PETITION: Regarding FINAL FANTASY XIV Steam Version (Mar. 8)

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Originally Posted by Lachesia

I have been on the steam forums, so the assumption that I missed this discussion being there is a moot point. ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/39210...scn=1552059156 This is my post about it.)

The issue is still more proprietary to Steam and their policies for login and launch processes than it is with SE adhering to their agreement with Steam. I agree they need to give us the option to convert or consider the PC/Steam versions interchangeable, but this is still a low blow from Steam enforcing a ludicrous policy just so they can have their own product pushed.

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Precisely what do you expect the outcome with Valve will be considering they haven't bothered listening to a single concern in regards to ESO which made this exact switch some 18 months back? A lot of the people in this thread and the one I created before it have no hope that Valve will do anything because - as proven with ESO - Valve doesn't care. However unlike ESO, where you could rebuy the game as a PC version and unlink your account from Steam, FFXIV users are completely locked in. We cannot rebuy and apply a PC licence. This is where SE comes in - they can fix this particular issue.

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Originally Posted by Lozza

Precisely what do you expect the outcome with Valve will be considering they haven't bothered listening to a single concern in regards to ESO which made this exact switch some 18 months back?

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I'm not expecting the outcome to be /anything/. Steam doesn't care so long as their product is what's being used. But it's still Steam's Policy that's currently the underlying issue, you can petition SE as much as you want but the fact is that they are 'aligning' with 'Steam's policy'. Which means that they are adhering to an agreement they have with STEAM to use the Steam launcher. This issue is happening on both sides, and I think you're misunderstanding me when I'm stating that Steam needs to be petitioned. I agree that SE needs to fix this 'Steam is a separate platform' tomfoolery, Steam is a digital download center for Indie and Mainstream games. They are run by a company that USED to be a game developer themselves, Valve, which provided games like Half-Life, DOTA, TF2, Portal etc. Now however their focus isn't so much on game development so much as it is providing a platform for other developers to push their products, but in doing so you adhere to Steam's rules and regulations.

According to several articles, Steam benefits from both Mainstream and Independent developers using their platform. SE likely pays a 20% profit to Steam for every sale they make for their games ON steam, while indie developers pay 30%. Steam launcher often starts with a huge advertising window that expresses what's new and available through steam to entice and coerce players into buying more products through them, the launcher itself serves no actual purpose outside of doing what many players have been doing by creating direct-launch shortcuts on their desktop. It opens the shortcut through the launcher.

Herein lies the rub.

The launcher has it's own set of authentication processes to go through in order to launch the game, or even download the patches and updates, which it doesn't actually do, it launches your ffxiv game launcher and that game launcher in turn is what downloads the updates and patches from SE servers after you login.

Now if the steam launcher were something that would hold your login information and apply it for you so you're automatically loading the SE launcher with the patch updates going, fine, but that's not what happens.

You login, and authenticate your account in order to be able to login and authenticate your account which makes the use of the launcher redundant.

There's no reason to use the launcher like this.
Which is why it's also a demand necessary to make towards Steam to ask "Why do we need to do this when we're already doing that this way?"

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Originally Posted by Lachesia

There's no reason to use the launcher like this.
Which is why it's also a demand necessary to make towards Steam to ask "Why do we need to do this when we're already doing that this way?"

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Except that this thread and others are asking for something from SE. That is - please give us a way out of this eco system we were unknowingly tied into because of some contractual arrangement you made years ago and didn't think to tell paying customers about until after the pre-orders for HW went live.

Just so you know when ARR launched those of us who bought on Steam were not told that we'd be tied into Steam for expacs. In fact the way other MMOs had worked on Steam, RIFT, LOTRO, and others was that you got a key for the game, you made a game account with the publisher/dev and applied the key Steam gave you to that account. None of these games forced you to buy expacs from Steam. When pre-orders for HW went live many Steam users purchased from the SE web site only to discover our keys were incompatible. A lot of us thought we'd been accidentally given an NA key rather than a PAL key, or vis-a-versa. Then two weeks after HW pre-orders went live an email went out telling us Steam users would have to wait for the Steam pre-order to buy it from there. Back then it was an inconvenience, and we put up with it because we saw no harm in it.

Now after years of not adhering to this policy - remember ESO made this change well over 18 months ago, so the policy has been in place for sometime now and SE has not been adhering to it - SE has decided to change it's mind and do as Valve has requested. Why?

Tellng players in this thread you must complain to Valve is silly. Many Steam players myself have posted both here and on Steam - and strangely enough our requests have been different to both companies. To Valve we request they don't do this, and to SE we request we are given a way out of this situation (by allowing the application of PC keys to accounts that already have Steam keys). Frankly having been through the ESO disaster I believe our best chances lie with SE changing the rules to allow PC and Steam keys on the same account. That's what happened with ESO - because Valve did nothing, and still have done nothing to fix the disaster the Steam auth server is for that game.

I'm not asking of anything from SE specifically. I'm asking for those who are responsible for these kinds of decisions to attempt to reconcile this matter in a way that doesn't disadvantage the player base. That could be anything, including convincing Steam to ignore this issue and for everything currently to stay as is.

I know we weren't informed. I'm a person who got my game on steam right as ARR launched too, because it was convenient and that's where i learned about the game from friends. I didn't learn about the issue with Steam accounts being non-pc accounts until I tried to buy the stormblood physical collectors edition for PC and was told I couldn't use the code with it because I was on a steam account. So the 200$ I spent for the collector's edition I had to request a refund for in order to get the digital copy.

This time around with Shadowbringers, they give a physical collector's edition with a steam code... and it makes NO sense whatsoever to consider Steam and PC two separate accounts. I've never played ESO but the number of people mentioning it, you'd THINK that SE would have taken the hint from ESO that 'this is a bad idea'.

I hope to the twelve that they actually give the option to convert to PC or at least make them interchangeable so that we aren't losing the 800+ hours (for me personally) invested in playing, buying expansions or items from the mogstation, and level-grinding, (as well as suffering 4 different times through the ridiculously long MSQ chain before the MSQ skip was implemented) that has been invested in this game for something as dumb as 'oh well you got this from someone else so it's not our product, even though it is.'

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Originally Posted by Freyt

I'm not asking of anything from SE specifically. I'm asking for those who are responsible for these kinds of decisions to attempt to reconcile this matter in a way that doesn't disadvantage the player base. That could be anything, including convincing Steam to ignore this issue and for everything currently to stay as is.

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This is EXACTLY what needs to happen. I mentioned my issues due to the fact that someone could be reading this that would implement this solution. I agree a "petition" of any sort won't lead to anything really other than voicing concerns that hopefully someone at SE is reading, but a reconciliation, compromise if you will, SE and Steam, is exactly what needs to be done.

I would just like some clarification on how this is effecting log in for steam player given the complaints from ESO players when something similar happened there.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

I would just like some clarification on how this is effecting log in for steam player given the complaints from ESO players when something similar happened there.

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Easy, Think about what happens when the Steamaccount get hacked, banned or even worse Steam shuts down. You no longer have access to your account.

It'll likely just be some parameter launching it from steam, and there will be workarounds. I highly doubt the devs are going to implement the steam API into the game and maintain two codebases for it.

I hereby affix my signature in opposition to the current decisions to enforce the use of steam on account holders who have purchased the base game and its expansion through Steam services. It is my request that the current changes are repealed in favor of allowing those who so choose to, use the client of their choice. Many have either chosen to purchase the game and is subsequent expansions through a service, unaware of the differences inherent. If not a repeal then the option to allow those afflicted the opportunity to have their accounts made transferable to a sole Square-Enix service provider.