Enhanced Login Security

[Aeni]

FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

As a measure to help prevent unauthorized access to FINAL FANTASY XIV accounts, we will be introducing a system to restrict logins when suspicious account access is detected. The system will be implemented for FINAL FANTASY XIV after the Square Enix Account Management System maintenance on February 21st, 2011. Details on the maintenance will be announced at a later time.

Under this new system, once login has been restricted, an email notification will be sent to the primary email address (E-mail address 1) registered to the Square Enix account. This email will contain instructions on how to remove the login restriction. Players will be asked to reset their passwords and log in again.

If you are unable to receive the email instructions for removing the login restriction, you will be unable to log in to your account, so please make sure that you have registered a valid email address by February 21st, 2011.

SQUARE ENIX Account Management System
https://secure.square-enix.com/

If you have any questions about how to remove login restrictions, or have accidentally deleted the email instructions, and are unable to resolve the situation on your own, please refer to the link below.

About Login Restriction
http://support.na.square-enix.com/j/lbna

We cannot guarantee that these security measures will be enough to completely eliminate unauthorized access to accounts, and we ask for your cooperation in protecting your personal information, and in taking appropriate security precautions when using your account.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

I anticipate them implementing this poorly and generally screwing anyone over who accesses their account from more than one location. People who move, people who play on a laptop for greater mobility, etc. Yes, this is my negativity coming out again, but as someone who got screwed by credit card changes, I don't get the feeling SE is that spectacular at realizing that ... hey ... sometimes there are real-life extenuating circumstances.

They are welcome to prove me wrong, but I get the feeling they're going to lock people out of their accounts if they log in somewhere other than their home location. Which doesn't leave a lot of room for people to live their lives. (Or hell, even to share their accounts with a RL friend, for that matter. Which I know can be an issue, but it isn't always.)

Might it cut down on hacks? Yeah, but like a lot of the things they do, this probably harms the legit player a lot more than it harms RMT. I guess I'll have to wait and see how this pans out, but just from reading it I already have a feeling how it's gonna go. Also, if someone is hell bent on getting your account, can't they also hack your e-mail and intercept the message to reset? >.>

[cidbahamut]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

Pretty much Aks. The only saving grace to it is that people with security tokens will not be harassed by this. Or at least that's what I read on the FFXI version of the announcement.

[Dux]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

So far I have seen almost zero RMT activity in the retail version mostly because of the filter on IP address from China I expect.

Granted aquistion and sale of accounts isn't restricted by this but if an EU/JP/US account is accessed from a China IP address which is a domain expressely restricted from our servers I would be more upset if SE didn't block it in this case. Of course you can't be too draconian in your approach or somebody could just pick your login ID and try and access you account 50 times and lock you out even though they had no real chance of gaining access due to the token.

Perhaps another contributing factor to the remarkable lack of in-game currency trade is because gil is so easy to make in this game and there are almost no in-game gil sinks to take your money away from you.

Having never had an SE account compromised before I can't speak for the effectiveness of support or the fairness of the system, however one can only hope SE have learnt from past mistakes.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

Perhaps another contributing factor to the remarkable lack of in-game currency trade is because gil is so easy to make in this game and there are almost no in-game gil sinks to take your money away from you.

While I don't play XIV and I don't know how present the RMT is, I can say that this doesn't make much of a difference. Gold is ridiculously easy to make in WoW and yet the RL market for it is just as present as ever. No matter how easy gold/gil/funny munny is to make, there will always be people with more real money than effort who will simply buy it. I guess the lack of a lot of people actually playing this game turned them to more profitable endeavors.

Time will tell how SE implements this. I'll be watching. I'm sure there will be some big drama thread on BG about people taking their laptop to their friend's house and getting locked out of their account. If they do restrict it say, regionally (like if I move from Florida to Spain) and that puts up a red flag, that I could live with. Will they be able to mark the account "safe" though? Or will it remain flagged every time the player logs in from Spain? It really does depend how they implement it. If they block IPs from a certain region that is known for RMT access, that would be probably their best bet. Will they? Who knows? Chinese farmers are not the only RMT companies. And let's not forget people like Taj who hacked accounts for fun. SE has been known to make blanket changes that cover everyone, not just the RMT they're trying so desperately to guard against.

If I give my account information to my RL friend (known here as) CK and he logs in, will he be locked out because he lives about 20 miles away? Or if I go over to his house to play, will I be? What if I'm fifteen, I live with my mom and play from her house, but when I visit my dad on weekends I play from his house? What if I move from Florida to Oregon? What about Florida to Oklahoma? What about Tampa, FL, to Orlando? What about across the street? It seems stupid, but SE has been known to make it a pain in the ass to play their games. I don't have a lot of faith in this. But like I said, they are free to prove me wrong, and I really hope (for their sake) that they do.

[Aeni]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

So far I have seen almost zero RMT activity in the retail version mostly because of the filter on IP address from China I expect.

Oh ... RMT exists. They're just not going to give themselves away so easily. There is no market for gil, however, because as you have acknowledged, the gil is flowing so fast that players don't know what to do with them.

Aks, it's not like WoW. Imagine if you had some NPC come up to you randomly and threw 200 gold at you? That's kind of how it is in this game. I get gil even though I never expected it to (random chest spawns on leves, for example)

The real market for RMT in FFXIV is account trading. The other night I was at Bloodshore and there was one group of nothing but lalafells with crazy names, like "Xsfsyrs Mrskjfs" and about 6 or 8 in that group leve linking like mad. I've also seen individual players multi-boxing as well. Most of them don't even have a formal LS or a "one person" LS.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Enhanced Login Security

Ahh okay. I didn't know how sickeningly easy gil was in XIV. I just know that usually, there's still a market, no matter how easy it is to come by.