ProSiebenSat.1 Feedback - We're Here and Listening! Nous sommes là et vous écoutons!

SOE-Brasse · 02-22-2012, 11:52 PM

Hey folks – I know it’s been a long few days. We fully appreciate the time and effort you’ve taken to provide your feedback.

As we’ve said before, we ARE listening, and we are in discussions with ProSieben. We will come back to you with information when it becomes available, but it will be some time yet.

Please keep in mind that this is not an overnight process and no games are transitioning to ProSieben immediately.

Thank you for bearing with us during this planning period.

~Brasse

-- Traduction

Salut à tous - Je sais que les derniers jours ont été longs. Nous appréciations pleinement le temps et les efforts que vous attribuez à faire des commentaires.

Comme nous l'avons déjà dit, nous sommes à l'écoute, et nous sommes en pourparlers avec ProSieben. Nous reviendrons vers vous avec plus d'informations quand celles-ci seront disponibles, mais cela prendra un certain temps.

S'il vous plaît gardez en tête que ce n'est pas un processus rapide et aucun jeu ne sera immédiatement transféré chez ProSieben.

Merci de votre patience pendant cette période de planification

~Brasse

Cordy · 02-23-2012, 05:23 AM

Hello Brasse

After your discussions with said company about our concerns, please can you make sure that there will be answers to all the following points from this post on eq2wire.

Kind Regards

The news that SOE will be dividing the EQ2 community by Region, in order to secure a lucrative distribution deal with ProSiebenSat.1’s Alaplaya gaming division, has gone over like curry-flavoured ice cream. Besides the outrage at splitting up a community whose strength has been players hailing from all over the world, SOE seems to have neglected some of the more mundane technical and historical details. We’ve collected a few:

U.S. players who play EQ2 during the daytime have always had the option of grouping with players on Splitpaw (UK) where it’s afternoon/evening.

European players paid upwards of 30 Euros for SOE Authenticator keyfobs including shipping to Europe. They will not work with Alaplaya/PSS1

French Canadian players have traditionally played on the Storms server. After the cutoff, North American players will no longer be able to connect to EU servers.

U.S. Military and Expats residing in Europe won’t be able to start on US servers, and will instead be forced to roll on European servers. When they get orders back to the States, they won’t be able to access their established characters/guilds/alliances/friends.

Australia and New Zealand haven’t been mentioned, suggesting that they will be region-locked to U.S. servers. These players have had the choice of servers, such as Splitpaw (UK).

It seems there will be no PvP in Europe, as EU players will not have access to the Nagafen server.

Splitpaw players will go back to a single-server Battlegrounds environment, which has never had enough players to field 18 or 24 person events.

Some of the most dedicated testers are based in Europe. With this change, European players will be cutoff from the EQ2 Test server.

EQ2X (Extended) joined the other EQ2 servers in a unified Free-to-Play setup to avoid “dividing the player base“. This change will do just that.

SOE already went down the road of region-locked servers in 2003. At the height of its popularity, SOE licensed EverQuest to Ubisoft for a UK-only server named Venril Sathir. It was unsuccessful and this server was brought back into the U.S. fold in 2005.

The last time SOE tried segregated servers was LiveGamer. Two servers (Bazaar, Vox) arbitrarily became RMT-enabled and players were locked in and could not transfer off. This move was extremely unpopular and after a few years, SOE cancelled their contract with LiveGamer, merging these players back to standard servers.

Although existing EU players on U.S. servers will be “grandfathered” in, support may be limited/unavailable, and new EU players will not be able to join them. And there is no obligation for SOE to preserve this “grandfathering” forever.

Players who have characters on both US and EU servers will now have to pay twice, once to SOE, once to Alaplaya.

EU players could lose access to SOE forums if they no longer have active Station accounts but instead Alaplaya accounts.

What will players with Station Access (nee All Access Pass) accounts do who have a mixture of characters on games that are included and excluded from the ProSiebenSat.1 deal? What about players who took advantage of StationCash deals and bought up to 1 year of subscription in advance?

Some European guilds have players from Russia who have chosen not to restrict themselves toAkella-run servers. What happens to them?

Alaplaya/PSS1 is known for poorly-supported, security flaw riddled Korean-style browser MMOs. Not only does Alaplaya have a history of hacked accounts due to poor security, but they’ve done little to resolve the matter. More than a few players have expressed concern at the prospect of dealing with this shady company.

SOE just went through a lot of trouble to arrange deals to get StationCash cards into GAME, GameStop, and other UK and European vendors. Was all this effort for naught since ProSiebenSat1 games will use Alaplaya’s own cash shop currency?

EU players who choose to play both EQ1 and EQ2 will have to accumulate both StationCash andAlaplaya’s cash shop currency.

A number of guilds, including leading raid guilds, depend on drawing from a mixture of players from around the world. There is no large guild in EQ2 that does not have members from different continents. There are a substantial number of Euro guilds located on U.S. servers due to population and/or time zones.

UPDATE: It’s been pointed out that Legends of Norrath is not mentioned in any of the ProSiebenSat.1 announcements or FAQs. Will this card game be unavailable in Europe?

UPDATE: Alaplaya reserves the right to DELETE accounts and character data (Part 6) after 90 days of inactivity. Will this apply to SOE games?

UPDATE: In violation of German and EU privacy laws, Alaplaya publishes the real names on accounts which are past-due.

There is no excuse for a worldwide company like Sony which sells products in Europe, Japan, North America, etc. to rely on a two-bit distributor as well as isolating players from each other who have been forming friendships for 7 years. This change will fracture the EQ2 community and not bode well for EQNext.

Aarionn · 02-23-2012, 06:34 AM

SOE-Brasse wrote:

Hey folks – I know it’s been a long few days. We fully appreciate the time and effort you’ve taken to provide your feedback.
As we’ve said before, we ARE listening, and we are in discussions with ProSieben. We will come back to you with information when it becomes available, but it will be some time yet.
Please keep in mind that this is not an overnight process and no games are transitioning to ProSieben immediately.
Thank you for bearing with us during this planning period.
~Brasse
Heya folks?!?!? Man you at soe are so out of touch with RL....
Already cancelled my account. Do whatever you want. Plan whatever you want. Damage that you have done is so huge already that whatever you do now you will not gain you any respect and trust back...
Such a bad move ...

Eldann · 02-27-2012, 01:41 PM

Thank you Madgedull for this excellent anthology of arguments against the SOE-Pro7 contract. Though, I think that one of them can't be accepted :

[email protected] wrote:

EU players could lose access to SOE forums if they no longer have active Station accounts but instead Alaplaya accounts.

I can't remember if there was a time where access to SOE forums needed an "active Station account". More exactly, I can't figure what would be a "non active" or a "no longer active" Station account.

In the past, before EQ2X, I created several accounts to use with EQ2 free trial; they still exist and I can use them to access SOE forums, while I never spent even a cent for them.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Please tell me if so.

Merci Madgedull pour cet excellent florilège d'arguments contre le contrat SOE-Pro7. Pourtant, il me semble que l'un d'entre eux ne peut pas être retenu : "les joueurs européens pourraient perdre l'accès aux forums SOE s'il n'ont plus de compte Station actif mais juste un compte Alaplaya".

Je ne me rappelle plus s'il y a eu un temps où l'accès aux forums SOE exigeait un "compte Station actif". Plus exactement, je peine à me représenter ce que serait un compte Station "inactif" ou "plus actif".

Dans le passé, avant EQ2X, j'ai créé plusieurs comptes à utiliser avec l'essai gratuit EQ2 ; ils existent toujours et je peux les utiliser pour accéder aux forums SOE, même si je n'ai jamais dépensé ne serait-ce qu'un centime pour eux.

Je me trompe peut-être. Merci de me le dire si c'est le cas.

Ragnaphore · 02-27-2012, 02:06 PM

Pour les forums : tous le monde avec un compte "actif" ou "inactif" peut poster depuis le passage en FtP. En fait, y a plus de compte inactif avec le FtP, n'importe qui ayant eu un compte pouvant se loger et jouer.

Avant le FtP, il fallait avoir une souscription active (ou un compte trial, mais ils étaient limités dans les subforums où ils pouvaient poster) pour pouvoir poster. Dès que le compte devenait inactif (cad plus payé et qu'il ne pouvait plus se loger dans le jeu) il ne pouvait plus poster sur le forum.

02-22-2012, 11:52 PM	#1
SOE-Brasse DwarvenOverlord Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 113	Hey folks – I know it’s been a long few days. We fully appreciate the time and effort you’ve taken to provide your feedback. As we’ve said before, we ARE listening, and we are in discussions with ProSieben. We will come back to you with information when it becomes available, but it will be some time yet. Please keep in mind that this is not an overnight process and no games are transitioning to ProSieben immediately. Thank you for bearing with us during this planning period. ~Brasse -- Traduction Salut à tous - Je sais que les derniers jours ont été longs. Nous appréciations pleinement le temps et les efforts que vous attribuez à faire des commentaires. Comme nous l'avons déjà dit, nous sommes à l'écoute, et nous sommes en pourparlers avec ProSieben. Nous reviendrons vers vous avec plus d'informations quand celles-ci seront disponibles, mais cela prendra un certain temps. S'il vous plaît gardez en tête que ce n'est pas un processus rapide et aucun jeu ne sera immédiatement transféré chez ProSieben. Merci de votre patience pendant cette période de planification ~Brasse __________________ Linda "Brasse" Carlson Director, Global Community Relations, SOE ---------~~========~~--------- I have a Qlu'Stiq and I'm not afraid to use it.

02-23-2012, 05:23 AM	#2
Cordy Loremaster Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 50	Hello Brasse After your discussions with said company about our concerns, please can you make sure that there will be answers to all the following points from this post on eq2wire. Kind Regards The news that SOE will be dividing the EQ2 community by Region, in order to secure a lucrative distribution deal with ProSiebenSat.1’s Alaplaya gaming division, has gone over like curry-flavoured ice cream. Besides the outrage at splitting up a community whose strength has been players hailing from all over the world, SOE seems to have neglected some of the more mundane technical and historical details. We’ve collected a few: U.S. players who play EQ2 during the daytime have always had the option of grouping with players on Splitpaw (UK) where it’s afternoon/evening. European players paid upwards of 30 Euros for SOE Authenticator keyfobs including shipping to Europe. They will not work with Alaplaya/PSS1 French Canadian players have traditionally played on the Storms server. After the cutoff, North American players will no longer be able to connect to EU servers. U.S. Military and Expats residing in Europe won’t be able to start on US servers, and will instead be forced to roll on European servers. When they get orders back to the States, they won’t be able to access their established characters/guilds/alliances/friends. Australia and New Zealand haven’t been mentioned, suggesting that they will be region-locked to U.S. servers. These players have had the choice of servers, such as Splitpaw (UK). It seems there will be no PvP in Europe, as EU players will not have access to the Nagafen server. Splitpaw players will go back to a single-server Battlegrounds environment, which has never had enough players to field 18 or 24 person events. Some of the most dedicated testers are based in Europe. With this change, European players will be cutoff from the EQ2 Test server. EQ2X (Extended) joined the other EQ2 servers in a unified Free-to-Play setup to avoid “dividing the player base“. This change will do just that. SOE already went down the road of region-locked servers in 2003. At the height of its popularity, SOE licensed EverQuest to Ubisoft for a UK-only server named Venril Sathir. It was unsuccessful and this server was brought back into the U.S. fold in 2005. The last time SOE tried segregated servers was LiveGamer. Two servers (Bazaar, Vox) arbitrarily became RMT-enabled and players were locked in and could not transfer off. This move was extremely unpopular and after a few years, SOE cancelled their contract with LiveGamer, merging these players back to standard servers. Although existing EU players on U.S. servers will be “grandfathered” in, support may be limited/unavailable, and new EU players will not be able to join them. And there is no obligation for SOE to preserve this “grandfathering” forever. Players who have characters on both US and EU servers will now have to pay twice, once to SOE, once to Alaplaya. EU players could lose access to SOE forums if they no longer have active Station accounts but instead Alaplaya accounts. What will players with Station Access (nee All Access Pass) accounts do who have a mixture of characters on games that are included and excluded from the ProSiebenSat.1 deal? What about players who took advantage of StationCash deals and bought up to 1 year of subscription in advance? Some European guilds have players from Russia who have chosen not to restrict themselves toAkella-run servers. What happens to them? Alaplaya/PSS1 is known for poorly-supported, security flaw riddled Korean-style browser MMOs. Not only does Alaplaya have a history of hacked accounts due to poor security, but they’ve done little to resolve the matter. More than a few players have expressed concern at the prospect of dealing with this shady company. SOE just went through a lot of trouble to arrange deals to get StationCash cards into GAME, GameStop, and other UK and European vendors. Was all this effort for naught since ProSiebenSat1 games will use Alaplaya’s own cash shop currency? EU players who choose to play both EQ1 and EQ2 will have to accumulate both StationCash andAlaplaya’s cash shop currency. A number of guilds, including leading raid guilds, depend on drawing from a mixture of players from around the world. There is no large guild in EQ2 that does not have members from different continents. There are a substantial number of Euro guilds located on U.S. servers due to population and/or time zones. UPDATE: It’s been pointed out that Legends of Norrath is not mentioned in any of the ProSiebenSat.1 announcements or FAQs. Will this card game be unavailable in Europe? UPDATE: Alaplaya reserves the right to DELETE accounts and character data (Part 6) after 90 days of inactivity. Will this apply to SOE games? UPDATE: In violation of German and EU privacy laws, Alaplaya publishes the real names on accounts which are past-due. There is no excuse for a worldwide company like Sony which sells products in Europe, Japan, North America, etc. to rely on a two-bit distributor as well as isolating players from each other who have been forming friendships for 7 years. This change will fracture the EQ2 community and not bode well for EQNext.

02-23-2012, 06:34 AM	#3
Aarionn Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Butcherblock Posts: 106	SOE-Brasse wrote: Hey folks – I know it’s been a long few days. We fully appreciate the time and effort you’ve taken to provide your feedback. As we’ve said before, we ARE listening, and we are in discussions with ProSieben. We will come back to you with information when it becomes available, but it will be some time yet. Please keep in mind that this is not an overnight process and no games are transitioning to ProSieben immediately. Thank you for bearing with us during this planning period. ~Brasse Heya folks?!?!? Man you at soe are so out of touch with RL.... Already cancelled my account. Do whatever you want. Plan whatever you want. Damage that you have done is so huge already that whatever you do now you will not gain you any respect and trust back... Such a bad move ... __________________

02-27-2012, 01:41 PM	#4
Eldann Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 26	Thank you Madgedull for this excellent anthology of arguments against the SOE-Pro7 contract. Though, I think that one of them can't be accepted : [email protected] wrote: EU players could lose access to SOE forums if they no longer have active Station accounts but instead Alaplaya accounts. I can't remember if there was a time where access to SOE forums needed an "active Station account". More exactly, I can't figure what would be a "non active" or a "no longer active" Station account. In the past, before EQ2X, I created several accounts to use with EQ2 free trial; they still exist and I can use them to access SOE forums, while I never spent even a cent for them. Perhaps I'm wrong. Please tell me if so. Merci Madgedull pour cet excellent florilège d'arguments contre le contrat SOE-Pro7. Pourtant, il me semble que l'un d'entre eux ne peut pas être retenu : "les joueurs européens pourraient perdre l'accès aux forums SOE s'il n'ont plus de compte Station actif mais juste un compte Alaplaya". Je ne me rappelle plus s'il y a eu un temps où l'accès aux forums SOE exigeait un "compte Station actif". Plus exactement, je peine à me représenter ce que serait un compte Station "inactif" ou "plus actif". Dans le passé, avant EQ2X, j'ai créé plusieurs comptes à utiliser avec l'essai gratuit EQ2 ; ils existent toujours et je peux les utiliser pour accéder aux forums SOE, même si je n'ai jamais dépensé ne serait-ce qu'un centime pour eux. Je me trompe peut-être. Merci de me le dire si c'est le cas. __________________

02-27-2012, 02:06 PM	#5
Ragnaphore Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 715	Pour les forums : tous le monde avec un compte "actif" ou "inactif" peut poster depuis le passage en FtP. En fait, y a plus de compte inactif avec le FtP, n'importe qui ayant eu un compte pouvant se loger et jouer. Avant le FtP, il fallait avoir une souscription active (ou un compte trial, mais ils étaient limités dans les subforums où ils pouvaient poster) pour pouvoir poster. Dès que le compte devenait inactif (cad plus payé et qu'il ne pouvait plus se loger dans le jeu) il ne pouvait plus poster sur le forum.