Feldon Since our exposé on the lack of options for anyone outside the continental United States to order the EverQuest II: Sentinel’s Fate expansion, it seems we stirred up a hornet’s nest behind the scenes, causing the resolution of at least some of the issues facing EverQuest II customers.
We are now able to report that BestBuy.com has corrected its release date to February 16th, Amazon.com is now offering shipping outside the U.S., and Amazon.ca is now offering Sentinel’s Fate for sale directly to Canadian customers. We are still awaiting word of the selection of one or more international distributors.
The official news from Marketing posted on the EQ2 forums by Kiara (who has been repeatedly and completely unjustly thrown under the bus on this issue):
Update from sales regarding shipping from Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop:
Amazon.com – Amazon will have all the information fixed by Friday AM. They will also have all the shipping options spelled out for both International and N.A. customers. Players will be able to choose an option for release date delivery in the continental U.S. International customers will have the ability to get the expansion day one but that all depends on how early the order is placed and willingness to pay shipping costs. They are also working with Amazon to start shipping on the February 9th to get to international players on day one and working with Amazon Canada to have release day delivery.
Best Buy.com – Best buy has added the pre-order button and put the 16th as the date of release. They will have the site perfect by Thursday night. They do not guarantee same day delivery; but like Amazon, they may start shipping on the 10th to hit houses on the 16th. They are working with Best Buy to on this.
GameStop – They know they need to add more information for our customers and will do so ASAP. Also GameStop Canada is going to be ready for this release. They just put the GameStop Canadian site up yesterday.
When I have further word on international distributors, I’ll pass that along as well. There currently is no updated information on how those discussions are working out.
SOE are apparently in talks with 2 international distributors and looking at options to make sure that Sentinel’s Fate is available locally in countries outside the U.S.
Doesnt seem to be much improvement to me other than the fact us euro’s can pay well over the odds from Amazon now i honestly dont think for one moment that SOE will get an international distributer its too late now i could be wrong of course but this is SOE we’re talking about.
Did you know that even though gamestop.ca and Amazon.ca list it, the odds of getting it on the 16th is pretty much nil?
Yup. Amazon.ca lists an estimated ship date of February 19th. I’m better off waiting for the digital download.
Well, we are a week away from the U.S. Release date and S.O.E. still don’t seem to have managed anything. The best and only solution to the distribution probs outside the U.S. would be to release the digital download at the same time. Unfortunatly I heard that they are bound by thier own contract with Amazon ect. to not release the D.D. until a week later in order to push up the boxed version sales. I can’t belive they would put that into a contract without first getting the international distribution probs sorted first. Not only have they lost out on mountains of boxed sales outside the U.S. but now they run the risk of losing hundreds of paying customers who feel like “second class citezens.”
Digital Download WILL be available to Europe fir Feb 16th.