Fighting for PS2! RU community petition to SOE.

[FromRussia]

"They asked us to slug it out for our land. And yes, it's quite true. We're not playing and enjoying ourselves. We're actually "slugging it out" on our own land through many unpleasant circumstances that have never happened on EU&US servers. But we want to play and enjoy Planetside 2 experience as we did before, and not to "slug it out"

Comrades!

Below you’ll find the official letter from members of ps2-ru.com team to Planetside 2 developers - Sony Online Enternainment, concerning our position on tricky situation that is going on with Planetside 2 in Russia. We kindly ask you to support our position, and post your opinions in this thread.

We do not want only just to state some unpleasant moments in long-drawn-out process of Planetside 2 Russian Version release, but we want to suggest options on how to solve it. Therefore, we are not making any attempts to bring business plans of Innova Co. down, just trying to suggest versatile options to remove any unpleasant states which are present by now.



" Dear John and Matt !

Russian community representatives, members of ps2-ru.com team, are grateful to you and sending best regards for your work in developing Planetside 2 and for allowing us to play your game in Russia !

We're eager to observe developing process of the game, its progress and how developers react on players' feedback by bringing in new features and giving us new unexplored opportunities to play and enjoy our time in Planetside 2.

But we are very concerned and disappointed about progress of your partner and publisher in Russian Federation - Innova Co.
We took our time and made a list of major points that concern us too much not to tell about:

1. As we think, beta-test (CBT & OBT as well) of translation and other needed features is lasting too long, and so long time for beta-testing cannot be considered as normal. From our point of view, for such long period of time it is possible to get rid of all bugs and problems that restrict publishing of game and bringing it to release time if only Innova endeavored more actively in this direction.

2. By players' feedback, "FROST" anti-cheat system is interfering with performance and lowering stability of the game. Still, by players' reports made on our website, even with enabled Innova's anti-cheat system there is still noticeable amount of cheaters on Russian servers and amount is much greater than on EU and US servers.

3. From our position, translation of in-game content is done very unprofessionally. Translations have been done out of the game's context and translations are also containing many semantic and technical mistakes. For us it is clear that translations have been made by people that haven't taken even single glance on the game. And comments, notes and requests made by community members in the point of translation are, in most cases, ignored and no corrections in translation mistakes are done. In spite of our efforts to help in translation at CBT stage and nowadays.

4. Client-side errors and bugs found on EU servers are fixed at RU servers with too big delay.

5. Innova Co. has taken no steps in promoting and advertising of Planetside 2 on russian gaming market. There have been taken no efforts in promoting Planetside 2 on thematic gaming websites, while other Innova Co. games do have such promotion. At last gaming exhibition "Igromir-2013" (it's similiar to GamesCon and E3) Innova haven't brought any light on Planetside 2 in any way possible. Despite of their competitor's efforts in promoting and advertising of games that are even far from beta-testing stage.

6. Expected changes of game economic model that Innova is making cannot be considered appropriate as cannot be shifting to weapon rental system also done by them, because such changes are targeting audience not interested in long-term playing.

7. Innova's relations with community also cannot be called appropriate and respectful. Players' points, arguments, notes and etc. on problems are not considered in any way, even so, posts containing objective and impersonal points of view unpleasant for Innova Co. are deleted, users posting them are banned.

As concluded above, we're seeing potential risks in Planetside 2 promotion and expansion on Russia's and CIS's markets.

Reasons numbered 1,2 and 4 are causing players to leave russian servers at present time, such players are forced to leave in other projects even if they had interest in game during CBT start period. Many of them tried to return at OBT start, but soon left to EU&US servers or to other projects.

Also because of these reasons, and because of poor translation quality, most of russian players that've played on EU & US servers and left to play at RU servers are leaving back to EU & US servers.

Reasons numbered 5, 6, 7 from our point, are blocking the creation of community interested and oriented towards long-term gaming. And long-term oriented community, by our looks at original Planetside, is key factor of game's market success.

At general, we consider game at EU & US servers more playable at the moment than on RU because of reasons stated above.

And if it is not to play Planetside 2 on EU & US servers - we've got nowhere to go, except other projects, in which we do not want to but we're forced.

We understand that radical changes in your relationship with Innova Co. cannot be done, but anyway, we suggest choosing such model of partnership with them where there will be possibility in including translations in EU & US servers or connecting Innova's servers in global joined network of Planetside 2 world servers without changing economic model, installing additional software and propaganda to play on our own territory.

From our side, we're ready and eager to help in translating game content and other work that can be possibly done.

Best regards and with due respect,
ps2-ru.com Team Members "

About ps2-ru.com
PS2-RU.com - biggest Planetside 2 fan website in Russia. Planetside 2 news in Russian, forums, multimedia content and etc. since 2011. Founded and operated by fans for fans.

[typhaon]

There's a "In Soviet Russia" joke in there somewhere....

Seriously, though... that sounds like a miserable state for a Russian PS2 launch.

[Calista]

You guys really don't need to be spamming ever media outlet with this. Smed got your email and is looking into it.

[Sabotage]

Ru ps2 sux

[Khottabych]

Originally Posted by Calista

You guys really don't need to be spamming ever media outlet with this. Smed got your email and is looking into it.

Thread on off SOE forum was banned few minutes ago. And PSU now became only one "media outlet"

[Maidere]

Originally Posted by Calista

You guys really don't need to be spamming ever media outlet with this. Smed got your email and is looking into it.

Smed got the message when SOE and Innova made a deal. It's not only about the message, it's about the noise this open letter has to generate.

[Bolt]

I'm sure 99% of all problems can be solved localizing the Planetside 2 how Pro7, but Innova does not have such same experience. They (Innova) do not want to lose any money, so it was decided by them to make separate server.
We want to fight and play on servers with high skills outfits. To whom we will pay a money - does not matter.

[Cyberpashtet]

Innova must die

[KesTro]

Well you've got a bump from me and my support (For whatever that's worth hehe) when you need it. We like to complain over on the US&EU servers but it sounds like we haven't had to put up with nightmare that must be the RU release. Everyone should get an equal chance to enjoy this game and it's good to know Smed is looking into this. It's also good to know the RU community (At least by the looks of this letter) is a strong one I only hope you guys can keep it together for however long it might take to get some of your issues resolved. This game relies on its players heavily as all the content is player driven. The best thing you can do that I can think of is try to reinforce your own players feelings towards the game.

[Blynd]

Hope you get it sorted to tour satisfaction. You have my support. I've never understood why they have to have sepwrate servers for russians I played slot witth some ruscorp guys in ps1 and theyall seemed great.

[Rolfski]

SOE's local partners screwing up, where have I heard that one before?
At least Pro7 is trying.

SOE obviously made huge mistakes with their local partner model, basically giving non-US players a second rank Planetside 2 experience.

Making a deal with local partners should always involve detailed agreements about the quality of the customer experience, much like a franchise model.
When I eat a big Mac in Moscow it is of the same quality compared to a big Mac in NYC, but not with this game however. You get worse customer service, worse deals/promo's, worse PlayerStudio experience, worse everything outside US.

I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese players are complaining as well and I certainly see SOE making the same mistakes all over again with their opening of the Brazilian market. And the bitter part of all of this is that SOE was warned by the community for that Russian partner.

[Falcon_br]

I am almost sure Brazil will be the next one complain about SoE local partner!
I already tried to contact Brazilian partner twice about information on the launch in the Brazilian market, without success.

[Mastachief]

There are already enough russian hacking/massive ping/lag switching/ESP using/exploiting scrubs on the EU servers. I'm pro any barrier that keeps the hoards away.

Sorry to hear the Russian partner sucks but it's hardly surprising.

[Jax Blake]

Seriously...Renting Weapons?

[Rarogmor]

++++