Anet does not care about Australian players

Yes this is a rant! Please ignore if you only wish to counter rant!

Its not a flame or meaning to insults, Its Constructive criticism.

I believe Anet/Guildwars DOES not care about Australian players, Why?

Sometimes the reasons are many but I'll stick to the main ones.

Ignoring the fact that there will never be a "Australia currently has favour" notice, The game might appear to accept Aussies. Even ignoring the timezone hassels.
The game is still wonderful, I'm not a disgruntled player normally. I've played since the servers went live, in a guild that was created back in the Beta. I still play a monk and a Wammo, even considering there the two single classes to have almost an entire skill nerf! (Try and remember the early smite/general monk nerf).
But lately Anet I aint feeling the love.

Reasons

The Collectors Edition for Australian and New Zealand players were delayed. Now shipping and all that packing and product failures and *yadda yadda*. A deadline is still a deadline!
So the CE's were sent, and the 'early access' extra was the next element to get screwed over. Why? If you Pre-ordered you were lucky to get one. This isn't fully Anets fault, mainly greedy retail sellers. But it was aided by the product delay to Australian and New Zealand players!

The Ingame store. Where we can't even VIEW prices in AUS$.
Lucky they don't offer any hard(real-life) merchandise it would most likely get sent to Europe!
I wanted to ask why we couldn't view prices in home region currencies, so I posted at forums, seeking answers. When I revieced only guesses I thought its about time for 'assistance'. I NOW FEAR THAT WORD!
So I went to the playNC site did the login detail thing and noticed I had to verifiy my e-mail first. I sent the Verifiy code off to my email.
Only to find that the code that I was to use for activiation was missing, I guess some hotmail glitch, I tired again same result. Lucky the activation email has a support email should any problems arise. I sent off a query, only to get a reply saying they no longer use that 'Support' email address, they supplied!
So after 4 email tries and failed attempts I just created a second playNC account. Oh yeah ANET update your damn support options.
I was able to post and recieve a ticketed 'Incident'.
2days later, I went from 'Support Team' to 'Game Support Department' to 'European support team' (Interesting point since Australia and Europe are so close!)
Where a nice guy ignored my question (Why do I have to view prices in Pounds when I live in Australia, and we use the Australian Dollar? ) With a almost irrelevant reply of "Unfortunately, we do not accept payments in Australian dollars at this time. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes."
I understand that they wouldn't accept payment in AUS$, my question was why do I have to view prices as pounds?!! I guess I could or should blame the language barrier. Or maybe I was to vague. :headdesk:

Australia and New Zealand default server being European!
Cause you know in a country that speaks english, that is a colony from England, and located somewhere in the big blue ocean near Southeast Asia/ Oceania, Its only logical to place us in a server that doesn't assist our timezone. And a Server that is populated with people speaking afew different languages.
I know there are english districts, but try telling that to poor Joe Ele, in a guild where 85% speak french! No wonder soo many jump to USA server.
But then to find out that Anet classes Australia and New Zealand as European for support and account purposes! ZOMFG.

Where is the love, Anet..... Where is the love!


/RANT

IGN Roshi Ikkyu

This game need many people to play to work well. It is good that not every country get own district. Even Finland not got own district and english district is default one.

Not to mention there nightfalls thing there sending will likely not reach us, in Australia or New Zealand either, which means we miss out on 1 free slot, and the right to access Nightfalls early yet a again!.

Yeah can't wait for that!

I agree that accounts created in the Australian/New Zealand region should be put in the American servers, even though I have a biased view on the US (give us high oil prices will you....*shakes angry stick*). European timezones just don't suit us at all.

And I'd also like to comment on the CE as well... I bought Factions about a month after it came out, because I wanted the price to drop a little first ($95 AUS 0_o). But about a week later, CE was finally released here, and I got severely pissed off (even offered to pay for half my friends CE that he was about to buy, so I could have the free extras...). And just to finish off, why do we miss out on Pre-Orders? I want pre-order stuff too... It's not my fault my ancestors were Irish convicts...

Isn't Finland part of Europe?

Anyhow, if you really want to get into it, there's no Canadian servers either. Canada is a larger buyer of video games than Australia. Although technically "america" means (as in actual meaning) all of North and South America.

So let me get this straight though. You're mad because you have to make the conversion from Aus$ to Pounds? Well I hate to break it to you, but now you know how Canadians feel most of the time. We are almost always seeing things priced in US$ and so have so do the conversion almost all the time for most online stores. When I go to the GW store, it gives prices in US$ (even though I'm on European servers), which can be annoying to work with (especially when it's something like 83% exchange)

Oh yes it is.

I think it's in our best interest to NOT have our own district. (We aren't the only country to be placed in a different 'continent' by the way).

I think doing so would ruin the game experience as we know it. There simply isn't enough Aussies in game.

It would be really nice to see "xxx has won a battle in the hall of heroes and takes the favour of the gods for Australia" but at this stage I don't believe it's even remotely possible to cater for.

As for delays in shipping.. that makes me cranky too. It's been stated there will be a global release for Nightfall, let's hope that includes us this time around.

MMM sounds like a counter rant!
Yeah We share our pain, but you guys have alil more luck with the timezone issues.

No the Pound conversion thing was only one problem that lead to the major one, of being connected to Euro servers when there is little logical reason to be!
And since we are making assumptions about each others countries (Sure Canada might be a larger market) You guys still speak a nationally recongnised second language! Australia only has English we don't have french as a back up! So why be stuck on a multi-lingual server!

Maybe an Australasian(spelling) Server would solve things, this would include Aus, Nz and the Phillipenes(spelling) Perhaps that would have enough people.

The Favour issue isn't a biggie, I see a few Aussie guilds take halls, and inside I cheer! :') I already stated it wasn't really an issue.

I never said, Australia's market did deserve its own server, Cause as we both know trying to run an All Aussie/Nz Guild is already hard enough! lol Its true and I'll admit it we don't have the market for our own server.

But why oh why are we connected to Europe! Now I know why everyone insisted I jump servers to American status. :S

Edit: I mean TTA ^^ takes the halls on occassion, to the joy and envy of many of us in the ANZ ranks :P

Anet has said that they do not see an Australian/NZ/Oceania server as viable, and I'm happy to roll with that.

I don't mind buying in pounds, but I DO think that Anet might want to look at the exchange rate and co-ordinate prices a bit better. It is MORE expensive for EU players to buy character slots than for US players! It is MORE expensive again to buy slots if you are purchasing in pounds. Why not just put everything in $US and then use an exchange converter? It's not 100% accurate all the time but that is what disclaimers are for. Most online stores do this!

IMHO those in Oceania region should not be defaulted ANYWHERE, we should be able to CHOOSE our stating server, because that way we are not one server change down if we have to change because we weren't "defaulted" to where we feel we are best suited. I'm a happy EU player, but I know a lot of Aussies would rather be on the NA server, and they shouldn't have to waste a server exchange simply because the game defaults to a fairly random region.

Finally supply lines, technically Anet is not responsible for this, NCSoft is. Having said that it would be nice for Anet to take a small amount of interest in this matter. Why? Well NC Soft effectively nerfed supply lines to the region. EBGames has a monopoly on the game, and anything they say goes. A HUGE proportion of gamers in Australia buy ONLINE and have the games mailed to them, better range than EB, and better prices. A number of ONLINE game stores are happy to stock "pre-order" packages and send them to buyers.
EB (in Australia) DOES NOT STOCK PRE-ORDERS, PERIOD.
They will NEVER stock pre-orders, it's a fundemental part of their policy. I've heard that a few lucky people were able to get their hands on pre-order boxes but that was an exception to the rule, and the people who received them were by-and-large employees or friends/family of employees. So, barring people like myself (I ordered from the UK) Aussies and Kiwis don't have the advanced access to the new releases, no matter how much we have supported the game, no matter how many of us actually DID "pre-order" even though we didn't get a package.

NC Soft, and Anet for that matter, should look into this. EB is an unreliable retailer, everyone knows this, yet this is the only place to stock the game in the region.

There is too many regions already. America, Asia and Europe would had been enough. Now there is Japan, Korea and Taiwan which got a special treatment.

Finland should have own region

just look at the ladder, there are 3 finnish guilds in top 20

True a server for Aus/Nz isn't viable, I never claimed it was and have always assumed it wasn't viable. Now can we end that discussion, its only slightly related and is only being brought up by other not myself! And strangely not most of the Australians. I don't want it to be come an arguement since there are atleast 20 other countries that should have there own server!
Having 20 different servers would be worse then the Euro timezone differences! No one ever on!

We should choose our own region/server or atleast if we live in an English speaking, english decendant country be defaulted to a English server.

And Paying in Euro/US$/Pounds was never the issue I deal in online store and have to pay that way mostly in US$, But why can't I atleast see how much it would cost in AUS$, exchange rate itsn't that hard to track. lol

EB and pre-orders,
Then my local Australian EB needs to learn there policies, because I was offered a per-order option, true I wouldn't get the game untill release day. And I even know that they had early access options, the manager bragged about using one when I finally brought my CE, laughing at how I should had got one. EB alwasy screwing the customer slightly more then the game devs (joking ANet :P )

My EB offers almost all larger and expected titles as pre-orders, they even only order enough copies to fill orders!

You have...Europe

I'm Australian, I was thrown into European servers, moved to American... Fine with me, an Australian server y'know what that would mean? No favour! EVER!

Come now TTA and WTF and other would win, but it would be least populated server ever 1 reason why I say NO

Well South Africa doesnt have its own region either... dont see the point of this rant anyhow, how many players are going to be tucked away in these remote regions? Not enough to be worthwhile having a server. Personally I think the current split is fine..

Australia Is and Always will be a third world country, our biggest and most well known stars are Mick Dundee and Steve Irwin

Nuff said.

PS I'm with Slainster on this one "dont see the point of this rant anyhow".

Thats because this never was, Isn't and will never be ABOUT Australia having its own server! Read the thread and understand what I'm saying now, I don't want a single server for Aus/Nz. Go and read my points and the reason why I posted

This might interest some of you.

@ Jodie O You forgot about Skippy, "oh no think of the children"

lol Not Third world, just slightly overlooked, and Mick Dundee is awesome Steve Irwin is a tool!


And Slainster missed the subject of this rant, and Its a rant, I warned you, I even gave advice not to post if you only wanted to counter rant! lol

And if you missed the point re-read my posts,

Heh. Whom Anet REALLY doesnt care about are russians.We even cant wrigth in our own letters. Fnd using transliterations makes me sick. Is that so hard to add russian letters in the game? I think Anet just doesnt care to... And we NEVER had CE. We cant see prices in store in rubles, though most are used to usd. Actually some of my friends didnt buy GW, cuz they didnt want want to play game, that doesnt respect their language. There are a lot of russian players, but that doesnt change anything. I think Anet should care about ALL countries who play GW, not just few of them.

Word!

I admit you guys have been screwed over, that sounds harsh!

*curtsey's for sainor*
A fact that many of you might not know, BUT, Vladivostok, Russia is only one hour ahead of AEST which is just splendid in my opinon.
Want more about this charming city?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladivostok

Actually I feel for all the Russians and Eastern Europeans who use Cyrillic or parts there of in their alphabet, you'd think Anet would have enabled support for these scripts, they manage to support Asian scripts, which are much, much more extensive.

Guys, you're taking things a bit far here. ArenaNet and NCsoft care about all our customers, no matter where they live. I don't yet know when/if additional languages will be offered, but please be aware that we're always looking at what we can do for all the regions we support. In many cases it's not up to us - for example, if the distributor and retailers don't want to order any CE, we can't force them to.

Additional language support is always being investigated. I'm sure you're aware how many languages there are around the world (and Europe especially); it would be very difficult for us to support all of them. Regardless, may I suggest that if you feel that strongly about it you consider posting on fansite forums or letting your retailer/distributor know. If we know there's strong demand for it, we can assess whether the additional will be cost effective. Localisation isn't cheap, I'm afraid.

The biggest reason why this is not done is because NCsoft is not a single global company. NCsoft Europe and NCsoft in America are two separate companies, who report income completely separately and conduct business on a regional basis.

Because Australian stock of Guild Wars is supplied by NCsoft Europe, you'll find yourself on the EU territory by default and pricing in the store will default to £. You are perfectly welcome (I encourage it, from a connectivity point of view) to switch over to using the American territory. I'll pass on your suggestion to ArenaNet, however I do not know if this is a feasible solution.

Never say never . EB Games will be stocking a substantial number of Nightfall Pre-Release packages, and they should arrive in stores on September 15th. I'm told they're taking delivery of enough stock to supply all Aussie and Kiwi stores with the pre-release boxes, so everyone should have an opportunity to pick one up.

We're working very hard with EB in Australia to improve player access to the game and special promotions, and we'll continue doing so into the future.

<3 Alex

*sigh* With all due respect, Alex, I'll believe it when I see it. I gave up on EB a LONG time ago. When hearing that the pre-order would be available for Factions a friend of mine went in and ordered from the city store (the only store in that I know for sure had the boxes) and they told him that the pre-order boxes were for display purposes. I know one particular player who works at EB over in WA. Their store had precisely the same policy, they maintained that the pre-order boxes were display boxes only, and then proceeded to hand them out to staff, many of whom probably didn't play GW.

It IS true that NCSoft are NOT responsible for the actions of EB. However WE, as customers, would like you to know what is happening in a hope that you may find alternative means of distributing your product in the region.

EB staff are retards. When I pre ordered Factions, I was told I would get the pre order package on the day. I let that slide, I didn't expect Australia to get them at all considering I couldn't get one for Prophecies. However, I found out a few days later, they thought the Collectors Edition was the pre order package, which is why I would get it day of release.

A simple explaination to the retard staff about what exactly a pre order package is, and how they work (they are given to people that pre order, aren't for individual sale, the price is taken off the retail price of the game, etc) might go a long way to avoiding alot of customer grief.

You'd think that a business selling primarily games would follow the gaming industry. Especially on the big 'money earning' titles, which gw would fall into.

But no, they are indeed 'retards'.

Even though if you select Australia when selecting your account you still get whacked into the european server? I mean wwhats the point of the option if it can't put you on the server best suited to your timezone.

Thanks for your feedback, be sure that I'll pass it along.

I can tell you, however, that it is now fully confirmed that Australia and New Zealand will receive the Nightfall Pre-release, and it will be available in sufficient quantities that those who really want one will be able to get one. I can understand your skepticism... But this time it's in the bag. The obstacle that tripped things up last time is not a problem this time, everything is on-schedule for the pre-release package being Downunder for September 15th.

OP we feel your pain......
You begin to wonder who they care about (probably the Koreans, lol)......
And people making promises, not a good thing. ----hope it doesnt backfire like the CE did......

Alex you can understand why people are a bit skeptical I hope. Things have not run smoothly with GW or its retailers. And with history to show otherwise, many are just not trusting any more.
Many people now have the wait and see attitude....I will NOT pre order since I got burned last time, nor will I get the CE unless I see it on the store shelf (which I did before I got the one I pre-ordered)......getting burned by a company is not a fun thing.....you are just lucky that many of the people who are unhappy are still playing (buying) the game.

We all hope that things will improve which is why we post our praises and problems here. (and hope that our praises dont overshadow the problems to the extent that they are ignored).

EB are a load of shit. I bought a copy of Empire Earth II there, and lucky for me the second disc was bugged - setup crapped its pants every single time I inserted that disc, so I couldn't install. I took it back to the store, and they wouldn't give me my money back because it was open. WTH? How am I supposed to the product is defective without opening it?

Anyway...

There isn't any support for cyrillic fonts? At all? шестякино! That's pretty odd. 1/6 of the world's land area uses cyrillic as an official script. Although, by population it's something like 4-5% of the world total, if my figures are correct. Still, that's higher than Korean or Japanese. But then again, (South) Korea and Japan have on average much higher technological development, and so represent a bigger market.

Localisation is not needed. Just include Cyrillic to supported letters and most russians will be happy.And part of eastern Europe too, I suppose. Damn tired of transliteration.

Sometimes I just have to say tough. Maybe next time you should consider not ordering the collectors edition. With viewing the prices, it absolutely pisses me off when I go to a site that shows prices in Euros and not USD. I feel the pain. Right now I would rather have Anet be working on Nightfall than implementing this, but I agree that before it was released the store should have has AUS currency.

The Kiwis Thank You I didn't have a problem with EB here in NZ pre-ordering Factions - they were pretty much on the ball, though they did run out of pre-order pack (but got more in).

Looks like EB service varies from country to country, possibly even store to store.

I look forward to my assured copy of the Nightfall preorder next month. Cheers Alex.