A gentle feedback rant about extending subscription

[CasualPenguin]

When I login through the main site, why does it ask for my birthday, country and nickname? And when I input my username as nickname, it says it's already in use? How does that make any sense? Then I input random letters as nickname and it says my account was created today even though I've been using the very account to play the game for a month now.

Next I find out that I need to launch the launcher and press "Account" there which takes me to a new page to log in with different layout than the main page. Now I'm checking to make sure I'm even on the right page and not in a fake site.

So, I'm finally logged in and I want to extend my game subscription. You only take Steam/Steam Wallet? And Steam doesn't take Paypal as a subscription payment option. Now, that's not this site's fault; that's Steam's problem.

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[CasualPenguin]

I look around for an alternative payment option that would let me use Paypal, so I'm on my profile and I try to sign up for recurring subscription payments and the website's layout changes completely, and now I'm making sure again that I am on the legimitate page. After that's over with, I find that there's no Paypal option. Why not?

What I end up having to do is use Steam Wallet for one time payment, I need to add funds to Steam, Steam sends me to Paypal, Paypal checks my bank account (although no user interaction here), and now I have funds in Steam to pay for the next 30 days.

You can probably tell that I'm getting a little frustrated but 'ey, I got my 30 days of gameplay and I can continue playing this amazing game! I truly do love the game! But I thought I'd give some feedback to the forums. The forum's layout is different from all the other layouts mentioned previously.

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[CasualPenguin]

Alright, so I login in the forums and it asks for my nickname, I don't know why, maybe for security reasons? But whatever, I put my casual nickname and it's available, woo!

Then I try to go to the forums; "You cannot use forum until you've selected main character" ... WHAT?! Whatever, I select my main character and press "save changes" and the website refreshes. "You cannot use forum until you've selected main character" ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW. Okay maybe it's a bug. I try three times more, and the same thing... Then I see the little grey star in the grey background and I click on it. Apparently that's how you select your main even though when you click on a character, it highlights it, which I thought was the way to select it.

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[CasualPenguin]

And now I'm finally here, writing this. It's a bit of a rant, but I thought I should share my experience. Now, I love FFXIV, it's a really fun game and I haven't had any trouble in it so far. Community is lovely and helpful!

Anyways, this is the rant about my experience trying to extend my subscription and coming to the forums.

P.S. This is apparently too long for a single post. It's only 2.8k characters!

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[Enkidoh]

Firstly, you can actually bypass the 1000 character limit by posting a few sentences, then going back and editing the post and adding the rest - it's to try and stop spam posts and flamming, like I just did.

I'm really sorry to hear you've been having such problems trying to update your subscription and stuff, but I think I can see the problem. From what I was aware SE doesn't support Steam Wallet as a payment method for paying for your subscription, only if you buy the game itself on Steam.

And in much the same way, Paypal isn't actually available as a direct payment method for your subscription either, the only way you can use Paypal is to pay for SE's own virtual currency called 'Crysta' which you can then use to pay for your subscription. From what I understand Crysta isn't available as a payment method in all countries so it's possible sadly it's not available for players in your country.

The only payment methods available for the game according to the official FFXIV website (found here) are a credit card or debit card, or a prepaid time card which you can either buy online or from certain retailers, or by using the aforementioned Crysta option.

As for forum access, the reason it wouldn't let you access it immediately is forum access is an active FFXIV account is required to access it, and it requires you to assign a character to it and choose a class - this actually determines your posting access on the forum, the higher your in game level, the more posts you can make per day. And it should go without saying that if you cancel your account or subscription, you also loose access to the forum as well. Sadly there is no way around it.

Finally on the topic of your preferred login name having already been taken, sadly that is a fact of the internet now - no matter the site or service you're virtually guaranteed that someone has long chosen and claimed a name you desire, which means you have to think of creative alternatives instead (I was the same, my preferred name was already taken too). Unfortunately there is no way around it, it's just how the internet is nowadays. And the reason the system asks for your birthday and location is to ensure you're legally old enough to use the service (under the Terms of Service you have to be at least 13 years of age), and that your location matches the region for your copy of the game (to stop players importing foreign versions of the game into other countries).

Anyway, this red tape seems insurmountable, but don't get discouraged!

[CasualPenguin]

Thank you for your reply!

I didn't know about bypassing the limit so thank you for telling me that! Since it can be bypassed and the bypass isn't fixed, maybe they could instead take the limit off or increase it.

I will look into Crysta to see if I can buy subscription time this way the next time I have to renew my sub. I have bought the game from Steam so that may well be the reason for it only suggesting Steam/Steam Wallet.

And for the posting access, that makes a lot more sense! It would be nicer if it was explained when your main character is asked, and how to pick it. Took me a few tries to realize you have to press the small star.

Usually username works as your name, so I was confused about it asking for my nickname but I guess it makes sense if you think about it from security perspective. You can't really attack a password if you don't even know the username! Asking for my birthday doesn't make much sense because I was logging in from my SE account, on which I've been playing the game for a month, so they already know my birthday and they're asking it again.

Anyways, I'm not discouraged or even hating on the game/website, this is purely my experience and that doesn't mean explanations aren't welcome.

[Grant_Wilshire]

It took me forever to figure out the star selection. I'm a Systems Analyst and I was so confused. I guess it was so illogical of a design I never thought about it. It didn't help that I was using it on my phone.

Welcome to the game and forums!