680 replies to this topic

[Xellie]

 

Upon review the original payment block message was removed because it was displaying the wrong message.

Many other posts (which is what the mods removed) afterwards were removed due to messages such as "Get Fornicated", or "Censorship"

The payment block message issue has been resolved so its now displaying the right message when users reach it.

 

 

It's great that you guys are blocking our ability to see the transactions we've made so we can't question refunds. 

[Sigma1]

First of all, a lot of people and myself head no idea about this law until this year. So for the people who say this thing has been in talks since 2016, why didn't you and others in the know bring it up on the forums back then? iRO never knew we were falling behind in updates until 3 years after it started. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone by now.

Secondly, there's been more and more publishers and websites telling their customers about Terms of Service changes because of the GDPR, so who's to say they had any idea about it prior to the deadline either. If anything, iRO is guilty of telling people a month in advance. Other companies only started making announcements just in the last 2 weeks.

I find it amusing how do many people supposedly "quit" RO, yet now it's a big deal they can't play anymore even though they claimed to have no intention of coming back to the game. This is why the developers are able to treat the game like they do now, because they know people will keep crawling back to it no matter how bad the quality of the game has suffered.

Believe me. Even I knew this law in the first place and when I warned people here. My thread will be removed since it will be considered as "rumor that causes of fear". Until official announcement is released.

[ZeroTigress]

Believe me. Even I knew this law in the first place and when I warned people here. My thread will be removed since it will be considered as "rumor that causes of fear". Until official announcement is released.

I've never seen such a thread or else I'd be on the "they knew ahead of time" bandwagon myself.

[Doral]

I just got a refund, but I'm not from eu.

does this mean i will be banned too?

[TheQuietStorm]

7 days to go!

 

[Doral]

yo you got your refund? i got one for some wierd reason

[TheQuietStorm]

I just got a refund, but I'm not from eu.

does this mean i will be banned too?

 

check the power up page on warpportal.com if you cant access it, and if you are not from the EU and your account is not made in the EU (Or Turkey) than i'd send in a ticket if i were you... cuz it looks like youre gonna feel the banhammer too.

[soudou]

Ah OK, thanks for bringing that up Daray and for explaining Campitor. After I posted what the Power Up message looked like to me I left the thread, so was confused when I came back and saw it got deleted.   

 

I just got a refund, but I'm not from eu.

does this mean i will be banned too?

 

Did you originally register the account when you were in the EU? Even some who registered their account while on holiday in Europe a decade ago but never lived there are apparently being affected. I would definitely contact support if that's not the case. In the original post they say:

"Please note that if you are from Europe and have registered an account that does not state the affected region by the block you may still receive a refund, but the account will be flagged as from Europe and disabled."

Maybe if your account isn't showing your region as being registered in Canada then it got incorrectly flagged?
 

[VModSoup]

A reminder, any more complaining about moderator actions in this thread or anywhere that isn't a PM to either Staff or Moderators will result in actions taken against your account.

Topics regarding forum censorship will be removed. All content posted on the forums will be allowed/removed at the discretion of the Community Managers. The posts will be removed and a warning given to the poster. Any further posting about the topic by the poster will be considered spam and the forum account would be banned from accessing the forums.

[KriticalAssassin]

But.....the whole point of the topic is that they are getting banned in a couple of days? What is banning them a few days early going to accomplish? @-@

[VModSoup]

The point of the topic is definitely not to complain about forum censorship. PM a moderator/staff member.

Edited by VModSoup, 17 May 2018 - 05:32 PM.

[TrevMUN]

I find it amusing how do many people supposedly "quit" RO, yet now it's a big deal they can't play anymore even though they claimed to have no intention of coming back to the game. This is why the developers are able to treat the game like they do now, because they know people will keep crawling back to it no matter how bad the quality of the game has suffered.

 

Whatever I do, THEY KEEP BRINGING ME BACK IN!
 

It's rather obvious by now that kRO has no interest in any region outside of Asia. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up shuttering all non-Asia servers to make it official, which is a damn shame. The GDPR just seems like the perfect opportunity to expedite that.

During my downtime this month I'd been talking to some of the folks here about what's going in behind the scenes.
 

And the more I hear the more I think you're right. The way this situation is unfolding, with what the studio is doing and the way Warp Portal is acting coy about everything, is a very uncomfortable repeat of how Sonic Team handled the non-Japanese PC/PS2 servers for Phantasy Star Universe. Right down to making Sega of America do things they really did not want to do, and then face the music for it. We only found out how badly Sonic Team treated SoA's GMs until long after PSU went down.

 

I don't think whatever manager decided that iRO could afford to lose the European players thought about the intercontinental relationships that have developed for years. How many guilds have quit RO entirely because some of their members or leadership are getting banned?

 

(Though having said that, it's ... interesting how some took this fiasco as an opportunity to lash out at Americans over this and accuse us of thinking we're "the whole world" ... as if Europe is the only part of the world that matters. Very Jeremy Clarkson style behavior, that. Embodying the very behavior for which they bash Americans.)

Edited by TrevMUN, 17 May 2018 - 04:50 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

During my downtime this month I'd been talking to some of the folks here about what's going in behind the scenes.

And the more I hear the more I think you're right. The way this situation is unfolding, with what the studio is doing and the way Warp Portal is acting coy about everything, is a very uncomfortable repeat of how Sonic Team handled the non-Japanese PC/PS2 servers for Phantasy Star Universe. Right down to making Sega of America do things they really did not want to do, and then face the music for it. We only found out how badly Sonic Team treated SoA's GMs until long after PSU went down.

I don't think whatever manager decided that iRO could afford to lose the European players thought about the intercontinental relationships that have developed for years. How many guilds have quit RO entirely because some of their members or leadership are getting banned?

(Though having said that, it's ... interesting how some took this fiasco as an opportunity to lash out at Americans over this and accuse us of thinking we're "the whole world" ... as if Europe is the only part of the world that matters. Very Jeremy Clarkson style behavior, that. Embodying the very behavior for which they bash Americans.)

People are claiming that the GDPR has been in the works since 2016, despite not linking to any article to back up their claim. Playing Devil's advocate, if it were true that the GDPR was announced in 2016, then it lines up with the introduction of OCPs and the drying up of backlogged updates . That would imply that kRO, at least, was aware of the GDPR possibly affecting them and the OCPs were meant to either build up funds to comply with the GDPR or gauge if there's enough paying EU players to make the effort worth it. Whatever the results of the OCPs must not have been satisfactory enough to warrant putting in the effort to comply with the GDPR. That would make the most sense judging by what's happened.

[Sigma1]

People are claiming that the GDPR has been in the works since 2016, despite not linking to any article to back up their claim. Playing Devil's advocate, if it were true that the GDPR was announced in 2016, then it lines up with the introduction of OCPs and the drying up of backlogged updates . That would imply that kRO, at least, was aware of the GDPR possibly affecting them and the OCPs were meant to either build up funds to comply with the GDPR or gauge if there's enough paying EU players to make the effort worth it. Whatever the results of the OCPs must not have been satisfactory enough to warrant putting in the effort to comply with the GDPR. That would make the most sense judging by what's happened.

Normally. Ordinary people like either me or you and others aren't aware about this law too much since it's quite too far from our routine life.
But for companies like WP and Gravity. They should have regulation department to track the law in the globe unless they don't.

[Doral]

Ah OK, thanks for bringing that up Daray and for explaining Campitor. After I posted what the Power Up message looked like to me I left the thread, so was confused when I came back and saw it got deleted. 

 

 

Did you originally register the account when you were in the EU? Even some who registered their account while on holiday in Europe a decade ago but never lived there are apparently being affected. I would definitely contact support if that's not the case. In the original post they say:

"Please note that if you are from Europe and have registered an account that does not state the affected region by the block you may still receive a refund, but the account will be flagged as from Europe and disabled."

Maybe if your account isn't showing your region as being registered in Canada then it got incorrectly flagged?
 

 

im registered in canada i just started iRO last year come on peeps

[ZeroTigress]

Normally. Ordinary people like either me or you and others aren't aware about this law too much since it's quite too far from our routine life.
But for companies like WP and Gravity. They should have regulation department to track the law in the globe unless they don't.

Regulations department? That's a bit much for a gaming company, isn't it? I expect major corporations like Disney or Chase to have such a legal division. You don't generally expecting gaming companies to keep track of that kind of stuff when it doesn't even affect them most of the time.

[Sigma1]

Regulations department? That's a bit much for a gaming company, isn't it? I expect major corporations like Disney or Chase to have such a legal division. You don't generally expecting gaming companies to keep track of that kind of stuff when it doesn't even affect them most of the time.

International company should have at least one person who has a duty for the regulation.
I'm working in export company. The company has one personnel who keep track regulation of end buyers' country. To prevent exporting products that violates to their laws and cause reject or recall.

Edited by Sigma1, 17 May 2018 - 11:00 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

International company should have at least one person who has a duty for the regulation.
I'm working in export company. The company has one personnel who keep track regulation of end buyers' country. To prevent exporting products that violates to their laws and cause reject or recall.

Again, video games aren't as big of a commodity as other industries to have to regularly worry about international laws. The GDPR and Net Neutrality are among the rare few of international laws that actually do affect online video games, so expecting gaming companies to have a legal division on staff for that sort of thing on a regular basis is rather impractical.

[Stephcake]

Here's your source for the GDPR being from 2016: https://www.eugdpr.org

Right on the main page, in bold.

 

Edit: just noticed btw, the bold is apparently only on the mobile version of the site.

Edited by Stephcake, 18 May 2018 - 02:36 AM.

[MeisterKirisaki]

Here's your source for the GDPR being from 2016: https://www.eugdpr.org

Right on the main page, in bold.

addendum:

EUR-Lex - 32016R0679
https://eur-lex.euro....01.0001.01.ENG

https://www.nytimes....ta-privacy.html
https://www.theguard...a-privacy-rules

https://www.infolawg...ion-regulation/

etc.

[ZeroTigress]

Here's your source for the GDPR being from 2016: https://www.eugdpr.org

Right on the main page, in bold.

But were there any other announcements on any other site back in 2016? Just because the GDPR website claims that the law was announced back in 2016, that doesn't really provide enough proof that they actually took the effort make it known to many at that time. Surely there are some news sites dated back in 2016 that would confirm the law was in discussion back then if that was truly the case. Otherwise, why would so many online companies scramble to announce changes to their Terms of Service in preparation for that so close to the deadline if they had known about it ahead of time?

[Stephcake]

Considering even big companies like Twitter, Google, FB etc also only let their users know about changes this month, that's not really an argument.

 

The ones that are truly "scrambling" should have paid more attention; see the links MeisterKirisaki posted - doesn't look like some cloak and dagger operation to me.

 

Surely any decently sized company should have at least one person keeping track of law changes, especially ones involving user data.

[soudou]

Even if they are such a small operation that they don't have a lawyer, there were various options in place for such companies to seek advice. For example the ICO who are handling GDPR in the UK offered this some time ago:

Spoiler

 

Small organisations want to be ready when the new law comes into force in May 2018, but they often struggle to know where to start. They may have less time and money to invest in getting it right and are less likely to have compliance teams, data protection officers or legal experts to advise them what to do.

 

Our new phone service and all the other resources already on our website plus even more advice and guidance yet to come will help steer small businesses through the new law.

 

In addition to the new phone service, the ICO has also announced plans to simplify its popular “12 steps to take now” graphic in response to calls from small and micro businesses that they need access to targeted information about how to prepare for the GDPR.

 

And the ICO is revising its simple-to-use SME toolkit – a resource used by around 9,000 businesses a month since January 2016 – into a GDPR resource that will allow businesses themselves to identify gaps in their own preparation for the new law.
 

Organisations that have yet to begin preparing for the law change can access a range of resources on the ICO’s dedicated data protection reform web pages.

 

But we also have the fact that euRO are complying with GDPR but blocking countries outside the EU. I would think GDPR compliance should make them above and beyond compatible with privacy laws outside the EU to be able to accept users from the US etc. But it feels like Gravity HQ just don't think the player population is enough to put in the time to consider that option. Most game companies that are blocking EU players had games that were running on a very low population, so they had their sights set elsewhere. For example players of Super Monday Night Combat say there were maybe 100 players or so, and that the company had long since become focused on kickstarting other things.

 

I imagine for Gravity their sights are set on the Korean, Japan etc. market that have higher player population for RO and profits. The Japanese government adapted their own privacy protection laws to be more in line with GDPR and those changes came into force May 2017, so if Gravity wanted to continue profiting from the birthplace of OCP, then they must have had to adapt last year.

Edited by soudou, 18 May 2018 - 03:40 AM.

[Doral]

i wish Canada isn't a part of EU that's gonna get banned LOL

 

i received a refund

[soudou]

i wish Canada isn't a part of EU that's gonna get banned LOL

 

i received a refund

 

Sorry pal, as a Brit I must apologise for our prior stompings that formed the Commonwealth 

 

In all seriousness though, it's weird you don't see the territory message when clicking Power Up despite the refund thing. I'd say it could be because it's tied to IP rather than account as what Xellie experienced but then someone on Discord with a US IP said they see the message about territories since they originally registered the account in Europe back in 2003. So I hope you get an answer soon from support, seems like the only way to know for sure.

Meanwhile I'm living in the UK and been registered from here since 2003 (played since 2002, but 2003 was when the game originally went pay to play), see the message about territories, but don't have a refund yet, go figure.