Terrible Payment System

[Greencactaur]

I think I'll start this thread on a positive note.

There have been many improvements/adjustments/additions to the game since I played during the public beta. Enough so that I felt it finally warranted my purchase, and I an anxiously awaiting the mail lady today!

I have not kept up on the payment side of things; has SE announced changes to its terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible payment policy? The one where you could either

A) be the only MMO player in the world that pays a fee to pay be credit card for an online game, or
B) enroll in an auto-renewing account with a shady London based company, with the only way to STOP them from withdrawing your money is to send a written letter to their London office?

I'm not sure if I mentioned, but that's a TERRIBLE payment system. I bought the game to see the progress its made, but make no mistake: if that type of payment system persists after the game is no longer free to play, then I'll not be continuing my account at that point.

And it's possible SE already announced the retraction of their terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible payment policy, and I missed it. I could be up in arms over nothing.

But to me, even "fixing" the problem by waiving the credit card fee and returning to FFXI's recurring monthly fee, complete with "late" charges is not enough. Give me a subscription option. I don't owe you additional money because you don't shut off accounts until several days after a payment doesn't go through for whatever reason. I and only I decide when and what amount is withdrawn from my accounts.

Didn't read your post, but They do need more payment options.

[Nipa]

Meanwhile, here I am in Australia where we have been labeled a European region (thanks to the whole PAL vs NTSC thing) and thus I will be forced to pay in Euro. Corollary: We will be paying more than almost any other region,

The whole geographic account separation is stupid for a game with international servers.

The only correct answer to this is to buy an US game, and pay in USD. And you can't go back in time, unfortunately.

[Darkshade]

From what I've heard XI subscribers have like 2-3 months to convert their PlayOnline accounts into SquareEnix accounts and re-add their payment information. It's sounding like they'll be going through the same crysta/c&b sysetm for this.

Wouldn't be surprised if they had some contract with c&b and are having to do this to fulfill contractual agreements with them to start some sort of payment system going to start earning revenue.

I could be totally wrong and this is just the last stage of them phasing out the PlayOnline billing system and converting it to SquareEnix for sake of continuity and company organization.

Wonder at this point how many of the GMs work for both games or if there are even separate offices for the two development teams.

Would be interesting to see an inside look at the internal components of both the XIV and XI development staff and their offices, JP, US or otherwise. Seeing what the server rooms look like would be pretty cool in my opinion.

EDIT: This just in! I managed to sneak into the server room and I found this. It appears the source of all the server lag problems we're having with XIV is because an enemy Garlean space ship is infecting the servers with some sort of cross dimensional virus. I only pray the server admins are able to defeat it...

[Nabiri]

Really worried about payment options also. I don't like Click and buy (seems shady) and won't use crysta (really annoying). ._.
I really liked XI's system.

If there's not something acceptable at PS3 release I can see many people quitting.

[Platinumstorm]

Bumping with a request for more information.

[Evangela]

I'm ok with it, as long as I can pay via the ultimate game card

[Seirra_Lanzce]

i dont really get it on why they dont accept other region payment ~_~ and must only comes from those 3 regions and country they've put into their list... Dont they know that their fan base are world wide???? Im very sad...

Not to mention during account registration, my country is not even listed in there... T^T

[indira]

why not just buy a prepaid debit card

I don't understand why they can't piggyback on the PlayOnline billing system. This is perhaps the biggest step backwards for SE where FFXIV is concerned.

playonline sucks thats why take forever to do anything useing it.

[AnaviAnael]

I don't think you can use prepaid debit cards because they're not 3D secure.

[Sav]

While I remain skeptical of ClickandBuy, UltimatePay is, as others say, really easy. The annoying part being, you can't buy cards in increments of a one-month period's worth, etc.