Final Fantasy XI borrows page from WoW, offers authenticators

With the rampant MMO account hacks that happen every day - and especially the seemingly high numbers that occur in Final Fantasy XI that we've heard about, we're glad to hear that this change is coming. Square Enix has announced that, like Blizzard, they will be offering an account authenticator security token to players, helping to ensure that their accounts are safer in the future from random hacks. There's no immediate information available on the exact cost or when they'll be offering them through PlayOnline beyond "in the near future", but we're sure that players will snap them up. Also, the FFXI variant will also be coming with a special in-game bonus "which may just prove indispensible during your many adventures in Vana'diel!"

Of course, if you're a follower of [GM] Dave, game-master and celebrity Chef de Cuisine to hungry dragons in Final Fantasy XI, you'll likely have heard about this already. He claims to have been the one to think up security tokens years ago, before his supervisor nabbed the idea, and landed a promotion (and [GM]Dave's wrath) out of the deal. (Can you warp supervisors to zones full of dragons without them catching on, we wonder?) Ultimately, whatever the genesis of this decision is, we're sure the FFXI community is glad to see security tokens coming.