Preorder Expansions taken away then deleveled

No one is apologizing for SOE, not even SOE themselves. They goofed up, they corrected it to be how it is intended. People asked if you got everything upon pre-order, the existing policy regarding that was stated by numerous veterans who came out and stated you don't get access until the payment goes thru which occurs on launch day. People eventually came out and said they had got access, SOE saw this and then corrected it.

There are multiple posts from every expansions since SoF (which started the whole "you get all expansions when you buy the new one" paradigm in EQ), which state that you do not get access to anything until the payment is processed. In each thread that asked there were multiple known and respected community members and I want to say at least a few of the pseudo-special community members who stated the existing policy. There was no change in policy, the SOE employees saw that the answers provided were correct there was no one, initially, contradicting it, so there was no need to post anything.

If there had been a change in the policy then SOE would have already stated it before Pre-Orders even went live or at least had an official post regarding it for two reasons: 1) They are actually fairly good about posting radical changes in their sale and access policies well ahead of changes (like how we know that upon the release of CotF VoA will be F2P) and 2) They would be spamming the fact that you get access to all content thru RoF instantly all over the place since before Pre-Orders started for the simple fact of the number of people who in-game would have pre-ordered that will otherwise just wait.

Here's what I saw ordering the next expansion. Tell me where it says RoF and VoA are going to be taken away until CotF is released (whenever that might be).



Let's go ahead and click Order CotF, and see "What's included" in the expansion order.


No problem. So when I spend time leveling and playing in content that I believe I have purchased, and then it magically disappears one day with no warning or message of any kind, this is the result.



I guess I'm a sleazebag for playing in RoF, clearly I was going to cancel my preorder the day before CotF is released so that I could.. still lose the levels and gear I've obtained. Makes no sense whatsoever. If there was indication that VoA and RoF were not supposed to be available before CotF release, it wasn't easy to find.

If you don't want to call yourself an apologist that's fine. Now tell me this, what does sony have to gain from this decision. I highly doubt people are going to run out and ROF. So they are not going to get more money. They will still get money from those who preordered. However they may lose some preorders and possibly subscriptions. This isn't good for public relations. What did they have to gain by doing this???
The apologists want to address the legality but they are completely ignore any discussion of consequences. This does choice by SOE doesn't help the game. My guess is it was made by a bean counter who has no idea of the consequences and the delevling.

This doesn't affect me at all as I haven't preordered & I have RoF anyway, but I'm still appalled at what horrible customer service this is. Yes, the regular forum goers (myself included) know the usual pre-order policy, but only a minority of players visit the forum regularly. I see a lot of people in-game who think they get all previous expansions as soon as they pre-order. And lo & behold, it actually works. Even I thought they must have decided to change their policy because people have been talking about it working for a couple of weeks. It was hardly a secret as lots of people were discussing it in General. It wouldn't be the first time SOE made changes without notifying their customers.

So it's true SOE never actually said they were changing their policy, but they still gave that impression to many players (the ones who even knew about the old policy in the first place), and failed to respond to questions about it working. If they knew it was a mistake that was going to be fixed, they should have been clear about it right away. And if for some reason they were so out of touch that they first found it about it now, they should let it slide at this point, or just block it from working here on out. Rolling people back weeks' worth of xp & upgrades is horrible, horrible PR & CS. And they still haven't made an official statement about it: on the forums, in the motd, on the pre-order page, anywhere.

Regardless of what is or isnt said it the small print / or what was done it the past the basic fact is that this situation has been allowed to exsist for 2-3weeks by SoE and they have benefitted from additional geniune pre-orders is a basis for leaving it the way it was.

Coupled with the fact that many players will loose levels, ability to wear their equipment and thus forced into a state where they can't play their characters until relase of CotF, often with gold time they have paid for ticking down.

SoE you need to address this issue, a mistake was made at your end in giving early access, a further mistake was made by not address it quickly, it is likily you will have financially benefitted from additional pre orders due to your mistake. Dont screw your customers over on this, at very least anyone with a gold subcription now should get an extra month of gold added to their account with the CotF payment goes through to cover the time their main toons have been unplayable.

SOE knows, as well as most players posting here, that a lot of people were pre-ordering it on box accounts so that they could get the extra expansions and were going to cancel prior to being charged for it.

I don't know anyone who did this, but assuming it's true, why can't they just remove access from the people who cancel?

Just a guess, but it is likely easier to fix it now, while no one is supposed to have it, than try and figure out who cancelled and who didn't to fix it later.

Oh I'm sure it's easier. It's also horrible PR & will probably lose them a fair amount of business. If they can tell when someone cancels a subscription why is it so complicated to tell when someone cancels a preorder?

The bottom line is that players should not need to go to the forums at all to find out whether they're ordering what they think they're ordering when they order it.

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display ..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

I think the issue here is soe should have warned people that getting the older expansions is not intended. That was unethical imo and should have been dealt with in a professional way instead of just saying nothing and taking everything away and then saying "You should have known better."

I would assume most people do not go to a forum every time they order something to make sure they are getting what they ordered when they should have it. My point is, soe would have gotten $40 if they just let things stay as they were. Now they are losing money for a bonehead decision.

When a normal business messes up, they tend to give out coupons or at least apologize. Will SoE do the same?

Instead of having the in game motd as "Be Caferul about looting stuff in Raids- It's not CS job to distribute raid loot". It should have been, We have found that some people are getting early access to expansions they do not own yet. Note that this is not intentional and you will lose your access to those expansions soon. It was intended that you gain access to those expansions on the date when CotF goes live.

So apparently they are more concerned about raid loot being looted correctly so CS does not have an overload on petitions for that, than they care about things like good PR and good relationships with their customers and showing professionalism with pre-orders. Now they are probably getting overload from petitions for this. And they now have angry customers cancelling orders.

I am not affected by this, for I bought RoF a year ago, but I have great sympathy for those affected by this. They probably thought, "Gee soe is being extra nice this year" and then they get slapped with a glove in the face.

Thanks for that info...i cancelled my preorder and now i won't play or give this guys my money again (2 months of gold left though)

Explain to me how this benefits them? If they know they are going to cancel, they know they are going to lose the levels/access to the AAs... I don't get it.

I have done the same. The real shame is I finally got my friends to come play and after hearing me rage last night they all decided to say screw it.

After sleeping on it ... and calming down a bit ..... i just realized I don't have to worry about leveling to 93 because I'm probably locked at level 90 right?

So, the only thing people possibly could do is get additional AA's until they are unlocked?

Still pretty messed up -- because i bought 2 krono on both toons and i'm technically going to lose 2 weeks for each toon. Both have 2800 aa's ... so there are no AA's worth buying at lvl 90

I guess i'll spend the next 2 weeks getting some HoT augs for those toons ... not sure what else to do.

I did alittle bit of digging and found this post ::: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/pre-order-account-transfer-questions.203109/

I think if Piestro could have commented on the back side of that post -- we would not be in this situation. But now i see where he specifically said:

such is life ...

I was deleveled from 100 to 90, my Krono is wasting and I can't even use my gear. You won't see this account subscribed or purchasing the expansion if this issue isn't solved.

I agree that the error with the preorder should have been corrected ASAP, and the community notified that this was not correct.

however, it has always been known that previous expansions DO NOT become available UNTIL the expansion goes live and you are charged for it. a number of posts were made at this time regarding that.

people tried exploiting this error and are now crying that soe has taken the corrective actions.

I believe that what ever lvls , gear ., AA's gained prior to the removal will be reinstated once the expansion is live and the account charged. if not, it was you that was in the wrong for exploiting this error.

Massive PR failure. Citing what a rep said in another thread really doesn't band-aid the issue as this particular thread is unaddressed thus far and there has been no official announcement ANYWHERE regarding any kind of policy with expansions and pre-orders (one post by Piestro made earlier this month is hardly considered "policy")

If you have to dig and dig and dig to find anything related to it, then their CS department has already failed --- this kind of info should be listed ON THE PRE-ORDER PAGE before you even come close to entering any kind of debit/credit card numbers.

To lounge around and pretend "oh this doesn't affect me I bought ROF a year ago" is a little ignorant and so is the thought that people are going to pre-order, play 20 days of ROF then cancel. The amount of money they've lost over this little PR fiasco has likely already sky-rocketed past any perceived "loss of funds" they MIGHT (big maybe here) have lost if they left access to ROF in.

Anyhow, it seems this is the kind of support we can expect going forward so better buckle down now.