Official ProSiebenSat.1 is the Exclusive Partner of SOE Europe Announcement Feedback Thread

I'm not from Europe or play on their servers, but this silence is really ticking me off as well.
We have quite a few people in our guild from regions outside the USA, and they are worried and concerned about this. I don't want to lose any of them to some bad, thought out server thing like this.
Keeping my fingers crossed (since holding my breath would just make me pass out) that an answer or something comes soon.

dawy wrote:

+1
I have 5 toons on Valor from old times I don't play anymore and 9 toons on Freeport that I play frequently. I just renewed my gold membership (12 months subscription). I would obviously want a refund for that if I can't play those Freeport toons anymore. Please add the procedure how to get this to your FAQ.

Imokles wrote:

The procedure here would be to compensate you with game time, subscriptions are non-refundable, that isn't what you want to hear and I don't think it is right but I doubt if this happens like it sounds like it will be happening, (if it were not the intended plan it would have been debunked already imo) I don't think you'll get a refund.

A region lock would kill Elements guild, we have predominantly US players but UK leaders and an East European officer. Assuming a region lock was implemented, does the guild get left with no leaders or do the leaders keep the guild (transferred to Splitpaw) and the members get dropped. I can't see either situation working out well. I'm in the ridiculous situation where will be attending the Faydwer Faire planning meeting and volunteering the assistance of our guild with the caveat that our help is dependent on SoE not locking me and the other leaders from Antonia Bayle server...

We cannot give feedback on something we do not have detailed information about.
Things i miss info about:

What exactly did ProsiebenSat.1 purchase?
Does licenses mean distribution of game packages (downloads).
Does licenses mean they run the game on new servers with their own account system and service?
- If so, what about station access accounts?
Does licenses mean our soe subs are transfered and our station cash is dust?

I would like to see those informations soon since they are very important.

Splitting the American and US communities would be a fatal mistake on a 7 years old game such as EQ2.

Nearly a week later and still nothing for us to give feedback on.

I found this in an article on www.businessweek.com ....
“We didn’t feel we had the right reach in Europe,” said Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley at a news conference in Munich. “Our goal is to become the leading free to play publisher in the world and with the help of ProSieben, we feel Europe is covered now.”
The companies will share revenue and risk under the terms of the agreement, executives said today.
Sharing revenue and risk ... that certainly sounds more than a straightforward publishing deal. My worry-meter just hit the red zone.

Kaian@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Sure sounds like exclusivity (region locks) to me. SOE are letting them use the brand and IP, but other than that it sounds like they are own their own as far as marketting, hosting, etc... and will therefore need region locks in order to be able to offset the "risk."

Normally I would stay out of this kind of discussion, as it's all specualtion...but
Out of concern I checked into this Alaplaya service and read through their T&C. It has prompted me to cancel my subscription and REMOVE all credit card info that was on file with my account. I admit I did this as a precaution due to the silence from SOE. Also, skipped buying my usual two SC cards this month can't see spending money with all the uncertainty surrounding this deal. I play on 3 servers and I live in the UK so as much as I want to put over priced virtual wings on my white ratongas.....I can wait.

Buggabug wrote:

That is a good question. I wonder if SOE is going to be transferring pertinent financial information to this company, such as credit card data, or whether they will simply provide them with a list of "entitlements" for each account then you will need to create a new account and billing information.
If this information is to be transferred, is there a mechanism where people can request that this does not occur, as people have agreed to and accepted SOE's ToS but have not agreed to such with this new entity?
Of course there may be a "transferability" clause buried somewhere in SOEs ToS in which we basically gives SOE the right to sell or give our information to a third party.

One thing for sure SOE stays true to their words on these 'feedback' threads, that's all they are after is feedback on whatever trial balloon they float, even when it floats as well as the hindenburg, they remain in their stance that it is a feedback thread, not a Q&A in any way.

Mr. Smedly was in the Hofbrauhaus (I can't blame him, I go there every time I'm in Munich too) and after a couple of one liter mugs of beer tweeted the news.
And since then silence.
Come on Smoke, stop pussyfooting around your paying customers and let us know whats going on.

Smokejumper was on vacation for >1 week after the new year, the last time he was online (signed into forums) was 12/27. I an guessing that with Smedleys tweet about the huge influx of new players and monumental increase in SC sales he was given (or took himself) additional time off. Maybe he is holed up Somewhere deciding on the next things that "take no effort, only time" in the game to put more stuff into the SC shop.

OK so, a red name at Alaplaya managed a reply, not much information (more like none) but at least someone there noticed us.
http://en.alaplaya.net/forum/alapla...485688-s30.html
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Re: Announcement: New Cooperation

by Protagonist » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:36 am
Hello,

We know that many players are waiting for the FAQ (especially the Eq2 players). We finalize it asap and as yesterday was a bank holiday we need some more time for it.

We will keep you updated and don´t be afraid. It will work out in a good way.

General issues:

- We are licensing games and not developing it. All our games so far are from different developers. So if a game has a problem (like S4 with the hacks atm which has highest prio anyway for S4) another game has nothing to do with it. It does not take away ressources from our side.

- S4 is one of the biggest if not the biggest F2P TPS in Europe and we get the content ahead or very close to the korean version. For some games we even get new content first. As I saw in a thread a rumour that we getting updates so late. Definately not true. Translation needs some time but not endless

We hired already a lot people and you will realize it quickly as we hired more Community Managers as well."

Fred Bear wrote:

Thank you for the update Fred.
It does not excuse the silence we had here for over a week though. SOE should have been the first to tell us exactly how this change is going to affect us. We're still waiting on the details.

Given that this is a done deal, I expect if you are EU based, the only information you will get will be from Alaplaya.
Clearly, Sony have nothing else to say on the matter.

If this means more CS for players on Euro servers and more in-game GM's etc then it's no bad thing. The critical question is region locking or not... still looks like a possibility at the moment

I'd imagine that what will happen is that ze germans will take over the running and maintenance of the EU servers, as well as being responsible for CS to all the european based players and promoting the game in Europe. In return SoE will give them the economic rights to all accounts that are registered in europe / pay in a european currency, and consequently all real money purchases of station cash will go to alaplaya.

I really doubt that players would have all their chars forcibly removed to EU servers, it wouldn't be a particularly smart move for either party.

May God have mercy on the souls of anyone and everyone that has to use those horrid looking forums after this deal is complete.
Delethen@Mistmoore wrote:

Wouldn't be so hard for them to just come out and say so if this were not the case.