PlayOnline suggestion: member password

[Zenoxio]

When a user is creating a new member in PlayOnline (first time players or people redoing installs), I strongly recommend having the "Member Password" (it's not required) not visible during creation. Only available during editing of an existing member.

From a UX perspective, this currently seems to be a significant barrier where new players get confused and quit before even getting to FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

I never set a member password and I don't know anyone who does. The only reason to do it is if multiple people are playing on the same PC.

What evidence do you have that this is a "significant barrier?" I've never heard anyone mention this. It doesn't even matter if a password field is visible or not if there's no one else around to see it.

And as you said yourslf- it's not required, and it isn't the playonline password or SE password. Honestly if anything they should just remove the member password feature entirely.

[Catmato]

Because it's a third password that isn't clearly explained. Especially on the page you enter asks for a POL password, but the SE password isn't entered until the next screen.

[nixRidge]

I remember it took me a minute to figure out what the member password even was for. But the main issue was that it just meant I had to enter my password twice when signing in. When that started annoying me enough, I quickly found out what the member password was, lol :D


So maybe not a significant barrier to entry, but definitely annoying while you try to figure out what's going on. I also think it should just be removed from PlayOnline.

[Zenoxio]

I never set a member password and I don't know anyone who does. The only reason to do it is if multiple people are playing on the same PC.

What evidence do you have that this is a "significant barrier?" I've never heard anyone mention this. It doesn't even matter if a password field is visible or not if there's no one else around to see it.

And as you said yourslf- it's not required, and it isn't the playonline password or SE password. Honestly if anything they should just remove the member password feature entirely.

I run the FFXI subreddit. I see this barrier from posts on almost a daily basis as of recent lol, does that count as evidence? People keep setting it, and not being able to login because they confuse this vs the provided PlayOnline password. And then they rage quit before even getting into FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

That's fair but if this is enough to bother someone it honestly tells me they weren't that invested in trying it to begin with. We all had to deal with it, and maybe it interfered and maybe it didn't, but we really wanted to play the game, so we figured it out in the end.

From a functional and implementation standpoint probably the simplest solution is to gray out that field. But that would also mean that the (admittedly small) number of people in the unique situation where it would be useful wouldn't really know about it or how to set it.