Planetside1 veterans from Russia, are unable to purchase membership.

MGP · 2014-08-14, 04:58 AM

Reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c...a_who_now_use/

TL;DR Russian players who play PS2 from the same accounts they used to play PS1 are cut off "All Access" program due to technical and legal difficulties.

Here's my story:

I've started playing Planetside back in 2006. At that time, SOE partner in Russia was Akella. To create PS1 accounts Russian players logged into Akella site, fill the forms and then were redirected to soe.com to finalize account creation. What it looks like, it was legit SOE account, i've used mine to play multiple SOE online games, bought subscriptions and never got any problems. For 8 years i thought that my SOE account is as good as others.

When Planetside2 came out, there was a promotion for PS1 veterans: use the same account you've played Planetside with, and receive an early game access and some cosmetic goodies. Without much hesitation I've subscribed for PS2 membership on my old account. For 2 years it was fine. No problems with SC purchases, no problems with membership. In spring 2014, when SOE converted accounts to "All Access", i liked the idea, and bought "All Access" for 3 months. No problems here. 2 weeks ago, my first 3 months expired and i've decided to re-subscribe.

This is when things went down. Like before, i've used in-game form to purchase membership plan (the infamous "Upgrade Now!" button), and got error saying something about "Unable to complete". I've tried web-form at soe.com and got "Purchase preview error". Wasn't worrying much at first. SOE shop had problems before. But after week passed, having the same problem, i've decided to create a support ticket. Have to mention here, that it took almost a week to get a responce to it.

When i've received a response for my ticket, i couldn't believe what i was seeing. The SOE support guy was basically telling me: "Since, back in 2006, you were redirected to soe.com from Akella site, your account is somehow "shitty", and you will never ever be able to purchase an "All Access" again. Unbelievable. First of all, there's no indication what so ever on my soe.com account page, saying that my account is "different" in any way. Second, i've bought "All Access" in May, why can't i do it now. What followed was more like a "default response" saying that there are technical limitations, as well as legal restrictions of some sort, preventing selling membership for me, on anybody else, who ever messed with Akella.

Just as an icing on a cake i must add that Akella is in semi-alive state, after bankruptcy case against them in 2012. Their web site wasn't updated since 2010, and many of the links there simply lead to 404 errors.

I'm very upset to say the least. After 8 years of service, more then a thousand bucks spent on their online goodies, SOE just giving me a middle finger salute. Me, and every other Russian Planetside veteran, who fell into "use same account and be cool" trap.

PS. Currently my support ticket was escalated to "higher stuff", more advanced billing specialists, who will try to see if they can do anything about it. But as the message says, "no guarantees".

Ghoest9 · 2014-08-16, 04:44 PM

That sucks - I hope they make it right for you.

Skittles · 2014-08-16, 05:39 PM

Is this recent development? It could be related to Ukraine sanctions, but that is simply a guess.

NewSith · 2014-08-16, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Skittles

Is this recent development? It could be related to Ukraine sanctions, but that is simply a guess.

It's been like that for a while. AFAIK, SOE just doesn't deal with Akella that much anymore, even with EQ.

Xaine · 2014-08-16, 11:07 PM

Just more evidence of mindblowingly retarded business decisions by SoE.

One could almost draw a comparison and say that PS2 is garbage compared to PS1. How they managed to make a game this uninteresting when they had PS1 as a style model is a really achievement.

It's like they tried to make it is mundane and average as possible.

Ghoest9 · 2014-08-17, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Xaine

Just more evidence of mindblowingly retarded business decisions by SoE.

Except no it isnt that at all.

Think harder - or just think even.
Akella is in a bad way. So who knows how they are dealing with SOE. But there is also the issue of sanctions and the limits that puts on US entities in dealing with Russian banks.

SOE didnt dcide to stop taking money from Russian players just for shits giggles.