Account address issue has STILL not been acknowledged by Square.

[Sgt_Thud]

I think the region is locked in FFXIV because game keys are locked to that region. If you could just rebuy the game and expansion for your new region it would be annoying but preferable to simply being forever locked out by no longer being able to match your account region if you move from say, the USA to England.

And even below that, people are getting screwed if they move within their own region. Changed country within EU? Sucks to be you, start a new account because you can’t update country of address.

[MyouRi]

And even below that, people are getting screwed if they move within their own region. Changed country within EU? Sucks to be you, start a new account because you can’t update country of address.

This is my exact situation, woohoo!
The way the servers are set up in FFXIV is great, anyone and can play on NA, EU, Asia or Oceania datacenters. So I don't think there would be much appetite or need for changing your account region.

Although I will say that I had moved to Asia for a few years and accessing the EU mogstation was stupidly tricky. Initially I could access with a VPN in order to renew my sub (with a local asian bank card, oh the good ol' days), but then that was eventually blocked and I could only access through my phones mobile browser? Make it make sense Square.

Anyway, just let us change our countries of residence on your account system OR let us pay with a payment method from any country.
If there is some reason that neither of these simple fixes would work for them, they should at least have the decency to explain why to their customers.

Fun reminder that if your sub isn't active you aren't able to post on the official forums, so the majority of people this affects can't even say anything.

[Sgt_Thud]

Fun reminder that if your sub isn't active you aren't able to post on the official forums, so the majority of people this affects can't even say anything.

This right here is exactly why we need to keep making noise. The people affected literally -can’t- and need the rest of us to stand up for them. We can’t just sit here going “screw you got mine”.

[Hycinthus]

I feel like out of all the threads on this forum, this one should stay front page as it's actually an issue preventing people from playing the game.

I support this. It’s crazy how SE just doesn’t even understand the concept of people moving countries and regions.

[SweetContext]

I think the region is locked in FFXIV because game keys are locked to that region. If you could just rebuy the game and expansion for your new region it would be annoying but preferable to simply being forever locked out by no longer being able to match your account region if you move from say, the USA to England.

And even below that, people are getting screwed if they move within their own region. Changed country within EU? Sucks to be you, start a new account because you can’t update country of address.

exactly, I moved within NA region, and I refuse to dump $60+ and 20,000 playtime hours lost to change my address. If they can't even transfer a character to a new region account because of this predicament (ie in cases like Aus having to register in EU), then I don't even know what to say. That feels very bare minimum, but I don't play any other region locked games to know if account transfer in this scenario is a thing.

Just wanted to confirm this fact, unless changed since I registered - Australian accounts are classified as European. This has meant we get charged in Euro, or at least have been up till now at least - my last sub payment went through and was charged in Euro, not Au$ or US$.

Thanks for confirming!

[SchwarzwaelderTorte]

So wait, just to be sure: is it something that affects players who have moved countries, countries with different currencies, or regions?

Because I might run into the same problem in 3 months if it's the first case...

For EU Fanfest I was one of the finalists and they ask you to confirm your address in case you win a physical prize, very silly that I was able to change the address itself but not the country : o )
(good thing I didn't win anything, but I wondered if they would figure out that the capital was not matching the country and they'd have to ship it to the right one...)

[Sgt_Thud]

Unfortunately as someone who isn’t affected I can’t speak with 100% certainty but it seems to be a case where if the country your account was registered under does not match the billing address of your payment method, the payment won’t be accepted. So if you change country at all, you’re at the mercy of what alternative options are available there that do not require billing addresses, which in some places is virtually none.

You shouldn’t be forced to jump through hoops in the first place especially if you’re still in the same region the account and game key is under. But as it stands you literally cannot update your billing address country so you’re SOL if you’ve moved at any point in the last however long you’ve had a SE account.

[Myrany]

I have no idea if this has changed in recent years but with Blizzard it was a weird case of your account being entirely locked to that region, not just in terms of payment. If you for example had an EU account you couldn't even access the US servers.

It's been years since I played but as a NA player I never had a problem rolling a toon and playing on the Aus/OCE servers. I legit cannot remember about EU. I know in one guild we have a Scottish gentleman who had no problems being on NA servers. So it might well have changed.

[SweetContext]

So wait, just to be sure: is it something that affects players who have moved countries, countries with different currencies, or regions?

Because I might run into the same problem in 3 months if it's the first case...

For EU Fanfest I was one of the finalists and they ask you to confirm your address in case you win a physical prize, very silly that I was able to change the address itself but not the country : o )
(good thing I didn't win anything, but I wondered if they would figure out that the capital was not matching the country and they'd have to ship it to the right one...)

Countries and Regions are kind of similar for this issue. Like Sgt Thud said, it mostly has to do with your address on the account not matching the payment method's address. There are those like me that moved within a region (NA, Can -> US) and still cannot change their address. There are then those that move to a different region (EU -> JP etc), and finally those whose country does not have it's own region like Australia and most Oceania players, or countries that are not on the list because of certain laws around subscriptions or otherwise (I can't remember the exact law). The currency is not an issue it seems as Australian players that are required to register on EU, are paying in euros and not australian dollars.

So if you fall into any category that would require you to need to update your address's country on your SE account, this would affect you. If you stay within the same country you can update your address just fine.

The issue a lot of players have is that it is absolutely absurd not to be able to update the country of your address, but furthermore, support will tell you to just give up on your current account, rebuy the game and start over (if the remaining ways of buying your sub, like gamecards, amazonpay, or paypal do not work for you.) Which rightly has a lot of us very upset.

[Ethrya]

I would like to chime in as another voice concerned about being unable to change the country tied to my account. It's a long story but I'm originally from the US, have lived in Canada for years, but intend to return to the US. I started playing after I already moved to Canada, and so the address on my game account is in Canada. I have so much time, effort, and money in the form of my subscription, expansion purchases, emote purchases etc. devoted to my main character alone as well as skips purchased for an alt. It's absolutely not acceptable to fear having to lose all this. I'm very attached to my main character as many people are, and I met a lot of amazing people playing as my character, some of whom even became friends of mine in real life. I don't know if I would want to start over if that was truly my only choice - the loss of my main would hurt a lot, even if other people find that silly. Is there anything else to be done to bring this issue to SE's attention besides the forums here?