LOTRO Starts Shutdown of Two-thirds of NA and EU Worlds

By Michael Byrne, Editor in Chief Posted: August 3, 2015

It's been coming for a while and now the process is finally underway. Turbine has started the shutdown process for about two-thirds of the NA and EU worlds available for their free to play MMORPG, The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). While this news certainly isn't much of a surprise given the age of the game and its likely future with the Lord of the Rings license coming up for renewal at the end of 2017, it might actually be a welcome change to many LOTRO players who will have their worlds pushed into greater populations.

The shut down process is a bit out of the ordinary though so let's take a moment to go through it for you LOTRO players out there. Effective today, the following worlds will not allow new players to be created and will be shut down in early 2016:

Players on these worlds will have their characters saved indefinitely and will be able to transfer for free off of closing worlds. Transfers from worlds that are remaining active will be free until October 1st, when the paid transfer service is re-implemented.

Initially, you'll be able to transfer characters off of closing worlds onto the test world, Bullroarer, but later in August you'll be able to move to the remaining worlds. Kinships will travel with the Kin leader to the new server and members of that Kinship will be automatically placed in their previous Kinship is they follow the leader to the same new world. Items, account history, character naming rights, and other details are discussed in the transfer FAQ. You can queue up for a transfer directly from the game's launcher.

Brandywine will be unavailable as a destination world initially while the populations of the new worlds are balanced out and tested since this closing of worlds is being done in conjunction with a move to a new data center for the game.

You can stay up to date on changes and key dates by following the dev diary posts on the LOTRO forums.

Got a news tip? Contact us directly here!

In this article: The Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine.

About the Author

Michael Byrne, Editor in Chief

Mike “Magicman” Byrne has been a part of the MMOBomb family for years and serves as the site’s current Editor-in-Chief. His love for MMOs and gaming in general has led him to covering games for numerous gaming websites including Gamebreaker TV and XIV Nation where he proudly displays his fanboy flag for FFXIV:ARR.

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Terranova667 9 years ago

Lotro sucked arse, good riddance, you will not be missed.

teppic 9 years ago

This is great news for the game. Many of the servers have become more and more empty (a vicious circle, people leave because of low population, new people avoid low population servers). Having 10 busy active servers if much better than 1 hugely over-populated one, a couple of busy-ish ones, and 20+ ranging from quiet to dead.

Todoran 9 years ago

sad sad sad if lotro whould have bennn 100% F2P whit only cosmetics in the shop..... that game whould have been a gear income for turbine ....

Terranova667 9 years ago

wipe the tears Jason it will be ok.

Thiago Henrique 9 years ago

I just hope that they do the same with DDO, the game has so much potential but the servers are empty, there's to many of them for a really small playerbase.

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