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

[Lozza]

I thought they will do it the way Smite did. They linked the game to the steam auth servers and you don't have to log in since there is no launcher anymore and the game uses steam auth credentials to authenticate login and steam client to update the game.

Smite is like LoL, yes? You have a game that has matches which last 20-30 minutes? Then back to the lobby server. It's a very different structure to an MMORPG like FFXIV, RIFT, L2, WoW, and ESO. While the change may force a change in login credentials (I'll expand on this a bit later) I very much doubt that they will run their own update server. The game will almost certainly still update the way it does now, the only difference is (assuming they change accounts login like they did with ESO) that when you launch the launcher your account will logged in. You will still have to hit the green play button.
Smite has been on Steam forever and it was likely set up with all this in place. This is moving from one system to another - like ESO. And ESO 18+ months after the move shows no sign of ever having the kinks worked out of the system.

Now ESO did force this change in login. Which was problematic considering everyone had ESO/ZOS accounts with account names that weren't their steam names, to make matters worse the way ESO updates doesn't require your account credentials. (ESO doesn't update via Steam servers it updates when you launch the client - this is what I expect for FFXIV for logistical reasons.) So even though your Steam login became your ESO login you still had to type your username and password into the client when it launched. Now all this automatic login might (if implemented and there is no guarantee they are) might work better in FFXIV because they already have a similar system in place for PS4 users. There your login credentials don't technically change but your account is linked to your PS4 login. So the game logs you in as PS4 login, but if you need to use the website you login via your SE credentials.

The biggest change will be this:

You -----------------------FFXIV will become You ---------------- Steam Auth ----------------- FFXIV
This will not be a once off check with the servers like single player steam games are. This connection needs to constantly be maintained. This is how ESO works and there is no reason to expect the infrastructure will be any different for FFXIV. (For those wondering Steam Chat features currently run in parallel to this, meaning a disruption to the chat servers for steam should not be an issue.)

[Beki_Bayaqad]

Square Enix apparently has no knowledge of how poor the Steam client is.

The majority of your users avoid the client because of this.

By making the change announced today, you are sentencing your entire userbase of gamers who are forced to remain on Steam into a nightmare of performance problems and issues. The Steam overlay built into the client alone has caused massive issues with many users.

As a result of this change, I hereby demand we be given a one-time ability to trade in our Steam keys for Square Enix direct Windows platform keys on our accounts.

Uh, take this up with Steam not SE, if the *STEAM CLIENT* is giving you problems.

[Aramina]

Uh, take this up with Steam not SE, if the *STEAM CLIENT* is giving you problems.

We are taking it up with SE because it is SE that is choosing to change the system we have been using for the past 6 years.

Though from the delay there is hope they are reconsidering, or at least forcing Steam to make sure there won't be any issues before the change is made.

[worldofneil]

Uh, take this up with Steam not SE, if the *STEAM CLIENT* is giving you problems.

I did and they know nothing about it (this is from page 29):

I sent in a ticket to Steam just over a week ago asking if they were requiring this change and why now. They've just replied back that it's nothing to do with them (which matches up with the current subscriber agreement that says you "may be required to be running the Steam client", not will be).



The last part of the message is because I referenced how I've (occasionally) been playing this game via a USB drive for the last 5 years and if they had any idea as to how I could continue to do this if I have to launch the game via Steam.

Soon after this SE quietly changed the Steam annoucement to remove the part about it being because of Steam policies.

[Aramina]

I did and they know nothing about it (this is from page 29):



Soon after this SE quietly changed the Steam annoucement to remove the part about it being because of Steam policies.

Well well well, that is certainly interesting.

[Lozza]

I may have missed this in the past 34 pages if someone has already asked the question - why would you use Steam for FFXIV (and ESO for that matter) when you have all these issues? Is (or was) there some advantage with Steam?

Steam has had MMORPGs available on the platform for ages. The way MMORPGs worked was this. You bought it on Steam, then created a user account on the games/publisher/dev site which was you game acccount. Steam didn't touch the way MMORPGs functioned, that is when launching via Steam Steam then opened the launcher exe and then the game run with no input from steam at all. All MMORPGs have functioned like this on Steam for years.

Those of us who purchased by Steam back in the days of ARR didn't even know that our accounts would be restricted to buying the expacs on Steam. No other MMORPG locked you into Steam like that. When HW launched many players myself included bought from SE only to find out several weeks after pre-orders were live that Steam users had to buy from Steam. Tech support was so slow to get back to players and SE eventually had to make an announcement about it and tell all Steam users who had purchased from SE to contact support for a refund because the SE brand keys would not work on our accounts. It continued to cause issues for players because the pre-orders on Steam weren't available until 3 months after the pre-orders went live everywhere else. However buying expacs on Steam is hardly a problem, annoying at best, and confusing when the pre-orders don't go live on all platforms at the same time (something they have since fixed).

This change however functionally changes the way the game works and how we connect to the game servers. This is a big change from the way that MMORPGs have worked on Steam in the past. When they announced the change to ESO accounts it didn't bother me, I was happy to wait and see how it turned out. Having seen that now I firmly believe that this is a bad thing. Unfortunately unlike ESO where I could get my account re-converted back to a PC account (I had PC keys and Steam keys already on the same account), we do not have that luxury for FFXIV currently.

[Youkulm]

Soon after this SE quietly changed the Steam annoucement to remove the part about it being because of Steam policies.

This makes me want answers even more from SE

[KotMruczyslaw]

Regarding FINAL FANTASY XIV Steam Version (Mar. 8)(Updated: Mar. 13 11:05 p.m. PDT)
As part of our fraud prevention measures, we plan to implement a restricted login check process for Steam service account users.

I knew it - Valve is innocent in this matter, SE is the one who don't care about us - players. And that means that this decission is completely under their control, so what i wrote before:

(...) BTW - this year SE updated list of prohibitet behaviours in FFXIV (full list here: http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...6&id=5382&la=1). And what if forcing someone to play through Steam against his will "inflicts deep emotional distress" on that person? It's violation of "Other actions that are generally regarded as actions that inflict deep emotional distress on another person" in harassment section. Also this notice (https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...dbc6429f507050) should also be considered as an offensive expression. It matches "Expressions that significantly lack consideration for another person" and "Expressions that compel a playing style" - maybe it's someone's playing style to play directly without using Steam? And for certain it is typical example of Obstruction of play - "if you are not running FFXIV through Steam we won't let you play".
In one short message 3 violations of prohibitet behaviours - maybe whole Square Enix's crew should be permamently banned for that? Because even those who make the law should obey the law. If not, who would we be? Savages!

is in accordance with the actual state.

BTW: i don't know what kind of fraud they mean, but the only one that comes to my mind is that people with Steam version service accounts logs in directly with PC's version of client and managers and/or analysts can't see in steam how much people with Steam accounts are online. But they've got that info in their database, so i don't get it why are they making this a problem. Especially when you can run FFXIV through Steam in offline mode, so Steam still doesn't count this as "online player". Or maybe they want to force us to play with Steam in online mode?

"As part of our fraud prevention measures" - this is the most enigmatic explanation i've ever seen. And i think it's another lie (like the one in earlier version of that post), and their true motives are still unknown

[Vesemir]

Smite moved to the steam relatively recently, but I get your point.

[Sorimachi87]

Getting this little thread back up. End of april and nothing new yet? o.o