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

[Lozza]

I'm actually pretty confused on this, can folks explain? I have the steam version and always launch it through steam. So far I have never had an issue doing this, my steam is always online. Is there something coming that requires me to go through another authorisation check, or will my situation not change since I already go through steams check anyway. Furthermore, I assume that if nothing will be changing on my end that this is the issue that folks have? As in they don't like launching/using steam?

Slightly worried that there's something I'm missing and that it'll change for me.

Ok here is what your connection does currently:

Your PC ----- > FFXIV servers

Here is what your connection will do after the change:

Your PC ---- > Steam auth servers ------ > FFXIV servers

If the auth servers go down, you dc. If the connection from the auth servers to the FFXIV servers gets congested or is poorly routed, you dc. The entire process simply adds additional points of failure in a game where you really don't want that. Worse still given the region locked game keys, I'm expecting they will route all PAL key users through EU servers which will be very bad.

[Gwenorai]

Ah, and the issue is that people dislike the auth servers. Sounds problematic. I've never had steam actually go offline while I've played but congestion doesn't sound good. So yes, I'm in support of this. I don't see why they would push this out unless the situation with steams auth server has been resolved and runs a lot smoother.

[Lozza]

Ah, and the issue is that people dislike the auth servers. Sounds problematic. I've never had steam actually go offline while I've played but congestion doesn't sound good. So yes, I'm in support of this. I don't see why they would push this out unless the situation with steams auth server has been resolved and runs a lot smoother.

Assuming it goes the same way ESO does, the auth servers are not the steam chat servers. They are another set of servers dedicated to game auth that run parallel to the steam chat application. So the auth servers can be down while chat is up. ESOs can go down for days even weeks at a time - and ZOS blames Valve and Valve says its ZOS problem.

Also steam game updates work fine for single player games but have always been weird for MMOs. A part of what got me launching FFXIV without steam was because at the start of HW even when I had the check box "do not update" ticked Steam would still randomly decide it needed to update the game which basically deleted all the updates and put me back at a clean 2.0 install - I know the PS3 and 4 players had a similar issue though was likely caused by something very different. The simple solution was to never launch the game by steam again.

[worldofneil]

Here is what your connection will do after the change:

Your PC ---- > Steam auth servers ------ > FFXIV servers

If the auth servers go down, you dc.

As against this as I am, we don't actually know that. We unfortunately don't know very much at all which is half the issue, but all we do know is that we will need to launch the game from Steam. They haven't said anything about Steam itself having to stay connected.

[Lozza]

As against this as I am, we don't actually know that. We unfortunately don't know very much at all which is half the issue, but all we do know is that we will need to launch the game from Steam. They haven't said anything about Steam itself having to stay connected.

This is true, however when ESO did it they made a big song and dance about how it was just a case of launching the game and letting it sign you in like you would on a console. That nothing would change. Needless to say firstly not only did it not work out as easily as that when the first lot of massive downtime hit and people realised it was only affecting steam users people started poking at what was going on.

Only after users said, hey our game connection appears perma routed through a server whose ip was registered to Valve did ZOS actually give the details of how the steam client was different to the normal game client.

While you can say ZOS is a very different company to SE, and I'd agree, I just don't see this particular issue turning out any differently. After all if it's just a check when you launch the launcher people will very quickly and very easily find a way around it which would defeat the purpose of the change as an anti-fraud measure.

I am very passionate about raising this issue before the changes go live because I was caught up in the ESO issue. As it was it took months to get ZOS to allow us to "switch" to PC accounts, and those months had massive amounts of downtime during the large ESO anniversary event. Those with optional subs never got a refund, or extra game time. Here our subs are not optional, and I hope this thread at least has the devs thinking about what to do with the issues that may happen before it goes live so it doesn't take months to resolve like it did with ESO.

[Avidria]

Ok here is what your connection does currently:

Your PC ----- > FFXIV servers

Here is what your connection will do after the change:

Your PC ---- > Steam auth servers ------ > FFXIV servers

If the auth servers go down, you dc. If the connection from the auth servers to the FFXIV servers gets congested or is poorly routed, you dc. The entire process simply adds additional points of failure in a game where you really don't want that. Worse still given the region locked game keys, I'm expecting they will route all PAL key users through EU servers which will be very bad.

This here is my fear. I really hope it doesn't work like this, and I can launch through steam to log in and then just close steam once I'm in. Though then I'd need to open it again every time the game crashes...

Which leads to my more minor concerns, i.e. it's gonna take longer to log in because I need to wait for steam to start before I can even launch 14. My other concern being that I'll have to completely reinstall the game at the end of August, because I installed the game before I installed steam and steam doesn't know I have the game installed at all. Not a huge deal, but still a bit annoying if it does work that way. Anyone know of a way around that?

Either way, if this impacts my gameplay at all, I'll be pretty freaking unhappy about it.

[Caerai]

This change is rubbish where multiple people share the same computer but one person has the steam version and the other the PC version - so now you have to have two separate installs of FFXIV just to access steam's services. SE should give people the choice to buy the windows version as well as the steam version.

This here is my fear. I really hope it doesn't work like this, and I can launch through steam to log in and then just close steam once I'm in. Though then I'd need to open it again every time the game crashes...

Which leads to my more minor concerns, i.e. it's gonna take longer to log in because I need to wait for steam to start before I can even launch 14. My other concern being that I'll have to completely reinstall the game at the end of August, because I installed the game before I installed steam and steam doesn't know I have the game installed at all. Not a huge deal, but still a bit annoying if it does work that way. Anyone know of a way around that?

Either way, if this impacts my gameplay at all, I'll be pretty freaking unhappy about it.

You can copy and paste the FFXIV updated folders over into your steam FFXIV install so you can avoid the update :-)

[Khaos_45]

Everyone Ive talked too isn't taking this seriously like I am they think im panicking well duh of course im panicking I could be missing weeks of playtime here, my friends even my fc mates, WHOM some are steam users aren't worried, like, at all. And then they tell me, "well I have no issues logging in through steam... and I keep saying. Because, its not live yet of course you are not having problems YET. Good grief... so consider me signed as well.

[LaurieB]

This is the way it works: You pull up Steam launcher, which resides on Authentication server, or partion is VMware is used, or HyperV virtual. Steam checks your user credentials THEN checks your game version in that do you have the identical version it currently has of the game, if it varies for any reason it will detect you need to reinstall and reject your credentials. Could be hours of this, could be multiple re-installation of the game (look it up if you think that doesn't happen with Steam all the time), THEN if you pass those two issues, the next two are SE's credentials, latest version check, latest launcher check, then you are logged in. So you have two extra pinch points now with Steam/SE implementing this change. If ANY of them go down, lose data, are not updated, any of those steps...you can't play. Period. Now who are going to go to that will fix any of these pinch points if they go wrong? SE? No see Steam not us. Steam? No see SE not us. Thirty years experience in Server management. This is fact. It is a huge problem that doesn't need to exist. Work it out Steam/SE. You know the issues, fix it.

[Avidria]

This change is rubbish where multiple people share the same computer but one person has the steam version and the other the PC version - so now you have to have two separate installs of FFXIV just to access steam's services. SE should give people the choice to buy the windows version as well as the steam version.



You can copy and paste the FFXIV updated folders over into your steam FFXIV install so you can avoid the update :-)

Hmm nice I'll keep that in mind, thanks!