Questions regarding account management, Origin Store and Gameplay

[Akiho]

I'll try to keep it short, first an Intro since It's my first post.

I am originally from the UK and have spent most of my days playing from there. I am board lurker (on & off) and have been playing UO since 1999 (on & off) on various shards including Europa, Drachenfels, Siege Perilous, Napa Valley, Hokuto, Atlantic and recently started on Sakura for reasons below. I still love to play UO in between many other games which keeps the flame alive so to speak.

I am posting here because the Origin/EA help site is well.... not helpful.

My issues

I have recently moved to Thailand and when im not in the sun I still like to game at nights however the following issues fall out from this:

1. Ping time increase. It is still playable (100-250 to Sakura) but occasionally has prolonged spikes which ususally end in my demise. A search on the forums does have some references to this problem years back using various pay-to-use programs but the threads run dry with no 'Thanks! that sorted my problem' etc. Any suggestions on this? It is very apparent that Thailand is not suited for gaming but every little helps.

2. Origin Store Products. Being in Thailand I get forced to a thai version of the store, now that would be fine if the same products were available but that is not the case, there is only one product available on the Thai page which is the current expansion which naturally was applied for free as I had an active account. If I use a UK proxy to access the site I can see all the available products however I am not prepared to send credit card details over the proxy. Again forum searches reveal this has been discussed in the past but again with no positive resolution. Any hints? or am I screwed?

Finally

3. Account Subscription. Because of Point 2 above I can no longer buy Game Time which I prefer over automatic renewal, so I proceed to setup a subscription. My problem is the subscription fee (see Screenshots below). Am I missing something here or just being very naive? When I bought game time it cost £9.99 and nothing more, now according to the subscription fee which very clearly says £9.99 'inclusive of VAT' then proceeds to add TAX when you go to checkout?!? Now it's not the cost that irks me, it's the principal of the matter, don't tell me one thing then do another and clearly makes it a bit more expensive than buying game time. Any explanations on this would be great and I will stand corrected if my assumptions are wrong.



Any suggestions, help or information would be very much appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[Parnoc]

Not much help on some of this but I use a router helper named Battleping, a "pay for" boost for gaming. I still show ping to California shard I play at 230 to 250 but I guarantee you, I can outrun most of my guildmates who are a lot closer to the server. I love it and it is very stable and reliable and it feels more like i'm playing from the US. Battleping home is Australia I believe so the routing help is right on if you're in Thailand.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

On the taxes, I think I might have your answer.
Okay EA who handles the transactions is in California, which happens to be the most over taxed state in the US.
Basically they tack on California sales tax on EVERYONE.
I'm in rural Oklahoma and the sales tax rate where I live is 6%. EA tried to charge me 9.5% which is the sales tax rate of the nearest town.
While my mailing address does have that town's name, I am not inside the city limits.
Anyway EA and I had a set to about it since they couldn't bother to charge the right tax rate and they dropped it.
Well me emailing all the information from the Oklahoma Tax Commission might have helped.

Oh and Welcome to Uhall. Please do keep posting.

 

[Akiho]

Not much help on some of this but I use a router helper named Battleping, a "pay for" boost for gaming. I still show ping to California shard I play at 230 to 250 but I guarantee you, I can outrun most of my guildmates who are a lot closer to the server. I love it and it is very stable and reliable and it feels more like i'm playing from the US. Battleping home is Australia I believe so the routing help is right on if you're in Thailand.

Cheers, I'll give that a whirl but won't hold my breath. I did try 'Some Programs' as someone had mentioned in a post from years ago but quite frankly the difference was fractional if there was any at all and the large spikes were still there. Need to get gametime/subscription before I can test Battleping though! Will report my findings then.

 

[Akiho]

On the taxes, I think I might have your answer.
Okay EA who handles the transactions is in California, which happens to the most over taxed state in the US.
Basically they tack on California sales tax on EVERYONE.
I'm in rural Oklahoma and the sales tax rate where I live is 6%. EA tried to charge me 9.5% which is the sales tax rate of the nearest town.
While my mailing address does have that town's name, I am not inside the city limits.
Anyway EA and I had a set to about it since they couldn't bother to charge the right tax rate and they dropped it.
Well me emailing all the information from the Oklahoma Tax Commission might have helped.

Oh and Welcome to Uhall. Please do keep posting.

Well I guess this kind of makes sense since the subscription plan is done through the Bioware Mythic | Account Management site and the game time was through the https://www.origin.com/en-gb/store/ site

Although that just makes the EA site/billing (Assuming it is California based) to be incredibly dishonest. If the tax is known about it should say 'EXclusive of tax' and not the other way around.

I'm kinda loath to throw the additional £1.67 at them because of this very obvious dishonesty.

 

[Parnoc]

Cheers, I'll give that a whirl but won't hold my breath. I did try 'Some Programs' as someone had mentioned in a post from years ago but quite frankly the difference was fractional if there was any at all and the large spikes were still there. Need to get gametime/subscription before I can test Battleping though! Will report my findings then.

Well, give it a fair try, for me it is phenomenal and I'm in Thailand also, far rural, as in "out on the farm". Oh and they have a 30 day free trial, the free trial shuts you down after 20 minutes but you sure have time enough to make a decision on buying it or not and it isn't expensive, only US$5 a month.