Steam Account - Need help for users that don't actually have FFXIV on their steam

Thankfully I purchased the PC license originally, for whatever reason I've never liked the idea of various "launchers", and it's even worse now that nearly every major game publisher has their own. TBH I don't see much difference between a launcher and a console, as it restricts you to playing a game on that launcher just like a console restricts from playing games on another console, but perhaps since I've mainly always been a console player that's where my dislike from the launchers comes from. #feelsbadman

It kinda sucks, but the only real solution I see is for people who want to get away from steam is to bite the bullet and buy the regular PC version. I own both ps4 & PC licenses so I know re-buying expacs and everything is not appealing whatsoever, but, you know what they say - Freedom ain't Free.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Thankfully I purchased the PC license originally, for whatever reason I've never liked the idea of various "launchers", and it's even worse now that nearly every major game publisher has their own. TBH I don't see much difference between a launcher and a console, as it restricts you to playing a game on that launcher just like a console restricts from playing games on another console, but perhaps since I've mainly always been a console player that's where my dislike from the launchers comes from. #feelsbadman

It kinda sucks, but the only real solution I see is for people who want to get away from steam is to bite the bullet and buy the regular PC version. I own both ps4 & PC licenses so I know re-buying expacs and everything is not appealing whatsoever, but, you know what they say - Freedom ain't Free.

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You can't apply a normal key to an account that has a Steam key on it.

I think one of the biggest things we want to know is if steam goes down will we still be able to play as long as we have it on in offline mode at least?

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

You can't apply a normal key to an account that has a Steam key on it.

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Then what does this mean?

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For users who possess a Square Enix account with multiple service accounts (specifically ones that have both Steam and Windows licenses)

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Not arguing, I just assumed it was like ps4/pc where you can have a license for both and play on either, but only pay 1 sub. If that's not the case then it sounds like he's referring to separate subscription (service) accounts.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Then what does this mean?



Not arguing, I just assumed it was like ps4/pc where you can have a license for both and play on either, but only pay 1 sub. If that's not the case then it sounds like he's referring to separate subscription (service) accounts.

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The latter is what he's referring to, yes. Your PC/PS4 keys allow you to use the same service account with two different platforms, but the post refers to people who have multiple service accounts using different versions of the PC key (Steam or Windows) associated with the same Square Enix account.

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Originally Posted by Vasala

I think one of the biggest things we want to know is if steam goes down will we still be able to play as long as we have it on in offline mode at least?

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If it's like ESO we're hosed. Was looking at recent outages and there was one last week and 11 last month.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Then what does this mean?



Not arguing, I just assumed it was like ps4/pc where you can have a license for both and play on either, but only pay 1 sub. If that's not the case then it sounds like he's referring to separate subscription (service) accounts.

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It means people who have several Service Accounts registered to their SE Account.
Each service account is a seperate subscription, each giving you the option of registering the platforms PS4, Mac and Windows (stand-alone or Steam, wherein lies the rub).
Unless they change how the keys are handled both a stand-alone and a Steam key are under the Windows platform and mutually exclusive.
That bit just means that you can't trick the system by registering a second service account with the stand-alone trial, launch the game independend of Steam and then switch to your Steam-bound service account bypassing all the Steam authentification mumbo jumbo.

They could just make Steam its own "platform" and allow people to register a set of stand-alone keys for the Windows version. People would still have to spend money for at least the base game and Shadowbringers but they'd be free of the dreaded unstable Steam authentification server.

If they leave things as is people with Steam-bound accounts who want to keep their account progress are stuck with having to go through the double authentification and any problems that may entail until someone figures out a workaround or they outright switch to another platform.

I wonder if you can make the launcher believe it's running on a Mac and break the system that way without taking the performance hit that emulating an OS entails, at the price of having to buy Mac licenses.

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Originally Posted by Defmetal

Or square enix could do the ethical thing and let players opt out of the steam account version and convert to a regular version. The steam version sucks

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Or let people have both versions on the same account and same chars, just buying both licenses.

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Originally Posted by Astrus

They could just make Steam its own "platform" and allow people to register a set of stand-alone keys for the Windows version. People would still have to spend money for at least the base game and Shadowbringers but they'd be free of the dreaded unstable Steam authentification server.

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I see, they don't differentiate Steam being a different "platform" like PC vs PS4. Makes more sense now.

This is lame. At the end of the day, its proven that the game doesn't require Steam to run. Game has been out how many years and this has never been a problem, now it apparently is.

I'm one of those people who purchased the keys on Steam for my girlfriend on my Steam account, she has her own now but didn't back then. I just got the key while it was on sale. At the time, she didn't have or need Steam, because it launched on its own. Years later, she got her own Steam account.

Can she download the free trial to her Steam account, and sign in using that?

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Originally Posted by Seedling

When you bought Heavensward (or Stormblood), you had the option to buy it for standalone or Steam version, so some blame does befall the player in this case, if they chose the 'wrong' version because it 'worked anyway'.

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Difference is, I bought it on Steam when it first launched there, this was still in the 2.0 patch (so before 2.1)... way before any expansions were coming out. There were no notifications to say we were going to be locked in to Steam all this time, and then this unfolding. Better still, I'm left with 2 choices here: I can either accept Steam authentication (let's say Steam authentication for games goes down for a week, as I've heard it has done even so far as fairly recently, that also means I'd be disconnected from the game and unable to log back in) to keep my characters, or start over from scratch with an entirely new service account to get off the Steam platform. Bear in mind I bought the Steam version long before HW was even up for pre-order, so I'm not at fault here. I've followed using the Steam launcher the entire time, and I've followed buying expansions from Steam, but now I'm stuck in this position because I didn't have the foresight over 5 years ago to realise "Oh, this is gonna end up happening." - and this is why I'm after some help here personally. Just a way to be able to access the game without having to go through Steam authentication. I don't own a PS4 so please don't suggest that. But if they'd add an option for Steam/non-Steam PC to be on the same service account (even if it meant buying the game + expansions twice), that'd be OK with most of us.