I want to clarify information on the new 64-bit servers we plan to open in early 2025.
When the 64-bit servers come online we will allow free and optional transfers off existing 32-bit worlds for all players. More information about the timing, name reservation, etc. will be handled in a Q&A sit down with Cordovan and Severlin in the early part of the new year. In the weeks following the opening of the 64-bit worlds, we will also open "dark world" transfers to the 64-bit servers to allow characters on those worlds to move over.
I appreciate some clarification on this point, but I have to say... the roll-out of this announcement has been really, really poor. Not necessarily saying it's your fault, Orion, but the decision to release info about the new 64-bit servers and transfers in a drip-feed was not a great one.
There are positive aspects around the decision to the new 64-bit servers and their transfers: 1) the fact that we are
getting 64-bit servers for everyone is great; 2) the fact that players
won't have to pay for transfers to these servers, and 3) the fact that this seems to be part of an
attempt to consolidate LOTRO's thinning population.
That said, this announcement paints a deeply concerning picture in other respects. If, indeed, the decision is to create two tiers of servers: servers that are 64-bit and servers that are 32-bit, SSG is fundamentally creating a scenario in which there are desirable and undesirable servers. This ensures that folks on the 32-bit servers will eventually, probably abandon the 32-bit servers for 64-bit servers (made easy with free transfers), and new players will, for the most part, join the 64-bit servers. This is effectively a choice to kill the 32-bit servers and their unique communities. The RP server of Laurelin, for one, has been sustained by not only long-time RPers, but new RP-ers, and even RPers who enjoy raiding and PvP (myself among them!). Those last two groups of players are, in time, going to vanish from Laurelin under this system, and in turn... Laurelin will go with them.
The thing is though LOTRO's servers and populations
need to change - we
need better servers, and we
need to consolidate our playerbase, this is a
terrible way to go about it. Players on Laurelin, for example, will now be fragmented across multiple servers (some 64-bit, the other 32-bit) and the unique dynamics of that community will go with it. This will be the case for many other servers. One way to maintain some of those community's dynamics, while
also meeting the needs of better servers and bigger populations, would be to consolidate 32-bit servers
onto 64-bit servers: you could, for example, consolidate Laurelin, Landroval onto a new 64-bit RP server, as opposed to letting these servers (and their communities) die a long and drawn out death. This is what SWTOR did during its server consolidations (to say nothing of its own upgrade to server tech, whcih didn't leave old servers by the way side), and many of its unique communities continued to thrive.
What I'm saying, here, is that though these changes need to happen, this is an extremely misguided way to go about these changes, and there are far better ways to do so. And, honestly, so long as I'm posting on these forums and playing LOTRO, I'll continue to push for them....