Are alternative payment options being considered?

[RAIST]

the sad thing is a lot of people don't even know they may be able to enroll in Securecode/VbV and add it to their current cards. Both the Mastercard and Visa sites have pages for adding it to your card. Granted, it may not be available in some regions (Visa-US implies you can simply activate it on all US issued cards, but Visa-EU lists like 20 issuers that support it when you go to activate it, Mastercard kinda does the same thing too)

[Quetzacoatl]

the sad thing is a lot of people don't even know they may be able to enroll in Securecode/VbV and add it to their current cards. Both the Mastercard and Visa sites have pages for adding it to your card. Granted, it may not be available in some regions (Visa-US implies you can simply activate it on all US issued cards, but Visa-EU lists like 20 issuers that support it when you go to activate it, Mastercard kinda does the same thing too)

Mine's not even eligible for SecureCode, so guess what that would mean for me?

[Alukat]

If you selected Crysta, then you have umm..a very short time, based on where you live, to add Crysta to your account.

well if no changes occur before my account gets closed,then i have 17.95€ per month which i can spend for other things.

1 person can't make a change but thousands could :x

[Meyi]

SE will probably make an announcement of some kind on Monday. Hopefully, they won't bury it under a sticky you gotta dig through.

Try to see things from their side. This is a game, but it's also a business. They have stockholders to answer to, and they have to keep a solid profit margin. It costs money just to bill people. They have to do a cost analysis and see what would work out best for them. ... I don't think they had predicted this total $#!+ storm. So now they have to make calls, have long meetings, and rethink things. It won't happen instantly, it takes time. They're not politicians; if they promise something, it had better damn well happen, so they can't just make big talk about PayPal and Visa unless they can actually make it happen.

I predict we won't hear a thing come Monday. Or even until September's right around the corner or here.

I think we all understand that it is a business as well as a game. Square Enix needs to generate income from its playerbase and I know the company is often hasty to jump on potential ways to save a buck. However, Square Enix must also understand that, as a business, the "customer is always right", and if the customer is not happy, then the business is not happy. If a customer never returns that is lost income... far more lost income than the fee to process our money directly. Multiply that by how many people cannot and will not play due to our current options, and we're looking at a serious dilemma.

You're right; for us it is just a game. A game that we can quit and walk away from. For Square Enix, it is their monetary gain and is something they cannot easily abandon.

This isn't the first time SE had to deal with this.

when ffxiv went live similar outburst happen. Then subsided after people figued stuff out.

Then why were they foolish enough to persevere in billing FFXIV in this fashion? Even worse yet, why change FFXI after it's been in the direct payment route for the last eight years? Why do the Japanese get to continue paying directly while the rest of the playerbase cannot? I can somewhat understand that since FFXIV was forced with these options from the beginning that anyone who disagreed with the payment system just wouldn't play the game. No play, no loss. But for the old playerbase that FFXI is composed of, people who have lots of things already accomplished and friendships created, I think it's a very poor move to demand we choose to start paying with things we don't want to pay with or toss away our beloved characters.

So far my b/f signed up for C&B and had no issues. And he is of the mind set that if C&B does do something he can just cancle the credit card. Not the first time he did so. (long story)

I cannot lock or cancel my credit card. It's a family card. However I did notice Korpg linked us to some prepaid cards that might work with ClickandBuy, and if that's the case, I might buy one of those and just insert money onto it. If ClickandBuy decides to try and pull a fast one on me then my family won't be in danger.

Also SE does not regulate what country has what services. They can offer, but it is up to the region to take up said offer. Like not all countries have crysta. That is the fault of the contries.

Is it? Perhaps Square Enix could persuade them to allow Crysta. Or if it doesn't have that kind of power, it could still offer another service to the countries that cannot buy crysta.

Also the Crysta tin foil hat thinking is really getting outa hand. Learn how to take advantage of said system instead of moaning the "i'm forced to pay more to keep up crysta while having extra crysta I can't use" Kinda dumb sorry. You need crysta in your pot to purchase additional services such as extra content ID for characters.

Uncalled for remark. There is nothing dumb about being angered with having to overpay for a service. Especially, once again, since we have been able to pay for the exact amount for the last eight years. Not to mention the Japanese are still allowed to.

If they do get more options, do not think it was you guys who caused the change, it woulda been a combination of both ffxi and ffxiv player bases.

Well if FFXIV complained and it didn't change for them then I can't honestly say FFXIV contributed. If it changes I would have to say that FFXI provided the biggest movement. But even then, what does this sentence have to do with anything? We're not here for bragging rights, we're here to ask Square Enix for better payment choices.

1295.00 -- 1295.00 ---- 1300.00 ---- 1300.00 --- 1320.00
FFXI fees - $5 Crysta - $10 Crysta - $20 Crysta - $40 Crysta
FINALLY after 100 billing cycles (over 8 yrs.) it finally gets to the point where we can actually have paid EXACTLY what we were charged.

Wow that's sad... add on the fact that a lot of people have mules and the numbers may take even longer to sync up. Thank you for crunching that out, it was very interesting to see.

WoW, that is what tin foil hat thinking is. (...) No one did tin foil hat thinking about "shady" stuff. (...) You guys really pulling complaints out of thin air.

This is why people don't like you. This is why people attack you all the time. Learn to speak civilly to others and others will speak civilly to you. Stop insulting us or else it will come back ten fold.

I'm on a fixed income and prob only way I can pay for ffxi and ffxiv once they charge is from unemployment.

Our lovely tax dollars at work...

Consider this, you can't get refunded for mmo period, if you quit say after 7 years of paying for 3 characters. That is a good $1K+ you wasted. Also if you care so much for $1-$5 maybe mmo not 4 u.

While it IS true that MMOs are nonrefundable, they are not a waste of money. We are paying for entertainment for the month. The same argument could be made for movies, video games, television, internet, cell phones, and sometimes cars. None of this is refundable and none of it is needed to live. Now internet may help with our jobs, cell phones may be useful in bosses and employees contacting us, and cars are a great way to get to work, but how many of us surf the net for fun, text friends with one worded texts and go on cruises?

Most things in life are nonrefundable. That doesn't matter.

Also, not everyone wants to spend an additional $1~5 a month because after a year, that's $12 (almost a free month of play) or $60 (could pay for a month of internet). After the years roll by such numbers build up.

What I think is, if someone cannot afford a MMO, they shouldn't be playing it.

You have no idea what you are on about, but thanks for bumping the thread.

XD

It is in bad faith to offer individuals a payment system where you must overpay in order to receive a service, even if said overpayment comes down to a few cents here or there. The agreement was 12.95/month and not one cent over.

Yep. Like Raist I wouldn't have minded if they added an additional dollar to the service fee to compensate for something as long as they provided a reason why. I don't mind paying a little more for my game as long as they're being open and honest with me. Trying to get a few cents out of me through unwanted crysta though...

[Reiterpallasch]

Mine's not even eligible for SecureCode, so guess what that would mean for me?

One less person to camp against on Leviathan! :3

But no really, this whole system is bullshit. Dunno wtf SE is thinking. Did they put the old dev team in charge of billing or something? Next thing you know you'll only have a 3hour window each month to pay, and if you don't you get banned.

[Quetzacoatl]

One less person to camp against on Leviathan! :3

Don't believe Draylo's lies!

[Sagian]

RAIST has it right anyway. The lowest whole-dollar amount, which is a multiple of $12.95, and divisible by $5.00, is $1295.00... one-hundred months.

In any case, I've cancelled my content ID's until I can direct pay again, which means I may be finished forever. I won't deny, though, it was fun while it lasted!

[Niyariko]

People shouldn't be quitting due to payment issues, its sad to see FFxi end like this after all those excellent contents ><;

[RAIST]

Mine's not even eligible for SecureCode, so guess what that would mean for me?

I'd call the 800 number on your card if you haven't checked it in a while. A lot of companies have gotten on board with it lately (probly due to all the ecommerce now). I've never run into any issues using my card through secured sites. Granted, I only have 1 MC, but also have 4 VISA, an AMEX, and Discover. The security isn't just SecureCode, that is just MC's brand name. Visa uses the Verified by Visa thing (Visa/MC use the same protocols), JCB is Jsecure and AMEX is SafeKey. Granted, the last two are proprietary, but if you have one of those, it's pretty much a lock that it's active or at least available. And VISA appears to make it available to all US issued cards.

[RAIST]

People shouldn't be quitting due to payment issues, its sad to see FFxi end like this after all those excellent contents ><;

for some it's simply not an option. For others, the remaining options just don't sit well with them for whatever reason. Many are leaving on principle...it's not necessarily a lolrage quit thing.

Me, I'm out of work. I have budgetted and can manage to cover my current FFXI charges and a spot of gas to get around while looking for work and such. My bank flat out rejects C&B on policy. They have protected me twice on fraud (once due to my mistake with an ebay transaction, again with a fake charge from the UK)--so I am simply going to trust their judgement on this and not use C&B.

Until I get a reliable cashflow going again (not working odd jobs here and there just to make ends meet) I simply can't justify spending the extra money on Crysta to play. Extra billing cycles, extra cost per cycle to play, exceeding what I have projected in my budget to be able to maintain things until the end of the year (longer PROVIDED an old investment of mine finally pays off for me). If I could use the card like I've always done, I could tolerate it if the shorter cycles and potential interest on the card prevented me from paying it off a few times--but I try to keep this card as cleared as I possibly can in case I need it for emergency spending.

So, in a way...in my current situation, loosing this direct bill option is just not something I can stomach financially.