Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

[Feba]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

In reality we'd be totally be minus the weeaboo-slave mentality over half of FFXI's western population seemed to have

No, we wouldn't. That part of the population was always small, the same weeaboos would keep fawning over Japanese players in videos (think Avesta) and talking about how much NAs suck. Hell, if anything, it would be more common without actual Japanese players to prove their conceptions wrong.

Japanese players never observed the common courtesies western gamers did

And if the server population is dense enough with Japanese, even your Bard isn't good enough to get a party

Way to fight those stereotypes there, BBQ. Don't worry, I know they're the ones oppressing you; when you make a statement about them, it's just an observation.

But why does the behavior of Japanese players even matter? Would you rather have nobody on in the middle of the night to give you a party, or a JP who may be biased, or who may give you a shot? It's not even really about them, it's about everyone who isn't in Japan or the US, and thus gets totally fucked whenever a new expansion or other product comes out. Not to mention expats who may not have a residence address in the US, but who still retain their US citizenship, US bank account, NA SE account, etc.

Plenty of reasons for the Japanese to want their own servers, too. I wouldn't blame them, really.

Yeah, exactly. It's not a matter of JPs or NAs sucking, the fact is that all of humanity sucks ass. You don't fix that by isolating all of the different races (and let's face it, nationality is just as meaningless as race). If it can be fixed, it's through diversity-- letting one group do things their way, and if it's good enough, hopefully the others will either catch on or be left in the dust. Come on BBQ, you like the free market, right? I know for a fact that I learned some very cool things from joining JP parties, and I also know that I taught some things to Japanese players. Especially with as different as English and Japanese are as languages, resources common to one can be rare or nonexistent in another, and very few players have the skills to bridge the gap (I had two great JP friends in FFXI; their English was very broken, even the one pursuing a Doctorate. But the failure of Japanese schools to teach English effectively is another subject). Playing together and leading by example is a very effective way around things like that.

I'd just be happy if they picked one server and flagged it as Euro-preferred but allow anyone to play on it.

I don't totally disagree with this, but you have to admit that that would screw over EUs who are going to another server-- because they have American friends going to another server, because their LS decided to go to that server and later disbanded, etc. Plus intentionally unbalancing a server like that throws off the point of running 24/7 all region servers-- to spread the load out throughout the day, thus conserving resources (though this is somewhat antiquated in terms of server structure now). And to provide a community at all times, so people can play when they want, instead of when others are available.

The better solution is simply ensuring higher populations on each server. I wouldn't be opposed to regional 'quotas' per server, where the server recommended to a player depends on where they're coming from. But that should be determined by cross-referencing IP address location with time zones, not what code your box has; god knows plenty of AUs play closer to JP time than their NA and EU boxes would suggest. This could be done seamlessly ("IP Location falls into PRIME-ZONE-4, recommend SERVER E"), or it could involve a short questionnaire to make it more complex. ("What language do you speak natively? What languages can you understand? What times do you think you will usually play?")

Alternatively, they could give a way for players to world change temporarily; let's call it World Shift. If nobody is on in your region, you could be invited for a party on another server, temporarily go over there for EXP, and then warp back. To keep it from being abused, you'd probably be locked out of AHs and the like. Or alternatively, keep the character on the registration server, and allow you to pick whichever server you want when you log in that day; if you want to do some hunting with friends, you pick a low profile server, and then when you want a pick up group you go to the most popular server. In the long term, it would be better to do this by expanding the game and making these different servers support actual areas of the game, instead of mirrors. In FFXI, this would cause issues with things like Conquest of course.

[Ziero]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Let me understand this, are you saying as I imported the NA version I'm fucked on the FFXI discount and Hermes Sandals?

Seems that way, unless you attached a UK account your your SE ID. But I know a friend who's upset about this system as well since she too imported XI years back and doesn't want to pay to import XIV.

Your best bet is to email SE and politely ask them what the hell is going on and if there's any way to change the "region" your account is based off of or something.

[MrMageo]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten View Post
Japanese players never observed the common courtesies western gamers did
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten View Post
And if the server population is dense enough with Japanese, even your Bard isn't good enough to get a party

Maybe you are just terrible BBQ? Or never took the time to learn how to converse with them, simple phrases such a Hajimemashite (or Hajimemasite as far as i know they the same thing but regional) and Arigatou will get you far. You should not expect them to conform to you because you are an American.

Personally I have never had issue with japanese players, infact some of my most enjoyable parties have been with japanese players, hell I as in a JP endgame shell, couldnt speak a lick of what was going on in casual chat but the leaders were always courteous enough to explain jokes, and tactics in english for me.

On the topic of courtesy I have always found JP players more friendly and thoughtful of others play time than NA players.
Ive noticed that JP players are more of the mindset of time limited EXP. In the sense when they party they will party for a specific duration, it will be announced before hand. So you know you will be partying for X amount of time. When they party they also don't AFK for long times, if at all, unlike the usual NA players leaving every 20-30 minutes for 5 minutes or so. Lastly I have never been invited as a rep to a JP party, nor have I ever seen a rep brought in. It is rude to come to a party to have it leave 20-30 minutes after you arrive. It is also rude to have it happen to others. This is an NA thing, and it happens all the time.

Just curious how many JP players have you ever played with, because I think you are the problem, not them.

Frankly I am going to miss JP players, I hope this regional thing is just for extra services (cyrstal and stuff) and not a regional lockout on servers, going to suck having dead space from midnight till 8-9 AM.

[Aeni]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Seems that way, unless you attached a UK account your your SE ID. But I know a friend who's upset about this system as well since she too imported XI years back and doesn't want to pay to import XIV.

Your best bet is to email SE and politely ask them what the hell is going on and if there's any way to change the "region" your account is based off of or something.

There isn't anything wrong. This is just standard corporate service policy. Regional support can only be issued to those living in the region in question. Importing had risks, remember? A LONG TIME AGO people who imported the JP game was warned that this was one of the potential risks ... losing services support. Well, that came to full circle at this time, so you'll need to buy your domestic FFXI product. I know that sucks but that's just how it is. Same with SC2 players buying the wrong package and having no access to support for their product.

[Ziero]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Eh, I still greatly dislike the concept of limiting games by region. It hurts players far more then it helps them.

On the topic of courtesy I have always found JP players more friendly and thoughtful of others play time than NA players.
Ive noticed that JP players are more of the mindset of time limited EXP. In the sense when they party they will party for a specific duration, it will be announced before hand. So you know you will be partying for X amount of time. When they party they also don't AFK for long times, if at all, unlike the usual NA players leaving every 20-30 minutes for 5 minutes or so. Lastly I have never been invited as a rep to a JP party, nor have I ever seen a rep brought in. It is rude to come to a party to have it leave 20-30 minutes after you arrive. It is also rude to have it happen to others. This is an NA thing, and it happens all the time.

I've had a healthy mix of both good and bad NA and JP parties. What did I learn from my experiences you ask? Nothing. Not a god damn thing. People are people, and they're gonna suck or be nice regardless of where their from or what language they speak. It don't matter if it's short hand AOL leet speak or scibbly moonspeak, people are people, and 9 times out of 10 people suck.

Frankly I am going to miss JP players, I hope this regional thing is just for extra services (cyrstal and stuff) and not a regional lockout on servers, going to suck having dead space from midnight till 8-9 AM.

Square Enix ID Services are being regionalized, not the FFXIV Gameplay servers. SE isn't stupid enough to mess up their biggest cash cow and highlight reel bulletpoint. The fact XI was cross server/cross regional was literally the reason why the game succeeded as it has. To not continue that tradition for XIV would be far more suicidal for the game then their stupid fatigue system.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Well, I figured I'd contact S-E regarding the account announcement as I was wondering what impact it would have on my FFXI account. Note that I still have yet to receive any e-mail from S-E regarding this.

CS Discussion

All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.
You have been connected to Agent *****.
Agent *****: Hello, Paul, thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX Customer Support. Just a few moments while I review your question, please.
Paul *****: Hi there
Agent *****: How are you doing today?
Paul *****: Not too bad thanks, just a little concerned I won't be able to play FFXI from tomorrow. The S-E announcement is cryptic as usual.
Agent *****: Oh, I'm sorry for that inconvenience.
Agent *****: Maybe I can help clear things up for you.
Paul *****: That'd be welcome.
Agent *****: Let me know where things are unclear.
Paul *****: Well, I'm based in the UK but I imported the NA version of the game back in 2003. I created an NA S-E account when I was prompted to link it to my POL ID for extra security.
Paul *****: Now when I login to the NA account management it prompts me to list my country of residence. If I select the UK it says I may lose access to previously accepted services.
Paul *****: My concern is if I specify I live in the UK I will lose access to my NA POL ID and FFXI account.
Paul *****: My credit card address is based in the UK however and this information is entered on my PoL account so I'm just unsure of the implications of this proposed change.
Paul *****: The message on the account management page is as follows: Please confirm your country of residence.
*Usable software and services will differ depending on your country and region of residence. When purchasing software, please verify that the software's region matches your account's registered region.
* Please note that you cannot change your country or region after registration has completed.
Agent *****: The email indicates that you should register your region based on where you live.
Agent *****: If you live in Europe then you should register for Europe.
Paul *****: Yes, however, does that mean I will lose access to my account?
Agent *****: It is a possibility but it is still currently unknown.
Agent *****: I would recommend waiting until more information is available.
Paul *****: I really need to know this today as it's the current billing cycle. Also, I need to change the details today according to the email.
Agent *****: If that is the case then I would recommend follow the instruction outlined in the email.
Agent *****: If you live in Europe then register your region as EU.
Agent *****: Are there any other issues I can assist you with right now, Paul?
Paul *****: This issue is still unresolved. Am I correct in assuming that S-E have essentially not communicated the details of this to the NA support staff? I'm not trying to be awkward with you but the prospect of losing an account I've played on for seven years is extremely concerning.
Agent *****: I understand what you are saying and I suppose you are correct.
Agent *****: If it is required that you make the change today then contact the support center again later today.
Agent *****: We may have more information and be better prepared to assist you at that time.
Agent *****: I apologize that I was not able to help resolve your issue now.
Paul *****: Okay, thanks for your time and good luck with what I'm sure will be a long day.
Agent *****: Thank you, I truly appreciate the thought.
Agent *****: Thank you for visiting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center, Paul! Take care and hope to see you online!
Thank you for using our SQUARE ENIX Support Center chat line. Take care and hope to see you online!
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

[Etra]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

They aren't aware of the outcome of registering your account to Europe? What? They didn't think it would be a good idea to make dummy accounts and see what would happen before they installed the new system?

Sounds to me like they're playing dumb and just want you to register it as EU.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Agent *****: If you live in Europe then you should register for Europe.
Paul *****: Yes, however, does that mean I will lose access to my account?
Agent *****: It is a possibility but it is still currently unknown.

WHEEEEEEEE! Wtg SE!

Different day, same crappy communication.

[Aeni]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Sounds to me like they're playing dumb and just want you to register it as EU.

DING DING DING DING! We have a winner! I'm pretty sure that is what's happening. Look, the changes are controversial and so are the methods, but they are trying to avoid the problems Blizzard got themselves into with SC2. I know, a few of you will get screwed, but the key word here is "few". Importers are in the relative minority (perhaps vocal, but nonetheless they are uncommon) so from a business perspective they are just necessary casualties in order to push out their new system.

I don't blame them one bit, their previous billing methods were too loose and they should've done this right from the start. I guess they have learned a lot from their past mistakes.

[Feba]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

(or Hajimemasite as far as i know they the same thing but regional

It's not even region, it's just a difference in romanization. In Japanese, the word is　はじめまして、but the fifth character is "si" in some romanization systems, because the surrounding characters on the normal chart of the syllabary are "sa, su, se, so". It's also a valid way of typing in the same sound in Japanese IMEs, so you may've seen someone just typing it as they would in Japanese, but in roman characters; "Wapuro Roma-ji" (Word Processor Roman Characters) is probably the system of romanization that Japanese people are most familiar with, which leads to problems since it's designed for input, and so accepts a lot of stuff that doesn't make for good output. Probably the worst example of this is using "x<vowel>" for a smaller version of vowels, although I haven't actually seen that yet, I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Japanese has had some really shitty romanization systems in terms of being readable, and many of these systems are confusing. Luckily Japan has things more standardized than, say, Taiwan, where you can see the same street written five ways in English, but there has been some Grade-A bullshit in the past. Remember how "si" is pronounced "shi"? In Japanese, most syllables ending with "i" sounds (sounds like the English letter E) can be attached to "ya", "yu", and "yo" to make glides, like Kyo, Gyu, and Nya. When used like this with 'shi', you get Sha, Shu, and Sho. In some older romanization systems, which I should point out were made by total assholes, these were rendered as Sya, Syu, and Syo. You were basically just expected to know that it wasn't pronounced that way. There's a similar problem in the T series; what would be "Ti" is actually "Chi", which leads to stuff like "Cho" being rendered as "Tyo".

There are plenty of problems with the entire concept of romanization, probably the biggest being that roman characters suck balls for actually representing sound, given most people use competing and contradictory systems to decode it, and in many native languages (English being probably the worst example), a given letter can represent a variety of sounds, and those sounds may be represented by a different letter, for nothing more than historical reasons. Shit like this is why I like Quickscript. Want an example of how it's misleading? Look at "Tokyo". Given the little lecture I just gave above, you might assume that "Toe-key-oh" should be "Toe-kyo". You're closer, but still wrong; the Os that was originally written with were (or should've been) long vowels, which actually means "you pronounce the vowel longer", not "the vowel sound changes inexplicably". But all of this has been lost, which means people like me get a headache when we have to shift between Toekeyoh and Toukyou.


/sohowaboutthemSEmembers

[Freelancer]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Well my I put US to my NA SE ID and so far so good, we'll see what happens.

[Malacite]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Yeah I registered my house & address and all for XIV...


Ugh, what the hell do you do if you move though? I'd imagine you can just update it? But then they talk about the client getting whacked out so... is this basically a huge screw to importers and/or anyone who plans to change countries?

[Aeni]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Yeah I registered my house & address and all for XIV...


Ugh, what the hell do you do if you move though? I'd imagine you can just update it? But then they talk about the client getting whacked out so... is this basically a huge screw to importers and/or anyone who plans to change countries?

If you plan on changing countries, playing FF14 should be the very least of your worries. As for importers, they knew the risks they got themselves into. It's like that woman spilling hot coffee on her lap and then suing McDonald's because they didn't put a label on the hot coffee that read: "CAUTION YOU MORON - CONTENT IS VERY VERY HOT".

[Feba]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

If you plan on changing countries, playing FF14 should be the very least of your worries.

Again, though, what about expats? Hell, what about our armed forces? Lots of soldiers play FFXI, should we just tell them to go fuck themselves when they're sent overseas? We're not talking about emigrating and changing your citizenship; according to the AARO, there are over 5.26 million Americans residing overseas before you count military forces; this is not some big huge thing that SE should just forget about.

As for importers, they knew the risks they got themselves into. It's like that woman spilling hot coffee on her lap and then suing McDonald's because they didn't put a label on the hot coffee that read: "CAUTION YOU MORON - CONTENT IS VERY VERY HOT".

Two problems with this analogy.

One, the McDonalds coffee case is a terrible analogy for anything other than people catching on to the easy to understand outrage rather than the reasonable facts.
- McDonalds knew they were serving coffee far hotter than was safe or reasonable. We're not talking about "oh, the hot coffee was hot", we're talking about inflicting third degree burns within a couple seconds. This is coffee that humans could not drink.
- You didn't say this, but popular lore seems to hold that this was some idiot driving around with their coffee in their lap. Not true. It was an old lady in a parked car. The coffee splashed while trying to remove the lid (to add cream and sugar)
- This caused serious injury. She had burns to over %20 of her body, which required over a week in the hospital. Due to weight lost while in the hospital, she subsequently had to receive months of medical treatment.
- McDonalds knew of over seven hundred cases of injury from excessively hot coffee within the past decade.
- McDonalds refused to settle for these damages out of court multiple times, including an initial offer of only $20,000; and a just-before-trial offer of one third the ultimate ruling.

Anyone competent and aware of the facts would find against McDonalds. The fact that there is so much hatred for this woman is based purely on ignorance. See Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for more. The more you know, bastards.


Two, to say that importers were aware of their accounts being closed by a completely new membership system that was being created up to eight years after they started playing is just plain silly. FFXI was perfectly safe for importers before, with only minor billing issues. You're also forgetting that 'importers' doesn't mean 'I wanna play now! Guess I'll buy the Japanese version'; in most cases, it means people who thought their region would never see the game. We're not talking about people who are a threat to the game, or people who are immature and impatient, we're talking about regular people who just wanted to play the game.

Would you like to explain exactly why we need different regions in order to allow for billing? I've played at least one other game with non-regionalized, non-segregated accounts (EVE Online; the only exception is an independent server for Chinese censorship), they didn't have any major problems, and they're based in freakin' Iceland. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands of websites operate internationally; as long as the credit card information works, who really gives a damn? I've personally ordered products from the UK and Hong Kong, no issues, no more complex than using Amazon. SE's billing server sucking is probably because SE sucks at making things, nothing to do with region.

Basically, there's no reason to do this. All it does is hurt people who want to play the game; Expats, Service Members, people who don't live in the right parts of the world.

[Freelancer]

Re: Important Changes to Square Enix ID and SQUARE ENIX MEMBERS

Server segregation would be THE game breaking pre-order canceling account deactivating element for me.

DO NOT WANT

Though I think all this regioning BS is to keep EU people from getting NA accounts to pay less monthly fees. that and the whole cheaper FFXI fees too.