Confusion over Character Numbers with Forthcoming Merges

[Daysy]

<p>There is so much conflicting information about the forthcoming merge that I'm thoroughly confused. My account is station access, with an additional LoN slot. I have characters on Splitpaw (EU) as well as Freeport (X), Crushbone and the Bazaar (US).</p><p><cite>First response from a TSR:</cite></p> <blockquote>This totals 13 character slots requiring the purchase of 19 additional character slots in order to retain access to all characters.</blockquote> <p><cite>Second response from a TSR:</cite></p> <blockquote>Your most active 13 characters will be available for selection to play, while the remaining 19 will be stored away safely on our servers (inaccessible) until you decide to purchase additional character slots to access them.</blockquote><p>Apparently I wasn't the only one confused, and there was then a post on the forum:</p><p><cite>Smokejumper wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote>4. Example of #3 : Bob has 11 characters on Antonia Bayle (purchased four character slots) and 8 characters on Freeport (purchased one character slot). The total number of characters is 19. The total character slots purchased is 5. (19 – 5 – 7 = 7) So Bob will receive seven new character slots on his account on the day of conversion so that he can access all 19 of his characters without further purchase.</blockquote><p>That seemed clear, except for being the opposite of the information I'd received from Customer Services, and also as it didn't mention different regions, so I wrote again asking for clarification.</p><p><cite>Third response from a TSR:</cite></p> <blockquote>Both US and EU regions will not merge. The 13 playable characters will reflect the total amount of character slots available on your account regardless of region.</blockquote><p>It's always been that you have a number of slots (depending on your account type and extra slots acquired) for the European region, the same number for the American region and the same number for the Test servers. Is this changing? "Both US and EU regions will not merge" indicates that it's not changing and that I'll still have 13 slots on Splitpaw and 13 altogether for the characters on Crushbone, the Bazaar and Freeport. However, the next sentence reads: "The 13 playable characters will reflect the total amount of character slots available on your account regardless of region." That is in direct contradiction to the previous sentence. I've deleted a bunch of characters so that between Crushbone, the Bazaar and Freeport I now only have 13 altogether. What I'm trying to establish is what else I'll lose.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Can you give me your incident number please?  I'll correct any misinformation and provide an update here.</p>

[Daysy]

<p>Question Reference #111111-001131</p><p>Since initiating that, I've deleted a number of characters on Crushbone, the Bazaar and Freeport, so there are 13 left there, and 13 on Splitpaw.</p>

[Daysy]

<p>While waiting for a response, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grXeU-SAxBw">here</a> is a little reminder of what it's like to have to delete characters.</p>

[Banedon_Toran]

Never delete characters, at worse they become locked-out but if the slot situation changes later you may be able to access them.

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Smokejumper will be making further announcements on the character slot situation that should address everyones concerns.  I can't say when it will be made as I do not know but keep an eye on the announcements and community news.</p>

[Gladiolus]

<p><cite>Banedon_Toran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Never delete characters, at worse they become locked-out but if the slot situation changes later you may be able to access them.</blockquote><p>It's all very well to say that a character isn't really deleted but it doesn't help if one that's holding money or items isn't available. With the new launcher, there won't even be a character select screen to see what's accessible.</p>

[Daysy]

<p>Another announcement has been made but doesn't seem to include any new information, as I don't see any reference to the question of character slots in different regions:</p><p>My station account with additional LoN slots contains characters in the EU region and the US region and the X server and the Test servers.</p><p>1. How many of these will remain accessible without buying more slots?</p><p>2. How many of these will disappear if I delete a character to create another?</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>We're getting a cliffnote version write-up put together which I'll repost here when it's done.</p>

[Daysy]

<p>Still no answer?</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>It is very busy around these parts right now so it may be difficult to get something up for you before launch.  What we can do instead is have you contact us with any character slot discrepencies you encounter as soon as we go live.  Less than 24 hours to go!</p>

[TheSpin]

Daysy this whole issue has been discussed in a lot of other threads. I'm sure you can find em if you look around. They are giving people who played on both extended and live some character slots.

[Daysy]

<p>Spin, I appreciate you're trying to help, but telling me just to go read the forum when there's NOTHING about the European servers, and Customer Services is giving me conflicting answers, is no help at all.</p><p>Joshua, thank you for trying to help, but I find it extremely disappointing that Sony cannot answer this when I petitioned it immediately. An announcement is made, apparently without first clarifying all the permutations, and then they're too busy to answer customers querying it.</p>

[Banedon_Toran]

<p><cite>Gladiolus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banedon_Toran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Never delete characters, at worse they become locked-out but if the slot situation changes later you may be able to access them.</blockquote><p>It's all very well to say that a character isn't really deleted but it doesn't help if one that's holding money or items isn't available. With the new launcher, there won't even be a character select screen to see what's accessible.</p></blockquote><p>In the past, if you drop your subscription level and have characters locked out you can one-time /petition and (if you ask nicely) have the characters shuffled around so that the important ones are the ones not locked out.</p><p>May or may not apply in the new F2P environment, but worth remembering.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>Daysy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Spin, I appreciate you're trying to help, but telling me just to go read the forum when there's NOTHING about the European servers, and Customer Services is giving me conflicting answers, is no help at all.</p><p>Joshua, thank you for trying to help, but I find it extremely disappointing that Sony cannot answer this when I petitioned it immediately. An announcement is made, apparently without first clarifying all the permutations, and then they're too busy to answer customers querying it.</p></blockquote><p>GM's do in game support and, much like the technical support department, we typically hear community related announcements after you do.</p>

[Vonotar]

<p><cite>Daysy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Spin, I appreciate you're trying to help, but telling me just to go read the forum when there's NOTHING about the European servers, and Customer Services is giving me conflicting answers, is no help at all.</p><p>Joshua, thank you for trying to help, but I find it extremely disappointing that Sony cannot answer this when I petitioned it immediately. An announcement is made, apparently without first clarifying all the permutations, and then they're too busy to answer customers querying it.</p></blockquote><p>European servers will be unaffected.</p><p>Freeport server is being added to the US English region, so nothing changes for any characters you may have in the EU English (or other) regions.</p>

[Daysy]

<p><cite>Magnamundian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite></cite>European servers will be unaffected.</p><p>Freeport server is being added to the US English region, so nothing changes for any characters you may have in the EU English (or other) regions.</p></blockquote><p>Is that official? One of the TSR people who responded to my petition told me that the 13 slots I have will be for all characters, regardless of region. I appreciate that individuals like Joshua can only pass on information to hand; my problem is that SOE hasn't clarified this at all - not for their customers and not for their staff.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>Daysy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Magnamundian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite></cite>European servers will be unaffected.</p><p>Freeport server is being added to the US English region, so nothing changes for any characters you may have in the EU English (or other) regions.</p></blockquote><p>Is that official? One of the TSR people who responded to my petition told me that the 13 slots I have will be for all characters, regardless of region. I appreciate that individuals like Joshua can only pass on information to hand; my problem is that SOE hasn't clarified this at all - not for their customers and not for their staff.</p></blockquote><p>They've clarified it, I'm just not the person to answer it.  The FAQ was pretty clear to me.</p><p>The 13 slots will include all characters, regardless of region.  You do not get X amount of characters PER region, it is PER account, once the merge is over and done with.</p>

[Te'ana]

<p>SJ said (can't find the reference because the EQ2X forums are gone) that only people with characters on EQ2X and Live  would be affected, which was why he only posted about it on the EQ2X forums. He said nothing about making a change to the way the EU and Test have been handled in the past. I have many toons between the three Regions and have always had  a duplicate number of toons available on each type of region. If this is a change to how its always been handled in the past we should have been notified a LONG time ago and in MUCH clearer terms.</p><p>I am certainly not prepared for this and I believe most other folks with toons split acros multiple regions are not either.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>Lateana@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>SJ said (can't find the reference because the EQ2X forums are gone) that only people with characters on EQ2X and Live  would be affected, which was why he only posted about it on the EQ2X forums. He said nothing about making a change to the way the EU and Test have been handled in the past. I have many toons between the three Regions and have always had  a duplicate number of toons available on each type of region. If this is a change to how its always been handled in the past we should have been notified a LONG time ago and in MUCH clearer terms.</p><p>I am certainly not prepared for this and I believe most other folks with toons split acros multiple regions are not either.</p></blockquote><p>The confusion here is that the EU servers are considered Live servers.</p><p>EQ2X had 1 region.  EQ2 Live has many.  They are all being combined in to the single game.</p>

[Tigress]

<p>oh no...............  did i read this correctly?  does this mean that my army of alts on test & test copy are the max that i can get on them?  i.e., the test & test copy characters are going to be counted into your max #?  how will they get ppl to play on test or test copy now, if it comes out of your max slots?</p><p>i.e., i have a level 50 coercer.  let's say that they put something in that affects the 50s.  if i /copy testcopy (or whatever the code is, i dont remember), then i would have to pay to unlock a character slot, what's my incentive to help find the bugs?</p>

[Te'ana]

<p>Indeed. I specifically created alts on the EU and Test since I was forever bound to The Bazaar, or so I thought. On one account alone I have 17 on The Bazaar, 8 on Splitpaw, and 4 on Test. That comes out to 29 toons, however, if I am reading rightly, I get 7+5+5= 17 total slots. That is 7 basic slots, 5 grandfatheed Station Access slots, plus 5 slots I bought. That makes 12 toons I cannot access <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />  Or worse, if they don't count the unused slots on The Bazaar.</p><p>Edit: All is well. All my character slots on all servers are correct!</p>