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What in the world is wrong with SE !?!?!
toombsda
Member UncommonPosts: 12
I understand that opening servers and keeping them running with thousands of people jamming them up is likely very difficult. I realize that they wanted to launch perfectly and that things arose which were in need of fixing.... i'm cool with all that.
BUT, the thing I find so damn bizarre is that they've purposely chosen to employ the MOST confusing, convoluted, ambiguous, half-assed labyrinthine, nebulous process in which to order, download, and play this game that I have ever....E V E R.... been exposed to.
When I decided that the temptation to play early access was just too much to resist, it was Saturday the 24th. I figured that the best place to buy a game made by SE was from the SE website....... mistake.
I went to their online store and found the FF14 north American version, and went to purchase it.... wait, I need to make an SE account. No biggie.
Made account but wait.. need to check email. Ok, I need to click this thing to confirm. Alright done! I got a confirmation email that my account was registered. GREAT!
Now to buy the game. WOW IT WAS THE EASIEST THING TO GIVE THEM MY CC NUMBER AND FOR THEM TO TAKE MY MONEY! Easy! I'm getting close to playing! ....... Nope
Now I just need to get my registration number so I can register the game and then download the client and I am home free...... LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Ok, I got an order confirmation email. This should have my registration number in it. Hmm... it has my order number, is that the number i'm looking for?
Log onto their website and try to add a new game. No, that isn't working, my order number is too short. Let me go read the email again.
Hmm, there are links to the order confirmation page and it's telling me that I can download the client from there. Hmm, they offer me two ways to look up my order. I can put in the order number and my password.. ok, ill do that. WTF, order number could not be found. Ok, I can just use my email and the last 5 digits of my credit card that I used to purchase the game with.... ok, let's try that. Whew, i'm in.
Alright, i'm getting somewhere! It shows that I did purchase the game and it says all I have to do is scroll down and hit the Download Client button. WTF! THERE IS NO DOWNLOAD CLIENT BUTTON!
OK, i'm starting to get pissed. Am I missing something? Let me carefully check every place I can imagine on the Square Enix website to find the client to download.... maybe I can use their search bar... nope.
Well, I've searched everywhere on this site and no client, no link to client in any email, under profile it doesn't even show that I purchased FFXIV. Let me go back to the weird order look up site. Hmm, it still isn't recognizing my order number! Let me log in with my Credit Card number again.......... ok, same shit. Says to use the button to download client and there is no button!!!!!!
Hours later after reading threads on forums I find a link to where you download the client. ITS A WHOLE DIFFERENT WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, I can log in using my square enix info. YES! FINALLY! I AM GETTING THE CLIENT!
I now have an icon on my desktop... it's finally going to happen! Ok, I click on it and it's opening up the access screen. It's asking me if I have an SE account. I DO! It's saying to log in with my Square Enix User Account ID........ HUH? You mean the email address I've been logging in with up until now? No, not working. Wait, maybe it's asking me to input the Nickname it asked me to pick when making the account ... omg, please work. NO! NOT WORKING!!! WHAT THE EFF IS MY SQUARE ENIX USER ACCOUNT ID ?!?!?!?!?!?!
After another hour of reading posts and getting no answers, I decide to read every word in every email from SE. OH! They took my nickname and added some random number on the end of it and that is my user ID..... it was in the first email I got from them. I SUPPOSE I can't be too mad since I did overlook that.
OK! Now I have the client, I have the User ID.... Time to play early access! No. Now it's asking for a registration number for early access. Oh, I know! My order confirmation number! OMG IT DOESN"T FIT AND DOESN"T WORK>>>>>>> WHERE IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY IS MY REGISTRATION NUMBER????? I AM GOING TO LOSE MY MUTHER HUMPING MIND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back to the forums. Mind you I have spent about 4-5 hours up until this point just getting to where I am. I AM HOT! After another hour or so of reading complaint posts, I learn that it may take up to 48 hours for my order lookup page thing to update. I am disgusted at this point and go to bed.
Next day, I check my order lookup page and my email throughout the day and nothing.
Monday evening after work, I check email and nothing. I go to order lookup thing and LO AND BEHOLD........ tada! EUREKA! The client download button *that I don't need now* and my registration number!!! I can finally play!
I go to my desktop shortcut and try to log in...... HAHA ! HEY DUMMY , YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN LOCKED>>> CHECK YOUR EMAIL! w. t. f. I go to email and it say that due to suspicious activity my account was locked and to click this link and change my password...... holy hell. I do what they say and go back to game log-in. OMG, I got in! yay! now to input registration code and play. WTF! MY 18 DIGIT REGISTRATION CODE DOES NOT FIT!!! THIS WANTS A 20 DIGIT CODE!!!!!!!!!!
I go back SE website, and go to register game. Oh, whew. There is a place for an 18 digit code here. I put it in and NOPE INVALID REGISTRATION CODE. God, why are you doing this to me?!?!? Did my account get hacked and my code stolen? WTF is going on?
I go to forums and make a thread about it and someone is kind enough to inform me that the 18digit code doesn't work there for some reason and they paste a link to another website. The mystery website that I originally got the client downloaded from. I put in my 18 digit code there and got a 20 digit code.
I open the game, log in with my SE USER ACCOUT ID, input my 20 digit code and FINALLY download the whole game.
2 days later at midnight I finally get in the game, and that was only through other people helping me.
Why...on Earth... should I EVER buy another product from Square Enix as long as I live?? Is there a group of Japanese guys who work there just LOL'ing right now? This has to be some elaborate prank.
Comments
should be much better once they get the mogstation up thats handles everything
There outstanding costumer service will as always try to provide the best service possible.
MAGA
While I a rough start I think the new lodestone and mogstation are moves in the right direction. SE is making big changes with this game (like the company not in the mmo market). Hell EA code was a nightmare. CD Key was as easy as any other game.
They say they plan to have the server infrastructure updated next week. So as long as things keep improving I won't complain. When we start going backwards I'll be worried.
I've played over 20 mmo starting with EQ in 1999.......... No, nothing I have ever experienced has been close to this frustrating and confusing.
Hilarious...in a sad, sad way. I love the game but I've been caught in the web of logins, regionspecific websites and downloadscreens too.
At one point I had to login about 3 different places to just get to my account...on that note it feels like I have 3 different SE-specific account. Luckily they have updated some of the account management so that I could finally get rid of one of my "service accounts" too.
Tho only explanation for this is either they have clumsily been fusion some old systems with new ones...or else they are madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year's Mr Madman competition.
Thank god they made an awesome game...now if I could only log in and play....
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no sig
The problem is that their management and administration are completely incompetent.
Just a couple of other examples:
Deciding that after putting in a fix for an issue that locked out 20% of the entire player base for beta 4, they didn't need to actually test it(Yoshi has since admitted that that is the same problem they were dealing with during EA).
Deciding that everything should go through the duty finder (yes, it was an administrative decision. Previously you could just walk into dungeons, etc). Somehow it is a good idea to have every single instance in ALL of the servers go through a central server...
Deciding that we didn't need to be able to choose which quests we are tracking on-screen (Yoshi has since said that due to overwhelming demand from the players he is CONSIDERING putting that feature back, since he was the one who had it removed).
Deciding to remove the queue system and go to error 1017 which basically tells all the players to keep retrying login until they actually get in(since there are more players out than in, this basically means "hey everyone DDOS our servers please, thank you.")
etc. etc. etc.
Their management and administrative teams are incompetent... That is the answer, period.
You obviously never played Anarchy Online at launch. Well it wasnt so much confusing as it was frustrating.
I know the square store is managed by Digital River, and their servers were down most of sunday at least, but they were still processing the orders and sending out emails. My best guess was the server that generates the codes were down, so the emails were either autopopulated with bad codes or, as in my case, no code at all.
Regardless, I just canceled the square store order and got it from Amazon.
Ha! I agree with Malamor, I had a good laugh reading this. Only because I feel your pain.
I'm not playing FFXIV, but I've had similiar experiences with FFXI back in the day. I have no idea why SE tries to make things so difficult. Good thing you only have to do it once.
Cheers,
R
.....but...but...but....I thought the only thing that could drive a player mad and away from a game was from it being P2P???
I had the same frustrations. Now I just consider it part of the tutorial for logging in, which is hard enough on its own.
Once you get past this, you can start actually playing the game!
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2025: 48 years on the Net.
Had the same issues with FFXI, then FFXIV 1.0, and now with ARR...
I've had to track down the right version of the client, I can't use lodestone as it doesn't recognize my legacy character, and just 3 mins ago I finally got the client downloaded only to find every EU server is full, and most of the NA ones, so its either wait or create my new guy on a server that will be dead in 2 months.
I've received no email notifications or instructions, but I can give you one good review, they gave back £100 I spent in error when legally they didn't have to. I think they are just inept, and I don't get why someone hasn't stepped in to manage things better.
Oh, and a new one... They have said that they may be getting in new servers AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK...
Gee, let's think about this. They don't have any extra hardware on-hand in case a server fails? In case they have to open up new worlds? They have just enough servers and not an iota more?
And yes, that too is a management/administration decision.
Edit: wow, correcting myself again. the NA news post says that they will be updating the Japan data center... guess I was right the first time and we are still out of luck.
Huh...
For the life of me I cannot understand why people are having such problems with the process. I agree it's a bit more complicated than the average set-up, & there is some reading involved.
I wonder if there is any correlation between people having these issues & people skipping in-game text & then spamming the chat channels asking questions that would have been answered if only they had taken the time to read.
Oh well, I should just consider myself lucky that I haven't had any issues thus far.
Cheers.
umm, did you read my post? There is only one thing in there that I didn't know due to not reading every word of every email and that was my Square Enix user ID required to get into game..... the other 47 hours of frustration were through no fault of my own.
gosh
I ordered from the SE site and didn't have any of the issues that the OP had but I do think they have been re-working their emails and possibly giving out the wrong information.
The first email gives your order code and tells you to wait for your early access code and download link. I can understand people skim-reading this and trying to enter the order code as their access code. Also, why they can't provide a download link in that email is beyond me. You could be downloading the client while waiting for your access code.
Sure did. Still not sure why you started this thread though.
I'm guessing this is a sort of primal scream therapy for you?
I bet you didn't play FFXI!
You don't understand why I made a post lamenting SE and their poor service? Not sure why that is a head scratcher for you but I'll try to help you. Perhaps someone who is on the fence about whether or not they should waste their hard earned money on this game will read my post and decide that they don't need that frustration. Orrrrr, perhaps someone who is having the same issues will read my thread and know exactly what to do now...... Can't you see the gift I'm giving humanity!?!? I'm a martyr damnit!
[mod edit]
This from the folks that brought you PlayOnline.
Now, 90% less convoluted than before! Improved!