Swapping from Steam to non-Steam client?

Even though I've purchased FFXIV:ARR though Steam, is it possible to play the game though the non-Steam client?

I've heard some horror stories on the Steam forums and Reddit. Is it true that if I want to play the non-Steam version, I need to purchase a new copy of FFXIV:ARR through the SE store? I have been looking forward to ordering the physical Heavensward CE for weeks, only to hear that Steam doesn't accept codes or keys from the SE store. Should this info be correct, I'll never be purchasing content through Steam again.

So, if there is a way to play this game without Steam or purchasing a second copy, please let me know.

The game will likely patch up all the Heavensward content, even if you haven't bought it. You should be fine getting the non-steam version.

...I'm not sure about payments though. ...are you paying through steam, or do you pay through the Mog Station?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrius

Is it true that if I want to play the non-Steam version, I need to purchase a new copy of FFXIV:ARR through the SE store? I have been looking forward to ordering the physical Heavensward CE for weeks, only to hear that Steam doesn't accept codes or keys from the SE store. Should this info be correct, I'll never be purchasing content through Steam again.

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Yes. It's true. And the stuff about being unable to get a physical copy of Heavenward to work with a Steam version of ARR is true as well.

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Originally Posted by reiichi

The game will likely patch up all the Heavensward content, even if you haven't bought it. You should be fine getting the non-steam version.

...I'm not sure about payments though. ...are you paying through steam, or do you pay through the Mog Station?

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They won't be able to connect it to their existing account because the existing account is Steam and the physical expansion isn't Steam. They need to buy the basegame again and start over if they want to buy the physical CE of Heavensward.

But could you buy a non-Steam version of ARR and apply it to your existing account?
I'm hearing a lot of mixed info on this, some say you can, others say you'd have to start again with new characters (not a bloody option, seriously).

Does the steam version not hook into Mog Station at all then? I'd assume that all SE service accounts still had to be registered there. And if that's the case, shouldn't it be possible to add the other codes as well? ...unless SE has stated this is impossible, I don't see why it owuldn't work.

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Originally Posted by Velia

But could you buy a non-Steam version of ARR and apply it to your existing account?
I'm hearing a lot of mixed info on this, some say you can, others say you'd have to start again with new characters (not a bloody option, seriously).

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Nope. You have to make a whole new account. It won't accept the key, as far as I've been told.

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Originally Posted by Keydah

Nope. You have to make a whole new account. It won't accept the key, as far as I've been told.

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Great. Just great. I feel like slapping Gaben so hard his rolls of fat would never stop jiggling.

Well, this is rather disappointing and very frustrating. Not a fan of SE or Valve right now.

I'm guessing it has to do with DRM, which prevents an entire section of the community from purchasing the physical CE. Also, Steam's announcement fourms now states the following: "please keep in mind that you can only upgrade your Steam-version of A Realm Reborn via a Steam version of Heavensward – others just won’t do!"

There's an official steam message linked somewhere in the forums, it says that only steam expansion works with steam ARR, if you can link bot versions on your account and the game updates itself with the expansion data that could work, but it's not likely, there's always some kind of installation involved, and i don't use steam for ARR so i don't know if you can link PC and steam-PC codes to the same SE account.

Wait for an official response here, and if you don't get it, contact with SE support.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrius

Well, this is rather disappointing and very frustrating. Not a fan of SE or Valve right now.

I'm guessing it has to do with DRM, which prevents an entire section of the community from purchasing the physical CE. Also, Steam's announcement fourms now states the following: "please keep in mind that you can only upgrade your Steam-version of A Realm Reborn via a Steam version of Heavensward – others just won’t do!"

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It has to do with Valve's greed. They get a cut from all sales on Steam, so forcing people to buy the expansion through them guarantees them more money.
It's these consumer despising tactics that have made me loathe Valve.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrius

Well, this is rather disappointing and very frustrating. Not a fan of SE or Valve right now.

I'm guessing it has to do with DRM, which prevents an entire section of the community from purchasing the physical CE. Also, Steam's announcement fourms now states the following: "please keep in mind that you can only upgrade your Steam-version of A Realm Reborn via a Steam version of Heavensward – others just won’t do!"

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Yeah...All of this is just awful. I'm so glad I bought the game long before it was on Steam and as such didn't have the chance to buy it on Steam. I'm sorry. :c

I had bought the game on Steam early last year because it was 75% off. If I had known this would be the case, I would have just paid the full price at the SE store.

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Originally Posted by Velia

It has to do with Valve's greed. They get a cut from all sales on Steam, so forcing people to buy the expansion through them guarantees them more money.
It's these consumer despising tactics that have made me loathe Valve.

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I wouldn't say it's Valve. EQ2 and RIFT both have steam versions and the expansions are all the same, as is the logins.

You can just download the basegame from SE site. Pretty sure you can play it with the key that you received from Steam. Your account is a Squeenix account and is seperate from your Steam account. It's just the product code that you get from Steam.
Also note that it says 'windows' in your mogstation and not 'steam'. Download client here.

I'll give it a whirl sometime this week. Not sure about not being able to add the expansion product key to work with your 'steam'product key. It really wouldn't make any sense.

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

I wouldn't say it's Valve. EQ2 and RIFT both have steam versions and the expansions are all the same, as is the logins.

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And they are both old, largely irrelevant and were on Steam before Valve truly became avaricious and vile when it comes to DLC.
There is absolutely no benefit at all for SE to segregate PC versions like this. It loses them potential sales. On the other hand, this greatly benefits Valve, because it means they will get a cut for every Steam version of ARR.

This is 100% to Valve. Of course, SE doesn't really care enough to challenge them either. But for this reason I will never make the mistake of buying another game on Steam again, they have lost my business.

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Originally Posted by Velia

But could you buy a non-Steam version of ARR and apply it to your existing account?
I'm hearing a lot of mixed info on this, some say you can, others say you'd have to start again with new characters (not a bloody option, seriously).

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You wouldn't have to start over with new characters. I have friends that play on both PC and PS4 and they use the same characters. The character data is connected to your account, not the platform you play on.

The physical CE code won't work on the Steam game, though. You'd have to buy/download ARR again.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

You wouldn't have to start over with new characters. I have friends that play on both PC and PS4 and they use the same characters. The character data is connected to your account, not the platform you play on.

The physical CE code won't work on the Steam game, though. You'd have to buy/download ARR again.

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The Steam version still gets registers as a Windows version on your account and you can't add a second Windows version, I've tried. (unless there's actually a way and I didn't know about it)

*waits for the official response with baited breath and finger on Fire III key*

Seriously, though, if SE offered players to ability to shift their PC account off of this weird "Steam" version we'd leave Steam in droves for the CE. And SE would make stacks of cash. Food for thought, hm? ;)

I purchased the physical CE edition of 2.0 for PC, installed and play it to this day. I bought the game off steam and launch through that everyday and it plays just fine. I haven't used the CD key that came with my Steam version. I don't see why it won't work once I slap on Heavensward content to it from SE. (Digital CE I plan on buying.)

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Originally Posted by Fytayn

*waits for the official response with baited breath and finger on Fire III key*

Seriously, though, if SE offered players to ability to shift their PC account off of this weird "Steam" version we'd leave Steam in droves for the CE. And SE would make stacks of cash. Food for thought, hm? ;)

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Good point. But it wouldn't surprise me if there's something in their contract with Valve that specifically prevents this.

since the steam version still runs and is payed over the mogstation like all other accounts it doesnt make much sense that you can not add another version of heavensward to your mog station account in the first place. not that i bothers me since steam will be selling digital ce anyway. and i dont care about spending 100 bucks on a damn statue^^

but still. you CAN download the client normally and PLAY it with your account even if you bought it over steam. since that account is not really tied to steam at all. steam does not even have to be on onlinemode to start ff client.

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Originally Posted by Windklinge

since the steam version still runs and is payed over the mogstation like all other accounts it doesnt make much sense that you can not add another version of heavensward to your mog station account in the first place. not that i bothers me since steam will be selling digital ce anyway. and i dont care about spending 100 bucks on a damn statue^^

but still. you CAN download the client normally and PLAY it with your account even if you bought it over steam. since that account is not really tied to steam at all. steam does not even have to be on onlinemode to start ff client.

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I know someone from my FC does that. Her base game was bought from Steam but she's playing the game through the client you download from the FFXIV website. Some people are saying that it's technically still Steam based though, which is why people think they can't buy the physical CE. (No idea where this info comes from but it'd be nice to know)

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Originally Posted by Dawnshade

I know someone from my FC does that. Her base game was bought from Steam but she's playing the game through the client you download from the FFXIV website. Some people are saying that it's technically still Steam based though, which is why people think they can't buy the physical CE. (No idea where this info comes from but it'd be nice to know)

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The thing is that the Steam client isn't different than the one you download; it's the same launcher but the difference is that you downloaded it from the Steam servers and not the SE servers. The problem is at the account level. "Steam" PC accounts are apparently different from a PC account from anywhere else and Steam/Valave have said, in as "cutesy" a way as possible, that only Steam-store-purchased codes will work. Still waiting on official SE word/confirmation. I'd be okay if they throw Valve under the bus over this.

It's been confirmed that you have to buy the game off Steam in order for it to work, unfortunately I doubt they'd release a Steam physical Collector's Edition.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/39210/announcements

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Originally Posted by Colorful

It's been confirmed that you have to buy the game off Steam in order for it to work, unfortunately I doubt they'd release a Steam physical Collector's Edition.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/39210/announcements

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Yup, I quoted from that earlier. However, I would like to hear from either SE or Valve, officially, as to why one whole community has been excluded.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrius

Yup, I quoted from that earlier. However, I would like to hear from either SE or Valve, officially, as to why one whole community has been excluded.

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AS far as I know is that it's Valve's policy. All expansions or DLC have to be sold through Steam as Valve wants their cut. I'd like to know why they don't let us register a non-Steam copy of the game over our current one though, if they're separate licenses then it shouldn't be a problem to have both active(?), like with PC and PS4.

And apparently people that call in customer service get told there is no problem with getting the physical CE for PC when you have a Steam account version. I'm getting this from the facebook group, so...

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Originally Posted by Recaldy

I purchased the physical CE edition of 2.0 for PC, installed and play it to this day. I bought the game off steam and launch through that everyday and it plays just fine. I haven't used the CD key that came with my Steam version. I don't see why it won't work once I slap on Heavensward content to it from SE. (Digital CE I plan on buying.)

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It's likely a lil different since you essentially bought a separate steam version as well (which allows it to show up on your library as an official steam purchase).
In your case you would still be able to play Heavensward whether you purchased a version from SE or from steam because you have both versions of the game already. CE benefits are also saved onto your account so no matter what client you run on any software these benefits do not disappear because you are still using the same account.

Steam kinda just acts like a license holder for the client, while the CD Key is used on an outside service aka. mog station but since you already have an activated account, the client naturally verifies this and allows you access without needing to activate the new key.

However a player with a windows version of FFXIV: ARR would not be able to buy Heavensward off of steam and have it work, as they don't actually possess an official steam version of the game.

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Originally Posted by Terrini

And apparently people that call in customer service get told there is no problem with getting the physical CE for PC when you have a Steam account version. I'm getting this from the facebook group, so...

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Could you please post a link to that Facebook status?

Unfortunately, I'm not that savvy on my phone, can't even figure out how to copy and paste things reliably.

Lets see if this works..
https://m.facebook.com/groups/840178...52761408231586

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Originally Posted by Terrini

Unfortunately, I'm not that savvy on my phone, can't even figure out how to copy and paste things reliably.

Lets see if this works..
https://m.facebook.com/groups/840178...52761408231586

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They didn't word their question properly IMO. It's not a "rumor" either. The community team announcement on Steam LITERALLY says "In the meantime, please keep in mind that you can only upgrade your Steam-version of A Realm Reborn via a Steam version of Heavensward – others just won’t do!"

I guess this is as official as it's gonna get for now:
https://twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/577518818139856896

So that's a big middle finger to Steam users. Welp. Probably gonna shell out to get my account off Steam then. Even if I don't want this physical CE it would be silly to stay in case there's more things I did want later down the line. Let the mass exodus begin!

I'm still confused as to whether switching game versions on existing accounts is possible.
At this point I'd love to do so. This act on Valve's part is just one in a string of incidents that has turned Steam from innovative convenience to restrictive trash run by fools and mobsters and I've had quite enough.

If it is possible I'd love to know exactly how to go about this before investing in a standalone ARR + Heavensward.

I have submitted a sacrifice of words and electricity to the support gods, who may or may not be able to tell me how to go about this. Really hope the "Windows" part of my service account isn't irreparably owned by Steam/Valve somehow...

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Originally Posted by Velia

I'm still confused as to whether switching game versions on existing accounts is possible.
At this point I'd love to do so. This act on Valve's part is just one in a string of incidents that has turned Steam from innovative convenience to restrictive trash run by fools and mobsters and I've had quite enough.

If it is possible I'd love to know exactly how to go about this before investing in a standalone ARR + Heavensward.

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From what I've read it just adds a new service account, meaning you'd have to restart if you wanted to play on that version of the game.

Oh super. T_T