Thread: My character is gone!?

I've searched all over this forum and other sites for the answer before finally posting now.

I played this game for awhile as a free player, then I upgraded my account and played the premium version for a month.
Right before the premium ended I stopped playing. This was almost a year ago.

Now I come back to find I only have two lvl 3 characters left. I am 100% certain I had one at at least 25-30.

Before you ask, I have not deleted my character.
And I HAVE looked at the character settings page and, as I said, I only have two level 3 characters and one character I just made.

I was going to start playing again and thinking about going premium but if my character is lost I won't...
So how do I get my character "back"?

Are you logging into the correct account? If there is more than one subscription on the account, are you selecting the correct subscription? After logging in, are you selecting the correct server? These are the most common reasons for not finding a character (although there are others). If you still can't locate the characters, you can contact Account Management and they can tell you the character names and servers they are on.

I only have one account and one subscription.

I've logged on to almost every server but it seems pointless since I already can see which characters I have on "My Character Settings".

It's not about me being stupid and not being able to find my character. It really is gone.

Correct me if i'm wrong,but i don't recall anyone calling you stupid

Originally Posted by Boridre

Correct me if i'm wrong,but i don't recall anyone calling you stupid

Neither have I said that anyone did.

I just want to avoid getting answers that you would normally give someone.

Like I said in my first post, I have already looked around for the most common answers, and that was after trying to solve the problem myself.

If you can help me then please be my guest.

If your character does not show on your lottery page or your character panel then chances are pretty good it does not exist on that account. Now, it could be on another account (not as likely as the 3 character slots you have would point to that being your premium account) or you somehow deleted the character.
Can you perhaps remember the name, class, and server of the missing character? It is tough to imagine troubleshooting across so many servers for a character that low a level.
In any case, if you played the game long enough to pay for it you should take heart in that getting to level 20 only takes about 4 hours if you are dedicated, and that is not an exaggeration.

It's also possible your account was compromised while you were gone and the character deleted after being cleaned out.

I have a similar issue.

After a year, I returned to Lotro and found my turbine points and characters to be gone. My characters didn't show in the 'My Characters' list and neither in the character screen in-game; for me they had just disappeared without a trace. I made a ticket to ask what happened and decided to reroll a new character while waiting for an answer.
I tried to pick the name of one of my old characters and it was taken. Curious I took a different name, logged in and then opened the Friends list, added my missing characters' names voila... there they were! The exact same characters being where I left them a year ago (Bree and Thorin's Hall Homesteads).

Now I honestly have no clue to why my character still exist in-game but are not connected to my account. I really can't remember if I used a different account name or email and somewhere I dare to say I didn't.
I am still waiting for a response to my ticket, to which I added my finding with a screenshot as proof of my missing characters still being there in the game's database.

I hope our lost characters will be restored to us.

If your account says "Free to Play" and not "Premium", then perhaps you are logging in to a different account. Did you ever have more than one?

The reason I say this is because Premium status is permanent. It never runs out. VIP has a specific time period (your subscription) after which you drop to Premium. If you purchased Premium but your account doesn't SAY Premium, perhaps you used a different username and password?

(And for all you wags who want to point out that Lifetime subscribers are VIP and it never runs out, hush up you. I doubt the OP has a lifetime sub. )

I really think the issue is you have multiple accounts.

The reason I say that is you mention that you first played "almost a year ago" as a free player at first. But your join date on the account you are posting from states March 2007.

I don't think the account you are posting from is the same one you created a year ago. You must have another account out there somewhere.

Keep in mind: June 2011 Turbine took over from CodeMasters and all accounts had a 6 month-window to be transferred from them to Turbine by the end of last year. If you have not transferred your account, it's gone for good. So if you have not played for a year, maybe that's the reason why your account those missing characters were one is gone. Still doesn't explain why some of them are still there.

Originally Posted by FragLimiT

Keep in mind: June 2011 Turbine took over from CodeMasters and all accounts had a 6 month-window to be transferred from them to Turbine by the end of last year. If you have not transferred your account, it's gone for good. So if you have not played for a year, maybe that's the reason why your account those missing characters were one is gone. Still doesn't explain why some of them are still there.

I believe all of the European characters are there, whether they were migrated or not. What wasn't migrated was the connection between those characters and an account - that was what the migration was necessary for, to attach personal details, username and password to the characters as Codemasters was not allowed to give that information to Turbine without it being initiated (and therefore authorised) by the accountholder.

Originally Posted by Ozeagle

I really think the issue is you have multiple accounts.

The reason I say that is you mention that you first played "almost a year ago" as a free player at first. But your join date on the account you are posting from states March 2007.

I don't think the account you are posting from is the same one you created a year ago. You must have another account out there somewhere.

I joined the beta in 2007 and played for a few hours. I started playing about a year ago and quit playing after maybe two months.

Why would I have multiple accounts? And if that was the case, why do I have two level 3 characters on this account?
And I always use the same login for everything.

Originally Posted by FragLimiT

Keep in mind: June 2011 Turbine took over from CodeMasters and all accounts had a 6 month-window to be transferred from them to Turbine by the end of last year. If you have not transferred your account, it's gone for good. So if you have not played for a year, maybe that's the reason why your account those missing characters were one is gone. Still doesn't explain why some of them are still there.

I remember this, I transferred my account.

Originally Posted by Strikerin

If your character does not show on your lottery page or your character panel then chances are pretty good it does not exist on that account. Now, it could be on another account (not as likely as the 3 character slots you have would point to that being your premium account) or you somehow deleted the character.
Can you perhaps remember the name, class, and server of the missing character? It is tough to imagine troubleshooting across so many servers for a character that low a level.
In any case, if you played the game long enough to pay for it you should take heart in that getting to level 20 only takes about 4 hours if you are dedicated, and that is not an exaggeration.

I do not have the three characters on the same server, my account says free to play.

I was not only level 20, more like 35-40 when I think about it.

"Hello,


A request has been made to retrieve the list of your Turbine Account(s). Please find below the list of your turbine account names:


Username search result:
...

I only have this account.

Well then, quick test.
Are you actually free to play or are you premium on the account you are using right now?
Do you have 5 slots available on the auction house? Do you have a 5 gold cap? This would be on any newly created character.
Gold cap is a bit tougher to test, due to the difficulty in actually getting to 5 gold with a brand new toon (without taking forever)
If you have EVER spent any money on the game you should be premium.
I really don't know how to help you further... perhaps you can check your email log for any contact when you last played?
I know that any time I do anything on the store I get an email telling me what character made the purchase.

Originally Posted by Hedlundman

I remember this, I transferred my account.

If you migrated your CM account, then the account you are currently posting on is not that account. Your "join date" would be listed as your migration date and would be sometime in 2011. This account must be the account you started on Turbine's servers way back in Beta, not the account you migrated.

Originally Posted by Hedlundman

And I always use the same login for everything.

Originally Posted by Hedlundman

I remember this, I transferred my account.

This may the issue. If you had a beta account at Turbine, and subsequently created a playing account at Codemasters with the same username, you would haqve had to choose a different username when you migrtated as the usernames would have clashed.

(I had to do this for my EU account when I migrated.)

I think you are logging in on your original Turbine account, and your characters are on a migrated account with a different username.

Edit: Just checked, and the username of your migrated account is contained in the confirmation email from Turbine sent on successful migration.

If you are missing a specific character you are looking for, and can remember the character's name and what server the character is on, you might want to contact Account Support directly. You can use the information in my signature to do that. Once they have that information, they can get the ball rolling on locating the correct account and get you on the proper path to getting the character back. How to contact support is in my signature. They will be happy to help

I am very thankful for all the help I've gotten!
The reason I wanted that fairly low leveled character back is because I get very attached once I make one, whatever game it is. I did make a new character though and I've grown fond of it. With The Hobbit (movie) coming pretty soon I think I will be pleased playing a Hobbit Burglar Still, thank you all very much for the support!

Originally Posted by mjk47

This may the issue. If you had a beta account at Turbine, and subsequently created a playing account at Codemasters with the same username, you would haqve had to choose a different username when you migrtated as the usernames would have clashed.

(I had to do this for my EU account when I migrated.)

I think you are logging in on your original Turbine account, and your characters are on a migrated account with a different username.

Edit: Just checked, and the username of your migrated account is contained in the confirmation email from Turbine sent on successful migration.

This may be the problem then. I suppose my memory fails me and I did not migrate the account. I guess it's lost then :b

Originally Posted by DaVoid

If you are missing a specific character you are looking for, and can remember the character's name and what server the character is on, you might want to contact Account Support directly. You can use the information in my signature to do that. Once they have that information, they can get the ball rolling on locating the correct account and get you on the proper path to getting the character back. How to contact support is in my signature. They will be happy to help

Thank you very much!

Originally Posted by Hedlundman

Why would I have multiple accounts? And if that was the case, why do I have two level 3 characters on this account?

Sadly, because it's far too easy to do, and do accidentally. There are "accounts" and "subscriptions" and the distinction between the two is not very clear. It's also easy to create characters on different servers and not remember you've done so years down the road. Not saying any of that is what happened to you, just saying it's waaay easy to do, and very confusing, particularly for new players.

As to why you have 3 low level characters and not your high level characters - if you are certain they were created on the same account on the same server - it seems likely the account was compromised. That said, I don't know anyone RL who has had their account compromised, but I read thread after thread about it here on the forums.

Edit: oops! missed DaVoid's post. Good luck to you on getting resolution!

Mine dissapeared for a day, don't know why, now its back.

Originally Posted by Hedlundman

This may be the problem then. I suppose my memory fails me and I did not migrate the account. I guess it's lost then :b

Well, hopefully the part that your memory fails you on is just about having to change usernames when you migrated your account. Like mjk explained, you would have needed to if you'd already used your usual username on your beta account. If you did migrate to a Turbine account with a different name (likely a slight variation on your usual one), then it's not lost but just a matter of needing to find the name you changed it to.

Do you remember enough about your characters or account for Turbine's Account Support to be able to help you? They're pretty good but they do need something to work with. Or do you keep your old emails so you could check them from around the time you would have migrated to find that confirmation email from Turbine?