World Transfers

[aranen]

Okay thanks.

[maartena]

Any possibility of new worlds open to transfers mid-week? Must we really wait until next Monday or (Eru forbid) even later?

#reallywantsoffRiddermark

You and me both. Riddermark was completely dead yesterday..... I had fun on Arkenstone though with my toons already there.

[Aedelric2]

So how many EU customers again?

Yeah, well, I know that a lot of people have fallen for the globalization of US Holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween, but I consider that moot as long as the US do not respect...hmm, lets say the Spanish Celebration of the Arrival of the Three Kings to Jesus' Cradle on January 6. Or the Swedish tradition to open the Christmas gifts on the 24th instead of the 25th. Or any number of national holidays or UN imposed "international days of this and that". Don't get me started. If you have a global customer base, the easiest and best thing to do is to just ignore holidays, when they may affect customers, thus treating all in the same way.

Turbine is an American company located in America. So why shouldn’t they observe American holidays? I was overseas for about a year and I observed all the holidays of the country I was in and none of the American ones while I was there. It has everything to do with local and absolutely nothing to do with disrespecting other people’s holidays. If we all recognized everyone's holidays and observed them, I doubt people would get much work done. If you tried to ignore all holidays... well that is close to impossible since many of them are tied to a religion. Besides that there have been plenty of studies that show people need breaks from work. Holidays might not be the ideal way to give people a break but it is one way to do it.

Normally, having Thanksgiving as a deadline wouldn’t be a bad idea; however, as you have pointed out, it may or may not be possible due to sheer numbers. If we go beyond Thanksgiving, it could certainly slow us down a bit. We will have to wait and see.

P.S. Btw I know plenty of people that open gifts on the 24th and they aren't Swedish.

[Tel'aran'rhiod]

The reason why that might be important is that Thanksgiving, travel wise, vacation wise, is more important to the USA than any other holiday including Christmas. Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, Friday is always a day off, and people travel usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Many people take the entire week off, and some companies run on a lower support schedule for that week. Many companies have deadlines for projects to be finished before that week, because they know that if it gets in to that week, projects will be delayed for that week as you won't get much work done.

For Turbine, it probably means that THAT week, you will have a MUCH slower response to tickets in regards to failed transfers, kinship name changes, etc.... so they probably wouldn't want to schedule a server merge during that week. Since they also had said they were scheduling the server hardware upgrades for "late fall", a holiday that could disrupt a full work week becomes very important to all players, regardless of where you are in the world.

I have a feeling that they will have taken this into account, and based on last week's experience, they may implement a Monday/Thursday schedule, making the transfers a lot quicker. We can only wait till tomorrow morning and see what they come up with.

I agree with your general point, except the part where Friday is always a day off. It's not even a federal holiday - e.g. the biggest employer in the US doesn't give people that day off. I don't know Turbine's schedule but other than the universities here in Boston, most employees are working unless they take that day off on their own (including those from the biggest employer: MGH). But you are dead-on correct that the holiday schedule and vacation days make Thanksgiving "week" a giant mess.

[HairyKrishna]

Well this is all relative, and we are talking about the Services Industry here.

I have worked for an ISP before. They basically offer a 24 hours per day service 365 days per year, and because of this they employ specific personnel that works the weekend and in non business hours to fix problems that may come up during the "off hours". Computer-Hardware and -Software doesn't recognize the weekend, and they don't get days off, therefore problems are to be expected on the weekends as well. The ISP figures they are paid to provide a service that is supposed to be running without interruption so they have to at least look like they're trying. If they do not do that, other companies will get the reputation of being better than them, and that's bad for business.

Turbine is also offering a 24 hours per day 365 days per year service, but whenever an interruption happens outside the (united states) business hours and/or on weekends, there is nobody there to service the people and fix problems. Which I do not have a problem with personally (though Turbine should, because there are companies out there that provide better customer support, which in turn makes them look bad). But at the very least there should be one person responsible hovering around who will at least respond to issues and make the people feel like Turbine is are aware of them. At least make it look like you're trying.

People who come here and defend the notion of a service company taking days off because "it's the holidays" have to realize many people are working on weekends and holidays and after business hours, every day, every day of the year. They are the people who make sure we can live our live the way we do. The unsung heroes. They also usually get paid a little more to compensate for this, but I can assure you those people do exist.

Now I know how it is, money is tight and Turbine doesn't have the money to hire the people they need to to reach this kind of service level. I am under no illusion that this is not going to change. But one can dream, right? An ISP isn't the same thing as a video game company, but they are both offering a service that is supposed to run interruption free all year long (with exception of maintenance and unforeseen circumstances that may prevent the provision of such service)

[HeirOfNumenor]

In the USA, aside from mainly retail, dining & entertainment (movie theaters), critical & emergency services, and SOME technical support lines (mainly corps such as Adobe, Microsoft), nearly EVERYONE has the day after Thanksgiving off work - either as a paid holiday or un-paid time off (if they have the USA traditional standard Mon-Fri 40 hour work week).

For the programmers and such at Turbine, the retail Black Friday means nothing but an extended holiday weekend - though it means EVERYTHING to WalMart, where NO-ONE gets that day off (except I did when my mom died on that day).

[Aedelric2]

Well this is all relative, and we are talking about the Services Industry here.

I have worked for an ISP before. They basically offer a 24 hours per day service 365 days per year, and because of this they employ specific personnel that works the weekend and in non business hours to fix problems that may come up during the "off hours". Computer-Hardware and -Software doesn't recognize the weekend, and they don't get days off, therefore problems are to be expected on the weekends as well. The ISP figures they are paid to provide a service that is supposed to be running without interruption so they have to at least look like they're trying. If they do not do that, other companies will get the reputation of being better than them, and that's bad for business.

Turbine is also offering a 24 hours per day 365 days per year service, but whenever an interruption happens outside the (united states) business hours and/or on weekends, there is nobody there to service the people and fix problems. Which I do not have a problem with personally (though Turbine should, because there are companies out there that provide better customer support, which in turn makes them look bad). But at the very least there should be one person responsible hovering around who will at least respond to issues and make the people feel like Turbine is are aware of them. At least make it look like you're trying.

People who come here and defend the notion of a service company taking days off because "it's the holidays" have to realize many people are working on weekends and holidays and after business hours, every day, every day of the year. They are the people who make sure we can live our live the way we do. The unsung heroes. They also usually get paid a little more to compensate for this, but I can assure you those people do exist.

Now I know how it is, money is tight and Turbine doesn't have the money to hire the people they need to to reach this kind of service level. I am under no illusion that this is not going to change. But one can dream, right? An ISP isn't the same thing as a video game company, but they are both offering a service that is supposed to run interruption free all year long (with exception of maintenance and unforeseen circumstances that may prevent the provision of such service)

Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think people are saying Turbine is going to be completely deserted Thanksgiving week. People are just pointing out that Turbine won’t have their normal hours of operation with their full staff. They will likely be running on a skeleton crew. But either scenario could cause a delay in the schedule and more player frustration so in a way it won't matter. At this point it is all just speculation.

[maartena]

An ISP isn't the same thing as a video game company, but they are both offering a service that is supposed to run interruption free all year long (with exception of maintenance and unforeseen circumstances that may prevent the provision of such service)

The issue is indeed that you can't compare a video game company to an ISP. It would be comparing a local doctor's office to the emergency services present at a hospital. One might be called out of bed for something, and will do his best to get to the patient in time, but if he is out golfing with his buddies 3 hours away, he isn't going to be getting there any time soon. That doctor does not have the resources to have a 24/7 staff on-call to service his patients either. The other has 911 service attached, and can dispatch emergency services to anyone calling for it in pretty much it takes for the 24/7 standby crew to get off their ###, get in the ambulance, start it, and start driving.

ISP customers, especially on the business side, have a different service level agreement than video game customers as well. Business accounts often have 4-hour SLA's to get service restored, but these businesses also pay several thousand dollars per month to get their internet service. Additionally, residential customers often DO experience outages, sometimes of up to several hours a month. ISP customers also pay a lot more money. On average, they pay at least $40 to $50 a month to an ISP, and all they really get for that money is the right to connect to the internet.

Finally, although there are ISP's that work worldwide in the business services field, you are going to find that residential ISP's are mostly geographically restricted to a single country. And although the big ISP's have 24/7 support, especially for business, a local DSL or Cable provider does not have that kind of support.

Turbine has customers who at most pay $14.99 a month, but most VIP players probably have a better plan, such as the three month $27.99 plan which makes it $9.33 a month to play. They also have a lot of free customers that do not pay anything at all.

I would also like to stress that having access to the internet these days is much more needed than access to a game. People work from home, people use phone and voice services over the internet, people use video services such as Netflix instead of television service, for many it is the primary way of communicating with the outside world, and many rely on the internet for their primary income, especially those with businesses and/or working from home, whether it is for a company to save on a commute, or for their own business.

Turbine provides a game. If it isn't available for a day or two, it may be an inconvenience, but there are a thousand other games out there that you can play for absolutely free, and a game like Lotro isn't a necessity like having access to the internet in general is. They provide a completely different type of service to the world, that doesn't have the same type of service-level attached to it, so I don't think it is fair to compare a service that provides access to the internet as a whole, to a service that provides access to 1 single entity on that internet.

You can compare Turbine's level of service to a number of other MMO's, that would be a lot more fair. Obviously, companies like Blizzard are 20 times the size as Turbine, although Turbine of course is now owned by Warner Bros.

[maartena]

Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think people are saying Turbine is going to be completely deserted Thanksgiving week. People are just pointing out that Turbine won’t have their normal hours of operation with their full staff. They will likely be running on a skeleton crew potentially resulting in a bottle neck as far as the transfer schedule goes.

This. They will have support, but they certainly won't be planning a big patch on the Monday of that week, and probably also not a big server merge, if they need to be there to issue support on tickets.

[HairyKrishna]

I do not deny your points, but you have to agree with me that Turbine is indeed offering a year around service, so it is indeed comparable in that respect. A service they can only provide customer service for in a very narrow window. People pay for that service, so my points stand

I am under no illusion that this is going to change, like I said! Unfortunately there is no other company out there that can provide us with LotRO so Turbine doesn't have to face any competition I am just saying in a perfect world, a service that is offered globally for 365 days per year should also offer customer service support for the hours it operates in.

edit: fixed some grammar

[HeirOfNumenor]

I am just saying in a perfect world, a service that is offered globally for 365 days per year should also offer customer service support for the hours it operates in.

You are correct in this ^.
But then there is THIS:


https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...90#post7445590

Today, 09:55 AM

#1

TheColdblue
Turbine Customer Support

Join Date

Apr 2010

Posts

55

Adjusted Phone Support Hours

Hey there everyone!

Coldblue checking in to give everyone an update on our phone hours which will be changing slightly. Starting this week phones will be open Monday to Thursday from 2:00 PM Eastern to 6:00 PM Eastern, and Friday from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern.

Please remember if at any point you are unable to call us we're available via through the website in my signature. We do our best to get to all contacts as quickly as possible. You can also leave us a voicemail and we will try to return your call at another time.

We appreciate your patience and understanding! I hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful Autumn season and the slowly creeping cold...

-Coldblue

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Sadly, this ain't a perfect world....

[maartena]

I do not deny your points, but you have to agree with me that Turbine is indeed offering a year around service, so it is indeed comparable in that respect. A service they can only provide customer service for in a very narrow window. People pay for that service, so my points stand

No, it really doesn't.

Just because one entity offers a "year round service" and another does too, does not mean the levels of support can be compared in ANY way. You have to consider the size of the company, the type of service, the importance of this particular service, etc.... "internet access" is in no way comparable to "online video game". There are hundreds of thousands of services offered over the internet, and some of them are considered way more important than others.

Amazon might have a 24/7 support team, but they are a lot larger in size than Turbine. It simply doesn't make sense for Turbine to have 24/7 phone support available, even though both Amazon and Turbine offer, as you call it "a year round service".

I don't think it is fair to compare one "year round service" to another "year round service". You don't compare a 24/7 McDonalds fast food restaurant to a 24/7 Police Station either.

[HairyKrishna]

No, it really doesn't.

Just because one entity offers a "year round service" and another does too, does not mean the levels of support can be compared in ANY way. You have to consider the size of the company, the type of service, the importance of this particular service, etc.... "internet access" is in no way comparable to "online video game". There are hundreds of thousands of services offered over the internet, and some of them are considered way more important than others.

Amazon might have a 24/7 support team, but they are a lot larger in size than Turbine. It simply doesn't make sense for Turbine to have 24/7 phone support available, even though both Amazon and Turbine offer, as you call it "a year round service".

I don't think it is fair to compare one "year round service" to another "year round service". You don't compare a 24/7 McDonalds fast food restaurant to a 24/7 Police Station either.

respectfully disagree

[maartena]

respectfully disagree

You really think that an online service like Turbine should offer the SAME level of customer service than say e.g. Google, Yahoo or Amazon, even though all of them offer a "year round service"?

I wouldn't be in the room when you show next year's support budget to Turbine's CEO...

[HairyKrishna]

I think you can compare the two, and that is why I disagree. Just because it is common practice in the video game industry doesn't make it less of a problem. Customer Service was once one of the pillars of early MMOs, but since then developers have realized they can get away with pretty much anything, people will still keep playing. Especially with the advent of Free To Play and Micro-transactions, the focus has shifted away from simply making your customer happy and ensuring he has a good time which will make him continue playing, to making that money by other means like selling short cuts (Pay2Win) and cosmetic items. Thus the importance of customer service has decreased over time, which is why today we are sitting here in this more than optimal situation.

Customer Service is really only limited by the amount of money you put into it, different companies put a different amount of money into it, your mileage will therefore vary. Turbine doesn't put enough money into it to ensure 100% coverage of their service hours. That is not me being mean, that is just a fact.

In a perfect world, everyone who has access to the game also has the same access to it's support. For people playing this game outside of the US, you pay the same amount of money to play this game than someone in US would, but get less for it. Server downtimes are usually during EU hours, and if you live in Russia and want to talk to someone on the phone about your in game problem you need to stay up until 4 in the morning (or midnight, on Fridays) to be able to get someone on the line.

I get where you are coming from, and like I have said before I do not believe this will ever change for the better, but these are real issues that are based in reality. At the end of the day this is all about money, but I can tell you from experience that even if the money is there if nobody speaks up, things won't change for the better.

[Wirbel]

I agree with your general point, except the part where Friday is always a day off. It's not even a federal holiday - e.g. the biggest employer in the US doesn't give people that day off. I don't know Turbine's schedule but other than the universities here in Boston, most employees are working unless they take that day off on their own (including those from the biggest employer: MGH). But you are dead-on correct that the holiday schedule and vacation days make Thanksgiving "week" a giant mess.

I have known a lot that swap Veteran's Day for Black Friday when they could, just to make the longer holiday.

[Meihan2]

Oh for pitty sakes. All this over an American Holiday. Give it a rest. If Turbine is going to work around the clock with what ever people they have or not, it does not mean that the game is going to be down. Unless the hardware is going to be installed and then WE ALL will have to wait until the game is back up. Until then play the game and when the transfers of your world, which ever one it is, comes up then you can transfer. Not until. No matter how much you complain about Turbine or the wait it will not make it any shorter. So "No we are not there yet!"

[Beaniemooch]

In the USA, aside from mainly retail, dining & entertainment (movie theaters), critical & emergency services, and SOME technical support lines (mainly corps such as Adobe, Microsoft), nearly EVERYONE has the day after Thanksgiving off work - either as a paid holiday or un-paid time off (if they have the USA traditional standard Mon-Fri 40 hour work week).

For the programmers and such at Turbine, the retail Black Friday means nothing but an extended holiday weekend - though it means EVERYTHING to WalMart, where NO-ONE gets that day off (except I did when my mom died on that day).

Of course you have medical services (hospitals, nursing homes, walk-in emergency clinics etc.), emergency veterinary clinics, police, fire, emergency crews for power or cable... so in other words, a heck of a lot of people don't have the day after Thanksgiving off. I can also list many corporations that run administrative staff on Friday preparing for year-end, such as collection agencies, accounts receivable for normal companies, the US Postal Service, Federal Express and other delivery companies, and so on. Oh yeah, and don't forget bus, train, airline services, taxi cabs. Banks and financial institutions are open. Oil change centers. Car rental agencies. Not to mention those others you listed as well.

Actually only about half the people I know get the day off.

[Mar-Evayave]

You and me both. Riddermark was completely dead yesterday..... I had fun on Arkenstone though with my toons already there.

Back in the day I never really thought of Riddermark as being dead. It seemed as full as always. But then after trying Landroval out, I realized how small Ridder really was. And with little keeping me in Ridder, I just started over on Landroval. But I have missed my Ridder toons and I couldn't possibly afford to pay to transfer them all and the thought of starting all of them over from scratch... ugh...

I will be so happy to bring everything off Riddermark.

P.S. Btw I know plenty of people that open gifts on the 24th and they aren't Swedish.

Born and raised in Michigan, USA. Our family roots go way back to the natives. We've always opened our gifts on the 24th. The only time we ever considered doing otherwise was a time when we weren't sure whether my older brother would be able to get to us in bad weather. Not a drop of Swedish blood in us.

I agree with your general point, except the part where Friday is always a day off. It's not even a federal holiday - e.g. the biggest employer in the US doesn't give people that day off. I don't know Turbine's schedule but other than the universities here in Boston, most employees are working unless they take that day off on their own (including those from the biggest employer: MGH). But you are dead-on correct that the holiday schedule and vacation days make Thanksgiving "week" a giant mess.

Some government-funded places do close for Black Friday (our local public libraries, for example). But unless you are a business that deals in sales revenue, I imagine many independently-funded companies might give the day off just for their employees to recuperate after the heavy meal(s) of the day before.

[Aedelric2]

This is getting a little ridiculous. Yes there are plenty of examples of people that don’t get Thanksgiving off, but there are just as many that do. Unless Turbine makes a statement, we aren’t going to know with 100% certainty which category Turbine falls under, and to be honest, it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It is just a small bump in the road to consolidating the servers… if that. For all we know, things could go smoothly Thanksgiving week. People are getting all worked up about hypotheticals that we won't be able to change anyway.

In a perfect world, everyone who has access to the game also has the same access to it's support. For people playing this game outside of the US, you pay the same amount of money to play this game than someone in US would, but get less for it. Server downtimes are usually during EU hours, and if you live in Russia and want to talk to someone on the phone about your in game problem you need to stay up until 4 in the morning (or midnight, on Fridays) to be able to get someone on the line.

You get the same stuff we do. The support times are the same for everyone. The server downtimes are the same for everyone. We all experience them simultaneously. Life isn’t fair, so you just have to figure out how much you are willing to be inconvenienced. Take the West coast, for example, we are 3 hours behind Turbine’s time zone, so by the time we get off work at 5:00pm, support is already closed. I can appreciate that it might not be to the extent other people have to deal with, but it is an inconvenience none the less. And let’s be honest… how often do you have to contact support? Besides that, depending on the problem there are multiple ways to get help (twitter, facebook, the forums, support ticket, etc.)
There is no possible way to schedule things so that everyone is happy. I know plenty of Americans (including myself) that have to deal with downtimes and support hours the same way you do.

I get where you are coming from, and like I have said before I do not believe this will ever change for the better, but these are real issues that are based in reality. At the end of the day this is all about money, but I can tell you from experience that even if the money is there if nobody speaks up, things won't change for the better.

You are right. Money speaks a lot louder than words. If it bothers you that much, the way I see it you have 4 options: 1) continue to put up with it, 2) stop paying, 3) stop playing, or 4) start a petition for more UK support. Who knows? Maybe since some of the servers have moved back to the UK, Turbine will listen if enough people speak up.

[Marancil]

Enough off topic.

Please delete my original "holiday-related" statement and all subsequent posts related to it. I do not feel I am overly wrong, but I will not drag this thread further off-topic by continuing my reasoning.

Everyone, stop off-topic. Instastop. Now. (Why do I keep hoping for some moderation...?)

[Xhiu]

I do not deny your points, but you have to agree with me that Turbine is indeed offering a year around service, so it is indeed comparable in that respect. A service they can only provide customer service for in a very narrow window. People pay for that service, so my points stand

I am under no illusion that this is going to change, like I said! Unfortunately there is no other company out there that can provide us with LotRO so Turbine doesn't have to face any competition I am just saying in a perfect world, a service that is offered globally for 365 days per year should also offer customer service support for the hours it operates in.

apples and oranges...

I used to work for a TAS. (telephone answering service) I worked the graveyard shift. For the most part it was mind numbingly quiet. WE were the 24/7 service for a lot of difference business and orginizations. Fact: every afternoon, 7 days a week, someone would call in AA and get us. That person would tell us who was on call and what their phone number was. They couldn't (long time ago before cell phones) have someone in the 'office' 24/7 as it was not cost effective.
I also answered for 5 separate cable companies. All 5 of them had 24 hr customer service... me. You know who went on hold when a psychiatrist's phone rang? I was also their 24/7 customer service.

So yeah, its possible to have 24/7 customer service for any business / organization, if you think the cost is worth the coverage. Cable companies need to know when an outage happens. If I got 3 calls in the same area (need to know what the same area was) I would call the on-call dude and give him the information. He then would tell me if he was going to do something or just wait and see. Then it was up to me to call him again if I thought it needed escalated. Of course when I did call he'd let me know if I was right.

Cable calls are like video game cs calls. You take the information and pass it on to an on call or the office the next morning. This is nothing like customer service. It seems to me that Turbine has a policy that unless it is an outage they are going to be sleeping comfortably. And at that, only the on call will get involved... well if you don't count the CM who's job it is to put out the fires on FB, twitter and these forums. I think there should be more call center hrs but its just not a priority, especially when there is little cs can do other than make a note and pass it on to someone else.

The only people that can help you in the middle of the night with game issue are the GM.

This is what really needs 24/7 support and I've done all of them at the TAS:
Pediatrician's office gets midnight call that a patient has a fever of 105.
Psych patient calls and needs to speak with dr immediately. [my job is answer the phone. dr's job is to talk someone off a ledge]
Elevator emergency phone in the middle of an earthquake.
16 year old got new porsche for birthday and flew it over a baby cliff and into a tree.
Head Dr. of an industrial emergency clinic gets a call from a forman that one of his workers has nearly cut off his finger.
Motorist is stranded in the middle of who knows where and needs a tow. Its midnight and they are from out of town.
[loved this one] Binder for insurance agents need time stamped message with all the information on a new client and vehicle at 2am (who the hell gets insurance at 2am?) because without it there is no proof that Johnny was insured when he left the agents home and wrapped himself around a tree.
On-call plumbers. Because you know that as soon as you need to rinse something on Thanksgiving, in your kitchen sink, you know its going to back up.

These things needed 24/7 people to help them. I'm sure Turbine would consider the situation if you agreed to $50 a month sub fee. Pretty sure I think

[Martinuil]

Could you all please stop and come back to the original topic of this thread which is called "World Transfers"!!

Thank you!

[San_Jose]

Amen, just talks about transfers, please.https://www.lotro.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.png

[maartena]

From Frelorn:

World transfers off of Gilrain will be available on September 28th and Riddermark will be available on September 29th!


Smart to do it one day apart, the biggest strain on the system is probably on day 1. But now we know: I'll be on Arkenstone September 29th!