Help me understand why PSN is needed to play this game.

[Huntington]

One thing really doesn't make sense as of right now. If PSN has maintenance, which seems to be every damn day recently and the maintenance that is occurring now, had no warning apparently. I was up late on XIV last night, no posting about it on the main menu of XIV where there usually is.

So I get on today, and I won't be able to play for another 6 hours. Joy.
But I'm already paying for this game directly through Square Enix and their services, PSN isn't needed to run the game worth a crap. None of it's functionality is used to make XIV run, all it does is sit on the system, and SE's servers and software takes over from there.
XI didn't need Xbox Live Gold for those that played it on the 360, you could play without a subscription, so why is PSN so integral to XIV running if it doesn't do anything for it?

[kidvideo]

I vote for change! But it's probably required by Sony to handle software updates & patches. It's not PSN is for secure log in purposes, or we wouldn't need to log in with that damned token. Username, password, user name password, username, password, user name password, security token...! [/shakes fist]

[Ouria]

This week is a bit special because of the DDoS attack that brought down PSN for a little while, which again made the scheduled maintenance to be delayed.
But yep, it is rather bothersome.

Edit: I knew I forgot something today. That is to keep my character logged in before maintenance started D:

[Saccharin]

Because... Sony. Consoles are closed, controlled systems unlike PCs. Sony like Microsoft need to control the console. I'm surprised Sony allowed SE to bypass their servers while playing the game. Control is the issue stopping the game on Xbox; Microsoft don't want people playing on non-Microsoft servers.

I really wish competition authorities would look into this considering there's only two console manufacturers and they control the whole system. There must be some antitrust issues here. Microsoft refusing FF14 is one of them surely.

[Huntington]

I vote for change! But it's probably required by Sony to handle software updates & patches. It's not PSN is for secure log in purposes, or we wouldn't need to log in with that damned token. Username, password, user name password, username, password, user name password, security token...! [/shakes fist]

I do vote for change, this is crap to be down for so long recently, and not be able to do anything I want because nothing can be done without PSN apparently, it's sutured to it and dies if PSN has trouble.

[Kaze3434]

dispite it being said that you can play games so long as you were signed in, on ps4 that isnt true. if PSN is down for maint, you get 15 minutes before the game does a license check. if it cant connect to the server, then you get kicked back to main menu.

[stuscott]

You don't need PSN to PLAY the game - but if you are using a PS3 or PS4 to play the game, you require PSN to utilize any online features (i.e connecting to SE servers) - it was announced that Sony had rescheduled the maintenance (that was originally scheduled for Monday and was delayed because of the DDoS attack on Sunday) to today. They also stated that as long as you were already logged in before maintenance started, you'd be able to access online features (other than the Store) - they always do this.

It's not SE's responsibility to notify you of this, as it's not their network that is down.

[Lithera]

It has to do with software/system authentication. Anti-piracy stuff basically. M$ has the same thing. You needed Xbox LIVE for XI just not Gold. If XBL is down you'll have trouble with XI.

[Huntington]

/snip

Isn't that nice that SE didn't notify us, because I'm not upset with them this time, because they usually always still have a message on the board anyways if anything is going to be down. But to be locked out today because there was no message there, when there usually is one because it still affects how you use their service, is bull. I shouldn't need PSN to connect to SE's servers since it's access doesn't even help XIV run at all. I already have a paid ISP, and a subscription to XIV, needing to pay another fee to play XIV, because for some reason it's connected to PSN, is basically theft. Explain to me why it's valid to need to pay 3 separate things to play one game, when only two of them should be necessary at all.

Far as I'm aware, Sony does not let SE use their servers for their games. They are separate entities and do not share their networks, so why should I be locked out if PSN goes down when XIV should already be self-sufficient?

[PArcher]

Buy the game on PC and you don't have to worry about this.

As for PC games not having this issue... Steam and Origin work similarly...either go down and games requiring either are restricted or don't work at all. Unless that's changed recently, but I'm 99% sure it has not...