be the start of the new year as announced because of the current delays but we will see about that.
At the moment I'm quite relaxed about the transfers because they seem to be working fine. A few hiccups here and there but nothing major that could lead to the impression that we won't get this over with soon(tm).

[VeryBeary]

Did you check your alerts panel? The rename is done through that, it's not a physical item.

Yes, I know, I used the word token loosely. I had the proper alert on two other characters, and used it, just not on the third.

[Krazyus]

We have now turned on the EU remaining worlds for intra-transfer until tomorrow at around noon EST when all transfers will be shut off again until the next round.

Hi vyvyanne. Ferlorn said in other topic that we should no longer have servers that we never logged in our transfer options, but im still having gladden on my options, well i only have Gladden and i never logged into it. I already sent a ticket to turbine 2 days ago and nothing from you. Pls tell me something. Thanks in advance.

[Bado]

I am sorry, but am I being dim here?

I simply want to transfer 1 toon I have on Withywindle to Laurelin, yet the only world that appears in my transfer window is Laurelin and it quite clearly states 'select the server that you would like to transfer characters FROM'
Seems strange that the worlds that are closing are not included yet the ones that are remaining are.
*confused.com

[Laire]

I am sorry, but am I being dim here?

I simply want to transfer 1 toon I have on Withywindle to Laurelin, yet the only world that appears in my transfer window is Laurelin and it quite clearly states 'select the server that you would like to transfer characters FROM'
Seems strange that the worlds that are closing are not included yet the ones that are remaining are.
*confused.com

Right now so as to not tax the system, they only opened up transfers from remaining worlds to remaining worlds-- all closing worlds do not have transfers open to them yet.

That way they can still work out any remaining kinks in the system without getting overloaded.

[RJFerret]

Seems strange that the worlds that are closing are not included yet the ones that are remaining are.

Not sure why, in every announcement they said remaining open worlds first to complete the testing process. This will be turned off Friday. At some future point in time, remaining open worlds will be able to transfer again, and just two smallest worlds in the order of the announced list.

[Legoross]

I know that i have been beating a dead horse, but this is for the system admins. my inquiry is into what i have said before, i would like to go to laurilin yet i am in a us server (dwarrowdelf) i have since been told that i can not transfer from us to eu and i wondered why? is it to do with that both the eu and us servers are not directly linked and when i chose dwarrowdelf all my info was inputted on to a separate software to eu? it seems to me that the characters we create and the things we do equal to data right? so why is that data only limited to the country? i live in the eu, chose dwarrowdelf cos i liked the name lol. i just wanted to know the process behind it and why transfers cannot be made nationally, it seems odd to me when it all comes down to data, is it not just grabbing all the data from one server frame and dropping it into another? or am i being silly lol

[Amrundir]

is it not just grabbing all the data from one server frame and dropping it into another? or am i being silly lol

It was many times answered in this forum. As long as all data (database keys) is unique, it's not a problem. But that's just not the case. Period.

[Bado]

Right now so as to not tax the system, they only opened up transfers from remaining worlds to remaining worlds-- all closing worlds do not have transfers open to them yet.

That way they can still work out any remaining kinks in the system without getting overloaded.

Thanks, for the answer to my question, I was being dim.

[Abejita]

Well I canceled my membership and still couldnt move..I been trying to move for over a month now even trying to BUY the tokens to move.. My other accounts moved no problem but my main account i play refuses to.. So i guess i won't be renewing my subscription and probaly won't play for awhile then...

I have 1 toon on the server i play the most now.. i think if you already have 1 toon on the server your on you should be able to move your other toon's specially since it's on 1 account considering you can only log in with 1 account between your toon's on that account.

It seems quite obvious that you have not been reading the forum announcements. If you had, you would know that you do not buy tokens to move and you do not have to cancel membership to move.

I suspect, though I can't tell for sure, that your main server is one that is going to close. This means that you have not been allowed to move yet, so trying is futile.

If your main server is one of the five that are remaining and you are trying to move to another remaining server but cannot move yesterday or today, you need to submit a ticket and a bug report.

[RJFerret]

i have since been told that i can not transfer from us to eu and i wondered why?

Because of conflicts in the data. Codemasters didn't use unique identifiers from Turbine. The result would be losing your character(s) as well as someone else's. Least damaging would be to create a brand new character instead, this way only you affect yourself rather than destroying some stranger's game.

[maartena]

I know that i have been beating a dead horse, but this is for the system admins. my inquiry is into what i have said before, i would like to go to laurilin yet i am in a us server (dwarrowdelf) i have since been told that i can not transfer from us to eu and i wondered why? is it to do with that both the eu and us servers are not directly linked and when i chose dwarrowdelf all my info was inputted on to a separate software to eu? it seems to me that the characters we create and the things we do equal to data right? so why is that data only limited to the country? i live in the eu, chose dwarrowdelf cos i liked the name lol. i just wanted to know the process behind it and why transfers cannot be made nationally, it seems odd to me when it all comes down to data, is it not just grabbing all the data from one server frame and dropping it into another? or am i being silly lol

It's not that simple. Codemasters used the same numbering system in their database to uniquely identify a character. Say both started numbering at 0000001, they now have two databases with unique numbering, but many, many, many double numbers, if not 99% of characters. These unique identifiers connect to thousand upon thousands of entries in the character database, and connect to dozens of other databases running along side, such as those for housing, vault contents, your skirmish statistics, etc, etc, etc. They are SO interconnected in such a big web, it would almost be impossible to change out all of the unique identifiers in one database and add them to the other database. Such an undertaking will most likely mean that both databases need to be shut down, one exported to some form of RAW format, have some system to go in and change all of those raw numbers to a new numbering system, and subsequently importing that raw data into the current US database. During this, there can also be NO new changes (ANY changes) to the US database.

Speaking from experience with large ERP system conversions, this would likely mean the entire game will need to be shut down for around a week, and that is assuming that nothing goes wrong. The cost of doing this is probably so large, it would not make ANY financial sense, and they would never recoup the cost of doing this, even if they were to raise the character transfer price to $100 (or EUR 100) after this is all said and done. Doing this would probably mean they LOSE money on it, and NO business would step into a venture if they weren't reasonably sure it would turn a profit, or help the bottom line.

The reason that COPIES (understand the difference!) to Bullroarer works from both and EU and US works most if the time, is because information is being copied to a third database, and if information gets lost in that database, nothing is lost really. The issue does also exist there, but ONLY if a US character with the exact same unique identifier copies to bullroarer, and e.g. an hour later the EU character with that unique identifier also tries to copy. That last character will be getting an error that is isn't possible. Since Bullroarer is only used during beta testing, and when it is it is usually not used by more than 1% of the players, the chances that 2 characters with the same unique ID is unimaginably small and an acceptable risk. It DOES happen however, and if your character can't copy, that is the reason why.

With a transfer from US to EU or vice versa, there is pretty much a 99% guarantee that your unique ID already exist on the other side.

Lastly, with the 5 remaining servers in place I believe there is a lot less need for transfers between the realms, so less people would be buying such a transfer if it were to be developed..... as the population of all remaining servers will probably mean you can raid around the clock.