News: ProSieben Responds to Community Concerns - Page 3

Kran De Loy · 2012-02-24, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by MartinasBuddy

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

Oh man, that made me laugh. Thank you, seriously I needed to go to sleep on something light hearted.

Mastachief · 2012-02-24, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by Sta

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

You did. But don't read that as support that works. Writing in another language is not the same as understanding that language. Looking at the pro7 Forums the support workers we can expect are school children with no experience of our game or actual experience of the language they are supporting.

Any one that has dealt with the frustration of dealing with an Indian call centre can understand the language issue where by they just keep repeating a script because they cannot understand anything else.

With SOE (atleast in the early days was all U.S based support) you ticket are dealt with by properly trained and/or experience native English speakers that understood the nuances of language, this led to the support making sense and being successful.

A perfect example would be the tech support for planetside on the forum, so random new tech guy appeared who would systematically just quote "it is you internet connection" for everything. (not sure if this support had been outsourced but it is a perfect example of what happens when you outsource)

ME: My graphics are crashing to desktop?
SOE: It is you internet connection
ME: WTF, NO my graphics are crashing to desktop at random
SOE: It is your internet connection
ME: Facepalm, nevermind.

Command chat
Me: Hi guys, my graphics keep ctd'ing
CR5: Turn off pre loading textures
Me: Thanks that fixed it

Boomzor · 2012-02-24, 01:51 PM

Heh, I remember an Italian group joining our outfit way way back, and only one of them spoke passing English. Had to put that guy as a constant squad leader to get them to do anything remotely along the line of what the rest of the outfit was doing. It was a meta game in itself.

Fond nostalgia aside, the channels pro7 run here (through subsidiaries I must add) all have Swedish announcers and web pages so I'm sure they'll get the language part right - eventually at the very least.
But as I've said in other threads, judging from the alfalfa (bean sprouts?!) play site, they seriously need to step up their game on all fronts before I'll allow them anywhere near my passwords, personal details or credit card numbers.

Sardus · 2012-02-24, 01:55 PM

$$$ speaks. Good job everyone.

Spoof · 2012-02-24, 01:56 PM

I'm inclined to give PSS1 the benefit of the doubt if SOE and PSS1 pull this off.

PSS1's previous games may have been mishandled, but with a AAA title like PS2 they have to pull up their socks and step up to the plate. So assuming they are doing that, and that our accounts will be handled securely, and that SOE still retains authority on server admin (no corporate fingers in weapon balance pie)...

... well, fingers crossed.

texico · 2012-02-24, 01:56 PM

^ :L The whole world should just speak English and dump the rest, we all know it's the best language (irrefutable) from the best country (debatable).

What I never understood is, Sony is a global company, and I'm sure they're established in Europe. Surely they could advertise and distribute PS2 in Europe, and much more effectively than a relatively unknown group like Pro7 - I don't know a great deal about the logistics of companies though.

Hmr85 · 2012-02-24, 02:03 PM

See all that doubt and people freaking out where for nothing. You just have to have a little faith in SOE. They have been showing us that they are trying to change for the better.

Thank you for listening SOE.

Crator · 2012-02-24, 02:08 PM

Isn't the reason SOE is making changes because people freaked out?

Gandhi · 2012-02-24, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by Hmr85

See all those doubt and people freaking out where for nothing. You just have to have a little faith in SOE. They have been showing us that they are trying to change for the better.

I think all the freaking out is what prompted these changes in the first place, not only from us but from the folks at EQ2 as well. If everyone had just said "Gee that's too bad, I hope they change it." and forgot about it nothing would have been changed.

PSS1 seems to be sincere in wanting to make this work, but goddamn do they have a lot of work to do to overcome their bad reputation. I hope they realize that.

Geist · 2012-02-24, 02:14 PM

Congrats everybody. BWC has a few overseas members and this is great news indeed for all international outfits.

Vancha · 2012-02-24, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by Hmr85

See all that doubt and people freaking out where for nothing. You just have to have a little faith in SOE. They have been showing us that they are trying to change for the better.

Thank you for listening SOE.

Don't let them off that easy. The fact that this deal was made at all displays the utmost stupidity and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have done anything had they not started hemorrhaging EQ2 subscriptions and getting a fair amount of bad publicity over the past few days...

The only reason this deal was made was because they succumbed to the temptation of a quick cash injection, but it'd be for naught if there wasn't a net gain despite the fallout.

Sta · 2012-02-24, 02:15 PM

Originally Posted by Hmr85

See all those doubt and people freaking out where for nothing. You just have to have a little faith in SOE. They have been showing us that they are trying to change for the better.

Thank you for listening SOE.

I believe thats what they call passion...

Trolltaxi · 2012-02-24, 02:22 PM

I simply cannot beleive that SOE gives so much space to pro7 that they could even turn the game into pay-to-win. (which pro7 has already made to other titles)

That would ruin the Planetside brand (and SOE too) forever.

Hermes · 2012-02-24, 02:25 PM

Glad they are listening, hopefully a reasonable solution will follow for our outfit communities.

Sadly im not hopefully this will also address some of the other facets of this. I liked logging onto an American server if I'm working odd hours for their prime time with an alt. Or to pop on with some friends every now and again.

But i'm guessing this is going to be some sort of one shot outfit fix rather than a change of policy.

Instead of say, offering a scaled compensation for the money invested in advertising if they detect a certain threshold of EUs logging into US for their majority playtime.

Straws · 2012-02-24, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Vancha

The problem is that they're completely blind to what the community doesn't want.

The community doesn't want ProSieben. I'm glad that we'll get to play together again, but I'm not sure if two steps back, one step forward is something to be commended? For any other company that wouldn't count as progress, but for SOE? I'm not really sure...

Unfortunately, SOE doesn't really exist in Europe, which is why Planetside was distributed by Ubisoft over here. It's the same issue which resulted in The9 handling WoW for Blizzard in Asian territories. These companies are not as global as we would like them to be.

SOE are not in the position to become a proper operating entity in Europe, especially after the downsizing announcements last year.

In order to get their games to locations outside of the US, and to do so in a way that they don't hemorrhage money, they need to turn to companies that specialise in data storage and network integration. Customer Service comes into it as well.

HOWEVER, to sign a deal, or discuss a deal and not fight tooth and nail to prevent regional segregation, to not think that it was an important enough issue to cancel that deal and go with someone else? That's an issue I have.

The future of MMOs is meant to be grander. Get as many players playing together as possible. It's the whole point of MMOs. Social gaming. This agreement, regardless of it being overturned or not, is not something ANY games publisher should accept from their partners. Sony, EA, Square-Enix, Activition, none of these companies should ever have their entire product listing announced as part of such a giant backwards step.

The agreement implies that the MMO industry is in a regression, it's not. This honestly feels like a bunch of old guys in a directors meeting just accepting what is infront of them without a second thought. Dismissive. The individuals with SOE, or SCE who honestly thought that this was not an issue needs to have all these comments tatoo'd on the insides of their eyelids. It's as if no one consulted anyone in a marketing position.

Bad for the Players.
Bad for SOE.
Bad for the MMO industry.