Duelyst Forums

An Update on Region Blocking

I believe you should start negotiating with support on the issue. We have little information on how refunds or other issues are managed in this complicated situation, and nobody here on forums seems to be authorised to solve the issue. In short, if you really want anything to be done - contact support.

And you may also post smth on forums for us to know how the situation is going on.

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So how do we claim out orbs. It’s 2:31pm EST which means it’s 11:30am PST

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Sorry Russia orbs wen Babyrage

The most surprising country on the block list is Croatia. Which is an EU member state and so part of the single market.

Bandai Namco is already under EU investigation this year regarding geoblocking games on Steam. Allowing purchases from Croatia is a no brainer.

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He has to say that, he can’t urge people to break the terms of service. You take your own risks with VPNs.

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Hey there!

We’ve upset some tech-god(s) somewhere and are running into some technical issues. We’re trying to get this up and running ASAP, so please hold!

(In the meantime we are trying to find what rituals or sacrifices we need to do to appeal to said tech-gods in order to get our systems running)

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Fae and Old Ones usually don’t like tech (Pre-WW2 is fine tho).

Rituals will make it worse, so you’ll need to rely on good 'ol human ingenuity.

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Depending on the tech God, a swift kick to the hardware is usually enough put them in their place.

If it’s a greater tech God, you’re on your own. I’ve learned they can be extremely temperamental. Sometimes a shiny new macguffin will suffice, other times not even the blood of fifty virgins and the scattered components of an iPhone 7 are enough to appease them.

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What risks? Surprisingly find cp? RofL

A quick search of “dangers of using a VPN” brings up immediate and useful information.

Although broad, the points in the first result are good enough to help you understand: https://lifars.com/2015/01/dangers-of-using-vpn/

I could go on about VPNs myself, but it’s not my job to help you with your security on the internet. That’s your job. Also, please note, I’m not bashing VPNs. I’m saying research is an essential tool to understanding the forces you’re playing with and could be potentially hurting yourself with.

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Why China is not being allowed to create new account?

Even Hearthstone allow us to do that.

Does the US Government/Law has different requirement for Bandai and Blizzard?

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I think the Bandai rules for region blocking are kinda random. There seems to be no good logic behind it.

You need a special lisence and partner to launch a game on China, country laws.
Even big companies like RIOT or Blizzard has Chinese partners which are responable for their games on that country.

The reason why you could register on Duelyst on china before? Eeeeeh… Welp, lets talk about “grey areas”. Not even sure if allowing old chinese users to play its even legal on China, i guess it is for aome reason, since Bandai didnt ban the country.

Maybe because Bandai is a Japanese based company, and Activision/Blizzard isn’t, so each do what they want, there is no obligation by law to make a game available to chinese if you don’t want to.
Just a guess …

Yeah, but Duelyst its on BN America, right?

Which obeys to BN Japanese “mothership” (I guess, again).

I might be late to the party. i used a VPN to see whats going on in there and ended up with my account suspended :pensive:

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CPG Community Manager clearly stated few posts above :

PLEASE, do not use a VPN to connect to Duelyst. According to Section 4.a, Paragraph iii. of the Terms of Service: You may not Access the Services using any technology intended to mask or conceal your IP address, including any proxies, virtual private networks, or remote access services. We have a zero tolerance policy on this, and if you are found to be doing this, while it is the last thing any of us want to do, we will ban your account.

And you just go …

Ok …

Yeah, i said that i was late to the party for that reason, when i used It i didnt se the post in the forum, and that was totally my bad :T

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(Posting on behalf of my regionally-blocked friend)

Hi, fellow duelysts and Stormshade!

I have a lot to say, but I’ll try to say it as short as possible.

I am one of the voices you can’t hear on the forums, because to log in here we need to have a Bandai Namco account. Exactly the thing BNamco forbids us to have.
This is great for business: as little public unrest as possible.
No victims speaking up = no publicity problems.

I do not write this seeking compensations or access to the game in which I’ve put a lot of time and money. What I want is clarity.

BNamco may hire highly polite and decent people such as Stormshade to speak with us and to “be the community’s voice in the company”, but that does not change the company’s goals in this situation.

Their long-term goal is money. Their short-term goal is damage control.
Understandable goals. Bad means.
This is a big and clunky business trying to make itself look better than it is instead of becoming better.
They could choose a higher course. They could do the hard work: settle their inner legal issues, make the game accessible, provide good user support. And they would be more prosperous for it.
But they prefer to solve this problem by the means of obfuscation and segregation.

So, to the people still playing: demand better service.
This is not normal. Look at other companies. If they can be outgoing with their policies, if they can provide service to different countries, if they can plan ahead their resonant changes - what real excuses do BNamco have for their actions?

And to Stormshade - a question.

Let me quote you:
“If anyone is in a blocked region and cannot play the game longer, and wants a refund, they can make a support ticket and we’ll do our best to help them.”

I wish to know if the treatment I’ve received from the Customer Support Team is “your best”.

My support request by the number of 12851 was made on the 1st of August.
I’ve received a meaningful reply (No Refund for you, No Access for you) on the 25th of August, three weeks later. Is this your company’s best?
And that was not just me relaxed and waiting. I had to ask for an update of my request several times after periods of silence from the support. Is this your company’s best?
Lastly, a few quotes from the support e-mails. They show a lack of consistency in company’s decisions:

Aug 2: “…our support staff and community teams aren’t able to comment on the nature of the company’s legal obligations applicable to any particular title…”

Aug 7: “…Currently we’ve been discussing the region ban with the community and development teams. So for now they stated that Russian players with older Duelyst accounts will be allowed into the game but future purchases would be disabled…”

Aug 8: “Our apologies. It would seem that since your last response we’ve learned that we would only allow Russian players who already made a BNEA account into the game but all new account registrations from Russian users would be disabled. We are very sorry for this but it does mean we’ll have to process you for a refund and cannot assist you into the game as there aren’t any ways for us to get around the system.
Again, we do apologize and will make sure to prioritize your refund.”
Aug 25: “We have received word from the finance team and unfortunately based on your last purchase-date, you do not fall under the users eligible for a refund. We do apologize for this news but we will not be offering you a refund.”

Let me ask, are legal obligations and refund policies made on the fly in your company?

So, for the last time: is this your company’s best?
If that’s really your best - I’m ok with that, if you can just confirm it here by your own words.
If that’s not your best - maybe you can discuss this with the company and ask them, why they put you in a situation where you give the community your word and they can’t back it up?
In any case, know that you’ve personally done me nothing wrong and I respect your hard work.


May bad companies shiver and die.
May great games live and prosper.

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