World Transfers - July 2015

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News‎ (2 C, 42 P)

World Transfers

Originally posted 28 July 2015.

By Frelorn

Greetings Citizens of Middle-Earth!

We are finally ready to reveal the details on the new World Transfer process, the consolidation of LOTRO's worlds, and their movement to a brand new data center. We appreciate your patience as we have worked to make the new transfer process as well-rounded, simple, and effortless as possible. The first part of this article will discuss our timeline and the second part will go over the details of the new transfer features themselves. So grab a goblet of Elvish Wine and kick back, because this will be a long one.

Timelines

On August 3rd we will announce the worlds that will be impacted and the entire game will be brought down for a small patch which will send out an in-game email to all characters notifying them of the beginning of the World Closures and what that will entail along with a link back to this article and others to be released in the coming weeks. Additionally Character Creation on the worlds we are closing will be turned off at this time.

All characters on all worlds will receive a gift box as a thank you from us as a remembrance of the worlds we will be closing that hold so many fond memories for all of us. The Free Peoples' gift box will contain a Title Picker Box “Of <World> with choice of any of the 29 worlds, hooded and hoodless variants of a cloak, and a housing banner decoration. Monster Characters will receive the monster version of the Title Box “Bane of <World>” with choice of any of the 29 worlds.

The new Transfer Service will become available with this patch. You will be able to access it through the launcher at the World Selection screen after logging into your account. There will be a button that says “Transfer” underneath the “Play” button. Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World and for free moves between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. This is just the beginning of the process.

We will be monitoring the transfers between those worlds for a couple weeks and if all is going well, we will move on to the next step of the process which will be to turn off Auction Houses on the first two of the sunsetting worlds and allow characters, kinships and shared items on those worlds to move to the ten remaining worlds.

Once again we will monitor the moves and if all is going well we will move on to the next two worlds and so on until we feel comfortable with opening transfers off of all of the impacted worlds. The theme here is a slow and steady migration.

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

After the start of the new year you will no longer be able to play on the impacted worlds. You will still be able to see the worlds, and the characters and shared account items will remain available for migration to a remaining world indefinitely.

As you can see, this is a monumental effort and we want to do it as correctly and painlessly as possible. We will be providing lists of the next worlds to be opened for transfer as we go along. We also have in-game mails that will go off when your world is ready so you will see it whether you check the site or the game for your updates. We will also be updating more precise timelines as we close in on each event and have a higher degree of accuracy.

Now on to the details you really want….

New Transfer Features

New Launcher Service

We are changing our transfer service to occur in the game launcher itself. In the world selection window, you will see the “Transfer” button. Click on that and you will see all the worlds and the characters you have on each. You can choose to move just one character, all characters, shared items or no shared items to a target world of your choosing.

Shared Items Transfer

This new checkbox in the World Transfer interface will allow the transfer of all account level items that are shared between your characters on a world from one world to another. These items include the following:

• Account Shared Currency (Mithril Coins & Skirmish )
• Shared Storage
• Housing Storage
• Wardrobe
• Destiny

The Shared Items Transfer will always be a free service and will be available even if you have moved all characters off of a world, just in case you moved a character and left some account level items behind.

Kinship transfer

When transferring a character who is a Kinship leader, the game will disband the kinship on the home world and reform it on the new world complete with all historical data. Players who were in that same kin will be instantly added to the kin on the new world if they decide to follow the Kin leader. Kin leaders, please coordinate with your Kinship members ahead of time, add target world to your MOTD, etc so that your members know where to follow. Bound items in the Kinship house will be returned to their owners and unbound items will be put in the Kinleader’s personal house storage or escrow. Any remaining pre-paid credit and unlocked storage levels on the Kinship house will be automatically granted upon purchase of a new Kinship house on the new world.

Naming Priorities

With the new transfer process, when you transfer your character to a new world, the world will check to see if there is a naming conflict. If there is, it will grant the name to the incoming character if the character existing on the world has not been active for one year or more. The less active character will have a -1 added to their name and a rename token granted to the character. (Rename tokens have no expiration date.) This should prevent the majority of unnecessary renames for those transferring from the impacted worlds.

Region Transfer

Existing characters on EU and US worlds will have a data conflict moving to a different region, so we are only able to support transfers of characters from an EU world to another EU world and US to US. You will note that we have now labeled all worlds on the launcher with their region. However, there is no restrictions on where you might start a NEW character and play based on your physical location, so feel free to try out new worlds in which ever region you feel most comfortable.

Housing Transfer

When transferring a character who owns a house on a world, the belongings and the history of the ownership of that house will go with that character to its new world. This means storage capacity, Upkeep Prepayments, Ownership time and Grace period time will all be remembered and applied to the house you might purchase on your destination world. When you log into the new world with your Home owner, you will find an email that will inform you of your previous address and will contain an attachment of currency equal to the purchase cost of the house. All of your deco is now in Escrow Housing storage, and character bound items are returned to the appropriate characters. If you already own a house on the destination world the upkeep, storage capacity and items will be granted to the existing house on the account.

Recommended Transfer Order

To lessen the chances of item confusion or loss, it is recommended that you transfer any Kinship leaders first, then Home Owners, Shared items, and then other characters or all at once if they are going to the same world.

The Future

So what happens after we are all moved over to the remaining ten? Lots of fun times ahead. The new data center we will be moving provides a much faster connection to the internet with more direct ports to all territories. We are updating all of our software to the latest and greatest versions and all of the worlds are moving to new top of the line hardware allowing for less interruptions of service and a smoother gameplay experience for us all. Having fewer worlds means the ability for our team to run more Live Events on those worlds and the consolidation of players will mean the worlds will be more active, giving you more people to form fellowships, kinships or even just enjoy a festival with. We are really excited about this chance to re-invigorate Middle-earth and we hope you are as well!

The FAQ

I have covered a lot in this article and there will be more to come in the form of more exact timelines and the list of worlds, but I hope this helps to clarify many of the questions and concerns that have been rolling around the last few months. However I am certain there are still questions. See the FAQ below for some and feel free to ask us anything we have not covered and as we answer we will add to the FAQ list.

Q. Will transfers be free? For how long?

A. Transfers to or between the worlds that will be kept will be free until October 1st. After that point all transfers off of closed worlds will continue to be free indefinitely. But transfers between the live worlds will go back to paid.

Q. What is the Timeline?

A. August 2015 Transfers Begin. January 2016 impacted worlds are no longer available

Q. What Account info will transfer?

A. Account properties:

• Destiny
• Shared storage (Bank)
• Housing storage
• Wardrobe
• Shared currency (all account-shared paper items, including Mithril and Skirmish Marks)

Edge-case: if a paper item used to be character-only (i.e. not account-shared), and the player hasn’t logged in since the currency was changed, any amount they had banked will remain with their character and will not be transferred unless they transfer that character.

• Loss Risk:

Housing storage pre-2014 – previously, housing storage was maintained in a very different way from the current bank-based system. If your character has not logged in since then, those items will be lost

Q. Can I transfer my Kinship?

A. We are implementing the ability for Kin leaders to move their Kin with them to a new world. This collects the Kin name and rank and creates a guild of similar rank and name and will add any members who also follow to the new world.

Q. What about my name?

A. The world checks for a name conflict. The character that has been active in the last year keeps the name and the other character gets a -1 and name change token.

Q. What about Lag on Brandywine?

A. Brandywine will be made unavailable as a transfer destination until that server is moved to newer hardware and performance improvements are confirmed.

Q. What interface will players use for transfer?

A. Transfer will now be available through the launcher.

Q. Can we do a full account (all characters included) transfer option?

A. Yes this will be an option

Q. What if I have all my character slots filled?

A. We have doubled the amount of max character slots you can purchase

Q. What about my Bounder’s Bounty Recognition?

A. We have created a Bounder's garden which will have a plaque for the world you are on as well as all the worlds that have been retired.

Q. Will my mail be transferred?

A. Mail does not transfer, therefore it is recommended that you clear all items you wish to keep out of your mail box before transferring.

Q. I still have a balance on my housing maintenance. Will I get that money back?

A. Yes, when your house is put into escrow for the transfer any remaining maintenance balance will be credited to a new house or an existing house owned by your account on the new world.

Q. What is the requirement for a character to receive the thank you gift box?

A. The character must be created by the patch on August 3rd, 2015

Q. What would happen if a character was transferred previously to sunsetting world from a remaining world and the player has other characters, shared banks and such on the remaining world already when they choose to move their account back to that remaining world? Will all the items merge? Overflow?

A. Items will merge with the already present account and in cases where this reaches storage limits, they will go into overflow.

Forum Thread Comments

27 July 2015

Originally posted by Vyvyanne:

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).

Originally Posted by Thalifea:

So it's possible that transfers to Brandywine won't open up till you revert back to the pay per transfer mode?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

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.

Originally Posted by Thego:

And if both were active before the merge?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Then the character that is already present on the destination server takes precedence and the incoming character gets a "-1" added to their name and a name change token.

Originally Posted by Warmutkan:

Suggestion, as a Kin leader:

Please include a dev diary or similar walkthrough for the kinship transfer process when the time comes. Making a mistake when transferring my own characters isn't a big deal, it only affects me. A leader making a mistake on a kinship transfer is a bigger deal since it can affect dozens-hundreds of people.

Thanks for the diary. Very detailed.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

To Transfer Kinship:

1. Choose destination world and announce this to your kinship via MOTD, emails, etc

2. Transfer your Kin-leader character to the preferred world via the character transfer interface in the launcher

3. When you log in on the destination world with the Kin-leader, the kinship will be already created and ready for you. As Kinmates join that world they will be auto-added back to the kin. All items from housing or storage will be granted back to the character they were bound to, or in the kin-leader's storage.

Originally Posted by CM-Amenophis:

What happens to all none Account Shared Items? My Shared Bank is full, also my Private Bank and Housing Slots. Will i lose something? That wasnt mentioned in the Diary.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Any overage on the target server if combining shared items will go into overflow. As you empty items from slots or get more storage upgrades, those items will be able to be accessed. At no point are they lost.

Originally Posted by Forestwyn:

Thanks Frelorn! Question; What will happen to shared storage? If we purchased additional shared storage on different servers will those additional storage spaces transfer too? I can see that being a problem for me since I am lotro hoarder

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Yes, you will have the same number of slots on your new world.

Originally Posted by Linwenn:

Question :

Server 1 (going to close) : i have 3/6 characters

Server 2 (future server) : i already have 6/6 character

does it become 9/12 ? or 9/9 or 3 become unplayable and i need to purchase slots?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

You will have 9/6 and in order to play the 3 extras you will need to delete a character or get extra slots. All of your characters do not have to go to the same world, however.

Originally Posted by Farcho123:

What's happening when our kinship leader is transferring to a world on which a kinship exists which has the same name?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

In the case of a conflict of Kinship name, the transferring Kinship will have a -1 added to their name and will need to open a ticket with Customer Support to choose a new name. We know this is not ideal, but this situation was one we did not have a good solution for in the time we had.

Originally Posted by Familiarity:

My question is for players who already have characters on the Brandywine server and potentially have alts, account information (mithril coins, destiny points, marks, etc.) on other servers that are potentially being shut down.

Is there any way that I can consolidate all of that information on Brandywine beginning August 3 or will it have to wait after the hardware changes? I've barely played on my previous servers I've been on and would rather not pay to put everything in one place since it's become my permanent home at this point. Understandably it may be difficult to distinguish between long time players of the server and people who will just create a new character to then get a priority to move things over but I was curious if this was considered by Turbine or an incentive to get people to leave the server where they can combine everything elsewhere.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Account data transfer without characters will always be free.

So once Brandywine opened back up to paid transfers, you could choose just to move your shared account data there and move the characters to another world. Also once we open Brandywine back up for transfers, if you are coming in off of a closed world, it will be free. It will never cost you money to move your character off of a closing world. I just realized that may have been unclear earlier. Brandywine's Open/ Closed to transfer status will be based on population and server stability, but when it is open it will only be a paid transfer from another Open world.

Originally Posted by Namesse:

If we are transferring, will our friend's list get wiped, with no way to tell where our friends went and what new name they might have?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Due to the way in which our friend's lists are created, these will not be transferable. The data is based on the name and not the ID of the character, so the new world would have no idea if a person of the same name is actually your friend or someone else. Same if your friend had to change their name for one reason or another.

Originally Posted by Marancil:

I am on Firefoot-US.

As I understand you text, Frelorn (and Vyvyanne) migration between US and EU will not be possible, is not possible and, will never be possible? When I started playing there was no distinction between EU or US in the Launcher, and there was nothing in the download or the installer to tell me anything about what to consider when picking server.

I guess many EU players may be in this situation, and perhaps also many US players, we would like to transfer to our "Region" but can't and this also may have an impact on interacting with other players, timezones being a constant issue. (Yes I have said many times I play solo, but that is also a result of a necessity being on a "low populated" server...also a bit of a lonewolf...).

I must admit I am more than reluctant to end up on a "high populated" US server.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Sadly we do not see cross region transfers ever being a thing that we can offer. This is due to the original regions being set up in two different account systems, which allowed duplicate character IDs to be created. The transfer of a character to a world on which it might share an ID with another character can result in the loss of all character data. This is not a situation we want to see happen, especially to some of the oldest characters on the servers.

Originally Posted by kickman77:

So there is no way to open up free kinship renames for a set amount of time? Was that not done recently? Just seems like an easier option to let all players have a free kinship rename because we are the ones being forced to move

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

We do not have the ability for kins to be able to change their names developed, thus it is not something we can give away. This is a GM power only for now which is why we are willing to help out if it becomes a problem.

28 July 2015

Originally posted by Vyvyanne:

"Ok so catching up on the thread since I headed out last night. Here are some additional clarifications:"

1. Are we keeping the most active servers? In some cases, yes. The intention is to move the least amount of players while maintaining some of the more specialized environments.

2. Does the Kinship disband when the Kinleader moves? Yes, it does. This means all messaging to players should be through in-game mail and forums before leaving the world. We can set mail to last longer on the closing worlds (6 months) so that those who log in after the kinleader moves, but before the worlds become unavailable can receive mail on destination target.

3. What happens to a bound item in a Kinhouse from a character that has been deleted or already transferred? Items in this case will be deleted as the owner of the item no longer exists so there is no location to assign that item. If the Kinleader moves before the owner of the bound item moves and the owner has not been deleted, then the item will be placed in the owner's housing escrow account.

4. Transfer of Reaver (or other Monster characters): You can have multiples of one type in cases of transfer of monster characters. In this case you should find a small drop down arrow next to that monster type that will give you a selection of Reavers (or other types) to choose from.

5. Can I transfer to multiple worlds while in the free transfer period? Yes. There is no limitation to the number of transfers you can do. Once the transfers between the remaining 10 are no longer free, however, you will have to pay to move between them.

6. Can you grant more character slots? We are now looking into adding 2 free character slots to all Premium and VIP accounts. We will also have a sale on character slots.

7. Why not do names purely on seniority? A few posters have explained the complication of this already. We had to come up with a solution that would work for Transfers going forward. Going off a seniority based system would result in active players always risking that their name could be changed at any point, not just when they transferred. No solution was perfect. We went with an option that will help free up a number of names for players transferring in, while not disturbing the players who are already there and actively playing the game.

-Vyv

Originally posted by Mnemesis:

I have reserved my kinship's name on other servers. If we need to move, will I be able to disband that kinship and then immediately move and recreate the name?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

It might not be immediate...it takes some time to delete info and free up from the servers, but yes it should free up within a few minutes.

Originally posted by thebravecaptain247:

Will all items in chest of standard and kin house transfer to the new server or do I have to put them in a vault in order to prevent them from being deleted?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Yes. The only exception is Bound items for which the owner character no longer exists.

28 July 2015

Oceanic Server

Originally posted by snakeeyes00:

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

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

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.

29 July 2015

Originally posted by LauraHolt:

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...

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

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.

Originally posted by LauraHolt:

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...

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

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.

Originally posted by LauraHolt:

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...

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

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.

Originally posted by maartena:

When it turns out that I lose my name, and automatically take "Name-1", and after I have properly joined the server and add the character with "Name" to the friends list.... and I find out that character has not logged on for at least 9 months. Can I save my free rename token, wait 3 months based on the last logon date of "Name" use the token to claim the name from the inactive character "Name" and get the name back, as by then 1 year of inactivity has passed?

It would be a shame to see your name lost to e.g. a level 12 that hasn't logged on for 9 months... and then finding out you can't claim it after the character becomes inactive after 12 months. Also with paid renames you should be able to claim an inactive name.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Rename tokens do not work the same way as transfers when it comes to overwriting another name. We can look at making a change to this later down the line after the majority of transfers are completed, but for this time frame we feel it is better to give the players who are transferring the priority to claim their name from an in-active account, over giving that to a any player using a rename token.

30 July 2015

Originally posted by Decaran:

I have a few questions that it would be nice to get some answers to, as I think it might alleviate some players' anxiety. I've read the whole thread, and I'm not sure my exact questions were answered anywhere, but apologies if they were!

1) Can you share any information on how you will choose the order in which servers will be able to transfer? To me, using a randomised order seems the most fair, but it would be nice to know if you plan on opening transfers to the smallest servers first, etc. Obviously no one wants to be stuck on the last server to transfer and lose their house location, name, etc, but I don't see a (fair) way around this unless servers can all transfer at the same time.

2) I presume that a main motivation behind transferring several at a time would be so server populations can be monitored by Turbine, allowing any worlds that approach the size of Brandywine to be closed for transfer temporarily. Basically, is this the current plan - to deactivate transfers to servers that become too large? I'm asking because I know several players who don't want to play on a large world, but if this is implemented, it seems server sizes will all end up roughly equal. So I'm wondering if it's better to just let all servers (barring Brandywine) remain open for transfer for the whole period and see if one server establishes itself for this crowd? It also seems to keep it fair for servers who would transfer near the end of the process, especially if they had planned to move to Server A, only to find transfers to Server A are not allowed because it has become too large.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

We are starting with letting the remaining worlds redistribute first to allow players to choose to leave the largest ones if they wish making room for more players and also because we expect to see the smallest number of moves during this stage. Next we will be opening up with the smallest population closing worlds and going up the list from there. The purpose of this is not to overtax the system by allowing everyone to slam into it at once and also so that we can monitor populations. If one of the destination worlds is getting overfull we can provide it with more resources or fix any issues we might run into. We do not expect any of the remaining worlds to be closed to transfers permanently. Once they are all on new hardware they should be capable of handling current population load, but while we work through the process we want to be able to respond and correct appropriately.

Originally posted by Vyvyanne:

A couple of things to add before I head home for the night....

1) We begin with copies to Bullroarer on Monday, but only some of the features are available through copy. For example Kinships do not move in copy. Once we have worked out any kinks we will open the actual transfers.

2) For those concerned that your server will be last to move, you can still create new characters on the remaining worlds. So you can still reserve character name, Kinship names, and houses using a new character or one already on a remaining world if this is a concern for you. One house per account per world, means your items from the previous world will just be added to your placeholder house once your server is opened for transfer.

31 July 2015

Originally Posted by RJFerret:

A question was raised in another thread Vyvyanne, and you've been doing such a great job cluing us in, I thought I'd bring it to your attention here.

It's a matter of escrow for kin houses that are transferred, and regular houses, as this person has multiple houses with more stuff than they can contain in bags/storage.

Given escrow currently holds your items for 30 days if you abandon your house, and forever if foreclosed, what is the circumstance with items returned and items in escrow due to transfer?

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

The transfer is treated like a foreclosure. The items will be placed in escrow on your destination server until you are able to retrieve them.

Originally Posted by Frelorn:

Greetings Citizens of Middle-Earth!

We are finally ready to reveal the details on the new World Transfer process, the consolidation of LOTRO's worlds, and their movement to a brand new data center. We appreciate your patience as we have worked to make the new transfer process as well-rounded, simple, and effortless as possible. The first part of this article will discuss our timeline and the second part will go over the details of the new transfer features themselves. So grab a goblet of Elvish Wine and kick back, because this will be a long one. Read more.

Response posted by Vyvyanne:

Please note I found an error in the original article, which we are working to correct, but I will state here: “The new Transfer Service will become available with this patch. You will be able to access it through the launcher at the World Selection screen after logging into your account. There will be a button that says “Transfer” underneath the “Play” button. Beginning August 3rd the service will be available for copying characters to the Bullroarer Test World and for free moves between the ten worlds (5 US and 5 EU) that will be remaining available after the end of this year. This is just the beginning of the process.”

The paragraph has incorrect information. Free moves between the main worlds will not start Monday, only Bullroarer copies will be available that day. Transfers between the remaining worlds will probably be a week or two later after we spend some time with the copies to Bullroarer and make sure there are no issues.

I am sorry for any stress this error may have caused.