Release Notes - June 2nd, 2009

[Eliza Creststeel]

Admin GM Cayman Trench

Thanks for your feedback regarding the change made to Linked Accounts. We understand your concerns and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, we'd like to take a moment to address your questions and comments:

Q: The Linked Accounts feature was implemented from the beginning, and used by a large number of subscribers and families, why remove it?

A: We removed the feature because it was being exploited more often than it was being used for its intended purpose. Players were using it to work around suspensions and holds after these players were removed from the game. In addition, many players were allowing other players to access their account with the feature too - In both cases, this compromised game security on several levels. Please know before we implemented the change we collected data on exactly how many people would be affected by it, in reality this change affects an extremely small number of our players.

Q: With this update, you have effectively made my character (that I have spent many hours to level and master) totally inaccessible.

A: If the character you're trying to access is yours, you should have the account information to access it. If you don't remember your account information, please use our Account Services to recover your Member Name and Password. Can?t remember your password or account information, then use the links below for help:

Forgot Your Account ID?

Need to Change Your Password?

Q: Is this so Disney can make more money on subscriptions?

A: We did this strictly to address security concerns. We?ve removed the ability for you to tab between linked accounts, not to link them, so families can still have multiple accounts and pay for those accounts through one primary account.

For the few families that actually used the feature to play with other members of their family at the same time using the same account, again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We're working on a solution that will directly address your concerns, until then, please access the account you want to play directly by using your account information.

Thanks for all your great feedback. We know any change takes some getting used to, but feel the change will not only improve account security but help make the game better as well by making players more responsible for the actions of their own accounts. Keep those comments coming!

The fact that they posted this within 24hours means YOU the player are having an affect!

DON'T LET UP!

Tell ALL your guildies and mates to post complaints about this! If they are trying to weasel out this quick, then they will FOLD if we keep pushing.

If you have family or friends who will suffer from this, mention that. If you have accounts in any other DISNEY Online Game - WARN them that they may lose your business!

[Bartholomew Foulsteel]

I would recommend (if I may) that it appears that Big D is still working on a fix for the issue WITHOUT going back to linked accounts.

Think about it--AOL (yeah, I know) would allow multiple users on a single account, but oine couldn't use multiple users at the same time. They fixed this (years ago) so now a family can have a single account and log in from multiple computers in multiple locations simultaneously. It seems like that's the direction this is going. At least to me.

The fight is to be able to use multiple pirates on a single account at once, right? Therefore, THAT is the result we want, NOT just being able to access linked accounts again.

Hang tight all--voice your opinions, please--but make sure Big D knows what you REALLY want is to access multiple pirates on the same account at the same time, okay?

[Eliza Creststeel]

Well put, and thanks for moving my posts to the appropriate threads.

[Crazypirate]

I agree Bart D needs to have a family account option that would allow it to have multiple pirates logged in at the same time, even if there was an additional fee for this as long as it was less than the regular monthly fee then everyone still wins.

[Bartholomew Foulsteel]

Well, based again on precedent (AOL again) there's no additional fee for accessing any of those users on a single account. If they allow us to make 4 different pirates we should be able to access each of those whenever we want. Nobody's hurting anybody by allowing this to happen. Can't see a reason to add a fee to that.

Before we get too carried away, check out this post: http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...ad.php?t=11658

It appears to me Disney is still working the issue.

[jason davy]

Originally Posted by Bartholomew Foulsteel

Well, based again on precedent (AOL again) there's no additional fee for accessing any of those users on a single account. If they allow us to make 4 different pirates we should be able to access each of those whenever we want. Nobody's hurting anybody by allowing this to happen. Can't see a reason to add a fee to that.

Agreed. It was free and worked well before, having to pay extra for accessing multiple pirates on the same account is exactly what we DON'T want.

Originally Posted by Bartholomew Foulsteel

Before we get too carried away, check out this post: http://www.piratesonlineforums.com/f...ad.php?t=11658

It appears to me Disney is still working the issue.

They did say they were looking for a solution to address our concerns, but then again - they lied outright when they said this wasn't going to open in the first place - who's to say they aren't just saying that without actually intending to do anything about it? They probably think if they let it go long enough, we will forget about it and just give up.

Response to my response -

Dear Jason,

We're sorry you have decided to cancel your subscription to Unlimited
Access in Pirates of the Caribbean Online. To cancel online if there
are no other accounts linked to yours, please log in with your Account
ID and Password at the link below. This page is also available from the
"Membership Options" section under "Account Services":

https://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/...ntcancel/login

Hope that this helps you complete your decision.

Robert
Pirates of the Caribbean Online Member Services


Oh yes, they seem very sorry.

edit: Woops, double posted myself.

[Crazypirate]

I understand nobody wants to pay more but Big D loves to charge for extras look at Cars online to get somethings you have to buy disney liscenced products to get a code to unlock things in the game. I was just saying that a small fee for one upgraded account is better than currently have to pay for multiple. I am sure the removal of the linked accounts was an attempt by Disney to increase the number of paid accounts with sooo many protesting by going back to basic or leaving the game Disney has had to cut dev budgets which is delaying the new content even more, the fewer that pay to play the longer it will continue to take to get more content out there.

[Eliza Creststeel]

Originally Posted by Crazypirate

I am sure the removal of the linked accounts was an attempt by Disney to increase the number of paid accounts with sooo many protesting by going back to basic or leaving the game Disney has had to cut dev budgets which is delaying the new content even more, the fewer that pay to play the longer it will continue to take to get more content out there.

Yes, Crazy - BUT there is an old adage, you must SPEND money to MAKE money. Also, the customer is ALWAYS right. I've been in service long enough to know that you don't win new business by ticking off the very people you seek income from.

[wmah]

Ella,
that just make me think of something,
Those that get suspended or banned will just make a basic pirate and go in that way so they can do the same stuff that got them in that mess anyways. Only difference is now they will show as a different pirate name (or not) and they will be a basic member and most of the paid members just assume those are kids playing and ignore it.

I just want to be able to have more than one of my 4 on at the same time. Most people in the game know that I have been doing 2 at once for awhile now and it wasn't until a couple months ago when I did 3 at once and a couple times I even tried 4, it was pretty much a screen shot moment. I can only handle 2 at once and usually do that. That is one pirate per hand.

I need to play double as I get too bored doing just one.