About the EU campaign for maid outfit and fat chocobo

[Voltyblast]

I seriously doubt the Amazon thing was responsible for them going with this magazine crap. Do you have any idea how far in advance they had to plan for codes to be given out in a printed magazine?

No, but that would mean that they purposedly did this poorly, which is even worse. If this was a mistake (I hope so) then all they had to do is to apologize (or anything really: they still didn't really responded to us properly, besides the usual clarification notes).

I mean I don't have "any" idea of how far in advance this should be done, but if your first idea is "to use a paper magazine for a promotion all across europe" without thinking of the possible drawbacks (lack of copies, possible clones, copies without codes, etc), then something must be wrong with you, especially when other countries had this very well managed - despite the Amazon debacle.
As many said in previous posts a promotion - to be successful - needs to be accessible. This is the entire opposite of accessible (not because of the UK magazine itself, but because of the very limited number of copies) and while they said that other countries will have different promotion I ask this again: why did we not receive a single reply about this? Especially after such a big backlash.

To be very honest, this situation is going to be "lose-lose" for SE, regardless of the different promotions for EU: people are upset and assuming this promotion will be better later on, the damage is done. Something for helping would be to reply to us and say what's the future plan right now and tell us what's going to happen for EU players.

Which they did not....yet at least.

[Theodric]

The best we can hope for is that - at the very least - feedback has been passed along to the developers. I think we're due to see a new Live Letter announced fairly soon so depending on when that is the issue may be addressed then by the developers directly.

[JulieEaster]

Hello there, i'd just like to put in my own case into this thread, in hopes that the developers might notice and actually do something about it, or not making the same messy mistake again.

I don't live in the EU, but I had registered an EU account because it was the region that was the cheapest to me at the time when I started the game. But I play in an US server and I was LUCKY enough to meet another player from UK. I had to ask this good friend of mine to order the printed magazine to his house so i can get the code. The thing is, the first available issue will only be 308 (the one with maid costume) and I paid £15 for it. So it's like I'm paying £15 just for the maid costume and i don't even get to read the magazine at all. Whats worse is that my friend had to give them a different address for my issue because apparently you can't have the same magazine delivered twice to the same address.

This is really annoying and troublesome!

[DeliriumTrigger]

Guys lets not fight over this. Though we put the blame on anyone except SE for their lack of communication regarding this issue. All we can do is assume but we can never be too sure about those things. Let's just keep bumping this hoping for a proper response.

[Combination-NC]

I am concerned about the phrasing "the Nordic territories" as it implies The Nordic is going to share a campaign (otherwise, surely they would have listed the countries), which feels awkward since we are five different countries with five different currencies and eight official languages. And not all are in the EU! So it seems it would be more difficult to arrange than this campaign, and after seeing how poorly thought out it has been I do not have confidence in SE doing any better for us.

At least I hope this means we are not getting a magazine promotion, because I know of no relevant magazine that exists in all countries. Do we even have gaming magazines anymore? I never see them in stores, and I live in one of the capital cities. Not even in game shops have I encountered a local (please do not make us import and English language one, those are not sold in accessible stores) publication in years, so hopefully we will get a more useful campaign. This one is a nightmare.

[Reinha]

I am concerned about the phrasing "the Nordic territories" as it implies The Nordic is going to share a campaign (otherwise, surely they would have listed the countries), which feels awkward since we are five different countries with five different currencies and eight official languages. And not all are in the EU! So it seems it would be more difficult to arrange than this campaign, and after seeing how poorly thought out it has been I do not have confidence in SE doing any better for us.

Agree 100%. I tried googling which stores operate in all 5 countries and it was very difficult finding any. H&M doesn't operate in Iceland does it? I know grocery stores in each country are of different chains, but perhaps there are fast food places like McDonald's in each country. Coolshop (online game store) doesn't seem to have a site for Iceland either. I don't have my hopes up for Amazon because otherwise they would have already given the option for UK players. The only store I could find that might work is Ikea, but they are few and far between. This would mean extra shipping costs for a lot of people.

[Combination-NC]

Agree 100%. I tried googling which stores operate in all 5 countries and it was very difficult finding any. *snip*

Yeah, no H&M in Iceland! Plus their sizes are generally very small, so that would alienate a lot of people, I think. There is no McDonald's on Iceland anymore, they closed down years ago. I thought CDON might work, but it seems they do not ship to Iceland either. So putting the other Nordic countries in the same category as Iceland limits the choices a lot. Ikea is everywhere, I think, but many small things are not sold on their website and there are a lot of size restrictions on what they can send by mail.

Another thing making the Nordic tricky is how the population is spread out; a few large cities, and a lot of countryside without a lot of stores, so online shopping is vital for a campaign for us. I get the impression they have not considered this.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

Deleted my post. Still not happy with the promotion.

[BehindTheFlowers]

I still think we in the EU are being treated as second rate players by SE. But I shall duff my cap at them and say good job at trying to make something different. As previously noted I liked the idea of bying something usefull (snakc, drinks, games) and get a code on top.
But now watching how they are messing up big time, and anxiously awaiting the mess they will do in the Nordic countries. I would still claim that SE would by now be better off, admitting defeat, say they experimented with new business forms. And then throw the items up on the Mog Station for a reasonable price, so we can get them after way to long waiting.

[Chiramu]

I still think we in the EU are being treated as second rate players by SE.

Everyone outside of NA and JP regions is lumped into the "EU region" and they are all treated like second class citizens.