Only able to play demo

[hillsteadinc]

This is still going on? You guys realize this debate is not going to solve the problem?
You need the key to redeem the game on frontierstore.net. Try steam support or wait for the fdev supports response. Things may have changed and if so these two are your only options.
All I can say is how it worked for me and my two copy's of the game. The first copy I got via frontier store was the easiest to redeem. The second on steam took a few additional steps that being
1. Get the keys from steam
2. Create a frontier store account
3. Redeem the keys at frontier store
If what worked for thousands of players on steam somehow doesn't work for you there are two possibilities
1. Something is wrong with steam or frontier store
In that case contact the support of one or even better both of the above.

2. the validation process has changed and nobody knows about it. In that case contact the steam and/or frontier support.

If they tell you there is nothing they can do because you bought the game via a third party reseller, then you know, why so many people don't like buying from key resellers like g2a. And in that case, good luck with g2a support.

So when you buy keys off sites like G2A, all they provide is the steam key. And after activating you don't have a CD key section in steam.
So essentially Frontier and Steams servers aren't syncing for people with 3rd party purchased steam keys.

I've done everything you can imagine to try to get frontier to see elite dangerous in my library. Reinstalled launcher, opened firewall, turned off antivirus, uninstall/reinstall, reinstalled steam, removed steam account from frontier account/readded, added addresses in frontier account, cleared windows user app cache frontier and steam, Prayed to God for 4 hours then Itried fasting for 2 days, no dice.

I sent in a ticket earlier today and I know several others have.

 

[peate]

redacted, there is no point in rising to that last bit, you are on your own.

"Well then I must have about as much of a clue as you..."
yikes pal you really are angry

 

[hillsteadinc]

"Well then I must have about as much of a clue as you..."
yikes pal you really are angry

I had like 3 days off and nothing planned which rarely happens, so i ive been looking forward to cruising the universe with my new gaming PC and VR headset for a while now lol

 

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Since April Steam doesn't sell Elite: Dangerous keys anymore, but linking your Steam account with Frontier and authenticating with Steam is used instead. It could be the reason why buying old Steam keys from other places does not work to play this game anymore.

Are those third party sites authorised Steam or Frontier resellers? If they are not, then you bought a "lemon".

 

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Why buying a game on a third party should be a problem?

Cause EULA of Frontier forbids reselling bought keys, if you are not an authorized reseller:

Elite Dangerous EULA and Terms of Use - Frontier Store

The Frontier Developments Online Store is the exclusive online retailer for products made and licensed by Frontier Developments plc

www.frontierstore.net

2.1 Subject to your compliance with the terms of this EULA, we grant you a non-transferable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, revocable, limited licence to use the Game.
(emphasis - mine).

So, if you buy it from a non-authorized dealer, Frontier can pretty much revoke that key for the EULA violation.

 

[peate]

Since April Steam doesn't sell Elite: Dangerous keys anymore, but linking your Steam account with Frontier and authenticating with Steam is used instead. It could be the reason why buying old Steam keys from other places does not work to play this game anymore.

Are those third party sites authorised Steam or Frontier resellers? If they are not, then you bought a "lemon".

idk hopefully Frontier support will reply soon and help me. Or im just going to end up taking my money back completely from the seller.

 

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Or im just going to end up taking my money back completely from the seller.

That's what you probably should do. You are not even the Frontier's customer for them to provide you with support, if that seller is not the authorized Frontier reseller. You are the customer of that seller, to whom you paid your money.

 

[starman]

Probs the same people who buy credits on the'marketplace'

 

[hillsteadinc]

Authorized Frontier reseller? Obviously frontier wants you to buy keys from them and only them but valve shouldn't allow third party keys to be activated in steam if they are being blocked from full game usage...

 

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

but valve shouldn't allow third party keys to be activated in steam if they are being blocked from full game usage...

And that's what Valve probably try to do, too. They even block names of those third party key resellers, if you try to write that name on Steam forums.

But you can't say that those, who buy such keys from these resellers, are blameless, too. There is no guarantee or support from official distributors for such sales.

 

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

I honestly don´t know why you don´t have the "Show Product Key" option.

The option to "Show Product Key" exists for those, who bought the game on Steam before this April, when the new keyless Steam authentication was introduced to the game launcher.

Those, who bought the game on Steam after that, don't have the option to show the product key - it's not in the list of options.

 

[hillsteadinc]

This whole process has been a massive pain in the ass nonetheless

 

[hunvagy]

Or, and here's an idea.. don't buy from a shady grey market reselling site like G2A. There has been more then enough evidence that they don't do any due dilligence, they don't care if the keys are legit, purchased in a different region abusing Steam's local currency policy, or with fraudulently acquired credit card details that had the purchases charged back at a later point. Seriously, ED has been on sale so many times, I really don't see why the apparently "discount" of a scummy place like G2A helps in any shape or form.

Do the smart thing, contact your bank for chargeback on your G2A purchase and use the money to buy a legit copy either via Steam or FD. Or check who the actual authorized resellers of steam are.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Do the smart thing, contact your bank for chargeback on your G2A purchase and use the money to buy a legit copy either via Steam or FD. Or check who the actual authorized resellers of steam are.

Do not buy through any more resellers. Going through Steam is already bad enough (IME after years of trolling the forums, the vast majority of issues with starting the game are Steam-related), and even invoking Humble complicates things a lot. Buy straight from Frontier, that's by far the least hassle.

 

[hillsteadinc]

Never bought through G2A, I've used Gamivo a few times and always through paypal just in case. Honestly never had a problem with them up until i bought elite dangerous

 

[MickyG1982]

"Well then I must have about as much of a clue as you..."
yikes pal you really are angry

Nope, not really, it was just the middle of the night and I'd just been told that I clearly don't have a clue, especially when I'd provided links in previous posts that showed the opposite. Initially I simply responded in kind, then remembered there was no point in rising to it, so redacted it. In any case, at least you are now thinking about going back to the seller, the longer you leave it however the less chance you will have of getting your money back.

 

[Dregs]

So when you buy keys off sites like G2A, all they provide is the steam key. And after activating you don't have a CD key section in steam.
So essentially Frontier and Steams servers aren't syncing for people with 3rd party purchased steam keys.

I've done everything you can imagine to try to get frontier to see elite dangerous in my library. Reinstalled launcher, opened firewall, turned off antivirus, uninstall/reinstall, reinstalled steam, removed steam account from frontier account/readded, added addresses in frontier account, cleared windows user app cache frontier and steam, Prayed to God for 4 hours then Itried fasting for 2 days, no dice.

I sent in a ticket earlier today and I know several others have.

Seems like i´m not that stupid after all. They changed the validation process. Steam Keys are no longer needed.
So last night i´v been asking myself, when i buy Elite from Steam, the game just shows up in the library and when i buy from frontier the game shows up in "my downloadable products". Steam does not give you a key that you then activate on Steam. Frontier did give steam Keys when you bought the game at frontier store and wanted to link the game to steam, but these keys are already bound to a frontier account.
So how does a G2A reseller get these Keys in the first place?
The only other way that comes to my mind would be Keygenerators or Humblebundle. But if this would be a Humble Key there must be a way to redeem the game. If i were you i´d hope for the support on steam or frontier and stay away from G2A in the future.
I hope you get it to work or at least get your money back. If you would like a Pal in the vastness of space add Fela Dregs to your friends and we can fly together. That goes for every other new player here as well.
Take care and fly safe my friends. Hope you have a great weekend! o7

 

[MickyG1982]

Seems like i´m not that stupid after all. They changed the validation process. Steam Keys are no longer needed.
So last night i´v been asking myself, when i buy Elite from Steam, the game just shows up in the library and when i buy from frontier the game shows up in "my downloadable products". Steam does not give you a key that you then activate on Steam. Frontier did give steam Keys when you bought the game at frontier store and wanted to link the game to steam, but that keys are already bound to a frontier account.
So how does a G2A reseller get these Keys in the first place?
The only other way would be Keygenerators. If i were you i´d stay away from G2A in the future.
I hope you get your money back and maybe i meet you in the vastness of space.

Some get the keys when they are on sale, legitimately or receive them as unwanted gifts, get boxed versions on the cheap humble bundle etc, not all the resellers there are scam artists and those methods are fine.

Others (a lot of others) have found other ways of obtaining them, posing as youtubers to get free keys then selling them on, spamming development companies to get review keys which they sell on. Others use stolen credit card details to buy legit keys, these may work for hours/days/months/years or not at all. Some are (quite literally) stolen from the factory, as was the case with metro exodus, it was not sold on steam (apart from pre-orders that where honoured) . Yet somehow steam keys turned up on various reselling sites having been quite literally been stolen from physical copies that were recalled because of the epic games deal (they had a steam key inside the box), of course these started off legit, and were then revoked.

Basically a lot of the methods used to obtain keys to resell are the same as software pirates use, only now they get paid for it.

 

[Dregs]

Some get the keys when they are on sale, legitimately or receive them as unwanted gifts, get boxed versions on the cheap humble bundle etc, not all the resellers there are scam artists and those methods are fine.

Others (a lot of others) have found other ways of obtaining them, posing as youtubers to get free keys then selling them on, spamming development companies to get review keys which they sell on. Others use stolen credit card details to buy legit keys, these may work for hours/days/months/years or not at all. Some are (quite literally) stolen from the factory, as was the case with metro exodus, it was not sold on steam (apart from pre-orders that where honoured) . Yet somehow steam keys turned up on various reselling sites having been quite literally been stolen from physical copies that were recalled because of the epic games deal (they had a steam key inside the box), of course these started off legit, and were then revoked.

Basically a lot of the methods used to obtain keys to resell are the same as software pirates use, only now they get paid for it.

Ya i know how that generally works, but in ED´s case it´s not that simple to get your hands on a Steam Key that can be resold. The "Boxed" versions are either Xobx or PS4 versions or sold by Fdev only and contain a Fdev key afaik.
Humble sells ED Keys wich could be resold or steam gifts could be sold. That is a common practice on reseller sites. But if this were Steam gifts, the game would be working fine because the provided copy by steam would be an "up to date" one from the time when the gift was redeemed. And if this is a Humble Key bought before April there sure is a way to get it to work.
And if these really were Promo Keys for Streamers or Youtubers, they should work just fine. I got a free Promotion Key from HCS voicepacks to show of Orion and Maia in my stream. They even provided a Promo Key for me to give away on stream. These Promo or PR keys are legit and nothing other than usual Keys and as well should just work fine.
P.S. I´m not saying these keys we talk about in this thread are 100% legit or not. But i know frontier for some years now. Especially their changes and updates are well known for being buggy. So chances for this being a bug are very high if you ask me.
P.P.S. the biggest concern in buying a reseller key for the customer is not the money that Fdev deserves but does not get. The biggest problem with reseller keys is, you as a costumer have no "official" Support from Steam or the Publisher, when it comes to problems with validation or refunds in any way.

 

[hillsteadinc]

Welp Support finally got back to me they had a bug in their system for viewing steam reseller keys, but i'm activated and ready to go on my "lemon" key!