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Old player returns to discover nothing
Morrdak
Member Posts: 81
Well, I decided to go back to FFXI after a few years of playing other MMO's and I had lost my PlayOnline ID and password. Not a big deal, I still had the registration codes, so I call them up (you can also e-mail and have live chat) and after 10mins on hold, and talking to a very helpful service rep. I was told my Account Registration keys were invalid and couldn't be used again cause my account had be deleted due to inactivity for over a year.
Overall, getting a hold of customer service was easy no problems, was very professional, answered all my questions, and she sounded american.
But bottomline this is a warning to returning players, if you haven't kept your account active and have been out for more then a year, expect to have to rebuy the software and get a new account cause your old stuff is gone, regardless of how many years you spent playing it prior to unsubscribing.
This is a horrible way to handle your customers, In all my years of playing MMO's I haven't had this experience with a company, looks like they want you to go to other games if you leave theirs. Thought I'd share this with others. Reply, Sticky, Flame, whatever...
Overall, getting a hold of customer service was easy no problems, was very professional, answered all my questions, and she sounded american.
But bottomline this is a warning to returning players, if you haven't kept your account active and have been out for more then a year, expect to have to rebuy the software and get a new account cause your old stuff is gone, regardless of how many years you spent playing it prior to unsubscribing.
This is a horrible way to handle your customers, In all my years of playing MMO's I haven't had this experience with a company, looks like they want you to go to other games if you leave theirs. Thought I'd share this with others. Reply, Sticky, Flame, whatever...
Comments
That made me never return .
If my level 75 mage gets deleted I wouldn't not ever play again so I wouldn't blame you.
I don't get why they don't just keep them forever though. I'm sure if they did that would increase the chances that friends I had in game from a long time ago would return. No-one wants to return to start over again, then they'd quit by the time they got to where they got before which is the reason why they quit. I'm sure they'd have more active subscriptions if they would not delete people's stuff.
VERY sure...
Alot of work getting multiple toons to 60+ and I doubt many people would be pleased to see them wiped just because they needed a break for a while.
Playonline's policy on inactive account is just ridiculous... dastardly even
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Everytime I get the want to come back to the game I go to the allakhazam forums and get the swift kick in the rear as a reminder why I left and went to EQ2. The community in general sucks, and i really didn't see much of the the fabeled 'mature' community that people speak of so much. This was after I was booted out of a party on my 68 DRG because I didn't have my assault jerkin(a lvl 70 piece of gear anyhow), after I got booted out of a party because I didn't want to be powerleveled and thus turned on the /assist off (or whatever that code they added here a while back was). Other various things of that nature finally just made me realize that just because FFXi has a following, doesn't make it great or even good. The community sealed that issue a long time ago.
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The first time I canceled, I didn't come back until almost two years later and my chars were still there! Then I canceled again last May and just came back two weeks ago and they were once again fully intact.
As far as the economy goes, Square has done a huge amount in getting rid of the awful inflation that was destroying the game for a while.....and most early items are easily found at merchants and via questing. You really shouldn't buy early items from ah as they are found elsewhere for usually much cheaper. I realize it's a matter of convenience...but yea. I was amazed that even in a year the inflation has free-fallen back down.
That really sux for you guys who lost your accounts.....I'm sorry to hear that....but it's also weird that mine remained intact. I canceled everything and still came back to them....very weird.
Good luck with other ventures!
Restart a new character then, if you returned in may, you would gotten an anniversary ring that give free 30k xp which allow you to level 1-30 within 3-4 days tops.
They even added a empress band which allow every 16 hour you could gain a 150% xp boost (1000 xp for free) limit on 2k xp. ring.
It helps leveling faster alot.
As the economic goes, no newbie items in MAJOR city, but every items are locate now at jeuno. This is always the case, more item in jeuno. Everything become so cheap now, Vermillion cloak only 900k (oppose the 4 million) and Scorpian harasses are 300k (7 million before). May item has become alot cheaper and some more expensive.
As a returning player since 4 years ago, releveling a new account is easy for me, i got 4 level 30 already within a month and half since return. (i was leveling the main job's sub).
Anyway restarting is not bad, since you get to see and relearn alot things. Might even learn things you never knew. Just pick a more popular server like Asura or Raganrok and you will be fine.
none
THANK YOU for pointing this out.
I just started FFXI this past week, and this information changes the way I see the game drastically...
SOE has spoiled me... at one point I had 6 active EQ accounts... then let 4 of them lapse off and on... my best friend took 2 of them so I no longer had to pay for them, he played them more than I did most nights anyway... one sat idle for 3 years... but when reactivated it was 100% intact. I kind of assumed most companies handled higher level characters this way at least.
I am not overly enamored with FFXI as it is, but thought it a decent game I could play off and on in between other ventures.
I am most assuredly 100% finished with it now, as it is not worth the investment if my absence later will get my work undone.
Good post! Thank you for the information! You may well have saved me much ill feelings later!
However, there's a whole lot of depiction as SE being this evil, dastardly entity who - from the tone apparent in some posts - hates all its subscribers.
For one thing, I'm thinking the OP's situation is a rarity, a unique situation or perhaps they got a CSR who didn't know what they were talking about. As another person commented in this thread - they got their toons back over a year after they cancelled the IDs. So apparently it is possible.
Second, they have the Return To Vana'diel promotion from time to time, where old players are able to restore their accounts - no matter how long it's been since you cancelled. People have taken advantage of this. So this, too, points to the OPs situation being an anomaly.. and not the norm.
That said...
It's no secret that SE has *always* stated that if an account is cancelled for more than 3 months (and later longer) that there's a chance it would be deleted. They have said this since day 1. This should not be news nor surprise to anyone who's ever subbed to FFXI and paid attention. So, when I see people get all up in arms over how much of a travesty it is, as though they were blind-sided, it just amazes me.
Is it a questionable policy? Sure. But it's a well-known one, too; and it's not exclusive to FFXI - other MMOs have a similar policy.. If you cancel your account, your character may not be there when you come back. Expectations have been set from the time someone cancels their content ID, and it's stated in the ToA. Unless people didn't take time to read it (their problem, not SE's), there should be no surprise or cries of outrage if/when it happens.
...
Besides all that, it looks like some are taking this thread as an opportunity to go off topic and bash on the game in general... In one particular case, it's obvious the poster hasn't played recently, or is just trying to spread misinformation. About the economy being screwed up... Wrong. It's *way* better now than it's been in a long time. SE's been cracking down - big time - on RMT in FFXI, cancelling thousands of accounts a month and ridding the economy of as much as 10s of billions of gil each round.
The results speak for themselves...
Here's a few links to highly sought items that used to cost in the millions when the economy was at its worst.
http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=12579&sid=21
http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=13014&sid=21
http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=12486&sid=21
I know the emperor hairpin alone was going for around 20 mil when things were at their worst. It's barely scratching 1 million right now.
Economy screwed? Not in several months it hasn't been.
A friend of mine just started the game from scratch, brand-new player.. He's doing just fine.. getting all the spells he needs, all the gear he needs... He's not having any trouble from the economy at all.
If you're going to go off-topic and try bashing the game - at least verify and make sure what you're saying is actually still true.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I canceled my FFXI account over 2 years ago when i started playing wow. I just recently came back and my 65 blm/30 whm was still their!!! o.O
It really doesn't SEEM like they will delete anything if the playonline account is left active, just login and the content ids are just sitting there waiting to be reactivated at a flick of a switch.
I know some people get confused with the whole cancellation thing (I know I was when I first quit) and didn't realize that the playonline account doesn't need to be cancelled though there is an option to do that. You're able to login and send messages and pol emails and stuff for free as long as you keep the client installed. I don't think they just randomly get up and delete that unless it was deactivated in the first place.
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How many times do you hear about people bitching about getting a ticket for speeding - when they know themselves they were, in fact, going over the speed limit? A very narcissistic ex-friend of mine used to say "Don't they have a job to do? Why do they have to give me a hard time?", after he'd gotten a ticket for speeding, or running a stop sign, etc. He decided one day he simply didn't feel like going to work because a new game had come out. Didn't call in sick. Didn't take a personal day. Nothing. Just didn't show up. They fired him. He felt it was unfair and a great personal outrage that they "did that to him".
You can tell some people verbally, give it to them in writing, light it up in bright neon and drill it into their brain that they may lose their character due to extended inactivity... They'll say "Ok"... and then still act all outraged and surprised when it happens.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
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It's *not* the norm. It's not as though SE has people whose sole purpose is to delete accounts after x-amount of time.
I've been playing, or otherwise following, FFXI since it came out in the US around 4 years ago... I can count on one hand the times I've heard of people actually losing an account due to inactivity - and in some of those cases, the player had cancelled their entire account.. or deleted the character, etc...
It's not the norm.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It's *not* the norm. It's not as though SE has people whose sole purpose is to delete accounts after x-amount of time.
I've been playing, or otherwise following, FFXI since it came out in the US around 4 years ago... I can count on one hand the times I've heard of people actually losing an account due to inactivity - and in some of those cases, the player had cancelled their entire account.. or deleted the character, etc...
It's not the norm.
WSIM, I did read all the posts. I saw some saying it happened to them, some saying it didn't happen, and a cute little speech about personal accountability. That says to me, "There's a 50/50 chance it's going to happen, and if it does, it's your own damn fault." It didn't take me long to find the official policy on their website which says - pretty clearly - that inactive accounts will be void after three months.
It sounds to me like account deletion is the norm and is according to policy, but they're just not very thorough in enforcing that policy. I'd rather not take my chances.
I really want to try the game, and was hoping somebody would tell me this was all just a dirty lie, but it's right there in black and white on their policies page. If I play the game, I have to accept that cancelling my account means cancelling it for good.
It's *not* the norm. It's not as though SE has people whose sole purpose is to delete accounts after x-amount of time.
I've been playing, or otherwise following, FFXI since it came out in the US around 4 years ago... I can count on one hand the times I've heard of people actually losing an account due to inactivity - and in some of those cases, the player had cancelled their entire account.. or deleted the character, etc...
It's not the norm.
WSIM, I did read all the posts. I saw some saying it happened to them, some saying it didn't happen, and a cute little speech about personal accountability. That says to me, "There's a 50/50 chance it's going to happen, and if it does, it's your own damn fault." It didn't take me long to find the official policy on their website which says - pretty clearly - that inactive accounts will be void after three months.
It sounds to me like account deletion is the norm and is according to policy, but they're just not very thorough in enforcing that policy. I'd rather not take my chances.
I really want to try the game, and was hoping somebody would tell me this was all just a dirty lie, but it's right there in black and white on their policies page. If I play the game, I have to accept that cancelling my account means cancelling it for good.
The "cute little speech about accountability" would have been by me - and it stands true. At least in your case the information is being used to make a pre-emptive decision not to play. I applied that "speech" to those who know about the policy, play the game anyway, and then find that their character has been deleted and then carry on as though some great injustice had happened to them.
Now.. that said. You can and will likely find that same clause - or something like it - in the ToS of any MMO. It's a sort of "CYA" clause for the company so that if your toon is lost for some reason while the account is inactive, they're covered. So if that chance is something that would prevent you from playing, you might be better off not playing a MMO.
That said - in all the time I've played the game - 4 years now - and the *many* people I have known who have left the game and came back more than 3 months later, I could count on one hand those who lost a character. Two people I know came back over 2 years later and found their toons still waiting for them. And in some of those cases, it was because they deleted the character altogether.
Further, Square offers a "Return to Vana'diel" campaign from time to time where you can bring back a character that has been inactive for any given amount of time with a simple phone call. How could they offer that kind of thing if the toons are deleted?
It's a low enough risk that I don't even think it's worth worrying about.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Sure some of you are getting on my case saying that's what I get for taking a break however as I stated before I've never had this issue come up in any other MMO (with the exception of Diablo 2) It would have been nice if I got a warning e-mail saying something like "your account is about to be deleted" Just some warning would be nice.
I'm not on here to argue with you guys that disagreed with what I said, I'm just trying to help someone that may have run into, or will run into this problem.
Sure some of you are getting on my case saying that's what I get for taking a break however as I stated before I've never had this issue come up in any other MMO (with the exception of Diablo 2) It would have been nice if I got a warning e-mail saying something like "your account is about to be deleted" Just some warning would be nice.
I'm not on here to argue with you guys that disagreed with what I said, I'm just trying to help someone that may have run into, or will run into this problem.
...
Okay, so just to make sure I have this clear...
You cancelled the entire PlayOnline account altogether? Not just the content IDs?
If that's the case, then that's what happened and, frankly, I don't know why you did so. It's not the PlayOnline ID or service that you're paying for. That's free. It's the individual Content ID(s) - which house your character(s) - that you pay for. This is clearly indicated when you purchase your first Content ID - it says you will be billed $12.99 per month (their subscription fee) for that Content ID. Any additional Content ID is another $1 per month. It says this every time you reactivate the Content ID. For me, even from my first character, it was obvious I had to cancel the content ID(s).. not the entire PoL account... when I wanted to take a break.
Also,
I understand you're feeling "burned" by SE and are now going to "punish" them by trying to warn as many people as you can to try and get them to not play or whatever.. but you must realize what you're talking about is *not* as rampant as you make it out to be. Common sense here.. Do you think SE would have kept that policy intact for just over 5 years now if their phones were ringing off the hook with *that* many calls about people losing their accounts? I'd think not. I imagine they'd have reconsidered it by now. They're certainly not in business to *lose* money.
Again, I'm not "blaming" you for having lost your account... However, you're painting a picture that is not typical. Most people do not lose their characters - even after 2 years of inactivity in at least 2 cases I personally cited above - because they only cancelled their Content IDs - not the entire account. SE has an occasional "Return to Vana'diel" campaign where you can re-up your character - even after over a year of inactivity - assuming your entire account wasn't cancelled (as you did). I know people who have taken advantage of this - over 1 year after they cancelled their IDs. They couldn't do this if players accounts were erased permanently after a year of their Content IDs being inactive.
So again.. while it does suck that it happened to you and I sympathize with you for that... I do also think you are painting an unfair and, frankly, unwarranted and spiteful picture of SE cancelling accounts by the droves. It simply doesn't happen that way... at all.
I'd say your post serves better as an education to people considering, or starting the game to understand that their Content IDs are what they are charged for, and that's all they have to cancel if they want to take a break from the game for any amount of time. You can still use the PoL service for email or whatever, free of charge, even if your Content IDs are cancelled and they're not getting a penny from you.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops