Manabyte can't read: GAF unimpressed

M

ManaByte

Banned
Oh boy...

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/index.html

Part I of "Return Home to Vana'diel" is a special campaign just for players who have already unsubscribed from PlayOnline. For a limited time, we're issuing these players registration codes free of charge to allow them to come back to PlayOnline, play FINAL FANTASY XI, and even recover and play their old characters from before!

Who is eligible?
“Return Home to Vana’diel Part I” applies to players who have already unsubscribed from PlayOnline and can’t return because their registered information has been deleted. For players who have deleted FINAL FANTASY XI characters but have not unsubscribed from PlayOnline, we’re planning “Return Home to Vana’diel Part II” in early June. More details and information on how to participate will be announced at a later date, so please wait until then.

*The following players are not eligible to participate:
-Players who have unsubscribed from PlayOnline but have never purchased a FINAL FANTASY XI Content ID.
-Players who have been banned from PlayOnline due to violations of the PlayOnline Member Agreement, FINAL FANTASY XI User Agreement, or FINAL FANTASY XI Software License Agreement.
-Players whose characters can be recovered by the PlayOnline Information Center. (Please see the related news item for details.)
-Players who have not unsubscribed from PlayOnline.
Click to expand...

Edit: Fixed title.

Plus, this is cool:

*Recovered characters are free of charge for 30 days from the day of reactivation. After the first 30 days, a $12.95 monthly fee will be charged for the first recovered character and $1.00/month for each additional character.
Click to expand...
 
*The following players are not eligible to participate:


Ermmm read this again.

Ok you already did.... Sorry. ^^
 
Fixed the title.

Plus, noticed this (which IS cool):
*Recovered characters are free of charge for 30 days from the day of reactivation. After the first 30 days, a $12.95 monthly fee will be charged for the first recovered character and $1.00/month for each additional character.
Click to expand...
 
Mrbob said:
Must be losing a ton of subscribers to WoW!
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What? That's not it at all.

There has been a flaw in their Content ID system for awhile now, which had some player's serials invalidate after their IDs were cancelled for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, Square Enix didn't keep a record of the serials, so these people couldn't play without acquiring new ones (ie: buying a new copy of the game).

This is just their way of fixing that: offering new serials to players who have at one point had a FFXI Content ID, as well as another free month of play.

Has nothing to do with the competition, it's just something they've been getting a lot of complaints about (and for good reason), and they've finally found a good fix for it. :)
CVXFREAK said:
Banned players no longer had to pay, correct?
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Can a mod fix the topic? Don't need multiple pages of people responding to misinformation. :P
 
Scott said:
What? That's not it at all.

There has been a flaw in their Content ID system for awhile now, which had some player's serials invalidate after their IDs were cancelled for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, Square Enix didn't keep a record of the serials, so these people couldn't play without acquiring new ones (ie: buying a new copy of the game).

This is just their way of fixing that: offering new serials to players who have at one point had a FFXI Content ID, as well as another free month of play.
Click to expand...

BS. It was Square's policy to delete your ID 90 days after cancelling. The only reason they're doing this now is they started getting negative press about it and they're trying to save face.

It still is the policy, it wasn't a flaw, and if you delete your PlayOnline account after this offer you'll still be screwed and still need to buy a new copy of the game.
 
ManaByte said:
BS. It was Square's policy to delete your ID 90 days after cancelling. The only reason they're doing this now is they started getting negative press about it and they're trying to save face.
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Whoa whoa, you're mixed up. Yes, it is their policy to delete your ID 90 days after cancelling. However, it is not their policy to invalidate your serials. You do know these are two totally different things, right?

Either way, I did talk to a customer service rep in February about this (as I was nearing the 3 month cutoff for my ID, and was a bit worried about it), and he was referring to it as a 'flaw' and mentioned that "I'm sorry, but there is no way we can recover the Registration Codes if they become invalidated." He never once made it seem like 'policy' and in fact was pretty apologetic about it all.

Also, it should be pointed out that some people have been able to return well after their Content IDs have been wiped, including one or two from GAF (IIRC). If it were "policy" then nobody would be able to return and play again, but some have been able to.

As for "bad press"? Where? Only mention of this I've ever seen is some complaints on message boards, and never once saw it hit the "press." If you've got some links, I'd like to see them.
ManaByte said:
It still is the policy, it wasn't a flaw, and if you delete your PlayOnline account after this offer you'll still be screwed and still need to buy a new copy of the game.
Click to expand...
Sure, they're making it sound like a Limited Time thing, ...but that's a marketing scheme. They want people to rush back to the game "while they still can," and are probably hoping for a subscriber base increase.

As for "after this offer," I wouldn't be surprised if they end up doing this regularly, or even make it a permanent thing. Though, I bet they'll eventually drop the free month portion from the offer. :P
 
Scott said:
As for "bad press"? Where? Only mention of this I've ever seen is some complaints on message boards, and never once saw it hit the "press." If you've got some links, I'd like to see them.Sure, they're making it sound like a Limited Time thing, ...but that's a marketing scheme. They want people to rush back to the game "while they still can," and are probably hoping for a subscriber base increase.
Click to expand...

X-Play made a big deal about it in their CoP review.
 
When I got back into the game a month ago, after a nearly five month long hiatus, I ran into a nice surprise. My characters were still there, fully intact, I haven't a clue why really, as they should have been deleted by the 1st of February, I talked to customer service rep about it the day before I reactivated my content IDs, they only said that my characters were unavailable, so I really didn't know if they had been gone or not.

Pretty weird regardless though, but I'm just curious as to if that has happened to anyone else? It doesn't seem like character purges occur automatically, but within certain periods. I was going to assume it'd happen right after the last major update, but it didn't happen then either. So I don't really know how it works, maybe I just got lucky.

EDIT: I also must say this is the best time to get back into the game! I mean, you'll have a chance to make it big in the Easter Egg scam extravaganza! :lol
 
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