For those who have been living under a rock... or away for a while (like me!)... there is some important news to pass along.
The long-debated closing of servers is coming to LOTRO. Yes, unfortunately, the folks at Turbine have decided that the game's population is no longer routinely high enough to support as many servers as we currently have. Therefore, a number of servers will be closing and the total number of servers available will be reduced.
We, at Rechazar Nazgul, wish to help our members wade through all the speculation, rumors, and present you with the facts so that you (and we as a kin) can adequately prepare for these changes.
Here are a couple of links which you should familiarize yourself with which contain the majority of the information you will need to know about the closures/transfers:
World Closer Announcement (Which Worlds/Servers Will Be Closed or Remain Open)
Additional Information About the Closures/Transfers
A SUMMARY OF THE INFORMATION THAT WILL MATTER TO US:
We want to make sure our members clearly understand the parts that will pertain to our server (Landroval) and our kinship. So, here it is in summary form:
1. Landroval will remain open. We are on the list of the 5 servers which will not close. So, any/all characters you have on Landroval are safe. Our kinship isn't going anywhere!
2. Right now, any transfers from the closing worlds to the worlds remaining open are *Free*. (See the link above for more details.) However, as of October 1, transfers will revert back to being "paid". So, any characters you wish to bring to Landroval should be transferred before Oct 1 to avoid the transfer fee.
3. Turbine has *doubled* the number of character slots available (for purchase) up to 50 per server per account. And, they are granting 2 additional free slots to Premium and VIP accounts. So, before you delete any characters (on the closing worlds), you might consider purchasing additional slots if you have the points/cash.
4. Many items will transfer with any characters you transfer to Landroval. Check the link above for details on how to make that happen.
5. Kinships are transferable! For those of you (like me) who have your own private kinships for your multitude of alts/mules... you need to transfer your kinship leader first. There is information in the links on how to transfer your kinships.
6. Housing will also transfer. Check the links above for more info on that.
7. Your character names will be kept for the most part. If there is a conflict, the more active character(s) will receive priority over the less active. Free rename tokens will be given as necessary.
8. Mail will not transfer. Anything you have in your mailbox needs to be emptied BEFORE you transfer off a closing world.
9. Characters on the "closed" worlds will remain available to be transferred at any time. So, do not fret if you don't get everything moved prior to the end of 2015. However, you may have to swallow the loss of some things after that point. But, the character itself will be available for transfer.
10. Existing characters on EU and US worlds will have a data conflict moving to a different region, so we are only able to support transfers of characters from an EU world to another EU world and US to US. You will note that we have now labeled all worlds on the launcher with their region. (Copied from the article)
OK. Hope this helps bring you the information you need to know filtered in a way that helps it make sense.