PotBS Dev Tracker

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Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Of course not. We handle Asia separately. Heck we have different plans for each major market in Asia.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara
Just realised Asia is not included when I tried to downloaded. What a waste I'll say, the market for MMo here is huge. Never it makes my decision easier, here I'll stay then.
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Yes. Which is why I'm still up tonight trying to get this damned mail message out.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dread73
Umm..just an idle thought....if the Australian Servers go Live tomorrow....why aren't the 'winners', if you will, announced till the 7th of March??

Don't you want the Ambassadors to be there Live at launch time when the 'unwashed masses' will need the most help??

Anyone?
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
First, let me apologize. I had a different thread on this that i kept refreshing, and wondering why there were no comments being made. So, on to answers!

1) Yes, it will be restricted. We *may* open it up to Singapore a bit down the line.
2) Originally, we were looking at 2 to start with, but I want to test a server with high pop. We made a number of assumptions for how many users we wanted on the US servers, and I think we were wrong. I'm using the Australian servers to test that out. We're going to keep at 1 at least until the mass of disks hit.
3) Delete character initially, and then we'll probably open a second server relatively quickly after the free DVDs come out.
4) Tragically, no, because I ran out of time with everything else I'm doing. The first batch are selected, and i'm waiting to fix an email problem to send them out.
5) Today, around 3 pm our time.
6) Yes, if you want to play on both systems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Jekyl
I think more details at this juncture would be a very good thing.

1) Will the AU servers actually be restricted to AU/NZ customers only, through billing, ISP blocking or both, or are foriengers just 'discouraged'? Part of the reason one would think the Oceanic region would be viable as a market is that it includes a lot of SE Asian countries where English is spoken as a second language.
2) How many servers will there be? Telstra's forums seem to indicate that there are two.
3) If there are less than four servers, what provisions have been made for people who wish to try out or even play all four nations?
4) Are ambassadors going to be selected and briefed before the game goes live on, what, Wednesday? Actually, come to think of it:
5) Exactly when is launch?
6) Will we need to maintain two seperate installations of the game?
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Quote:
Originally Posted by quantumraider
Yep, wondering if it includes us kiwis too, the page does state "Are you currently living in Australia?" which seems to exclude us.

Another question I have is will we be able to retain our beta goodies (flag & sails) if we did move as they are currently attached to our SoE account?
Flags and sails will move. And you'll get a cockatoo!
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwiitis
Is this option available to residents of New Zealand.I will give it some thought but having to start all over again really makes me wonder if it would be worth the savings.

Would our existing characters be deleted on the current servers?
Yes, it's open to New Zealanders, and no, your existing characters will not be deleted.
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
You're correct in that this is an issue. I wish we had a perfect solution for everyone, but we don't.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chapjuan
im glad u responded bone i didnt want to speak for you guys too but i think we have the same problems.
we have large contingents of inertnationals now, including NZ, US, and euros. From what rusty has said in the past, there is NO way for internationals to bill through telstra. This means if we did take a society based offer to move, we would have to leave all of our non aussies behind. This has been stated often and i have no reason to believe its changed. Non australians cant play on australian servers. Theres also no garauntee the entire society would be offered free year subs, meaning those that werent would have to pay to follow those that did.
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Quote:
Originally Posted by bonelizzard
Rusty, There is nothing to stop international players joining this server right? I would assume so, this is the internet, I am sure Telstra would take their money. But please confirm this.
Nope. Here's the deal: between SOE and ourselves, we make a varying degree of money off of the boxes and the subscription. Because BigPond wanted to launch without boxes, we had to have them limit it to players in their territory so that we wouldn't cannabilize box sales in the West.
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
/waves a stick

Anytime we let a player move from one place to another, there's going to be a question of what happens to the society they leave behind. Which is one of the reasons BigPond sprang for a free subscription to Australia, so that if somebody wanted to play on both server bases, they could. But at the end of the day, we're presenting an option to a player. it's up to them to decide what they want to do in regards to their current situation and their society.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sildan75
Call me paranoid but now that i've seen the Carrot, I am waiting to see the stick.

It's a very generous offer and a good way to encourage some of your more experienced Australian sailors to educate and promote our fellow Aussies. I do feel that this was your sole intention when offering this competition/promotion.

Chapjuan has definately highlighted a valid issue that should concern all of the Oceanic time based societies. I can see it pushing the loyalties of a lot of society members and creating a lot of discussion amongst them. I fear the fracturing of the society that has been created with BDM because of this, and fear the roll on affect this will have on the US servers.

Should the aussie members of BDM decide to all apply and are successful, it would hurt our non-australian society mates since they don't even have the option of creating an Australian subscrition from what my understanding is.

I guess time will tell...
Rusty
1 in thread Announcing the Australian Ambassador Program! [News and Press Releases]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mariachi
I'm just curious, if we apply for this ambassador program and we are currently playing on Antigua for example and we are accepted, does this mean we are no longer able to play on the US/EU servers and are restricted to Aussie servers or will we have two seperate accounts, the SOE account as well as the Bigpond account?

Apologies if this has been adressed already or if I missed something in the explanation.

thanks.
You can play on both accounts.
Rusty
1 in thread Quietened down now!! [General PotBS Discussion]
Exactly right. But I don't want to give the impression that we think things are fine. My partial list of aggravations:

1) Gold spammers (though I believe we're winning the war on this)
2) Long customer cues - we're making progress catching up, but much slower than I'm happy with
3) Exploits in PvP
4) Need to increase PvP
5) No spanish launch makes Bellamy a very lonely server - without a spanish launch, we're going to have to do something for Bellamy. I'm looking at Australia as a test to see how we want to handle the other servers
6) Faster time to fixes - I hate it when fixes get gated on other elements

Quote:
Originally Posted by GB
Let's put it this way Potbs is doing OK but could do better.
Got it now?