LOTRO Migrating To New Data Center Soon; Does It Bode Well For The Future?

A brief post on the Lord of the Rings Online forums has my brain speculating a bit today. In it, executive producer Athena "Vyvyanne" Peters states simply that the game will be migrating to a new data center on Monday, Jan. 11. The game is scheduled to be down for about 10 hours, from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST.

Here's where my thought process has me thinking ahead: This probably isn't an inexpensive move, and not one that would be likely for a game that's got a very short time left. As we all know, the current contract for Turbine to produce LOTRO runs out in 2017 -- most likely toward the end of the year -- so perhaps this is a harbinger of... well, something else. Or at least not the doom that many of us predict or fear. I like to think that could be the case, at least.