Server Moves and Migrations

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World Transfers Data Center updates

14 March 2016

Posted by Frelon

Originally posted by Frelon:
LOTRO.com Data Center Migration - Tuesday, March 15th
We are in the process of preparing to move LOTRO.com to our new data center. What this means for you is that sometime around 9:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on Wednesday, March 16th we will temporarily close the forums to posting, so that we can copy the data over to the new data center, do some checks on it, and then reopen the forums to posting. It's possible the web site may be unavailable for a while as this work is being done.
When the web site is reopened, you should simply see the ability to post in the forums, and that's that. However, some Internet Service Providers may take some time for the new DNS information to propagate, so if you run into an issue, you can clear your browser cache, or, if you are technically savvy enough to want to do it, open up a command prompt on your computer and type ipconfig /flushdns. This would be something you could choose to do after we reopen the web site on Tuesday. Eventually, all ISPs will have updated their DNS information, so regardless of whether you take these steps, things should "just work".
We'll keep you updated.

Posted by Vyvyanne on 14 March:

Originally posted by Vyvyanne:
Upcoming Performance Work + Bullroarer and Update 18
This week we have a few things coming online we hope will improve some of the issues you have been experiencing since the Data Center move.
Tomorrow at 6am EST we will be switching over to a new ISP channel which should help get those of you on connections going through unnecessary hops, come through the quickest channels to our servers. We expect our EU players will see more of a change from this than others, but it may help others as well. There will be no downtime besides possibly a 10 min service hiccup around that time. We would love to hear how things feel for you after that.
Additionally this weekend we will be placing [B]Update 18 on Bullroarer[/B] for it's first Open Beta session. In this build we will have much of the content going out with U18 but it will also have the following items we hope will improve performance in various areas:
  • Awesonium upgrade to fix the store crashes some folks are seeing
  • Login Server fix to the "Server Full" error
  • New graphics setting options for reducing graphics and client load in PvMP areas
  • Reducing the data footprint of the Minas Tirith and Pelennor areas
More details and patch notes to come towards the end of the week.
We hope that you will have a chance to jump in and help test these things out with us and keep providing your feedback here and in /bug. We are reading all of it, even when we can not respond. Your feedback makes a difference!
Thank you,

Vyvyanne

Posts by Vyvyanne on 14 March concerning Bullroarer and Upate 18

Originally posted by Vyvyanne:
Yes there will be a character wipe. QA will post in the appropriate Bullroarer thread when it is complete and it is safe to copy characters back over.
Originally posted by Vyvyanne:
The PvMP graphics setting add a couple more items to options you could turn off to reduce graphics quality anywhere, but the PvMP aspect gives one checkbox that can turn off several options all at once. One of the problems in PvMP is loading all of the graphical renderings of that many characters in one area. This reduces the amount of visual extras your client is trying to load, thus it should help on the individual (client side) basis.
Originally posted by Vyvyanne:
BR will be up for a few weeks, but it will probably get patches in that time and it will not always be open to players in that time. The fix that went in fixes a problem where the login server was not handing off load to the second server that was waiting to take the load, and this would get into an over-loaded and stuck state. We have also added code to make it crash gracefully if it gets into that state anyway.

9 March 2016

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
As stated before we upgraded may different systems when we did this move, so the performance issues you are reporting are coming from a number of different areas. There fore there will be several fixes involved here, not just one fix to rule them all.
The maintenance restarts are to prevent the login error that gave the "server full message" we believe we have a fix that is being tested internally now and will require a patch to fix on live. Until we are fully through testing on that and patch we will continue the restarts to keep the error from occurring.
Additionally we are working on some performance improvements that we hope will help with the loading and lag issues in the MT, Pelennor and PvMP areas. These are also in development and internal testing and we hope to have them out on Bullroarer along with U18 content for testing soon.
The ISP issues are something we have to work through with other companies, and due to that is not something I can give timelines on but we are in daily conversations with them as we pass along data for them to analyze and adjust accordingly.
This is not a matter of just a switch somewhere someone forgot to flip, this is a matter of adjusting code that is over 9 years old from the Operating system it was built on to a new one, hardware it was built for to newer hardware, and internet routes that had been set in place to new ones. There are many kinks to work out along the way. Some of the changes will occur in the background, such as the ISP corrections without us knowing, and the client side ones have to go though the full patch/ update process before they can go live and we are getting through that as quickly as we can. We just dont have anything to show you on that yet, but as soon as we do, we will let you know.
Thank you,

Vyvyanne

26 February 2016

Multiple important comments by Vyvanne today!

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
New websites are in the works with the marketing team. 2-26-2016
Retailers have been made aware of the IC closure, but they control their own inventory. All we can do is inform them those items are no longer valid, which we have done.
To those concerned that we are working on multiple things at once, the LOTRO team is a group of people all with specializations in different areas.
We have a team that works on the networking, server maintenance and datacenter. They are actively working with our vendors to improve the ISP routing and looking into any problems created by the set-up or capabilities of the hardware itself (which is fully configured for all 10 worlds as well as set-ups to keep each of the closing worlds running until April and character data from them available even after that.)
We have game side engineers who are looking into the issue with the login server that occasionally starts giving the "Server Full" message and preventing logins when the server is not actually full. Additionally they have stopped any work they may have been doing on Update 18 to troubleshoot the problems we are seeing with transitions between landblocks since switching over to the new OS and hardware in the new datacenter.
We have game engineers working with QA, designers and artists to work on reducing over all client memory footprints in our newer areas as well as ways to reduce memory usage in PvMP.
QA has already completed the testing required to come to new recommended game specs. This is a process that takes months and an outside hardware compatibility lab to run, we are just in the process of compiling those results and running them through the various teams here for approval and they will be posted once they have completed that process and translations.
And we still have designers and artists whose talents do not lean on the side of performance improvements that continue to work away at U18 content.
Getting the new datacenter to be even better than what we had before is still our goal and we still have folks working heavily on it, but everyone has to work within their own strengths and due to the number of things that changed with this move it will take multiple approaches to get us back to where we want to be.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
[QUOTE=Wibz;7545938]Do these improvements include fixing the horrendous buff/debuff lag/client performance hit that happens in fellowships and raids? This performance hit can send the client from running 60fps (or 100+, etc) down to less than 10 fps on very powerful PCs. Also when this happens all the buffs/debuffs of the selected mobs start to flash, jump around and sometimes totally disappear.
The issue has been raised multiple times over the last 4 years and has been totally ignored by Turbine.[/QUOTE]
We are looking into all of it. If there is something that will tweak performance in a positive direction without destroying the integrity of the game, we are looking at it whether it is new since the move or from before. We have found that the move has exacerbated issues we had before but we infrequent or not as noticeable until we performed our upgrades. So we are looking into these things as well. I dont see us doing a complete overhaul on our game engine code as one player mentioned. The cost in time and resources as well as stability risk there would be very high, but there may be adjustments that can be made without that needing to be necessary.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
/bug reports are always helpful as they increase the amount of data we have to work with. Please do be aware that a /bug will never get a response, it is just a way to send data for us for our QA team to parse and use to verify/ reproduce issues but it gives them valuable data from which to do this.
We also could still use traceroutes from players experiencing latency issues. We present these to our ISP partners to help them diagnose problems on that end. You can send those to tech support or post them here.
And yes feedback if you see improvements is helpful as well. It lets us know if we are on the right track. For example it would be good to know if you have seen any improvement since Wed. Last week vs this week since we restarted the servers. We are investigating if we have a degradation over time issue. We know the login server issue presents after it reaches a thresh hold of time so we are resetting those before the weekend to prevent weekend interruptions while we work on a longer term fix. We would like to see if the game servers have a similar issue. If they do then there should be an improvement in gameplay this weekend vs last weekend, but if you are also in the group of folks having ISP route issues, you might not notice.
More specific problems like the client-side problems in PvMP will take a patch. Those will go into beta on Bullroarer once we have enough changes to test out effectiveness. We will announce testing periods for those on those forums once they are ready.

23 February 2016

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Datacenter Status Update 2-23-2016
Dear Players,

Now that we have been in the new datacenter in New Jersey on the new hardware for several weeks now, we have learned a lot about how our service works with domestic and international ISPs. Early efforts at tuning have been showing progress, leading to measurable improvement in latency for both US and EU players. Based on this early information we believe that players will be best served by us focusing on improvements to the new datacenter, rather than moving the EU servers to Amsterdam.

Going forward we’ll continue to work on with the technology team at our datacenter as well as key regional ISPs to improve the performance of LOTRO for all players worldwide. The next step of this process will have us on a new routing system in the next few weeks. This is expected to improve performance for players in much of the EU, and certain parts of North America as well.
For those players experiencing issues in PvMP we are adding in client side optimizations with Update 18 that we hope will lessen the strain on client and server alike when in battles with large groups. We are also looking into the cause of client crashes when traveling and changing instances. We will continue to optimize the configurations of our servers to improve service stability. These efforts will not be over night, but should improve the situation over time so that your play experience will be even better than it was prior to the move.
Once again we thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through this construction.

Thank you,
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters”

Originally posted by Frelorn:
Hey folks, we just wanted to give a little bit more information on the things we are working on related to the performance issues many players are still seeing, as we still have a few things that are being actively worked on.
Routing: We are still working with individual ISP’s and our own provider to help improve how traffic to and from the datacenter is being routed. This is something that can take a little time but we are making progress with everyone involved to make sure things are as efficient as they can be.
Server Configuration: As we are working with a new setup and server operating system, there are things that can be very different from the previous versions. Like changing from for example, Windows 7 to Windows 10, there can be and are some things that behave differently even though they in theory should not. There are also things that weren’t in previous versions that can help us that were not there before. Our Ops team has been constantly monitoring and making changes to help improve performance and will continue to do so.
PvMP: We know that playing in the Ettenmoors has not been a good experience since the move and we are looking at both server and game side solutions to help improve the performance. Some of these things may be simple adjustments we can make and some other will more than likely be a bit more on the complicated side, as nothing to do with PvMP is done easily due to the nature of it works.
here are just a few of the things that are being worked on, along with a few other options the team has been exploring. Overall we just wanted to make it clear that we are by no means done working on making the performance of the game better. We will continue to work on making improvements to all aspects of game performance as we move forward. We thank you all and appreciate everyone’s continued patience as we continue to make these improvements.

26 January 2016

Posted by Vyvanne on 26 January 2016 at 11 am

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Datacenter Status Update 1-26-2016
Hi everyone.
With our datacenter transition still creating issues for many of you, I wanted to provide you with the latest update regarding the server stability issues.
While we have accomplished quite a bit we have much work to do to provide you with the service you deserve. When we moved our hardware from Boston to New Jersey, we not only upgraded our hardware, but we also had to move from an outdated Operating System to a new one. We also moved to a more modern set up of physical plus virtualized machines vs. just physical machines like we had before.
As with all software, there are a number of connection points to configure just right in a move as complicated as this and now that we are in the new location on the new hardware and OS we have found some issues in our configurations. We are working around the clock to address these issues as you have seen from the various down times you have experienced over the last couple weeks. Additionally we are working on code side fixes to correct the disconnections you are seeing which has to do with the servers smoothly transitioning your characters from one server to another. This transition time was affected by the OS and hardware upgrades.
Please note that some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have not yet caught up with our new route. If you are seeing an increased ping time since the move, please submit a bug in game with the name of the ISP you are using. Putting in a ticket directly with your internet company telling them of the issue may help as well. We already have a couple tickets in with the main ISPs we have already identified with inefficient routes to our new home.
We did do extensive testing on the new datacenter, there are many things that did not come to light until we had the full live configuration online. We will continue working on this until the service is completely back online.
Once again we all thank you for your understanding and patience while we work through this.
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters

Executive Producer, The Lord of the Rings Online™

6 January 2016

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Data Center Launch! 1-11-2016
We are finally at the point at which we are ready to announce the opening of the new Datacenter with all new hardware! It has been a long road as we purchased and set up new hardware with updated operating systems, transferred all the data from the old worlds to the new and had to correct systems that had trouble with the transition for 32bit to 64 bit processing. But all of that is past us now and we are pleased to announce that on January 11th, 2016 we will come down for a maintenance window at 5am EST and come back up around 3PM in our new home!

22 December

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
3 Free Transfer Tokens
This morning we added 3 Character transfer tokens to every account and enabled the ability to use these to go between any of the ten remaining worlds. Transfers are 1 token per character so you can use these to move your main characters while you wait for a free window for your world or hold on to them for a later time in case you decide to try out a different world.
This also means that the Account/ shared storage transfer is now available between all worlds and is free (no token needed).
Currently the 3 tokens we have granted or any that you may have purchased prior are the only ones available. We will offer a way to purchase more in the new year.
We hope this helps those of you who may have made a mistake in your transfer choice or simply want a change of pace without waiting for free transfer windows.
Happy Holidays from all of us to you!
LOTRO Team

11 December 2015

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Data Center Update and Free Transfer Period Announcement
While we are still working through some kinks in upgrading from 32-bit to 64bit Operating Systems for our new hardware, we have come to the last of the list of opening closing worlds for transfer. On Dec 14th Snowbourn will be opened for transfer.
All closing worlds will then be available for transfer.
We will also be offering Free transfers between remaining worlds following the below schedule.
  • Dec 7th- Jan 3rd: Arkenstone & Gwaihir
  • Jan 4th- 10th: Landroval & Belegaer
  • Jan 11th- 17th: Crickhollow & Sirannon
  • Jan 18th- Jan 24th: Gladden & Laurelin
  • Jan 25th- Feb 29th: Brandywine & Evernight
  • March 1st- 31st: Arkenstone & Gwaihir
  • April 1st - May 1st: Landroval & Belegaer
  • May 2nd- May 31st: Crickhollow & Sirannon
  • June 1st- 30th: Gladden & Laurelin
Please note that transfers off of closing worlds will remain free permanently regardless of schedule.
All Closing worlds will no longer be available for play on April 4th 2016. Characters will remain available for transfer to an open world.
Once again we are grateful for your patience throughout this process that took longer than any of us expected, but we are very excited about this upgrade and the boosted activity on the top ten worlds and we hope you are as well!
Thank you,
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters
Executive Producer- Lord of the Rings Online
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
The actual turning on of the Datacenter will occur after the holiday. We are starting the free moves now because with the closing worlds all able to transfer as of Monday, there is no reason not to begin the cycle for those who have been waiting on it. The longer time for Arkenstone and Gwaihir is due to the impending Holidays which affect our work schedules and response times, so it makes it more difficult to start a reliable weekly window until January
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
We are working through some issues with turning Paid (token use) transfers back on, including granting 3 free tokens to every account. I do not have n ETA at this time, but as soon as possible. We understand some of you just want to transfer one or two characters or shared storage without waiting on a window and we want to let you do that, but it is gated behind us working through this issue.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Mine too, but this is a major upgrade and monumental transfer of data from one place to another that affects all of our systems including our support system. The last thing we want to do is push it out hastily right before most of our staff is off spending time with their families. Thus we had to make the call to hold on to it until we are secure in the functionality and will have a full staff ready to handle any difficulties we encounter during the launch and the weeks following.


9 December 2015

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Snowbourn available for transfers December 14th!
Title says it all, the last of our closing worlds to begin migration will be Snowbourn on Dec 14th!


2 December 2015

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
More Closing worlds opening for transfer and New Free remaining world transfers
On Monday December 7th we will open transfers off of Vilya.
At this time we will also be closing free transfers off of Brandywine and Evernight and switching to Arkenstone and Gwaihir.
Tuesday Dec 8th we will be opening transfers off of Meneldor completing the US closing worlds.
We are holding off on opening Snowbourn for a week or two as we add hardware capacity to our larger EU worlds to handle the load. It is possible this world may not be opened for transfers until we are in the new data center.
Work is coming to a close on this project and we hope to have a launch date for you soon once we have worked though the final testing of the environment.
Thank you for your continued patience!
Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters

New Hardware Update

9 November 2015

Two postings by Vyvanne.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Greetings players!
Thank you once again for assisting us in this Stress Test of the new server hardware and environment. It was a lot of fun and a great success as well!
Thousands of you joined us this past Saturday bringing us closer to knowing the limits of our new hardware. During the test, we did find some things we need to work a bit more on to make the launch of our new datacenter the best it can be. This means that we are going to make some more adjustments and then schedule another load test in a couple of weeks. This means we will not be making our previously targeted pre-Thanksgiving launch in the new facility.
When is the new target? Until we complete the next test it is hard to say. When we have a more solid date we will let you know.
The good news is that in this time we have been able to add additional server power to the older hardware so that while we all await the great migration, we will be re-opening transfers, starting with the long awaited Brandywine! As of today all closing US worlds already open for transfers should now see Brandywine as a target destination. Additionally next week we will open Maiar for transfers on Monday 11/16 and Imladris on Tuesday 11/17. We will continue to monitor and open worlds for transfer as appropriate while we wait for the buildout to be completed.
Thank you again for your patience and understanding in this transition!
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Closing dates for the Closing worlds will be extended to the end of Q1 2016 so that players have time to return and get mail from kinships and friends in game before making a decision on where to move.

German translation

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Seid gegrüßt, liebe Spielerinnen und Spieler!
Nochmals vielen Dank für Eure Hilfe bei dem Stresstest der neuen Server-Hardware und -Umgebung. Wir hatten nicht nur viel Spaß dabei - es war darüber hinaus auch ein großer Erfolg!
Tausende von Euch haben uns am vergangenen Samstag unterstützt, als wir die Grenzen unserer neuen Hardware getestet haben. Dabei sind wir auf ein paar Dinge gestoßen, die wir verbessern wollen, um einen erfolgreichen Start unseres neuen Datencenters zu gewährleisten. Das bedeutet, dass wir weitere Änderungen vornehmen und in ein paar Wochen einen weiteren Load-Test durchführen wollen. Das bedeutet auch, dass wir den bisher geplanten Termin von vor Thanksgiving (26. November) nicht einhalten werden.
Wann wird der neue Termin sein? Das ist ohne die Ergebnisse des nächsten Load-Tests schwer zu sagen. Sobald uns ein konkretes Datum vorliegt, werden wir Euch natürlich Bescheid geben.
Die gute Nachricht ist, dass wir bei der alten Hardware die Serverkapazität erhöht haben, sodass wir in der Zwischenzeit die Übertragungen wieder aufnehmen können (als Nächstes für den heiß erwarteten Server Brandywine). Ab heute werdet Ihr in allen schließenden Welten, die für Übertragungen bereits freigegeben wurden, Brandywine als Ziel-Welt-Option gelistet sehen. Darüber hinaus werden wir am Montag, den 16. November Maiar und am Dienstag, den 17. November Imladris für Übertragungen freigeben. Wir werden diese Übertragungen weiter überwachen und nach und nach mehr Welten freigeben, während wir auf den Abschluss der Arbeiten an der Hardware warten.

French translation

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Nouvelles concernant le nouveau matériel informatique
Bonjour tout le monde !
Merci encore pour votre aide durant le test de charge du nouveau matériel et environnement de serveur. Ce fut un bon moment passé ensemble et un grand succès !
Vous avez été des milliers à nous rejoindre samedi et à nous aider à découvrir les limites de notre nouveau matériel. Le test nous a permis de déceler quelques éléments qui vont nécessiter un peu plus de travail de notre part pour que l'entrée en service du nouveau centre de données se déroule le mieux possible. Nous allons donc procéder à quelques ajustements et programmer un autre test de charge d'ici deux semaines. Par conséquent, nous n'atteindrons pas notre objectif initial d'une mise en service de notre nouveau centre avant Thanksgiving (fin novembre).
Quelle date ciblons-nous à présent ? Difficile à dire avant d'avoir effectué le prochain test. Nous vous tiendrons au courant dès que la date se précisera.
La bonne nouvelle, c'est que nous avons été en mesure d'augmenter la capacité de l'ancien matériel. En attendant la grande migration, nous allons donc rouvrir les transferts, à commencer par le tant attendu Brandywine ! À partir d'aujourd'hui, Brandywine devrait être listé comme destination possible sur tous les mondes US qui ferment et qui sont déjà ouverts aux transferts. Par ailleurs, la semaine prochaine, nous ouvrirons les transferts depuis Maiar le lundi 16 novembre et depuis Imladris le mardi 17 novembre. En attendant que les derniers préparatifs concernant le nouveau matériel soient menés à bien, nous continuerons à surveiller le déroulement des transferts et à les activer sur d'autres mondes de manière ordonnée.

2015 World Consolidation Event

  • In January 2015 Turbine announced that they were physically moving the location of their servers from Boston to two locations - North Jersey, and back to the EU, in Amsterdam.
  • It was also announced that the Contract to provide the two Russian servers was not being renewed and that they would therefore shutdown on 1 June 2015.

Server Moves and Migrations: Additional Details

Note that this is a currently (14 October 2015) evolving topic. Additional detailed and current information is found at:
Historical information
The most current information is here in this article


Use "Dev Tracker" to find these posts in the LOTRO forums. (This page is in reverse date order - most recent on top.)

27 July 2015

[1]

Originally posted by Frelorn:
"World Transfers"
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 the full article at the above URL - Using the pulldowns at the top of the Forums - "The game / Articles / World Transfers" or at World Transfers - July 2015

14 July 2015

[2]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
"Character Transfer Service Temporarily Offline"
As of today we will be turning off the LOTRO Character Transfer Service website and removing tokens from the Marketplace. We apologize for the short notice, but the service has been having issues leading to a poor user experience and with plans to replace it in the short term, we feel it is best to take it down now. If you have attempted a transfer in the last couple of weeks and experienced any difficulties, please contact Customer Support and they will be happy to assist you. Otherwise all Transfers will be unavailable until we roll out the new service.
Thank you for your patience,
Vyvyanne

21 May 2015

See comments in: Producer's Letter - May 2015 [3]

20 March 2015

[4]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
"Can transfer system and server build out be separated?"
Yes, they can. However the new hardware and location will be better set up to handle increased numbers, thus we do not want to encourage a large migration with the new transfer system until that hardware is in place and ready to go. And for those saying do this before Update 16, the hardware build out is a team that does not touch game code. Delaying 16 would do nothing to speed up the process of the build out.
"Update 16 is getting ready fr launch but no public discussion about PvMP has occurred"
Correct. The PvMP improvements are not part of Update 16, they will come after.

19 March 2015

[5]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
"Where are the servers moving?"
So I will answer this question. Part of the delay is that we are doing a multistage move of servers from the Boston area to a location in New Jersey for our US servers and from Boston to Amsterdam for the EU servers. This is not just a new location but new hardware, new transfer service, OS upgrades, etc. A LOT of work :) And it is not just LOTRO getting this treatment, thus the delays as Turbine level teams handle the gigantic move.
In the meantime the LOTRO specific team is focusing on completing Update 16 and getting it into beta in the next few weeks.
So while we focus on that release and give the other teams a chance to move through more of the set-up work where will probably be little new info on the transfers. Once U16 is shipped we will be closer to testing the new transfer features and able to give this effort our full attention as well as give you more regular updates and details as they shake out.
Thank you for understanding,

3 March 2015

[6]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
U16 will indeed happen before any transfer changes. In fact this is one of the reasons we have had little to talk about. With the pushing out of hardware updates, I have had engineers refocus on helping complete U16 initiatives like the Legendary Items Upgrades and come back to transfer improvements once that is locked in. But more to come on that soon as we start ramping up U16 testing and telling you all about it.
Sadly it does not look like EU <-> US Transfers will be possible. You can always start a new character on any world you wish to play on, regardless of region, but we will not be able to support moving an already created character from an EU database to US and vice versa.

2 March 2015

[7]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:

Hi all,

My apologies for being off the forums these last few weeks. I have been extremely busy.

Progress is coming along on both the new transfer from launcher feature as well as new hardware setups. Hopefully in a week or two we can post more details on the new server transfer features such as the multiple character moves, the guild disband and re-formation and naming conflict changes.

For now I will say we have at least a couple more months before all of this gets underway. I wanted to get the transfers started towards the closer end of that, but then based on feedback and research into performance concerns, have decided to wait until we have our new hardware in place so as not to cause undue stress on already highly populated worlds. Due to snow and some other set backs we do not expect new hardware to be online until summer. Thus the timeline is pushed back a bit.

For those concerned about notice for server closures. We will be providing at least a couple months notice for players on which servers might close before that happens. We have lots of time and will make sure you have all the information you need to prepare before anything happens.

Vyvyanne

30 January 2015

[8]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Thank you everyone for your continued patience on waiting for details regarding our server transfer improvements, hardware and consolidation efforts. This post will be one of a series in which I will present some more details on our plans. I won’t be able to answer all of your questions as we are still planning and building the systems, but I will answer what I can. We have many teams working on this transformation that could take the remainder of the year to complete, so I am providing information as it becomes solid enough to share.

So how will we improve the transfer process so that I don’t lose my stuff, you ask? By adding the following features:

New Launcher service: We are changing our character and account transfer service to occur in the game launcher itself. No longer will you need to find a website to conduct a transfer. You just have to launch the game and go from there!

Account transfer: This new checkbox in the Server Transfer interface will allow the transfer of all account level items from one server to another. These items include the following:

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

Kinship transfer: We are working on a system to transfer some of your kinship information data to the new server. More details as this feature develops.

Naming Priorities: One of the main concerns is of players keeping their names. We are looking into a change in the way name conflicts are handled to give priority to the active characters. More details as this feature develops.

Region transfers: 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.

We aim to have this new service available in early spring this year with beta testing on Bullroarer before that time. We hope that you will join us to give feedback and stress tests to this all new and improved aspect of our service!


[9]

Originally posted by Tuco:

Thank you for the update, Vyvyanne. It looks very promising. Good information, and it raised a couple of questions for me. Two questions on this:

1. If we're moving some characters to different servers (e.g. one to an RP kinship on Laurelin and another to a music kinship on Landroval), can we take some of the currency and marks and shards and wardrobe (for example) to each, or will it be everything from one server to another server?

2. What happens if the receiving bin is full -- do we need to have enough empty shared storage and wardrobe and housing storage to accept everything from the old server, or will there be some kind of overflow system to allow later pruning on the new server?

Thanks -

[edit - oops, I showed one going to EU and one going to US. That's not a relevant part of my question, since I realize that's not going to be an option. I meant "one each to different available servers."

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
1. For splitting your characters between destination worlds, you will need to choose which one gets all the account items. We can only send the account data to one world.

2. There will be an overflow if destination inventory is full

Housing questions: More details on the changes to that system as we get closer to finalizing design on it, same for Name conflicts.

Can I choose the world my character goes to? Yes. You will be able to choose which world each of your characters goes to individually or select all the characters on one world and send them all to the other world of your choosing at once.[/QUOTE]

[10]

Originally posted by Tirian Hammerfist:

Yeah, I noticed that with copies too - I just hope that its the same for transfers, and this is something that definitely needs to be clarified :)

Originally posted by Vyvanne:

All items that currently transfer with Characters will still transfer, including character bound items and storage.

20 January 2015

[11]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
I would like to allow people to start migrating to the higher population servers for free before the transfer improvements are added, for those that wish to do so and aim to do that soon. I am just doing some double checking on concerns about overcrowding before I do so. Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available, so that is not the concern. We just have not moved the larger worlds over to their new hardware and data center yet, so we want to make sure we are not going to make performance worse before that happens by encouraging a mass migration.
Expect some updates from me on transfers in the next week.

[12]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
I know there are reports of lag on Brandywine especially in the PVMP areas. I play on Brandywine and do not experience these issues, but I may not be playing in the areas, at the times players are running into problems. So I am gathering info on that to determine if we have an issue on that particular server that might be made worse by moving more players to it before we improve our hardware infrastructure. Yes hardware can affect performance and newer hardware and a better location could do improve upon latency. Player population is not always the cause for latency.
What I dont want to do is make everyone's experience worse in the meantime.
As for free transfers after improvements are made. Yes, after we improve the transfer process the plan is to keep transfers to the most populated servers free for some time to allow players to move over to those servers using the new tools. How long those will remain free is still to be determined.

[13]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Players of Brandywine!
Please help me in gathering some data around the lag you are seeing in game.
If you can, please post to this thread answering the following questions:
1. What time of day do you experience lag?
2. What zones/ regions/ instances are you in at the time?
3. Are there a number of other players in your field of view when you experience it?
4. What approximate region of the real world are you located in?
Thank you very much! This data will help us make some important decisions about player migrations and hopefully help remedy the issues you are seeing.
Cheers,
Vyvyanne

[14]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
If it seems unfair or iffy, I wouldn't worry about it. Turbine will figure it out. They will not make people charge to move a character from a server that has been closed; that would be the worst business decision ever, alienating all players who don't play now, so don't worry about it. They will almost 100% give a permanent free transfers for any character that is still on a closing/closed server.
I think she was referring to it being free for everyone, not just people on closing servers, and since they haven't been announced yet, I don't think they would limit who can transfer for free.
Also, any character bound stuff in your wallet has and will transfer with the character, so don't worry about that. It's only account-wide stuff, which is very very rare to exist and not be put in the wallet, regardless of owning Premium Wallet or not. The main I can think of is the Rift Armor Gems... (meaning they dont go in by defeault. Marks, Meds, Seals, and even Instance Tokens do go in I think, no matter your wallet status)?
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
This :) If your server is ever closed, you will always have the option to move characters from that server to another open world for free. But transfers between already high populated worlds may not remain free, as we do not want to encourage a constant hoping back and forth between servers.
As for character items, we are working on making sure everything your character or account has will move with you. There may be some edge-case items that will come out in testing, but we will have a clear listing of what those items are.

[15]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
I will have threads on transfer details including Kinships, Housing and names as well as schedules in the coming week.

Current Status: EU Servers

20 January 2015

  • A description of the current understanding of events:
https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?562441-Some-clarifications-as-i-understand-them
Note that Frelorn has stickied this thread.
Originally posted by Ellemere:
Hopefully this thread can shed some light on the common misconceptions and just downright false information being touted both ingame and on the forums. It should clear up a lot of things peole are asking and will save you hunting the forums for answers. [B]

What is happening - the EU server move.

Turbine is moving the EU servers to the Netherlands, to assist in reducing ping times and hopefully reducing latency. With the possibility of improved and newer hardware.
The EU servers are as follows.
  • [EN] Eldar
  • [EN] Evernight
  • [EN] Gilrain
  • [EN] Withwindle
  • [EN] Snowbourne
  • [EN-RP] Laurelin
  • [DE] Maiar
  • [DE] Anduin
  • [DE-RP] Belegaer
  • [DE] Vanya
  • [DE] Morthond
  • [DE] Gwaihir
  • [FR-RP] Estel
  • [FR] Sirannon
All that is happening here is that the data will be transferred and service will be as normal. No takeover of service by Codemasters or any other third party. (This seems to be a huge concern on Eldar at least and the source of a lot of misinformation).
The above move has nothing to do with the consolidation to take place at a later date other than perhaps the newer hardware will better be able to cope with the increased amounts of people on the servers they move to.


What's Happening - Playerbase Consolidation

This is where it gets tricky, with the limited information we have rumours and misinformation are abound.
What we know
  • Servers will not be merged and their will be no forced data merge
  • Players will have their choice of which server to move to
  • Some servers are likely to close but only after a large grace period and even then the characters will still be available for transfer
  • There is a preliminary list of servers likely to close but that is not set in stone and is subject to change
  • It will not be possible to transfer NA-EU or EU-NA
  • Cross Server chat/grouping is a no go
  • They are looking into allowing kin leaders to move your kin as a whole, but you will still be able to make your own individual choice if you happen to be on a server that is on the list to close.
  • They are also looking at allowing us to move currently locked items with us ... such as Mithril, Marks, Meds and Seals is what i took it as.
  • If your server is ever closed, you will always have the option to move characters from that server to another open world for free. But transfers between already high populated worlds may not remain free, as we do not want to encourage a constant hoping back and forth between servers.
  • Transfers to the higher population servers will start sooner rather than later, for those that wish to move before the transfer improvements are added.
  • The timeline for hardware upgrades has been pushed back until summer. Thus the timeline for transfers is pushed back a bit.
  • Update 16 will be released prior to any transfer enhancements being made.
  • Even if you move before improvements are made, your account items will remain on the old server to be moved when that comes available.
  • As for character items, we are working on making sure everything your character or account has will move with you. There may be some edge-case items that will come out in testing, but we will have a clear listing of what those items are.
Hopefully this clear up some of the confusion about what is happening. I know it has helped my kin as i explained it to them.
Updated 15.03.15

References