World Transfers

[Ellyllon]

and interestingly, it's going to show just how many have gone inactive & left the game over the past few years - people will be surprised just how many names are going to be available for use.

I'm sure that's true. But wouldn't it make more sense to just free up all inactive account names *now?* If I could get a name I actually wanted, save it, & be ready when my transfer comes around, I'd be a lot happier. As it is, I can get the names (the B Ship names I started with) as I have them now, & others will stay locked unless someone moves over with them.

I also don't understand why they didn't just tell us which servers are closing & staying open. What's the point? I'm sure they know now - it's just - *irritating.*

[Trixie_Me]

and interestingly, it's going to show just how many have gone inactive & left the game over the past few years - people will be surprised just how many names are going to be available for use.

Oh, I completely agree. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that people will have equal access to claiming those names.

[Vyvyanne]

Hi Vyvyanne,

Im guessing my question got lost in the pages that have followed, so I will ask again. Firstly, however, thanks for taking the time to answer and clarify our questions. It is much appreciated.

My question is this. Will there be an official "Oceanic" server from the selection of 5 US servers that will be remaining? If not, can you please designate one.

Currently Elendilmir is the unofficial Oceanic server, which is fantastic for all us Australians, New Zealanders and night owls whose normal play time is outside of prime time US time, like 3am EST. Having scout some of the bigger server, while they are extremely active during prime time US time, they are dead quiet during our normal play time. Whereas Elendilmir has activity all around the clock. For example, last night, a quick server check showed over 100 people (At max limited) playing at 3am EST, which is abnormal for other servers.

It would be good to have a designated Oceanic server so if we have to move, all the Oceanic people will know which server is best suited to our time zone needs

Thanks

We do appreciate all of our Oceanic Players, but we do not feel comfortable making an Official Oceanic world as we will not be officially supporting those play hours or languages specifically and with the reduced number of world we do not want to discourage players from other regions from playing on the server due to such a designation. However, I do encourage the Oceanic community to discuss amongst themselves a world to move enmasse to and publish that here on the forums as well as in World chat and other locations where your friends can see it and follow.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I'm sure that's true. But wouldn't it make more sense to just free up all inactive account names *now?* If I could get a name I actually wanted, save it, & be ready when my transfer comes around, I'd be a lot happier. As it is, I can get the names (the B Ship names I started with) as I have them now, & others will stay locked unless someone moves over with them.

I also don't understand why they didn't just tell us which servers are closing & staying open. What's the point? I'm sure they know now - it's just - *irritating.*

Absolutely agree. They should have announced it and given us all the information. Also Turbine should have started removing inactive accounts a long time ago. There must be hundreds and thousands of accounts with just 1 or 2 lvl 1 to 10 chars inactive.

[Halgoreth]

Yes. We are working on getting up sooner, but as this is our largest population and there are many concerns with it being "too Populated" making it a paid transfer only will prevent a land rush. We can reconsider this once the world is up in the new datacenter and we see how performance is doing.

However once we open the initial transfers, those who wish to move off of Brandywine to another server are welcome to do so during the free period.

If at all possible, offering such paid transfer *before* the end of the free period would help out a lot of people who feel really crippled for gameplay until they move their toons to Brandy. However, I realise that the transfer mechanism probably does not distinguish between classes of transfer (free vs. purchased) because a world's "accept incoming transfers" flag is likely just an on/off switch, not 0-reject all/1-accept purchased/3-accept free/4-accept all.

(Also, I suppose that offering the purchasable version might lead to a lot of cases where folks bought one during the free period, not realising that it was *only* necessary for Brandy.)

[Vyvyanne]

One question my wife brought up is with regard to houses. She has individual houses on a number of servers, but currently you can only own a single house per server. With the mergers, will we be able to have more than one house on a server or is the one house per server rule still going to be in effect?

Note that storage is not her main concern. This is more of an RP thing; each house is personalized for her characters.

Housing is still one house per account per world. I will need to look into the tech to see if it is even possible to make more available per world, but if it is it will be a few updates out. First we need to make sure there is enough housing to cover the one per account. It is a good idea though, as I know it would be nice to have a house for my elf in Rivendell, Human in Bree, etc....

[RJFerret]

They should have announced it and given us all the information. Also Turbine should have started removing inactive accounts a long time ago. There must be hundreds and thousands of accounts with just 1 or 2 lvl 1 to 10 chars inactive.

Announcing it before folks can fully act on it would just enable griefing and name stealing. As it is now, folks who want to harass others by taking their names have more work cut out for them.

Turbine has always committed to not removing inactive accounts, which is good, as people often return to play after years of not doing so. How many times are there forum posts saying, "I don't know which servers the characters I started years ago are on, how do I find them?" How often do you see, "I was in beta, now have the time to play..." or "I was active back during SoA, what changes..." Those are a fraction of actual returning "inactive" players who post in the forums (see the 1-9-90 rule).

Compromises have to be made somewhere, those that inconvenience the least, especially in cost effort reduction, are favored. If every returning player has to contact customer support, it costs a lot more, and de-incentivizes them to become customers.

[Vyvyanne]

I'm curious if characters that have been created within the time frame considered "active" will be considered "active" if they never logged in after character creation or if "active" will only mean characters that have entered or (preferably) finished the tutorial. I hope it's the latter because that would solve a lot of griefing issues and since I see others have posted similar questions, I hope we get a response from Vyvyanne or Frelorn on this...

The way the system is reading the information to determine priority, it can not see if a character has gone through the tutorial. It is purely based on character creation time stamp.

Also, I'm still unclear regarding housing chest items transferring - personal AND kin house items. Will Bound items transfer if they are in a house chest or do they need to be in their individual owner's Bank Vault? Will unbound items in house chests (personal and kin) transfer and just go into escrow on the new server until a house can be purchased? And what about items on hooks? Will hooked items transfer or do they need to be in a chest? I don't want to end up leaving anything behind if my server is unlucky enough to be demolished... Sadly, in my kin house there are items bound to characters that have been transferred or deleted or whose players just quit, so I already know I won't get to save them for my kinnies if my server is toast...

All those items (with the exception to those belonging to deleted characters) will be packed up and placed in escrow. Hooks, chest, bank, etc all come with you if they belong to you.

Finally, I'm curious if Turbine has considered (if it's even possible), making houses upgradable - so that if someone buys a standard house they can just pay a few more gold to "upgrade" it to a deluxe? Any house that was upgraded that later got foreclosed would, of course, revert back to being a standard house... That might encourage people to buy the standard houses so neighborhoods aren't ghost towns. Well, that and neighborhood crafting areas with discounts for homeowners...

This is a great idea and something we can look into for a future update, although there may be limitations based on the footprint of the housing plots within the neighborhoods. But if that is the case we will certainly keep a town easement idea in mind if we build new ones.

[kickman77]

Just wanted to chime back into this thread and say thanks for answering about the character slots.

Just was busy yesterday and could not hit the forums as much as I wanted

Oh an +Dust needs a r raise

[DiogoVP]

The way the system is reading the information to determine priority, it can not see if a character has gone through the tutorial. It is purely based on character creation time stamp.



All those items (with the exception to those belonging to deleted characters) will be packed up and placed in escrow. Hooks, chest, bank, etc all come with you if they belong to you.


This is a great idea and something we can look into for a future update, although there may be limitations based on the footprint of the housing plots within the neighborhoods. But if that is the case we will certainly keep a town easement idea in mind if we build new ones.

I think this question hasn't been made yet, but what is happening to the friend list size after the servers merge? Since we are getting 3x less servers, we should be expecting 3x more players in one server. I don't even find 100 ppl on my friend list enough on my server as it is before the merges, so I wish we could get like 5 or 6x more space on the friend list after the merges...

[Halgoreth]

Sadly we do not have a way to do this. You can utilize the forums for letting folks know where your kinship has moved if you do not have private emails or a webpage. We will also be sending out-of-game emails to players as these activities take place so that we can let those who log in infrequently know to come check in on their kinships to find their destination.

Surely too late to implement this if it has not happened already, but, since *somewhere* in the system is record of where each kinship moved to. . .
When a kin leader moves a kinship, an in-game mail is automatically sent to everyone on the roster. Of course, the sender probably couldn't be the kin leader (because, as I understand it, such messages would vanish when the character moves) but could be a GM account or, more likely, a bot set up just for that purpose. The kinleader should be able to chose whether or not such notification is sent. Ideally, the kin leader would have the option to append a message to it with other contact info (such as website and/or a contact email). Preferably, but perhaps too difficult, a follow-up message would appear if the kinship changed names after the move.

[Tineng]

I have tried to read some of the pages on this thread but still am confused on a couple of issues. My RP partner is EU but plays with me on a US server i.e. Landroval.

I am assuming we don't know if this will be considered one that is kept or not but if so... will he still be able to play on the US server or will he have to move to a EU server with his char.

If he has to move then either he or I have an option to remake our char? (Both of us only have one char also)

[Halgoreth]

Such great information in this thread! (Even if it takes a lot of sifting to find it.)

The part of the process I don't quite grasp yet is how the transfer mechanism will handle moving character from one world account to different worlds (for examply, you have four toons on Baradhur and will be moving some to Lindon and the others to Khamul).

I kinda understand the difference between character-level and account-level transfers. And it sounds like account-level data can be moved seperately from the characters. That is not quite what I expected.

Hopefully, the instructions next week will be very clear about all the concepts involved. (And ideally, be tested, prior to publication, by someone who is completely ignorant in those areas, to ensure that players can understand them.)

[whatever76543]

The way the system is reading the information to determine priority, it can not see if a character has gone through the tutorial. It is purely based on character creation time stamp.



All those items (with the exception to those belonging to deleted characters) will be packed up and placed in escrow. Hooks, chest, bank, etc all come with you if they belong to you.


This is a great idea and something we can look into for a future update, although there may be limitations based on the footprint of the housing plots within the neighborhoods. But if that is the case we will certainly keep a town easement idea in mind if we build new ones.

Can i be so bold as to suggest a kinship rename policy? Since you have said it is a 100 gm controlled process to rename kinships, would it be possible to make it so every kinship ne conflict be resolved with the moved kinship haveing it name with a -server suffix instead of a -1 or rename?
Example my kinship is revelations, if we move to a server with another revelations we could be renamed revelations-FF instead of being renamed.

[RJFerret]

I have tried to read some of the pages on this thread but still am confused on a couple of issues. My RP partner is EU but plays with me on a US server i.e. Landroval.

I am assuming we don't know if this will be considered one that is kept or not but if so... will he still be able to play on the US server or will he have to move to a EU server with his char.

No, you can not move from US to EU or EU to US servers. He will have to remain on a US server with you (they use different data for characters that conflict).

The part of the process I don't quite grasp yet is how the transfer mechanism will handle moving character from one world account to different worlds (for examply, you have four toons on Baradhur and will be moving some to Lindon and the others to Khamul).

I kinda understand the difference between character-level and account-level transfers. And it sounds like account-level data can be moved seperately from the characters. That is not quite what I expected.

Account stuff can be transferred to one of those servers, but the characters you independently transfer to a different server will not have access to those account level items (marks/meds/seals, morgul crests, mithril coins, etc.)

IE, account stuff can be transferred to a server, not divided or multiplied among various servers.

You may move all your characters to one server, or you may move individuals to various servers.

You also will be able to move multiple times freely before Oct. 1st, so if you don't like the results, can move again.

The beta server, Bullroarer, will be available to experiment/try with, which requires downloading the separate Bullroarer game client software. Nothing there is "real", it's all just a duplicate copy that can be experimented with (you don't technically transfer there, but copy there). Bullroarer gets entirely deleted sometimes depending on changes.

[RJFerret]

Surely too late to implement this if it has not happened already, but, since *somewhere* in the system is record of where each kinship moved to. . .
When a kin leader moves a kinship, an in-game mail is automatically sent to everyone on the roster. Of course, the sender probably couldn't be the kin leader (because, as I understand it, such messages would vanish when the character moves) but could be a GM account or, more likely, a bot set up just for that purpose. The kinleader should be able to chose whether or not such notification is sent. Ideally, the kin leader would have the option to append a message to it with other contact info (such as website and/or a contact email). Preferably, but perhaps too difficult, a follow-up message would appear if the kinship changed names after the move.

Vyvyanne responded later that they could have mail last six months on closing servers, so the kin leader themselves can send that message, and it will remain through the end of the year. At end of year, folks won't be able to log in to read mail regardless, so at that point, forum posts, out of game posts, and whatnot will be the only method.

[Fratonia]

Vyvyanne, I was wondering what will happen to cosmetics that exist in my wardrobe on the source and destination server. With the normal game methods we cannot put the same item in the wardrobe more than once. Will the transfer still create duplicates and did your team check if this causes problems?

The best we can hope for now, IMO, is that rename tokens be allowed to overwrite inactive character names.

Do you mean like "in the future"? So if there is another character with your name that has been inactive for just 6 months when you transfer (so you get the -1) - you can try to override his name with your token after another 6 months have passed and he is still inactive? Is that what you mean?

[Fandriel]

One thing that worries me about the possibility of the server I'm on being merged with another is what happens to the characters of friends who have passed away in real life. In my kin, we have a player who sadly passed away. His characters are still officer in the kin, and if we must move to another server, it would feel very sad indeed if his characters got lost in cyberspace or left behind during the transfer. I understand from the dev diary that you have to request the move of characters yourself.

I don't know if anyone has thought about this or if anyone really cares one way or the other - perhaps I am just too sentimental.

[Fratonia]

One thing that worries me about the possibility of the server I'm on being merged with another is what happens to the characters of friends who have passed away in real life. In my kin, we have a player who sadly passed away. His characters are still officer in the kin, and if we must move to another server, it would feel very sad indeed if his characters got lost in cyberspace or left behind during the transfer. I understand from the dev diary that you have to request the move of characters yourself.

I don't know if anyone has thought about this or if anyone really cares one way or the other - perhaps I am just too sentimental.

No one else can move characters except the player that owns them. So let his characters rest in peace where they spend most of their time.

[Neonera]

Just a thought.

Why have they not announced the worlds that are to close? I mean, I know that we find out on 3rd August...but why the weeks wait between the World Transfer information going live and actually announcing the worlds that are to stay/go?

They announced it during server downtime for maintenance so they could have activated the stuff they needed to there and then.

My thinking is that they haven't actually made a final list of worlds that are to close/survive. I mean, I imagine they have chosen some...but maybe not all. I cannot see any other reason for not announcing it on Monday...or continuing to withhold the information other than for this reason and to create debate on the forums that they can follow.

If I am wrong, then they should just get on with it and put everyone out of their misery, bring down all worlds for the 'quick patch' they need to do and at the same time put the announcement out. You can do this right now and the fact you are not...is disrespectful to your players.

[Lilka]

If we're going to buy new character slots... should we buy them on our current server, or on our destination server?

Or does it carry over?

[Thorvalin]

If we're going to buy new character slots... should we buy them on our current server, or on our destination server?

Or does it carry over?

Character slots are account wide - not server specific

[Eruadarion]

5 US and 5 EU is correct. In our selection we will have one RP per region (EU & US) and one world per language (DE, FR and ENG).

I think some clarification concerning EU servers is needed here.
From my understanding this means:

only 1 EN (English) server
only 1 EN-RP (English-Roleplay) server
only 1 DE (German) server
only 1 FR (French) server

So what about the fifth EU server?

[maartena]

Unless they free up the names from inactive account holders before the transfer, this is a fairly weak argument. If you're on a server which doesn't get the first transfer, you will stand a far lower chance of getting your name on the new one. The names are only released if that character moves over, not if you make a L1 to hold it. You can't do that, unless it's currently free.

If you reserve the name with a level 1 toon (just make sure you at least ENTER the intro) you have the exact same chance as everyone else, as your character is considered active, and when your turn comes around the name is yours, even if you are the very last person to migrate.

Names aren't the problem, it just depends on whether you got there first and claimed your name stake with a low level character.

Housing is slightly more work, as it will cost you 9 gold or so to reserve the best spot for your house, and kin houses can't be bought until your kin moves over. With regards to your personal house it CAN be done, but you will need to focus on getting money for your character. You can use your name-claim toon to complete the intro, and then just keep on killing stuff for deeds. The proceeds of your kills is probably the fastest way to amass the 9 gold needed for a deluxe house. You may get lucky with some coinage from hobbit gifts. Once you have the house, it can't be taken away from you by any incoming character, so again: Even if you are the last person to transfer, the house will be waiting.

If either names or houses are considered important enough to "make or break" you decision to continue playing, you know what to do. If you just leave it to chance, well.... then you get what's left.

[maartena]

I think some clarification concerning EU servers is needed here.
From my understanding this means:

only 1 EN (English) server
only 1 EN-RP (English-Roleplay) server
only 1 DE (German) server
only 1 FR (French) server

So what about the fifth EU server?

Looking at the logons per world, I am inclined to say that the fifth EU server will be a DE server as well. German players have been wanting a RP server, but I don't know if that is going to happen.