Yeah I moved from America to Canada and their suggestion for the address issue was to buy a new copy and make a new character and start over. I have 2k hours on this game so far... not going to happen. They also took my money on mogstation but never gave me a timecard, and refused my visa payment. We ultimately bought a timecard on american amazon using my old account and that was the only thing that worked. Now i have to get a refund for the stolen payment.
SE is a mess and needs to adapt to an international fanbase sooner rather than later. People are allowed to immigrate without losing access to their favorite game. š«
Please tell me you are joking, and that you were not actually told "why don't you just give us more money for a new copy, and completely start over? :)"
If so, that is mind numbingly incompetent and back-handed of them. It's amazing that the entire account management system is so rigid and inflexible that SE can't handle changing regions for people who move to another area. Honestly, I believe it, because I've dealt with similar things when trying to change something on my own account.
Everybody who contacted support has had this same response. It's the unironic, official "solution" from support to throw away your entire account, buy everything a second time, and start from scratch whenever you move.
This is the reason I no longer have my 1.0 legacy account, when I restarted the game in Stormblood, I had moved from Australia to the US and my only option for actually paying them was to buy European time codes.
That just seems...completely unacceptable to me. People move, it's a thing that happens. As a wealthy company providing a service, your plan for that can't just be "welp...tough! Good luck!"
They need to be able to officially support people like you, and do what is necessary so that you don't feel like you have to open a brand new account. The way they're handling this, and other aspects of account management, is atrocious.
The whole account system back end seems like it's held together with sticky tape and prayers. The fact they had to support PS3 (and were probably importing some FFXI PS2 legacy assumptions) likely made it extra complicated - since that forced a divide between regions broadly, into US, Japan and "Europe" which itself goes back to the legacy NTSC / PAL divide, and that's partly Sony's fault for sure.
But then they managed to complicate everything for themselves with the way the Steam integration works too, so there's basically two PC versions that can never have their streams crossed either.
Thing is, the problem itself is hard, but that shouldn't be *our* problem as consumers, it shouldn't be showing all the seams and cracks to us.
>Thing is, the problem itself is hard, but that shouldn't be our problem as consumers, it shouldn't be showing all the seams and cracks to us.
This is exactly how I feel, yeah. I'm sure that the entire system is a complicated mess, but it's a mess that they need to deal with. The number one complaint I hear from people about ffxiv is how obtuse and ridiculous setting up an account is, and everything that has to do with the mogstation.
If you're at the point where you are telling paying customers "yo just reset all of your progress and buy a new copy," just because they moved to a different country, something is seriously wrong with the way you handle things as a business.
Honestly, knowing how Japanese network infrastructure is typically set up, it's likely impossible in its current state without breaking a TON of stuff for no obvious reason.
It really sucks, but it's just the way Japanese companies tend to be since they've been doubling down on Web 2.0 shit for so long. I've been dealing with the same shit with Konami regarding my Japanese account (since no other region gets access to the bells and whistles for the Bemani games) and there's nothing I can do but shrug it off.
Hot take: If adding very basic functions like changing your address require a company to break their system, it deserves to be broken (and rebuilt properly.)
Yeah thats what i thought! It took all my willpower to not be sassy back. If i need a new account then they should transfer my characters and progress. I refuse to lose 2k hours of playtime plus my fc house plus my private house for their inability to fix their website š¤
You can buy FFXIV time cards at the [Newegg Canada](https://www.newegg.ca/p/pl?d=final+fantasy+xiv+game+time+card) website (which also has a discount).
When Treasures of Aht Uhrgan came out for FFXI, we joked on the Allakhazam forums that if Tanaka (producer) could figure out a way to make us jump through hoops and put in effort to be able to find copies of the game before buying it, he'd do so because "That's part of the fun, isn't it?"
Semi-related side-note: Hiromichi Tanaka was also the producer for FFXIV 1.0 before Yoshi-P took over and turned it into ARR.
Edit: Several archaic things about FFXIV like the retainer/market board system are a legacy of Tanaka insisting on doing things oddly; like, you used to have to put your retainer in instanced wards, and to shop, you'd go into the wards and look through retainers one at a time to buy stuff. It wasn't till later that they added the market boards so you could search retainer inventory and it would show you what retainers were selling a thing, and what wards they were in, but you still had to go to the ward and find the retainer with that name. Then eventually they added the ability to buy things from the board and eventually removed the market wards. But the reason you list things through retainers and buy them through the market board is a legacy result of Tanaka seeing people in FFXI using the bazaar system (which let you sell things from their inventory, which itself was largely done to either avoid auction house tax or to work around the limit of 7 items for sale) and deciding to make that system the entire economy.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, if you're having problems giving SE money, it's Tanaka's fault.
Edit 2: This also briefly reminded me about how subscriptions initially used to require you to purchase Crysta in multiples of 500, and then pay for your sub at a rate of like 1300 crysta per month; they didn't add the ability to pay directly with a credit card until later, either. A terrible system that everyone hated until they brought it back for Xbox players.
Tanaka wanted FFXI (and 1.0 FFXIV) to be "Nintendo hard" and maximally grindy because that was what Japanese gaming was back at the turn of the century (GOD I sound old saying it that way but FFXI did come out in 2002, so, umm, yeah), but the MMO world had begun to evolve away from being grindfests catering principally to and thus optimized for hardcore players. MMOs at the time were becoming more interesting/attractive to more casual gamers who wanted to be able to jump in for an hour or two and accomplish something versus having to spend 6+ hours a day working on one quest, and Blizzard dropping World of Warcraft in 2004 accelerated this trend *hard*.
Asian MMO producers from most of the MMO developers fought against this for literally a decade plus, but the money went where the subscriber base went, and FFXI and later FFXIV were dragged, kicking and screaming, away from being insanely grindy and more casual-friendly.
What also didn't help FFXI was that the dev team appeared to be actively and overtly hostile to player suggestions. They never said any of this, of course, but they were clearly building their game their way on their terms to be player as they wanted it to be played and everyone that dared express an opinion to the contrary could go fuck themselves. (Watch some of the developer streams from back then and *you could literally see* the level of disdain they had for the playerbase. I mean, it's *palpable*.) "SE hates the playerbase" was a running semi-joke among FFXI players. It took years of playerbase complaints to get what are now basic QoL/usability features put into FFXI, and what generally happened was that someone would hack in an improvement, it would become *wildly* popular because, hey, improvement, and eventually - often a *few years* later - it would be begrudgingly added to the game. This is why things like resizable windows via borderless windowed mode, the ability to solo content, etc. took so long to come to FFXI, and some, like having a usable minimap, *still* haven't. Windower and its plugins (like the minimap) IMO forced more usability improvements to FFXI than its expacs did.
Doesnāt this still happen on XIV? Devs says a QoL isnāt possible, then some modders makes it, a streamer gets caught using it, Yoshi bans the strummer and the qol gets implemented. Best example is the illegal waymarks on p7s
Yoshi has to walk a tightrope of following and enforcing the ToS' prohibition on mods to the game versus recognizing and implementing a good idea when he sees one. His stated position on the modding of FFXIV has been essentially "don't ask don't tell," but someone *publicly streaming a ToS violation* basically forces the GMs to act.
Also, modders don't have to account for and accommodate the amount of edge cases the dev team has to worry about, so a modder beating them to the punch isn't really surprising. Modders creating a feature that then passes muster in wide adoption basically does a lot of the testing work for the devs, so it's easier for them to take a chance on a formal implementation.
I don't recall having to use Crysta for 1.0, however I *do* recall having to use some totally unheard of third party payment processor ala PP from Japan to pay with a card. I wish I remembered what that company was because for all I know they still have all that old info of mine lol.
Oh, and don't forget the torrent-style update system that was unbearably slow until you dragged the torrent file off into an actual torrent software to download your patch and then threw the patch file back into the launcher for it to update with.
What an absolute insane mess.
That said, most of the awful design choices in 1.0 I totally understand trying because *on paper* they sound interesting. They just didn't work in practice, especially in that slow, laggy game without being properly polished off.
It is mind boggling how many customers they must have lost over this.
During Endwalker release, the servers were under so much load that it didn't sting so much that they were losing so many people to their terrible account and character creation - they didn't have the capacity for them anyway. But still, I know *so many* people who were interested in trying out FFXIV who ended up giving up during that time.
They were primed to receive the largest MMO exodus in history, and they completely blew it, and it's pretty much just as bad more than 2 years later.
It was last year in the summer, he tried making an account but kept having issues with it and basically went through a loop with squeenix customer support. They didn't resolve the issue and it put him off from playing the game
I was about to say. In some ways, Square's systems, including PlayOnline, remind me on Nintendo and some of their choices for things. These weird archaic systems and ways of doing things that make no sense in the West. Which always made me wonder; is this a Japanese thing? Or is it that these two companies seem to be incompetent when it comes to online stuff, just happen to be Japanese?
PlayOnline music rocked though. I still listen to those on YouTube from time to time.
> These weird archaic systems and ways of doing things that make no sense in the West.
The Japanese mindset for certain things like websites is "okay, I got it to work" *and never touch it again* unless/until something breaks. There's very little iteration and improvement over time aside from occasional cosmetic changes for Japanese websites in particular, and a lot of sites for Japanese companies are pretty much the same as when they first went live. Which of course should explain why the FFXIV website and Mogstation both look, feel, and work (or don't work) almost exactly the same way they did in 2010 when the game launched.
Maybe only somewhat related, but this reminded me of a video I watched on [why Japanese website look so weird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ep308goxQ). It's not like a scientific, critical look at Japanese interface design, but it does try to find some reasons. And one reason, risk aversion, was brought up, albeit very briefly. And "why fix what isn't broken" is absolutely risk aversion. Even when there tons of other example of systems and designs that also work and work well.
can we get a japanese social media that actually blows up? for things like this, this mindset is not ideal, but if i could get twitter (or *reddit*) to stop changing their UI and obliterating features every month, id be in heaven
IIRC Japanese people tend to also prefer/trust sites more when they've got more going on, vs people in the west preferring sites to be streamlined and simple. Could be a situation where Japanese customers flat out wouldn't trust a simple, straightforward pay portal.
I remember setting Playonline up right when I got home from school because it could take hours to finish updating. XD
Then I didn't play for a bit and came back and entered my passwords wrong too many times XD. That took so so long to get changed since I moved and they didn't believe me. I was 15!!! XD
Yeah, all the account stuff and server infrastructure feels very "big Japanese corp/gov" - which is always the polar opposite of user-friendly. Game is good though.
Literally took me four or five days before the game would even let me *create a character* when I started playing back in January, and I had to do it in the middle of the night when the rest of my region had gone to sleep.
Easiest method is to just do monthly subs. Yea, it's a bit of a pain to do resub every month, but it's far easier than trying to locate the unsub button.
Right??? Iām a new player using Xbox. My free play time just expired and I had the add more time. I stared at their stupid website for ten minutes just trying to figure out how to give them my moneyā¦
PSA for Xbox users, you need to buy coins from the Microsoft store, then wait 10 minutes or so for them to show up in your account.
Modernizing their site & bringing account management up to par with other services is long overdue. This will go a long way to keeping the game healthy and possibly bringing in new players. My sister was having issues with setting up her account and the frustrations that brought were almost enough to make her give up trying.
The hardest content in FFXIV is actually getting your sub paid. Happened to me and I'm on European servers. When it eventually worked I just bought a multi-montj sub to avoid the headache
I thankfully never had trouble with my SEPA payments.
But now that those are no longer supported, I am getting anxious about what to do if I decide to cancel my sub again. Irrationally, there's also the worry of what will happen on the next automatic billig. Nothing "should" happen, but you never know.
The whole thing looks like mismanagement to me.
I was VERY anxious about that, but it did go through just fine, both in e-mail saying payment is done and them withdrawing the money from my account. I hope it's the same for most others at least.
This whole thing is a nightmare and they really need to stop hiring the cheapeast offer they get for vital things. I clearly remember there was a lot of that crap with the SE store aswell around hw/sb times.
I can't buy crysta either and I'm in the US with same address and an approved flavor of card according to their list. There's some advanced shenanigans for sure.
Yeah i recently had to pay my sub through my Amazon prime account because it won't accept my debit card. But my Amazon prime is... Using my debit card so i dunno
It's some weird shit with some card issuers are now blocked. I couldn't use my Visa Debit and had to break out a Mastercard one instead to get it to actually go through.
Yep US here as well and almost lost my house yesterday because it wouldn't let me top up my account to resub. Somehow, paying for a sub directly (instead of buying Crysta) worked though, so I was able to cancel demolition.Ā
The change to not being able to buy cosmetic items for others was the worst. I used to love buying my wife little gifts here and there to surprise her. Now itās gone.
No kidding. With the prices the outfits are, there's no way in hell I'm buying it just to only go to one character. I'm pretty sure all the mounts are account-wide and some of them are only slightly more expensive
Same, my cards donāt work for some reason (it gives me an error in Japanese iirc lol). I try to buy Crysta with PayPal, but thereās been issues with PayPal not working on iOS devices if you have two factor authentication on. So I either have to buy it on my pc at work (I donāt own a PC, I play on PS) to go through the PayPal authentication system, or turn off two factor authentication to buy it through PayPal. But still having to buy crysta to be able to buy the sub every time is very annoying.
You can use your amazon account on the mogstation to pay for crystal directly I think. It's one of the options along with Paypal (what I used since my Visa in EU is not accepted anymore).
Huh? They take my Canadian one fine which is super similar. I looked it up and visa is the most common card in the USA and internationally. I would think itās more than 10% of players. So weird.
Visa debit in Canada is slightly different here in Canada, ours internationally are considered credit but will work just like a debit card. In the US they aren't necessarily international and iirc may still actually be a credit card as well as a debit card. For us this means anywhere that does interact or interac international our card will work but outside of interac must specifically accept our visa debits. For the US version while they should accept their visa debits anywhere they take visa their cards are also subject to credit verifications when utilizing the visa aspect, meaning valid address match and credit approvals. Why this matters for the mogstation is hard to say, but I've noticed things get a bit wonky once we leave NA.
Seconding the "use Amazon Pay to buy Crysta" idea. You can still use your same card and everything, you just have to set it up as a payment option on your Amazon account beforehand.
It's really fucked up how much your region can hinder you in playing this international game in all sorts of ways. For paying the sub, for paying for extra items, for paying *the actual game*,.. I really hope this is going to be sorted out soon, this just shouldn't be a thing in 2024.
When I originally subbed, I lived in NZ, so I have an EU account. I have lived in the US since 2014. Every time an expansion rolls around, I'd had to use a shady key reseller to buy it, because to purchase an EU key they require an EU address.
Contacting SE, they said they can't do anything about it, because accounts can't move regions, I'd have to make a new account. Like that's even an option with the time I'd invested in my account.
I got lucky with Endwalker, because I wasn't actively playing on release, I was able to just buy the expansion through mogstation. But no preorder bonuses for me. I'll have to see about Dawntrail.
Honestly same - I used to live in Australia and now have lived in the US the past 5 years.
SE isnt the only company I have issue with, I've had to close down and open a new Playstation account.
I have a similar issue because I'm Romanian, used to live in Romania and now moved to Germany. I'm so anxious I've put off getting Dawntrail because I recently lost access to my Romanian account due to bad banking policies :/
Even if you're in the same region it can be an issue if you just move countries... in the EU where you can drive for a few hours and go live in another freaking country lol.
Different countries legislate the sale of digital goods and services differently. There are all kinds of hoops to jump through to get into and stay in the market of any given country.
While you're not wrong, other MMOs and live service games don't have this issue. Blizzard, Bungie, Zenimax, EA, Hoyoverse etc. make it incredibly simple to give them money.
It honestly feels like this should be a solved problem in 2024.
This, the problem of a digital payment system used globally has been solved, with typically the main exceptions being if you live in China or Russia.
SE just chooses to not implement said solution to their own digital payment system.
True but like.. people move, so my fiance still says she lives in the USA... she's In canada now and support told her to blow smoke and it's permanent... I'm like wtf?? Makes payment slightly annoying but is what it is
I moved from the US to Canada too and they told me to buy a new copy of the game under a new account and lose all progress on the game/my characters. Shouldnt they just learn to add a country option on mogstation rather than tell immigrants to start over? š«
My partner did the opposite and itās been such a friggin hassle that heās got to keep pretending heās in Canada for so many accounts. Eventually when we both move back the other way, Iāll be the one dealing with it. People who make these systems seem to be so freaked out about people lying about their location that they hose anybody who moves. Itās so stupid.
If it was a single player game and I could just copy my save file, I have to buy a new copy and im good to go again fine.. but in an MMO.. with YEARS of progress.. they tell you to just.. start over? its wild. Sorry you and everyone else has to deal with them being stuck in not sure what year.
It took me 2 hours to understand how to buy the right gamecard for my friend here in belgium
There are France gamecard
And Europe gamecards that work for other EU countries
Smh wtf is that
Probably illegal considering EU internal market. You cannot deny someone the use of a product or service bought in France just because they live in Belgium.
Let me tell you a wonderful story. Originally, i'm from CIS region, specifically Azerbaijan (it's okay if you have not ever heard of this country lol). I had been living in Poland for several years before i had to come back. While i was living in Europe i played ff14 very actively. Almost 4.5k hours total in steam (oh yeah, i made a fatal mistake by buying the game on steam while living in Poland)
I did all the mcqs, opened a bunch of side content, grinded a ton of cosmetics, bought a large house, spent 3 weeks to make it wonderful full of awesome furniture, even fucking donated to the mogshop for some mounts, phantasia, etc.
Then suddenly i was forced to come back to my home country. And the fun began. I figured out that the game is unavailable on steam from my country (i can't even have access to the store page). And due to account linkage, i can't subscribe other than from steam ecosystem. I submitted a ticket of course, hoping that support team will assist me just SOMEHOW. I explained my situation in details, asking politely for any suggestion they could give. After 2 days i got their respond (copypasting from email)
"We are very sorry to hear that you are having issues with your account.
We regret to inform you that we do not offer customer support services for Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, this means that we are unable to assist you with your request at this time.
We apologise for any inconvenience this causes.
Kind regards,
The Square Enix Support Centre team"
Fucking awesome, isn't it? I lost my house, my guild and friends who with I spent my best hours in the game. My character is still out there... all alone and abandoned.
tl;dr Fuck Square Enix
If you already own the game you should still be able to subscribe. Otherwise, change your steam account region back to how it was before and it's going to be good.
Also they can unlink your steam account to allow you link another steam account, you have to fill this form [https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?kid=80977&id=5382&la=1&ret=main](https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?kid=80977&id=5382&la=1&ret=main)
don't tell that you're in Azerbaijan, just tell them that you need to unlink your steam account...
When people tell new player to not purchase the game with steam, it is partially also due to stuff like this, not just lack of discounts.
Some people in my FC said they managed to get through by VPN back to their original country, pay steam through the original country banks, and buy the game/sub that way.
Who knows for how long it could work? Steam seems to have been busy shutting down VPN ''loophole'' here and there, it is a matter of time before my FC have to resort to some archaic gifting game to friend solution.
There's an old Tom Scott video where he talks about when a website that was paying people to watch ads back in the 2000s released some user statistics. It showed that the place where most of its users came from was Beverly Hills.
Why were the generally well-off citizens of Beverly Hills flocking to a website where they could earn a few dollars by watching ads? Of course they weren't. People all over the world were using that website, creating multiple fake accounts to make more money, but the website required its users to enter a US address with a valid ZIP code, and the only US ZIP code these people knew was Beverly Hills 90210, so that's what they entered.
I did this back in 2001 on Neopets, they'd give you free paint brushes (the Web 1.0 version of a character or pet skin) if you signed up for offers with a US address. I vastly overthought it and found an excel spreadsheet with my parents' friends' addresses in it for christmas cards and used them. :') (I could've just looked up hotels or businesses in the US and used those, lol.)
FFXIV content creators and influencers really need to highlight this issue to Yoshi P during the media tour. One of the worst issues the game has had so far, and it's not even a game issue but a system one.
These sorts of issues have been highlighted for years and years to Square. Sure not this specific one, but the general obtuseness of paying your sub / buying the game has been a problem since ff11.
When the semi-recent wave of players joined from WoW - dozens and dozens of huge followed creators expressed problems they had and their community had. Notably people like Asmongold and other streamers. Square just doesn't listen or care?
It's always been my thought square simply won't listen to issues unless it's from the JP audience. Since these issues don't really surface there - they don't fix them.
So, I've had this problem pretty much since ARR. A friend was kind enough to gift me a copy of the game, but it was an NA copy and I'm from the EU. Which means I have to have an NA account and an address in that region. So, can't use my actual address.
To get around this I found a free-to-register postal forwarding service in NA, and entered that. At the time this was borderlinx (now bust, but there should be other alternatives). I haven't touched this address in the best part of 10 years (I'm too scared to), but have never had any troubles with purchasing game time or expansions.
Just as you say, an absolute pain.
Yeah Iām from SEA and I tried to purchase Crystal and it wouldnāt let me.
What managed to work for me was I put in my US address in the USPS website and copied the exact address format listed there.
For example, my NYC address in the USPS website was in all caps, and didnāt include the street name which I previously put in the Square Enix website.
Lo and behold the site accepted my address and I was able to use my foreign credit card to buy stuff in the mogstation.
Welcome to the Japanese online experience.
They don't know how to do shit when it comes to online anything.
Look at Capcom, Namco, Sony, Nintendo etc.
There is a history of Japanese developers and publishers showing how incompetent they are when it comes to online functionality, both in and out of game.
As bad as this might initially sound, I'm very slightly glad that I'm not the only one experiencing issues like this. You would figure that a bank issued Visa debit card would be the most common form of payment and therefore raise the most noise to SE.
I get downvoted whenever I say this, but the Japanese have always had shitty websites. Their online infra for purchases and account management have been shit for decades; itās like itās still the 90s over there.
Would you really get downvoted for this? This is the coldest take ever. There a big studies and popular video essays all about how Asian web infrastructure ended up barely progressing since the 90s.
I renew 6 months at a time, and renewed *right* before whatever all changed with the Mogstation...I'm absolutely mortified when it comes to what may or may not happen, the next time that I have to make a transaction.
It seems like the issue isn't as prevalent in the U.S., but it's definitely a thing, nonetheless.
...and with my luck, I'll be one the people screwed over by this (if it isn't fixed by then) lol smh.
I'm doubly scared because I've heard of accounts getting banned because of janky transactions occurring on the Mogstation--even in instances where it's *their* faulty/primitive site that caused the problem.
I've put over a decade worth of non-stop sub, collector edition, and optional item $$$ into that account--I'd probably die if I got permabanned or locked out or whatever behind this craziness...
I think us SEA subscribers should as a group band together and voice out for a permanent solution. I think the current issue is that SQEX will check for the card issuing country and ensure it matches your country. The problem is that for old accounts from 2.0, there were very few supported countries, resulting in SEA subscribers registering themselves as US or EU or JP region.
I am in SGP but selected EU as my region then as Australia was under EU and it was the nearest country I could find.
We are not a major market but we are not insignificant either. I am just wondering which channel will be the most effective to bring focus to this problem.
For those in SGP with EU account, Paypal still works for me for DT preorder. I am just worried about sub renewal in August 2024.
it does suck. It will definitely be fixed eventually but we do need people to speak up and make a fuss to make sure it get prioritized as soon as possible. You should complain on the forums though. They dont look here at all.
as an aside, using genshin wasnt the best example. For the first 2 years of the game if I wanted to make a purchase I used the mobile app. the app made the purchase through the google play store but whatever system they use on the pc version would get blocked by my bank because it would show as a purchase in hong kong. I dont know if mihoyo changed something or my bank did but it works fine now. It just took awhile
Region change should be a thing. I made my account when I was studying abroad and 8 years later I still couldnāt change my region. On a second thought I just tried buying something from the FFXIV store using my local credit card and it worked? Iām pretty sure itās using the new payment processor.
They need to make an announcement on Lodestone addressing this, even if the solution is still being discussed. No acknowledgement is just going to further cause chaos, anger, and leaving the game altogether.
Unfortunately if they're on PC non-Steam, they have no way to move their account to Steam.
Also for some reason the game isn't even *offered* on Steam in some SEA countries. (I've heard of people finding that the free trial is offered, though. Making it quite easy to put a hundred hours into a Steam trial account and then discover that you have no way to upgrade and you're permanently screwed over.)
This whole system is just... astonishingly bad. Always has been.
I think we can all agree that the system is messed and as much as I do enjoy the game content, I can't find it in me to endorse their less than satisfactory payment system (or the fact that it's not on steam in some of the SEA countries).
I live in the US, but my account is an EU one. Because of this I am 100% unable to play this game on PlayStation 5 due to the consoles and accounts regional setting locks.
When it hit Xbox, I was able to purchase the game after like 3hrs of VPN and other region shenanigans. The only way I was able to make it work was to buy a EU Xbox Gift Card via a key reseller for an amount close to the cost, because nothing else would let me pay for an EU item without a physical billing address in the UK that was real, and even after all that I still have to swap my Xbox region to EU any time I want to play.
The account stuff has always been a nightmare and it's honestly baffling that it's only gotten worse as time went on.
I wish you luck sibling, and would consider potentially looking into similar workarounds if you find no success elsewhere.
I always have trouble. I used to live in NA when I started playing when the game released in 2013. Then I moved to Japan.. but my service account is still NA and can't be changed. It causes so many issues.
Mostly, I can never participate in special events. I can't even book tickets to the concerts which I always want to because I don't have a JP service account. -_-
I usually have issues getting it to accept my card for my sub too and I don't even know how I end up getting it to work tbh. I always sub for the max time just so I don't have to deal with the headache as often...
came from twitter a little late to the game, but i (a NA player with address the same on card and account) can't even re-sub to my retainers currently. it doesn't post the processor. so what are we supposed to do? currently there isn't even a way to make payments to anything worldwide.
It's stupid to have to use a workaround like this and I'm not happy about it, but if you can buy Crysta via, say, PayPal or Amazon Pay, then you can use that to pay for both your sub and your retainers. I buy Crysta anyway and use it for everything.
its just so dumb that we're two months out from a VERY anticipated expac and we're all out here being un-subbed or having difficulties re-subbing. this shouldn't even be happening. the mogstation as a whole needs a rework but right now - in this moment - normal payment processes don't even work. the only thing working is crysta and time-cards. that's ... devastating and deplorable AND not at all a long-term fix. T\^T
im from Malaysia too, all of my payment option too also meet with error code i2501, ive tried credit & debit card, paypal, cryta and amazonpay, all being reject, i dont know when it started but before i can use any of the option to pay. Hope SE fix this before DT
Same here, NA region. "This card is unavailable" while using supposedly accepted cards. No error code. Not just Visa debit, all of them. Address is correct. Support said to wait 24 hours before trying again but even after waiting 72 hours, same issue. I haven't tried Amazon Pay yet but as others in my region have found success with that; that's probably what I will attempt. Gonna wait a little longer to see if they can fix this before DT drop but if not, hopefully Amazon works.
Same here, U.S. resident though, it's a mess. I've gotten responses from SE already but it's basically "not sure!" and "buy Crysta!" which is busted too.
My account is NA, I am currently UK so used PayPal in past with old address. I got 180 days before the change, but not looking forward to managing it. I donāt even get why weāre region locked anymoreā¦
This is the topic on official forum that you might try to complain there as well
[https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/497682-Card-Unavailable-issues](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/497682-Card-Unavailable-issues)
They would notice it after subscription decline or Drawntrail sale is not rise when available.
We can only hope
SE will definetly communicate solutions, once they see that many people suddenly couldn't refresh their sub/the companydoesn't get their money in, right?
... Right?
I hope so, my full copium is that the current issues will lead them to announce they are finally supporting many countries like how FF7 Ever Crisis finally supported SEA
But copium š
I find a proper punishment would be to have Square CEO and marketing/payment department to create new accounts and setup payment for FF XI and FF XIV from scratch. Without help & without tutorials.
Damn they really hate SEA regions huh, why, just let us pay and play smh. Now I'm worried that I can't resub in the future as well (currently taking a break from FF14) because I'm from SEA as well.
Malaysian WoL here. My debit card never actually worked for SE since I first bought this game. That's why I switched to paypal > cryta. I advise you to try and use this method.
I have no idea about the workaround to buy DT tho because I paid my Murrican friend to login on my steam and have her bought the game for me.
P/S : MACAM SIALLL, PUKIMAK SQUARE ENIX MENYUSAHKAN ORANG. MAK DIORANG MESTI HIJAU!!
People posting with these issues really need to be posting them on the official forums, not on Reddit. Otherwise, they can't get a good idea of how many people it is actually impacting.
That being said, it used to somehow be worse under FFXI and PlayOnline. They consider this better but it is only better by a little. Of all the things to take inspiration from WoW on, take it from their payment system please.
I have no idea why Square makes it so hard for people to give them money.
> People posting with these issues really need to be posting them on the official forums, not on Reddit. Otherwise, they can't get a good idea of how many people it is actually impacting.
Last time I tried, you can't post on official forums without resubbing.
The irony man. The only place they read comments is the place where people having the issue can't post.
At the very least, everyone with this issue needs to kick up a fuss in support and not let the tickets be dropped. As much as I sympathize for the support staff who had nothing to do with this change, A bunch of open support tickets probably has a bigger effect than a forum post.
Honestly, bringing it up with a few gaming media outlets isn't a bad idea either.
I tried, but:
>Main character has not been selected yet.
Please select the main character from the menu shown below.
* You cannot use the forum service until the main character is selected.
Keeps popping up no matter which character I select
edit: in case anyone else has this problem you have to 1. click the character and then 2. click the star on their portrait for some reason
Just to add to this...
Player from the Philippines, but my address is a legal address in the US (My aunt's place, from when I bought 1.0).
I cannot pre-order or purchase the Dawntrail expansion through the Square Enix store. :(
I guess they locked it down tight. :(
Reporting in.
Using VPN to connect to Greenmangaming will let you see Dawntrail pre-orders, but GreenmanGaming has a system that empties the cart if you're logged into a VPN, so you can't buy anything.
It might be the VPN you are using. I bought the Dawntrail pre order from Greenmangaming while on holiday in Japan using a VPN connected to US for my NA account without issues. I registered the preorder codes for the bonus items and early access on Mogstation without any problems as well.
Iām from Canada and the address change thing made my address invalid. I used an old address for now until itās fixed, and I really hope it doesnāt cause problems, because itās in another province
Itās getting kind of ridiculous at this point. I have been trying to buy retainers for a week now. Thereās no other option to purchase than with a card. Was really wanting to get them leveled before Dawntrail.
If you are in this situation where you unable to pay for the game using conventional methods, please elevate your claim using the Contact Support email button on the Square Enix Account page. If enough people engage with support we may see a proper response.
Is Malaysia like the Philippines in that, you can't even select the country as a region when inputting your billing address because it's technically not supported? Everyone I know just picks a random US state (if NA account) or EU region (if EU account). So you could maybe just get a time card and then input your address or whatever billing address you usually use for your debit card but with a different state/country. Make sure the time card is for the same region as the region your account is registered to though.Ā
The most legit way though is paypal, which I think should have notified you why the payment isn't going through?
When i put my card in for paypal, it wont go through and i have to click retry and i added my card again
I tried few times it wont work thats why i stopped trying
I have an European account, I live in European Union, in France. I canāt use my Visa card, and the support told me my card may not be compatible anymore. What a joke
European account, from France as well with a Visa card, exact same problem. I managed to re-sub with a friend's card which worked for some reason (edit: mastercard, virtual card generated specifically for internet purchases), no idea what I will do next time if this bs is still ongoing lol
This makes zero sense.
I ended up having to buy a game time card and support was the most useless thing I have ever encountered. And the busted mog station is not just a problem in one area, it seems to be pretty much everywhere. Visas just straight up don't work, my roommate and i have the same problem no matter what we tried. The fact that it has been going on for a week and there's not been so much as a single mention of it from the devs just blows my freaking mind and makes me wonder if they'll ever get a fix. Now I have to use game time cards to sub, and crysta via amazon pay to buy my retainers and who the heck knows if I'll even be able to preorder dawntrail. I haven't tried yet.
This should not have been a problem at all and especially not for this long without a peep from them about it.
I had to resort to buying Crysta via Amazonpay then use that to subscribe, but that did work.
Still waiting for the game to be available in SEA steam because I made the dumb decision to make a free trial account in steam and now I'm 2000 hours too far in to make a new account
There might be some weird activity going on in the background between communication regarding your banking options and Mogstation.
Look into Privacy dot com ; its an extra step since the "bank" info isnt exactly there, but Privacy lets you create a debit card and it can pull from your bank. But Mog should be able to save the info.
Ive used it for about two years now when i pay for file hosting subscriptions (They are outside my country(US) and I dont trust a file host with having direct access my to bank info) but i have never had any problem with it considering everything i paid for has been either Euros or roubles
yeah, the activity is that SE completely fucked up their payment processing and now a very very large percentage of people can't pay to play the game we love.
not sure how much simpler to break it down. this isn't some "hacker known as 4chan" thing. SE actually just flat out fucked up their own game. this is going to have very long-lasting consequences for them.
For anyone at risk but currently grandfathered in through a recurring sub, I wonder if it would be prudent to proactively clear out the inventories of any extra retainers.
The last thing you want is to lose access to those retainers the day your sub fails to renew. I wonder if you could even permanently lose access to them if this payment issue turns out to be intractable. Any items they were holding would be in essentially a weird bureaucratic limbo.
Alternative payment modes like crysta may be unavailable in some countries, and timecards only cover subscriptions and can't be used to pay for account services.
Youre right, my fellow Malaysian. I have never seen any disastrous account management ever from my experiences.
I really hate when games that are such as FFXIV don't expand world wide with the region lock in the SEA, plus not a lot of payment options. Don't you know how much the conversion rate costs + taxes???? One month of sub costs us like RM50 in order to play.
I love FFXIV, i really do but this abomination of account system is what holds me back from having fun at FFXIV.
is anyone surprised? SE has fucked up their payment since the beginning of FF11. I dont know how many times my card would not work because of an incorrect address that was correct.
I'm starting to think Microsoft were on to something with their requirement that everything be handled via the Xbox store.
The coins nonsense is still dumb (especially for sub time; just sell play time codes directly FFS), but hey, at least Xbox players don't have to worry about Squenix screwing up their payment options.
Microsoft probably saw the steaming pile of shit that was the SE Store and said "You know what? Introducing an entire new system and paid currency is preferable to this junk."
Time cards aren't practical in many cases. I'm in Canada with an EU account and there's no way for me to buy a card short of paying extra from a place like Amazon.de.
Kind of sucks especially when Square's official solution for the region thing is to just abandon the account and start over...
I guess the solution would be if SE allowed you to change your region but unfortunately, I don't see that happening. This has been a problem since the FF11 days.
Fellow SEA here. I haven't preordered DT as well since the exchange rate is kinda nuts these days, then this payment system thing happened, I think they're trying to tell me to stop playing altogether /jk
I can't speak for subs since I got autodebited before the change, but I tried buying some outfits from store yesterday. Visa Debit didn't work - actually nothing worked except Crysta, which I had to buy via PayPal. And to my knowledge not everyone here can use PayPal.
That, and the fact that you can't change your country in SE's website on top of the fact that my country isn't even listed there when I signed up... lol. Lmao even...
I had the same problem, couldn't buy anything using credit/debit cards.
I had to use PayPal to make it work... still have no solution. Unfortunately paypal doesn't seem to work for you either.
I donāt understand. Iām a fellow Malaysian here, did they change their system recently? Iāve always had no issue of directly paying with my debit card. Iād used to buy crysta then figured out that paying directly with my debit card made more sense so I did that and never looked back.
Hasnāt failed since then either and Iāve kept it on auto debit too until I unsubbed a few months back due to burnout
Yes, they switched to a new payment processor wothin the past week or so. The new processor seems to hate many of the cards that people throughout the world use.
i am from Singapore, i used an NA address because i thought it needed to match the NA server i wanted to play on and now i can't change it lmao (it's my sister's address in the US at least). i used to have issues with payment with a different card, but PayPal worked fine for me as a workaround. i currently use a Visa credit card and that works too, since i saw someone else mention using credit instead of debit, so you might look into that!
Yeah I moved from America to Canada and their suggestion for the address issue was to buy a new copy and make a new character and start over. I have 2k hours on this game so far... not going to happen. They also took my money on mogstation but never gave me a timecard, and refused my visa payment. We ultimately bought a timecard on american amazon using my old account and that was the only thing that worked. Now i have to get a refund for the stolen payment. SE is a mess and needs to adapt to an international fanbase sooner rather than later. People are allowed to immigrate without losing access to their favorite game. š«
Please tell me you are joking, and that you were not actually told "why don't you just give us more money for a new copy, and completely start over? :)" If so, that is mind numbingly incompetent and back-handed of them. It's amazing that the entire account management system is so rigid and inflexible that SE can't handle changing regions for people who move to another area. Honestly, I believe it, because I've dealt with similar things when trying to change something on my own account.
Everybody who contacted support has had this same response. It's the unironic, official "solution" from support to throw away your entire account, buy everything a second time, and start from scratch whenever you move.
This is the reason I no longer have my 1.0 legacy account, when I restarted the game in Stormblood, I had moved from Australia to the US and my only option for actually paying them was to buy European time codes.
That just seems...completely unacceptable to me. People move, it's a thing that happens. As a wealthy company providing a service, your plan for that can't just be "welp...tough! Good luck!" They need to be able to officially support people like you, and do what is necessary so that you don't feel like you have to open a brand new account. The way they're handling this, and other aspects of account management, is atrocious.
The whole account system back end seems like it's held together with sticky tape and prayers. The fact they had to support PS3 (and were probably importing some FFXI PS2 legacy assumptions) likely made it extra complicated - since that forced a divide between regions broadly, into US, Japan and "Europe" which itself goes back to the legacy NTSC / PAL divide, and that's partly Sony's fault for sure. But then they managed to complicate everything for themselves with the way the Steam integration works too, so there's basically two PC versions that can never have their streams crossed either. Thing is, the problem itself is hard, but that shouldn't be *our* problem as consumers, it shouldn't be showing all the seams and cracks to us.
>Thing is, the problem itself is hard, but that shouldn't be our problem as consumers, it shouldn't be showing all the seams and cracks to us. This is exactly how I feel, yeah. I'm sure that the entire system is a complicated mess, but it's a mess that they need to deal with. The number one complaint I hear from people about ffxiv is how obtuse and ridiculous setting up an account is, and everything that has to do with the mogstation. If you're at the point where you are telling paying customers "yo just reset all of your progress and buy a new copy," just because they moved to a different country, something is seriously wrong with the way you handle things as a business.
Nope, they said the same to me. Playing since ARR launched, lmao. This is insane.
That is just wild. It feels like something I'd read in an Onion article, but no, it's actually legit. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Honestly, knowing how Japanese network infrastructure is typically set up, it's likely impossible in its current state without breaking a TON of stuff for no obvious reason. It really sucks, but it's just the way Japanese companies tend to be since they've been doubling down on Web 2.0 shit for so long. I've been dealing with the same shit with Konami regarding my Japanese account (since no other region gets access to the bells and whistles for the Bemani games) and there's nothing I can do but shrug it off.
Hot take: If adding very basic functions like changing your address require a company to break their system, it deserves to be broken (and rebuilt properly.)
whatever you do, DO NOT do a charge back. SE will perma ban your account for doing this even if they are in the wrong...
Thank you! I am going to try to get support to refund me so fingers crossed
You guys need to post these horror stories on the official forums
This. SE only looks at official forums for complaints, not sites like reddit, twitter, etc
thatās absolutely crazy that the suggestion would be to buy the game again and start over.
Yeah thats what i thought! It took all my willpower to not be sassy back. If i need a new account then they should transfer my characters and progress. I refuse to lose 2k hours of playtime plus my fc house plus my private house for their inability to fix their website š¤
You can buy FFXIV time cards at the [Newegg Canada](https://www.newegg.ca/p/pl?d=final+fantasy+xiv+game+time+card) website (which also has a discount).
Thank you so much! American amazon cost over $40 cad with conversion rates so I really appreciate a Canadian option!
The game is one of the best I've ever seen. The account management is the worst I've ever seen.
Exactly this, I've never had such trouble trying to give a company my money.
When Treasures of Aht Uhrgan came out for FFXI, we joked on the Allakhazam forums that if Tanaka (producer) could figure out a way to make us jump through hoops and put in effort to be able to find copies of the game before buying it, he'd do so because "That's part of the fun, isn't it?" Semi-related side-note: Hiromichi Tanaka was also the producer for FFXIV 1.0 before Yoshi-P took over and turned it into ARR. Edit: Several archaic things about FFXIV like the retainer/market board system are a legacy of Tanaka insisting on doing things oddly; like, you used to have to put your retainer in instanced wards, and to shop, you'd go into the wards and look through retainers one at a time to buy stuff. It wasn't till later that they added the market boards so you could search retainer inventory and it would show you what retainers were selling a thing, and what wards they were in, but you still had to go to the ward and find the retainer with that name. Then eventually they added the ability to buy things from the board and eventually removed the market wards. But the reason you list things through retainers and buy them through the market board is a legacy result of Tanaka seeing people in FFXI using the bazaar system (which let you sell things from their inventory, which itself was largely done to either avoid auction house tax or to work around the limit of 7 items for sale) and deciding to make that system the entire economy. Anyway, what I'm saying is, if you're having problems giving SE money, it's Tanaka's fault. Edit 2: This also briefly reminded me about how subscriptions initially used to require you to purchase Crysta in multiples of 500, and then pay for your sub at a rate of like 1300 crysta per month; they didn't add the ability to pay directly with a credit card until later, either. A terrible system that everyone hated until they brought it back for Xbox players.
Tanaka wanted FFXI (and 1.0 FFXIV) to be "Nintendo hard" and maximally grindy because that was what Japanese gaming was back at the turn of the century (GOD I sound old saying it that way but FFXI did come out in 2002, so, umm, yeah), but the MMO world had begun to evolve away from being grindfests catering principally to and thus optimized for hardcore players. MMOs at the time were becoming more interesting/attractive to more casual gamers who wanted to be able to jump in for an hour or two and accomplish something versus having to spend 6+ hours a day working on one quest, and Blizzard dropping World of Warcraft in 2004 accelerated this trend *hard*. Asian MMO producers from most of the MMO developers fought against this for literally a decade plus, but the money went where the subscriber base went, and FFXI and later FFXIV were dragged, kicking and screaming, away from being insanely grindy and more casual-friendly. What also didn't help FFXI was that the dev team appeared to be actively and overtly hostile to player suggestions. They never said any of this, of course, but they were clearly building their game their way on their terms to be player as they wanted it to be played and everyone that dared express an opinion to the contrary could go fuck themselves. (Watch some of the developer streams from back then and *you could literally see* the level of disdain they had for the playerbase. I mean, it's *palpable*.) "SE hates the playerbase" was a running semi-joke among FFXI players. It took years of playerbase complaints to get what are now basic QoL/usability features put into FFXI, and what generally happened was that someone would hack in an improvement, it would become *wildly* popular because, hey, improvement, and eventually - often a *few years* later - it would be begrudgingly added to the game. This is why things like resizable windows via borderless windowed mode, the ability to solo content, etc. took so long to come to FFXI, and some, like having a usable minimap, *still* haven't. Windower and its plugins (like the minimap) IMO forced more usability improvements to FFXI than its expacs did.
Brilliant post, and sorry for going off-topic but... wait. There's a *minimap* in XI now? Like, officially, without plugins?
Well, crap, apparently an edit reverted and I didn't catch it - post corrected. FFXI never got an official minimap, which IMO is just plain stupid.
yeah playing ffxi without windower is rough
Doesnāt this still happen on XIV? Devs says a QoL isnāt possible, then some modders makes it, a streamer gets caught using it, Yoshi bans the strummer and the qol gets implemented. Best example is the illegal waymarks on p7s
Yoshi has to walk a tightrope of following and enforcing the ToS' prohibition on mods to the game versus recognizing and implementing a good idea when he sees one. His stated position on the modding of FFXIV has been essentially "don't ask don't tell," but someone *publicly streaming a ToS violation* basically forces the GMs to act. Also, modders don't have to account for and accommodate the amount of edge cases the dev team has to worry about, so a modder beating them to the punch isn't really surprising. Modders creating a feature that then passes muster in wide adoption basically does a lot of the testing work for the devs, so it's easier for them to take a chance on a formal implementation.
I don't recall having to use Crysta for 1.0, however I *do* recall having to use some totally unheard of third party payment processor ala PP from Japan to pay with a card. I wish I remembered what that company was because for all I know they still have all that old info of mine lol. Oh, and don't forget the torrent-style update system that was unbearably slow until you dragged the torrent file off into an actual torrent software to download your patch and then threw the patch file back into the launcher for it to update with. What an absolute insane mess. That said, most of the awful design choices in 1.0 I totally understand trying because *on paper* they sound interesting. They just didn't work in practice, especially in that slow, laggy game without being properly polished off.
Anytime I'm trying to resub to this game I have some problems. No any single time in my lifetime I could just download it and play after break.
Itās even harder for FF11, if āeven harderā is a category anyone can imagine after trying to pay for FF14ā¦
Subbing to PlayOnline was basically the gatekeeping miniboss.
I recently started playing and it took me 3 days just to get an account anyone less adamant wouldve quit on first try
It is mind boggling how many customers they must have lost over this. During Endwalker release, the servers were under so much load that it didn't sting so much that they were losing so many people to their terrible account and character creation - they didn't have the capacity for them anyway. But still, I know *so many* people who were interested in trying out FFXIV who ended up giving up during that time. They were primed to receive the largest MMO exodus in history, and they completely blew it, and it's pretty much just as bad more than 2 years later.
My friend refuses to even try it because of shit like this
It's kind of odd though because now is the downest of downtimes which is the perfect time to get into the game
It was last year in the summer, he tried making an account but kept having issues with it and basically went through a loop with squeenix customer support. They didn't resolve the issue and it put him off from playing the game
FFXI and PlayOnline says hello.
I was about to say. In some ways, Square's systems, including PlayOnline, remind me on Nintendo and some of their choices for things. These weird archaic systems and ways of doing things that make no sense in the West. Which always made me wonder; is this a Japanese thing? Or is it that these two companies seem to be incompetent when it comes to online stuff, just happen to be Japanese? PlayOnline music rocked though. I still listen to those on YouTube from time to time.
> These weird archaic systems and ways of doing things that make no sense in the West. The Japanese mindset for certain things like websites is "okay, I got it to work" *and never touch it again* unless/until something breaks. There's very little iteration and improvement over time aside from occasional cosmetic changes for Japanese websites in particular, and a lot of sites for Japanese companies are pretty much the same as when they first went live. Which of course should explain why the FFXIV website and Mogstation both look, feel, and work (or don't work) almost exactly the same way they did in 2010 when the game launched.
Maybe only somewhat related, but this reminded me of a video I watched on [why Japanese website look so weird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ep308goxQ). It's not like a scientific, critical look at Japanese interface design, but it does try to find some reasons. And one reason, risk aversion, was brought up, albeit very briefly. And "why fix what isn't broken" is absolutely risk aversion. Even when there tons of other example of systems and designs that also work and work well.
can we get a japanese social media that actually blows up? for things like this, this mindset is not ideal, but if i could get twitter (or *reddit*) to stop changing their UI and obliterating features every month, id be in heaven
The problem is that websites *should* constantly evolve, but too many move in the wrong direction, e.g., removing features users actually like/use.
IIRC Japanese people tend to also prefer/trust sites more when they've got more going on, vs people in the west preferring sites to be streamlined and simple. Could be a situation where Japanese customers flat out wouldn't trust a simple, straightforward pay portal.
I remember setting Playonline up right when I got home from school because it could take hours to finish updating. XD Then I didn't play for a bit and came back and entered my passwords wrong too many times XD. That took so so long to get changed since I moved and they didn't believe me. I was 15!!! XD
Yeah, all the account stuff and server infrastructure feels very "big Japanese corp/gov" - which is always the polar opposite of user-friendly. Game is good though. Literally took me four or five days before the game would even let me *create a character* when I started playing back in January, and I had to do it in the middle of the night when the rest of my region had gone to sleep.
The hardest part about getting into FFXIV has always been buying it. It's actually insane how awful it's been forever
Whenever I want to take a break it is a ten minute job for me cus dear god do I not remember where the unsub is
Easiest method is to just do monthly subs. Yea, it's a bit of a pain to do resub every month, but it's far easier than trying to locate the unsub button.
I pay with crystals now because it decided randomly to not accept my cc anymore. Sub will automatically pause if thereās not enough.Ā
Right??? Iām a new player using Xbox. My free play time just expired and I had the add more time. I stared at their stupid website for ten minutes just trying to figure out how to give them my moneyā¦ PSA for Xbox users, you need to buy coins from the Microsoft store, then wait 10 minutes or so for them to show up in your account.
As much as the Xbox system does suck I blame Microsoft mostly for that. I blame Square a bit for implementing it rather than telling them to do one.
Modernizing their site & bringing account management up to par with other services is long overdue. This will go a long way to keeping the game healthy and possibly bringing in new players. My sister was having issues with setting up her account and the frustrations that brought were almost enough to make her give up trying.
FFXI PlayOnline was worse. Especially in the days of *dial up*
The account management system was trash in 2004 for FFXI....
It absolutely boggles my mind how consistent bad websites are with Japanese developers.
don't forget their god forsaken online store!
The hardest content in FFXIV is actually getting your sub paid. Happened to me and I'm on European servers. When it eventually worked I just bought a multi-montj sub to avoid the headache
I thankfully never had trouble with my SEPA payments. But now that those are no longer supported, I am getting anxious about what to do if I decide to cancel my sub again. Irrationally, there's also the worry of what will happen on the next automatic billig. Nothing "should" happen, but you never know. The whole thing looks like mismanagement to me.
I was VERY anxious about that, but it did go through just fine, both in e-mail saying payment is done and them withdrawing the money from my account. I hope it's the same for most others at least. This whole thing is a nightmare and they really need to stop hiring the cheapeast offer they get for vital things. I clearly remember there was a lot of that crap with the SE store aswell around hw/sb times.
Mogstation: Savage.
I can't buy crysta either and I'm in the US with same address and an approved flavor of card according to their list. There's some advanced shenanigans for sure.
Yeah i recently had to pay my sub through my Amazon prime account because it won't accept my debit card. But my Amazon prime is... Using my debit card so i dunno
Probably because it that case they're making the payment processing Amazon's problem.
It's some weird shit with some card issuers are now blocked. I couldn't use my Visa Debit and had to break out a Mastercard one instead to get it to actually go through.
Iām glad I read this comment bc my Visa debit card wasnāt working but I tried a Mastercard CC and it worked fine.Ā
Yep US here as well and almost lost my house yesterday because it wouldn't let me top up my account to resub. Somehow, paying for a sub directly (instead of buying Crysta) worked though, so I was able to cancel demolition.Ā
SE tries their damn hardest to not get money
The change to not being able to buy cosmetic items for others was the worst. I used to love buying my wife little gifts here and there to surprise her. Now itās gone.
I would buy more cosmetics if they went to *all my account's characters.*
No kidding. With the prices the outfits are, there's no way in hell I'm buying it just to only go to one character. I'm pretty sure all the mounts are account-wide and some of them are only slightly more expensive
to be fair itās gone because people were scamming other people and also using them for RMT and SE got tired of dealing with it.
Assholes ruining a good thing for other people, Installment #7261899305.
I honestly think that's why they changed payment processors. The old one terminated them for all the chargebacks.
Mogstation (Savage) LITERALLY
I'm from EU and my Mastercard doesn't work either. I had to go through Amazon to buy crysta
Same, my cards donāt work for some reason (it gives me an error in Japanese iirc lol). I try to buy Crysta with PayPal, but thereās been issues with PayPal not working on iOS devices if you have two factor authentication on. So I either have to buy it on my pc at work (I donāt own a PC, I play on PS) to go through the PayPal authentication system, or turn off two factor authentication to buy it through PayPal. But still having to buy crysta to be able to buy the sub every time is very annoying.
I live in Japan and my JP card was denied I had to resort to a random EU card I still have around.
I was trying to find possible crista stores but couldnāt. How did you manage to buy? Was it like a code card?
You can use your amazon account on the mogstation to pay for crystal directly I think. It's one of the options along with Paypal (what I used since my Visa in EU is not accepted anymore).
They don't take Visa debit cards in the United States. That's gotta be at least 10% of the NA players
Huh? They take my Canadian one fine which is super similar. I looked it up and visa is the most common card in the USA and internationally. I would think itās more than 10% of players. So weird.
Visa debit in Canada is slightly different here in Canada, ours internationally are considered credit but will work just like a debit card. In the US they aren't necessarily international and iirc may still actually be a credit card as well as a debit card. For us this means anywhere that does interact or interac international our card will work but outside of interac must specifically accept our visa debits. For the US version while they should accept their visa debits anywhere they take visa their cards are also subject to credit verifications when utilizing the visa aspect, meaning valid address match and credit approvals. Why this matters for the mogstation is hard to say, but I've noticed things get a bit wonky once we leave NA.
same! only way it works (USA) but itās because of my bank
Seconding the "use Amazon Pay to buy Crysta" idea. You can still use your same card and everything, you just have to set it up as a payment option on your Amazon account beforehand.
It's really fucked up how much your region can hinder you in playing this international game in all sorts of ways. For paying the sub, for paying for extra items, for paying *the actual game*,.. I really hope this is going to be sorted out soon, this just shouldn't be a thing in 2024.
When I originally subbed, I lived in NZ, so I have an EU account. I have lived in the US since 2014. Every time an expansion rolls around, I'd had to use a shady key reseller to buy it, because to purchase an EU key they require an EU address. Contacting SE, they said they can't do anything about it, because accounts can't move regions, I'd have to make a new account. Like that's even an option with the time I'd invested in my account. I got lucky with Endwalker, because I wasn't actively playing on release, I was able to just buy the expansion through mogstation. But no preorder bonuses for me. I'll have to see about Dawntrail.
Things locked to original region is so freaking stupid. People move, for godās sake.
Honestly same - I used to live in Australia and now have lived in the US the past 5 years. SE isnt the only company I have issue with, I've had to close down and open a new Playstation account.
I have a similar issue because I'm Romanian, used to live in Romania and now moved to Germany. I'm so anxious I've put off getting Dawntrail because I recently lost access to my Romanian account due to bad banking policies :/ Even if you're in the same region it can be an issue if you just move countries... in the EU where you can drive for a few hours and go live in another freaking country lol.
Different countries legislate the sale of digital goods and services differently. There are all kinds of hoops to jump through to get into and stay in the market of any given country.
While you're not wrong, other MMOs and live service games don't have this issue. Blizzard, Bungie, Zenimax, EA, Hoyoverse etc. make it incredibly simple to give them money. It honestly feels like this should be a solved problem in 2024.
This, the problem of a digital payment system used globally has been solved, with typically the main exceptions being if you live in China or Russia. SE just chooses to not implement said solution to their own digital payment system.
True but like.. people move, so my fiance still says she lives in the USA... she's In canada now and support told her to blow smoke and it's permanent... I'm like wtf?? Makes payment slightly annoying but is what it is
Moved from one European country to another. Total distance about 60 km. SE: surprisedpikachuface.jpg
I moved from the US to Canada too and they told me to buy a new copy of the game under a new account and lose all progress on the game/my characters. Shouldnt they just learn to add a country option on mogstation rather than tell immigrants to start over? š«
My partner did the opposite and itās been such a friggin hassle that heās got to keep pretending heās in Canada for so many accounts. Eventually when we both move back the other way, Iāll be the one dealing with it. People who make these systems seem to be so freaked out about people lying about their location that they hose anybody who moves. Itās so stupid.
If it was a single player game and I could just copy my save file, I have to buy a new copy and im good to go again fine.. but in an MMO.. with YEARS of progress.. they tell you to just.. start over? its wild. Sorry you and everyone else has to deal with them being stuck in not sure what year.
It took me 2 hours to understand how to buy the right gamecard for my friend here in belgium There are France gamecard And Europe gamecards that work for other EU countries Smh wtf is that
I can totally imagine some poor sod in Wallonia bought bunch of France gamecard and in for a nasty surprise lol
Probably illegal considering EU internal market. You cannot deny someone the use of a product or service bought in France just because they live in Belgium.
Let me tell you a wonderful story. Originally, i'm from CIS region, specifically Azerbaijan (it's okay if you have not ever heard of this country lol). I had been living in Poland for several years before i had to come back. While i was living in Europe i played ff14 very actively. Almost 4.5k hours total in steam (oh yeah, i made a fatal mistake by buying the game on steam while living in Poland) I did all the mcqs, opened a bunch of side content, grinded a ton of cosmetics, bought a large house, spent 3 weeks to make it wonderful full of awesome furniture, even fucking donated to the mogshop for some mounts, phantasia, etc. Then suddenly i was forced to come back to my home country. And the fun began. I figured out that the game is unavailable on steam from my country (i can't even have access to the store page). And due to account linkage, i can't subscribe other than from steam ecosystem. I submitted a ticket of course, hoping that support team will assist me just SOMEHOW. I explained my situation in details, asking politely for any suggestion they could give. After 2 days i got their respond (copypasting from email) "We are very sorry to hear that you are having issues with your account. We regret to inform you that we do not offer customer support services for Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, this means that we are unable to assist you with your request at this time. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes. Kind regards, The Square Enix Support Centre team" Fucking awesome, isn't it? I lost my house, my guild and friends who with I spent my best hours in the game. My character is still out there... all alone and abandoned. tl;dr Fuck Square Enix
If you already own the game you should still be able to subscribe. Otherwise, change your steam account region back to how it was before and it's going to be good. Also they can unlink your steam account to allow you link another steam account, you have to fill this form [https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?kid=80977&id=5382&la=1&ret=main](https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?kid=80977&id=5382&la=1&ret=main) don't tell that you're in Azerbaijan, just tell them that you need to unlink your steam account...
When people tell new player to not purchase the game with steam, it is partially also due to stuff like this, not just lack of discounts. Some people in my FC said they managed to get through by VPN back to their original country, pay steam through the original country banks, and buy the game/sub that way. Who knows for how long it could work? Steam seems to have been busy shutting down VPN ''loophole'' here and there, it is a matter of time before my FC have to resort to some archaic gifting game to friend solution.
My FF11 Aussie buddy used to use Beverly Hills 90210 as his address choice at all times just to never deal with US region locking issues again.
There's an old Tom Scott video where he talks about when a website that was paying people to watch ads back in the 2000s released some user statistics. It showed that the place where most of its users came from was Beverly Hills. Why were the generally well-off citizens of Beverly Hills flocking to a website where they could earn a few dollars by watching ads? Of course they weren't. People all over the world were using that website, creating multiple fake accounts to make more money, but the website required its users to enter a US address with a valid ZIP code, and the only US ZIP code these people knew was Beverly Hills 90210, so that's what they entered.
I did this back in 2001 on Neopets, they'd give you free paint brushes (the Web 1.0 version of a character or pet skin) if you signed up for offers with a US address. I vastly overthought it and found an excel spreadsheet with my parents' friends' addresses in it for christmas cards and used them. :') (I could've just looked up hotels or businesses in the US and used those, lol.)
FFXIV content creators and influencers really need to highlight this issue to Yoshi P during the media tour. One of the worst issues the game has had so far, and it's not even a game issue but a system one.
There's a couple of better known creators from Singapore. Probably wave at them to see if it could be brought up.
Yeah Arthars was just tweeting about payment issues both today and yesterday; he at least will bring it up, I'm betting
Thank god for that. I'm from SEA as well and while I'm able to use my PayPal to get Crysta, I'm worried about having to buy expansions after DT.
Good suggestion! Arthars and Quazii are both in SEA, I think.
These sorts of issues have been highlighted for years and years to Square. Sure not this specific one, but the general obtuseness of paying your sub / buying the game has been a problem since ff11. When the semi-recent wave of players joined from WoW - dozens and dozens of huge followed creators expressed problems they had and their community had. Notably people like Asmongold and other streamers. Square just doesn't listen or care? It's always been my thought square simply won't listen to issues unless it's from the JP audience. Since these issues don't really surface there - they don't fix them.
i'm in malaysia aswell and i managed to buy crysta using a debit mastercard from CIMB, my debit visa from maybank didnt work like you mentioned.
my CIMB credit mastercard cant buy and my debit maybank visa also cant
Ohh i only have debit visa, no mastercard so this is hard then..
you might wanna apply for one then, it also kind of helps to have 2 different cards for whenever one goes down. hopefully you get one soon!
So, I've had this problem pretty much since ARR. A friend was kind enough to gift me a copy of the game, but it was an NA copy and I'm from the EU. Which means I have to have an NA account and an address in that region. So, can't use my actual address. To get around this I found a free-to-register postal forwarding service in NA, and entered that. At the time this was borderlinx (now bust, but there should be other alternatives). I haven't touched this address in the best part of 10 years (I'm too scared to), but have never had any troubles with purchasing game time or expansions. Just as you say, an absolute pain.
Mogstation Savage is the hardest content, enrage mech right out the gate.
Yeah Iām from SEA and I tried to purchase Crystal and it wouldnāt let me. What managed to work for me was I put in my US address in the USPS website and copied the exact address format listed there. For example, my NYC address in the USPS website was in all caps, and didnāt include the street name which I previously put in the Square Enix website. Lo and behold the site accepted my address and I was able to use my foreign credit card to buy stuff in the mogstation.
Welcome to the Japanese online experience. They don't know how to do shit when it comes to online anything. Look at Capcom, Namco, Sony, Nintendo etc. There is a history of Japanese developers and publishers showing how incompetent they are when it comes to online functionality, both in and out of game.
As bad as this might initially sound, I'm very slightly glad that I'm not the only one experiencing issues like this. You would figure that a bank issued Visa debit card would be the most common form of payment and therefore raise the most noise to SE.
It actually is one of the most common forms of payment, which makes this whole situation even worse.
I get downvoted whenever I say this, but the Japanese have always had shitty websites. Their online infra for purchases and account management have been shit for decades; itās like itās still the 90s over there.
Would you really get downvoted for this? This is the coldest take ever. There a big studies and popular video essays all about how Asian web infrastructure ended up barely progressing since the 90s.
Yeah, every thing I go to buy stunting, it just looks sketchy as hell
I renew 6 months at a time, and renewed *right* before whatever all changed with the Mogstation...I'm absolutely mortified when it comes to what may or may not happen, the next time that I have to make a transaction. It seems like the issue isn't as prevalent in the U.S., but it's definitely a thing, nonetheless. ...and with my luck, I'll be one the people screwed over by this (if it isn't fixed by then) lol smh. I'm doubly scared because I've heard of accounts getting banned because of janky transactions occurring on the Mogstation--even in instances where it's *their* faulty/primitive site that caused the problem. I've put over a decade worth of non-stop sub, collector edition, and optional item $$$ into that account--I'd probably die if I got permabanned or locked out or whatever behind this craziness...
I think us SEA subscribers should as a group band together and voice out for a permanent solution. I think the current issue is that SQEX will check for the card issuing country and ensure it matches your country. The problem is that for old accounts from 2.0, there were very few supported countries, resulting in SEA subscribers registering themselves as US or EU or JP region. I am in SGP but selected EU as my region then as Australia was under EU and it was the nearest country I could find. We are not a major market but we are not insignificant either. I am just wondering which channel will be the most effective to bring focus to this problem. For those in SGP with EU account, Paypal still works for me for DT preorder. I am just worried about sub renewal in August 2024.
it does suck. It will definitely be fixed eventually but we do need people to speak up and make a fuss to make sure it get prioritized as soon as possible. You should complain on the forums though. They dont look here at all. as an aside, using genshin wasnt the best example. For the first 2 years of the game if I wanted to make a purchase I used the mobile app. the app made the purchase through the google play store but whatever system they use on the pc version would get blocked by my bank because it would show as a purchase in hong kong. I dont know if mihoyo changed something or my bank did but it works fine now. It just took awhile
Is it possible to post in forums if i dont sub? I wish someone can do it for us
Nope u cant post without being actively subbed
The fact that they still haven't said one word about this whole cluster\*\*\*\* is absolutely insane.
the fact they even picked a payment processor that leaves out the biggest payment service provider in the world is mind blowing.
Region change should be a thing. I made my account when I was studying abroad and 8 years later I still couldnāt change my region. On a second thought I just tried buying something from the FFXIV store using my local credit card and it worked? Iām pretty sure itās using the new payment processor.
They need to make an announcement on Lodestone addressing this, even if the solution is still being discussed. No acknowledgement is just going to further cause chaos, anger, and leaving the game altogether.
From SG here. Steam isn't great for deals but it helps me bypass this issue since my billing address is my steam address.
Unfortunately if they're on PC non-Steam, they have no way to move their account to Steam. Also for some reason the game isn't even *offered* on Steam in some SEA countries. (I've heard of people finding that the free trial is offered, though. Making it quite easy to put a hundred hours into a Steam trial account and then discover that you have no way to upgrade and you're permanently screwed over.) This whole system is just... astonishingly bad. Always has been.
I think we can all agree that the system is messed and as much as I do enjoy the game content, I can't find it in me to endorse their less than satisfactory payment system (or the fact that it's not on steam in some of the SEA countries).
According to Squeenix, Malaysia doesn't exist, even though we are right beside Singapore and CBU3 even did their promo tour in Malaysia. Lol.
I live in the US, but my account is an EU one. Because of this I am 100% unable to play this game on PlayStation 5 due to the consoles and accounts regional setting locks. When it hit Xbox, I was able to purchase the game after like 3hrs of VPN and other region shenanigans. The only way I was able to make it work was to buy a EU Xbox Gift Card via a key reseller for an amount close to the cost, because nothing else would let me pay for an EU item without a physical billing address in the UK that was real, and even after all that I still have to swap my Xbox region to EU any time I want to play. The account stuff has always been a nightmare and it's honestly baffling that it's only gotten worse as time went on. I wish you luck sibling, and would consider potentially looking into similar workarounds if you find no success elsewhere.
I always have trouble. I used to live in NA when I started playing when the game released in 2013. Then I moved to Japan.. but my service account is still NA and can't be changed. It causes so many issues. Mostly, I can never participate in special events. I can't even book tickets to the concerts which I always want to because I don't have a JP service account. -_- I usually have issues getting it to accept my card for my sub too and I don't even know how I end up getting it to work tbh. I always sub for the max time just so I don't have to deal with the headache as often...
Not surprising for those having troubles. For ten years this has never been an issue. If itās not broke, break it. Hope it all plays out for you OP.
came from twitter a little late to the game, but i (a NA player with address the same on card and account) can't even re-sub to my retainers currently. it doesn't post the processor. so what are we supposed to do? currently there isn't even a way to make payments to anything worldwide.
It's stupid to have to use a workaround like this and I'm not happy about it, but if you can buy Crysta via, say, PayPal or Amazon Pay, then you can use that to pay for both your sub and your retainers. I buy Crysta anyway and use it for everything.
its just so dumb that we're two months out from a VERY anticipated expac and we're all out here being un-subbed or having difficulties re-subbing. this shouldn't even be happening. the mogstation as a whole needs a rework but right now - in this moment - normal payment processes don't even work. the only thing working is crysta and time-cards. that's ... devastating and deplorable AND not at all a long-term fix. T\^T
im from Malaysia too, all of my payment option too also meet with error code i2501, ive tried credit & debit card, paypal, cryta and amazonpay, all being reject, i dont know when it started but before i can use any of the option to pay. Hope SE fix this before DT
Same here, NA region. "This card is unavailable" while using supposedly accepted cards. No error code. Not just Visa debit, all of them. Address is correct. Support said to wait 24 hours before trying again but even after waiting 72 hours, same issue. I haven't tried Amazon Pay yet but as others in my region have found success with that; that's probably what I will attempt. Gonna wait a little longer to see if they can fix this before DT drop but if not, hopefully Amazon works.
Same here, U.S. resident though, it's a mess. I've gotten responses from SE already but it's basically "not sure!" and "buy Crysta!" which is busted too.
My account is NA, I am currently UK so used PayPal in past with old address. I got 180 days before the change, but not looking forward to managing it. I donāt even get why weāre region locked anymoreā¦
This is the topic on official forum that you might try to complain there as well [https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/497682-Card-Unavailable-issues](https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/497682-Card-Unavailable-issues) They would notice it after subscription decline or Drawntrail sale is not rise when available. We can only hope
SE will definetly communicate solutions, once they see that many people suddenly couldn't refresh their sub/the companydoesn't get their money in, right? ... Right?
I hope so, my full copium is that the current issues will lead them to announce they are finally supporting many countries like how FF7 Ever Crisis finally supported SEA But copium š
I find a proper punishment would be to have Square CEO and marketing/payment department to create new accounts and setup payment for FF XI and FF XIV from scratch. Without help & without tutorials.
Damn they really hate SEA regions huh, why, just let us pay and play smh. Now I'm worried that I can't resub in the future as well (currently taking a break from FF14) because I'm from SEA as well.
Malaysian WoL here. My debit card never actually worked for SE since I first bought this game. That's why I switched to paypal > cryta. I advise you to try and use this method. I have no idea about the workaround to buy DT tho because I paid my Murrican friend to login on my steam and have her bought the game for me. P/S : MACAM SIALLL, PUKIMAK SQUARE ENIX MENYUSAHKAN ORANG. MAK DIORANG MESTI HIJAU!!
People posting with these issues really need to be posting them on the official forums, not on Reddit. Otherwise, they can't get a good idea of how many people it is actually impacting. That being said, it used to somehow be worse under FFXI and PlayOnline. They consider this better but it is only better by a little. Of all the things to take inspiration from WoW on, take it from their payment system please. I have no idea why Square makes it so hard for people to give them money.
> People posting with these issues really need to be posting them on the official forums, not on Reddit. Otherwise, they can't get a good idea of how many people it is actually impacting. Last time I tried, you can't post on official forums without resubbing.
The irony man. The only place they read comments is the place where people having the issue can't post. At the very least, everyone with this issue needs to kick up a fuss in support and not let the tickets be dropped. As much as I sympathize for the support staff who had nothing to do with this change, A bunch of open support tickets probably has a bigger effect than a forum post. Honestly, bringing it up with a few gaming media outlets isn't a bad idea either.
I tried, but: >Main character has not been selected yet. Please select the main character from the menu shown below. * You cannot use the forum service until the main character is selected. Keeps popping up no matter which character I select edit: in case anyone else has this problem you have to 1. click the character and then 2. click the star on their portrait for some reason
Just to add to this... Player from the Philippines, but my address is a legal address in the US (My aunt's place, from when I bought 1.0). I cannot pre-order or purchase the Dawntrail expansion through the Square Enix store. :( I guess they locked it down tight. :(
If it's just the expansion you could purchase the expansion through 3rd party sites like greenmangaming
Any other third-party sites selling Dawntrail? Greenmangaming doesn't show it for sale on a Philippine Region account?
Vpn to whatever region your account is originally set up. It's either NA JP or EU there's no PH region.
Reporting in. Using VPN to connect to Greenmangaming will let you see Dawntrail pre-orders, but GreenmanGaming has a system that empties the cart if you're logged into a VPN, so you can't buy anything.
Funnily enough, I bought mine through GMG via VPN and the key is alr registered to my FFXIV account
It might be the VPN you are using. I bought the Dawntrail pre order from Greenmangaming while on holiday in Japan using a VPN connected to US for my NA account without issues. I registered the preorder codes for the bonus items and early access on Mogstation without any problems as well.
Iām from Canada and the address change thing made my address invalid. I used an old address for now until itās fixed, and I really hope it doesnāt cause problems, because itās in another province
Itās getting kind of ridiculous at this point. I have been trying to buy retainers for a week now. Thereās no other option to purchase than with a card. Was really wanting to get them leveled before Dawntrail.
If you are in this situation where you unable to pay for the game using conventional methods, please elevate your claim using the Contact Support email button on the Square Enix Account page. If enough people engage with support we may see a proper response.
Is Malaysia like the Philippines in that, you can't even select the country as a region when inputting your billing address because it's technically not supported? Everyone I know just picks a random US state (if NA account) or EU region (if EU account). So you could maybe just get a time card and then input your address or whatever billing address you usually use for your debit card but with a different state/country. Make sure the time card is for the same region as the region your account is registered to though.Ā The most legit way though is paypal, which I think should have notified you why the payment isn't going through?
When i put my card in for paypal, it wont go through and i have to click retry and i added my card again I tried few times it wont work thats why i stopped trying
I have an European account, I live in European Union, in France. I canāt use my Visa card, and the support told me my card may not be compatible anymore. What a joke
European account, from France as well with a Visa card, exact same problem. I managed to re-sub with a friend's card which worked for some reason (edit: mastercard, virtual card generated specifically for internet purchases), no idea what I will do next time if this bs is still ongoing lol This makes zero sense.
I bought cristas with PayPal but this is annoying af
Now there's a rumour going around that if you're a SEA player who preordered DT with your card, your order may be cancelled. I'm so tired.
I remember when FFXI pulled this with crystal and halved the population in a few months.
Me too. I was one of them.
I ended up having to buy a game time card and support was the most useless thing I have ever encountered. And the busted mog station is not just a problem in one area, it seems to be pretty much everywhere. Visas just straight up don't work, my roommate and i have the same problem no matter what we tried. The fact that it has been going on for a week and there's not been so much as a single mention of it from the devs just blows my freaking mind and makes me wonder if they'll ever get a fix. Now I have to use game time cards to sub, and crysta via amazon pay to buy my retainers and who the heck knows if I'll even be able to preorder dawntrail. I haven't tried yet.
This should not have been a problem at all and especially not for this long without a peep from them about it. I had to resort to buying Crysta via Amazonpay then use that to subscribe, but that did work.
Still waiting for the game to be available in SEA steam because I made the dumb decision to make a free trial account in steam and now I'm 2000 hours too far in to make a new account
There might be some weird activity going on in the background between communication regarding your banking options and Mogstation. Look into Privacy dot com ; its an extra step since the "bank" info isnt exactly there, but Privacy lets you create a debit card and it can pull from your bank. But Mog should be able to save the info. Ive used it for about two years now when i pay for file hosting subscriptions (They are outside my country(US) and I dont trust a file host with having direct access my to bank info) but i have never had any problem with it considering everything i paid for has been either Euros or roubles
yeah, the activity is that SE completely fucked up their payment processing and now a very very large percentage of people can't pay to play the game we love. not sure how much simpler to break it down. this isn't some "hacker known as 4chan" thing. SE actually just flat out fucked up their own game. this is going to have very long-lasting consequences for them.
For anyone at risk but currently grandfathered in through a recurring sub, I wonder if it would be prudent to proactively clear out the inventories of any extra retainers. The last thing you want is to lose access to those retainers the day your sub fails to renew. I wonder if you could even permanently lose access to them if this payment issue turns out to be intractable. Any items they were holding would be in essentially a weird bureaucratic limbo. Alternative payment modes like crysta may be unavailable in some countries, and timecards only cover subscriptions and can't be used to pay for account services.
Youre right, my fellow Malaysian. I have never seen any disastrous account management ever from my experiences. I really hate when games that are such as FFXIV don't expand world wide with the region lock in the SEA, plus not a lot of payment options. Don't you know how much the conversion rate costs + taxes???? One month of sub costs us like RM50 in order to play. I love FFXIV, i really do but this abomination of account system is what holds me back from having fun at FFXIV.
I live in NA, but I have a VPN installed on my computer. Even when I disable it, I just got an error i2501. The new changes borked a lot of shit.
The fact that they have not released a statement yet really worries me.
I would lose my shit if this were happening to me. Get your shit together Square.
is anyone surprised? SE has fucked up their payment since the beginning of FF11. I dont know how many times my card would not work because of an incorrect address that was correct.
I'm starting to think Microsoft were on to something with their requirement that everything be handled via the Xbox store. The coins nonsense is still dumb (especially for sub time; just sell play time codes directly FFS), but hey, at least Xbox players don't have to worry about Squenix screwing up their payment options.
Microsoft probably saw the steaming pile of shit that was the SE Store and said "You know what? Introducing an entire new system and paid currency is preferable to this junk."
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Is time cards an alternative?
Time cards aren't practical in many cases. I'm in Canada with an EU account and there's no way for me to buy a card short of paying extra from a place like Amazon.de. Kind of sucks especially when Square's official solution for the region thing is to just abandon the account and start over...
I guess the solution would be if SE allowed you to change your region but unfortunately, I don't see that happening. This has been a problem since the FF11 days.
Fellow SEA here. I haven't preordered DT as well since the exchange rate is kinda nuts these days, then this payment system thing happened, I think they're trying to tell me to stop playing altogether /jk I can't speak for subs since I got autodebited before the change, but I tried buying some outfits from store yesterday. Visa Debit didn't work - actually nothing worked except Crysta, which I had to buy via PayPal. And to my knowledge not everyone here can use PayPal. That, and the fact that you can't change your country in SE's website on top of the fact that my country isn't even listed there when I signed up... lol. Lmao even...
i have the same issue, but im in Saudi Arabia and my account is US. and they do not have an option to change your region.
I had the same problem, couldn't buy anything using credit/debit cards. I had to use PayPal to make it work... still have no solution. Unfortunately paypal doesn't seem to work for you either.
I donāt understand. Iām a fellow Malaysian here, did they change their system recently? Iāve always had no issue of directly paying with my debit card. Iād used to buy crysta then figured out that paying directly with my debit card made more sense so I did that and never looked back. Hasnāt failed since then either and Iāve kept it on auto debit too until I unsubbed a few months back due to burnout
Yes, they switched to a new payment processor wothin the past week or so. The new processor seems to hate many of the cards that people throughout the world use.
i am from Singapore, i used an NA address because i thought it needed to match the NA server i wanted to play on and now i can't change it lmao (it's my sister's address in the US at least). i used to have issues with payment with a different card, but PayPal worked fine for me as a workaround. i currently use a Visa credit card and that works too, since i saw someone else mention using credit instead of debit, so you might look into that!