News: ProSieben Responds to Community Concerns

[Kran De Loy]

<3 Hamma for summing up the important bits in the News section.
<3 Smed for at least giving the community hope.
<3 Everyone at SOE for making the game in the first place.

I understand that with a major deal like this there is a lot of details and no one person can or should be held responsible for knowing everything in it. That said...

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 The first person to smack the one responsible for the segregation bits.

[Shogun]

thanks hamma, for summing up the answers we got!
will this news section be updated when we get new answers?

[Hydra]

Talk to me when something is actually done, The fact that this even happened and went this far is still moronic.

[Baron]

I understand why SOE would want to partner with PRO7. From what I understand (granted i'm from Texas ) PRO7 is a well known gaming media company in the EU. This makes perfect sense and I think it could really benefit PS2 in the EU. That kind of massive media attention could even bleed over here to the US as well.

Strategic Partnership: No problem with this
Tactical Execution: Needs work

[Raymac]

For a multinational business deal, the speed at which they have responded to the community's concerns is extremely impressive. I'm sure they considered the blowback from having exclusivity, but they clearly underestimated just how serious seperating the players really was.

Considering all the moving parts, something like this won't change overnight, however, they've practically addressed it overnight. Most impressive, and very encouraging.

[Shogun]

when i first heard about this partnership, i was very positive about that, but the FAQ revealed far too many stupid things that may totally wreck the game.

i am from germany, and the media presence of pro7 is top notch! no doubt they will start an advertising campaign that soe could never pull off. and that´s a great thing... but the price seems to be far too high

[Trolltaxi]

Originally Posted by Baron

I understand why SOE would want to partner with PRO7. From what I understand (granted i'm from Texas ) PRO7 is a well known gaming media company in the EU. This makes perfect sense and I think it could really benefit PS2 in the EU. That kind of massive media attention could even bleed over here to the US as well.

Strategic Partnership: No problem with this
Tactical Execution: Needs work

The Pro7Sat1 conglomerate (haha...) has great share in TV-market especially in Germany. The company operates TV-channels and radio stations in german-speaking countries, in Scandinavia and Central-Europe. They have no intrest in western Europe but more importantly they have almost nothing to do with the gaming market. All they have is some marginal titles which they use to promote their only half-decent game, called S4 Leage.

But worst thing is, that they turned that f2p game into pay-to-win and did it such a rude way that they managed to alienate their community. Check this link: http://mmohuts.com/editorials/alapla...-arena-shooter

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Shogun

when i first heard about this partnership, i was very positive about that, but the FAQ revealed far too many stupid things that may totally wreck the game.

i am from germany, and the media presence of pro7 is top notch! no doubt they will start an advertising campaign that soe could never pull off. and that´s a great thing... but the price seems to be far too high

To be fair, Pro7 hasn't even done anything to you yet. To me, it just feels a little premature to hang them for a crime they haven't committed yet. Did we learn nothing from Tom Cruise in the Minority Report?

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by Baron

PRO7 is a well known gaming media company in the EU.

Gaming? Nobody here know that pro7 has anything to do with games. They are TV/sat media company, but not a gaming (but they want to be, and thats why they bought us)

[WaryWizard]

Something I see that could be a workaround without a whole circumvention of PRO7 is make EU IPs log in with a PRO7 account. They would still have access to the US(SOE) servers, but it will keep them from ignoring PRO7. Most new EU players will probably go to the EU(PRO7) server, but if they don't keep their servers well maintained, the newberts will go US.

I know next to nothing on the technical difficulties of this.

[BigBossMonkey]

Originally Posted by Cobalt

I have a feeling this is more casued by the Everquest population, but hopefully it will make them change their plans.

Well yeah, the EQ community is orders of magnitude larger than the PS community ever was.

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by WaryWizard

Something I see that could be a workaround without a whole circumvention of PRO7 is make EU IPs log in with a PRO7 account. They would still have access to the US(SOE) servers, but it will keep them from ignoring PRO7. Most new EU players will probably go to the EU(PRO7) server, but if they don't keep their servers well maintained, the newberts will go US.

I know next to nothing on the technical difficulties of this.

The odd thing about this deal is that SOE is still running the European servers. Pro7 just gets exclusive access to them.

[Mastachief]

Originally Posted by Shogun

when i first heard about this partnership, i was very positive about that, but the FAQ revealed far too many stupid things that may totally wreck the game.

i am from germany, and the media presence of pro7 is top notch! no doubt they will start an advertising campaign that soe could never pull off. and that´s a great thing... but the price seems to be far too high

That's the other thing, its a German TV company. The vast majority of the planetside euro player base was from the UK then The netherlands and France. With countries like Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden etc bringing up the rear. The game is after all English speaking which presents a barrier (which it should) this is why the Chinese and Russians need their own server. Modern Europe pretty much demands that their youth speaks English for decent employment. We already see in pro7 (or whatever other name they use) has PR people in their community with less than passing English it reads like language written by Indian or Chinese.

Don't get me wrong I like German people (well some of them) but if i'm paying for a service i expect them to understand me fully and for the service to be promoted in my country properly. We all ready know how much "fun"* people talking in other languages is in the game chat.

* I need to add that i do not mean it is fun. Gotta point out the humour.

[MartinasBuddy]

Originally Posted by BigBossMonkey

Well yeah, the EQ community is orders of magnitude larger than the PS community ever was.

and soe did everything to keep it that way. planet...what?

[Sta]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

That's the other thing, its a German TV company. The vast majority of the planetside euro player base was from the UK then The netherlands and France. With countries like Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden etc bringing up the rear. The game is after all English speaking which presents a barrier (which it should) this is why the Chinese and Russians need their own server. Modern Europe pretty much demands that their youth speaks English for decent employment. We already see in pro7 (or whatever other name they use) has PR people in their community with less than passing English it reads like language written by Indian or Chinese.

Don't get me wrong I like German people (well some of them) but if i'm paying for a service i expect them to understand me fully and for the service to be promoted in my country properly. We all ready know how much "fun"* people talking in other languages is in the game chat.

* I need to add that i do not mean it is fun. Gotta point out the humour.

I believe Ive read somewhere that they would provide german, english, french and spanish customer support...