You can't go home again (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

Seems my characters are gone. During the character restore process, it found Thistle, but said his highest job/level was warrior/1. Which, of course, isn't right. Knowing there was already a Thistle on the new server, I figured maybe it was just messed up by the duplicate name.

Installed, many hours of download, tried to log in. Unsurprisingly it told me the name was taken and I had to enter a new one. Did. It plopped me into a level 1 character with a red newbie ? next to my name.

I'm not sure if I did something wrong, but I don't think so. I followed the steps on the website. Unless there was a delay before I should have tried to log in (longer than the ~7 hours it took for all the downloading), but at the end of the process I had gotten a "Your character is restored!" message, so...

I tried to send an email to support, but FFXI support makes Twitter look verbose. You get 40 characters to describe your issue. The way the site is set up, it looks like you're just setting a subject line:

Please enter a brief explanation of the inquiry.
Example: Teach me how the controls work

But nope, that's the whole field, you never get a second one for a longer description. 40 characters...

I may call tomorrow or try their live online chat, but I suspect the character is just gone. It's probably for the best, I should just let it go.

It's depressing, but if this closes the door for good, then maybe I can just let it go.

Comments

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

"Account restored, characters not."

33 characters! You could put like, a smiley in there!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs* That's better than what I came up with!

[kaelash.livejournal.com]

Hrm. See, I didn't touch the website at -all-. All I did was call them and say hey, here's my POL ID, can I get it restored and they said my characters were all there. Restoring was for -deleted- characters, which they apparently were not, even though my account was inactive for almost 2 years.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hm, well that would explain why the characters look to be there. Too bad I couldn't see them before going though this. Oh well, maybe will look into it tomorrow!

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

That's kinda scary. Both of my accounts were officially closed at the beginning of March 2010. Now I'm thinking maybe I should reactivate Paks next month as a precaution. She can't be restored because I've had her restored once already.

I honestly get way too emotionally attached to my characters and I'd feel bad if anything ever happened to my FFXI or WoW characters.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It might just be something on my end! I can see Thistle and my mules on the login screen, and Thistle has 75 bard listed, so I'd think they might really still be there... Suppose I might call them after work and see if I can get it straightened out.

[fealubryne.livejournal.com]

I honestly get way too emotionally attached to my characters and I'd feel bad if anything ever happened to my FFXI or WoW characters.

I'm the exact same way. Even though I know I'll never play them again, I cannot bring myself to delete the very first characters I made in WoW. And I've gone back to other MMOs I've played, see the old characters, and get all sappy and nostalgic. I'm such a sad person...

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

I didn't have as much of a problem deleting and remaking characters when I played my first MMO, Ultima Online. I don't know why. FFXI, I just got attached. I had similar issues with WoW, couple people scolding me just after Cataclysm came out for playing an old race/class combo that I had alreazdy made instead of a new one (Was playing a night elf hunter that was level 15ish to start.).

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

I always thought FFXI's account/char restore policy was asinine. It's not like they can't spare the storage space.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

At least they finally took off the extra $15 to get your character back! $14 for the first month and $15 just to get the character restored would have been annoying.

Dealing with the support email killed much of my desire to come back. 40 characters to sum up your problem. Seriously? Seriously?

Plus, after the seven hour download last night, I got a message that none of my expansion packs are registered, so I suppose there will be more downloading to do. (Assuming I even remember how to register them.)

All this is quickly becoming more of a bother than it's worth.

[kaelash.livejournal.com]

Do NOT email them, telling you that right now. Very much BAD service. Calling is a million billion times better.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I emailed them last night, but the reply back was the same: Call!

I'll probably do it when I get home from work tonight. Luckily I work early hours, since they close at 5 PST. c.c