Discussion: One game, one global server access

One thing I'd like to see us concentrate more on is the idea that the players themselves might help our EU friends. Not only can we contact the holders of the global for you, but some of us would be willing to give up globals too.

For example, I won't give up my Jordan Yen global at all, but my second account doesn't matter to me nearly as much. When the merge happens, please feel free to PM me anytime. I, and many others like me, would be happy to help.

It's the kind of community we have after all

Now that is an EXCELLENT idea.

I know that I would appreciate it if the US Shadowe were contacted on my behalf and asked to change his global if he is willing to do so at the time the merge happens.

If not, then I'm not overly bothered, but it would be nice.

just for the record here....

Discrimination is a word.

It has a dictionary definition, go look it up. Sometimes it does 'refer' to matters of racial or ethnic discrimination, but that's not what the word itself means. Hence why we add the words Racial or Ethnic.

When I brought up discrimination earlier it was as a word. At it's basic level the word discrimination means....

"treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"

I just grabbed that snippet from Dictionary.com

Or from Oxford English....

"the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people"

And yes before you go look and come back it does then say "especially on the grounds of race , age, or sex" but it doesn't say EXCLUSIVELY on the grounds of etc....

So using as a word. And using those definitions..... it ABSOLUTELY is the right word to use in this instance.

We as a COX playerbase are split into 3 groups. Those that have EU accounts, those that have US accounts, and those who have both.

A decision has been made, whatever the criteria, that affects one of these groups more than the others. So like definition 1, we're being treated as a group, rather than as an individual.

Hence why we don't like it. Hence why we are using the word Discrimination.

Notice when I quoted MLK in a much earlier post I didn't post anything about the racial message he was trying to send. Just the "Aren't we all created Equal" bit. Because as paying COX customers should we all be treated equally?

The Veterancy method proposed bases it's criteria on the Individual, because everyone will have a different length of service. Hence it's NON discriminatory.

Now I agree also that to drag up EULA's and courts and laws etc is silly as to be honest nobody is going to even try to take this to court, it probably wouldn't stand up and it is to be honest just a game we're talking about.

And whatever happens I'll still be playing and won't be kicking up a stink in the European courts. LOL

Just asking on the off chance that its possible, though I seriously doubt that it is; could we not have a system where the person who has held the global handle for the longest time gets to keep it and the later claimer is the one amended instead? That way although the US servers still have a clear advantage due to the later start of EU servers, there is at least a chance of EU people keeping their contested handles.

I see alot of people mentioning why someone from the EU is bothered by losing their global and that the EU will get an extra 11 servers where as the NA only get 4 to compensate. What they are failing to see is you already had11 servers to our 4 for 7 years and since then we have made our bed and for most are laying in it quite comfortably.

I was not one that wanted a merged list, and never screamed high and low about it, I was one that screamed high and low that Going Rogue was not going to hit shelves in the EU.
This was my way to increase our server population, not a server merge. Our shelves in the EU are populated by other MMO games and we have nothing that screams play CoX over here.

Now NCsoft missed that boat and in compensation we get a merged server list, fine I thought maybe this will increase our population, but then we get hit with the NCsoft baseball bat yet again and told don't get over excited here, this isn't a merge after all. All we are doing is letting you onto to out main server list and you got to pay for it, pay for it with your Global name.

I am now one that is very much dead set against being shipped over, and would like to thank NCsoft for their offer but No thanks, I would like to stay as we are please.

And there was me thinking 1 Fish was bad enough, I didn't even dare consider there being 2

Sorry, but everything that you have made inside CoX is considered property of NCsoft as well.

They are also allowed to change, rename and delete said content whenever they want.

In this case any discrimination claim would probably be more based on the concept of Ethnic Origin - i.e. European. It is illegal to unfairly discriminate against a person or identiable group of persons on the grounds covered by the act.

There is also another potential legal pitfall in regards changing the account name as this has the risk of inadvertantly granting access to on user's account to a different user.
Take the example
Player A has a Eu account with account name Account
Player B has a NA account with account name Account
By chance both have chosen the same password - not as unlikely as you may think
Now following the proposed change
Player A's account is renamed to EuAccount
However player A is unaware of this change and logs in to what he believes is his account instead he ends up in player B's account and could adversely affect it - either by deleting existing characters or by inappropriate actions causing player B to be banned.
Now whilst it would currently be possible for player A to do this by logging on to the US servers half of the security battle is not making the account name known and such an action would be more likely to be a deliberate action on the part of player A and as such we should expect NCSoft to investigate and take appropriate action. By making this change NCSoft increases the risk of this happening by accident and I very much doubt if the US player B would be particularly impressed to find all his characters deleted or himself banned due to no fault of his own.

It would be much better to as you have already said prevent the creation of account names or globals which match anyone else on either current server farm - and that really should have been done BEFORE making this announcement. That way there is no increase in the number of affected accounts.

In the case of conflicts betwwen accounts on the same global account grant a rename which can be applied to any account on the same gloabl account for both globalname and account name - If it isn't used before the merge change both.

After that give preference to Active full accounts first Inactive trial accounts last - to be honest I don't know which way I'd go between inactive full and active trial - probably go for the inactive full to keep it - the active trial can become an active full after all.
If both are inactive or both trial come the merge change both.

That should handle the vast majority of problem conflicts - I'd suggest if the number remaining is small after that contact both - either may wish to change anyway - if there is still a conflict after that base it on veteran time at the end of the day it is the fairest means.

In the end this merge is something that many player myself included want to see happening there are a number of benifits - access to a larger number of servers being the major one especially for many EU players, however there are others and I suspect players particularly from the Montreal are might swell the population of Vigilance. We recognise that there are issues with name conflicts what we have a problem with is the way in which these conflicts are being addressed.
Most of us will accept these changes even if we aren't happy but that doesn't excuse taking actions which alienate a significant proportion of the player base especially when they are delivered as au fait d'accomplis.

This global name change policy has clearly demonstrated that EU Players are considered second class.

This policy would never be enacted if it was to the detriment of NA players rather than EU.

I'm personally not very attached to my global name but even so, the way in which global name clashes are to be handled leaves a bitter taste.

My advice to those unhappy -

Focus on the "happy customers both keep paying money and encourage others to join the game" strategy. From a system management point, they think they've got solid reasons for what they did (and the worst part is - they do). Show that there are other reasons that are more important, that make it a better choice for NC Soft to go the extra mile to use the veteran status.

Got a response from support regarding removal of expired trial account. This ofcourse was not possible, then again my query wasnt read, cause i was assured i can always change my password whenever i want...

Funny that the word password wasnt even IN my question.

So trying to get it escelated.

Since this announcement i havent played CoH, i am not planning to quit, and ill prolly come back to playing regulary, but atm the sour taste in my mouth, just makes me not want to logon. Really hoping SOME comprimise is made, but to be honest, i expect nothing to change.

ps: the new login security is the most stupid idea on ncsoft site ever. It offers practically no extra security, only hassle. And i work with securing computer networks and data storage. Then again this is an NCSOFT issue not a CoH/paragon studios issue.