Your character data may be damaged.

[Rothy]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

When you mean use the "web service to contact tech support" are you talking about the live web chat on PlayOnline's support website? If you could tell us exactly what that is it would be nice. Also, how exactly was your character stuck? Our characters are stuck zoning between zones, they are in limbo between two areas, but you said yours was just stuck in Xarcabard. Do you mean that it could not get out of Xarc for whatever strange reason, or it also got stuck while zoning?

Yeah, the web chat. I got an error message roughly the same to what people are getting now. I didn't get stuck in a zoneline I got caught inside a zone but was unable to access my character.

[Kotomo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

I asked a GM the exact same thing back when my character was stuck in Xarcabard. They said they couldn't move it and told me to use the web service to contact tech support. I spoke to them and they asked me to wait 10 minutes before attempting to log on. When I did I was back in Jeuno able to freely walk around on my frozen character.

When you mean use the "web service to contact tech support" are you talking about the live web chat on PlayOnline's support website? If you could tell us exactly what that is it would be nice. Also, how exactly was your character stuck? Our characters are stuck zoning between zones, they are in limbo between two areas, but you said yours was just stuck in Xarcabard. Do you mean that it could not get out of Xarc for whatever strange reason, or it also got stuck while zoning?

[Rothy]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

I asked if they could move my char, said i had to be logged in.

I asked a GM the exact same thing back when my character was stuck in Xarcabard. They said they couldn't move it and told me to use the web service to contact tech support. I spoke to them and they asked me to wait 10 minutes before attempting to log on. When I did I was back in Jeuno able to freely walk around on my frozen character.

[Kotomo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Well, in hopes that it might do something, I submitted complaints to both Better Business Bureau and eConsumer.gov It can't hurt, the least that will happen is that the complaints will be ignored and never resolved, much to my dismay, but it's better than getting serious with any legal action. eConsumer.gov is best used for international complaints, and I basically submitted the same thing and gave them SE's headquarters in Japan.

(Ok, I can't post links because my post count is not up to 10, BS. Anyway, just Google for bbb.org econsumer.gov and Square Enix locations to get the street addresses and phone numbers of each of their headquarters)

If more of us file complaints then that's a better chance of the problem getting noticed. I'll even include the text I used for BBB's complaint form. For eComerce I just put it all at the bottom for Optional Information. MMORPG's are not exactly something that fall under the category of consumer goods, but this is still worth a shot, and real easy to do.

Here's what I wrote for the problem I was having:

When I try to log into one of my characters of the online game Final Fantasy XI I receive the error code: "FFXI-3202 Your character data may be damaged. Please contact PlayOnline Support services." This happened when I went to change to a different area in the game on said character and the "Downloading Data" screen that normally comes up began to hang and I eventually got disconnected. When trying to log back into that character I got the above error message. This happened around midnight on April 12th. The next day I called PlayOnline support services to report the problem and the only thing any customer service representative can do is send a report the developers of the game to get my problem fixed. They unfortunately cannot give me any estimated time on when my character will be restored. A similar service exists called Game Data Restoration for characters that have been accessed by an unauthorized third party, i.e. those characters have been hacked and the users need them restored to a previous state. That has an estimated time of 1-2 weeks for completion. I am concerned because there are a handful of other players of Final Fantasy XI that have the exact same problem that I am having, one of which, happened in the end of March and their character has still not been restored to a point where the player can log in that character. This worries me because it does not feel as if there is any set policy or actual solution to the problem I am having.

And here's what I wrote for what I want SE to do about it:

I would of course like Square Enix to restore my character in Final Fantasy XI to a working state to where I can log the character in, in a timely manner or at the very least, come up with an estimated time. It would be wonderful if Square Enix could also give me a better idea as to why it takes as long as it does to restore my character to a working state.

Copy and paste if you would like, I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot. I would figure it works the same way as letters to your senator or governor made out by various groups for certain things they want those political officials to take action on.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

There is NO WAY IN HELL that I'm paying $50 for something SE NEEDS to fix for free. {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.} I've been paying them to play for nearly 7 years now. They've gotten MORE than their fair share out of me with extra accounts, mules, expansions, and now a token. It's time for them to show ME some respect for being a faithful customer.

[Kotomo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Hell, that might work. I have absolutely NO IDEA, of course. Thing is, you'd be in essence spending $50 and waiting 3 months for something that SE should be able to fix in a timely fashion.

Though if you are willing to try it, and it actually works, I may be tempted myself.

[Marylyn]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Any of you think a server transfer may fix the prob? >_>

[Kotomo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Lol, that's really ironic. xD

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Ok, so I was watching the latest episode of "Better Off Ted" and this was a converstion that was in the show. I nearly choked to death eating jelly bellys when it saw it. It reminded me so much of SE. LOL

Veronica: I spoke to them. They said it's just a computer glitch. And since they back up the system every week the easiest way to get you restored is just reboot.

Ted: Good. So when do they do that?

Veronica: Never.

Ted: But...

Veronica: That's the easiest way but rebooting would shut down Veridian's entire world wide operations and that means money which the company never parts with....unless...forced to by governments stronger than they are and theres only three of those left.

[Marylyn]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

There was a maintenance today but i don't think servers were reset. Still can't get on ;(

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

My friend, who is an attorney, submitted letters to the JP main office on their official letterhead. I doubt it will do any good though. And yes, the letters were written in Japenese. LOL

I call every Monday or Tuesday and every Thursday or Friday so I can't understand how my issue was not submitted. I think the tech was just telling me that to shut me up. I told him that too and he just ignored me. I called today and was told that yes my issue has been reported, yes its been reported to the correct department, and NO they do not give out reference numbers to anyone so I could not have one, and, yet again, someone will be calling me within a week. (Ya....riiiiiiiiight....)

[Elwynn]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Mmmmmm TGM why dont you send them letters or someting.. this is ridiculous....... there is some you can do

Because there's nobody you can send them to who can do anything about this who doesn't have "cho-me" in their address? (In which case the response would be "lolgaijin")

[Durahansolo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Mmmmmm TGM why dont you send them letters or someting.. this is ridiculous....... there is some you can do

You could....But....Playonline is just gonna laugh at it and then toss it...Since we agree to TOS to play the game and we technically have no ownership of our characters, they don't have to do anything.

Once again, this^^

You could do try, but I think the phone calls are about as good of a response anyone is gonna get. Incredible fail on SE and POL's part.

[Darkhound]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Mmmmmm TGM why dont you send them letters or someting.. this is ridiculous....... there is some you can do

[Kotomo]

Re: Your character data may be damaged.

Damn, I must be getting lucky. When I first called I had about a 45min wait, when I called earlier today it was about 30min wait. That and the two different people I talked to knew what the error code was and was aware of it, but of course can do nothing about it themselves.

There needs to be a fail safe put into place, either something automatic, or something a PlayOnline representative can fix for you over the phone.

(I really like computers, I work at a comptuer repair shop and I know what I'm doing when it comes to building and setting up machines. I am also in college for Computer Networking Security. Despite all of this I am by no means an expert on how MMORPG servers are actually set up or even what the best configuration is. I am merely guessing based on how it seems the game is set up to run. Nor am I good at programming).

Here's how I "think" the server structure is set up for FFXI. Eash zone is a different server, either a virtual box or physical machine in a rack, does not really matter. When you first log in and go the title screen you are connecting to a Lobby server, a server seperate from all the areas. Then when you pick your character, the lobby server takes the last area you were logged in at that it remembers from when you logged out(lets say Whitegate) and looks for your character on the Whitegate server. If the Whitegate server also has the same record from when you logged out, then all is good and it loads your character. When you zone, the Whitegate server removes it's record of your character being logged in on that point and reports to the lobby server that your character is moving to so-and-so next area. The lobby server then sets you up at the proper spawn point and everything is hunky dorry. If, for whatever reason, this SYNchronize and ACKnowledge transimission gets interupted, then lobby server remembers your character still logged in on the Whitegate server while the Whitegate server says your character is not. Simply put, the lobby server that talks to the client software on your computer, does not know where your character is and therefore can't log it in.

For a fail safe I feel there should be something you can do automatically or to call in and have it done. When you get the error message: FFXI-3202, you should be able to select an option that might sound like this: "Search for last known record of your character?" And then Mr. Lobby server should be able to see a backup of your character being logged in before you went and zoned into oblivion. This of course probably has huge security risks involved and other problems that may arise from it. Fo calling in, a representative, they should have the power to do somewhat of a simple roll back. They of course must ask for your credentials for security reasons and then have somewhat of an automatic "reset button" that rolls your character back by a few minutes. I could see problems with that where people might want to roll it back further because they might have dropped something, or want more gil back or something to undermine the system of the game. Of course an idea to prevent that would be that a representative is only allowed to do it if the account is reporting that a character is in limbo. For example, your character gets stuck between zones, a representative brings up your account and finds that one of the characters is stuck because the servers are reporting that they cannot find the character.

What I am calling for is a simple, secure, and faster fix. If it takes a week, that's fine. That's how long it takes to recover a hacked character, I feel a character in limbo could take the same time if not shorter. KNOWING an estimated time is FAR BETTER than not knowing anything at all.