Interview: Talking 64-bit Servers, Legacy MMOs And More With LotRO's Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini

Legacy MMOs are, in many ways, one of the engines that keep the genre chugging along. Games from yesteryear that at one point were the juggernaughts of the MMORPG world are, often times, still going strong decades or more later, from Ultima Online to Tibia and much more. 

It's these older games that "evoke the early days of MMORPGs," as Emilien put it in his recent editorial on Legacy MMOs. Even if you haven't personally played EverQuest, you might be familiar with its significance to the gaming landscape. Same with World of Warcraft, RuneScape and many more. 

But what does it take to keep these older MMOs chugging along, especially as the gaming landscape has changed over the years and the novelty of an always online world is no longer simply the realm of MMORPGs, but the norm among gaming today?

The Standing Stone Games team understands this struggle all to well, being the developers and caretakers of not one but two legacy MMOs themselves: Dungeon & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online. This week sees the latter launch its new 64-bit servers for both North America and Europe, just one step towards keeping LotRO running for years to come. This isn't the first time DDO or even LotRO have seen 64-bit servers roll out, with Cormyr for the former, and the Angmar and Mordor servers in LotRO released previously, but this new push this week is one of the larger server transfers since the World Consolidation from 2016.

Investing in new technology is just one way Standing Stone Games (and Daybreak as a whole) aims to keep their Legacy MMOs relevant in 2025. 

Speaking with executive producer Rob Ciccolini, he explained the importance of the new 64-bit servers, especially as it pertains to keeping LotRO and DDO performant into the future. One key benefit of the new server tech is the expanded memory capability of the new 64-bit servers, which seeks to address one of LotRO's biggest issues: lag.

"So with the expanded memory capability of a 64-bit server, we were able to add new technology that takes all of the stuff that usually gets loaded from disk and then gets swapped out to disk and gets loaded in disk, and pin all of the code bits of that in memory," Ciccolini told me in an interview last week. "Which means that that disk swapping and loading doesn't happe anymore, and it affects a whol bunch of things, like when a player moves from place to place, sometimes they get transferred from one server instance to another. And what would happen is they'd come over here and some of their items, or some of their features would have to get loaded from disk because nobody else [who] were on that erver had those things. All of that goes away. And so it's much smoother because that's pre-cached into memory when the server starts up, and so we see a lot of performance issues have gone away because of that."

Another key advantage of the new 64-bit servers is the ability to, as Ciccolini explains it, take "larger areas" and section them off on their own, meaning that they don't affect other people across the server. This means if a large battle is taking place in the Ettenmoors, it's it's own sectioned off area, unlike the 32-bit servers where it could have far reaching performance effects across Middle-earth's vast landscape. 

However, as a result of this transfer, we are seeing players have to make a hard choice between leaving a server many have been on since the MMO launched in 2007 - servers with rich history woven into the fabric of The Lord of the Rings Online (Landroval immediately comes to mind) - in order to have a more performant experience, or sticking it out on the older, aging hardware. When asked whether it could have been possible to simply upgrade the existing 32-bit servers to 64-bit, Rob explained that it's not that simple.

One of the key factors is, as Rob describes it, "letting the players play together." By simply upgrading the 32-bit servers to the new 64-bit hardware, the playerbase would still be spread out amongst all the existing servers. But encouraging transfers to a new 64-bit server, it has the effect of bringing players together overall. However, another issue with simply upgrading existing servers comes down to budget. 

"Each of these servers is expensive because it's not just changing the code, it's changing the whole configuration to have both more instances, but each instance has more memory. The amount of budget it would take just to update all of these is not only something I would be concerned about, because I want these games to go on for the next two decades, but it would [also] be overkill for each server."

Ciccolini does talk about the considerable support the team is receiving from parent company Daybreak Game Company, especially as the company invests even more into its studios. One of these investments is a whole new data center for the servers, among other upgrades. 

"We have a whole new data center, which has better, it's always got a better upgrade, right? We have the all the hardware that runs our connectivity is upgraded is, is much better than the current servers. You know, the disk drives are upgraded and faster. Each one has a better CPU because we have different the hardware is, is better and more modern, and the 64-bit servers just require a lot more memory. Like, if we're going to pin stuff right, the memory requirement, I don't want to say balloons, but it's significantly more than for the 32-bits. So all of those things are upgraded behind the scenes, which lends itself to just a more robust server. And we've seen this like people have reporting that Angmar and Mordor, for instance, are significantly better than the normal servers. When people go back to the normal servers, all of the little hitches and bumps along the way that they kind of got used to and tolerated when they go back, it's it's actually really painful. "

As someone who, in many ways, stopped playing LotRO as religiously as I used to as a result of the lag spikes and hitching, I can attest to just how nice it was to hop into Angmar and experience next to none of those issues. If anything, the idea of transferring to a 64-bit server is enticing if, for no other reason, it means I can play my favorite MMO again without those annoyances constantly driving me into the arms of other, more modern games. 

The road to 64-bit servers with The Lord of the Rings Online hasn't been without its own share of bumps in the road, though. When the move was first announced back in December, it caused something of a panic with the community, and it seemed that the LotRO team was caught a little flat-footed by the reaction. When asked about this and what Rob would have done differently now with hindsight, I was actually surprised by the answer: he would have said something even sooner. 

"Philosophically, we're trying to change our ways to give players more information earlier, because otherwise, what we found was we would when we held back information that the players wanted to hear so long to the point where there was no uncertainty. We never shared anything with them. The producers letters didn't tell them anything. They never knew what was coming, because we don't have the certainty until, like, a month before, and then it was really too late for them to plan. They didn't know it was coming during the thing. Now, I think I would have actually rather have done it earlier than later, because then we would have had two weeks before we went on break to answer their questions and do more stuff right?"

One of the major points of consternation was the fact that after this announcement was made the SSG team went on their well-deserved holiday break, meaning it was radio silence on exactly how these server transfers were going to work. However, because of the technical nature of the announcement, the need to get everything translated into the supported languages for the MMORPG's global community, it just took too long to talk about it as early as Rob would have liked overall. 

"I think that the mistake was not how early we did it, or even, 'Hey, we will answer these questions as they come.' [B]etween writing it, answering all the questions internally the initial and doing the translation, it came too close to the holidays. Now, do I want the players getting anxious about not having enough information? Absolutely not. But I think just having a blank wall where they don't hear anything until we're ready to put it out is also equally as problematic, and we're trying not to do that."

Into the next decade

Standing Stone Games are the caretakers of two MMOs from the mid-to-late 2000s: Dungeons & Dragons Online launched first in 2006, while The Lord of the Rings Online hit the scene in 2007. The two MMOs, turning 19 years old and 18 years old, respectively, have dedicated fanbases that help to keep the games chugging along, even as player tastes have changed and technology has progressed throughout the years. 

One key aspect outside of simply upgrading the tech is making sure that the MMOs themselves continue to look good despite being almost two decades old. 

"[O]ne of the things we're up against is as the technology ages out, we have to make sure that our art is stylized enough so that we don't start looking dated. In some ways, I think LotRO does a better job than DDO on that, because the LotRO landscapes, especially in the later areas, look great, and the LotRO landscapes in the earlier areas don't look as good. One reason is our art team wasn't as good then, but two, they had to work on much, much worse video cards. And keep in mind that our games are old enough that we have network code for people that happen to be on modems."

However, an advantage that Standing Stone Games and other studios supporting Legacy MMOs has over newer titles is they have a lot of content. LotRO alone has 18 years worth of content updates, expansions, and more, and it's not showing any signs of slowing down. Dungeons & Dragons Online has the rich history of D&D to pull from, which it has done well over the years and has the potential to tap that well even more in perpetuity. 

Other Dungeons & Dragons-themed games, including MMOs, have hit the landscape ever since DDO arrived on the scene, but it's stood the test of time. In many ways, it's a window into the past of the legendary tabletop RPG thanks to DDO being built on the 3.5 ruleset (modern D&D games are built using 5.0 most of the time, now). I asked if Standing Stone Games has any plans on upgrading the ruleset to a more modern representation of D&D now, and Ciccolini explained that there are somethings that are simply hardcoded into the MMO thanks to how 3.5 works, such as stats attached to certain races. However, there are ways the team can address, such as moving the skill system closer to D&D 5.0, though Rob stresses that this isn't anything to officially announce and there's no guarantee that this is a direction the team is looking to move towards - this was more of an example than anything. 

The Lord of the Rings Online is celebrating 18 years this year, and over the nearly two-decade journey we've seen the single largest digital representation of Middle-earth created in games - and there is still so much to explore. There are places on the map that the team still hasn't touched, from the Sea of Rhun in the East to the Grey Havens in the West. I actually am afraid to see the Grey Havens added to the MMO because if it's anything like the books (which LotRO, I'll maintain, is still the best adaptation of Tolkien's work to date), the Grey Havens is where the story ends. I mentioned this to Rob, and after a chuckle, it seems his view is a bit different: it's not really a place to adventure in. 

"I don't forsee us touching the Grey Havens in any capacity for a long, long time."

Both games have a ton to draw on still, from Dungeons & Dragons' never-ending creativity blazing new planes, characters, and stories to draw from, to Tolkien's expansive world and near-inexhaustable amount of detail in his subcreation. As a result, both games are poised to enter into their third decade as strong as they entered their second - and in many ways stronger still thanks to the investment in technology to keep the MMOs humming along all these years later.

There is another way Standing Stone Games' Legacy MMOs have continued to thrive, even as shifting consumer tastes and industry trends have gone far from the way MMOs were built in yesteryear: families playing together.

This speaks to me as someone who, since LotRO has been released, has had a daughter of my own and has introduced her to the MMO as they got older. While my kid prefers to play fighting games (they have thousands of hours in games like Melty Blood: Type Lumina and Guilty Gear: Strive), when they do play other games it's MMOs and MMO-Lites with friends. Yet we still play LotRO, though not as regularly as I would like nowadays. Yet I am not alone in this, as many LotRO players have both literally and figuratively grown up since the MMO first launched. 

As a result, younger players are being introduced to the worlds of DDO and LotRO through their parents, uncles, aunts, older siblings and more as a way of bonding with one another. While both MMOs might be decidedly slower paced that some of the more modern games the younger generation plays, families playing together has helped to keep an infusion of younger gamers romping through the worlds of the Forgotten Realms or taking in the sunshine in Western Rohan. 

As a result, I'm excited for what is in store for both MMOs and what this investment in new servers and tech means for the future of both games. I was pretty upset during the World Consolidation event in 2016 that my beloved Nimrodel was one of the servers shutting down, and since moving to Arkenstone I've not had much affinity for the server like I did Nimrodel before it. However, I'm excited to make the jump to Glamdring and see the communities pop up in the meantime. I'll be interested to see just how many people make the jump and how many still stay on their existing server, especially the ones known throughout the MMO community for being vibrant linchpins for LotRO's community and role-playing events overall. Will we see the same community continuity on Glamdring as we have on Landroval, for example? Time will tell.

Either way, it's an exciting time as server transfers spin up this week (name reservations went live today for VIP players). While I try not to break anything with my Kinship transferring (we celebrate 18 years ourselves this year), I'm looking forward to hopping back in and playing my main Elf Hunter I've run since the first days of The Lord of the Rings Online, ideally free of the hitching and lag that has soured my experience in recent years. 

I'm excited for the transfers, but I'm excited for what it represents also. The legacy of both DDO and LotRO is long indeed, and Standing Stone Games has done a great job of sheparding that legacy over the years. I'm eager to see what things look like as we enter the next decade for both titles in the very near future.