Trouble creating a character name on a laptop

I have a laptop.

If I type anything, I have no way to delete the characters and try again. Neither backspace, nor delete, or left arrow do anything.

It says press '+' to randomly generate a name. This does nothing. I've tried Fn + '+' and that also does nothing.

How can I delete characters? How can I randomly generate a name?

Hmm. It looks like I can delete now. I would still like to see generated names.

Greetings fellow adventurer,

We apologize for the inconvenience you are experiencing. Please provide the following information:

1) Which make/model laptop do you have?

2) Which OS do you have installed on it? Windows 10, 11? Mac? Please clarify.

3) Do you have any external peripherals connected to the device such as a keyboard or controller etc? Please clarify.

4) Note that generally a keyboard has 2 different + symbol locations. Please try using both keys.

5) Within the game menu, go into the Settings and try changing the keyboard layout to Full from Compact to see if that has any affect.

We look forward to your reply back.

Thank you for contacting the Final Fantasy XI Technical Support Forums.

1. I have an ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15.
2. I am using Windows 10.
3. I use a USB mouse (trackball)
4. My keyboard only has one + key, lacking the one that would normally be on a keypad.
5. I only use the compact layout as I have a laptop keyboard, without a keypad.

I tried setting the keyboard to full-size and this did not change anything, in the create character screen. I assume "settings" means config and Misc. 2.

Thank you for the follow-up cheyrn,

I do apologize for the ongoing issue you may have experienced. As previously mentioned, pressing '+' should generate a randomized name. Just to confirm, have you experienced the same issue in the past on the same laptop? Additionally, are you able to use another device or laptop? What troubleshooting have you attempted thus far? Have you attempted other key combinations for this specific laptop model?

Thank you for contacting the Final Fantasy XI Technical Support Forums!

To be clear, it's num-pad "+" , not "shift =" . If your laptop doesn't have a physical number pad usually there is one superimposed on the keyboard that you access by pressing an "Fn" key or similar.

Once you're in game, in the settings there is a keyboard configuration that's much more laptop friendly (I actually use it on desktop- the "laptop" configuration uses WASD for movement which is incredibly common in games today.)

You will need to use the + to access a number of secondary menus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thukoolo

Thank you for the follow-up cheyrn,

I do apologize for the ongoing issue you may have experienced. As previously mentioned, pressing '+' should generate a randomized name. Just to confirm, have you experienced the same issue in the past on the same laptop? Additionally, are you able to use another device or laptop? What troubleshooting have you attempted thus far? Have you attempted other key combinations for this specific laptop model?

Thank you for contacting the Final Fantasy XI Technical Support Forums!

---

I have not tried creating a new character on this laptop in the past.

I'm not able to use a windows desktop at this time. This email thread made me realize I could probably use a USB keyboard to have access to keypad +. Or, I can possibly use a game pad. So, I will keep that in mind. I have a few more characters I could create, so I might actually do this to see what the randomly generated names look like.

The troubleshooting steps I have tried so far are:

1. Press FN + Shift + =
2. Press FN + =
3. Press Ctrl+F then Shift + =
3. Press Alt+F then Shift + =
4. Press F then Shift + =
4. Press Ctrl + Shift + =
5. Press Alt + Shift + =
6. Randomly press key combinations (possibly missing many).
7. Go out of character creation screen. Login to the game. Logout. Try again.
8. Change layout in the game from Compact2 to Compact1. Logout. Go to character creation screen.
9. Change layout in the game from Compact1 to Full. Logout. Go to character creation screen.

Anyway, it's totally ok if this is just a limitation. Creating a character happens rarely. I would love to see if randomly generated names for a mithra are mithra-like names.

Well I can spare you some surprise on Galka names, they can be one of two things:
-semi-gibberish (true Galka names)
-AdjectiveNoun (Hume-given style)

Hopefully you resolved this issue, but if not, maybe try what I did when this happened to me-as I have a laptop that doesn't have the NUM pad as well.

What I found, was when I logged in and pressed "PLAY" and the game usually closes POL and the screen for FFXI pops up, the FFXI game when it starts up asks you to Agree before it lets you access the Menu for the game, it sometimes loses "focus" (the game client window), you might not notice this, but what happens if it does is, once you go to the Character creation screen and get to the enter name section, you will not be able to enter text into the name field or assign a randomly generated name as the keys you press A to Z and function-0 to 9 - and + do nothing.

I sat there for ten minutes trying to get it to work, but found only Esc or Enter would do anything, then I noticed the game window was not in focus so I pressed the Windows key and then was able to enter text and use auto-generate and continue on.

This issue with the game loading up in the background-and not focus as the main window still happens to me on Windows 11 rarely, as I use a gamepad and have the client settings for gamepad set to inactive when the game window is not the focus, I can tell straight away as when I go to press "Agree" nothing happens.

Seems to happen with laptops with Optimus.
Which is another issue with this game...

In your case at least, BST, it seems more like something in the background is grabbing focus but not really showing it, though I could only start guessing what it would be since I've not used Windows since 2010...

Good find in any case!