2015 World Consolidation Event

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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

11 November 2015 Update

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Brandywine is now available as a transfer destination for the closing worlds that have been opened for transfer.
Maiar will open for transfers on Monday November 16th.
Imladris will open for transfers on Tuesday November 17th.

19 October 2015 status

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Pause in Transfers off closing worlds
Morthond is now available for transfer.
Tomorrow we will open transfers off of Windfola.
After those two are open, we will be pausing in opening any more closing servers for transfer until we are on the new hardware which will be able to handle the increased populations. We are already seeing great increases in load on the remaining servers and do not wish to put further strain on them and the players on them. This should only be a matter of a few weeks at this point though, so we appreciate your patience.

14 October 2015 status

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
One official thread to answer them all:
Starting a fresh thread as the old one had gotten quite long to skim through.
Please see this thread for official updates and FAQs: https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?575685-World-Transfer-Status-Update-8-26-2015
And this Article has the details on the consolidation itself and the new features of the transfer process: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers
I will be reading this thread for questions and feedback and updating the Updates thread with pertinent information, for those who want just one place to get all the facts.
Thank you!
Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters
Executive Producer
These first postings (re)answer a number of posts from the Q/A thread:
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
World Transfer Status Update 10-14-2015
We are now nearly halfway through turning on all the transfers for closing worlds onto the remaining worlds. Elendilmir, Estel, Riddermark, Gilrain, Firefoot, Eldar, Nimrodel, and Anduin are all now available for off world transfers. Morthond will be available on Monday October 19th (around 11am EST) and Windfola on Tuesday October 20th about the same time. Additionally Brandywine and Evernight (our two largest worlds) are now available for transfers OFF ONLY to the other remaining worlds.
The rest of the closing worlds will have their transfers turned on in the coming weeks to be announced as we evaluate stability and determine we are ready for the next set. This is occurring every 1 to 2 weeks. For the order in which we are turning worlds on see the following list https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-closure-announcement
How about the new server hardware and datacenter that all these consolidations are for? The new hardware is coming along great. We have all the equipment in place and built out and are now onto the arduous task of moving all of the software and data from the old hardware to new, making sure connections are correct, running QA tests etc. We should be a load test on the new Bullroarer Beta world in the next week or two and will make announcements about it as soon as we have a date locked down. The aim is to have everything completed and live before the US Thanksgiving holiday. In the meantime we are monitoring the Evernight population closely, have added some additional hardware resources to it to increase capacity and if we start seeing issues we might have to slow down transfers, but we hope it will not come to that as I know everyone on the closing worlds is looking forward to their opportunity to transfer.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
Free Remaining World Transfers post consolidation
Originally we announced that we would provide a one month time frame in which players could re-shuffle among remaining worlds should they decide they did not care for the world the originally chose. After some testing and initial trials we have discovered this method of open transfers would not work. Instead we have decided to go with granting every account 3 Character transfer tokens, which will be granted in line with moving to the new hardware, and Free Transfer Events, which will be periods of time in which characters on a remaining world have opportunity to move to one of the other remaining worlds for free.
We will hold an event lasting 1 month for each of the 10 remaining worlds that will cycle 2 at a time (1 EU & 1 US) and will allow players on the worlds that week to go to any of the other remaining worlds in their region for free (does not require use of a token). For example on Arkenstone’s month a player can choose to move one or all of their characters on Arkenstone one way to Brandywine, Crickhollow, Landroval, or Gladden for free. We will post a schedule closer to the conclusion of the consolidation of the closing worlds and the turning on of the new datacenter. The schedule will be posted on website, forums, weekly emails and the current Worlds of the month in the Launcher news feed. The 3 character transfer tokens you will be granted will allow you to make a move for your primary characters outside of one of these windows for free if you choose not to wait. Paid character transfer moves cost 1 token per character. Shared Account item moves are always free.
Originally posted by Vyvanne:
RP and RE World Naming policies
As part of the server merges, we are aware that there are many people who are entering Laurelin and Belegaer without a full understanding of the rules for a roleplay server. These servers have enforced roleplay names. This means that any name that falls outside of those rules is subject to change. This can come as a shock to those who have played for years with a name they are attached to but which falls outside of these rules.
Until December 31st, we will attempt to practice a relaxed version of the naming rules as though the servers were just like the ones who do not enforce roleplay names. I would encourage those who plan to call these roleplay enforced servers their home to contact In-Game Support to request a rename token as part of a proactive approach to avoid a naming violation. After the final free server transfers, the naming policy will revert to the original roleplay enforced version and your name will be subject to those rules.

10 September 2015

[1]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
"First World Transfers Opening!"
On September 14th we will begin transfers off of the first two of our closing worlds Elendilmir- US and Estel- EU. On that day the transfer button will appear in the launcher and allow players to move characters and accounts for free from Elendilmir and Estel ONLY to any of the remaining worlds for the corresponding region. (US- Arkenstone, Crickhollow, Landroval and Gladden *Brandywine remains closed to transfers at this time. EU- Belegaer, Gwaihir, Sirannon, Laurelin, and Evernight) After this date free transfers off Elendilmir and Estel, will remain available. There is no need to rush into making a decision. You will continue to be able to play on your source world until 2016. If you wish to move to Brandywine and are on a US source world, you can stay on your source world until we re-open Brandywine as a destination world. We expect to do this towards the end of the year.
Kinship leaders and members of Elendilmir and Estel, prepare for your moves and make sure to check in to see where your kinship mates and friends plan to go. Remember that to make a Kinship transfer smooth, the Kinship Leader should move character and shared data to the destination world first, followed by the Kinship members so that everyone is auto-added on the new world. More info on Kinship and Tribe moves here: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articl...transfer-guide
We will monitor these transfers and the health of the populations of the destination worlds and will move on to the next two worlds in the weeks following if all is well. You can see a list of closing worlds in order here: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articl...e-announcement
In the meantime we are working away in the background setting up the new hardware and datacenter to make the remaining worlds ready for you to enjoy. Transfers between remaining worlds will reopen after the new hardware is in place.
All the info on the consolidation effort and the details on transfers and what goes with you along with an FAQ can be found here: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers
Thank you all for your continued patience and feedback on this process!
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters
Executive Producer, Lord of the Rings Online

[2]

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

[3]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
We hope to have all transfers available again before the holidays

[4]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
We are working on a plan that will allow a limited opportunity for a free switch if you are already on a remaining server in case you are unhappy with your current home after all the closing worlds have begun moving. More details once we are closer and have the plan solidified.

[5]

Originally posted by maartena:
Vyvyanne, I have a few questions with regards to the coming transfers:
1) Will character creation be disabled on Elendilmir and the other sunsetting servers when it is their turn? I am asking this because once transfers start on Elendilmir, it is likely that "good names" become available there. I had planned to see if some of my names will BECOME available due to the original transferring off, so I can subsequently transfer them to Arkenstone (provided, of course, the original name holder didn't go there). Additionally, there has been talk of people that want to create a lot of characters on sunsetting servers to eventually come to "Catch-22" or "Magnificent-7" or "Fantastic-4" or "Oceans-11" or even "Route-66" with a lot of F2P accounts....and so on, and so on. In my opinion character creation should be disabled.
2) Those wanting to go to Brandywine: You stated that transfers to Brandywine won't be opened up till the end of the year. Will people that want to go to Brandywine have to remain on their old servers in order to transfer to Brandywine for free, or can they transfer to one of the other four servers NOW, and still get a free transfer to Brandywine when the time comes?

[6]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
1) Yes, Character creation will be disabled on closing worlds as they are opened for transfer
2) I would recommend waiting to move your characters if Brandywine is where you know you want to go and you want to guarantee a free move. We will be implementing some sort of limited free grant for moves between remaining worlds but how free that will be and the timing is still being decided.

[7]

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

[8]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
We are monitoring populations on the destination servers because those servers are not yet on the new hardware. We are allowing players to move to the remaining worlds from the smaller population worlds to improve their play experience now, while we are building out the new data center. So we have to make sure that we are not taxing the current hardware while starting those moves. We do not believe this will be a problem at the rate we are going, but we always have to be prepared.
There will be a date in the late Fall time frame when we expect to be built out in the new data center and on that date all the worlds will be brought down for maintenance and when they are brought back up all worlds will be in the new data center. At that point we expect to open transfers to all the servers including Brandywine and will be less concerned about population affecting performance.

[9]

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

26 August 2015

[10]

Originally posted by Vyvanne:
"World Transfer Status Update 8-26-2015"
First I want to thank everyone who participated in the initial transfers that occurred last week. Due to some unrelated connection issues we had to turn of the service after only a short couple days and before we could really kick off US transfers, but in that time we received a lot of data that will help us improve the service even more. If you attempted a transfer last week and encountered any issues, please open a ticket with Customer Support and they should be able to help you out.
We are releaseing a patch this morning with the improvements and at that time we will open up the service for 48 hours for the 5 Remaining US worlds: Arkenstone, Crickhollow, Landroval, Gladden and Brandywine (off world only) to shuffle among themselves. The service will then be turned off again Friday morning as we assess the data and wait for some of the new hardware effort to catch up to our transfer progress.
Currently we expect the new hardware and data center to be available for public testing on Bullroarer in early September and are planning an event around that. More info as we get closer.
In mid-September to Early October we expect to start open transfers off of the closing worlds to the remaining worlds. We will begin with the smaller population worlds so as not to tax the old hardware as we transition to the new but still allowing those on the quiet worlds to start getting to know their new communities. In the October to November time frame is when we expect to be able to do the full switch over to the new hardware and data center for everyone and turn on transfers across all worlds. Please note this is our current timeline and is subject to change based on other delays that may occur during build out.
For those concerned about the free transfer timeline between remaining worlds that we originally set to end on October 1st, we are adjusting this plan. We will no longer have a time frame for free transfers, but are instead working out a way for everyone to have a chance to change their mind on their destination server once before having to pay to do so again.
So once again I want to thank everyone for their patience. This is a monumental task to undertake and we are making every effort to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible, but in order to do that sometimes it means taking pauses or delays in schedule. And this is only the largest of the upgrades we are working on for this year! You should be getting eyes on our new in-game storefront in the coming months as well as a new website coming in the months following that! So many shiny new updates for Lord of The Rings Online coming up both in-game and out, so stay tuned.
Cheers,
Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters
Executive Producer
  1. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439797#post7439797
  2. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439843#post7439843
  3. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439861#post7439861
  4. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439862#post7439862
  5. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439901#post74398931
  6. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7439901#post7439893
  7. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7440013#post7440002
  8. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7440013#post7440013
  9. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7440015#post7440015
  10. ↑ https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?575685-World-Transfer-Status-Update-8-26-2015


World Consolidation Notice

On 19 August 2015, with Update 16.4 players on the remaining worlds received this in-game mail message:

New titles

  • On the first login after the 19th of August 2015, (Update 16.4), a new deed and title is automatically bestowed on each pre-existing character on an account.
The deed auto-completes and is found in your Deed Log under Class/Race/Epic header and the "Race and Social" tab.
Deed: World Consolidation begins - new faces will soon arrive in your world.
  • After reading the above message, a gift box is provided to characters greater than level 10, who are on a remaining server.
Retrieved from "https://lotro-wiki.com/w/index.php?title=2015_World_Consolidation_Event&oldid=1545526"