My Complaint About Square Enix

[Nihlathak99]

"This World is not accepting any new characters. You may either wait for the restriction to be lifted, or you may select another World."

Who else doesn't post on the official FFXIV forums? I tried that, not in a million years would I be able to successfully post on their forums:
1) You need to have an active subscription to post there
2) It takes more than one week after activating a subscription before you can post there
3) There are no official 'New Players' forums where people can post without a running subscription

All 3 of these things are verging on unacceptable in today's world. Anyone else agree? This all sparked from a notion that I had to inquire to the source, that being Square Enix, a company that supposedly operates in multiple countries, about how they've structured their MMO servers, and why its system is problematic, and why they're likely to lose customers because of the ongoing "outdated" method they've chosen to use: Instead of allowing people to sit in a queue, in order to create a character on an over-populated server, which many would gladly do, they just completely lock the doors on the server, and its lock is about as indefinite as indefinite can possibly be: it's basically a permanent lock. Thus, people are forced to go to another server.

There's logic in that, but it's just not good logic. I don't know who to be more mad at: my friend for choosing the absolute worst server in the world, or the company for their unchanging stance on this whole thing, and their continuing to let this remain the way it is. As a former customer/subscriber of theirs, I am far more less likely to ever give them money again because of this.

New players are often brought in by friends, and those friends may very well be on high-pop servers, servers that are difficult to get into. What does SquareEnix offer to these people? Nothing. No promises of increasing server capacity, or discounts on transfers, or any other alternative. Their attitude is basically just this: "Choose another server." And that's not a solution, nor is it a good business model to go by, or any way to solidify a good relationship between them and their customers.

Over the course of SEVERAL WEEKS, I've sat here trying to get into the Balmung Legacy server; these attempts are made through out nights and early mornings; Even at 4 o'clock in the morning these locks are not lifted. There's a serious, serious problem within their software; it's flawed and outdated, and they refuse to fix it, or at the very least compensate some how, and do ANYTHING at all with it to improve it.

I feel like I'm flipped the bird by these people. Why should I set up a new subscription with this company, when I can't even play on the only server I intend to play on; it's the only server my friends have characters on; why should my friends have to spend money and move their characters to another server, just so we can play together? It's mind-boggling that there are no plans to do anything about this, and worse that it's not even addressed!

CHANGE THE SYSTEM. LET PEOPLE SIT IN A DAMN QUEUE. Holy crap.

[Graeham]

The official site is difficult to navigate, I agree. I do hope it gets a complete revamp at some point in order to make it more user friendly. As for Balmung? I play there myself and I'm conflicted about the situation. It's difficult to get a new character there, sure, but then that is precisely what protects the place from the gil spam that infests less populated servers.

[Lathais]

There should be a way to invite a friend, give them a code and it lets them create a char on your server. IIRC this is the way FFXI worked and it makes sense.

Also, yes, their site is a pain to navigate and I absolutely hate it.

[Katchii]

There should be a way to invite a friend, give them a code and it lets them create a char on your server. IIRC this is the way FFXI worked and it makes sense.

Also, yes, their site is a pain to navigate and I absolutely hate it.

Totally agree.

FFXI made you buy the right with in game currency (10,000 gil from what I remember) and generated a code you could give to your buddy.

FFXIV should do the same thing, especially when the system can be cheesed just by logging in really early or late in the day. I've heard stories of people just giving up on playing with friends (or playing at all) because of this silly restriction.

[Kazgrel]

Most frustrating thing I encountered getting started: The fact that the recruit-a-friend invite that my buddy sent me didn't allow me a pass to create a character on Balmung with him. So I had to make a character on another server, thus leading my friend to transfer over to that server (Goblin); after a month and change, when I decided that I would go all-in on this game (by purchasing HW), we then both had to pay to transfer to Balmung. So it cost my friend 2 server transfers just to get me to play the game. :-/

Sure, he could've just made an alt on Goblin, but that's a hard thing to do when 1. you had everything at max level back then and 2. his character is a pre-2.0 legacy/veteran character, which has various neat perks and benefits.

That being said, the transfer was well worth the money. Zero RMT spam and a metric ton of people around doing stuff, whether it's in the cities, out in the world, via PF, you name it.

[Eleccybubb]

1. Most sub MMO's do. Even WoW does.
2. Seems fair to stop gil spammers
3. I agree on that. There should be one for new players that opens the moment you use the trial.

But yeah their site is fucking horrendous to navigate.

[Pachycrocuta]

It also doesn't help that there's a check box to where you don't get kicked for being AFK, which I am sure many people abuse.

It would be nice to be able to make a character on the Balmung server without first making one on a different server and then paying the $18 (I think it is) and transferring it over. But, I am sure that's one reason Squeenix won't open it up. They lose out on the $18. Though, if I remember right, that $18 allows you to transfer over all characters on on a server to the new one (so make 4 on one server, pay $18 and transfer all 4 to Balmung).

[Kazgrel]

It also doesn't help that there's a check box to where you don't get kicked for being AFK, which I am sure many people abuse.

It would be nice to be able to make a character on the Balmung server without first making one on a different server and then paying the $18 (I think it is) and transferring it over. But, I am sure that's one reason Squeenix won't open it up. They lose out on the $18. Though, if I remember right, that $18 allows you to transfer over all characters on on a server to the new one (so make 4 on one server, pay $18 and transfer all 4 to Balmung).

It's been nearly a year since I made the move, but I believe you are correct. I know this is how it works on GW2 (where if you move to a different server, it's all characters in one fell swoop). For FF14 you can choose to move one toon or all of them to whatever server.

I'm not 100% sold on SE doing this just to milk transfer fees; they're probably doing it to prevent the server from taking a dirt nap due to so many people piling onto it.

Silver lining: the server being locked 99.9% of the time prevents RMT/gil seller accounts from being here spamming you to insanity. That being said, the multiboxers with random gibberish names are the ones who are also partly responsible for the server being locked. There was a photo on Reddit the other day where someone had logged on within 5 minutes of new character lock being lifted for Balmung and there was a flood of characters in Ul'dah with random gibberish names.

[mizeri]

i wanted to play it, trying to navigate the site pissed me off enough to lose interest

[Deleted]

Silver lining: the server being locked 99.9% of the time prevents RMT/gil seller accounts from being here spamming you to insanity. That being said, the multiboxers with random gibberish names are the ones who are also partly responsible for the server being locked. There was a photo on Reddit the other day where someone had logged on within 5 minutes of new character lock being lifted for Balmung and there was a flood of characters in Ul'dah with random gibberish names.

They might just be people who saw they could finally create a character and typed whatever random shit their fingers hit just to get onto the server: better a couple of quid to change name than missing your chance and having to pay three times that for a server transfer.

[Kazgrel]

They might just be people who saw they could finally create a character and typed whatever random shit their fingers hit just to get onto the server: better a couple of quid to change name than missing your chance and having to pay three times that for a server transfer.

I'm pretty skeptical of that, mainly because I often see these multiboxers with random gibberish names all in the same spots, and it often appears they teleport through wall and stuff.

[endersblade]

Trying to navigate the website to cancel my sub was fucking ridiculous. I finally had to google it, because nothing made sense. You have to actually go to a different page on the official site rather than in your account info to cancel, and I don't know if it's because of the language translation or what, but it's rather confusing on what you need to choose. There are two options, one is to cancel a sub, and I THINK (I didn't use it) is to close down your account. It isn't clear what it does, and I would imagine a lot of people have accidentally used it.

[Bethrezen]

Their game, their rules. Don't like it? Move on if you can't accept them.

Same as it's always gone for WoW/Blizzard.

[Fadewind]

It's actually simple when you think about it like this.

The Lodestone is for connecting to the community and keeping yourself up to date on what's going on. It needs an active sub to use.
Mogstation is to handle everything with your FFXIV account. It can be accessed at any time.

While it's not made obvious this is the way it works, it is similar to Blizzard's design as well (except for the needing an active sub). I really don't see an issue with needing an active sub to post on the forums or use community tools. You're not part of that community at the moment.

[Lathais]

It's actually simple when you think about it like this.

The Lodestone is for connecting to the community and keeping yourself up to date on what's going on. It needs an active sub to use.
Mogstation is to handle everything with your FFXIV account. It can be accessed at any time.

While it's not made obvious this is the way it works, it is similar to Blizzard's design as well (except for the needing an active sub). I really don't see an issue with needing an active sub to post on the forums or use community tools. You're not part of that community at the moment.

I had never thought about it like that but yeah, Mogstation is kinda like battle.net whereas Lodestone is the main site.

[Fadewind]

I had never thought about it like that but yeah, Mogstation is kinda like battle.net whereas Lodestone is the main site.

I think one reason people don't is how well Blizzard has hidden the separation between those two sites. They're very well integrated into one another while FFXIV ones just have a link between them.

I think the criticism against it is valid, but it'd take a complete rework of some of the Lodestone site to transfer over to the Mogstation one. Not hard, but what they currently have is pretty standard in website design.

[Demoneq]

I've heard stories of people just giving up on playing with friends (or playing at all) because of this silly restriction.

Yeah, I'm one of those people, I used a trial account to check the game out (on lower population server), but since a main reason/interest in the game for me is RP, it's Balmung or nothing for me (the fact my friend is playing there being another factor), and I ended up not buying it. I perhaps would, if you could roll characters there if already having one (so I'd only have to buy one transfer, or get lucky once), but having to buy it for each and every new one? No, thanks, I'll pass.
(I know you can have all classes/jobs on one character, but I'd likely eventually want more for RP reasons, different race, gender or looks, etc etc.)

[Druzzy]

And yet the whole process is MUCH simpler, streamlined, and sensible than the original FFXI sub process. Now that was an annoying head scratcher.

[Cthulhu 2020]

There's a way around the server restriction, which is transferring an already made character since transfers don't have to obey server loads... but yes that does cost more money.

[Demoneq]

There's a way around the server restriction, which is transferring an already made character since transfers don't have to obey server loads... but yes that does cost more money.

From what I've got, it costs the same to transfer any amount of characters, so you could create the maximum for a server elsewhere, and transfer them all for the same fee, if you think you'll need more than one (say, for RPing different races). If doing so, I'd suggest making each of them a different race and maybe class, for different aesthetics (also important if you plan to RP) and lower level experience.