There’s no question that the amount of studio to player communication has increased in 2015, and today was no exception. LOTRO Executive producer Athena “Vyvyanne” Peters took to the forms to update players on the progression of server transfers and migrations. In response to a player question about opening up free transfers prior to ironing out all of the kinks with the transfer system, Vyvyanne had this to say:
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.
So we now have confirmation of free transfers to the highest population servers. Further down in the thread, Peters addressed some questions about server lag and reasons for being cautious about opening up transfers prior to the scheduled hardware upgrades:
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.
Lastly, she also answered some of the questions of which types of transfers will be free, and which will not:
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.
In true EP fashion, VyVynne signed off the thread with some teasers for more information we can expect to see in the near future:
I will have threads on transfer details including Kinships, Housing and names as well as schedules in the coming week.
What are your thoughts on what we’re being told so far?
Original thread at the official LOTRO Forums.
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Well I do not want to play on more populated servers. It is ok now for me and I am on second emptiest server among EU English. I do not like crowded servers at all and specially in Lotro, where crowd kills all atmosphere.
then how do you do group content such as instances, raids, fellowship quests? its hard to find fellowships on less crowded servers:S i love the turbines move and i respect your opinion but im just curious about those:S
@ wertykelpie
I do not raid. It is boring for me and I do not like that type of content.
Some fs quests can be soloed. In case of others I leave them undone (there is enough content in the game to level only with solo quests) or if I really want to do them I find people in my kin (we have usually around 20 online) or on global (but I rarely bother to do so).
IMO Turbine should allow people to move to more populated servers if they want, but also keep those emptier servers for people like me who prefer atmosphere over raids in which 6/12 people tries to kill some super boss, which is for me rather ridicoulus.
See what Fred said below , only issue will be patch day week / fortnight in New zones. And even with fewer servers there will still be many servers quieter than average to suit your needs. I play on E, I get groups. More would be nice 🙂
I’m imagining E will close however
@Lewis
I have some toons on Brandy and Snowbourne, I know how it looks on crowded servers, Sorry but it sucks for me. And starting areas are crowded like hell already on mine empty server. I usually start new areas after many weeks. So do not try to convince me. It is pointless.
very true. I also play very low population server, one of the lowest in game, and that cause some problems with grouping especially in lower lvl areas/instances. But otherside, i really feel the atmosphere of end of the third age, and that emptiness on middle-earth, that feel more authentic than playing highly crowded servers where every place is full of heroes
It will be fine. High pop servers are exactly the same if you turn off world chat. The big challenge is keeping your kin together, but with good communication that will work out.
Turbine clearly wants it’s casual grouping players back and this server consolidation is seen as an essential part of that I think.
I don’t see how the solo RPG experience will change, apart from cap there will still be vast swaths of middle earth empty, because there are literally dozens of zones.
It will all be fine my friend.
Ps. I can’t wait to kill some ridiculous boss with 5 friends awesome !
I can tell you how solo experience will change – it will ruin atmosphere, cause all “distant”, “wild”, “empty” “dangerous” places will be full of other players, which totally kills atmosphere. Dangerous sneaking into camp full of enemies is not the same when mobs in that camp are all the time dead cause there are 4-5 players sacking the camp.
You will also have to more often wait for respawn of mobs, bosses, items to collect or destroy to make your quets cause they are dead or collected all the time. It will be harder to get ore or wood and also chests will be robbed all the time (in other games with more populated servers you often meet bastards, who are taking chest content while you are fighting with mobs/boss defending the chest).
Alas, many people playing in MMO RPG games like to play them like it was CounterStriker and they care only about raids and also make landscapes in fs to kill and level faster. They dont care about content, story, atmosphere. For me it has nothing to do with RPG and more populated servers kill RPG totally. Specially in LOTRO with its lore.
I played for some time on more populated server in lotro and it was terrible for me. So it will not be fine for me when they make me to move to some crowded server, And a few days ago one player joined to our kin who moved recently from such highly populated server tired with hordes of kids and overpopulated (for his liking) areas. He will surely be happy when moved back.
And on which server do you play that you cant find 5 people for an instance? I am on one of emptiest servers and people still make 12 persons regulary.
I am fairly certain that there will be some servers with lower populations left open just to satisfy those with concerns such as yours. I think the idea is to get the people who wish to group more opportunities to do while maintaining a place for those who are more inclined to avoid the crowds while gaming.
This is my hope and expectation at least…
Golbinbayne you have to understand that this game is a MMO its normal to have others playing too, what you describe as your ideal is that lotro is only good if it is a singleplayer experience, but since its not only a singleplayer game, there are some content that is only avaiable to be seen and finished with other players and middle earth is not an abandoned place its a living world so there is no lore breaking if there is a bunchfull of adventurers around a certain zone, and the atmosphere in this game is pretty high too so i doubt that the tranfers will ruin that since its in the essence of the game. but i agree that turbine keep a server or 2 for those people who want a more solo experience 😀 i bet they will so dont worry, i guess :S
And you have to understand that this is RPG game, while most whining on forums is by people, who do not care about RPG, They just want to level fast (or not level at all to not to change they maxed gear) and make raids, which have IMO nothing in common with RPG. They are more FPS.
I had nothing against it, but recently Turbine started to listen to them and they are slowly killing RPG part of Lotro. There will be no new levels for at least 1.5 year (most probably at least 2 years), they want to kill those server on which is best RPG atmosphere, they claimed that they do not have enough resources and few people play group content, but now they want to make new instances (while there are dozens of instances in the game already)
And lore is spoiled by many of heroes (players) in one place cause in many regions in Tolkiens world people from outside were very rare.
Turbine should designate some servers as raiding or PvP servers and let those people who want crowd and care only about raiding to move there.
I’m really like this new openness. Not that Sapience or Frelorn have been close-lipped, but in comparison Peters is practically giving us a blow-by-blow commentary on Turbine’s intentions. I Like it.
Although there are still a lot of questions regarding the transfers (kinships, names…), so far, I think what vyvyanne as told us is fair.
I have toons in brandywine, and if I was given the change to transfer them to a slightly smaller server for free, I would do it. But I understand turbine’s point, it’s a business after all…
And I’m liking the way the new producer is communicating with us 🙂
I think this concern that a lot of people have about getting forced onto some densely populated server is a bit premature.They have 29 servers with greatly varying pops, it is more likely that we will end up with more medium sized servers, say within the 7-8% range. If I had to guess I would say the four servers they introduced during the f2p launch are probably getting the ax.
What it looks like Turbine is likely to do, and I hope this is the case, is to first let those who wish to move to more highly populated servers to do so first, for free, for some length of time.
At that point, they will see how many players are left on the lower population servers and make a determination of how many servers they want to maintain for those players. Hopefully, they will allow players to indicate, somehow, their wish to play on lower population servers, and label a few servers as such. Then, let those players move to those servers, for free.
Hopefully, as many players as possible can be accommodated in accordance to their play-style, and Turbine will see the need to keep a few servers to accommodate those who desire a less-populated world.
Even on “high population” servers like Brandywine, it’s entirely possible to quest through mid-level level regions without ever encountering another player. As others have noted here, if you turn off /world chat, it can still feel like you have 90% of Middle-earth all to yourself.
Taken from a thread on lotro community forums : ( hope formatting works)
On Sunday, 14:30 in France (1:30 PM GMT)
1.Crickhollow________US_11.76%
2.Brandywine_________US__8.60%
3.Gwaihir [DE]_______DE__6.29%
4.Gladden____________US__5.73%
5.Landroval [EN-RE]__US__4.69%
6.Laurelin [EN-RP]___EN__4.34%
7.Sirannon [FR]______FR__4.24%
8.Evernight__________EN__4.16%
9.Snowbourn__________EN__3.83%
10.Belegaer [DE-RP]__DE__3.47%
11.Arkenstone________US__3.10%
12.Withywindle_______EN__3.05%
13.Anduin [DE]_______DE__2.72%
14.Silverlode________US__2.67%
15.Vanyar [DE]_______DE__2.67%
16.Meneldor__________US__2.50%
17.Firefoot__________US__2.37%
18.Dwarrowdelf_______US__2.26%
19.Maiar [DE]________DE__2.26%
20.Imladris__________US__2.24%
21.Vilya_____________US__2.18%
22.Elendilmir________US__2.17%
23.Estel [FR-RP]_____FR__2.05%
24.Eldar_____________EN__2.00%
25.Morthond [DE]_____DE__1.99%
26.Windfola__________US__1.93%
27.Nimrodel__________US__1.83%
28.Riddermark________US__1.73%
29.Gilrain___________EN__1.16%
Perhaps we can use this as rough snap shot guide to those servers most at risk.
Probably worth pointing out that we’re not sure how Turbine measures the server activity, exactly, and the numbers above are completely unofficial. I know Frelorn has recently disputed some of the numbers floating around Twitter as inaccurate.
Agreed, but as long as it’s interpreted with caution at least it’s something to have an idea of where we stand.
I think using the hobbits bounties completion dates is probably informative too, as well as paths of the dead unlocks. From memory, entirely comparable with perhaps the German servers doing even better.
My server Eldar is so empty i can move around the maps almost all evening without see any other player and in the chat (world) i see very few people talk. Sometimes i dont see anyone talk for hours. So i really hope Eldar will be on the shutdown server list so i can move all my chars to a more populated server. Last week when i leveled a char from 95 to 100 i saw only 2 other players in the same map.
Are you sure, that you play in peak hours on Eldar. Cause I know that there is lot of talking on World on that server.
Yes, they talk a lot on world but not all time. With a few people i mean i see 10-15 active players in world chat, not more than that. So yes, on Eldar it’s important play on peak hours.