Some of you are no doubt aware that FFXI has a policy of deleting characters on cancelled accounts. I had heard the same, but took it with a grain of salt considering my experince with Everquest and other games. I will start off by saying that it isn't just a bluff... they waste no time killing off inactive characters.

I really should've known better, I suppose, but I just can't resist revisiting old characters again now and then. With the news of an upcoming expansion, far too much time till the next batch of new stuff, and my flagging interest in the current crop, I figured I'd give it a shot. Familiarizing myself again with the 'quirky' Playonline interface, the reactivation process led me to believe (or perhaps I led myself) that my account could be reactivated without a problem. The problem lies in the fact that Account and Content ID are separate things in this game. The Content ID, being the thing that actually contains the characters, had been blown away less than a month ago... apparently they have a 90 day deletion policy, and I had been gone between 3/4 months ago. I was able to get contact with support fairly quickly, but they were unable to do anything to get my characters back, or refund the month's fee for an account I will not be using.

Yeah, people have gotten back into games after worse problems... hacked accounts in EQ and all. Even considering how long it takes to advance in FFXI, it's not so much the loss of the account that bothers me. It's more the certainty that even if I do start over and get back to the same point, I'll have to play the game continuously or pay them every three months if I don't want this new character gone as well. It also irks me that there's no notification of the policy or the status of your characters before paying for another month's service.

Long story short, if you've been thinking of revisiting FFXI, make darn sure it's been less than three months. Square-Enix apparently values their server space more than repeat customers, and they have no problem taking payment for a month of unused service (though I admit other games are the same on the latter count). Better yet, consider whether it's worth putting effort into a game with so much potential for wasted effort (more than the norm in MMORPG's that is). I know I'm through giving them any money, expansion or no.

That is truely the worst service I have ever heard of in a video game.

Yeah, they actually got back to me on my requests for info pretty quick... can't fault 'em for that, but I got the usual "can't help you with that". I guess it might make sense for a game that was out in Japan for so long... over there it could be some kind of necessity for the sake of server space. Still, that ain't how things are done on this side o' the pond for the most part... they really should've changed that policy for the US release.

Anyway, it saves me any further concern about trying the game out again or buying the expansion. Now I'm poking around DAOC again... 14 day free "come back" trial, and they've made two of their 5ish expansions available for free. Nothing terribly new from what I've seen so far, but apparently they added more low level (pvp) battlegrounds and quite a few gimmies for boosting people up in level in a hurry, to get back into the action & all.