Updated ProSiebenSat.1 Feedback Thread

[Piestro]

Thorine@Oasis wrote:

Piestro, I get the feeling you dodge my question about account transfer and then access that account from Euorpe.So ok, it might be against EULA to transfer an account to another person so let me reword my question.You only have to answer Yes or No: Can someone who lives in Europe log in to an account that belongs to a person who lives in USA?

I guess it's too late now, but why didn't you let us choose who we wanted to sign up with? If Prosieben want us Euros as customer, they have to come up with a better deal and/or offer better service than SoE.

Under the EULA/TOS you aren't allowed to log on to other people's accounts, so the answer to the question is no from that perspective.

[Piestro]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Piestro wrote:

As has been stated before SOE will retain control of development of the game. EQII is a very different product than the products available via Alaplaya, and there is little to no relevance in what their other games offer to what EQII will offer.

How does this statement fly in light of the poll issued today?

When EQII converted to Free-to-Play there were certain items removed from the EQIIX marketplace. At the time I remember there was discussion on the forums about the fact that items very similar to the ones you're being asked about in the poll being removed, and that we would put out a poll to find out how you all felt about the subject of possibly reintroducing some items that were removed being reintroduced.

That's this poll.

[Piestro]

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

Tajikmen@Splitpaw wrote:

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Piestro wrote:

As has been stated before SOE will retain control of development of the game. EQII is a very different product than the products available via Alaplaya, and there is little to no relevance in what their other games offer to what EQII will offer.

How does this statement fly in light of the poll issued today?

Oh, i'm sure it will show all the Euro players saying yes. Then prowhatis get their p2w claws in, and if euro players on us servers can have them, it won't be fair, so all players will have to suffer.

Well that last I heard the EU players were excluded formthe polls to begin with "localization" was cited as the reason why.

Can anyone on Splitpaw/Storms confirm that they were given these polls, because to the best of my knowledge they were willfully excluded before.

It's a little more complicated than localization; the first poll was more a test of the polling system although it did give some interesting information. This poll is available on the EU Servers.

[Lempo]

Piestro wrote:

When EQII converted to Free-to-Play there were certain items removed from the EQIIX marketplace. At the time I remember there was discussion on the forums about the fact that items very similar to the ones you're being asked about in the poll being removed, and that we would put out a poll to find out how you all felt about the subject of possibly reintroducing some items that were removed being reintroduced.

That's this poll.

It was also stated that there would be a minimum account age/level of character or something to prevent skewing the polls with multiple F2P accounts. I can confirm that a character created less than 14 days ago on a F2P account got the poll. Of course I knew this would be happening because SOE WANTS this stuff in the marketplace and it is going to be there. The wording of the introduction to the poll makes it sound as if there is nothing but good that can come of it and the choice that favor it getting there are listed first. Polling first and foremost is a science and I said long ago this is EXACTLY how the polls would be presented. Multiple characters, multiple votes, nothing at all done to limit votes by IP (which we now know is well within SOE's power to do if desired).

Anything above being considered/implemented and used though would almost certainly take away positive votes so that obviously will not happen. I voted strongly disagree on every choice on Lempo, I will not respond on my alts nor the F2P account that I set up just for the purpose of seeing if these polls would actually be done as they said they would be. I don't think that I nor anyone else has the right to get more than 1 vote on this based on how much SC they spend, I'm just in the minority of people that have the integrity to live up to that school of thought even when I know it is to my detriment.

I'd like to know how these polls can even be considered to be an attempt at

We are asking to get a fair representation without forcing everyone to debate on the forums

when the results are allowed to be influenced by the amount of SC spent on multiple character slots and the number of F2P accounts that one is willing to set up to attempt to 'game the system'.

[Lempo]

Piestro wrote:

It's a little more complicated than localization; the first poll was more a test of the polling system although it did give some interesting information. This poll is available on the EU Servers.

Thanks Piestro, it sounds like they were included in this at least. The first poll was menaingless beyond testing the implementation but I don't understand how it could have been any more complicated to send it to storms/splitpaw etc just as it was sent to others, in  any case they were included in this one (though there are still glaring issues that make this woefully bad)

[Piestro]

Wurm wrote:

Tallisman wrote:

Responses on this thread appear to have slowed somewhat... just an observation.

A lot of us were given a 3 day vacation for being "Negative Nancys" and are just now getting back.

Piestro, A lot of good important questions have been asked that are being ignored. I'm going to try to sum them up for you in this post.

1) Station Cash: What is going to be the exchange rate when the IP Lock goes live? How will the new "Euro Cash" work on a US Server?

2) Account costs: We all know that those players who decide to move to PSS1 are going to end up paying a lot more for a gold account. It would be nice to know in advance how much more. Is PPS1 going to honor the SOFA agreement?

3) Special content for Europe: Soulsercher's post was right on the money regarding holidays in Germany. Also how is this "great change" going to work on US Servers?

4) Account website and Launchpad: SOE has already IP locked their users located in Germany to a German website for a few years now (you used to have a button to change it back to English but they removed that as well). How are the non German fluent players over here going to be treated?

5) In game support: What happens when a Euro-player puts in a Petition? Who is going to respond? Is PSS1 going to also have GMs on the US servers?

6) And finally, is upper management planning on finally talking to us about this? We used to get producer letters every once in a while, it would be nice if your boss(es) would take the time to talk to us again (preferably without using twitter).

1) The exchange rate is sorta meaningless if you don't know the prices. Back before Malta was on Euro the exchange rate was $3 US to every Maltese unit of currency. If I wanted to buy something (like food or lodging) though it was generally cheaper in Malta even with the technically more valuable currency.

As to how it will work, the simplest way to implement it would be that if you are logging in with an account through ProSiebenSat.1 you'll get a marketplace that has prices listed in their currency. It shouldn't matter what server you're on. That's how I'd implement it anyways.

2) You're making a deal of assumptions about account costs. I wouldn't make those assumptions yet.

3) It all depends on how culturally relevant content is presented. More details later.

4) I'm more than happy to investigate specific cases, are we talking about Italians working abroad in Germany or U.S. Service members? Traveling businessmen? I have never heard of this IP lock (I don't live in Germany or log in there) so I'll look into it.

5) ProSiebenSat.1 will be providing customer service to customers who log in through a ProSiebenSat.1 account. As long as the quality of Customer Service and the standards are the same it should be irrelevant what server they are responding on.

6) My boss is Brasse. She's talked pretty extensively in this thread. She's speaking on behalf of SOE, as I do. Your words get included in reports that go throughout the company, especially to the executive. We are informed and convey messages back to you. So in answer to your question, you hear from my bosses regularly, just not necessarily directly. You also talk to my bosses regularly.

Producer's letters are usually about the game, because that's their focus. This year we've started to do monthly update previews, those come from the Producer (although I tend to post them). 

[Piestro]

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

Piestro wrote:

When EQII converted to Free-to-Play there were certain items removed from the EQIIX marketplace. At the time I remember there was discussion on the forums about the fact that items very similar to the ones you're being asked about in the poll being removed, and that we would put out a poll to find out how you all felt about the subject of possibly reintroducing some items that were removed being reintroduced.

That's this poll.

It was also stated that there would be a minimum account age/level of character or something to prevent skewing the polls with multiple F2P accounts. I can confirm that a character created less than 14 days ago on a F2P account got the poll. Of course I knew this would be happening because SOE WANTS this stuff in the marketplace and it is going to be there. The wording of the introduction to the poll makes it sound as if there is nothing but good that can come of it and the choice that favor it getting there are listed first. Polling first and foremost is a science and I said long ago this is EXACTLY how the polls would be presented. Multiple characters, multiple votes, nothing at all done to limit votes by IP (which we now know is well within SOE's power to do if desired).

Anything above being considered/implemented and used though would almost certainly take away positive votes so that obviously will not happen. I voted strongly disagree on every choice on Lempo, I will not respond on my alts nor the F2P account that I set up just for the purpose of seeing if these polls would actually be done as they said they would be. I don't think that I nor anyone else has the right to get more than 1 vote on this based on how much SC they spend, I'm just in the minority of people that have the integrity to live up to that school of thought even when I know it is to my detriment.

I'd like to know how these polls can even be considered to be an attempt at

We are asking to get a fair representation without forcing everyone to debate on the forums

when the results are allowed to be influenced by the amount of SC spent on multiple character slots and the number of F2P accounts that one is willing to set up to attempt to 'game the system'.

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

[ninui]

5) ProSiebenSat.1 will be providing customer service to customers who log in through a ProSiebenSat.1 account. As long as the quality of Customer Service and the standards are the same it should be irrelevant what server they are responding on.

So players on the same server will be dealing with 2 different sets of customer service reps? We already know the response that you get already differs greatly from SoE CS rep to SoE CS rep so I can't imagine the differences that 2 seperate companies will throw up. Factor in PSS1's 'intersting' history of customer service in the past and it is going to be a bun fight.

A genuine question related to this, if PSS1 do not have an authority over game development why should we waste our time speaking to them about game issues either in game or through their forums?

[Lempo]

Piestro wrote:

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

Specifically because in other threads that discussed this players that don't care about these items and WANT them to be purchaseable in game said they would do just that, while the players that understand that in the end they actually have a negative impact on gameplay as a whole are not going to bother trying to counter their efforts.

You have to consider, with the small population now and the number of people that are not going to participate anyway because of whatever reasons, it doesn't really take a lot of effort, nor do many have to get by to have a pretty signifigant impact on the percentages.

[Guy De Alsace]

Guys....

Putting out a poll like this...with all that is going on...

Come on. I don't want to be on SOE_MOD_02's bad side again but can I just say...

/facepalm.

That is all.

[ninui]

Piestro wrote:

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

I think you are deliberately mis-understanding Lempo's point. We know fine well that you can see people game the system.

The issue is that this is exactly what you want as it will give you the results that you want. The poll is worthless as it has been written to produce the answer that you want to hear, if not through legitimate means through underhand ones.

[Piestro]

Catin@Splitpaw wrote:

Piestro wrote:

Catin@Splitpaw wrote:

I assume SOE will be complying with the law in all countries affected by the PSS1 agreement.  This will include not passing sensitve personal information such as my user name and password to PSS1 (and its computers). 

So how do I log in from my PSS1 account ? As permitting access to my account confirms my user mane and password, and passes the information to PSS1.

And how do SOE know if it is me trying to log in anyway?

There will be a process where you will create a ProSiebenSat.1 account and associate it with your former account. We won't pass any sensitive data without you going through this process.

Hi Piestro

I have not made my points clearly enough.

1) Under UK law, the person to whom the data refers decides if it is sensitive personal information.  Unless I expressly give my consent to that data being passed to a third party the data holder may not pass it to the third party.  So what is sensitive  personal information.  The following might be:

- My name

- My credit card details

- My account name

- My account password

- That I play MMORPGs

I am sure you will have no difficulty agreeing the first two are personal and sensitive; you tell me to keep the next two secret so I assume you regard them sensitive and they are certainly personal.  "That I play MMORPGs", surely not!  But I know people who reagard D&D as a device of the Devil,  I would be suprised if they were not happy to include EQ2 as well.  I may well wish those people not to know that I play MMORPGs, so it too is sensitive personal information.  You may not pass any of that information to PSS1.  Strictly speaking you may not do it in a manner that allows me to be identified, so you could pass one, but only one of, my name, my account name or my password to PSS1.

One way you would pass this data to PSS1 is by accepting a log in from PSS1 from a PSS1 account using my (SOE) account name and my (SOE) account password.  So even letting me log in through PSS1 passes sensitive personal data to PSS1.  (In the present computing world it is possible to attempt to obtain this information by having some system deny it until they do not)

2) If you allow me to log in through PSS1 using only my acccount name, you have you have no way of knowing if I am the person who set up the SOE account or some body who happens to have chosen that name when they set up a PSS1 account.

So here's my understanding of how it will work. This avoids every issue your are talking about. While the details might not be 100% correct (this hasn't been fully implemented yet and of course specific details change in implementation) the general idea should be.

1) You create a ProSiebenSat.1 account.

2) You go through a process to associate your SOE account with your ProSiebenSat.1 account, so that we now know which SOE account is associated with your ProSiebenSat.1 account.

3) You log in and play from now on with your ProSiebenSat.1 account.

It's pretty simple. You're still playing the same game, developed by the same people, on the same servers. What's changed (from a user perspective) is primarily accounting and who is providing some ancillary services. To give an example, when I was in college I used to work as a waiter many years ago at a burger place called Red Robins. This is a corporate entity which runs a number of restaurants and franchises others out.

During my tenure the restaurant I worked at changed from a franchised  restaurants to a corporate owned restaurant. Same managers, same waiters, same cooks, same menu, same suppliers, same everything except who handled certain business aspects. None of the customers ever noticed any changes.

This isn't an identical situation, but there are a number of points of comparison that are valid. This is a publishing deal, not a development deal. We're not changing the menu around and removing your favorite food, we're changing how we handle business aspects of operating in Europe and signing up with a partner with significantly more local experience and expertise. Especially when it comes to marketing the game, which directly benefits the player base in the long run.

[Wurm]

Piestro wrote:

Wurm wrote:

Tallisman wrote:

Responses on this thread appear to have slowed somewhat... just an observation.

A lot of us were given a 3 day vacation for being "Negative Nancys" and are just now getting back.

Piestro, A lot of good important questions have been asked that are being ignored. I'm going to try to sum them up for you in this post.

1) Station Cash: What is going to be the exchange rate when the IP Lock goes live? How will the new "Euro Cash" work on a US Server?

2) Account costs: We all know that those players who decide to move to PSS1 are going to end up paying a lot more for a gold account. It would be nice to know in advance how much more. Is PPS1 going to honor the SOFA agreement?

3) Special content for Europe: Soulsercher's post was right on the money regarding holidays in Germany. Also how is this "great change" going to work on US Servers?

4) Account website and Launchpad: SOE has already IP locked their users located in Germany to a German website for a few years now (you used to have a button to change it back to English but they removed that as well). How are the non German fluent players over here going to be treated?

5) In game support: What happens when a Euro-player puts in a Petition? Who is going to respond? Is PSS1 going to also have GMs on the US servers?

6) And finally, is upper management planning on finally talking to us about this? We used to get producer letters every once in a while, it would be nice if your boss(es) would take the time to talk to us again (preferably without using twitter).

1) The exchange rate is sorta meaningless if you don't know the prices. Back before Malta was on Euro the exchange rate was $3 US to every Maltese unit of currency. If I wanted to buy something (like food or lodging) though it was generally cheaper in Malta even with the technically more valuable currency.

As to how it will work, the simplest way to implement it would be that if you are logging in with an account through ProSiebenSat.1 you'll get a marketplace that has prices listed in their currency. It shouldn't matter what server you're on. That's how I'd implement it anyways.

2) You're making a deal of assumptions about account costs. I wouldn't make those assumptions yet.

3) It all depends on how culturally relevant content is presented. More details later.

4) I'm more than happy to investigate specific cases, are we talking about Italians working abroad in Germany or U.S. Service members? Traveling businessmen? I have never heard of this IP lock (I don't live in Germany or log in there) so I'll look into it.

5) ProSiebenSat.1 will be providing customer service to customers who log in through a ProSiebenSat.1 account. As long as the quality of Customer Service and the standards are the same it should be irrelevant what server they are responding on.

6) My boss is Brasse. She's talked pretty extensively in this thread. She's speaking on behalf of SOE, as I do. Your words get included in reports that go throughout the company, especially to the executive. We are informed and convey messages back to you. So in answer to your question, you hear from my bosses regularly, just not necessarily directly. You also talk to my bosses regularly.

Producer's letters are usually about the game, because that's their focus. This year we've started to do monthly update previews, those come from the Producer (although I tend to post them). 

1) I know what the account costs me right now in dollars, I know the exchange rate into Euro (I live here) and I know that my current station cash is worth over 50 dollars aka 5000+ SC. If I convert the 50 dollars to euro its around 38 euro and unless PSS1 is generous (which they are not) and make their version of SC worth 70 euro cent per point I know for a fact I'm going to lose money. Gaming companies have been using a 1 to 1 exchange forever over here since its easier and they make a bunch of extra money doing so.

2) I make no assumptions, I know that the Germans have a 19% VAT that we currently do not have to pay and that is going to make how much we pay much more than what we do now.

3)There is no culturally relevant content exclusive to any Country in Europe that has a place in Norrath. None.

4) Huh? It doesn't matter where you are in Germany or if your Operating System is in English, you are directed to the German SOE website when you log in due to your IP location being Germany INCLUDING ON US MILITARY BASES! And its been that way for well over a year now. At first you had at least a button to go back to English and then even that was removed.

5) So if I need a GM to help me out in game there is going to be a helpful PSS1 person there in a timely manner for me on a US server? Somehow I doubt it.

6) Sorry but Brasse is still lower to middle management. And I think you knew very well I was talking about a few ranks above both your pay grades. No offense intended, but this info needed to be coming from upper management and definately not over twitter.

[Piestro]

ninui wrote:

Piestro wrote:

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

I think you are deliberately mis-understanding Lempo's point. We know fine well that you can see people game the system.

The issue is that this is exactly what you want as it will give you the results that you want. The poll is worthless as it has been written to produce the answer that you want to hear, if not through legitimate means through underhand ones.

Why would we want bad data? If we just wanted to make the change we'd make the change and not bother with a poll at all. We post polls because we want to know how players feel about matters, not as some wierd way of attempting to justify things through a bizarre version of vox populi.

[Wurm]

Piestro wrote:

ninui wrote:

Piestro wrote:

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

I think you are deliberately mis-understanding Lempo's point. We know fine well that you can see people game the system.

The issue is that this is exactly what you want as it will give you the results that you want. The poll is worthless as it has been written to produce the answer that you want to hear, if not through legitimate means through underhand ones.

Why would we want bad data? If we just wanted to make the change we'd make the change and not bother with a poll at all. We post polls because we want to know how players feel about matters, not as some wierd way of attempting to justify things through a bizarre version of vox populi.

Its a form of smoke and mirrors to keep the uproar to a minimum. The poll results can be "tweaked" and then all of a sudden pay to win is in the marketplace and when people get mad you can say... "Well we asked and most of you said yes."

[Levatino]

Dethdlr@Butcherblock wrote:

Why can't you just pass the revenue from the euro players on to ProSiebenSat.1 (minus a small handling charge) and let the existing players who wish to stay with the company they signed up with stay with SOE?

so logical they never came up with this?

[Levatino]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Morgania434 wrote:

@ Atan

Because SOE and PSS1 have DICTATED that they are locking you out of SOE billing by where you LOG IN FROM.  NOT which server you play on.

So, EVEN IF an EU customer moved to a US Server ( and many did since according to FAQ#2 Incarnation they could do so & continue to pay SOE   now, in FAQ #3 they would STILL have to have a PSS1  account to access the game PERIOD.

It is still an IP REGION LOCK. 

Yes, but you don't need to use SoE billing or PSS1 billing to play this game it seems.  Since SC is a viable currency?

Or is that SC item not going to be available to a PSS1 account?

a very interesting question. My view is: SC will not be available to anyone in the IP locked out countries.

[Levatino]

Saroc_Luclin wrote:

For the record, EQ1 just recently went F2P with the standard Bronze/Silver/Gold access rankings and it's had a Station Cash Marketplace pretty much as long as EQ2 has had one. So the fact that it isn't in the PSS7 deal is a concern since, as I posted earlier, it effectively makes 2 tiers of players divided by region.

conclusion: it will make europeans pay twice as much. sc for eq1 and vanguard and alaplaya for eq2

[Piestro]

Wurm wrote:

1) I know what the account costs me right now in dollars, I know the exchange rate is into Euro (I live here) and I know that my current station cash is worth over 50 dollars aka 5000+ SC. If I convert the 50 dollars to euro its around 38 euro and unless PSS1 is generous (which they are not) and make their version of SC worth 70 euro cent per point I know for a fact I'm going to lose money. Gaming companies have been using a 1 to 1 exchange for ever now since its easier and they make a bunch of extra money doing so.

2) I make no assumptions, I know that the Germans have a 19% VAT that we currently do not have to pay and that is going to make how much we pay much more than what we do now.

3)There is no culturally relevant content exclusive to any Country in Europe that has a place in Norrath. None.

4) Huh? It doesn't matter where you are in Germany or if your Operating System is in English, you are directed to the German SOE website when you log in due to your IP location being Germany INCLUDING ON US MILITARY BASES! And its been that way for well over a year now. At first you had at least a button to go back to English and then even that was removed.

5) So if I need a GM to help me out in game there is going to be a helpful PSS1 person there in a timely manner for me on a US server? Somehow I doubt it.

6) Sorry but Brasse is still lower to middle management. And I think you knew very well I was talking about a few ranks above both your pay grades. No offense intended, but this info needed to be coming from upper management and definately not over twitter.

1) This is still assumptions at this point. If you are concerned over cost talk about it as concern, not fore knowledge. This is something we can forward on and makes your point stronger and more understandable.

2) See #1.

3) I suppose you don't like Bristlebane Day either. A valid point of feedback from your personal point of view.

4) I just had our German Community guy talk to a friend in Germany who was able to toggle back and forth. Do you see a German flag in the top right corner with the letters DE? Where you are initially directed shouldn't matter, it's just directing people to content that most people in Germany would find more relevant.

5) Clearly we and ProSieben will both need to win you over in this regard. I know they are taking this very seriously and working with us to maintain a high degree of quality.

6) Brasse is a Director at SOE. She's not lower management, that's me. Given that SOE isn't IBM with 15 levels of management*, I guess we could call her middle management if we really wanted to. She is certainly fairly well respected within the company and her voice is listened to at senior meetings.

*When I worked at IBM more than a decade ago I remember there were like 15 levels of management between me and the CEO. I can't assure you this is 100% accurate or that nothing has changed in the meantime.

[Seffrid]

Piestro wrote:

To give an example, when I was in college I used to work as a waiter many years ago at a burger place called Red Robins. This is a corporate entity which runs a number of restaurants and franchises others out.

During my tenure the restaurant I worked at changed from a franchised  restaurants to a corporate owned restaurant. Same managers, same waiters, same cooks, same menu, same suppliers, same everything except who handled certain business aspects. None of the customers ever noticed any changes.

This isn't an identical situation, but there are a number of points of comparison that are valid. This is a publishing deal, not a development deal. We're not changing the menu around and removing your favorite food, we're changing how we handle business aspects of operating in Europe and signing up with a partner with significantly more local experience and expertise. Especially when it comes to marketing the game, which directly benefits the player base in the long run.

Supposing the company running the restaurant had told your customers that in future their meals, although cooked in the same kitchen, would be served to them at a kebab stall in a different country with different currency prices on the menu - would you have expected the customers to have stayed?

That's a better application of your analogy.

[Levatino]

Pipsissiwa wrote:

Trevynoae wrote:

Arderath@Splitpaw wrote:

1. Pay double of what I am paying now. Once to PSS1 for EQ2 Gold. Once to SOE for VG+EQ gold.2. Drop EQ+VG (no, free to play is not an option - way too limited. I'd rather not play than do f2p), keep EQ2 - pay a bit more than I do now for a lot less.3. Drop EQ2, keep EQ+VG - pay what I'm paying now, for less4. Move to another non-SOE/PSS1 MMO

I think you are missing something here:

My understanding is that for us euros there is no option to get All Access anymore. I checked it out yesterday and that offer is gone already.So - if i were to play EQ and Vanguard I would have to sign up for gold on each of them (2 subs) instead of all access (1 sub - cheaper than 2 gold subs)Of course - hey - I could then run both games at the same time *lol*

I've sent the info on all this, with primary reference to the ALL-ACCESS pass inequality, to some UK consumer rights organisations, including BBC Watchdog (if you're a Brit you'll know).  I want to find out where we stand, to get SOE to explain themselves beyond 'its for your own good' and make sure as many people know about this as possible.  May not do any good, but nothing ventured after all. I'll keep you all posted should I get anywhere with it, and maybe others can send in too?  The more they hear the more likely they are to investigate. 

And mods, this isn't threatening legal action or trolling, its merely urging people to check out their consumer rights as we are entitled to do when a company changes its terms of service/contracts.

I hope they can work things out for all euros and not just the brits

[SOE-MOD-02]

This post has moved: /eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=49996...post_id=5742190 Empty quotes are considered Spam.

[Pariel]

Piestro wrote:

Catin@Splitpaw wrote:

Piestro wrote:

Catin@Splitpaw wrote:

I assume SOE will be complying with the law in all countries affected by the PSS1 agreement.  This will include not passing sensitve personal information such as my user name and password to PSS1 (and its computers). 

So how do I log in from my PSS1 account ? As permitting access to my account confirms my user mane and password, and passes the information to PSS1.

And how do SOE know if it is me trying to log in anyway?

There will be a process where you will create a ProSiebenSat.1 account and associate it with your former account. We won't pass any sensitive data without you going through this process.

Hi Piestro

I have not made my points clearly enough.

1) Under UK law, the person to whom the data refers decides if it is sensitive personal information.  Unless I expressly give my consent to that data being passed to a third party the data holder may not pass it to the third party.  So what is sensitive  personal information.  The following might be:

- My name

- My credit card details

- My account name

- My account password

- That I play MMORPGs

I am sure you will have no difficulty agreeing the first two are personal and sensitive; you tell me to keep the next two secret so I assume you regard them sensitive and they are certainly personal.  "That I play MMORPGs", surely not!  But I know people who reagard D&D as a device of the Devil,  I would be suprised if they were not happy to include EQ2 as well.  I may well wish those people not to know that I play MMORPGs, so it too is sensitive personal information.  You may not pass any of that information to PSS1.  Strictly speaking you may not do it in a manner that allows me to be identified, so you could pass one, but only one of, my name, my account name or my password to PSS1.

One way you would pass this data to PSS1 is by accepting a log in from PSS1 from a PSS1 account using my (SOE) account name and my (SOE) account password.  So even letting me log in through PSS1 passes sensitive personal data to PSS1.  (In the present computing world it is possible to attempt to obtain this information by having some system deny it until they do not)

2) If you allow me to log in through PSS1 using only my acccount name, you have you have no way of knowing if I am the person who set up the SOE account or some body who happens to have chosen that name when they set up a PSS1 account.

So here's my understanding of how it will work. This avoids every issue your are talking about. While the details might not be 100% correct (this hasn't been fully implemented yet and of course specific details change in implementation) the general idea should be.

1) You create a ProSiebenSat.1 account.

2) You go through a process to associate your SOE account with your ProSiebenSat.1 account, so that we now know which SOE account is associated with your ProSiebenSat.1 account.

3) You log in and play from now on with your ProSiebenSat.1 account.

It's pretty simple. You're still playing the same game, developed by the same people, on the same servers. What's changed (from a user perspective) is primarily accounting and who is providing some ancillary services. To give an example, when I was in college I used to work as a waiter many years ago at a burger place called Red Robins. This is a corporate entity which runs a number of restaurants and franchises others out.

During my tenure the restaurant I worked at changed from a franchised  restaurants to a corporate owned restaurant. Same managers, same waiters, same cooks, same menu, same suppliers, same everything except who handled certain business aspects. None of the customers ever noticed any changes.

This isn't an identical situation, but there are a number of points of comparison that are valid. This is a publishing deal, not a development deal. We're not changing the menu around and removing your favorite food, we're changing how we handle business aspects of operating in Europe and signing up with a partner with significantly more local experience and expertise. Especially when it comes to marketing the game, which directly benefits the player base in the long run.

Thanks for the analogy Piestro and I see where you're coming from, but what no one at SOE seems to grasp is this. Sure, the cooks may be the same, same menu, same suppliers, but at the end of the day, we are being forced into handing over financial information to a 2-bit, amatuerish clown company in the vain hope they can keep them safe? 

Thats the issue here.. its really simple!

Can you or Brasse explain to me as a Gold Subscriber why I cant just continue to pay SOE for EQ2, receive 500sc per month and carry on as normal?

[Wurm]

Piestro wrote:

Wurm wrote:

1) I know what the account costs me right now in dollars, I know the exchange rate is into Euro (I live here) and I know that my current station cash is worth over 50 dollars aka 5000+ SC. If I convert the 50 dollars to euro its around 38 euro and unless PSS1 is generous (which they are not) and make their version of SC worth 70 euro cent per point I know for a fact I'm going to lose money. Gaming companies have been using a 1 to 1 exchange for ever now since its easier and they make a bunch of extra money doing so.

2) I make no assumptions, I know that the Germans have a 19% VAT that we currently do not have to pay and that is going to make how much we pay much more than what we do now.

3)There is no culturally relevant content exclusive to any Country in Europe that has a place in Norrath. None.

4) Huh? It doesn't matter where you are in Germany or if your Operating System is in English, you are directed to the German SOE website when you log in due to your IP location being Germany INCLUDING ON US MILITARY BASES! And its been that way for well over a year now. At first you had at least a button to go back to English and then even that was removed.

5) So if I need a GM to help me out in game there is going to be a helpful PSS1 person there in a timely manner for me on a US server? Somehow I doubt it.

6) Sorry but Brasse is still lower to middle management. And I think you knew very well I was talking about a few ranks above both your pay grades. No offense intended, but this info needed to be coming from upper management and definately not over twitter.

1) This is still assumptions at this point. If you are concerned over cost talk about it as concern, not fore knowledge. This is something we can forward on and makes your point stronger and more understandable.

2) See #1.

3) I suppose you don't like Bristlebane Day either. A valid point of feedback from your personal point of view.

4) I just had our German Community guy talk to a friend in Germany who was able to toggle back and forth. Do you see a German flag in the top right corner with the letters DE? Where you are initially directed shouldn't matter, it's just directing people to content that most people in Germany would find more relevant.

5) Clearly we and ProSieben will both need to win you over in this regard. I know they are taking this very seriously and working with us to maintain a high degree of quality.

6) Brasse is a Director at SOE. She's not lower management, that's me. Given that SOE isn't IBM with 15 levels of management*, I guess we could call her middle management if we really wanted to. She is certainly fairly well respected within the company and her voice is listened to at senior meetings.

*When I worked at IBM more than a decade ago I remember there were like 15 levels of management between me and the CEO. I can't assure you this is 100% accurate or that nothing has changed in the meantime.

1,2)  I know PSS1 from prior experiance, I have a German Business degree and I know German tax laws. I also have over 25 years experiance as a gamer over here and calling what I posted "assumptions" is quite off the mark. I have more experiance than you do in this area, this is a fact and we will leave it at that. As reference STEAM dollar to euro is 1 to 1 making any game purchased on steam in euro a good amount more expensive than the same game bought in dollars.

3) Bristlebane is a part of Norrath, so your point makes no sense.

4)First off, you used to be able to go directly to your SOE account from the forum website. That is no longer the case. The link http://www.everquest2.com/ has the flag you mentioned but isn't the website I'm talking about or that really matters. https://account.station.sony.com/ where all my account info is is only in German with no flag to switch to english. Its great we can see the fluff info in any language but our account info (credit card info ect ect) is in German. And this is for everyone over here including those who have no understanding of the German Language, US Military members for example.

5) Just due to the time differences I don't see it happening, but OK I'll let this point slide for now. I will be in here with a told you so later though the first time I use /petition and nothing happens.

6) You see the biggest problem is you guys let Smoke Jumper run roughshod all over this game, but he at least was in here every day. And if this was so important that the CEO was able to twitter about it (something I'm pretty sure he regrets) he could of come down off his high horse long enough to talk to the people that put him there in the first place.

Comparing SOE to IBM? Really? Comparing a gaming company to IBM is pretty funny I will give you that.

[Wurm]

Guy De Alsace wrote:

Guys....

Putting out a poll like this...with all that is going on...

Come on. I don't want to be on SOE_MOD_02's bad side again but can I just say...

/facepalm.

That is all.

Perfect Timing has always been the SOE way lol

[Pipsissiwa]

duranvaer wrote:

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

Piestro wrote:

We can see if votes are being cast by people who are trying to game the system. Just because you can't see it on the front end doesn't mean we can't track it on the back end.

Why would you think there are people willing to expend massive amounts of effort to make a minimal impact on gaming the system for a non binding vote on what will and won't be sold on the marketplace however? We're doing this for actual data. We want to know what people actually think. Gaming the system is directly against our interests.

My only response and question than: is Pay to Win also directly against SoE's interests for EQ2?

Actually, this would be nice to hear stated clearly and distinctly. So far all we've had is assurance that SOE will remain in charge of content and development, but just because SOE remains in charge doesn't mean they won't add pay-to-win. We've been so focussed on the horrors of pay-to-win and hacking on Alaplayas current games selection that we haven't asked this:

Can Brasse or Piestro please state clearly and for the record that there are NO plans to add pay-to-win items to the EQ2, on ANY server or account provider?

NB: by Pay-to-win items I mean powerful items such as, but not exclusively, gear that are the same as or equivalent to fabled/raid gear, time limited or otherwise, that would affect game balance - such as there is....  I'm sure you know perfectly well what I mean but I want it as clear as I can so you can't hedge your words too much.  The limited use full heal/rez things being polled about come worryingly close.

(And I agree, with all this going on and pay-to-win being one of the concerns, the poll was very poorly timed and in bad taste IMO)

[Seffrid]

Pariel wrote:

Can you or Brasse explain to me as a Gold Subscriber why I cant just continue to pay SOE for EQ2, receive 500sc per month and carry on as normal?

Assuming you mean with SOE passing on your sub and Marketplace revenues to their publishing partners then that is indeed a fair question, and I wish you well in getting an answer.

I've asked Piestro and his CR colleagues three times in this thread to confirm whether this request (from many here) has been included in the reports to Smed and the team handling the PSS1 deal, and three times I've been ignored.

Such an arrangement would be pretty standard if PSS1 were indeed just publishing partners, but clearly they are very much more than that as they will be administering the whole of these games in Europe from billing to customer support, to forums and so on. 

[Wurm]

Just adding this for Piestro to see:

In fact it took someone asking more than once to get a CSR to give them a work around to finally be able to see the account website in English...  Below is the work around he shared with me in a PM a few days ago:

You just have to log in regularly - then paste a modified url into the url and hit enter. That refreshes the soe page and tells it to switch to English!

https://auth.station.sony.com/login...mp;locale=en_US

Why a work around when there used to not be a need?

1) For years if you logged in the account website, it was in English. Then SOE added a IP Location check.

2) After the change it was in German but you could switch back to English using the flag button.

3) Now its in German and you have to use the work around to see it in English. There is no longer a flag button.

I guess in a few weeks this will no longer matter, but since you asked...

[Pipsissiwa]

Seffrid wrote:

Pariel wrote:

Can you or Brasse explain to me as a Gold Subscriber why I cant just continue to pay SOE for EQ2, receive 500sc per month and carry on as normal?

Assuming you mean with SOE passing on your sub and Marketplace revenues to their publishing partners then that is indeed a fair question, and I wish you well in getting an answer.

I've asked Piestro and his CR colleagues three times in this thread to confirm whether this request (from many here) has been included in the reports to Smed and the team handling the PSS1 deal, and three times I've been ignored.

Such an arrangement would be pretty standard if PSS1 were indeed just publishing partners, but clearly they are very much more than that as they will be administering the whole of these games in Europe from billing to customer support, to forums and so on. 

Exactly.  There is much more to this than they are admitting to. 

I too would like them to explain why a publishing deal involves account moves to that company. Normal publishing deals don't need that. Its very common to have a different publisher in Europe to the US, but very very unusual to have separate accounts required and for things to be so obvious to the customers - I've never encountered this before as a customer anywhere or professionally.

The more they evade the question, the more people will speculate and assume the worst.

[SiegaPlays]

Wurm wrote:

Piestro wrote:

Wurm wrote:

3)There is no culturally relevant content exclusive to any Country in Europe that has a place in Norrath. None.

3) I suppose you don't like Bristlebane Day either. A valid point of feedback from your personal point of view.

3) Bristlebane is a part of Norrath, so your point makes no sense.

I do believe Bristlebane Day is based on Skt. Patricks day, which has European roots, more defined in the soil of Ireland. The Irish emigrants brought it to America, so you are right that the exclusivity relevans can be argued, but the origin of Bristlebane Day is in European culture.