Avatar Customer Transition to russian speaking forums and website, really?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Snikorts, Feb 23, 2018.

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  1. Helvig Ingvildsdottir

    Helvig Ingvildsdottir Avatar

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    I am sure there must have been a clear opt-in action. I am sure Portalarium would never break EU law by sharing the private data of their customers in the Baltics, whom everyone knows to have been members of the European Union and therefore under EU law for almost 14 years now! I trust this is a big misunderstanding and will be clarified very soon. @Berek said in another thread that they were looking into it.
     
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  2. evillego6

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    I couldn't find an opt-in/out option in my user account, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. It might exist somewhere, I just couldn't find it with a cursory look.

    As far as I'm aware, the recently passed EU laws regarding personal data protection do not go in to effect until May 24 of this year.

    I imagine any issues surrounding this were inadvertent.
     
  3. Helvig Ingvildsdottir

    Helvig Ingvildsdottir Avatar

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    No excuses. The directive mentioned by .rhavin has been around since October 24 1995. This directive is valid until May 25 this year, when the new EU data protection directive will become active.

    It can be read here in different languages (including Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian, but - big surprise! - not Russian): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31995L0046
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2018
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  4. StrangerDiamond

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    I agree its an important issue... thats why I first intended to support the team here because I'm starting to know them pretty well and I know this hadn't been predicted to cause a problem, once again according to Black Sun.

    There is a difference between a machine of a corporation with permanent lawyers and diplomatic relation and a crowd funded company. They are humans, they were told "hey you're going to have trouble giving service to the baltic states, you know the language, the customs... Black sun probably told them they had service representatives already speaking those languages, it all looked cool and dandy.

    Could portalarium hire a lawyer for 100k and make sure everything was in order ? Sure but you can see I'm sure that its not a pure mistake, because the trusted a company with a certain reputation.

    Is it possible that as humans they checked the wrong source for their reputation ? Is it possible that Black Sun was just a bit greedy and wanted a larger territory for the deal ?

    You see, its an issue, but it isn't so surprising that errors like this can happen because Portalarium is trying to save money with these kind of moves.

    I have no problem we discuss the ethics of it, but we're going into the vicious circle of pre-supposition.

    Remember that its our money that is being used to fix those legal problems, so any sensible human that want this game to keep on going is not going to lawyer them bro.

    Point errors yes, but not try to make the error sound like apocalyptic and force them to shell out legal money on a rush, without them having time to sit down and speak about it with Dallas.

    Dallas could have been in vacation for a week (I dunno just as an example) and you guys would have still waited a week to get a reply. Would it make a difference if it took two weeks legal wise ? The error was made, no amount of quickness is really going to remove any legal implication, I'm just glad Berek acknowledged first in this thread that it was perhaps fringe cases (which we clearly rejected as shallow logic) and then had the presence of spirit to go into a duplicate thread about it, not lock it, and say that indeed it was a problem they will be working on asap.

    Thats all we can ask of humans...
     
  5. Snikorts

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    I agree, lawyers would be worst case scenario. Potentially such move could kill whole SOTA project. Especially now, few weeks before release.
    Definitely we need answers and wise moves from Port. Hope they will reverse everything back, otherwise people will be pissed off and start to hire lawyers.
     
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  6. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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  7. dallas

    dallas Co-Founder Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Fellow Avatars,

    We deeply apologize for any disruptions the transition of customer support from our US operations to our international partners may have caused some of you. Our highest priority is for you to receive the best possible service, which we expect our international partners to be able to deliver more effectively for your region than our US-based operations can. In order for our international partners to be able to support you, as we have contracted them to do, they must be able to legally access the necessary customer account data.

    Portalarium, along with our international partners, strive to support all laws within the regions we service. We will explore the data privacy concerns some of you have expressed in this thread and should we discover any non-compliance with data privacy laws then we, along with our international partners, will act swiftly to achieve compliance.

    We are deeply appreciative of all of you, our generous backers from all regions of the world, without whose support Shroud of the Avatar would not exist! Our door will always be open to all players of Shroud of the Avatar, no matter where in the world you live, and along with our international partner's customer support, you can always contact our US-based customer support directly at support@portalarium.com.

    Appreciatively,
    Dallas

    ---
    COO/Founder Portalarium
     
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  8. Vodalian

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    I believe one issue should be addressed more clearly to prevent misunderstandings.

    While technical and legal issues can be handled, there is the concern about splitting up the community. The main site and the forums are a part of the gaming experience. It's reasonable to assume that only a minority would want to migrate to a separate site in their native language, unless they don't speak English at all. It's partly a question of quality and content, and more importantly a question about what we create and share together as a whole community.

    This access in my opinion need not be taken away just because new options for customer support are added. And people might not willingly make that trade off anyway.
     
  9. Weins201

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    I know this has not really affected me, but we have had "Russian" player since 2013 why was this transition needed?

    Sorry but I am just confused, was there a problem?

    Can I just be set back to the way it was seems like that would make a lot of players happy, as Black Sun move appears to just given Port a Black Eye?
     
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  10. StrangerDiamond

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    There's a difference between intention and action Weins... just re-read Dallas's post it is very clear, the intent was to improve service, the announcement was late and squeezed between a thousand other things : that is the intention behind the apology.

    Black sun might have a tarnished reputation, but it does not mean a void reputation.

    I don't see any problem, as long as @Vodalian 's concern is addressed everything else is green. The promise is no diminution in functionality, just customer service and store and ads.
     
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  11. Nexus-6

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    Current state:

    1. No Steam integration (no acces to account page).
    2. No trials (if you whant play game you must buy first).
    3. No possibility participate in teleton, sales...
    4. Broken in game functional - not worked map.
    5. In some country not possible make ANY payment...

    Yes, "everything else is green"... 2 week before release.
     
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  12. StripedCat

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    I think its not true.
     
  13. Warrior B'Patrick

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    Greetings all and @Berek, @dallas, @Lord British @DarkStarr . There was, and still is an easy solution to this MESS! Having partners and support areas in other countries is a great idea. Someone that understands the local area and speaks the language with localized forums is a great way to foster communities in other countries. BUT! Setting those up and letting us choose would have been a much better solution instead of transferring anyone with an IP in selected areas to a service that they have not chosen or do not want to go to. All accounts and direct access should be based on where they were created until a user opts in to be serviced by another region. I can only speak from my own experience being from America but many people do not understand the intricacies of relations in other countries. I was not aware of many of these until I started traveling abroad. I am now station in Azerbaijan and my access to my account that was started during the Kickstarter phase was recently migrated to Black Sun and not I have no access to my account page or Weekly updates. It automatically re-directs me to www.sota-game.com based on my IP. I can still access the forums as long as I am already logged into them but if i log out then I HAVE to open my VPN to be able to log back in. This also means that I can not participate in any telethons, or character submissions, or anything else that requires a login to do. With the game going public in 14 days this is an unfortunate event that is going to play out in public and hurt sales. I love this game and have been a part of it since 2013. I have followed Lord British from when I first meet him in Sandy Springs, GA when he was going to the game stores to talk about Ultima III. I want this game to do great but not resolving this now before the game goes public is going to hurt sales and possibly the future of the game.

    Please make which server, access point, store, and all other connections to Shroud of the Avatar a choice
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2018
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  14. Warrior B'Patrick

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    Greetings @StripedCat, you said:
    I can verify that this is true. For me it is because I do not read Russian. For some it is because they do not want to be moved to a Russian based company. For others there seems to be legal reasons for not entering your user name and password. But for what ever reason if you can not log into your account you can not get to the Add On Store to contribute your $5 equivalent you can not participate in the telethon.
     
  15. StrangerDiamond

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    Everything else is green because his concerns addresses all concerns... *sigh* they need to offer the choice to access both sites, if black sun indeed made a point of getting all the traffic, then they will obviously have to review those terms so they abide to international laws and standards. Sure, 2 weeks before release, people hire other people.
     
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  16. StripedCat

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    Oh. Right, I viewed the position from the point of view of the inhabitant of Russia.
     
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  17. Humanexperiment

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    we need access to the official website
     
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  18. ChavaiotH

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    13 days until release and still no answer, no sulution.
    I'm starting to panic.
    Anything was so nice and then happens this.
     
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  19. majoria70

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    I agree please don't force players of this game to use the black sun site. Just work it out. It should be a choice. This is really sad to hear all of the problems people are having. I am really sorry. I just want to picket for them and I'm not joking. So here goes: *give them back to us*, *holds up picket sign*.
     
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  20. basalygin

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    If i do not talk about dishonesty and incompetence black sun.
    I want to say that you can not give people into slavery, which supported sota from the very early access.

    Please provide switch for old avatars or something like this.
     
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