#BringBackAlplod & An Appeal to CPG

[stormshade]

Hi Folks,

I’ve got a broader thread on this topic for everyone here, but I wanted to chime in here and point out a few specifics:

1. The only reason for these regional blocks are legal ones which prevent us from doing business in some regions of the world (including Russia).
2. We have no plans to add more regions to this list. The only way this could happen is if either the United States or another country enacted a law or series of laws which prevented us from legally doing business within a specific region.
3. From the moment BNEA merged Duelyst into our platform, these blocks were in place. We did not wait until after anyone had made purchases to put them in place. Anyone who was located in a blocked region and then made a purchase would have had to circumvent the region blocking in order to do so.
4. Circumventing the region blocking is, for legal reasons, against our EULA and Terms of Use.

Again, I understand that this is difficult, and even painful to hear and understand. @ThanatosNoa and I have escalated the issue as far up the chain as we can, and we will continue to work towards resolving these issues. However, as the issues are legal in nature, I don’t see them being resolved in a favorable manner in the near future.

Thanks for understanding,

Stormshade

[rincewnd]

From the moment BNEA merged Duelyst into our platform, these blocks were in place.

And did you know that these blocks were going to happen? And gave no warning?

We have no plans to add more regions to this list.

But we still don’t know what regions are blocked now! It is only Russia?

[Aeruniel]

Hm, well, at least it’s a reply…

I need time to think.

Some questions:

Did you know about these blocks?

Why didn’t you shout warnings to those ‘some regions including Russia’ about this?

Can you give us a less vague term and identify exactly all those regions?

[seraphicreaper]

From our conversation on Alplod’s thread @Aeruniel

I'm @alplod and I'm being kicked out of the game by BN

This is my biggest issue; someone somewhere within BN should have been aware of the actions that were going to be taken and inform the community about it. By not doing so allows investing players to put money into the game with, again, someone, knowing that those regions won’t remain available. To let players invest into the game with knowledge that they will no longer be capable of playing it within the near future; That’s legit theft.

As nicely as you perceive the events, it still holds onto the notion that someone in BN knew beforehand, and that they weren’t capable of bringing it forward to the playerbase.

---

To reiterate:

To let players invest into the game with knowledge that they will no longer be capable of playing it within the near future; that’s legit theft.

[hulk12345]

Well…

Can I hope for a dialogue? I’ll try to be civilised, I promise.

I have a few questions.

1. Is it possible to see the full list of dissallowed countries anyway? If no, why?

From the moment BNEA merged Duelyst into our platform, these blocks were in place. We did not wait until after anyone had made purchases to put them in place. Anyone who was located in a blocked region and then made a purchase would have had to circumvent the region blocking in order to do so.

Ok, I can’t prove that this statement is incorrect. I will just say it again. I didn’t use any VPN to link accounts or make purchases. I used steam client, could this be the reason?

3. Still, though I can’t prove I didn’t violate any rules, let’s for a moment consider I didn’t. Will I be able to get a refund for diamonds I bought?

4)Are all the money spent on the game by me, other Russian players and kickstarter backers BEFORE BN took over Duelyst just wasted as of now?

5. I travel much. Will my account work, when I’m in allowed countries? If no, then why?

[hulk12345]

Anyone who was located in a blocked region and then made a purchase would have had to circumvent the region blocking in order to do so.

Well, I was able to buy some diamonds right now, without using any VPN. From Russia. Below you may find a
video proving it. Sorrry for the quality, I’m new to this buisiness.

My credit card data us of course deleted from the video.

7$ is a little price to prove I’m not lying. And you are. Or you are just transfering some info from the liers.

Yeah, I know video doesn’t prove anything to the lawyers. My video in addition is of very low quality. But I hope it may raise some questions at least.

At least, it may raise some questions about my “inability to create an account without workarounds”. If you’re lying here, why should we trust you there?

@stormshade ?

EDIT. I know. I’m a bit impatient. But I believe you should talk to us a bit more.

[Aeruniel]

Nice one!!!

#BringBackAlplod

[hulk12345]

Hehe, thanks)

I believe, nobody is answering me personally, because I’m no longer their client.

Is there any way to check who’s online?

[isgopet]

Is there any way to check who’s online?

Yee, last seen I believe. Shade’s on as of now.

[stormshade]

At least, it may raise some questions about my “inability to create an account without workarounds”. If you’re lying here, why should we trust you there?

Thank you for posting this video. We’ve identified what the issue is on our end and are working on a resolution to prevent this from being able to reoccur. Please reach out to our support team so we may process a refund for you.

Stormshade

[hulk12345]

Thanks for thanks, but could you please also answer my questions?

[Aeruniel]

Good news at least for that part!

Good.

[hulk12345]

Also I’m not going to apply for a refund just now, since as soon as I do it, this account will become permabanned and I will not be able to communicate with you here.

And there are still some questions you didn’t answer.

[isgopet]

Seems like a catch22.

[kingw]

Seems like a catch22.

Pretty much. Also, he did answer the question albeit in an obscure manner. There was an “issue” on their end, presumably an issue that allows you to create an account, login, and purchase things. Should this issue actually be an honest mistake, there are no lies involved, just an engineer who failed to properly implement the region lock.

(which by the way I am somewhat inclined to believe it was actually a honest mistake, as there have been others who reported that they couldn’t buy diamonds in certain regions-- I’m assuming those cases were the proper intentions for diamond purchases in region-locked areas.)

[hulk12345]

Still, I have one question remained:

I travel much. Will my account work, when I’m in allowed countries? If no, then why?

Yeah, of course it’s not about the community, just about me, but I believe you understand why I’m still interested.

EDIT. I understand that the refund seems to be a recommended course of actions right now. But I’m too curious.

[Aeruniel]

For me there’s also still:

1. Why haven’t they warned about this before the partnership, like, 6 weeks before, then 2 weeks before, etc in a very clear way (at the very latest at their announcement of partnership)?

2. Did CPG know beforehand? Did BN know beforehand (well, the part of BN that had to do with the whole transition)?

3. What regions are we talking about? I mean… when the bug is fixed that allowed people to buy and play, I guess we can find out by asking one person in each country, so why the impossibility to say?

4. Shouldn’t you list on the steam store page, and elsewhere, in which regions the game isn’t available?

5. Will everyone who had this technical issue (see quote below) get refunded?

Thank you for posting this video. We’ve identified what the issue is on our end and are working on a resolution to prevent this from being able to reoccur. Please reach out to our support team so we may process a refund for you.

In the interest of hopefully going forward positively:

I do appreciate Stormshade’s recent presence and answers, even if I don’t … fathom? some of them.

[hulk12345]

He did kinda answer the first one and the second one.

Account Linking, Geo-IP Blocks and Re-directs, and more

Plus, due to the fact that I and @ThanatosNoa had a ton of other things to do leading up to the merger, I failed to communicate this before hand or as the merge was happening. So if you want to be mad at someone for not communicating this in advance, that should be focused on me.

So, no evil plan. I’d say it can be called incompetence, but I don’t want to sound too negative) @stormshade admits it at least.

4 is not really an issue. There is NO steamstore page for Duelyst in banned regions.
I still do not understand why all the secrecy, but if people from banned regions will not be able to buy orbs, I guess it’s OK, although not the way I wanted it to be.

5 is kinda replied either:

Thank you for posting this video. We’ve identified what the issue is on our end and are working on a resolution to prevent this from being able to reoccur. Please reach out to our support team so we may process a refund for you.

I believe if they’re going to make refund for me, it would be inconsistent if they didn’t make a refund for other persons. But we’ll see.

[jukeboxery]

Thanatos already left a response here…he sounded like a lawyer had him by the throat.

[hulk12345]

I will still leave comments in the thread if allowed by forum administration to describe what’s going on with my account.

I won’t hijack any other threads, or create other ones anywhere else if this one won’t be closed.

I ask the community for understanding. I will try to minimize any annoyance caused by the fact that I still want my account to be accessable at least in non-restricted countries. And the only way I see this happenning with nonzero probability is not just contacting support as I was told by @stormshade, but also making some posts here.

As of now, the last responce I’ve got from support team stated that I was definitely using some workarounds, thus any support is unaccessable to me due to violation of ToS. This was already contradicted by @stormshade himself here:

We’ve identified what the issue is on our end and are working on a resolution to prevent this from being able to reoccur.

As I assume, @stormshade considers his job on the issue done, thus I won’t get any responce from him, no matter how hard I try.

Still, I had no update from the support team as of now.

I’ll state this again: since I didn’t do anything wrong I want my account to be accessable to me at least in allowed countries. I do not see any formal/legal reason to deny me this possibility.