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

Problem is that support@bs-gp.com does not reply to my questions

 

Greetings @Berek, The problem is that I have been migrated to Black Sun purely because I am currently in Azerbaijan. I am a us citizen stationed in another country, my account was created on a US server and transferred to a Russian company without any agreement from me. What happens when I come home? Will I still be linked to the Russian company even though my IP has changed back to a US one? What if I have been advised by my superiors that I am not to have any links with Russian servers? Do I loose all access to the game or its support services? Who do I contact about a refund for ALL my purchases over the years I have been a supporter? For that matter look at the difference between the www.shrouldoftheavatar.com web site and the www.sota-game.com website and tell me how it is the same support and information especially since I do not read Russian? The reason the topic is derailing is because the only answer to this seems to be "Contact Black Sun Support for all your questions"

 

Questions not answered by the FAQ;

• If one pledged as a Founder / Royal Founder to sufficient tier. How do one access ones Special Rewards page to claim ones Name Entry reward? like Name on Tombstone, Domesday etc.
• If one pledged as a Founder / Royal Founder to sufficient tier. How do one access ones Blade of the Avatar digital novel?
  
• If one has purchased a POT and ones Form is unlocked (through ticket or upgrade) then how do one access the POT Form page?
• If one has had rewards from Telethons how do one see which one are entitled to? (This is important for emotes etc. )
• When the next Postmortem is live how do one contribute to be able to join in on the stretch goals?
• If one pledged to high enough tier to get physical rewards and already have the International Shipping thing, how does one change/submit ones address? Also who will deliver those physical goods?
• If one pledged / bundled to high enough tier for Dev+ access, how does that function through the BS page, are there a Dev+ section coming there as well?
• Same as above when heraldry/CoA goes live.
• Same as above for custom head.
• If ones account has been transferred to BS and one sell ones account to someone living in the USA using US internet provider etc. Will the new owner be locked to the BS store and the BS site/forums?
• Same as above but with an EU/Asian/etc buyer.
• @Cerus are what happened here the same plan going forward for Travian and EU players? With transfers and sites etc.
• it was said that the store would open up during postmortems does that include the BS store?
• The same as above but for postmortem sales.
• Who do one contact about opting out due to being a "fringe case" when Portalarium support refers one to BS support and BS support refers one to Portalarium support? For instance a foreign national from outside the zone temporarily stationed in the zone and thus transferred. Or for instance if ones country is currently in conflict with Russia, like economic sanctions preventing purchases.
• Was this transfer of accounts a one time deal? Or are nationals from EU/US/Asia/Africa/etc at risk of transfer if they visit the site and/or game when temporarily in that zone? For instance a US citizen on holiday in Latvia visiting the site and playing the game while in that country using a local ISP?
• Vice versa of the above. Players in the BS zone traveling outside it.
• If one is in the BS zone and play in QA and want to contribute QA bugs how do one do that? Also how to qualify for the QA lottery.
• When the Raffle starts again, how do one see if one has won when there is no access to the Special Rewards page?

Ok that should be enough as a preliminary. Please note that I can easily continue and that I haven't even touched on the whole EULA / CoS thing yet.

 

It does affect us. We have been talking to and playing with these players for years now. They are part of our community. They need some good answers and they need to not be taken away from this community.

 

Seems like they switched player accounts before Black Sun was ready for it.

"For customer support in these territories, please be sure to contact Black Sun at support@bs-gp.com."

I have the impression, that doesn't help.
Please, Portalarium, don't let your players in this situation!

 

Hmmm, is my data available for Black Sun to access? So much remains nebulous.

 

Interesting question? Do they have everyone's data or do they obtain it only when one logs in thru their "Proxy" IPs?

 

I cannot look at news on the website! The website the Black Sun does not update news, updates spread with lateness for couple of days and not all information is displayed!
it is inconvenient to me to use a proxy and other programs to be aware of news of a game which I played more than a year!!!
for a year of existence of the website it was not improved! unless removed plagiarism!

 

Just compare these two news feeds from Port and BSP. (I had to use VPN to access official site).



Lates news on BSP page are dated to 23th February about changes in R51.

 

That's what I mean. No information updates. The guys from BS don't even know about the Meretz app . All new players questions on the social network vk.com are responded by our Guild the Shadow people.

 

That stance is unacceptable, and attempting to divide a community is utterly unprofessional for anyone claiming the title 'Community Manager'. The decisions about how to handle this are being made by Portalarium, it affects people in our community who we know, like and play the game with. Don't you DARE try this approach, it's underhanded in the worst possible way. The community is all of us, and when Portalarium makes decisions we think wrong, we will challenge them - and if all you can do is hide the conversation or try bullying us into stopping (and your 'asking to refrain' is just a passive/aggressive "stop talking about this issue or we will stop you doing it") , your reputation nosedives yet again. You can mange this situation by proper and open discussion and explaining what is happening and why - not by papering over the cracks, pushing it under the carpet and muttering at your customer base.

 

Great thanks to you guys and to all others who support us here, without you nobody would ever talk with us.
Spoon this is great questions list. Most of them technical it is good.

But I would like to talk about the Ethical part. This part is highly avoidable by Devs, and I understand why, and I will describe to all shortly(this time):
So in 3 weeks to release we have transferred (yes we are small part of players in overworld scale but we exist) to the services which are NOT EXIST or MADE SO BAD that anyone of us never pay a penny for Sota if Sota global page looks like the place where you Devs transferred us. Place where you send us, made by guys who have bad reputation as hell in Russian gamedev industry, the only games they made by themselves are different poker, their only reputation is working in Akella, and Akella CEO claims them in incompetence, financial unclearness and violation of IP rights. Such amazing situation ---- This is how it looks for us, may be anyone can say why we wrong if it is all true?

 

Oh man! I tried to stay out of this as I thought @Spinok had this. @Berek bet you're glad that I wasn't in Austin last night. You guys might have had to drop the banhammer on me in person had I realized what you guys are allowing to happen to our Russian community. Have I been kicking you guys in the butts for the past three years for nothing!?
Come on, this stuff is important. I applaud the strides you've made in performance and stability however you owe it to the folks on the tech side who've been breaking their backs to make this happen not to hamstring them on the infrastructure side. We are so close to being successful please don't do this to yourselves.

 

I hadn't thought about this, but for anyone doing anything for the US Government that requires a clearance, you need to be very careful should you find yourself in a position like @Warrior B'Patrick is in right now. Having financial transactions linked to an entity in Russia against your will could affect your ability to renew or acquire clearance. At minimum, it'll force a few questions and an annoying investigation about, of all things, a video game you played. Is it likely to be anything more than an annoyance? Probably not. But it certainly could.

@Warrior B'Patrick please make sure you spend the time now to get the answers you need regarding this matter. Document any correspondence you receive with them about this, and think through how to explain how a video game migrating your account automatically, against your will, led to any connections that come up. It's worth going through now, at least just briefly in your head, just in case it gets blown WAY out of proportion in the future.

Good luck with this, please keep us posted, and thanks for your service!

 

@dallas I'd like to know if my data has been accessed by or is accessible to Black Sun. This is most concerning to me.

 

As I understand they get your account info when you log in through their website for a first time. First login is also your "registration" date (even if there was no EULA agreement or something like this that needs confirmation from your side).
They have your login, email, password and purchase data from official webstore. Pledge rewards are not shown (probably not shared with BSP).
Looks like only payment option in their webstore is your creditcard, so they will get also that if you will purchase something.

BTW, BSP webstore is half empty compared to official store.

I really don't understand why we are still redirected to BSP site. It will take months to polish user experience and solve all problems that people have.

 

I've told my friend about this awesome game. Told him there is a trial.

He registered at the Russian sota page, but there is no game client to download.
The client link leads to buy the game link.


He used his login and password on another machine with sota client installed and receives this message


My question.
Is there a trial or am I a liar to my friend?
Maybe there is no trial for blacksun accounts?

 

It seems what they attempted to do to help the overseas customers is having a rough start. I'm pretty sure they will get it all figured out. I just hope they get it figured out sooner than later because this could hurt their reputation.

 

WOW.... just wow... I caught this thread late and I am shocked. I feel sorry for you guys. I def side on with the people over there in EU entities. Part of me also realizes that nobody really had this issue knowing their data, money and info was sitting on servers from the start in the USA. I think people would be concerned about the NSA snooping too. Every bit that comes into the USA is captured and if you are not a US citizen backed by our constitution, that data can be looked at and stored for ever (It actually is and no laws of your country are in effect once those bits and bytes hit US soil).

 

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The inadequate communication is what is hurting their reputation.

When we humans are in a situation where we don't know what is going on and our wetware kicks in then our biases like Loss Aversion will override our reasoning and affect our dopamine levels and if we perceive the situation as a threat to person or property then the catecholamine production will increase. With that increase we will become less rational and more prone to seeing false positive patterns of threats or malfeasance even if there is a lack of evidence to support such conclusions. (Which is a very smart thing from a survival/evolutionary point of view - while not as good in modern information societies where we usually need more of our thinking power to get out of trouble).
This is very thoroughly researched and part of Crisis Management and Crisis Communication.

So even in situations where one is uncertain about the info one wants to give out then there is a need to keep the communication going.
This since otherwise people will most certainly soon prepare for the worst case scenario which is most definitely worse than whatever was the cause of the crisis in the first place.
Where silence will be interpreted as confirmation of ones fears, founded or unfounded.

This then spreads in circles from those directly affected, to those indirectly affected (friends etc), to those not affected.

If you look upthread you can already see totally unaffected players expressing real fears about what this means for them or their assets personally even if there is little to suggest such fears are warranted. That means that it has already spiraled way beyond the directly affected.

That is not a good occasion for continued silence and hoping things will quiet down.