Option to get off steam

If anyone from SE gets this. Can it please be looked into for getting our accounts off and away from steam either now or sometime in the future. Thank you.

Lot of demand for this right now

Yeah I know. I didn't know that you're 100% locked into steam and HAVE to buy the game through them to update the pc version if you register through them. It's causing some problems now, I don't want my account attached to steam if for w/e reason in the future they don't sell future expansions and ect. Sucks due to the fact the current way to get rid of steam is by 100% losing any progression you've made.

I'm disgusted by how the game is tied to a platform. FFXI was a lot better in that regard. As long the code is valid you can register any expansion from any console and play it anywhere.

I just got told in a support ticket that my account is supposedly on Steam, which is goddamned bullshit because I never bought the game via Steam, I deliberately bought it directly through Mogstation because I didn't want to deal with being locked in to Steam, now I'm stuck with a HW code that I can't even use and all my character progression is locked to a platform that I never bought the game through.

Completely agreed.

Valve is dropping the ball so hard on these preorders. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of Steam players would transfer off in a heartbeat. No physical CE, plus delaying the preorder longer than an entirely different console? Not okay.

There's probably a legal reason why we're stuck on Steam, but I'd still like to know. Unless there's a contract keeping us with Steam, I don't see any reason why we should be locked there.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Unless there's a contract keeping us with Steam, I don't see any reason why we should be locked there.

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We all "agreed" to this in the enormous user rights page we are shown when we first sign up to Steam. I never read them, don't know anyone who did. Ran into a lawyer friend and tried to get him on Steam - he wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole after reading their "agreement" for users.

On steam, we technically don't even own the games we "buy" Steam does, and is giving us unlimited rights to play them as long as their servers remain up, and can revoke access at any time.

This whole situation is so ugly. Can't transfer away from Steam. Can't buy another copy from Square Enix, because they won't transfer your characters off Steam. Can't get a physical copy because Square Enix refuses to sell them through Steam. Can't pre-order, because Valve has a captive audience now and has no incentive to get a move on. "Helpful" advice is to just buy the game twice if you want it that badly, instead of demanding actual customer service. SE gets to shrug and point at Valve for not getting things together. Valve gets to shrug and point at SE because they refuse to provide them physical CEs. Neither company has to admit fault, and both walk away with their cut of the cash in the end.

Good: You can buy heavensward now!
bad: Problem with early access code. I did not get mine...

;( Yeah. Still looking for SE to allow us to register 2 "PC" versions on the same account. I wouldn't mind buying the game again, without steam attached. As long as I can get away from them.

I sent a support email against all hope, and got the expected reply. Boilerplate boilerplate boilerplate, not our problem, go yell at Steam because we don't give a crap, thanks for your cash and go away! :)

Without significant community backlash, this looks like a pretty impenetrable issue.

Write the ticket again but this time add a line that say your going to post their answer in social media. I experienced that this line changes answers a lot (at least that´s for technical matters).

Regards
Neifirst

Please excuse my English, as you can see it is not my native language.

You can't even buy the game twice and register a non steam version?

So I now appear to be in a select group of people who started the trial on Steam, and unbeknownst to them were permanently branded as dirty Steam peasants even though they bought the game on Mogstation. And now since we apparently have a Steam-flagged account, but never actually bought ARR via Steam, we can't buy Heavensward at all because it's flagged as "DLC", and Steam won't let you buy DLC where you don't own the base game.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...648bccabc5c5e7

This is just an absolute train wreck. How on earth a major games developer manages to have such an appallingly incoherent customer experience in this day and age is beyond me.

because money

EDIT: made a bug report pointing here if it means anything.

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Originally Posted by PetiteMalFleur

You can't even buy the game twice and register a non steam version?

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Nope - Steam locks them down on that account. If they buy a new game, they have to register a new "non-Steam account". This means their toons cannot be accessed. Their toons are literally locked to the steam platform.

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Originally Posted by OmegaStrongtan

Good: You can buy heavensward now!
bad: Problem with early access code. I did not get mine...

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Just right click on the game in steam and you can view the product keys.

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

We all "agreed" to this in the enormous user rights page we are shown when we first sign up to Steam. I never read them, don't know anyone who did. Ran into a lawyer friend and tried to get him on Steam - he wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole after reading their "agreement" for users.

On steam, we technically don't even own the games we "buy" Steam does, and is giving us unlimited rights to play them as long as their servers remain up, and can revoke access at any time.

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Even so. SE could at least make it so that you can register a 2nd "PC" game, so those that REALLY want to get off can at least rebuy the games and expansions to do so. I know it may take some time to code around that or w/e. But they could at least start looking into it a bit and truthfully would be in their best interest to do so. That way in case Steam goes down. Decides to stop supporting FF14 ect ect, then they won't lose a portion of their subscriber base. Unless Steam users are a extreme minority

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Originally Posted by Seku

Even so. SE could at least make it so that you can register a 2nd "PC" game, so those that REALLY want to get off can at least rebuy the games and expansions to do so. I know it may take some time to code around that or w/e. But they could at least start looking into it a bit and truthfully would be in their best interest to do so. That way in case Steam goes down. Decides to stop supporting FF14 ect ect, then they won't lose a portion of their subscriber base. Unless Steam users are a extreme minority

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The short answer is no, they can't. In order to get the privilege to sell the game on the Steam platform, they (SE) have to abide by Valve's licensing rules. Steam is considered it's own platform on the PC and is the primary reason this is done is sales. Valve knows how many thousands and thousands of players use their product daily and sold the idea to SE for a cut off the top (how it always works). SE is just as bound as we the players are due to contract licensing, almost without a doubt. All Steam games are this way. Most users are unaware, since they bury in the bottom of their end-user license agreement. But technically, every Steam user, accepted and acknowledged this restriction upon setting up their Steam account.

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

The short answer is no, they can't. In order to get the privilege to sell the game on the Steam platform, they (SE) have to abide by Valve's licensing rules. Steam is considered it's own platform on the PC and is the primary reason this is done is sales. Valve knows how many thousands and thousands of players use their product daily and sold the idea to SE for a cut off the top (how it always works). SE is just as bound as we the players are due to contract licensing, almost without a doubt. All Steam games are this way. Most users are unaware, since they bury in the bottom of their end-user license agreement. But technically, every Steam user, accepted and acknowledged this restriction upon setting up their Steam account.

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It still stands though that you should be able to link a standard PC license as a separate platform just like you can with the Sony consoles. Sony has some very screwy licensing going on there as well--and yet you can link your character data (which is technically SE's property and not yours or Valve's) to those other platforms. There should be a remedy for this scenario as well. Your Steam license would still be viable. Just like with the consoles, the standard Windows license would be in parallel and actually installed in a separate directory, using it's standalone launcher to update, and all that other good stuff. It simply should be licensed just like the other platforms.

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Originally Posted by Raist

It still stands though that you should be able to link a standard PC license as a separate platform just like you can with the Sony consoles. Sony has some very screwy licensing going on there as well--and yet you can link your character data (which is technically SE's property and not yours or Valve's) to those other platforms. There should be a remedy for this scenario as well. Your Steam license would still be viable. Just like with the consoles, the standard Windows license would be in parallel and actually installed in a separate directory, using it's standalone launcher to update, and all that other good stuff. It simply should be licensed just like the other platforms.

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I agree with this ^^

I read through the use agreement and it clearly states the product key cannot be used outside of the Steam account it was applied to. This should not prohibit players from being able to use a new product key to play off of Steam. Unless SE has some exclusivity contact with them there's no reason why an account can't be disassociated with a fresh purchase of the game.

One thing I'd like to know is if you bought the steam version, since steam supports mac games does that mean that the steam version is a cross-platform license?

As in it would let you run the steam version on both a pc and a mac or would you be out of luck if say your pc died and you decided to buy a mac?

Meaning you you'd have to get the mac license and would you also be locked out of you Steam bound FFXIV account or is the Mac version totally separate and would work the same way as PS3/PS4?

IMO there are too many licences for this game and they should have just had a Console and a PC licence at most. Its not like we can play the game on multiple platforms at the same time with one account anyway. I was okay with the licenses when I thought the expansions would be a flat upgrade and upgrade all your ARR licences but since that clearly isn't the case, I see no point in buying a game 3 or 4 times over just to have to rebuy it over again to access expansion content on a license I already paid for just to be able to play that content on the rare occasions I don't have access to my PC.

OK since this is my first MMO on a PC I am still a little confused by the problem here. If someone can explain the issue it would help me a little.

Long story short my current account is not "Steam" since I've been playing since pre-access. I bought a Steam version later so I can play using Steam and chat with friends. After hearing all the complaints, I recently used the Steam product code and created a new account under Steam to see what all the fuss is about. I don't see anything that would indicate that it is "Locked" to Steam other than the new Steam Pay option (Figure 1).

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...m%20Screen.png

I do not have Steam on this computer and I re-downloaded the Amazon version of the game and see if I can log in using that. I was able to log in and play with no steam using the "Steam" account. If someone can please explain it to me would help. I am attempting to make a YouTube of what I have here so I can explain it better.

P.S. Now something that just came to me. Maybe your Steam account is locked to your SE account meaning if your logged in as someone else in Steam you can not log in to your SE account. This would be the same as the PS3 and PS4 versions that I also have locked to my account. But as far as I can tell, if you have a copy that is just pure PC XIV then you can use your account.

I don't know i got really lucky I played beta and I bought my game originally From SE. When i changed computers I forgot where i bought it from so i bought a new copy from steam. When i found out that the physical version was not compatible i deleted streams version and downloaded the other version again. You can download the other versions and play on that one but you would not get any in game items since you would register it under another account. All our character are bound to those account. Even though i had a second copy of the game on steam my character would not get the items from any expatiation or upgrades bought through steam. The content however would still be playable. I hope that helps to answer some as to why they cannot just leave steam.

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Originally Posted by ZAsha_Tia

OK since this is my first MMO on a PC I am still a little confused by the problem here. If someone can explain the issue it would help me a little.

Long story short my current account is not "Steam" since I've been playing since pre-access. I bought a Steam version later so I can play using Steam and chat with friends. After hearing all the complaints, I recently used the Steam product code and created a new account under Steam to see what all the fuss is about. I don't see anything that would indicate that it is "Locked" to Steam other than the new Steam Pay option (Figure 1).

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...m%20Screen.png

I do not have Steam on this computer and I re-downloaded the Amazon version of the game and see if I can log in using that. I was able to log in and play with no steam using the "Steam" account. If someone can please explain it to me would help. I am attempting to make a YouTube of what I have here so I can explain it better.

P.S. Now something that just came to me. Maybe your Steam account is locked to your SE account meaning if your logged in as someone else in Steam you can not log in to your SE account. This would be the same as the PS3 and PS4 versions that I also have locked to my account. But as far as I can tell, if you have a copy that is just pure PC XIV then you can use your account.

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Notice how your Mog Station has buttons for adding console licenses? The licenses are platform specific--you can't use a console key to activate a PC install. You have to have a key that is for the specific platform. Notice you have no button to add a Windows specific key--it is because you applied a Steam key. On my Mog Station I have the reverse--a Windows key was applied so there is no option to add a Steam key.

Just like with the consoles, the keys for Steam and Windows are specific to their platforms--however they did not add the option to register them separately like you can with the consoles. So you can't add BOTH a Steam and a Windows key to the same account--but you CAN add both a PS3 and a PS4 license if you wanted, as they have the options listed separately. And here's the rub---you MUST buy the expansion to match your existing license. So, if you installed a Steam license you have to buy the Steam expansion (same goes for Windows)--as you have to be applying keys along the same platform path, and Windows and Steam are considered their own individual platforms when it comes to their license keys even though they are both PC versions of the game.

In the past when they put XI on Steam, this was not the case. A Steam license was a PC license for the purpose of registering the client. So long as you had a valid PC's license bound to your SE account, you could access the XI content across both PC platforms--whether it was a Steam key or Windows. With XIV--they locked the license key to each specific platform path: PS3, PS4, Steam, PC. The problem is they have not provided the option to register each of them all independently. You can do a PS3, a PS4, and then only ONE of the two computer options--Steam or Windows, but not both.

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Originally Posted by Raist

Notice how your Mog Station has buttons for adding console licenses? The licenses are platform specific--you can't use a console key to activate a PC install. You have to have a key that is for the specific platform. Notice you have no button to add a Windows specific key--it is because you applied a Steam key. On my Mog Station I have the reverse--a Windows key was applied so there is no option to add a Steam key.

Just like with the consoles, the keys for Steam and Windows are specific to their platforms--however they did not add the option to register them separately like you can with the consoles. So you can't add BOTH a Steam and a Windows key to the same account--but you CAN add both a PS3 and a PS4 license if you wanted, as they have the options listed separately. And here's the rub---you MUST buy the expansion to match your existing license. So, if you installed a Steam license you have to buy the Steam expansion (same goes for Windows)--as you have to be applying keys along the same platform path, and Windows and Steam are considered their own individual platforms when it comes to their license keys even though they are both PC versions of the game.

In the past when they put XI on Steam, this was not the case. A Steam license was a PC license for the purpose of registering the client. So long as you had a valid PC's license bound to your SE account, you could access the XI content across both PC platforms--whether it was a Steam key or Windows. With XIV--they locked the license key to each specific platform path: PS3, PS4, Steam, PC. The problem is they have not provided the option to register each of them all independently. You can do a PS3, a PS4, and then only ONE of the two computer options--Steam or Windows, but not both.

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And see until the expansion comes out we don't know what codes go where. What I will do is <Sigh> buy an extra Heavensword and try to install it. It looks like it still maybe the case where (on S.E. side) that The only thing that matters is that your on a Windows version.

Here is the you tube and let me know where I made a mistake please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQaiZbCQO7k

Therein lies the problem...people aren't/weren't able to differentiate between the two license types--but the system is telling them they have the Steam version and they can't use the Windows expansion. It isn't an issue about being able to run the game--it is about getting the expansion.

Edit:
Was poking around to compare purchase options, and there is a notice up right in the middle of the page at the SE store warning us:

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Notice: This product is not compatible with the Steam version of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn. If you’ve purchased FFXIV: A Realm Reborn on Steam, then you must also purchase FFXIV: Heavensward on Steam to upgrade your existing account.

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Source: https://store.na.square-enix.com/pro...rd-pc-download

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Originally Posted by Raist

Edit:
Was poking around to compare purchase options, and there is a notice up right in the middle of the page at the SE store warning us:

Source: https://store.na.square-enix.com/pro...rd-pc-download

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That's kind of misleading though, because if you started a trial through Steam but the bought the game through Mogstation, it still counts as a Steam account, which has caught a lot of people out as it's not immediately apparent that it is actually a Steam account. Plus, if you did it this way around, you now can't even buy the expansion through Steam, as it won't let you buy DLC for a game you don't own (and as far as Steam is concerned, you never bought the game in the first place).

Really, if they're going to lock down and segregate the accounts to this degree, it shouldn't even be possible to do a Mogstation upgrade on a Steam account... but it is somehow, and it's causing yet more problems as a result.

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Originally Posted by JimboTCB

That's kind of misleading though, because if you started a trial through Steam but the bought the game through Mogstation, it still counts as a Steam account, which has caught a lot of people out as it's not immediately apparent that it is actually a Steam account. Plus, if you did it this way around, you now can't even buy the expansion through Steam, as it won't let you buy DLC for a game you don't own (and as far as Steam is concerned, you never bought the game in the first place).

Really, if they're going to lock down and segregate the accounts to this degree, it shouldn't even be possible to do a Mogstation upgrade on a Steam account... but it is somehow, and it's causing yet more problems as a result.

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They said they fixed this.

Making it so a single code will work on any platform would solve all of this. Why is it a problem if my ARR code is for PS3 but my HW code is PC? This wasn't an issue with FFXI and it shouldn't be here.

I have an add-on question.

I currently have a PS4 platform version and a Steam platform version of ARR. Would it be possible to cancel the Steam version as if I never had a "PC" platform, while keeping my PS4 version, then adding a normal PC version to my account? If so, how would I go about this? I couldn't find any type of game cancellation button on Steam, but I'm also not very familiar with their website.

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

We all "agreed" to this in the enormous user rights page we are shown when we first sign up to Steam. I never read them, don't know anyone who did. Ran into a lawyer friend and tried to get him on Steam - he wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole after reading their "agreement" for users.

On steam, we technically don't even own the games we "buy" Steam does, and is giving us unlimited rights to play them as long as their servers remain up, and can revoke access at any time.

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Ive done the same research and basically any digital platform you have to sign in to has the same policy. Xbox, Steam, Origin, and Id bet PSN as well, treat you as if you rented the game indefinitely and reserve the right to remove it at will. The only one of those listed Ive actually witnessed doing it is microsoft. After they remove very old games from the market you cant download them anymore if you deleted them from your HDD for some reason and good luck with customer support because they dont care.

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Originally Posted by Zigabar

Would it be possible to cancel the Steam version as if I never had a "PC" platform, while keeping my PS4 version, then adding a normal PC version to my account?

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No, sorry. They don't allow switching from Steam to non-Steam or removing platforms from your service account. Steam and non-Steam version of the PC are both counted as Windows, they just only allow one type of Windows game to be added per service account.

You can create/add to other service accounts, but that won't help much as you can't move characters between service accounts and you would have to start over (as well as buy a new version of the game for PS4 as that's already used with your existing service account).