Transfers, dev letter (aka the thread Gorwe is looking for :) )

Po_gg

The info and timeline is released: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-transfers

In short, the server list (closing / remaining) will released next week. The actual move to the new datacenters (and Eu servers back to Eu) is 2-3 months later, more specific timeline will posted in Sept.

Only 10 servers remain from the 29... 5 US and 5 Eu. That's harsh. 1 Rp on both sides, so Landy is safe, on Eu side it's most likely Laurelin, but then the german rp folks will be pissed...

Character slots limit was increased with 16.2 last week, but won't be free if you transfer all the characters on one server.

Naming is mostly the same it was with the regular transfer, just got an "activity" filter with a 1 year period. So anyone log in at least once on the remaining servers will keep their names, and most transferring characters will end up with a -1. But everyone gets a title option with their former world name. Plus a cloak.

Kins get an easy mass-transfer option. Houses will be lost, Turbine is still looking the option for kinship neighborhoods (when a whole neighborhood was occupied by a kinship, most likely there won't be empty neighborhoods on the remaining servers for a kinship to purchase the houses on the same neighborhood again).

Friend list will be lost... that will need some coordination to rebuild....   especially if not all friends go to the same world. But with only 5 remaining, there are not much options.

 

Probably there will be more answers from blue names, the forum is pretty active right now.

Athisar

Between the lines, the EU servers are already confirmed - Evernight, Snowbourn, Laurelin, one French, one German.

Po_gg

Currently that's more like just guessing, but it's odd nevertheless. Even the guess-timated worst case scenario was 4 english 2 german and 1 french servers during the summer... Leaving only 1 german server will make it overpopulated (and the folks of Belegaer will lose their Rp home), likewise putting everyone who plays in english onto 2 servers (if they don't want to try the Rp server), well... sure, it's a shiny new hardware, but still, that's a truckload of people.

 

Don't get me wrong, my bet would be the same, if only 5 Eu servers left. (edit: which is drawing a sad future for my characters on the Old Forest Creek)

Athisar

Originally posted by Po_gg

Currently that's more like just guessing, but it's odd nevertheless. Even the guess-timated worst case scenario was 4 english 2 german and 1 french servers during the summer... Leaving only 1 german server will make it overpopulated (and the folks of Belegaer will lose their Rp home), likewise putting everyone who plays in english onto 2 servers (if they don't want to try the Rp server), well... sure, it's a shiny new hardware, but still, that's a truckload of people.

 

Don't get me wrong, my bet would be the same, if only 5 Eu servers left. (edit: which is drawing a sad future for my characters on the Old Forest Creek)

It's not guessing They've confirmed that there will be an RP server in the EU, and there is only one (Laurelin). They've confirmed there will be just one French server and one German server. That leaves two. There's no way they'd close the recommended and busiest server (Evernight) and the after that the busiest is Snowbourn.

Po_gg

Originally posted by Athisar

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It's not guessing They've confirmed that there will be an RP server in the EU, and there is only one (Laurelin). They've confirmed there will be just one French server and one German server. That leaves two. There's no way they'd close the recommended and busiest server (Evernight) and the after that the busiest is Snowbourn.

Actually there's 3 (+ Landy, but that's US, and "only" roleplay-encouraged anyways ).

Laurelin, Belegaer and Estel are the 3 Eu RP servers, with the same ruleset, etc. Estel has a very low population, so almost certain they will leave Sirannon open, and the french rp players move there. Leaving 4 spots for further guessing.

See, Belegaer is close in population with Laurelin... and there's 5+1 german servers, just like the 5+1 english ones. True, the overall population is lower, but they're very active, hence the former guesses of 2 german and 4 english servers remaining, with both languages keeping the RP.

That's why I wrote that the statement of 5 Eu servers, with only 1 RP is a tough one... lots of folks will be angry.

 

Torval, that's correct, the US side is easier. For the slots, hopefully there will be some sales on that, along with the shared storage and wardrobe.

Athisar

I may have misread it, but I thought they'd said that there'd be two RP servers overall and then that the EU would have one French and one German server -- I'd be very surprised with a single French server that is RP only, and Laurelin has a decent sized population. There's absolutely no doubt that Evernight will stay, and Snowbourn has long been the top server if you discount whichever one was recommended at the time.

Tokken

So, I can leave all my characters on Brandywine if I want, right? I'm assuming that server will still be intact.........

Athisar

Originally posted by Tokken

So, I can leave all my characters on Brandywine if I want, right? I'm assuming that server will still be intact.........

Brandywine is the busiest server by a long way. They've stated flat out that that is going nowhere.

Tokken

Thanks for confirmation, all. Hopefully some people will leave Brandywine (ya know what I mean.)lol

Athisar

Some nice news, it looks like premium/vip users will get two extra slots for free, and they will put slots on sale as well.

Po_gg

Originally posted by Athisar
I may have misread it, but I thought they'd said that there'd be two RP servers overall and then that the EU would have one French and one German server -- I'd be very surprised with a single French server that is RP only, and Laurelin has a decent sized population. There's absolutely no doubt that Evernight will stay, and Snowbourn has long been the top server if you discount whichever one was recommended at the time.

Nope, they've said a couple times that only 1 Rp on both sides... that's why the guesses of the 2-2-1 setup has a small chance imo - even if it'd be somewhat fair to the german folks. The Vyv post of "1 Rp, and 1 for each languages for Eu" indicates more like a Laurelin RP, Evernight EN, Gwaihir DE, Sirannon FR layout,  + Snowy as 5th, imo. With a huge imo, just a guess

But as you wrote too, Snowy is an active server, without even being the recommended one, and is crowded for a reason: it was the unofficial "other language" server back in the days. It's full with Eu communities, from Italy and Greece up to Sweden and Finnland, plus all the countries inbetween. Along with that it has the least strict, Samuel L. Jackson criteria in chat (https://youtu.be/m_mDTLphIVY ), fairly often you barely see english words for minutes. You could say Snowy keeps all the other servers clean from Black Speech - the weird characters, undecipherable conversations and stuff

I think (especially after the experiences of RU closure and most of the players ended up on Brandy) Turbine won't scatter all those players, chunk of them speaking only their native language, onto the remaining servers - it's maybe wiser to keep them in one place

I must add, even with having characters on Snowy (and only one on Belegaer), I'd support the setup where they keep both RP servers alive, just for the fairness's sake. But if there's only one slot for RP, I hope it will be Laurelin...

 

Also, there were a few more Vyv comments, the best part was that they're planning to give +2 character slots for free, and there will be a character slot sale too. An another good news for PvMPers (so I'm not interested, but still a big news ), you can have more than one Creep class on one server with the transfers, opposed to the current setting.

edit: wow, /me slow typer... Athisar was faster

Po_gg

Opposing to all the concerns about name collisions, a new school (just kiddin') emerged in chat last night, Iteration fun

For example, make 4 characters called Kawa. With the free and unlimited transfers, move two of them, they'll become Kawa-1. Then, move one of them on top of the other... game will check the name, "oops, seems we have that name already, here's a token and a -1". Hence, a kawaii little hobbit lass called Kawa-1-1 Or a minstrel called Avic-1-1 (ok, I don't get that one...). Or, with the new titles from the weekly content, Preparation-1-1, the Unprepared, Dr. Evil's favourite

 

Of course, do not try this at ho... on the RP server.

Also, there won't be any transfers tomorrow, Vyvyanne corrected the original dev letter, only the Bullroarer copy starts now, to test the transfer mechanics, which items are left behind, are there any bugs, etc. Actual transfer will be open 1-2 weeks later.

immodium

Originally posted by Po_gg

Also, there won't be any transfers tomorrow, Vyvyanne corrected the original dev letter, only the Bullroarer copy starts now, to test the transfer mechanics, which items are left behind, are there any bugs, etc. Actual transfer will be open 1-2 weeks later.

Will we still find out which servers are staying/which are being deleted tomorrow?

Po_gg

Yep, rest is unchanged (patch tomorrow, servers announced, character creation closed, mail and gift box to everyone, etc), just opposed to the original plans of transfer opens on the 10 remaining servers, that's delayed. Only the Bullroarer copy will be available for the first couple weeks.

Starbuck1771

Originally posted by Athisar
Between the lines, the EU servers are already confirmed - Evernight, Snowbourn, Laurelin, one French, one German.

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/world-closure-announcement

There is the list of all servers being shutdown. two thirds of all the servers shutting down speaks loudly about the status of LotRO.  Even Gandolf can't bring it back.

Athisar

Gorwe said:

So, how are the EU servers coming along?

Evernight is packed, it's the new Brandywine. It's not surprising really when it's the only (non-RP) English server for the EU. Turbine's said they've added extra hardware resources to it and they're allowing free transfers off it. I think there are issues with Laurelin (RP) because a lot of people don't understand what RP means, and are upsetting the roleplayers.

No clue about the non English EU servers.

Po_gg

There was a stress-test event on Bullroarer yesterday, already on the new gear. Was quite... laggy. Maybe the couple Balrogs roaming in Bree, one-shotting low-levels not helped on that matter either. (I know i know, immersion and its breaking, balrogs are almost extinct, blah blah... still fun )


Also was an U17 preview a few days ago, Minas Tirith looks awesome. There will be 2 bigbattle / skirm covering the siege of it, there's a new tier for crafting (and a detailed dev diary next week), but no launch date was specified, just that within weeks.
edit: loved the part about the White Tree, they modeled it after the one in Oxford - the late one I mean, since it's gone now sadly:  http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/culture/videos-podcasts-galleries/giant-falls-tolkien%E2%80%99s-tree

Athisar

They said that they had more people logged in to Bullroarer last night than they've had on any sever on the game ever before. Pretty impressive when it's this old and it's people just helping to test.

Also having the producer and devs in game is something a lot of MMOs could learn from in how to engage with the players.

Po_gg

Athisar said:

[..] and it's people just helping to test. [..]

Or, for signing up for the rewards   Ok, just kidding.
(But in fact that was a very frequent topic in /world... devs had even put up a world announcement about it)

Athisar

Po_gg said:

Athisar said:

[..] and it's people just helping to test. [..]

Or, for signing up for the rewards   Ok, just kidding.
(But in fact that was a very frequent topic in /world... devs had even put up a world announcement about it)

Well, 100TP is really a sweetener rather than anything huge. As it required a big download I was surprised a lot of people bothered.

Po_gg

(Maybe a new thread would be a better fit but I'm lazy and reply is easier and I mentioned the U17 preview above anyways...)

So, U17 will launch today, Frelorn posted the notes too  https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580912-Update-17-Release-Notes
Mostly what was in the preview already, Minas Tirith and the story moves forward, 2 bigbattles (with guest stars from CO and TSW, Grond and Flappy  ), new crafting tier (sadly the farming gets an another dumbing down, according to the notes...), some bugfixes, and
cosmetic weapon upgrades which I forget above to mention... So, from now on you can hide weapons without putting it back to the bag, equip restrictions are loosened a bit too, plus the cosmetic items won't disappear in combat if the animation is "compatible" (example was using the slapping fish cosmetically over a 1H mace).

Gardavsshade

Thank you Po_gg. 

Po_gg

Nope, everything is still in Boston. But there will be an another stress-test of the new hardver under Bullorarer tonight.

-----
edit on the next day: (since self-bump is a cheapo way to increase post count )

seems they've ironed out things, the test of yesterday was much better than the first one. Or it was because of the less Balrogs   Seriously, compared to the previous, Balrog-infested Bree, this time it was only Amarthiel entertaining the players, plus 1 Balrog visited for a short time before moved to Minas Tirith.

This time the chokepoint was the login server, needed a restart couple of times, huge login queues (https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?580313-Bullroarer-Event!/page45&p=7478448#post7478448  - one queue to rule them all ), disconnects during login, etc. but when you got it, there was much less lag than last time, while had a similar number of players. Eldalleth posted a couple vids about it https://youtu.be/8Uxx4os8OZ4

It was a fun night. Loved the jetpack  

Po_gg

Gorwe said:

So, the EU servers are online right?
...

Well, seems we were too successful with stressing the new gear... they will push back the datacenter launch, at least with a couple weeks:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?582819-New-Hardware-Update

Athisar

They've taken it slowly, but almost everyone can transfer off a closing server to a remaining one, and the remaining ones are so far coping mostly fine with the old hardware. There are some performance issues with newer areas (lots more very active players, I suppose). But in the Bullroarer tests on the new hardware they had more people on a single server they've had in the history of the game, all in one area, all active, and it worked fairly well.

Po_gg

In a sad state, apparently. Currently I'm playing CO instead...

Jokes aside, if you haven't followed the events, here's a recap from a week ago: http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/comment/6829822/#Comment_6829822  (in short, no Eu move, at least yet, and no word about it in the future either)

And the week since, a trainwreck, mostly. Unplayable for lots of peeps, lost/missing items and characters, can't log in, disconnects, rubberbanding, everything you can list under the category "unplayable".
There were two fixes already, a couple server restarts, a small and a bigger maintenance, currently (as in right now) they're investigating login issues again... it's a mess. I only checked once, on a few characters in a closing server, those characters were unharmed - I rather not touch my more important toons until everything is sorted out.
But at least it's a good "cover" for them, no need to come up with a story about the second move, since the threads of "tell us anything solid about the Eu move" are turned into "fix the game already"... /sarcasm

So yep, in CO there's the sky race event, at least that is fun