World Transfers

[maartena]

1) Yes, Character creation will be disabled on closing worlds as they are opened for transfer

2) I would recommend waiting to move your characters if Brandywine is where you know you want to go and you want to guarantee a free move. We will be implementing some sort of limited free grant for moves between remaining worlds but how free that will be and the timing is still being decided.

Thanks for the answers!

[Erroldor]

Vyvyanne, I'm fortunate not to be on a closing world, but I'm following this with interest. I think you and your team are doing a great job of keeping your customers abreast of what is going on and I thank you for it. Still this made me smile and I have to wonder, have you ever considered running for public office?

..... We will be implementing some sort of limited free grant for moves between remaining worlds but how free that will be and the timing is still being decided.

[MasterOfNothing]

Still this made me smile and I have to wonder, have you ever considered running for public office?

Lol, the "how free it will be" part made me smile to.
I think there is some rather honest thinking behind it

- it has always been stated that transfers between the remaining worlds will be free for a limited time
- however, the current implementation (that was live for a couple of days) can be abused for practically unlimited multiple transfers back and forth
- I think Vyv and team are working on a solution that will allow free transfers between the remaining servers for a limited time, with a limited number of moves

just my two cents

[Kolde]

We will monitor these transfers and the health of the populations of the destination worlds and will move on to the next two worlds in the weeks following if all is well.

Could we get a clear explanation of "the health of the populations" that are going to be monitored? This is the concern of the last servers to be allowed to transfer. You guys have said that the new hardware could have supported the entire LotRO population on just one US and one EU server. So from your own words, hardware is not a reason to limit transfers to any of the remaining worlds. However, you keep mentioning that you are going to monitor the populations on the servers people are moving to. Does that mean you will stop transfers to a world if too many people go there? Please clarify this, this limbo is getting very frustrating. If we "know" what server we are going to move to, are you going to just decide to stop us from moving there? If we move our kinship to our chosen world, then you guys decide "that's enough" for that world, will our kinship members be blocked from joining us? If our friends move over, will we be blocked from meeting them there?

What are you monitoring and why are you monitoring it?

(My apologies if this has already been answered, but I haven't found an answer.)

[ComicRelief]

For now closing worlds take priority. We will turn transfers for remaining worlds back on after the new hardware is in place which is looking like it will be towards the end of Fall.

Will all of the (remaining) worlds be transferred to new hardware at the same time, or will the moves be staggered? If the latter, is there a (tentative) schedule outlining which worlds will be moved when?

My intent is to remain on my current, closing world(s) until after the (desired) remaining world(s) has/have moved to the new hardware. Assuming they move one at a time, it would be nice to have an idea of when each world will make the move (knowing the standard disclaimers apply: subject to change, et. al.)

[FittyBolger]

From the "First World Transfers Opening!" thread Vyv says:

"On September 14th we will begin transfers off of the first two of our closing worlds Elendilmir- US and Estel- EU. On that day the transfer button will appear in the launcher and allow players to move characters and accounts for free from Elendilmir and Estel ONLY"

Does the above mean that people who jump their server queue time slot will be charged the $25 transfer fee?
If that is the case... There are many who will click that shiny new transfer button in ignorance I fear.

[Vyvyanne]

Could we get a clear explanation of "the health of the populations" that are going to be monitored? This is the concern of the last servers to be allowed to transfer. You guys have said that the new hardware could have supported the entire LotRO population on just one US and one EU server. So from your own words, hardware is not a reason to limit transfers to any of the remaining worlds. However, you keep mentioning that you are going to monitor the populations on the servers people are moving to.

What are you monitoring and why are you monitoring it?

We are monitoring populations on the destination servers because those servers are not yet on the new hardware. We are allowing players to move to the remaining worlds from the smaller population worlds to improve their play experience now, while we are building out the new data center. So we have to make sure that we are not taxing the current hardware while starting those moves. We do not believe this will be a problem at the rate we are going, but we always have to be prepared.

There will be a date in the late Fall time frame when we expect to be built out in the new data center and on that date all the worlds will be brought down for maintenance and when they are brought back up all worlds will be in the new data center. At that point we expect to open transfers to all the servers including Brandywine and will be less concerned about population affecting performance.

[Laire]

From the "First World Transfers Opening!" thread Vyv says:

"On September 14th we will begin transfers off of the first two of our closing worlds Elendilmir- US and Estel- EU. On that day the transfer button will appear in the launcher and allow players to move characters and accounts for free from Elendilmir and Estel ONLY"

Does the above mean that people who jump their server queue time slot will be charged the $25 transfer fee?
If that is the case... There are many who will click that shiny new transfer button in ignorance I fear.

'
You do not have to worry about this. When they opened transfers between servers remaining open as a preemptive stress test and working out any remaining bugs, it only showed the servers remaining open as servers you could transfer off of.

So when it opens on the 14th, you'll only see Elendilmir and Estel as servers you can actually transfer off of, and then the other 4 or 5 to transfer to (depending on which server you select and discluding Brandywine).

[Vyvyanne]

From the "First World Transfers Opening!" thread Vyv says:

"On September 14th we will begin transfers off of the first two of our closing worlds Elendilmir- US and Estel- EU. On that day the transfer button will appear in the launcher and allow players to move characters and accounts for free from Elendilmir and Estel ONLY"

Does the above mean that people who jump their server queue time slot will be charged the $25 transfer fee?
If that is the case... There are many who will click that shiny new transfer button in ignorance I fear.

It means that on Monday Estel and Elendilmir will be the only worlds on the Transfer Wizard World Selection Screen. If you do not have any characters on those worlds, your Transfer Wizard option menu will be empty until we make transfers available to worlds you have characters on. Regardless, transfers off of Closing worlds will always be free.

[Kolde]

We are monitoring populations on the destination servers because those servers are not yet on the new hardware. We are allowing players to move to the remaining worlds from the smaller population worlds to improve their play experience now, while we are building out the new data center. So we have to make sure that we are not taxing the current hardware while starting those moves. We do not believe this will be a problem at the rate we are going, but we always have to be prepared.

There will be a date in the late Fall time frame when we expect to be built out in the new data center and on that date all the worlds will be brought down for maintenance and when they are brought back up all worlds will be in the new data center. At that point we expect to open transfers to all the servers including Brandywine and will be less concerned about population affecting performance.

Thank you for explaining.

[FittyBolger]

'
You do not have to worry about this. When they opened transfers between servers remaining open as a preemptive stress test and working out any remaining bugs, it only showed the servers remaining open as servers you could transfer off of.

So when it opens on the 14th, you'll only see Elendilmir and Estel as servers you can actually transfer off of, and then the other 4 or 5 to transfer to (depending on which server you select and discluding Brandywine).

It means that on Monday Estel and Elendilmir will be the only worlds on the Transfer Wizard World Selection Screen. If you do not have any characters on those worlds, your Transfer Wizard option menu will be empty until we make transfers available to worlds you have characters on. Regardless, transfers off of Closing worlds will always be free.

Thank you.

[Jillymala]

We are monitoring populations on the destination servers because those servers are not yet on the new hardware. We are allowing players to move to the remaining worlds from the smaller population worlds to improve their play experience now, while we are building out the new data center. So we have to make sure that we are not taxing the current hardware while starting those moves. We do not believe this will be a problem at the rate we are going, but we always have to be prepared.

There will be a date in the late Fall time frame when we expect to be built out in the new data center and on that date all the worlds will be brought down for maintenance and when they are brought back up all worlds will be in the new data center. At that point we expect to open transfers to all the servers including Brandywine and will be less concerned about population affecting performance.

Thanks for the updates, regular communication is great to see!

What is the estimated window of downtime for the server relocation?

[AllySanders]

I just want to reiterate the thanks to Vyvyanne and Frelorn for their open communication to the forums and the respect they've shown the player base. It is a very positive change from the previous administration, so to speak!

[Trixie_Me]

Vyvyanne,

I believe there may still be an unaddressed issue with names and it would be nice to get a response from you since you and the team appear to be moving forward.

Is it or is it not the case that characters that were created over a year ago but never been logged into have naming priority over active characters? If so, is this the intended policy? If not, will it be fixed before transfers begin?

Thank you in advance for your response.

[Kalliana]

If the character on my new world has the same name as the one I am transferring - how close to a year is a year? Is it to the minute? So if on the new world the last time the character logged in was 09/15 at 4:31pm - am I good to transfer on 09/15 at 4:32 pm? Assuming it is server standard time and not my own time? Or do I wait until 09/16 or maybe even 10/01 just to be sure? How close to a year is a year? I know, I know - it's an obsessive question but being so close to the date and time and wanting to retain the name I have - it would be nice to know when it's "safe!"

[Telvrandir]

Vyvyanne 26-8-15:

If you attempted a transfer last week and encountered any issues, please open a ticket with Customer Support and they should be able to help you out.

Actually, no, they close your ticket and tell you to wait for the next round of remaining-world transfers.

For now closing worlds take priority. We will turn transfers for remaining worlds back on after the new hardware is in place which is looking like it will be towards the end of Fall.

Vyvyanne please would you explain why remaining-world transfers aren't being turned back on for those whose attempted transfers failed, before proceeding to move the closing world populations? If it's because new hardware needs to be in place for remaining-world transfers to proceed smoothly, then surely new hardware needs to be in place before closing-world transfers too? Having the priorities switch without warning and being shunted to the end of Fall feels like a kick in the teeth. The rest of my fellowship moved smoothly and our gaming's been stalled for weeks now.

[Macroscian]

Vyvyanne,

I believe there may still be an unaddressed issue with names and it would be nice to get a response from you since you and the team appear to be moving forward.

Is it or is it not the case that characters that were created over a year ago but never been logged into have naming priority over active characters? If so, is this the intended policy? If not, will it be fixed before transfers begin?

Thank you in advance for your response.

I'm curious to know where that discussion emerged from!
I think I read all of those threads but likely to have missed some.

How was this idea tested?
Make a character without logging it in.
Try to move a character same name into the server and the new character has name priority.
As it should.

It just seems to be a bit of a far stretch of the imagination.

Actually, no, they close your ticket and tell you to wait for the next round of remaining-world transfers.

Correct. I moved a couple of characters on live, as a test. One didn't work.
It would be nice to have an opportunity to move one back again but no big priority for me

[canyouaddcolour]

Vyvyanne 26-8-15:


Actually, no, they close your ticket and tell you to wait for the next round of remaining-world transfers.



Vyvyanne please would you explain why remaining-world transfers aren't being turned back on for those whose attempted transfers failed, before proceeding to move the closing world populations? If it's because new hardware needs to be in place for remaining-world transfers to proceed smoothly, then surely new hardware needs to be in place before closing-world transfers too? Having the priorities switch without warning and being shunted to the end of Fall feels like a kick in the teeth. The rest of my fellowship moved smoothly and our gaming's been stalled for weeks now.

This. It's fairly disappointing. When I started back up again my server (Elendilmir) had an incredibly low population, so I transferred a lot of my 'main' characters that I played more to a larger server (Brandywine), while leaving some characters for playing with friends. I've since started playing with my old friends on Elendilmir a whole lot more and wished to join them on the new server they move to. I intend/intended to transfer back those 'main' characters to meet with my old Kinmates, etc on a remaining world they chose (Gladden). I had some issues with the transfer service, and due to miscommunication/misunderstanding I thought the remaining worlds would get another chance without it being months away so didn't push harder (tickets just got closed with the same message above to a couple people I knew, so I'd taken that to mean it wouldn't be months).

It's kind of demotivating to realize I won't be able to use (for months) the characters I intended to use with my friends on the new server (Gladden) we'd all agreed to meet up on.

I wish there were a way to give a day or two for some on remaining worlds to transfer to the other remaining worlds (1 time per character, not multiple) without it being months from now.

[thinx]

There will be a date in the late Fall time frame when we expect to be built out in the new data center and on that date all the worlds will be brought down for maintenance and when they are brought back up all worlds will be in the new data center. At that point we expect to open transfers to all the servers including Brandywine and will be less concerned about population affecting performance.

Are the closing worlds closed before or after the data center move? For some zones closing one server for transfers would have consequences, so doing a later move would be nice.

[Trixie_Me]

I'm curious to know where that discussion emerged from!
I think I read all of those threads but likely to have missed some.

How was this idea tested?
Make a character without logging it in.
Try to move a character same name into the server and the new character has name priority.
As it should.

It just seems to be a bit of a far stretch of the imagination.

This has been discussed quite a bit but, to the best of my knowledge, has never been addressed by Vyvyanne in any post that I can find. It is not at all a stretch of the imagination - many people reserve names on multiple servers and never log in. You can tell someone has never logged in by trying to add that name to your friends list. You need to check both freep and creep side. But if a name is valid on several servers and can't be added to your friends list, it means it is most often taken by someone who has never logged in. I am in this exact position with my main character and, as several people have brought this up, it appears I am not alone.

What cannot be seen or tested by players is the one year period. That is why my questions were specific about the intended policy, the way it currently works and lastly, if it is not working correctly, when it will be fixed. Since transferring is the only way to claim an obsolete name, a character in this situation is better off waiting to transfer after the fix has been applied. Transferring before then will mean the name is gone forever.

[Macroscian]

This has been discussed quite a bit but, to the best of my knowledge, has never been addressed by Vyvyanne in any post that I can find. It is not at all a stretch of the imagination - many people reserve names on multiple servers and never log in. You can tell someone has never logged in by trying to add that name to your friends list. You need to check both freep and creep side. But if a name is valid on several servers and can't be added to your friends list, it means it is most often taken by someone who has never logged in. I am in this exact position with my main character and, as several people have brought this up, it appears I am not alone.

What cannot be seen or tested by players is the one year period. That is why my questions were specific about the intended policy, the way it currently works and lastly, if it is not working correctly, when it will be fixed. Since transferring is the only way to claim an obsolete name, a character in this situation is better off waiting to transfer after the fix has been applied. Transferring before then will mean the name is gone forever.

It does seem unknown, doesn't it? I suggest popping a ticket and ask support about name NN on server YY and explain, see if you can get a response on when that name was last in action on the server.
Personally, I've been able to displace names that said 'cannot be added' three times - on servers Landy, Ark and Crick. I had priority on all three. This doesn't mean that the experience will be the same for everyone.

EDIT Perhaps I could send you a PM and tell in detail

[Jurny]

This has been discussed quite a bit but, to the best of my knowledge, has never been addressed by Vyvyanne in any post that I can find. It is not at all a stretch of the imagination - many people reserve names on multiple servers and never log in. You can tell someone has never logged in by trying to add that name to your friends list. You need to check both freep and creep side. But if a name is valid on several servers and can't be added to your friends list, it means it is most often taken by someone who has never logged in. I am in this exact position with my main character and, as several people have brought this up, it appears I am not alone.

What cannot be seen or tested by players is the one year period. That is why my questions were specific about the intended policy, the way it currently works and lastly, if it is not working correctly, when it will be fixed. Since transferring is the only way to claim an obsolete name, a character in this situation is better off waiting to transfer after the fix has been applied. Transferring before then will mean the name is gone forever.

Soon after this whole transfer/migration was announced, I recall seeing a post by Vyvyanne suggesting people make name holders for character names they wished to try and keep. So if say I made a character back in January on all the servers (which I didn't do) to make sure I kept my names some how, but I never logged them in, they would still be registered as my characters, they show up on your list of characters even though they have not been logged in. I might be missing your point, but I'm not sure there will or would be a fix for this, since those characters were made at some point on somebodies account. I don't see the fix you are hoping for.

[maartena]

Vyvyanne,

I believe there may still be an unaddressed issue with names and it would be nice to get a response from you since you and the team appear to be moving forward.

Is it or is it not the case that characters that were created over a year ago but never been logged into have naming priority over active characters? If so, is this the intended policy? If not, will it be fixed before transfers begin?

Thank you in advance for your response.

There is no difference. Inactive over a year, you get the name. Considered active (last login less than 1 year), you lose the name.

I transferred a character from Gladden to Arkenstone during the 48 hours a few weeks ago. The Gladden character was a level 100. On Arkenstone there existed a character with the same name, which I could not add to friendslist with the "character could not be added" message, which means it has never logged on. There is, as far as I know, no way to determine when the character was created. I was able to take the name without a problem, so the character must have been inactive for over 1 year.

10 minutes before the transfer I could not add "Name" to the friendslist, with "character cannot be added" and "Name-1" had "character does not exist". And AFTER the transfer, I was not able to add "Name-1" to friendslist with "character could not be added" which tells me that "Name" on Arkenstone had moved to "Name-1". And obviously, I now have the name.

If you lose the name to a "Character could not be added" name, there are two options only:

1) The character is an (active or inactive) creep. You can test this by creating a creep on the server and checking friends list there.
2) The character was created as a name place holder less than one year ago, and is considered "active".

In short: No you do not lose a name to an inactive player that has never logged on. If you encountered that, it is likely that that character was actually created less than 1 year ago. I'd also be interested to find out how you determine the creation date of a character that never logged on, in other words how do you KNOW it wasn't touched for at least a year? (The original person who created that name claimer might have done so years ago, but deleted it 14 months ago, and it was re-created 7 months ago when news of the transfers began to spread. So.... how do you know?

[maartena]

This has been discussed quite a bit but, to the best of my knowledge, has never been addressed by Vyvyanne in any post that I can find. It is not at all a stretch of the imagination - many people reserve names on multiple servers and never log in. You can tell someone has never logged in by trying to add that name to your friends list. You need to check both freep and creep side. But if a name is valid on several servers and can't be added to your friends list, it means it is most often taken by someone who has never logged in. I am in this exact position with my main character and, as several people have brought this up, it appears I am not alone.

What cannot be seen or tested by players is the one year period. That is why my questions were specific about the intended policy, the way it currently works and lastly, if it is not working correctly, when it will be fixed. Since transferring is the only way to claim an obsolete name, a character in this situation is better off waiting to transfer after the fix has been applied. Transferring before then will mean the name is gone forever.

See my post above this one, that should confirm your issue. If the character is older than 1 year, it does seem to be losing its name. At least, it did in my case.

Last login date is only registered when a character logs in, but on the back-end it is possible the creation date is used if last login isn't available. I think someone just made a character with that name as a "name holder" and called it a day. Since the announcement of the transfers were in January, it's possible that someone already made characters on all worlds they THOUGHT may be left over (it wasn't hard to guess the top 7 at least) some time in the earlier part of the year.

There is no "fix" for that i'm afraid, the person who did this has just as much right to the name as you have, so you will just have to go in and see. One thing you can do ahead of time is create a character on Elendilmir or Riddermark (which will be next after Elendilmir) or the first two EU servers coming up for transfer (if, of course, available), and issue the transfer of your new character to the destination world of your choice. Do you get "Name"? Great! - Do you get "Name-1"? Bummer. You will have to decide.

One other alternative is that you have made enemies in the game, and someone is creating that name everywhere just to mess with you. Not much you can do about that I am afraid.

[maartena]

Vyvyanne please would you explain why remaining-world transfers aren't being turned back on for those whose attempted transfers failed, before proceeding to move the closing world populations? If it's because new hardware needs to be in place for remaining-world transfers to proceed smoothly, then surely new hardware needs to be in place before closing-world transfers too? Having the priorities switch without warning and being shunted to the end of Fall feels like a kick in the teeth. The rest of my fellowship moved smoothly and our gaming's been stalled for weeks now.

The 48 hours of transfers between the worlds were for testing purposes only, and I believe it was announced as such. If your kin considered it as "in production" and decided to move, the risk on anything going wrong was on you.

I quote:

No. Consider the transfers made until Friday part of the testing phase.

This provoked a question:

I have a question. If you don't fix the problem for those who has it during these 47 hours that are left, we will lose our open window and will have to wait till September/October? (whenever it'll open again)

Yes, but you will be able to transfer then, along with anyone else who may not have been able to do a transfer in this 48 hour window. We have rewritten the entire transfer system. These opening and closing transfer windows are in order for us to catch any unknowns that did not show in internal testing and get them corrected before we can bring the new service online fully. Once we have corrected these issues, the transfer service will be available at all times as it was in the past.

This isn't a "kick in the teeth". You and your buddies decided to test a process that was still being bug-tested. Some of you got lucky. You didn't. Now that they have ironed out all the bugs and the testing phase is over, they came up with the plan, and as such the transfers are starting as "official" and "in production".

Don't worry though you will still get to transfer for free. But you may not get that chance for 2 more months.