Current EverQuest, EverQuest 2 and Planetside 2 players can stay with SOE.

A short time ago, SOE President John Smedley announced on Twitter that current EU players will not be forced over to ProSiebenSat.1 and will keep their SOE accounts. After the games are officially launched by ProSieben, new EU accounts will still have to be created on PSS1's sites. Here is his full announcement:

Wanted to thank our players for continuing feedback. We've been listening along with our European partners at Prosieben. We've found a way to let existing players of our current games that are migrating over to Prosieben (EQ, EQ II, Planetside 2) keep their SOE accounts and stay with SOE. Down the road we may offer an option to move over to Prosieben. Just to be clear after these games launch on Prosieben's service new accounts will be created on their sites. However all US and EU players can still play together no matter which service they are on. I want to be clear that Prosieben will have better European CS and payment options IMO. That's why we went with them in the first place. Also Prosieben has done a great job of listening and is working on changing some of their CS policies. More to come on that soon.

A player then asked about why SOE is pairing up with ProSieben at all now, and John Smedley responded: "@gishank nothing to complain about any more. If you don't want to move over you don't have to. The community is absolutely NOT being split."

Future Planetside 2 players should note that "want to make sure I'm crystal clear - after we launch Planetside 2 - new EU accounts can only be created on Prosieben." and also "Alpha Squad purchasers will not have to migrate although we will offer the optional ability to migrate to Prosieben."