ProSiebenSat.1

[Pella]

Ripped from the EQII Forum. With planetside 2 gettting closer and closer. I suggest anyone from EU really look into this.

ProSiebenSat.1 FAQ - Updated
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=516733

I for one now have the dilemma of choosing between a higher ping, and not having to wait a few days for updates and same level of service the US get.

The same thing happen to GOA & Mythic on Warhammer online. Which i wont go into. But it was terrible especially around launch.

Everyone we have spoken to about Alaplaya has equated them to such fly-by-night outfits as the makers of Evony and other heavily advertised trashy pay-to-win browser games where you have to pay money to get the best weapons, more power, more speed, etc.

[Read 20 Things SOE Forgot About in the ProSiebenSat.1/Alaplaya Deal for more details]

Making a Stink on the Forums?

In many ways, it’s too late to resolve this matter by posting on the forums. SOE has a history of ignoring lengthy forum threads, no matter how impassioned. EQ2Wire has never seen the EQ2 player community so united with one unwavering voice about an issue until this ProSiebenSat1/Alaplaya deal, but it’s probably too late for reasoned discussion.

A Planetside player named Dart <Delta Triad> summed it up best:

The notion of SOE asking us for “feedback” on this deal is insulting and disingenuous. The contracts on this multi-year deal were signed 6 weeks ago… Our negative feedback will make less than no difference now.Their pretense of being interested in our ‘feedback’ is ridiculous and I’m amazed more people haven’t commented on it. Don’t kid yourself, this is a fait accompli!

Any feed back from EQII Players would be much appreciated.

[Eggy]

Isnt this just a rehash of old news?

After the original ProSiebenSat1 anouncement months ago we got a tonne of information from both SOE and ProSieben people.

The 2 most important bits were.

1/. SOE will be providing and responsible for the PS2 game servers.
The forums, front end, acounts and community stuff (including advertising) will be in ProsievenSat1's.

2/. There will be mechanisms in place so you can choose to play on which ever server you like (NA/EU) and presumably all the others that get launched.

Is this no longer the case?

[Sabot]

As far as I know, we already had a... legnthy thread about this, and it's been confirmed by SOE that there will be no region locks on PS2, and that we'll all be playing the same game... i.e, Pro7 can't set up their own store with a P2W purpose.
How they handle servers, forums and customer support I can't answer though...

[Pella]

Isnt this just a rehash of old news?

After the original ProSiebenSat1 anouncement months ago we got a tonne of information from both SOE and ProSieben people.

The 2 most important bits were.

1/. SOE will be providing and responsible for the PS2 game servers.
The forums, front end, acounts and community stuff (including advertising) will be in ProsievenSat1's.

2/. There will be mechanisms in place so you can choose to play on which ever server you like (NA/EU) and presumably all the others that get launched.

Is this no longer the case?

That's what im trying to find out Eggy. From what i know EQII already has this in place.

Yes this is somewhat old news. But that FAQ is updated.

[MasterCalaelen]

This has already been thoroughly discussed, and it has been confirmed there will be no region restrictions for PlanetSide 2.

Please use the search function before making new threads, the 3rd result in the search listing was an 83 page long discussion of this topic, which answered your question in the opening post.

[Pella]

This has already been thoroughly discussed, and it has been confirmed there will be no region restrictions for PlanetSide 2.

Please use the search function before making new threads, the 3rd result in the search listing was an 83 page long discussion of this topic, which answered your question in the opening post.


Master. Im not worried about region lock.

Please read my thread. And stop assuming.

[Marsgrim]

The concern is the level of service and the charges applied to Euro players now, not whether or not they are region locked.

The choices seem simple at this stage:

1) Play on PSS1 servers paying more than North American players for a far worse service (based upon the record and feedback all over the net on PSS1).

2) Play on SOE servers with high ping in an FPS.

I can't recall if Station cash is no longer valid for PSS1 servers or if it was clarified that it would work, I however have some Station cash that is now worthless.

[MasterCalaelen]

Than be more clear, you post an old article and are asking for feedback from EQII players....on what?

[ringring]

Master. Im not worried about region lock.

Please read my thread. And stop assuming.

TBH, I've seen nothing there that I couldn't have read months and months ago that has already been answered.

And, as for different servers being updated at different times .. did anyone expect simulateous updates?

I'm going to do nothing except, drink my coffee, have a biscuit and wait.

[Pella]

Than be more clear, you post an old article and are asking for feedback from EQII players....on what?

Yes sorry i didnt make it clear. I was referring to the updated FAQ.

Can players continue to use Station Cash?
European players will be able to use a new virtual currency similar to Station Cash.

As a good example.

[SergeantNubins]

I just dont understand why they've given ps2 to another company in the biggest market for it. This company has no experience in launching MMO's and it's only experience in maintaining them will be a couple of months of EQ2's business. SOE have more than ad ecade of experience of this.. why give it to a bunch of amateurs?

The message from smedley yesterday that said "We love our EU players!" left a sour taste, if that was the case, why palm them off onto some other company to deal with if you "love them". If you love and cherish something, you hold it close, not push it further away.

It's especially frustrating as I had a huge amount of respect for SOE for the way they;ve been interracting with fans and just for taking PS2 so seriously, then found out about this prosieben crap and it just dumped them back down with all the other recent MMO companies who have taken dicking over EU players to an art form with deals like this. I know they wont be doing region locking for ps2, but any company that normally relies region locking as standard, is clearly afraid that people are going to suffer higher pings and go to the US based service provider, rather than suffer whatever they are offering as a local alternative.

Yes sorry i didnt make it clear. I was referring to the updated FAQ.

Can players continue to use Station Cash?
European players will be able to use a new virtual currency similar to Station Cash.

As a good example.

They did say that station cash will have an exchange rate to prosieben's currency. Obviously, we all know how well EU prices fair when MMO companies apply exchange rates between US prices and their EU equivalent. :rolleyes:

[Sabot]

Yes sorry i didnt make it clear. I was referring to the updated FAQ.

Can players continue to use Station Cash?
European players will be able to use a new virtual currency similar to Station Cash.

As a good example.

I think SOE actually shoed us that they care.. if not about us (I'd like to think so though) then about the game, and a lot of the stuff in this deal was potentially damaging to PS2. They took care of it though... I would be very surprised actually if currently owned station cash wont be usable and/or transferable to your EU account, at least for a limited time, once the game goes live.

Further more, the FAQ states that SOE will still be hosting and maintaining the EU servers for games affected by the deal... something I thought Pro7 would be doing.

[Dart]

Just do what "Dart" the Planetside player from the original article is going to do... Come and play on the NA servers anyway! I scoured the net for research on pro7 when we were fighting this initially and my overwhelming feeling was thatI did not want to do business with that company.

[IronMole]

Just do what "Dart" the Planetside player from the original article is going to do... Come and play on the NA servers anyway! I scoured the net for research on pro7 when we were fighting this initially and my overwhelming feeling was thatI did not want to do business with that company.

Who is this Dart guy though? He seems intelligent...

[Dart]

Who is this Dart guy though? He seems intelligent...

Nah, he's ReDaRTeD. You guys should def ante up over on the US servers though.

[GuyFawkes]

Just do what "Dart" the Planetside player from the original article is going to do... Come and play on the NA servers anyway! I scoured the net for research on pro7 when we were fighting this initially and my overwhelming feeling was thatI did not want to do business with that company.

Exactly what I'm going to do:love:

btw, were you originally DartagnionUK or similar on emerald? I remember my first excursion to Emerald back in 04/5 or thereabouts and this cr5 being the only one there worth listening to on vs cr5 command.

edit : GOA and warhammer gives me shudders and hairs on back of my neck stand up. Never, ever again.

[Sabot]

Nah, he's ReDaRTeD. You guys should def ante up over on the US servers though.

I intend to...

Honestly... some rich bastard have to lay some fibre optics over the Atlantic. Like a pipe line of fiber optic cable...

[Dart]

Exactly what I'm going to do:love:

btw, were you originally DartagnionUK or similar on emerald? I remember my first excursion to Emerald back in 04/5 or thereabouts and this cr5 being the only one there worth listening to on vs cr5 command.

Haha if I ever seemed trustworthy I assure you it was an illusion, but yeah man that was me. I renamed to Dart (expecting people to spell Dartagnan while under fire was always a little optimistic) and that's how I'll be rolling in PS2. Look forward to seeing you in game!

[Joe]

I do hope Station Cash gets a good exchange rate or it is just a transfer of funds, i have like 10,000 saved up :P

[EisenKreutzer]

Oops. Read the whole thread, no longer a valid reply.

[SergeantNubins]

That's all very well, but why should EU players have to ay with an extra 150 ping.. as anyone who played fps games back in the days of modems, ISDN and the dawn of ADSL will tell you.. thats the difference between an LPB and an HPB. The best HPB's were only ever as good as average LPB's. In fact, there had to be rules in the competitions where teams had to have limits on the number of LPB's playing. As someone who was unfortunate enough to have to play and compete on a modem during the Quake1, 2 and early CS years, there is no way I would deliberately impose that handicap on myself again.

It remains to be seen how bad or good prosieben actually are with ps2. Basedo n experience i doubt they will be good, but who knows. Nothing will change it now.

[ThGlump]

As far as I'm aware, Station Cash is the currency used. So no exchange rate.

Pro7 will have their own cash shop with their own currency, so Station Cash will be transfered to them. You wont be supporting SOE much buying something on Pro7 shop.

[Fafnir]

Pro7 will have their own cash shop with their own currency, so Station Cash will be transfered to them. You wont be supporting SOE much buying something on Pro7 shop.

So you're saying that SOE won't have much profits from EU servers? :rofl:

It will be exactly the same game. "Their own currency" is just another way of saying that your current SC will turn into EU only SC once you converted your account.

[TheDrone]

I sure hope there will be US East Coast servers.

[Dart]

That's all very well, but why should EU players have to ay with an extra 150 ping.. as anyone who played fps games back in the days of modems, ISDN and the dawn of ADSL will tell you.. thats the difference between an LPB and an HPB. The best HPB's were only ever as good as average LPB's. In fact, there had to be rules in the competitions where teams had to have limits on the number of LPB's playing. As someone who was unfortunate enough to have to play and compete on a modem during the Quake1, 2 and early CS years, there is no way I would deliberately impose that handicap on myself again.

It remains to be seen how bad or good prosieben actually are with ps2. Basedo n experience i doubt they will be good, but who knows. Nothing will change it now.

Times have changed and a large amount of the latency issues people experienced in past online fps games had more to do with poor netcode than latency. That said, of course 20 ping is better than 120 however there are ways of reducing your ping besides playing on your closest server should you be so inclined...

[fvdham]

I am tempted to play on a US server while living in Europe because Pro7 is unknown to me.

[Dart]

The original post read right out of an episode of scare tactics. Maybe the person who supplied that info has an axe to grind or is a competitor. It is too fishy to trust. Imho.

Do some research, go over the original thread if you like. All of the information is backed up with evidence. Pro7's customer service history is not a positive thing and the feedback they've received from gamers just like us makes pretty compelling reading.

But as I've already intimated; SOE have given us what we asked for; the choice to control where we play. If you've rather play with Pro7 you can. If you'd rather stay with SOE you can do that also...

[ThGlump]

So you're saying that SOE won't have much profits from EU servers? :rofl:

It will be exactly the same game. "Their own currency" is just another way of saying that your current SC will turn into EU only SC once you converted your account.

Thats for Station Cash you currently have. You payed that to SOE. But after that you will pay to Pro7 to refill their currency to use in their cash shop. What SOE will get from that transactions is between them, but it surely wont be full price. Thats why i call them parasites :)

[Joe]

I hope we can change i have friends on both sides of the puddle and would like to play with both on the same account :)

[Dart]

I hope we can change i have friends on both sides of the puddle and would like to play with both on the same account :)

I'll go out on a (small) limb here and say that will be impossible. You'll be registering with different companies, using different in game currency on different servers. No way you'll be able to play on both SOE and Pro7 servers on the same account. The good news, in case you hadn't heard, is that the game is free to play!

[IronMole]

Times have changed and a large amount of the latency issues people experienced in past online fps games had more to do with poor netcode than latency. That said, of course 20 ping is better than 120 however there are ways of reducing your ping besides playing on your closest server should you be so inclined...

Ping is something that cannot be 'controlled'. Granted that you can 'raise' it via limiting, but lowering the ping is near impossible.

Ping is all dependent on your ISP's hops to the destination. Also, the only real way to negate latency issues is to use this 'client side' crap unless the server can take the load.

Shame really.

[Joe]

I hate the words 'client side'.... :doh:

[Dart]

Ping is something that cannot be 'controlled'. Granted that you can 'raise' it via limiting, but lowering the ping is near impossible.

Ping is all dependent on your ISP's hops to the destination. Also, the only real way to negate latency issues is to use this 'client side' crap unless the server can take the load.

Shame really.

Not quite true.

[Zetsubo]

So, EU players should make two accounts, one EU and one NA. If latency on NA account is acceptable: put money into that account, as it supports SOE directly. IF NA servers are unplayable, play EU but be careful with buying stuff from ProSiebenSat, because their customer service has a history of being bad.

Is that a good recap of the situation?

[Mirror]

I remember reading something that all the EU players accounts would be transferred to PSS1 (Station cash would be changed to whatever currency they use) and players would be able to access both sets of servers like they could in PS1, using one account.

I think it would be good to see via a poll or something, just how many EU players plan on playing on the EU servers and whether they want their accounts moved.

[bjorntju1]

I remember reading something that all the EU players accounts would be transferred to PSS1 (Station cash would be changed to whatever currency they use) and players would be able to access both sets of servers like they could in PS1, using one account.

I think it would be good to see via a poll or something, just how many EU players plan on playing on the EU servers and whether they want their accounts moved.

Yeah pretty much, apart from the account stuff. I think you need two different account now. However I am not sure about that. But I do think it would be better if you can just, use one account, use one currency and one client to access the game and both regions. But that probably won't happen... :(

[RSphil]

Iv always been worried about this as iv never heard of this company but when I looked it to it I did not like what I saw. Not too sure what to do. I have talked a good few friends into playin planetside and I hope I don't regret this with piss poor service from pro7. SOE had better keep a close on the euro company and if they mess up big time be prepared for the witch hunt that will follow.
Still don't see why they did this. All big mmo company handle their own games with out euro partners. All they do is use euro servers. Very confused about the use of a company with such a bad reputation.

[Fafnir]

Thats for Station Cash you currently have. You payed that to SOE. But after that you will pay to Pro7 to refill their currency to use in their cash shop. What SOE will get from that transactions is between them, but it surely wont be full price. Thats why i call them parasites :)

You put so much emphasis on "pay to Pro7", "their currency" and "their cash shop". Pro7 won't be actual owner of PS2 in Europe, that's just plain silly. You will support SOE by buying in EU cash shop - Pro7 will get a cut from that or they may as well be paid just for hosting and services.

[Sledgecrushr]

Best case scenario prosieben uses soe as a mentor and is able to turn its ship around and provide a quality product to PS2 players... Profits. At the worst you just start a na character and deal with ping issues. In the end if euro servers are good enough I might want to play over there.

[Mirror]

Yeah pretty much, apart from the account stuff. I think you need two different account now. However I am not sure about that.

If I need to make a new account to play on the EU server then I simply won't make a new account. I'll happily play on the US servers just like before.

If I was to ever make an account with PSS1 then they would never see my credit card details simply because of the horror stories that I have read from previous PSS1 customers. I advise everyone to give this company as little about you as possible.

[sunzen]

Still don't see why they did this. All big mmo company handle their own games with out euro partners. All they do is use euro servers. Very confused about the use of a company with such a bad reputation.

Its all about money.

[IronMole]

Not quite true.

Enlighten me?

[RSphil]

Its all about money.

If pro is as bad as it loooks it will be about the money SOE don't get :)

[Sabot]

If pro is as bad as it loooks it will be about the money SOE don't get :)

The companies never get cheated out of money... at least not legaly. It's the consumers that have to deal with that fact ;) Not talking about SOE or Pro7 specificly now... that's just how it works generally. If one company doesn't stick to the deal, there's a law suit being filed faster than yesterdays hangover-squirts...

[Dart]

Enlighten me?

No. :p

So, EU players should make two accounts, one EU and one NA. If latency on NA account is acceptable: put money into that account, as it supports SOE directly. IF NA servers are unplayable, play EU but be careful with buying stuff from ProSiebenSat, because their customer service has a history of being bad.

Is that a good recap of the situation?

Essentially yes. EU veterans will be transferred to Pro7 although SOE has assured us there will be an opt-out choice before this takes place.

One of the most common issues with EU 'licensees' and something Pro7 have a bad reputation for; is patching the game later and support being slower than the original developers. There are other customer service related issues with this particular company however I don't want to rehash those here out of respect to SOE and their partners. If any EU based player would like more info feel free to PM me and I'll provide the links I have for them to make an informed decision.

[ruskyandrei]

The devs have already (repeatedly) confirmed that there will be no region blocking, so as far as I'm concerned i'll just keep using my SOE account (which says i'm from the US) and play in the EU when the servers open up :)

[RSphil]

The companies never get cheated out of money... at least not legaly. It's the consumers that have to deal with that fact ;) Not talking about SOE or Pro7 specificly now... that's just how it works generally. If one company doesn't stick to the deal, there's a law suit being filed faster than yesterdays hangover-squirts...

As the game is f2p then I'd say there would be money lost if the euro players decide not to play therefore no cash made in cash shop. I don't think I'd support SOE if pro7 mess this up. Why would I support a company that fobed me off to a company with an already bad reputation just cus I live over the water. We shall have to see if the make it good or the biggest cluster f#€k going lol.

[ThGlump]

You put so much emphasis on "pay to Pro7", "their currency" and "their cash shop". Pro7 won't be actual owner of PS2 in Europe, that's just plain silly. You will support SOE by buying in EU cash shop - Pro7 will get a cut from that or they may as well be paid just for hosting and services.

Why then do additional work to make cash shop for additional currency? You pay Pro7 as you will buy from THEIR cash shop with THEIR currency and SOE get some cut from that.


I remember reading something that all the EU players accounts would be transferred to PSS1 (Station cash would be changed to whatever currency they use) and players would be able to access both sets of servers like they could in PS1, using one account.

If this was true why it couldnt be other way around? We keep our SOE accounts and play on EU servers with low ping? That could be acceptable. But they want us make another account and as thats additional work, and another possible source of problems, they dont do that for fun. There is some reason for that, for make additional problems with different accounts. Pro7 just want us to use their cash shop so they wont let play with SOE account.


EU veterans will be transferred to Pro7 although SOE has assured us there will be an opt-out choice before this takes place.


Oh i probably missed that. Source on opt-out option? I need to sign that now. I dont want to go under Pro7.

[Vash02]

No. :p



Essentially yes. EU veterans will be transferred to Pro7 although SOE has assured us there will be an opt-out choice before this takes place.

One of the most common issues with EU 'licensees' and something Pro7 have a bad reputation for; is patching the game later and support being slower than the original developers. There are other customer service related issues with this particular company however I don't want to rehash those here out of respect to SOE and their partners. If any EU based player would like more info feel free to PM me and I'll provide the links I have for them to make an informed decision. SOE is managing the European servers so patching isnt going to be a problem. Pro7 is doing the customer service/marketing only.

[IronMole]

No. :p


Same old. ;)

[sunzen]

The devs have already (repeatedly) confirmed that there will be no region blocking, so as far as I'm concerned i'll just keep using my SOE account (which says i'm from the US) and play in the EU when the servers open up

I have the same intention.

[basti]

So, EU players should make two accounts, one EU and one NA. If latency on NA account is acceptable: put money into that account, as it supports SOE directly. IF NA servers are unplayable, play EU but be careful with buying stuff from ProSiebenSat, because their customer service has a history of being bad.

Is that a good recap of the situation?


This is pretty much exaclty what people assume.
And Bullshit.


Folks, stop assuming things. You are misinformed greatly.

Wait, and see yourself. We had a dozenz of pages long thread about the whole matter, with lots of posts from Brolly and Radar, and we all came to the same conclusion in the end: Alaplaya has bad history, but Alaplaya has nothing to do with the SOE games. Nobody knows how this will play out until it actually plays out (DCUO is doing the switch first).

So CHill, wait, enjoy whatever you do and stop worrying yourself about stuff you know nothing about.

[Fafnir]

Why then do additional work to make cash shop for additional currency? You pay Pro7 as you will buy from THEIR cash shop with THEIR currency and SOE get some cut from that.

Simply because EU players data will be stored in database hosted by Pro7.

There will be no Pro7 cash shop, they will just keep you account data, like your Station Cash.

[ThGlump]

Folks, stop assuming things. You are misinformed greatly.

And whose fault is that? They dont give us any solid information, only give us vague answers that leave many questions open.
As EU player used to be screwed by this deals everytime, so im assuming the same here. They still did nothing (and even didnt provide solid answers) to prove otherwise.
Till then im assuming things what my experience with this sort of deals taught me.

[SergeantNubins]

Times have changed and a large amount of the latency issues people experienced in past online fps games had more to do with poor netcode than latency. That said, of course 20 ping is better than 120 however there are ways of reducing your ping besides playing on your closest server should you be so inclined...

If it was a stable 120 then id not be quite so worried.. but stable 120 is a good day from the UK to atlantic based servers, it usually averages more like 140/150. The current pacific based servers for panetside get 190-250 .. thats bad even for an HPB. It's not quite so bad for planetside because its less twitch based than shooters like quake, or indeed BF, CS or COD etc etc. But PS2 will be very twitch based and that kinda difference in response time is the difference between getting the kill and getting killed. It can be very drustrating in ps1 now because in a close fight you dont know wether the other guy won because he wa sbetter, or because his pc registerred the killshot before mine could :cry:

[etheral]

From what I remember of the old thread, there will definitely be some kind of opt-out ability because it is illegal under EU law to transfer customer information without their consent, so no-one has to worry about suddenly being transferred to pro7 against their will. :)

[Pyreal]

Haha if I ever seemed trustworthy I assure you it was an illusion, but yeah man that was me. I renamed to Dart (expecting people to spell Dartagnan while under fire was always a little optimistic) and that's how I'll be rolling in PS2. Look forward to seeing you in game!

All for one, and one for all!

[SergeantNubins]

From what I remember of the old thread, there will definitely be some kind of opt-out ability because it is illegal under EU law to transfer customer information without their consent, so no-one has to worry about suddenly being transferred to pro7 against their will. :)


Hmm on the EQ2 prosieben FAQ, it says you can play on the US servers, but if you are in the EU, you MUST create an prosieben account in order to be able to do so. Maybe thats changed or is different from ps2, but i cant see why it would be.

[Noivad]

Wait and see what happens - until then everything else is speculation. SOE will protect EU and US players. They know outfits have friends from both sides of the pond. This has been discussed all before.

In any event, I'll have an account on every server available. Will more then likely spend money on all of them. Ping will not be a issue for anyone like it was back in 2003,04,05,06, if you are on cable, or DSL. In the old days ping could be 300 to 600. And yet we still played lol. So just wait and see how it is. We are very close. keep cool.

[EisenKreutzer]

I sincerely hope this Pro7 thing won't adveresely affect PLanetside 2 in any noticeable way. It sounds a bit ugly, but I have faith in the guys at SOE.

[GuyFawkes]

The big thing that puzzles me is why do this in the first place?

If you mention names like Blizzard , Microsoft or Sony you sort of expect a certain degree of professionalism. Maybe not 100% of the time, but dependable nonetheless.If pro7 were just hosting servers for soe and maintenance i could go along with it to a degree.

As it is, I find myself erring on the side of caution, and prefer just to not risk having them handle any details of mine from the get-go.

The whole GOA/Mythic with warhammer online, Codemasters/ Turbine with lotro make me bitten twice , thrice shy about any euro company running mmo games on behalf on the main company. They have little affinity with the game other than a middleman getting a cut of the profits while filtering it, and cut costs wherever possible and charge more for a reduced service.

[CuddlyChud]

These threads are kind of strange to me. Most people cry and moan about how crappy SOE is, but apparently this company that they've never used before is even worse? Also, nothing in the eq2 faq was updated, so what exactly is this thread pointing out?

[etheral]

Hmm on the EQ2 prosieben FAQ, it says you can play on the US servers, but if you are in the EU, you MUST create an prosieben account in order to be able to do so. Maybe thats changed or is different from ps2, but i cant see why it would be.

Ah, sorry. I wasnt very clear. I meant that they cant just turn your SOE account into a pro7 account without your consent.

These threads are kind of strange to me. Most people cry and moan about how crappy SOE is, but apparently this company that they've never used before is even worse? Also, nothing in the eq2 faq was updated, so what exactly is this thread pointing out?

Five words: better the devil you know

*edit* And yeah, I thought this topic had already been dealt with. Apparently not :P

[GuyFawkes]

These threads are kind of strange to me. Most people cry and moan about how crappy SOE is, but apparently this company that they've never used before is even worse? Also, nothing in the eq2 faq was updated, so what exactly is this thread pointing out?

The soe devs are great, creating innovative game ideas and trying new stuff out. It's the higher corporate end and post launch where it gets blurry and questionable. We want soe to look after their baby, not throw it out into the world as soon as it starts growing teeth, especially not to some creepy euro pimp;)

[Emperor Newt]

These threads are kind of strange to me. Most people cry and moan about how crappy SOE is, but apparently this company that they've never used before is even worse? Also, nothing in the eq2 faq was updated, so what exactly is this thread pointing out?
Most likely because 7games (until PS2) only hosted smaller, more "casual" games and nothing even remotely close to PS2s size. So people are of course a bit afraid by the lack of experience. But I am quiet confident that SOE can provide the data and know-how necessary.

[RadarX]

The big thing that puzzles me is why do this in the first place?

If you mention names like Blizzard , Microsoft or Sony you sort of expect a certain degree of professionalism. Maybe not 100% of the time, but dependable nonetheless.If pro7 were just hosting servers for soe and maintenance i could go along with it to a degree.

As it is, I find myself erring on the side of caution, and prefer just to not risk having them handle any details of mine from the get-go.

The whole GOA/Mythic with warhammer online, Codemasters/ Turbine with lotro make me bitten twice , thrice shy about any euro company running mmo games on behalf on the main company. They have little affinity with the game other than a middleman getting a cut of the profits while filtering it, and cut costs wherever possible and charge more for a reduced service.

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

[Pella]

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

In all fairness we are yet to experience what ProSieben can do. And with such a huge contract on the line im sure they don't want to mess up.

[ThGlump]

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

Localized support? Great. Marketing? Fine. Nobody will be against that as we know both are needed. But both could be done with external company, without hard splitting community, without separate accounts, without separate cash shop/currency.

[Joe]

I would have rather have stayed with Station Cash and station account then have to change it all into the Pro stuff. :(

[Emperor Newt]

In all fairness we are yet to experience what ProSieben can do. And with such a huge contract on the line im sure they don't want to mess up.
At least ProSiebenSat1 also is a huge company, so they have the monetary muscle to do this. So this should not be an issue.

[ThGlump]

At least ProSiebenSat1 also is a huge company, so they have the monetary muscle to do this. So this should not be an issue.

Codemasters werent small company and they had experience in gaming industry, yet they failed to provide Lotro good service (compared to Turbine), so Turbine took it back. This sort of deal never work.

[sunzen]

We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I can see why. I hope you agreed on a termination clause.

[ringring]

I can see why. I hope you agreed on a termination clause.

There is always a Sanity Clause. :p

[bjorntju1]

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

I am Dutch, and the localized support isn't in my lanuage. So that advantage is not for everyone. Not that I mind, since I can speak/write English good, but still... And I also have never seen any marketing of that company here.

But I don't mind that they are handling that kind of stuff, but they do need to make sure we don't get delayed updates/patches. I don't mind if we get a patch a hour later or something, but not days/weeks. Also that we get into the closed beta at (almost) the same time as US people. And that the prices of the marketplace are the same as the US one. (1$=not1€) And that we also have the same items. I do hope they won't put in better weapons/items, while the US version doesn't have those things. And I know you guys said that SOE has the word on what get's in or not. So I suppose that won't happen, but I still have a bad impression from that fiasco earlier this year, and the things I read about the company. I am really curious about how the EU beta and release goes. If everything goes well, and the above stuff I mentioned gets handeled well. I am a happy person and then I will just play on the EU server :)

[SergeantNubins]

I still dont get why SOE think this will improve their player numbers over here. Prosieben only have any kind of presence in Germany (im assuming austria as well but it doesnt say it on their website) Romania, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Nothing in UK, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Switzerland, Russia, Portugal, Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Luxembourg, Turkey, Ukraine etc etc etc.

Sony on the other hand.. has a network and presence in all of those countries, thanks to the PS3. Why does a Sony owned company, need to go to a third party with a limited network in Europe to distribute it's product? How will SOE games be marketed in other European countries than the ones s71 actually has some kind of network in? I'd never heard of them in the UK, before this stuff came up.

The other thing that really concerns me is that they are a German company. Now the Germans are good at many things, but they have a terrible record on video game censorship. I think it was Tera that launched recently and the German company that the devs had hired in this sort of a deal (squashed frog or something like that) had to censor the game client for all of Europe, based on draconian German censorship laws (which from what i've read over the last years in news items on tech sites and gaming sites, seems to be getting worse). Blood and a number of suggestive costumes for female avatars all had to be changed or removed to comply with German law. This meant a huge number of EU players simply bought the US client, as the devs had not tied down their systems and if you went to the main game website and bought it, it automatically set you up with the north american client. So why did they even need the german middle man in the first place!?

[Emperor Newt]

Codemasters werent small company and they had experience in gaming industry, yet they failed to provide Lotro good service (compared to Turbine), so Turbine took it back. This sort of deal never work.
Well, maybe it never worked (although I dont know all deals), but that doesn't mean it cannot work.
Besides LOTRO and DnDO were Codemasters first steps in publishing MMOs and they had no previous experience in the field. Also they did not build up their involvement in the section which makes me believe they went into MMO publishing somply because MMOs were "in" these years and as the two big franchises promissed a quick buck. And not because they had a wider interest in it. At least that seems to be different with Pro7Sat1 as they really seem to want to push Sevengames to be a long-term platform and income basis.

At least give them the benefit of the doubt ;)

I am Dutch, and the localized support isn't in my lanuage. So that advantage is not for everyone. Not that I mind, since I can speak/write English good, but still... And I also have never seen any marketing of that company here.
They do have a dutch section on their website so I suppose that at least support will be available in dutch. (But of course I dont know for sure)


The other thing that really concerns me is that they are a German company. Now the Germans are good at many things, but they have a terrible record on video game censorship. I think it was Tera that launched recently and the German company that the devs had hired in this sort of a deal (squashed frog or something like that) had to censor the game client for all of Europe, based on draconian German censorship laws (which from what i've read over the last years in news items on tech sites and gaming sites, seems to be getting worse). Blood and a number of suggestive costumes for female avatars all had to be changed or removed to comply with German law. This meant a huge number of EU players simply bought the US client, as the devs had not tied down their systems and if you went to the main game website and bought it, it automatically set you up with the north american client. So why did they even need the german middle man in the first place!?
I really don't want to get an in argument here so I leave it at that: your comment is based on wrong info on so many levels. Rest assured: this will not be a concern for PS2.

[bjorntju1]

Well, maybe it never worked (although I dont know all deals), but that doesn't mean it cannot work.
Besides LOTRO and DnDO were Codemasters first steps in publishing MMOs and they had no previous experience in the field. Also they did not build up their involvement in the section which makes me believe they went into MMO publishing somply because MMOs were "in" these years and as the two big franchises promissed a quick buck. And not because they had a wider interest in it. At least that seems to be different with Pro7Sat1 as they really seem to want to push Sevengames to be a long-term platform and income basis.

At least give them the benefit of the doubt ;)


They do have a dutch section on their website so I suppose that at least support will be available in dutch. (But of course I dont know for sure)



I really don't want to get an in argument here so I leave it at that: your comment is wrong and based on flawed info on so many levels. This will not be a concern for PS2.

Well this is in their FAQ:

Will European players only have access to German Customer Service?
European players will be provided with support and customer service in their own respective language, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German.

And it does say ''including''. But if there are other lanuages, why not just put them there? It's like saying, our game has more than 20 guns, with the game having just 21 guns.

[Emperor Newt]

Well this is in their FAQ:

And it does say ''including''. But if there are other lanuages, why not just put them there? It's like saying, our game has more than 20 guns, with the game having just 21 guns.
Ah, thats really odd. Especially since their current website provide sections for Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany and a COM which I suppose is for England + everybody else. So they do not have sections for Italy and Spain which would already require them to get additional support workers speaking different languages.
Well, maybe we will get more info on that during Gamescom.

[GuyFawkes]

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

thanks for the reply. I think this next snippit demonstrates it best



Sony on the other hand.. has a network and presence in all of those countries, thanks to the PS3. Why does a Sony owned company, need to go to a third party with a limited network in Europe to distribute it's product?


the deal is done, and you are working around it, but it still bemuses me. I will be playing on US servers nonetheless

[Nasher]

Does anyone know yet how this system will work?

E.g. If I create a new account with SOE and say I'm in the US (when I'm not) will I be able to continue logging in with that account through SOE when using an EU IP? Or will I need to spoof my IP?

[BlueSkies]

To hell with wonky pings, going to play on a US East coast server

[ThGlump]

Does anyone know yet how this system will work?

E.g. If I create a new account with SOE and say I'm in the US (when I'm not) will I be able to continue logging in with that account through SOE when using an EU IP? Or will I need to spoof my IP?

Nobody knows. Thats why everyone is freaking out. We are expecting worst possibility. :)

[Sotonian]

To hell with wonky pings, going to play on a US East coast server

Same, i am not playing with people speaking French or Russian over VOIP

[Ruffdog]

Focusing on the positive: a company that's dropped the ball once before will be eager to learn from those mistakes next time?:)

All I know is they better carry on the tradition of triple station cash sales. Or is that station euros?:rolleyes:

[RadarX]

thanks for the reply. I think this next snippit demonstrates it best



the deal is done, and you are working around it, but it still bemuses me. I will be playing on US servers nonetheless

The difference between managing a PC and PS3 product may seem minor but they are very different. Also while we are part of Sony this would be like the TV division asking the DVD division for help distributing. It's just not the same business even though they are both electronics.

[basti]

Codemasters werent small company and they had experience in gaming industry, yet they failed to provide Lotro good service (compared to Turbine), so Turbine took it back. This sort of deal never work.


Codemasters didnt screw up Lotro. They actually went out of the MMO business mostly. As for the Cause of this: Jumpgate Evolution.

[Sabot]

Honestly, it's not hard this....

Regarding accounts. There will be no region locks! If you want to play on the US servers, you create a SOE account and use that to login to the game. If you want to play on the EU servers, you create a Pro7 account and login to the EU servers. Doesn't matter where you're from or what your IP address is... you will still be able to to create a set of both account types if you so wish. This is the latest info we have from SOE regarding the deal with Pro7, accounts and servers specifically for PS2.

The major thing that should be a concern, is how your current amount of station cash on your SOE account will be handled. I think they said we will be able to move the account into Pro7's care (and I guess the whole value of your station cash will follow.. not 100% on that though). What is a concern is that... while the game is free, that station cash wasn't. And simply handing it over into the care of a company we don't know anything about seems like a gamble. Like many have said; deals like this have been done in the past, and it hasn't always turned out good for the customer. I don't know about this company... SOE I can trust whitout not knowing, because it's their name all over game, it's their time and money that's gone into the development of it. Pro7 doesn't have the same stakes in, so how do I know I can trust them be as serious about it as SOE will be? Well, reading up on them doesn't seem to help... I try not to be affected too much by what's written about companies online without first hand experience myself. But it's hard not to feel worried.

That's the pickle... as far as I'm concerned. Not just the money we've put into the SOE accounts... I mean it's not that much money... I doubt anyone of you sold your house or wedding ring to buy station cash (don't answer that...). But the fact that when deciding on whether to go with US or EU servers, we either have to put up with latency issues, or we're walking bare assed first into the care of a company we know nothing about (not that many good things at least), that has nowhere near as much riding on this as SOE does... that makes it seem like they just saw a fast way of making easy $$. And that is never a good thing for us....


The difference between managing a PC and PS3 product may seem minor but they are very different. Also while we are part of Sony this would be like the TV division asking the DVD division for help distributing. It's just not the same business even though they are both electronics.

Good point. But isn't Pro7 a TV station....? Or isn't doing what they do also a lot different from what they're about to do with PS2? And yes, that is a serious question. :)

[ringring]

Does anyone know yet how this system will work?

E.g. If I create a new account with SOE and say I'm in the US (when I'm not) will I be able to continue logging in with that account through SOE when using an EU IP? Or will I need to spoof my IP?
~It will be fine, in fact SOE have specifically said it will be fine ... if you mean that with your SOE account you will play on US servers ofc.

Or is that station euros?:rolleyes:

Fekkin hell I hope not .... after all this is a triple A game not a pile of dingoes do-do's

Nobody knows. Thats why everyone is freaking out. We are expecting worst possibility. :)

Actually, we do know cos we've been told.

[ThGlump]

Codemasters didnt screw up Lotro. They actually went out of the MMO business mostly. As for the Cause of this: Jumpgate Evolution.

They screw it pretty badly. Maybe it wasnt why it went back under turbine but it was shitty service anyway.
And as i saw what they did i see where Pro7 will fail too as some of that problems isnt about company, its about they wanting to manage something they have no knowledge.
So Codemasters shitty service: (what it could be in PS2)

Terrible website with no information (well there is always US version)
Barren forums as you never get any response as they didnt know anything (In PS2 we can post in SOE forums so it could be better)
No website access to characters/armory (PS2 will provide tons of info from servers - will that be true for Pro7 servers too?)
2-4 weeks delay in updates was no exception (lets hope since SOE handles servers/updates it wont be that bad)
Terrible ingame support when there was some nonstandard problem (well theyre usually trained monkeys, but as theyre extern then dont have someone deeper knowledge about game nearby - that probably will be true for PS2 too)
Delay when resolving bugs/problems as they was only another layer of communication - only thing they could do is to repost it to Turbine. (dont seem like something that would be different in PS2)
Once they stepped down they stopped to care, ignoring any problems with account transfer (few guildmates lost their lifetime account during that) - i dont want to lose my account when Pro7 experiment fail and they move it back. Ill stay on my SOE account.

[derito]

Good point. But isn't Pro7 a TV station....? Or isn't doing what they do also a lot different from what they're about to do with PS2? And yes, that is a serious question. :)

I guess their experience with F2P games AND TV in Europe is something Sony may not have. Although it does look like the business/marketing guys made that deal and then left the people who spent months/years on the actual products to deal with the consequences.

[Pella]

I guess their experience with F2P games AND TV in Europe is something Sony may not have. Although it does look like the business/marketing guys made that deal and then left the people who spent months/years on the actual products to deal with the consequences.

From what i know Alaplaya, Is a subsidiary of ProSiebenSat.1 which is going to handle most things.

But again i see a repeat of what happened with GOA and Mythic at warhammer online yet another example.

[Emperor Newt]

Good point. But isn't Pro7 a TV station....? Or isn't doing what they do also a lot different from what they're about to do with PS2? And yes, that is a serious question. :)
They are, they own several free and paytoview tv channels in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as a paytoview channel in US/Canada. Also they have several subsidiary tv and fm stations all over Europe.
But they also have the online games devision (sevengames and they aquired alaplaya) for years now. So they have some experience in the field and until now I haven't heard anything bad about it. Seems to run fine. Sevengames at least, alaplaya games seem to have cheater issues, but thats also likely also a problem of games lacking anti cheat tools as many f2p games do.
The thing (aka the problem) is that the biggest games they have is stuff like Runes of Magic, and Battlestar Galactica Online. Which are nothing in comparison to PS2s size and scale. And on those games I don't know if they actually host servers or simply provide a gateway.

[ThGlump]

From what i know Alaplaya, Is a subsidiary of ProSiebenSat.1 which is going to handle most things.

They said it wont be under Alaplaya, that they will have new site and team for SOE games. If it was under Alaplaya i would be long gone as there wouldnt be any hacker hunting (based on how they deal with it in their current games) that SOE promised for keeping PS2 playable.

[I SandRock]

Why give EU players localized support and do marketing with a multi-billion dollar media company? It's how EU players should be treated. We now have regular conversations and meetings whose only topic is "What about the EU?" all because of this deal.

I'm familiar with the deals you mention and I can assure this is a whole different ball game.

A company which runs shitty games in a shitty manner. Just sayin' ;)

[Dart]

Guys there really is no point in crucifying Pro7 before release. You all know I've never been an advocate of this deal but what's done is done and there is an alternative if things go badly. So with than in mind, why not give Pro7 the benefit of the doubt and see where it takes you? Otherwise I envisage a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Jeepo]

I understand the apprehension here, I do, but I think we need to step back and WAIT to see how they handle it. I think it will work out. And yeah I am a European player.

[RadarX]

Honestly, it's not hard this....

Regarding accounts. There will be no region locks! If you want to play on the US servers, you create a SOE account and use that to login to the game. If you want to play on the EU servers, you create a Pro7 account and login to the EU servers. Doesn't matter where you're from or what your IP address is... you will still be able to to create a set of both account types if you so wish. This is the latest info we have from SOE regarding the deal with Pro7, accounts and servers specifically for PS2.

The major thing that should be a concern, is how your current amount of station cash on your SOE account will be handled. I think they said we will be able to move the account into Pro7's care (and I guess the whole value of your station cash will follow.. not 100% on that though). What is a concern is that... while the game is free, that station cash wasn't. And simply handing it over into the care of a company we don't know anything about seems like a gamble. Like many have said; deals like this have been done in the past, and it hasn't always turned out good for the customer. I don't know about this company... SOE I can trust whitout not knowing, because it's their name all over game, it's their time and money that's gone into the development of it. Pro7 doesn't have the same stakes in, so how do I know I can trust them be as serious about it as SOE will be? Well, reading up on them doesn't seem to help... I try not to be affected too much by what's written about companies online without first hand experience myself. But it's hard not to feel worried.

That's the pickle... as far as I'm concerned. Not just the money we've put into the SOE accounts... I mean it's not that much money... I doubt anyone of you sold your house or wedding ring to buy station cash (don't answer that...). But the fact that when deciding on whether to go with US or EU servers, we either have to put up with latency issues, or we're walking bare assed first into the care of a company we know nothing about (not that many good things at least), that has nowhere near as much riding on this as SOE does... that makes it seem like they just saw a fast way of making easy $$. And that is never a good thing for us....




Good point. But isn't Pro7 a TV station....? Or isn't doing what they do also a lot different from what they're about to do with PS2? And yes, that is a serious question. :)

They are a media company who is diversifying in games much like Vivendi invested in Blizzard. We are providing them as much of our experience as possible. They are investing heavily in this.

[NewSith]

They are a media company who is diversifying in games much like Vivendi invested in Blizzard. We are providing them as much of our experience as possible. They are investing heavily in this.

Sorry for sounding like a first class prick, but - investing what? Effort? Or money? Because from what it seems from all the info gathered they're pretty much like EA in that regard.

[ThGlump]

They are a media company who is diversifying in games much like Vivendi invested in Blizzard. We are providing them as much of our experience as possible. They are investing heavily in this.

Vivendi invested in Blizzard but was smart enough only investing and dont meddling in how are games managed. I dont see Vivendi customer support or Vivendi accounts.
So into what Pro7 invested?
Into SOE (not probable)? Then they made mistake trying to do what gaming company should do (they should just invest money).
Into Alaplaya and SOE just providing games for them? Sory but they choose their investment into not trustworthy company with bad history/reputation and SOE games will suffer from that in EU.

[Sabot]

They are a media company who is diversifying in games much like Vivendi invested in Blizzard. We are providing them as much of our experience as possible. They are investing heavily in this.

Can you clairify that bit, please? The part about "providing them as much of our experience as possible". Do you simply mean that SOE will be helping them "setup" a working system for dealing with... all things they're going to deal with regarding PS2?

[Superbus]

Well speaking for a multi national group of friends that have been playing together for nearly a decade; if SOE decides to somehow change what they said and region lock servers they wont be getting our business.

[infected]

i'm not eu player but i'd say this could use more clarification from SOE... like what is this company's role? did SOE outsource this because the other company has the clout to advertise the game better in europe? and they had to make a deal to get that coverage? so they gave the company some management role over eu accounts? idk. i have no clue.

lack of clarity leads to speculation. would be nice if the soe peeps could go more into detail.

[Joe]

i'm not eu player but i'd say this could use more clarification from SOE... like what is this company's role? did SOE outsource this because the other company has the clout to advertise the game better in europe? and they had to make a deal to get that coverage? so they gave the company some management role over eu accounts? idk. i have no clue.

lack of clarity leads to speculation. would be nice if the soe peeps could go more into detail.

Agreed there needs to be a big post about it clarifying everything ATM this is worrying people about getting into PS2 and its a shame, its not the games fault just politics/business :(

[Eyeklops]

Well speaking for a multi national group of friends that have been playing together for nearly a decade; if SOE decides to somehow change what they said and region lock servers they wont be getting our business.

LOL..I'm sure you won't go anywhere near that free game.. haha.

[Xazbot]

I'm from portugal and never heard of pro7. I'm not sure about the direction SOE has taken here. And all this discussion here isn't helping. Won't I be able to keep using SOE station in EU to play PS2?

[Superbus]

LOL..I'm sure you won't go anywhere near that free game.. haha.

Yeah they won't get any cash from me if I can't play with friends. Pretty simple concept right?

Even if it is free I wont be playing very long or that often if I can't play with the same guys I have been playing with for nearly a decade. F2P doesn't mean shit If I can't play with my friends.

Sc2 is a perfect example can't play with my friends so we just stopped playing it, and went back to HW and Sup Com instead.

It wasn't a knock against the DEVs or the game me and my friends are really looking forward to it. We've been trying to find a game to take us away from EVE; but if we can't play together or their accounts are some how hindered its going to be hard to justify a game switch.

[Zation]

I am confused. There is alot of info in this thread with regards to how the "no region locking" is gonna work, is any of it officiel or is it just ppl geussing?

Will we be able to access all servers from one account or will we need to two accounts if we dont want region locking? Can EU players keep their SoE account and play from that?

If we need two accounts, what about currency on thise accounts? will it be shared?, will we need to purchase everything twice if we want to change server region?

Would be really nice if we could have a statement from SoE clearifying how all this is gonna work, having all this speculation is good for noone.

[Canaris]

I am confused. There is alot of info in this thread with regards to how the "no region locking" is gonna work, is any of it official or is it just ppl guessing?

Will we be able to access all servers from one account or will we need to two accounts if we dont want region locking? Can EU players keep their SoE account and play from that?

If we need two accounts, what about currency on these accounts? will it be shared?, will we need to purchase everything twice if we want to change server region?

Would be really nice if we could have a statement from SoE clarifying how all this is gonna work, having all this speculation is good for no one.

I think it was Smed (not 100% sure) who said any Station cash can be ported over to your Pro7 account when they become active so no Eurosiders loose out on money they've already spent on Station $

No real information has been provided over the accounts and servers we simply don't know if Pro7 players can access the NA servers or vice versa or will we have to use an SOE account instead. I hope they do the decent thing and make it the former so it's all integrated.

I for one don't mind having to set up and use a Pro7 account and I'm not really worried about it since meeting and talking with some of them, they've been extremely decent and diligent in clearing up lots of the misgivings and general falsehoods about the company.

They don't seem another GOA, which is a good thing. :)

[sunzen]

Will we be able to access all servers from one account or will we need to two accounts if we dont want region locking? Can EU players keep their SoE account and play from that?

From the info thats been provided so far we need a Pro7 account to play on the eu servers. (Hence eu-SOE accounts will get transferred to pro7) Now this raises the question if the game profile data is shared between the two regions. (This may have been answered in the other long thread, didnt look it up)

If not, in my opinion this is the same as a region lock, but doesnt count as such because its free-to-play which means you dont buy another client just register a "new" client. In this case it just doesnt look like a region lock.
If the data is shared why could they not just let people use the SOE account ? because of the Pro7 platform shop ?

Again this may have been answered I didnt look it up in the other thread.

[I SandRock]

It's a typical corporate-level made decision. Suits only look at pro7 and see they're a multi-billion media conglomerate and assume that they must be a good choice simply because of that. Disregarding the fact they don't know jack about video games and only run video games nobody but my 8 year old nephew would play.

[Zation]

I think it was Smed (not 100% sure) who said any Station cash can be ported over to your Pro7 account when they become active so no Eurosiders loose out on money they've already spent on Station $


Yea, this have been stated i belive, and aslong as its somewhere near a 1:1 then, thats fine.

However, what i am concerned is that, if there is no interaction between accounts (your own) then you would need to buy (station/pro7 cash) on each account and you would need to buy everything twice. Thats pretty much the same as region locking the game imo. Who would willingly pay twice for the same product?

[Sabot]

I think it was Smed (not 100% sure) who said any Station cash can be ported over to your Pro7 account when they become active so no Eurosiders loose out on money they've already spent on Station $

No real information has been provided over the accounts and servers we simply don't know if Pro7 players can access the NA servers or vice versa or will we have to use an SOE account instead. I hope they do the decent thing and make it the former so it's all integrated.

I for one don't mind having to set up and use a Pro7 account and I'm not really worried about it since meeting and talking with some of them, they've been extremely decent and diligent in clearing up lots of the misgivings and general falsehoods about the company.

They don't seem another GOA, which is a good thing. :)

I don't see the point of Pro7 if we indeed can access EU servers through our SOE accounts... It would of course be preferable for us, sure, but I think the whole point of them is that if you want to play on the EU servers, you use their service.

And I realize that my previous post might seem like I'm not willing to give Pro7 a chance... but like someone else said here, I too think we should give them the benefit of the doubt for now, and at least give them a chance. So I'm not on some witch hunt here... and if what you say is true I'm inclined to believe that just as much as I believe the all bad stuff. However... my concerns are real issues, and I think everybody agrees that it needs to be handled in such a fashion that we, the players, don't feel like we have to make a gamble. 'Cause if it does, and things doesn't work out... believe me, a witch hunt is exactly what they're going to have from really pissed off people.

[Zation]

No one paying twice in a F2P. SOE and P7 just have their own stores.
More than one McDonald's exist in the world. Simply for convenience.

I will play on P7 with an alt, if all is good, I'll buy a Big Mac there too.

So to continue your analogy, lets say you buy a Big Mac and sits down to eat, for whatever reason you deside you would rather sit closer to the window, would you then pay for the same burger again just to switch sits? well i wouldent :P

[RSphil]

Well this is second or third big post about this and we still don't have a clear answer which is worrying. I'm in the UK and never heard of this Company. All iv heard is the stuff on here which is not good. I took a look at their web site and I wasn't impressed for what is supposed to be a big company. Lots of posts on their forums where left unanswered by what seems to be a non existant moderator team.
As alot of you have said I will try it and see. If it is not good then I shall leave them and just deal with SOE and if needed move all my friends to NA servers if we can't roam from NA to EU.
Someone from SOE needs to make a detailed post about the EU side of things cus ATM no answer is doing more damage then little bits here and there which don't really answer anything but more dodge round the questions being asked.

[Princess Frosty]

I'm a systems administrator and developer in the UK and what really gets me is that it's obvious there are several different systems here that are going to be run side by side, but not only does that treat customers differently and introduce unnecessary complexity, it also doesn't make sense from a design point of view either.

Ideally you need to have 1 master auth server that deals with player authentication ONLY, that can be in the US for all players because latency when authenticating doesn't matter. Just have one large database of players for all regions, so each player has just 1 account, 1 user name, 1 password, 1 set of station cash. If you need to determine which location the player is in you just have 1 field in the database that lists the country they registered from.

There's no excuse for separating out the accounts for different regions, if you want to outsource the hosting of actual game servers to 3rd party business then that's fine, but keep the auth server in house and give them an API with which to auth users over. If auth latency is really ever an issue then just replicate the DB servers to different regions.

This has "extremely bad design" written all over it and it's just one of those things that will no doubt end up taking an extraordinary amount of coordination and hacks/fixes/workarounds to get this running as smoothly as games expect, I foresee future issues and quite frankly it puts me off actually spending real cash on virtual items.

I've been burned by this before, Mythic Outsource Warhammer Online for the Europeans to some horrid french company GOA I think, and we got burned with a botched beta launch and later with some severe billing issues. The US customers didn't have any of these issues because they dealt with Mythic directly.

[Bananiel]

Is this company also going to do the ingame monitoring for stat padding/cheating? I'm afraid if they have no experience with videogames, except for some shitty ones that they didn't monitor well, there will probably either be a lack of ingame moderators, or they are trained monkeys that don't see the difference between a cheater and a good player.

[Joe]

This is silly we need a statement telling everyone what is going on all this speculation is not good, even if its bad news we want to know keeping the news from us is not good. :(

[SealedSun]

Pro7 have some pretty disgusting money making schemes running on their channels. 90% of the content they produce themselves, is outright garbage. But that's OK, since I don't have to watch Pro7.

The thought of paying Pro7 (instead of SOE) for PS2, however, makes me really uncomfortable. I don't want to give Pro7 my personal data, I don't want to give Pro7 my credit card info and I certainly don't want to help them be profitable. I simply don't trust Pro7 as a business entity.

They are a media company who is diversifying in games ...

You do realize that this statement is not inspiring much confidence, right?

And no, I don't care about localization. I certainly hope that the client won't "helpfully decide" that I prefer a shoddy German translation to the original version (like EA did with NfS Shift 2 :doh:) or, worse, insist that all of Switzerland is actually speaking French (Microsoft seems to believe that :mad:).

That is of course just my opinion/situation and, from a business standpoint, it absolutely makes sense to try to reach people, who are not comfortable with an English client/server.

[MCYRook]

And no, I don't care about localization. I certainly hope that the client won't "helpfully decide" that I prefer a shoddy German translation to the original version
Oh fuck yeah, lol :doh:

[RSphil]

Another thought. If my SOE account is moved to pro7 will my SOE account no longer exist or will it just be duplicated?

[Ant001]

I have a few questions to PS2 devs.

1. Will my station cash be transferred to pro7.

2. Will the servers be run and controlled by pro7 with pro7 CSR's in game.

3. Where will the pro7 Planetside2 servers be based (in which country).

The answer to these 3 questions will decide on what server I will choose to play.

[Canaris]

I have a few questions to PS2 devs.

1. Will my station cash be transferred to pro7.

2. Will the servers be run and controlled by pro7 with pro7 CSR's in game.

3. Where will the pro7 Planetside2 servers be based (in which country).

The answer to these 3 questions will decide on what server I will choose to play.

1: Yes your station cash will be transfered over to your Pro7 account
2: Can't answer that but given the time zones involved I think it would be pro7 CSRs dedicated to partolling the euro servers

3: Most likey in Germany as that's where their HQ is but game companies do seem to like to rent servers spaces in England & Ireland to run their games from. I can narrow it down to Europe ;)

[RadarX]

I'm from portugal and never heard of pro7. I'm not sure about the direction SOE has taken here. And all this discussion here isn't helping. Won't I be able to keep using SOE station in EU to play PS2?

In Portugal you will be a customer of Prosieben.

I am confused. There is alot of info in this thread with regards to how the "no region locking" is gonna work, is any of it officiel or is it just ppl geussing?

Will we be able to access all servers from one account or will we need to two accounts if we dont want region locking? Can EU players keep their SoE account and play from that?

If we need two accounts, what about currency on thise accounts? will it be shared?, will we need to purchase everything twice if we want to change server region?

Would be really nice if we could have a statement from SoE clearifying how all this is gonna work, having all this speculation is good for noone.

You will have a Prosieben account regardless and choose which server you wish to play on. We've actually stated this a number of times however as Planteside 2 hasn't launched yet we honestly haven't promoted it officially as we don't have forums.

Well this is second or third big post about this and we still don't have a clear answer which is worrying. I'm in the UK and never heard of this Company. All iv heard is the stuff on here which is not good. I took a look at their web site and I wasn't impressed for what is supposed to be a big company. Lots of posts on their forums where left unanswered by what seems to be a non existant moderator team.
As alot of you have said I will try it and see. If it is not good then I shall leave them and just deal with SOE and if needed move all my friends to NA servers if we can't roam from NA to EU.
Someone from SOE needs to make a detailed post about the EU side of things cus ATM no answer is doing more damage then little bits here and there which don't really answer anything but more dodge round the questions being asked.

What question are you looking to have answered? None of our games have transitioned yet so if you are looking to understand the flow I'm afraid we don't have all that complete yet.


This is silly we need a statement telling everyone what is going on all this speculation is not good, even if its bad news we want to know keeping the news from us is not good. :(

Once again it's hard to answer a statement like this without specific questions. I hear a lot of "I don't know this company" but I have to ask how many products do you purchase from companies you ate unfamiliar with. Without even seeing it work is it really worth so much concern before trying it?

Another thought. If my SOE account is moved to pro7 will my SOE account no longer exist or will it just be duplicated?

Your SOE account will be migrated.

[Wakken]

A noobish question perhaps but it crossed my mind, what would a EU player have to do to still play on the US servers using your SOE account? I know you can still play on the US servers using a pro7 account but I'd prefer not to have one and still my SOE account (warhammer online and GOA - Mythic flashbacks)

I'm asking this because I've heard all EU accounts that is currently handled my SOE will be turned into pro7 accounts automatically?

[Xazbot]

A noobish question perhaps but it crossed my mind, what would a EU player have to do to still play on the US servers using your SOE account? I know you can still play on the US servers using a pro7 account but I'd prefer not to have one and still my SOE account (warhammer online and GOA - Mythic flashbacks)

I'm asking this because I've heard all EU accounts that is currently handled my SOE will be turned into pro7 accounts automatically?

+1 on that. (Why? Because I'm somewhat concern on the convertion rates pro7 will put in place.)

Another question would be...with this contract with pro7 does that mean that we will never see PlanetSide2 on steam or does this have nothing to do with it? The use of steam would be great for the game popularity and it playerbase.

[RadarX]

A noobish question perhaps but it crossed my mind, what would a EU player have to do to still play on the US servers using your SOE account? I know you can still play on the US servers using a pro7 account but I'd prefer not to have one and still my SOE account (warhammer online and GOA - Mythic flashbacks)

I'm asking this because I've heard all EU accounts that is currently handled my SOE will be turned into pro7 accounts automatically?

All EU SOE accounts will be transitioned when you log into them after the transition date.

[Wakken]

All EU SOE accounts will be transitioned when you log into them after the transition date.

So there is no way for a EU player to avoid this and still use their SOE accounts?

Dammit... :(

[kdenver]

So let me get this straight . My loyalty to SOE is being repaid by being sold off to a company I have very little info of . Can you please state clearly what personal details of mine will you be giving them .

[Joe]

How will funds be transferred over from account to account will i just have the same amount of ProSiebenSat.1 points as SOE cash?

Will prices be the same so we do not lose out (e.g. if something is $1 will it be 0.64 pounds or 0.81 Euros? and not $1 = £1 or €1?

Thank you for answering some questions :groovy:

[Mirror]

All EU SOE accounts will be transitioned when you log into them after the transition date.

Surely we have to give SOE our approval to move our accounts that contain sensitive information like credit and debit card numbers etc?

[RSphil]

Ok. The big question as the others arnt getting satisfactory answers lol

WHY pro7? SOE is far better know the pro7 which noone has heard has heard of bar the people who live in the same country ( already flawed marketing their then )

SOE has managed very well in the past with our the use of an outside company to do so much. No other successful company has migrated/moved games to another company before for EU players.

I'm just curious as none of the EU community seem to happy about this. If Pro7 can prove themselfs not to be the bad company we are raring about then fare enough but I is not filling us with confidence I far. If this all goes wrong planetside may be a big flop in the EU.

Don't get me wrong I'm looking forward the game alot and tell all my gaming friends about it, But and this is a big but, if the EU side of things goes wrong what will SOE do to fix it?

Another quick question. What will Pro7 be in charge of? I'm assuming running the servers, customer service ect. Will they have a say on the cash shop? As I have heard they are a menace for the old pay to win option. A break down on what is happinig on the EU side of the business would be nice. Ya know, pro7 will be in charge of blah blah blah and be able to do yada yada yada.

Thank you for a an amazing looking game and also trying your best to reapond to all the questions. I know it must be hard.

[ArcGuard]

Surely we have to give SOE our approval to move our accounts that contain sensitive information like credit and debit card numbers etc?

More than likely you signed away any right to fight a transition like this when you signed their agreement in making the account, but honestly, I'm not sure.

As for people crying wolf already, they haven't really even released any details about the transition (when, how, etc.). All they've announced is that there will be one. Give it time.

[RSphil]

Surely we have to give SOE our approval to move our accounts that contain sensitive information like credit and debit card numbers etc?

Correct, so I'm assuming it should ask you when you log in. Also If I start to get spam mail and lots of rubbish then a few words will be had about confidentiality to Pro7. Details are not alowed to given out without the owners consent.

[unAimed]

Surely we have to give SOE our approval to move our accounts that contain sensitive information like credit and debit card numbers etc?

I can't speak for other countries - but in germany they have to get you consent in oder to transfer personal information to another company. It is possible that you have already given them this consent by agreeing to their tos, though.

edit:

And as a workaround - just create a SOE account where you specify the u.s. as your residency - nobody can blame you for moving away from the u.s. ...
This way you can play on eu servers and still have your billing, etc. done by sony.

[ThGlump]

All EU SOE accounts will be transitioned when you log into them after the transition date.

So there is no way to use SOE account for EU players even if we plan to play on US servers (and refuse to create Pro7 account)

You better have opt-out option on that transfer or you will have serious legal issues by providing account informations to another company.

[ArcGuard]

So there is no way to use SOE account for EU players even if we plan to play on US servers (and refuse to create Pro7 account)

You better have opt-out option on that transfer or you will have serious legal issues by providing account informations to another company.

So far as it seems, if you live in the EU, you cannot make an SOE account. As for the legal issues. Have you read the full ToS? You may have signed away that right already...

[maskedskull]

With what Radar has said, with pro7 accounts being able to access NA servers I would imagine that it will require pro7 to do everything at the same time as SOE do them (patches, store inclusions, prices etc).

[ThGlump]

If Pro7 accounts can access US servers, then SOE accounts should be able to access EU servers. Thats would be good. Now only to find a way to keep SOE account so i can use it.

[Joe]

I am sure you can't sign away rights you always have them even if you tick that little terms and conditions box. :)

[Golanthe]

Got this on mail a bit ago from SOE:


If at the time of the transition you have a pre-paid, non-recurring EverQuest® II subscription, your subscription will be automatically transferred over to ProSiebenSat.1 Games so you can continue enjoying any remaining play time left on the account. If at the time of transition you have a pre-paid, recurring SOE subscription, your subscription will be transferred over to ProSiebenSat.1 Games; however, the subscription will not renew at the end of the current billing cycle. Once the billing cycle ends, you will be able to re-subscribe through the ProSiebenSat.1 Games service to continue enjoying the benefits of a similar membership.


So my guess is that because no credit data is transferred , the subs need to be restarted.

[ArcGuard]

I am sure you can't sign away rights you always have them even if you tick that little terms and conditions box. :)

Something to the tone of "By agreeing to these terms, you agree to let SOE migrate your accounts and information to any third party company authorized by SOE, etc. etc. blah blah"

[Emperor Newt]

WHY pro7? SOE is far better know the pro7 which noone has heard has heard of bar the people who live in the same country ( already flawed marketing their then )
I think you would need to direct that question at SOE. Asking Pro7 why SOE chose them and not decided to do it themselve is like asking EA why nobody likes EA (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5946-Why-Do-People-Hate-EA).
Oh wait, they actually did that. But I hope you catch my drift.

What will Pro7 be in charge of? I'm assuming running the servers, customer service ect. Will they have a say on the cash shop?
I pretty much doubt that SOE will let anybody else have a say in the monetization. That would be a damn foolish thing to do. Outright stupid. I can't imagine any sane company doing that.

As I have heard they are a menace for the old pay to win option.
I really don't know where that is coming from. The games on Sevengames are exactly the same as in other regions, they do not differ as far as I know and was able to check.
Of course there are some games in the portfolio which your could call pay2win, but those are pay2win games by design and did not become those by the super evil magic hand of Pro7.
Especially since the "real" f2p and not pay2win busines model is rather new in f2p games. Before LoL and alike devs only talked about their f2p game not being pay2win, but actually they all were. Choice on "real" f2p games is pretty small. So it's no wonder that the current choice of game on Sevengames isn't the creme-de-la-creme people dreamed it would be.
So at least I really would give them the benefit of the doubt in this particular question.

[infected]

If Pro7 accounts can access US servers, then SOE accounts should be able to access EU servers. Thats would be good. Now only to find a way to keep SOE account so i can use it.
interesting thought, but then if that's possible, everyone outside the US would lie and say they live in the US and then Pro7 would have no accounts to manage. i wonder if they'll do IP checks to verify your region. how many euros would run permanent vpn to keep their soe accounts? how would ping be affected?

[unAimed]

interesting thought, but then if that's possible, everyone outside the US would lie and say they live in the US and then Pro7 would have no accounts to manage. i wonder if they'll do IP checks to verify your region. how many euros would run permanent vpn to keep their soe accounts? how would ping be affected?

But I'm just on a vacation in Europe...

[ThGlump]

interesting thought, but then if that's possible, everyone outside the US would lie and say they live in the US and then Pro7 would have no accounts to manage. i wonder if they'll do IP checks to verify your region. how many euros would run permanent vpn to keep their soe accounts? how would ping be affected?

Honestly most of the EU players would not care. They will create account where advertisement told them. Thats why they dont care much about that few here who yell, because majority wont care and probably even dont know its different company.

Vpn to US and then play on EU? That would be insane, ping would be really high. Better to play on US servers when your vpn is already there (unless you really want to play with EU friends)

[Joe]

'i only live here part time' :lol:

[ThGlump]

Another interesting question is about cash shop. It was said that Pro7 accounts can access US servers. What about items they bought (if there are some account wide), where they will shop if they want purchase something on US servers and what currency will they use?

[IgloGlass]

This is so incredibly frustrating. Not that I don't want to play on EU servers, I have no problem with that (except for all the fucking russians who don't know english).

The problem I have here is the bad reputation of Prosieben as well as my account being migrated - AGAINST MY WILL.

This is so bad customer service that it's unbearable. SOE might think they did the right thing by handing the servers to "professionals" but in all honesty they could've invested and done it themselves, or just leased the servers from Prosieben, perhaps hired them, instead of GIVING THEM OUR ACCOUNTS as well as making them in charge of customer service which will undoubtedly be alot worse than what the americans will experience.

[unAimed]

And what about Cheaters/Hackers - I have a feeling Pro7 could want to safe some money by not having any staff commited to these problems and only treat them as an afterthought.

Don't fool yourself - Pro7 is in for 100% profit maximization whereas SOE has an image to lose (better incentive to spend money on QA staff)

[Canaris]

And what about Cheaters/Hackers - I have a feeling Pro7 could want to safe some money by not having any staff commited to these problems and only treat them as an afterthought.

Don't fool yourself - Pro7 is in for 100% profit maximization whereas SOE has an image to lose (better incentive to spend money on QA staff)

We can always use people power to make our dissatisfaction known if this is the case, which I hope it isn't. Nothing more rabid than unhappy customers, look at the turn around over region lock we already accomplished

[Nephilimuk]

Still trying to work out why you think English speaking Europeans will get better service?

Your working day finishes at 17:00 = 1:00am BST 2:00am CET. Our primetime is your working day!!! Increasing foot fall with none English speakers seems to be the primary motivation here or sharing of risk / reward.

That being said have you formed a strategic partnership / "outsourced" American support? Does this incorporate, French (US & Canada) Spanish or Portuguese (South America!) translations for the client?

Is the Chinese partnership for all of Asia or just China? If so does AsiaPac need to use North American servers?

Also PRO7 do not seem to have any penetration in the UK's media network other than some production companies. The same is also true with Spanish and Portuguese networks.

Just for the record I am not anti Pro7 I have no reason to be. A lot of the answers (no offense Radar and this is not aimed you I appreciate your just providing what information you can) simply do not stack up for the whole of Europe unless you are in a Nordic or Germanic country.

I could go on but I guess like everyone else I will have to wait and see. As a long time subscriber of SOE products I can’t say I am over the moon about how my loyal custom has been rewarded.

[SergeantNubins]

As I understand it you have to create a new prosieben account and that links in with your SOE account. There is an interesting question of legality here though as in the UK and i'm assuming the rest of the EU, in order to do this kind of thing you need "implicit consent". That is, a recorded set of questions that the customer has answered that allows you to do it. It has to be an "opt in" not an "opt out" as well.

The important word here is "implicit". You can't bury it in T&C's it has to be its own question and it has to be very simply termed. This is also a new law that only came into being within the last year, in the UK at least. The company I work for is having to now ask all its customers this information, even those who have been customers for 50+ years.

I suspect if SOE are hoping to transfer personal info across they really need to make sure they are compliant with both EU and local countries laws on data privacy. Since I dont remember them asking me if i was specifically happy for them to share my info with 3rd party's im not sure how they can do this.

Personally i am willing to give them a chance, I just dont like that SOE have basically said you can carry on paying money to us, by proxy, but we dont want to hear from you or deal with you directly. But we do still love ya!

[Gandhi]

Maybe RadarX will clarify this but I don't think SOE is going to send your account details to Pro7 without your consent. They're not going to just send your personal info to Pro7 and throw it into a new account for you, they're going to make you do that. Doing it this way avoids all the potential legal issues of sending personal information (eg. credit card details) to third parties.

[Nasher]

Anyone looked in to the legality of this properly?

I'm pretty sure (in the EU at least). One company cannot just hand over your details to another. The fact they are basically forcing EU players to do it by giving them no other options is not a loophole either.

If there is no way around the "migration", I'm just going to make an account using fake details and never hand over my credit card details tbh.

[RadarX]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

[Rasui]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

Pretty much, thanks for your posts. We will just have to see how it turns out.

[unAimed]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.


Well - your responses should be a little more detailed then.

How do you want to make sure that the european anti cheating measures will be on the same level as in NA - especially when it comes to quality and quantity of staff (i know both will probably use the same tools)?

[etheral]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

Im certainly going to play the game. Im just not willing to hand over my current SOE account to pro7. I've had that account for 9 years, and as such i'm rather protective of it.

Also, I seem to remember that SOE's deal with pro7 is for 2 years. What would happen to our accounts if the deal/contract isnt renewed?

[ArcGuard]

Well - your responses should be a little more detailed then.

How do you want to make sure that the european anti cheating measures will be on the same level as in NA - especially when it comes to quality and quantity of staff (i know both will probably use the same tools)?

You guys seriously need to just calm down about this. The game isn't even in Beta yet and you're already going crazy about something that hasn't happened.

Are you just preemptively yelling so that when the time comes and you're right you can say "I told you so"? I'm betting if you're wrong down the line, none of you will apologize for going at their throats... :doh:

[unAimed]

You guys seriously need to just calm down about this. The game isn't even in Beta yet and you're already going crazy about something that hasn't happened.

Are you just preemptively yelling so that when the time comes and you're right you can say "I told you so"? I'm betting if you're wrong down the line, none of you will apologize for going at their throats... :doh:

First of all - I'm not "yelling" and I am not "going crazy" - I am stating my concerns.
And I do this preemptively so I don't have to deal with late patches, subpar support and rampant cheating for months after the game has launched.

These concerns need to be addressed between both companies now and not after the game has launched.
If they already are - great, but then there would be no harm in letting us know - quite the opposite.
If not then me voicing my concerns is serving the purpose of bringing these topics to attention.

[etheral]

You guys seriously need to just calm down about this. The game isn't even in Beta yet and you're already going crazy about something that hasn't happened.

Are you just preemptively yelling so that when the time comes and you're right you can say "I told you so"? I'm betting if you're wrong down the line, none of you will apologize for going at their throats... :doh:

As I said in my previous post, I've had my SOE account for 9 years. Now I'm being told that I have to hand it over to some company I had never heard of until a few months ago if I want to play with that account (so I get veteran status etc).

Do you see how I might be a little upset about this?

[ArcGuard]

First of all - I'm not "yelling" and I am not "going crazy" - I am stating my concerns.
And I do this preemptively so I don't have to deal with late patches, subpar support and rampant cheating for months after the game has launched.

These concerns need to be addressed between both companies now and not after the game has launched.
If they already are - great, but then there would be no harm in letting us know - quite the opposite.
If not then me voicing my concerns is serving the purpose of bringing these topics to attention.

Sony is a rather large company. And while I'm sure they don't mind seeing your concerns, I'm very certain they've already thought up those concerns on their own. To which I reiterate, give it time. Once they release some details on the actual migration, then you can voice concerns based in fact and not hearsay or misinformation.

[Joe]

If we don't say anything we could end up with a 'APB situation', were there is mass cheating and nothing being done about it.

you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

= You don't need to make and account..... unless you want to play the game we are all dying to play and the reason we are all here. :rolleyes:

[unAimed]

Sony is a rather large company. And while I'm sure they don't mind seeing your concerns, I'm very certain they've already thought up those concerns on their own. To which I reiterate, give it time. Once they release some details on the actual migration, then you can voice concerns based in fact and not hearsay or misinformation.

"hearsay or misinformation"?

-alaplaya... pro7 is directly involved
-Warhammer Online
-TERA (ty so much for censoring the game...)
-various other MMOs who were subpar in Europe due to not being handled by the original Devs/Publishers

In the future - please refrain from random accusations - thank you!

[ThGlump]

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

Ok finally some solid information. Not what i wanted to hear, but i know it and prepare for it.
So its fake US account and vpn then. I lose veteran status but that doesnt matter. Im glad i had my doubts and didnt buy any Station Cash to this account during recent promo.
I hope that will work, as i want to play PS2, but you dont make it easy.

[ruskyandrei]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

:huh:

I thought there wasn't going to be any region locking (it has repeatedly been confirmed by the devs after the initial PRO7 announcement earlier this year) ?

And region locking is the only way you'll be able to block people from outside NA from playing the game with an SOE account. So what is it then ?

[Nasher]

Ok finally some solid information. Not what i wanted to hear, but i know it and prepare for it.
So its fake US account and vpn then. I lose veteran status but that doesnt matter. Im glad i had my doubts and didnt buy any Station Cash to this account during recent promo.
I hope that will work, as i want to play PS2, but you dont make it easy.

Yep, basically the game IS region locked. Just on the account rather than in-game.

I wouldn't start signing up for any VPNs yet though. Until people have done some research in to how it's being locked, because it might not be nessessary.

Anyway, there is very good reason for people not trusting these unknown 3rd party companies (unknown outside of Ger). They almost always turn out to be either incompetent or careless. It's just that people have learned their lesson this time...

[etheral]

Is this account migration a one-time-only thing? My plan was to make a throwaway pro7 account to play for free, and then, when/if pro7 prove themselves to not be another GOA, transfer my main account and start paying.

Am I gonna need a plan B?

[ArcGuard]

"hearsay or misinformation"?

-alaplaya... pro7 is directly involved
-Warhammer Online
-TERA (ty so much for censoring the game...)
-various other MMOs who were subpar in Europe due to not being handled by the original Devs/Publishers

In the future - please refrain from random accusations - thank you!

And yet you have no information on what their official role in all of this is. And as for your list of games, "various other mmos" is not a reference. You've given one pro7 example (and hell EA has tanked a lot more games than that, and people still play their games just fine). As for TERA, it was censored in the US as well. That was a push everywhere, not just EU. And Warhammer.... that was just a bad game in general.

[Joe]

Now we have hardly any answers but lots of questions... :(

[ArcGuard]

Yep, basically the game IS region locked. Just on the account rather than in-game.

That's not really the definition of region locked. Region locked is where people from one place can't play with people from another. Which isn't what they're saying.

They're saying you'll just have a different type of account. No mention of not being able to play with the people with other accounts.

[etheral]

And yet you have no information on what their official role in all of this is. And as for your list of games, "various other mmos" is not a reference. You've given one pro7 example (and hell EA has tanked a lot more games than that, and people still play their games just fine). As for TERA, it was censored in the US as well. That was a push everywhere, not just EU. And Warhammer.... that was just a bad game in general.

What about Warhammer's predecessor, DAOC?

GOA screwed that over too.

What were all trying to say is that there hasnt been a single instance (please provide an example to prove me wrong) of a third party company being good for the customer.

We have absolutely no reason to believe that pro7 will be different.

Pro7 may prove us all wrong, but in the face of past evidence, its best to assume that they wont.

[unAimed]

And yet you have no information on what their official role in all of this is. And as for your list of games, "various other mmos" is not a reference. You've given one pro7 example (and hell EA has tanked a lot more games than that, and people still play their games just fine). As for TERA, it was censored in the US as well. That was a push everywhere, not just EU. And Warhammer.... that was just a bad game in general.

Warhammer - great counter argument!

various other MMOs - sorry - I am to lazy to create a list which you will discredit with "that was just a bad game in general"

Tera - blood was enable in Europe? Last time I played it wasn't - two months or so ago...

alaplaya as a pro7 reference - why is this not sufficient?

[ArcGuard]

What about Warhammer's predecessor, DAOC?

GOA screwed that over too.

What were all trying to say is that there hasnt been a single instance (please provide an example to prove me wrong) of a third party company being good for the customer.

We have absolutely no reason to believe that pro7 will be different.

Pro7 may prove us all wrong, but in the face of past evidence, its best to assume that they wont.

Guilty until proven innocent, eh? And as far as localization goes, most people don't even pay attention to the fact that a lot of games have a third party localization company. But as far as good ones, EnMasse seems to be doing a good job with TERA-US.

EDIT:


Warhammer - great counter argument!

various other MMOs - sorry - I am to lazy to create a list which you will discredit with "that was just a bad game in general"

Tera - blood was enable in Europe? Last time I played it wasn't - two months or so ago...

alaplaya as a pro7 reference - why is this not sufficient?

Warhammer was never good in the US, how could it be good localized?

And one example is not a very good sample size to crucify a company with, sorry.

[Gandhi]

You could always make an account with fake information and pay using a Paysafecard or some other 'offline' service, that's what I'll be doing.

As for getting subpar service, why don't we wait and see? I'm willing to give them a chance, and I'm expecting some screwups along the way regardless since it is their first major game. Fact is the deal is done, lets try to keep an open mind. If they end up doing a terrible job then we can and should get vocal about it.

[etheral]

Guilty until proven innocent, eh?

When it involves my financial details? Absofuckinglutely.

[ArcGuard]

When it involves my financial details? Absofuckinglutely.

As RadarX just pointed out, they're not giving them those. So, you can wait and see what happens, or just assume things you don't know anything about.

[etheral]

As RadarX just pointed out, they're not giving them those. So, you can wait and see what happens, or just assume things you don't know anything about.

That isnt what radar said. Radar said that you have to migrate your account to pro7 if you want to keep using it. I dont know about you, but there is a credit card linked to my account. All radar said in that post was that they wont do it without your consent.

[ArcGuard]

That isnt what radar said. Radar said that you have to migrate your account to pro7 if you want to keep using it. I dont know about you, but there is a credit card linked to my account. All radar said in that post was that they wont do it without your consent.

Correct. So, if you want to play the game, you can opt in. It'll be your choice whether you want to play the game. No one is forcing you to jump into something without your full consent. You act like they owe it to you, that you HAVE to be able to play the game under your terms and not theirs.

[Nephilimuk]

the Europeans are revolting....

http://www.talkandroid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/angry-mob-at-frankenstein-castle.jpg?3995d3

[sunzen]

Everybody is equal but some are more equal.

[Gandhi]

That isnt what radar said. Radar said that you have to migrate your account to pro7 if you want to keep using it. I dont know about you, but there is a credit card linked to my account. All radar said in that post was that they wont do it without your consent.
If you log into your SOE account and click on Payment Sources there's an option there to delete your credit card information. I'm assuming this will actually delete it from their database as well.

[Canaris]

the Europeans are revolting....

http://anddomestic.com/images/pitchfork-mob.jpg

I'm not revolting I'm just sick in the head :cry:

[Mirror]

The wait and see approach isn't really suitable in this instance. As was evidenced by the initial region-locking response, SOE does listen to the community but only when it speaks. If we sit on our hands we're liable to find that by the time the migration info is released we're past the point of no return. Dart and I have just been discussing this and while we really do appreciate Radar taking the time to respond to this thread - and quickly at that - we do still have some questions regarding this issue;

Question 1: If we have Pro7 accounts linked with our SOE accounts then I take it we have to authenticate our logins via a server in Germany even if we are playing on the US servers? I remember that this was an issue with Werner back in the day where the client had to go across the Atlantic in order to authenticate and make sure that the player was still logged in, this caused unnecessary lag and connection problems.

Question 2: Can we still contact SOE support or will be told to contact Pro7 as SOE cannot help us?

Question 3: We will no longer be able to buy station cash and will have to buy Pro7 deutsche marks or whatever they have. If I were to buy some Pro7 currency can I spend it on a weapon/attachment/camo etc on the US server?

Question 4: Sort of following on from the last question. If I buy something then can I use it on both sets of servers or do I have to buy it twice?

Question 5: In the event that the partnership between SOE and Pro7 comes to an end what guarantee do we have that our accounts will be transferred back over? In Planetside 2 my account will contain all my stats, unlocked weapons (some that I may have paid for) and of course my characters that I will have spent a long time building up. I would like a guarantee that if the relationship does go south then all my hard work will not be for nothing.

I understand that you may not have the answers to these questions but I think SOE needs to get some sort of FAQ for European players up on the Planetside 2 website ASAP because this is only going to get worse as time goes on.

[Nasher]

Another one is:

Will there be a price difference between EU and US?

[ruskyandrei]

Another one is:

Will there be a price difference between EU and US?

Of course not. That 5$ gun will cost exactly 5€ in the EU :lol:

[sunzen]

In Planetside 2 my account will contain all my stats, unlocked weapons (some that I may have paid for) and of course my characters that I will have spent a long time building up.

Why paid for weapons ?!

[ArcGuard]

Of course not. That 5$ gun will cost exactly 5€ in the EU :lol:

European money is all fake anyway ;)

[Nasher]

Of course not. That 5$ gun will cost exactly 5€ in the EU :lol:

Which will somehow become exactly £5 in the UK most likely :/

[Mirror]

Why paid for weapons ?!

may

My $15 per month sub that goes to Planetside 1 has to go somewhere :D

[ringring]

As far as I can see, exactly the same questions as several months ago.

[basti]

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

[p0intman]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

I do not think you fully understand the complaint. I think what some people find disturbing, is that they are being FORCED to use a third party that they DO NOT TRUST to enjoy a game they've been waiting for.

Its kind of insulting. If it were up to me, I'd say FUCK YOU and not play if I were being forced to use a billing company I have reasons to distrust.

[Zation]

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

would be cool

[ArcGuard]

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

That's a pretty rational idea there Basti. I like your style.

[unAimed]

As far as I can see, exactly the same questions as several months ago.

Were they answered? I'm specially interested in what happens when the Relationship between SOE and pro7 is terminated -> what will happen to our accounts and chars saved on them + how good will the anti cheating measures be in comparison to the us.


edit: @basti - great idea! But I have a feeling how these responses will look like ^^

[Azreil]

Basti that would be greatly appreciated, and I think one of the most productive things this thread has had to date :P

(Thanks again to RadarX for trying to alleviate our fears)

[Ruffdog]

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

Great idea

[Dart]

Mirror's and my questions are above Basti.

[basti]

Rgr, new thread about to be posted.

Dart, post them again, "above" is quite a lot here. :>

[maskedskull]

Good idea Basti (although I do have a feeling that this still won't be enough for some people)

[Mirror]

Rgr, new thread about to be posted.

Dart, post them again, "above" is quite a lot here. :>

I just PM'd you the link.

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

I actually have that week off and I am currently looking into heading down for a few days but it all depends on money as I am going to New York in September.

[unAimed]

Good idea Basti (although I do have a feeling that this still won't be enough for some people)

I completely agree with you - but probably for completely different reasons ^^

I think the answer will contain an extreme amount of "we will try our best" , "customer always comes first",... pr speak...

[Nasher]

I completely agree with you - but probably for completely different reasons ^^

I think the answer will contain an extreme amount of "we will try our best" , "customer always comes first",... pr speak...

Well that's the first sign of BS, so we will get a result either way :P

[unAimed]

Well that's the first sign of BS, so we will get a result either way :P

You've got a point - fair enough!

[Wakken]

You guys seriously need to just calm down about this. The game isn't even in Beta yet and you're already going crazy about something that hasn't happened.

Are you just preemptively yelling so that when the time comes and you're right you can say "I told you so"? I'm betting if you're wrong down the line, none of you will apologize for going at their throats... :doh:

We are stating our concerns. Its better we rise up now and not after the damage actually has been done. It hasnt happened yet, but we know it will happen.

The EU playerbase just dont want to go through another EU partnership disaster, like we have in the past.

[relicuk]

The issue I see is most people complaining about people complaining are from NA, and because it does not affect them they dont care and just see all this as pointless moaning.

I think I will just create a new account and play as it is Free and not give this German company a penny. Pro7 are so called going to promote the game but a doubt I will see anything in the UK as they dont have anything here so I dont see why UK plays should have to deal with threm

[RSphil]

Okay folks, lets end this.

I will be at GamesCom, and Pro7 Folks will be there as well. What about we just collect a whole bunch of questions for them, so we can figure some stuff out, rather than moaning and ranting.
Deal? Sound off if you like the idea, i would start a new thread for questions then. :)

sounds like a good idea. and if we dont like the answers you can get them there and then lol. i have a feeling they will have security if they have seen the threads :rofl:

[GuyFawkes]

I'm sensing a lot of minds really won't be changed regardless of our responses. I'm going to allow our official communications speak for themselves going forward and ask you at least try the service.

Your SOE account information will only be linked to ProSieben if you choose it to be. If you are outside North America you are absolutely not under any obligation to sign up for ProSieben but you will not be able to play the game.

I'm hopeful you all will join us.

I appreciate you responding to the heated debate. We will have to live with it and go with Basti's resolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7oK9ZjvkSA

[Joe]

At least SOE and Pro7 can see how strongly we feel about this looking at the response in this thread :)

[RSphil]

At least SOE and Pro7 can see how strongly we feel about this looking at the response in this thread :)

True but do they care? That's the big question.

[Rago]

I beg they dont even know this Thread XD

[Sabot]

True but do they care? That's the big question.

We know for a fact that SOE cares... the problem is that we don't know if Pro7 does. One can only hope that SOE didn't completely "sell us out", and put up certain.. "demands" regarding how the game and it's users are treated in the EU.

I beg they dont even know this Thread XD

They know... RadarX is here posting, and is doing a great job with it... so they know. :P

[RSphil]

We know for a fact that SOE cares... the problem is that we don't know if Pro7 does. One can only hope that SOE didn't completely "sell us out", and put up certain.. "demands" regarding how the game and it's users are treated in the EU.



They know... RadarX is here posting, and is doing a great job with it... so they know. :P

Tbh I already feel sold out as is it not SOE that we will be dealing with for this game. Still don't see why SOE did this with an unknown company with a low track record and little to know mmo experience. I'll never understand corporate bs lol. We will see how it all unfolds. If it fails SOE will get a bad rep In the EU I recon.

[IronMole]

One word... Money.

[exoteror]

Tbh I already feel sold out as is it not SOE that we will be dealing with for this game. Still don't see why SOE did this with an unknown company with a low track record and little to know mmo experience. I'll never understand corporate bs lol. We will see how it all unfolds. If it fails SOE will get a bad rep In the EU I recon.

I belive they don't have the infrastructure to cope with EU laws and provideing the customer service that the game requires.

I don't know have they have provided it in the past possibly from another vendor like pro7 just we never knew the name. I think pro7 possibly is one of the few that can provide the size of the community but pro7 have maybe demanded their name to be known.

I just hope they keep away from pay 2 win.

[haywire]

Just when I was looking forward to PS2 this raises its head again??
I thought this was all done with :/

[Dart]

Thank God I was born in the USA. Me and Bruce Springsteen will be playing on SOE servers.

With me, and Mirror and S0D, Mohawk, Discomfit, Kanya and all the other Euro players who enjoy kicking US ass on SOE's servers.

[julfo]

With me, and Mirror and S0D, Mohawk, Discomfit, Kanya and all the other Euro players who enjoy kicking US ass on SOE's servers.

And me! Not touching some unknown German media company.

[Rago]

And me! Not touching some unknown German media company.

Pro7 is not "so unknown" :p At Least the have different TV channels and show in Germany ;)

I dont see any Problem in playing on Both.

[BNuts]

Here is a re-cap for all of you who can't read 16 pages of gripe;

http://forums.station.sony.com/station/posts/list.m?topic_id=11500046137
Taken from the above link;
To our European customers,

We wanted to let you know that SOE will no longer be selling pre-paid game cards in Europe as of 07/20/12.

As we begin to transition our games to our European partner, ProSiebenSat.1 Games, customers will be able to take advantage of new methods of payment including pre-paid options, such as PaySafe, via their new ProSiebenSat.1 accounts.

IMPORTANT: For the few European customers who have already purchased an SOE pre-paid game card but have not yet redeemed it, please visit www.soe.com/gamecards now to redeem it! You must redeem any existing SOE pre-paid game cards before 07/23/12. If you experience any problems with your game card redemption, please contact SOE customer service at www.soe.com/support for assistance. Don't forget to mark your calendars for July 23rd 2012 and redeem your SOE pre-paid game cards before then!

Thank you for your continued support!
Sony Online Entertainment





So SOE and PS7 will have different methods of accepting player payment.



http://forums.station.sony.com/station/posts/list.m?topic_id=11500041081

The SOE Pro7 FAQ link


---;
Can players continue to use Station Cash?

European players will be able to use a new virtual currency similar to Station Cash.
----------


this -is- happening, and I say for all of us in the EU to take a step back and relax while Pro7 gets a handle on things. The SOE / Pro7 Rep is active on these boards, and I think you will see a lot of support from the local Pro7 community once it begins to spool the SOE partnership up.

Lets hope the toast doesn't land butter-side-down, and make the best of this transition.

[ThGlump]

Damn does that mean that account transfers are only week away? Could it mean that we will need Pro7 account even for beta? (it was said there will be EU beta servers soon). Now i hope i wont be picked into beta as it would be waste of key and someone else could use that, as i wont be able to play it without account.

[BNuts]

Smed said that they ae getting the EU servers up as we speak. EU guys look for beta invites soon?

I am in a pickle though.. I live primarily in the US, but at the moment I am in Germany. I wonder if I too will have to go Pro7 for the duration of my EU stay since I have a Germany IP address..

FML if that is the case, because I still get paid in US Dollars.. Buying anything in-game related will suck..

Answers to follow with Basti and I plus a few others going to GamesCON next month to ask allot of these questions regarding EU PS2 and Pro7vthat are yet unanswered. I'll video the interview if they are cool with it.

[TheBladeRoden]

Hmm I wonder why continental Europeans would get paranoid about having their personal information sold out to a giant German media empire?

[BNuts]

:rofl:Hmm I wonder why continental Europeans would get paranoid about having their personal information sold out to a giant German media empire?:rofl:

[julfo]

Pro7 is not "so unknown" :p At Least the have different TV channels and show in Germany ;)

I dont see any Problem in playing on Both.

Except I don't live in Germany, so they are unknown to me. And, since I'll probably be spending a fair bit of money on this game through Microtransactions, I want it to go to the right people: SOE. I don't know what a German company that I have never heard of is going to do with my money, and thus, I'll be playing on US servers until I know more details about what exactly is going on.

There are big media companies in the UK that have TV channels etc. But this doesn't mean I would touch any of them with a 10 foot pole, let alone my credit card. The fact I can't trust companies in my own country makes me even more skeptical of companies from other countries. Is it my fault for being cynical and paranoid? Probably. But this is my hard-earned money that we're talking about, not to mention the experience playing PS2.

/rant

[Nemises]

...but you trust Sony?

[FatherJack]

Except I don't live in Germany, so they are unknown to me. And, since I'll probably be spending a fair bit of money on this game through Microtransactions, I want it to go to the right people: SOE. I don't know what a German company that I have never heard of is going to do with my money, and thus, I'll be playing on US servers until I know more details about what exactly is going on.

There are big media companies in the UK that have TV channels etc. But this doesn't mean I would touch any of them with a 10 foot pole, let alone my credit card. The fact I can't trust companies in my own country makes me even more skeptical of companies from other countries. Is it my fault for being cynical and paranoid? Probably. But this is my hard-earned money that we're talking about, not to mention the experience playing PS2.

/rant

I don't like this much either but I ain't got 45 days free playtime on my soe account because sony felt generous......

[Nephilimuk]

Except I don't live in Germany, so they are unknown to me. And, since I'll probably be spending a fair bit of money on this game through Microtransactions, I want it to go to the right people: SOE. I don't know what a German company that I have never heard of is going to do with my money, and thus, I'll be playing on US servers until I know more details about what exactly is going on.

There are big media companies in the UK that have TV channels etc. But this doesn't mean I would touch any of them with a 10 foot pole, let alone my credit card. The fact I can't trust companies in my own country makes me even more skeptical of companies from other countries. Is it my fault for being cynical and paranoid? Probably. But this is my hard-earned money that we're talking about, not to mention the experience playing PS2.

Understand your upset but the deal was set up between SOE & Pro7 so SOE will get cash from this (think franchise/Strategic Partnership/risk share/ don't want to get involved in a European legal quagmire). I feel like a let down consumer myself (9 years sub), but I am sure that will place me in the irrational emotional quadrant of the marketing chart in any business meeting.

See what happens neither company have any interest in this failing. You will have to create a Pro7 account to play PS2 in Europe, Radar confirmed in a previous post, we all have to live with it.

[snaffe]

I have had 100% "omfg I cannot wait" for Planetside 2.

This outsoucing/joint venture put a 20% dampener on my mood. I work with this sort of stuff in my professional life (joint ventures/outsoucing customer service).

Like the network guy who put up a response from an infrastructure point of view - I share his pessimism from a management point of view.

Jesus, H Christ this could be an absolute clusterfeck. German consumer services are very "by the book". That culture will seep through everything. Good luck with finding the relevant languages with little attrition if you try and support all those languages out of Germany. When you get attrition, you get noobs on the customer care lines, when you get noobs, you will end up with unanswered questions to your queries.

Dear god.

The title of this thread should be changed to "marketing, management and customer services in Europe handled by outsourced partner, not SOE". (or words to that effect).

I truly had no idea what this thread title meant.

[GuyFawkes]

I tried looking on pro7 twitter page, there were 287000 following, but it was all in german so Ive no idea if there were 287000 fans or 287000 complaining.

I went to the pro7 website, and couldnt even find a reference to ps2, it struck me as being not news worthy there.

Gives me great hope :rolleyes:

[Sabot]

I tried looking on pro7 twitter page, there were 287000 following, but it was all in german so Ive no idea if there were 287000 fans or 287000 complaining.

I went to the pro7 website, and couldnt even find a reference to ps2, it struck me as being not news worthy there.

Gives me great hope :rolleyes:

You'd have to check the Pro7 games (http://www.prosiebensat1games.com/en/index.9.html) site for references to PS2... I mean there's no more on PS2 than any other game they have, and there are a few lines written on the partnership with SOE... but nothing special on the site in particular. Probably have to look for press releases or something if you want more info on that, from their point of view.

[Figment]

Well, I just decided to go and make an account at Pro7, to prepare for the eventual arrival of PlanetSide.



My registration went as such:

First I had to find it. Since I didn't know the website, I searched google and found www.prosiebengames.de quickly enough. Fair enough I think, so I arrive and find the site in German. Not a problem for me since I speak German as a third language, but I'm sure the British users would already go "ew, its the foreign!" (;)). I first looked around the site a bit to see if I could find anything on PS2, nothing, but did see DCUO and EQII, confirming I was on the right site. So I decided to register, but as I went near the reg button, I saw the websites for the various nations. Alright, nice, own language sites.

So before registering, I went and clicked on what I believed to be the dutch version of the site, being pleasantly surprised there to be a dutch version of the site.

Well, there isn't. Not in that sense, what happens is they take you to another website that's basically a dutch variant on their site, just significantly more basic as it highly favours images and no text. Descriptions of games are about one sentence in length and one image.

However, I was not quite prepared for the difference between the German site and http://www.sevengames.nl/ , which not only looks utterly childish, it also is incredibly basic. (I'll compare more later on). I thought "oh well", let's see what happens, and I registered on the dutch site. The email arrived quickly.



So I go to my email inbox and am shocked to find this:




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Hallo Figment,

herzlich willkommen in der Sevengames-Community! Um Deine E-Mail-Adresse zu
bestätigen und Deinen Account in vollem Umfang zu aktivieren, klicke bitte
auf folgenden Link:

[Registration link]

Nach der Aktivierung kannst Du Dich sofort mit Deinen Zugangsdaten einloggen,
Deinen persönlichen Avatar (Stellvertreter) konfigurieren, Deine Profildaten
vervollständigen und sofort loslegen!
Sollte der angegebene Link nicht funktionierten, kopiere bitte die URL in das
Adressfeld Deines Browsers!

Falls Du Fragen und Anregungen zu Sevengames hast, schreibe an: [email protected]


Viel Spass wünscht,

Dein Sevengames-Team


www.sevengames.nl
http://www.sevengames.nl/imprint


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uhm... I register on the DUTCH website clearly made for children and get a standard email in GERMAN?

What? The whole point of going to a dutch site is to AVOID the German language!



Though most dutch adults can speak some broken German and most can be derived from the context, you can't expect German language used in mailings (or support) for non-German sites! If they have to use a standard language, have them use English!

Do British users get German e-mails too if they register on the British version of the website? I'd hope not!



So I decided to go to the British site. Which I couldn't find at first: I saw the AT (Austria) and CH (Suiss) versions (all in German) are identical to the German version, while the others are all in the sevengames format. Odd, since the Suiss have a large French and Italian speaking populace. Note that the Belgian site is again in Dutch, but doesn't share the site with the Dutch players for some reason. Perhaps they also didn't realise that 40% of the Belgian populace speaks French... Which btw, doesn't exist: there is no FRENCH version. There is also no Spanish, Italian, Polish, Danish, Finnish or Czech version. There is however a Norwegian version (NO) and Swedish version (SE).



Hmm. That's going to annoy people when they have to make the switch to Pro7. Let's assume most people would want to go to the British version as the most international one. But again, where is it?



Now, it turns out the website for the UK is called www.sevengames.com and is noted on top there not by UK or a British national flag, but by "COM". Ehr... Oookay, so you do all kinds of national tags and then there's "COM", makes perfect sense. Why not just call it .co.uk then? >___>

What I noticed is that this site too, like all but the German language copy pasta sites, has the same basic site as the other non-German sites.

So, anyway I noticed that the frames are pretty bad translations on the dutch site since the grammar on the dutch site was... Typical babblefish. "Dat speelt de community" (non-dutch word at the end and it translates directly to: "That plays the community", not a very nice grammar feel, has it?).

I also noticed that they haven't put up the section for PlanetSide 2 on the dutch site, but they have for the British and German site. Even if it's not easy to find. (It's in the tab Free Downloads and searches don't turn up results).

http://www.sevengames.com/planetside-2
http://www.prosiebengames.de/planetside-2

Note that the download button there links to www.planetside2.com .



The Forum on the Dutch site is even worse. Please don't get me started on their forum design... Just... go to their forum section in any of the non-German sites under community and cry. Yes, they're independent forums, no populace and they don't even have subsections per game or whatever you would expect.

Note that the German forum is actually worse... because I can't find a forum at all! How do they plan to built international communities? How do they plan on receiving feedback? It does seem that their site is under construction, because their buddy list "will be there in the future" on the front page (or they mean that you need buddies first before it shows up). But it's not there yet. I don't see anywhere where a forum might be found either.



Note also that in the top 10 of BROWSER games, it lists both DCUO and EQII, while if you look for them, they're found under "Free Downloads" (next to the Battle Games and Browser Games tabs. Ehr. Okay...

Honestly, they got to step up a bit if they suggest they can support SOE games and also in the local language. Because right now, this isn't instilling much faith for the future.


Haha if I ever seemed trustworthy I assure you it was an illusion, but yeah man that was me. I renamed to Dart (expecting people to spell Dartagnan while under fire was always a little optimistic) and that's how I'll be rolling in PS2. Look forward to seeing you in game!

Never trust a Brit with a french royal musketeer guard name!

[GuyFawkes]

Well, I just decided to go and make an account at Pro7, to prepare for the eventual arrival of PlanetSide.

#snip#



I read the whole thing:)

Reminds me so much of GOA / codemasters. Running in circles to get nowhere.

The big difference here is that ps2 is like a tiny little part of the whole thing to pro7, and we get dealt with as such.

A good comparison would be how a tiny island in the pacific is part of the British commonwealth. Sure, they come to the commonwealth games, and the Queen makes a visit every 5 years. To the average UK resident its just some island in the middle of nowhere, but to the Islanders its their home, and something to be proud of.

[Rago]

Hahahaha sound chaotic, Ill help you just paste me German text via private Message, i´ll check them out on the Weekend and Help you with you questions ;)

The Guys from pro7 told me that my Planetside account will be automaticly moved to pro 7 ;)

[julfo]

...but you trust Sony?

Yup. Wanna know why? I've actually heard of Sony in the UK, and I've actually handed money over to them before. They have a good track record. They have actually administered large games with great success before.

[snaffe]

Figment thanks for a great post. Imagine that level of confusion just based on the websites, imagine the total lack of centrality when things go wrong and for game launches and so forth.

Scary.

[Figment]

In the end, I don't mind Pro7 running things, but they have to realise they can't provide this level of support and get away with it.

I really hope I completely missed their actual forums somewhere and that they do take these things serious on a game by game basis (though if that's the case, they really messed up in their web-design as it is now).


But yeah, found it funny their description of PlanetSide 2 is creating the expectation that it's already launched and active. I fear their complete infrastructure to support the game is really poor and they'll be completely dependent on SOE for a long, long time.

[sunzen]

What's going on is a disgrace for the European community. Treated like SOEs poor cousin.

[Nemises]

...perhaps it'll be completely transparent, the only difference to the user being who you are signing an agreement with..?

[Figment]

http://alaplaya.net/forum/
http://en.alaplaya.net/forum/

Well after some further searching - and remembering the Alaplaya website and forums would be doing a lot of the supporting, I found the forums they probably expect us to use for SOE related games.

Note that only the German and English versions have put up a temporary SOE games related general discussion at the top. If I recall correctly, that was made back then largely in response to the storm of protest and questions about the transfer of publisher.

However, if a player expects to find PlanetSide 2, EQII or DCUO forums through the main Pro7 website, they won't unless they scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of the site, out of all the related websites pick Alaplaya and then continue to the forums through the main site of Alaplaya and then pick the appropriate language.

No hassle at all!

[Aaramus]

Probably not going to buy anything now, I've got no reason to put any faith in an unknown third party company.

I'm gonna be playing on the NA servers anyway with my Outfit most of the time, so hopefully it won't affect me too much.

[RsR Mayhem]

Sad but true: PS2 is NOT for EU players.

[julfo]

Sad but true: PS2 is NOT for EU players.

Looks that way unfortunately.

[Figment]

I wouldn't say that per se, but we must make sure SOE ensures Pro7 provides us with an equal level quality game experience and should up the pressure on Pro7 to deliver on all counts.

[Sabot]

As have been said before... this is not encouraging news, sure. But for now, give them the benfit of the doubt. It's a big company with lots of things on their site... I would imagine it's not an hours work to incorporate this new deal with SOE into it. We can hope they're putting more effort into it right now so that once using their services becomes reality, it's "working as intended". However... both them should, and probably do, know that if this does turn out as another GOA/Mythic fiasco for example, a shitstorm of biblical proportions will ensue. Just sayin'....

I'd also just like to say though, that as we don't know exactly yet how the ingame store will work for us europeans, I did purchase station cash now before the move to Pro7 takes place, to ensure that I support SOE at least a bit for their work on this game. Even if I'd still do that by purchasing virtual credit at Pro7, at least now I made myself feel better about whole thing. :P

[Figment]

True, but that website is clearly quite a bit older.

How long does it take to translate a standard account welcoming message in several languages? 10 minutes per country by the local hosts?

This is perhaps not the intended quality of support for SOE players, but even if it's not the level of support for us, it's the level of support for other Pro7 gamers. Mostly kids who need more hands held than we do. And you'd think they'd have had ample time to at least provide a normal support infrastructure for those gamers?

[leecH]

i dont get the "no support" complaint. i play online games for ~10 years and had to get in touch with "support" only once. i always wondered why people seem to be so sensitive when it comes to support. i dont want to have anything to do with the god damn support. game should work after installing it and when i pay money i expect it to not be lost. and if one of this does not work i quit. but since that is not going to happend i dont see the problem.

same goes for account transfers. things like this dont go wrong at least not if people who do it want to keep their jobs.

and after all it is SOE that is selling their rights. its not like alaplaya is pointing a gun at SOE. why is SOE not taking any shit by you guys for even selling it but rather alaplaya who, until now, hasn´t even done anything.

and its really confusing everyone talks about prosiebensat1 and not alaplaya.

its like talking about vivendi instead of activision. no wonder people search for pro7 forums lol

[Trolltaxi]

leech: "Games _should_ work after installing" - I think the should part must be stressed in your sentence, cause oftentimes they don't. And you need support.

You need support to deal with hackers, griefers, spammers - an ignore may work for you, but a living support can deal with them in the background for the whole community.

Someone needs to patch the game (server-side), it needs maintanence, etc, this is not costumer support stuff, but still support that needs to be done regulary and carefully.

You may play the game without conacting costumer support, but that doesn't mean that the game you are playing lacks various forms of support.

[Emperor Newt]

http://alaplaya.net/forum/
http://en.alaplaya.net/forum/

Well after some further searching - and remembering the Alaplaya website and forums would be doing a lot of the supporting, I found the forums they probably expect us to use for SOE related games.

Note that only the German and English versions have put up a temporary SOE games related general discussion at the top. If I recall correctly, that was made back then largely in response to the storm of protest and questions about the transfer of publisher.

However, if a player expects to find PlanetSide 2, EQII or DCUO forums through the main Pro7 website, they won't unless they scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of the site, out of all the related websites pick Alaplaya and then continue to the forums through the main site of Alaplaya and then pick the appropriate language.

No hassle at all!
Well, they ave stated here before, and do so in the temporary forum, that a dedicated website and forum for PS2 and all the other SOE games is in the making. So I actually think it's a good thing they created this temporary board to clarify on some of the issues and questions. They posted a rather large FAQ (http://en.alaplaya.net/forum/general-discussion-f2906/-updated-soe-prosiebensat1-games-partnership-faq-t492961.html) and keep answering questions there.