News: Resolved - PS2 Region

[Coreldan]

Boycotts in game like these arnt necessary the best idea anyways.

The game that can actually save itself after a bad launch (which would happen if everyone really boycotted would happen) are very few.

That said, the people boycotting would be a drop in the sea anyways, thus you would not achieve anything. This change does not affect your average joe that SOE is targeting. Sure, the hardcore playerbase from PS1 suffer a bit, if they had strong connections to an international clan, but they cant fully cater to a small minority either, those dont really pay the bills.

But once again, I rather wouldve sticked with just SOE. Also I'd hope that there wouldnt be any region blocks per se, but even if there is it doesnt affect me in any way. Just gotta hope Pro7 wont fuck us over too bad. That said, not like SOE was known for.. not fucking people up later

Also, I 100% love the developers behind PS2. This is not their fault, they couldnt help this, and I most certainly still love them and want to support their product. Fuck the high ups of SOE, but my love for Higgles & co is neverending!

[stordito]

right now "veteran" sound more like an handicapped war survivor to discard to social services rather than something good the game spawned during those years and a knowledge source for the future developement...

i too respect the efforts of the team, this is between us and SOE.

[Vancha]

To everyone saying this doesn't affect anyone but PS1 players...

What of all the Call of Duty clans, Battlefield clans, Counter-Strike clans, TF2 clans etc. etc.?

None of those games are region-locked. Who knows how many multi-national clans might have moved over to PS2 to try it out, but decide not to because they can't play together?

Additionally, what of all the people who were thinking of giving SOE another try and decide not to because they see they still care so little about their customers? I've already seen people who had a wary interest of PS2 (due to SOE's bad reputation) stating they won't play it because SOE clearly hasn't learned...

[Coreldan]

Seeing it's a F2P game, I doubt the amount of "I wouldve tried but not since they did region blocks" is very high.

Would be a whole different ballpark if it actually costed something to try/play.

That said, I'm surprised if there really are that many internation FPS clans who intend to always stick together. WASP for one has seperate NA divisions and we never even expected to play PS2 all together. One could argue that it's pretty much a totally different clan in that case and I do sorta agree, I was originally against us expanding from the EU community we were to international, but either way, we were always prepared to play as seperate groups.

The reason we did expand was more about sort of the clan as a.. franchise. We were always extremely known on EU APB servers due to a few reasons, and we have a very specific theme to ourselves, so some wanted to expand the "franchise" also over to NA servers.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

No one is going to boycott anything. The sour after-taste may stay for a long time, though.

Boycotts only make things worse, because they lose you as a stakeholder, you stop contributing feedback (through channels they may learn of said feedback) and most of all: you're not paying, so why would they possibly listen?

PS1 was boycott by a lot of players for various reasons to make statements. Did it change anything? Yes: It reduced the amount of support the game got and it made them believe the game had fundamental flaws elsewhere then where we saw issues with it.

Sadly, statements like boycotts get taken the wrong way too easily.



Off-topic, but speaking of effective boycotts, "Iran stops shipping oil to EU countries". Yes, to those EU nations they wern't really exporting to in the first place, as a response to getting boycott by other EU nations.

[sylphaen]

Figment, just in case I might have been misunderstood, that's what I meant too... Boycotts are pointless. No one who loved PS1 would boycott a chance at playing PS2 anyways.

However, the aftertaste I was talking about was when we will log in a EU server and not have the US community of people we knew and loved playing with or against... That's sour.

[Figment]

*was backing up your statement*

[IronMole]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

Seeing it's a F2P game, I doubt the amount of "I wouldve tried but not since they did region blocks" is very high.

Would be a whole different ballpark if it actually costed something to try/play.

That said, I'm surprised if there really are that many internation FPS clans who intend to always stick together. WASP for one has seperate NA divisions and we never even expected to play PS2 all together. One could argue that it's pretty much a totally different clan in that case and I do sorta agree, I was originally against us expanding from the EU community we were to international, but either way, we were always prepared to play as seperate groups.

The reason we did expand was more about sort of the clan as a.. franchise. We were always extremely known on EU APB servers due to a few reasons, and we have a very specific theme to ourselves, so some wanted to expand the "franchise" also over to NA servers.

Don't you still have to buy the game originally - the same scheme as Guild Wars?

Also, many clans stick together no matter what - Unleashed for example. We're a small community of mixed people who enjoy playing games as a group. Many friends from across the pond...

[Fara]

I'm part of an active gameing community called Blacksun since 2006 ( www.joinblacksun.com). As a collective group of around 200 different people (with 50-60 active at any given time) we play a variety of games and since I'm a former PS1 vet day 1, I've been pushing this game very hard on our forums and how awesome it was and will be.

However that being said we are... a 50/50 split of Americans and Europeans with some sprinkled members in other countries all over the planet. Region locks will kill off any interest in this game, even if its Free to play, simply because our collective group can't play together.



I get this is a game and all but whats with the China style "oh no you can't do that" setup? Smacks me as very anti-freedom. Isn't that what America is all about, Freedom?

[IronMole]

Originally Posted by Vancha

To everyone saying this doesn't affect anyone but PS1 players...

What of all the Call of Duty clans, Battlefield clans, Counter-Strike clans, TF2 clans etc. etc.?

None of those games are region-locked. Who knows how many multi-national clans might have moved over to PS2 to try it out, but decide not to because they can't play together?

Additionally, what of all the people who were thinking of giving SOE another try and decide not to because they see they still care so little about their customers? I've already seen people who had a wary interest of PS2 (due to SOE's bad reputation) stating they won't play it because SOE clearly hasn't learned...

Exactly - many communities have members from different countries. If a region lock was in place then that would ultimately prevent them from coming to PS2.

[FHMathew]

Originally Posted by Fara

I'm part of an active gameing community called Blacksun since 2006 ( www.joinblacksun.com). As a collective group of around 200 different people (with 50-60 active at any given time) we play a variety of games and since I'm a former PS1 vet day 1, I've been pushing this game very hard on our forums and how awesome it was and will be.

However that being said we are... a 50/50 split of Americans and Europeans with some sprinkled members in other countries all over the planet. Region locks will kill off any interest in this game, even if its Free to play, simply because our collective group can't play together.



I get this is a game and all but whats with the China style "oh no you can't do that" setup? Smacks me as very anti-freedom. Isn't that what America is all about, Freedom?

Exactly the same here

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Figment

*was backing up your statement*

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by IronMole

Don't you still have to buy the game originally - the same scheme as Guild Wars?

Also, many clans stick together no matter what - Unleashed for example. We're a small community of mixed people who enjoy playing games as a group. Many friends from across the pond...

No, the game does not have a retail cost.

As for the latter part, I do understand, but even in that situation it wouldn't stop me from playing the game either in another group or solo if the "primary group" wouldnt follow or then just playing with the people from the "right side of the pond". But I guess that's just me

[SniperSteve]

In League of Legends you need a separate account to login to the EU/US servers. It will pretty much 'default' you into your location, but if you want to play in another region, the option is there if you are willing to dig around a little bit.

That is really the best approach. This way most people will play on the regional servers and get the best experience, and only a few that want to play with people from other countries will go through the effort of creating an account for that other region.

[Duddy]

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

In League of Legends you need a separate account to login to the EU/US servers. It will pretty much 'default' you into your location, but if you want to play in another region, the option is there if you are willing to dig around a little bit.

That is really the best approach. This way most people will play on the regional servers and get the best experience, and only a few that want to play with people from other countries will go through the effort of creating an account for that other region.

While not wholly ideal in itself (e.g. I wanted to pay the equivalent of a sub for this game, I'll be damned if I have to do it across 2 accounts though!) this is probably the best compromise for all involved.

I think we just need to wait for their response to our feedback.