“The date is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great server migration of our time.” Those memorable words from Gandalf spoke to yesterday’s announcement of the official release date for Lord of the Rings Online’s new 64-bit servers: Wednesday, March 5th.
This means that in less than two weeks, Standing Stone Games will open the four new servers (two in NA and two in EU) for the largest character migration the MMO has ever seen. The studio also posted a schedule for that week, saying that on Monday the 3rd, VIP players can reserve three names, followed by the start of transfers on the 4th and the opening of the new worlds on the 5th. Also of note is the start of transfers from so-called “dark” worlds shut down many years ago, which will begin unlocking on March 12th.
The new date-specific information and schedule is as follows:
- Monday, March 3rd 12:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT): VIP subscribers will be able to log into the game world to access the character creation screen on their destination world and secure up to three names per 64-bit world of their choice. VIPs will not be able to log into the game world to play, or be able to transfer their existing characters, but they can create characters with their desired names and then later rename their transferred character to their preferred name after deleting the placeholder character.
- Tuesday, March 4th 12:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT): Free transfers from 32-bit to 64-bit worlds will be available to all players. The new game worlds themselves will remain closed, but the transfer tool will be enabled to allow for transfers to these worlds.
- Wednesday, March 5th 1:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT): Our new game worlds open! Free transfers from 32-bit to 64-bit game worlds will continue through August 31st, 2025. Free transfers between the new 64 bit worlds will operate on a rotating weekly basis and continue through April 30th 2025.
- Wednesday, March 12th: We will begin offering free transfers from many previously-closed game worlds to these new 64-bit worlds. See our table in the FAQ for specific server order and timing on LOTRO.com. After this final transfer period these previously-closed worlds will be permanently closed, and no future character transfers will be possible.
Source: LOTRO
