Discussion: One game, one global server access

We announced a pretty exciting piece of news over the weekend and as promised, we have a few Questions and Answers to share with you about the upcoming Global Server Access that will see the unification of both the North American and European server lists in the Summer.

Thank you for reading, we hope you are looking forward to it as much as we are!


Global Server Access FAQ

1- When is Global Server Access going to be available?

Global Server Access will be available to all our active subscribers by the end of summer. We will have a more definite date for you at a later time so watch this space!

2-How will I be able to access the new server list? Will it have all of the North American and European servers?

All you need to do is launch your City of Heroes client via the NCsoft launcher, log in to your City of Heroes account and all 15 North American and European servers will be accessible on the Server selection screen. Read on if you are a European player.

3- What will happen if my European account name is the same as someone else’s in North America?

We wanted to keep this process as simple and manageable as possible to allow European and North American accounts to access all City of Heroes servers. All European accounts with a name conflicting with a North American account will be prepended with an “EU”. For instance, let’s take a hypothetical European account called “Cityof”. Pre-pended with “EU” would make it “EUCityof”. That is the only change to account names in that respect. We determined that this was the lowest number of users that would be affected by this account name change. North American accounts with conflicting names won’t be affected by this change.

4- So if I’m a European player with an account name conflicting with a North American account, what do I need to enter at login to get into the game?

All you need to remember is that, if you are a European player, you may be required to add “EU” (without he quotes) before your account name if your login fails the first time you try to access your account after Global Server Access has been implemented.

Don’t forget that you can check your City of Heroes account name by logging into your NCsoft Master account at https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/accountManagement.pl. You will be able to find all your NCsoft games accounts on the account management page and will be able to verify the name of all your City of Heroes accounts if you have several of them.

5- How do I know that my account name is conflicting with another account?

We will be emailing all users who will be affected by this change at the email address registered on your NCsoft Master Account. However, emails sometimes don’t reach their destination so we recommend you keep in mind that you may need to “EU” before your account name if your game login fails. See 4- above.

6- Can previous bonus codes (Good vs Evil Edition for instance, or a costume code, etc) still be applied after the serverlist has been unified?

We have endeavored to have serial codes continue to work as they have before Global Server Access. However, it is possible that some codes may be affected as part of the transition. If a code fails to apply to your City of Heroes account, contact Customer Support (North American or European) and they will be able look into it. Please note that codes will still not be interchangeable. For instance, a European code will not be usable on a North American account or vice versa.

7- What about global handle in game? Will those be affected by name collisions?

Yes indeed. All European players with a global chat handle name collision will have their global handle changed to the name of the last character they log out with before Global Server Access is enabled. If the global handle still has a collision after the initial change, letters will continue to be dropped from the end of the name until no collision is present.

The European players that are affected by the chat handle collision will receive a global name change. This name change will only be offered to the players affected by the automatic name change.

Please note that character names will not be affected. We are merely unifying both server lists and as such, all characters will remain on their original server.

8- What are the advantages of a unified serverlist/Global Server Access?

The advantages are manifold and include the following:

• Access to 15 servers means more character slots if you have altitis.
• Access to the same Training room and the same Beta server so everybody gets the same treatment when it comes to trying out upcoming features or new builds.
• Better and easier interaction between our North American and European users not only on the City of Heroes forums but also the game servers.
• No need to update 2 different sets of clients now if you have a North American and a European account.


9- What happens to the global chat handles associated with trial accounts?


I order to minimize the impact of global handle renaming on full retail accounts; we will be renaming all global handles linked to trial accounts. Those global handles will be fully replaced with “Trial“ after Global Server Access has been implemented.

10- When can we expect a reactivation weekend in order to change our global handles?

The Reactivation will take place after Global server Access has been enabled between Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time (9:00 p.m. Eastern Time / 2:00 a.m. British Time / 3:00 Central European Time) and Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (2:59 a.m. Eastern Time / 7:59 a.m. British Time / 8:59 Central European Time). a free global handle token will be applied to all accounts affected by a global handle name collision. If you own 1 North American account and 1 European account with the exact same global handle, and one or both accounts have lapsed, the Reactivation weekend will allow you to change both global handles

so if I read this correctly, The NA side of the name conflicts will have nothing change?

Questions...

What if a player has accounts on both systems with the same account name/global?

Do they get a combined account name/global or are they stuck with two separate account/globals?

(This to some extent should be avoidable by checking clashes with the master account.)

Will out of subscription NA accounts that have been inactive for over 30 days count against the EU players making them name change?

........
What.
The.
Hell?

Why does the EU and the EU only get shafted with this?

Seriously, the hell with this man! That is NOT cool!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

even though I do not have an EU account the very last line of the FAQ got me thinking

Why is there no option for account merges? I have an old inactive US Account (Pre-City of Villains) and my current active EU Account. There is obviously no clash between EU and US account merges aside from the Global Handles. As such...

Suggestion #1: Allow all players to merge one EU account and one US account into a unified account, specifying which is the "primary" account that remains active. This way we can choose what our login name will be.

Additionally, I have no idea what my US Global Handle is! Or if it would clash, so...

Suggestion #2: A free reactivation weekend for US and EU before the List Merge to coincide with a new Global Name Rename. We can then use this time to create a junk Global Name.

Edited that for ya Tyger.

Tyger's post pretty much solves it. Rather than the current method.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I moved from US to EU when the EU launched. I know my account names and stuff are the same. I did character transfers - the whole lot. I have my shiny Passport badge. Can I get all my old toons back?

I hope, by the way, that they aren't going to open the Passport badge to everyone. To me, it's just like veteran's badges and shouldn't be something people can get. Just my two cents/pence on that though.

A: End of Summer seems like a fair time away from the announcement.

B: In the meanwhile, as Zombie Man states, if someone were to make a US global with my global name in a month's time, I'd be the one to lose it, having played in the beta from January 2005, because I have the sheer audacity to be an EU player?

C: Not even taking into account the chances of a long inactive, long dormant NA account holding claim to the name?

That ain't cricket.

And that is why 'Fairness' comes into accunt, Arcana, because why should someone who has been around for years lose out to someone who joined last month?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Arcana beat me to what I was just about to say, so...

Don't fret this. It'll all work out. It's happy fun stuff.
Feedback is fine, of course.
Tech... Don't worry... I did not just start a new account with your global name just to spite you!


Seriously though, I'm sure it'll work out fine.
I can say that I wouldn't mind seeing a big name purge take place before then.
Also... The only thing any of us should really be "upset" about is "by the end of the summer".
Hehe... I was only wondering if it'd happen before I20 or with I20, heehee... A little over-eager, I guess!

*fidgets*

Look at it this way:

Euro servers are the ones moving onto the NA list. It's totally fair to expect the EU accounts to have to change names if necessary.

If it were the other way around, it would be totally fair for the NA accounts to have to change.

Avatea's logic about the least number of people being affected is correct, as Arcana pointed out. The "If I can't have it, nobody can" way, or the "First come, first served" way involves twice as many people. In both instances, both parties in conflict would have to do something to either keep their name or change it. In the way NCSoft chose, only one side does. It makes sense for logistical purposes if anything.

If you really want something to hang your hats on, EU folk, you guys get 11 more servers worth of slots, while us NA folk only get 4 :P