News: Resolved - PS2 Region

[LostSoul]

My response to this as posted on the Sony forums. In short: I see advantages but are highly disappointed.

Good afternoon,

I read about this last night but gave it a little thought over before I would jump to conclusions and only type out of disappointment.

First I'd like to take note of the positive sides of this contract with ProSiebenStat.1. As long subscriber of the SOE game Planetside 1 I always criticized Sony on not supporting their European client base well enough. Over the past years (and still) Planetside is annoyed with hackers who enjoy disrupting other peoples gameplay, the response from SOE (at least its current response) is non-existent. Hackers can roam the last active server for hours until they either get bored them selves or removed by a GM who is obviously lost. While this isn't the only example it is the most known one. In the past we've also had continent crashes that took hours before they we're resolved. Server management taking place during prime-time and lack of "events" on the European server. The deal with ProSiebenSat1 is (obviously) going to help closing this gap and lack of service.

On the negative side though, and I fully agree with most people that have responded either here or on Planetside-Universe, is that this decision will split the playerbase. Many of our outfits (guilds) exist from US and EU players since (and before) the werner-gemini merger in Planetside. What this region-block (or region-split) is going to do is to split the playerbase that has always supported your games (even though neglected at times) into two camps.

Obviously ProsiebenSat wants to make money of this deal (it will sure have cost them quite a bit to get it), but I do not think splitting the player base (SOE - US, ProSieben - EU) is the way to do it as it will tick allot of people (and friends) off.

After the deal with Prosieben (what an unpronounceable name btw) I still hope to have to choice to play with my US friends on the US server while being based in Europe and not needing an additional client. There is no need to split the internet as it does not know borders or time zones.