Discussion: One game, one global server access

What hes saying is that the highest potential for clashes is players who have accounts on both sides and use the same global. There are more players based mainly in Europe who have an NA account than the other way around.

This is probably hyperbole, since we can't possibly know without the data whether thats the case, or by pure random luck many globals are shared across the pond by different people.

I actually think LESS people would be affected if the NA server lists merged into the EU as opposed to the other way around, if nothing but for the fact that theres gonna be some truth in this exageration, how many NA players have made an EU account to come see us using the same global?

While how many of us EU account holders are in that position?

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

This is the problem I see, most of the conflicts are going to be with the same accountholder, thus they are not conflicting with a NA player. They are conflicting with thier own account they had in place for whatever reason, so thus a "smaller" player base is affected, as I am sure NCSoft can see the ip address for these accounts and recognize they are the same. Thus the reactivation weekend will make this pool of conflicts even smaller.
If any person on that side of the pond uses Necromanis as their global, please send me a PM and lets work it out.

It would be down to the courts to determine that - also whether the item is virtual or not has no relevance but in any event that is unlikely to be the basis of any possible claim.

How is it offensive - simple I am European I am being treated differently from a US account holder - I am offended or if the legislative changes pass X is European, I can identify with X, X is being treated differently from a US account holder - I and/or X is offended.

What I am doing is not making such a claim I am bringing to NCSoft's attention that this action risks making them vulnerable to others doing so. It costs little for them to take legal advice as to this now but if they fail to do so and someone does make such a claim then they risk considerably more. It may well be that their legal department advise them that the process of defending their actions on this could end up costing more than implementing a more equitable solution but in any event they need to take legal advice on this.

Guess what! it would be much more likely for a group to look at a class action on this and not take it through the small claims. In practice I doubt it would reach the stage of anyone wishing to mount a legal claim but there is always the risk.

In any event the issue is nothing to do with the actual process of merging databases - there is nothing about that which requires inequitable treatment of customers from different locales - especially given prior actions involving a similar process which was resolved more equitably.

Oh and solicitors don't waste their time - they charge for it. Whether they win or lose they get paid. It is so much better for matters to be resolved equitably before there is any risk of legal action.


Oh and just to make it clear here is the relevant section of legislation

Race Relations Act 1976 amended by The Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003
Part IIIGoods, facilities, services and premisesSection 20

20F1. . . provision of goods, facilities or services.E+W+S.(1)It is unlawful for any person concerned with the provision (for payment or not) of goods, facilities or services to the public or a section of the public to discriminate against a person who seeks to obtain or use those goods, facilities or services—.
(a)by refusing or deliberately omitting to provide him with any of them; or.
(b)by refusing or deliberately omitting to provide him with goods, facilities or services of the like quality, in the like manner and on the like terms as are normal in the first-mentioned person’s case in relation to other members of the public or (where the person so seeking belongs to a section of the public) to other members of that section..
(2)The following are examples of the facilities and services mentioned in subsection (1)—.
(a)access to and use of any place which members of the public are permitted to enter;.
(b)accommodation in a hotel, boarding house or other similar establishment;.
(c)facilities by way of banking or insurance or for grants, loans, credit or finance;.
(d)facilities for education;.
(e)facilities for entertainment, recreation or refreshment;.
(f)facilities for transport or travel;.
(g)the services of any profession or trade, or any local or other public authority..


The relevant sections being 1b and 2e

Any such claim would be made under English law in the English courts that being the applicable law of the contract made between EU account holders and NCSoft Europe.
If necessary an action could be pursued in the US courts following such a judjement by virtue of agreements under the New York Convention

Think you need to read it again, I'm reading it as EU players will have more NA accounts than NA have EU accounts.

That nugget grew wings and can fly now.

Where have I referred to nationality - where I have made point I have referred to the grounds being on the basis of Ethnicity - in any event the RRA also prohibits discrimination on the grounds of geographic location so that would be a moot point and even you surely cannot argue that Europe is not a geographic location.

As to your point regarding jurisdiction the contract in place states it is made under English Law and as such except where any part would be illegal in any other jurisdiction the local laws will recognise that both parties accept that the terms of the contract should be interpreted under English Law and not the local law. There are reciprical acts in place with many countries such that any judgement made in one jurisdiction will be upheld in another and even in locations lacking such reciprocity there are still intermational conventions which usually mean local courts will make a summary judgement requiring the payment of damages or some other remedy to the original court.

The whole point of this is not to try to raise an action against NCSoft but rather to make it clear that the proposed means of determining global and account names following the merge is seen as being inappropriate and even offensive by a significant number of EU players and hopefully push them towards looking again at alternative solutions. The whole point being that whatever solution is finally identified it must be applied "in the like manner and on the like terms" to both EU and NA player accounts.

I did. I have. But honestly I just thought Toffy was asking a question based on the Eula.

He even started with "My Question is" and ended with "??"

Since then everyone has spent 5 or 6 pages debating racial and ethnic discrimination regardless of how many times people (including myself) have come on and said that it has nothing to do with that. And to be honest there's been ALOT of trolling in there simply to create an argument rather than anything meaningful.

We all KNOW that this is nothing to do with racial or ethnic origin, so lets stop banging on that drum already.

I've always said and maintained that this is to do with discrimination between the account groups. And the Veterancy is the non-discriminatory way forward.

Are people REALLY that petty as to try and lump the veterancy into discrimination on a technicality? Are we really going to start grouping people into which badge they've got? Creating 50 odd different badge groups just to make a point?

The veterancy principle takes away the geographical boundaries and the account boundaries and puts the deciding factor squarely on the individual and on a basis of comparison between individuals. Kinda like going to a job interview where you will be assessed on your individual merit.

That's always been the point I've been TRYING to put across.

Can we please drop all the ethnic and racial stuff. Please?

Not to be offensive, but how you take my words is up to you. If you want to be offended by them be my guest. That isn't how they were intended. And I refuse to go all mealy-mouthed and weasel-worded simply to spare the feelings of someone who obviously isn't thinking objectively ("objectively" being an optional filler term).

Please reread some of my other posts on this. I sympathize and agree with your concerns. HOWEVER, running around making accusations, insulting the devs and expecting nothing but the worst of them while projecting DOOOOOMMMM! scenarios is not "questioning a decision". It's being a jerk simply because you feel you've been slighted. (Note: Not saying you Fish. Using "you" generically.)

In a word. No.

In a sentence. I'm not trolling and feel no legitimate reason to alter my rhetorical style simply because you dislike it.

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What exactly does this have to do with the fact that the decision was made, originally, simply because the overall EU database was smaller? Are you trying to intimate that the US database would be smaller than the EU database were there not a lot of EU players there and legacy accounts that swapped to EU?

I find that somewhat unlikely. Not impossible. Unlikely.

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No. The same amount of people would be affected either way with a straight-up merge. A nick collision is a nick collision. Period.

It's simply less work overall to prune a smaller database.

Again, not supporting this. Just saying.

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Point 1: You state that I may be taking your use of words in the wrong context and yet you previously questioned someone who EXPLAINED their meaning of the word "Descrimination". Kettle and black spring to mind there

Point 2: By making snidey comments and breaking serious opinions down to have a snipe at each sentense is in no way constructive in my eyes. If you have something to say then say it, or at least if you're going to break down somebody's post then point out your own constructive comments to each line.

Maybe taking your time and thinking about your replies in a more friendly manner would cause less offense?

Nope. Please tell me how you came to that conclusion from what I said, so I can avoid expressing myself in such unclear ways in the future.

What I tried to say is:

The total number of NA accounts and EU accounts is not relevant to this reasoning. The non-conflicting accounts will not be affected at all, neither EU accounts or NA accounts, so we can ignore them when we're assessing the damage.

What is relevant is the subset of accounts with conflicting names. That's where the damage happens. And in that subset, there are three sub-subsets, namely the sub-subset "EU primary account conflicting with own NA secondary" (call this sub-subset S1), and the sub-subset "NA primary conflicting with own EU secondary" (S2 for short).

The third sub-subset "EU player with same global name as another NA player" (S3) is a constant; no matter who wins the conflict, in each such pair there will be one shafted player. So S3 is also ignored when assessing the damage.

If an EU global name lose the conflict, then the sub-subset S1 gets shafted, because their primary global name is changed, while the S2 is not as shafted because their secondary global name is changed.

Conversely, if an NA global name lose the conflict, then S2 gets shafted when their primary global is changed, while S1 is less so because their secondary global is changed.

Since I believe that S1 is greater than S2 - i.e. there are more EU players with secondary NA accounts, than there are NA players with secondary EU accounts - more players will be shafted if EU global names lose the conflict, than would be shafted if NA global names lost the conflict.

Now, NCsoft will try to rectify this by having a reactivation weekend prior to the change and a global name change on self-induced conflicts, which is very decent. But my point is that less accounts would be affected, and perhaps a reactivation and global name change wouldn't even be needed, if it was NA accounts that lost global name conflicts.

At least "GadgetDonEU" won't be such a stretch for people to correlate back with you

Since you asked I think it deserves a small answer... though it has been answered several times earlier in the thread...

Yes I rather keep my global and 4 servers. (I believe others agree with this sentiment). I guess it is the fact that I only play on one as it is.

Anyway this legal stuff is a wee bit too much for my taste.

Correct. Thanks.

The point is that an American company has been forced to comply to a ruling of a governing body of the European Union, including building a special version of their software and pay quite a hefty fine, despite the American company being non-European.

That's just the login name. However, if there's a conflict about @GadgetDon, and he is Euro, and he first logs in on the character DonCocky, he will no longer be @GadgetDon. He will be @DonCocky, unless there already is a @DonCocky - then he will be @DonCock.

I've survived for six years on four servers. I mostly play on one, rarely visit another, and the two last I've never even touched (granted, they're the French and German servers, I don't understand German and could possibly order a fish for dinner in French without poisoning myself).

How would 11 more servers that I wouldn't visit make me happy?

Seriously.

For me, it would be a bonus having access to the US Server Lists (and more specifically the US Test and Beta servers).

If I lose my Global Name? Well, I'd be surprised as I'll be sorting out my ex-US account thanks to the reactivation/rename so the only real option for me to lose it is someone being malicious.

However, I can understand the frustration that some of my EU brethren have and if it does turn out that a significant number of EU players will be affected. So how about it, what percentage of EU customers are going to be affected by this? (all that has been said so far is "this was the lowest number of users that would be affected by this account name change" and nothing about the Global Name change at all)

The other thing that has still to be addressed is Global Channels (I have PM'd Zwillinger with this a few days ago, but no response yet). What's happening with conflicts on Global Channels (or are all our channels being wiped?)

So, TL;DR...

1. Please release the percentage of EU accounts that will be affected by a Global Name conflict, assuming same Globals are chosen post-merge? (so we can be speaking from an informed position)
2. What is happening to EU Global Channels? Will they cease to be, or otherwise how will conflicts be handled?

At which point he gets a global name change token so he can change it to @WhateverHeWants, so the 5 minute weird name isn't really valid.

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

And that's OK, IF the person he's losing his global name to is a regular player and payer who has been playing the game longer than he has. I'd also accept that. But if he gets a mandatory rename because of someone who played in 2007 on a trial account for two weeks or got given the game in 2008 and only played his inclusive month and hasn't even played the game since, even on free reactivation weekends, or even, in my possible case, played a two week trial on the US servers and I could lose my global name to my own inactive trial account then I'm sure he'd and I would be mightily pissed off, and IMO justifiably so.

And the fact that Microsoft has offices in LOTS of different European countries.

I am not saying that NCsoft are guilty or innocent of "discrimination"... it all depends on your point of view.

I don't think that they are guilty, purely on the basis that we are still being able to play the game, service hasn't been cut off for us, and that our characters/accounts are staying the same (essentially).

THE ONLY CHANGES ARE IN

1) An account name IF there was someone else who had a US account under the same name (note: the player isn't themselves able to change their login account name normally, so this cannot be viewed as "discrimination". Nor is the player able to "delete" accounts either).

2) The Global Name... ok this one i can understand why people are getting "all uptight" about. I wasnt even the 1st person on the EU side to use my global. But it one that I am generally known as even out of game (and its been my nickname for about half my life). But i can also understand some technical problems that can arise from merging two databases

side note: If you have EVER undergone a server merge in other games, one side loses out, and its the one that is joining the "named" server. Again, this is to reduce the chance of technical problems (typically the screwing up of both databases). I would imagine the same would happen over here. If Defiant merged into Union, the Defiant characters would be the ones more likely to be renamed over the "Union" characters. Flip side: If the Defiant database was LARGER than the Union database, the reverse would happen, Union characters would be affected instead of the Defiant ones.

Shrugs, personally I think that some people could do with a "rename" anyway, if anything just to what people tend to call them.

*dubs himself: CaffeineGangrel*

*edit* Now if Paragon Studios pull through and do a "global name wipe" of inactive trial accounts (at least), and long term Paid Accounts (1 year ish) then that would be marvellous. Not holding my breath, but at least its *something* towards resolving the whole problem.

I didn't question them. I stated that I felt the use of the word in the negative connotation was unjustified.

You evidently missed something here. Snide comments are just about the only type I make.

As for my posting style of dissection. Your objection is that you dislike it because you think it's aimed at deconstructing the argument it replies to.

Very good. Note that I'm deconstructing the argument and not the person as you've been doing with me here (and dragging the conversation off-topic).

Whether you like this style of retort is completely immaterial.

And maybe you shouldn't assume that I'm NOT taking my time OR thinking about my replies. And again, the offense here lies wholly in your mind.

Howsabout we just save time here and I stop responding to your efforts to try and label me a troll and we get back to the discussion at hand?

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