In a recent Dev Diary, Frelorn announced that the 19 servers to be closed will be announced on August 3rd. At that point players will no longer be allowed to create new characters on those servers. This will also mark the start of free transfers for all characters on all worlds but the change will be gradual so some transfers on some servers will not open until a couple weeks later. Starting in October, the transfers between the remaining 10 (5 EU and 5 US) will no longer be free but closed worlds will be free as long as LOTRO continues. The servers to be closed will still be open until January 2016.
There is a new transfer tool that will work through the launcher that will allow players to transfer the following:
- Characters
- Account Shared Currency (Mithril Coins & Skirmish
- Shared Storage
- Housing Storage
- Houses
- Wardrobe
- Destiny
- Kinships (done by the kin leader)
Mail will not be transferable so it is recommended to take care of all mail before transferring.
Naming priority will go to the character that was on that server first unless they have been inactive for over a year in which case they will be given a -1 after their name. The character with the name change required will be given a free token to change their name.
The article also reminds players that you will not be able to change between EU and US servers.
The diary recommends tranfers in the following order:
“Kinship leaders first, then Home Owners, Shared items, and then other characters or all at once if they are going to the same world.”
The diary also gives a positive outlook on the future:
“So what happens after we are all moved over to the remaining ten? Lots of fun times ahead. The new data center we will be moving provides a much faster connection to the internet with more direct ports to all territories. We are updating all of our software to the latest and greatest versions and all of the worlds are moving to new top of the line hardware allowing for less interruptions of service and a smoother gameplay experience for us all. Having fewer worlds means the ability for our team to run more Live Events on those worlds and the consolidation of players will mean the worlds will be more active, giving you more people to form fellowships, kinships or even just enjoy a festival with. We are really excited about this chance to re-invigorate Middle-earth and we hope you are as well!”
The diary also has the FAQ at the end of it with interesting insight that suggests Brandywine is going to be one of the 10 remaining servers:
“Q. What about Lag on Brandywine?
A. Brandywine will be made unavailable as a transfer destination until that server is moved to newer hardware and performance improvements are confirmed.”
Also the FAQ mentions there will be an option to move over your full account:
“Q. Can we do a full account (all characters included) transfer option?
A. Yes this will be an option”
There is also mention of the number of character slots that will be made available:
“Q. What if I have all my character slots filled?
A. We have doubled the amount of max character slots you can purchase”
In a follow-up post, Vyvyanne mentions when the transfer to the new hardware will take place:
“We are still resolving timelines on moving the worlds to new tech but it is looking like we should be moved over in the next 2-3 months. I will give a better timeline once I have it.”
It seems the developers know what they are doing and have a solid plan in place. Now it is just a matter of making it happen smoothly and so lets hope all goes well.
Click here for our reactions to today’s news.
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The remaining 10 servers to be announced in one week I think https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7409926#post7409926
New poll idea , which servers will stay?
holy! 19 closing? that’s way more than i though! still dunno if we need to delete characters/empty shared storage on server we want to do the complete server transfer to though.
They are going to let you buy more space for characters at least, items you don’t hae room for will go into overflow apparently.
Two quick questions: Will the items in the inventory bags transfer too? Also, I see it says “shared currency” but does that mean everything in my wallet?
server closing is much larger than i except, but its quite welcome. More low lvl players are great thing
MZ… shared storage will transfer to the new server along with most other server shared items. The only case for deleting characters would be if you are moving to a server where you already have characters and have not unlocked enough char slots to accommodate them.
1.Evernight UK
2.Laurelin RP , UK
3.Gwaihir DE
4.Belegaer RP , DE
5.Sirannon RP , FR
US
1.Brandywine
2.Gladden
3.Landroval RP
4.Crickhollow
5.Arkenstone
i think
I’m personally hoping Elendilmirs status as unofficial oceanic server will trump say arkenstone but it’s probably 3-4 servers vying for that last spot.
Well as with their loss of people from previous upgrades like u12 and u13 that saw a good number leave because they got tired of having to re-tool their character that they spend a lot of time working on. This will only drop the overall number playing to even lower levels once the dust clears.
I see this as having an bad infection in the foot and amputating the entire leg and just incase the other foot might go back, amputate the other leg as well. A saying from George Santayana “he who forgets the past is condemned to repeat it” and they simply show they never learned from their mistakes with u12 and u13 and are now going to plummet their customer numbers again.
As for an option, they know which servers are low and medium and high in population and usage, so take this chance to even out the servers to improve lag and service. Advise those in the lower pop and use to please look at the medium ones first so to even things out. And why they are at it ask anyone in the highly populated ones that if they want to strike out and join the others in upping a medium server into more populace server. Hence you get a far more even stretch and gives you far more growing potential to showcase, so you can hint, hint, nudge, nudge the players into getting their friends and associates into the game for this reason.
That’s essentially what they are doing, just very quickly.