After vague details in the Producer’s Letter on server changes coming in 2015, a few clarifications were posted today on the forums by Vyvyanne. The clarifications confirm that “a number of servers” likely will be closed in the future, but affected players will be able to choose the server to which their characters will be moved.
“There will be no forced data merge from one server to another, or to combine two servers. When/ if players move, they will make the choice themselves of which of the available worlds they want to move each of their characters and account or kinship to. Yes, we are likely to close a number of servers to play, but only after a large grace period and even after that the characters will remain available to be moved to another server to play on indefinitely. We have an idea of the servers we will wish to keep and which to close, but that list is not yet set in stone and may be subject to change as we see the results of transfers and some of the hardware investigation we are doing.”
Vyvyanne continues on, saying that transfers between the EU and US may not be possible and cross server play is not feasible.
“Also it appears I may have posted some incorrect info yesterday. We may not be able to allow EU <-> US transfers due to data concerns that remain from prior merges. But we are looking into it to see if any of our new tech might bridge that hurdle.
Cross server play/ chat is something we looked into but was not feasible with the age of our code and sheer amount of character data that could conflict.
I have more meetings on the transfers in the next couple of weeks to clarify some of the questions that remain. After that I should be able to start releasing more info on the plans and possibilities.”
Vyvyanne also says in another post that some account items that could not be transferred in the past are planned to be transferable in the future.
“One of the things we are wrapping up currently is this ability to transfer account level items such as mithril to another server. We want to get this ability out to you before we begin opening up and encouraging the transfers so that you lose as little as possible. The exact list of account level items that will move with this feature will be coming in a future more detailed post in the coming weeks as I get those details nailed down and tested.”
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I really am going to feel bad for the players on servers that are going to be closed. But at least Turbine will be giving free character transfers to those people so they aren’t forced to move to a certain server.
I had the opposite thought. I hope my server closes so that I will be able to get to the high population server of my choice. I really do think this is the right thing to do.
its the best thing that turbine could think of 😀 nice move, i was wishing for it for a long time
As long as nothing is broken while transfering and everything is smooth, then this is exactly what the game has been needing. It never took of like WoW did, and so many players on world chat are asking about if this game actually has people playing it. So this is a good move. (It also gives me the chance to move to the server all of my friends are on)
In my opinion, the best way to do this would be to make character transfers free to everybody, then after 6 months go back and check the server population numbers. Wait until then to see what the population numbers are AFTER people choose transfer to make the server closure decisions. This would provide the benefit of ‘forcing’ the fewest number of people to transfer (since the greatest number would have *chosen* to move) due to closing their server.
The *wrong* way to do this is to look at the server populations now, decide which servers you’re going to close, and then offer only players on *those* servers the free transfer option. Doing it this way would bring ill will in two ways 1) increased number of people will be forced to move (and thus irritated) and 2) Some players on low pop servers that are *not* closed will be irritated that they’re still forced to pay to transfer to a higher population server.
Option 1 provides less money now, but more goodwill in the long run.
Option 2 provides just the opposite.
I agree that goodwill would be a very smart move to focus on. To self-promote my idea, but mainly to share it, if the link works, you can look here for more details on what I think should happen https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?562355-Producer-s-Letter-Forced-server-merges&p=7297525#post7297525
I wonder how will this affect players barter wallet being forced to move servers.
Does it concern anyone else that lotro.com has an invalid SSL certificertificate, and has had for quite some time?
This is an ingenious idea, from the perspective of anyone who wants a free transfer.
I stopped reading after “This is an ingenious idea”!
It the beginning of the end of the middle world as we know it!!!!!
Main Question: Who’ll get name priority? Active players or will abandoned chars still sit with them; lost to the ages, consumed in the unfathomable depths of Mordor. >.<
That is a good point that not many have brought up yet.
@Braxwolf concerning the LOTRO certificate issue:
It appears that while the root cert that the LOTRO cert chains up to (UTN-USERFirst-Hardware) is included in all current browsers, at least Firefox does not know about the intermediate cert (Network Solutions Certificate Authority), until a webserver for the first time sends that cert along to the browser.
The LOTRO webserver is apparently not configured to also supply the intermediate cert in addition to its own, so until you visit another webserver using the same intermediate CA that _is_ configured that way, you will have that problem.
Yeah, it’s more than just firefox. I see the problem on a mobile browser on my ‘droid, both the chrome and lastpass browsers. Not sure what lastpass is using as it’s browser. I’m seeing it on more than just lotro.com. Seems like a larger issue.
Ah, I worry for my beloved Gilrain 🙁 . I’ve always quite liked being on a lower server, as I don’t really fellow that much, but I can see why they would need to do this. I hope they do manage to resolve this issue of mithril coins and wardrobe things not transferring – I’d be gutted to lose mine! Of course the other thing that I would worry about is the loss of names, particularly as I have built up a lot of RP around my many characters. Fingers crossed, it will all be OK. Ha, with the amount of chars I have though, some will inevitably be affected!
I am with Pash on this I feel there is a place for low population servers. I think LOTRO need to tread with caution on this issue. It may turn out to be a box of trouble.
Any confirmation which servers and when? I hope Elendir closes so I can transfer to Brandy.
Curious about this too, have they released a list of which servers are closing? I haven’t been able to find that info anywhere.
To be honest I hope meneldor will close so I can move to a higher populated server
I would have never left LoTRo if it weren’t for that pig of a forum moderator Sapience. He, and his ban hammer, was subjective in every form possible. Many a good player and good person was turned off from LoTRO because of their tyrannical ToS enforcement which, ironically, is rarely enforced these days because they need every penny possible to keep their game afloat.
Doesn’t anyone else think they went on a vendetta against outspoken Life Account holders? I do for all the banned players I know of were banned for chat violations and they all had life accounts (until their perma-ban).
Interesting… /R.I.P. Shadows of Angmar LotRO (<— the best year in LotRO's history… it had everything!)
Free to play killed LoTRO… more the pity.