Black Screen

[Zerich]

SE doesn't care about blackscreen people.

[Sarick]

They are aware f the problem but would rather respond with inane solutions then fix it. Only way around this is get a PC. If this problem started affecting PC users then they'd care but since it's PS2/PS3 they've unofficially given the PS users the big flip off.


Dear SE, if you don't want to support PS2/PS3 get it off the supported platforms! This is falsely advertising compatibility. Your community team and programmers know this is a 100% confirmed issue with PS2/PS3 conversion incompatibilities.

[Darwena]

A friend of mine who play on PS2 have the same problem. He stuck on a quest since he got the black screen, he tell us he got the black screen and need to reboot. they are some CS he can't just watch and been stuck on those quest for years. He try everyday he play, before logout,to click on the broke CS and still stuck on it.

Another friend have similar problem on his PS2. Some CS took hours to run or simply got the black screen with chat log.

I'm not a PS2 user and play on XBOX, but I agree, FFXI isn't a PC only game. If I had a good PC to run game, trust me, I won't playing this "JP onry with the worst customer service for NA" on a PC and will be more on real MMO for PC.

[Drakhon]

I've been only playing this on PS2 and only started getting this problem in 2010 when I moved to the country and started using wireless internet but since then on most quests dealing with ToA and WotG I get black screen. Couldn't finish the pup cs after final boss fight for lv 60 head piece because of this, couldn't start sch af quest until I did a bastok mission quest. This unlocked the problem with the npc for sch so I could start AF but the cs for that mission then locked up. I have the same problem for Sandy and Windy mission quests so my mission progression stopped, only thing I was never able to finish. Even minor quests would lock up. I was waiting for this PS2 memory expansion to take place that SE promised in December, figuring the extra memory would unlock these problems but SE and Sony have yet to implement this. One of the main reasons I have quit the game. Will be officially gone tomorrow.

[Arkitan]

Ok, Ill add and edit this post to state what missions/quests give a blank screen for them as I go through them myself.
This is ones for PS2.

1: NPC: Kerutoto, Quest: Waking Dreams, Blank screen happens after first cutscene of quest. Currently, it wont let me get Windurst nation mission cutscene I need to progress as Kerutoto is the NPC needed.

Will edit more once I find more.

[Dsherman]

Based on recent announcements regarding the new expansion announced at VanaFest posted elsewhere in these forums, I have come to the conclusion that the problems with crashes of the PS2 client on a number of NPC Conversations and Cutscenes will never be fixed.

They are not going to create an expansion install disc for the North American PS2 version. I suspect it is for economic reasons. There are too few players in North America that still depend on the NA PS2 version for access to FFXI for it to be worth creating and distributing that expansion installation disc.

I also tend to believe that it is for the same economic reasons that they do not want to put time into fixing these crash problems for the North American PS2 version.

I suspect the problems are caused because of issues that Square-Enix and both Square and Enix before that have had for many years in porting things to North America. The amount of text data needed to convey something in English is much longer than the amount of text data needed to convey it in Japanese. There have been many games in the past where something has had to be cut out of the game as it was done in Japan to make room for the added length of English text.

My suspicion in the case of FFXI is that the longer English text has in some cases exceeded some memory boundary in the PS2, which causes the game to crash when that English text is loaded. And no one at SE caught the error when it was made. And now they probably don't want to put time or money into finding the problem and fixing it.

The Japanese version is likely not having this issue, or they would be fixing it.

They are not blocking use of the NA PS2 version at all.... they just aren't going to do much effort to support anything specific to the NA PS2 version any more to fix it. You can still log in, but if it crashes, too bad.

[BST]

Based on recent announcements regarding the new expansion announced at VanaFest posted elsewhere in these forums, I have come to the conclusion that the problems with crashes of the PS2 client on a number of NPC Conversations and Cutscenes will never be fixed.

They are not going to create an expansion install disc for the North American PS2 version. I suspect it is for economic reasons. There are too few players in North America that still depend on the NA PS2 version for access to FFXI for it to be worth creating and distributing that expansion installation disc.

I also tend to believe that it is for the same economic reasons that they do not want to put time into fixing these crash problems for the North American PS2 version.

I suspect the problems are caused because of issues that Square-Enix and both Square and Enix before that have had for many years in porting things to North America. The amount of text data needed to convey something in English is much longer than the amount of text data needed to convey it in Japanese. There have been many games in the past where something has had to be cut out of the game as it was done in Japan to make room for the added length of English text.

My suspicion in the case of FFXI is that the longer English text has in some cases exceeded some memory boundary in the PS2, which causes the game to crash when that English text is loaded. And no one at SE caught the error when it was made. And now they probably don't want to put time or money into finding the problem and fixing it.

The Japanese version is likely not having this issue, or they would be fixing it.

They are not blocking use of the NA PS2 version at all.... they just aren't going to do much effort to support anything specific to the NA PS2 version any more to fix it. You can still log in, but if it crashes, too bad.

The unresponsive NPC issue is a major problem for all region PS2 owners from what i have read, and from my own experience it may not happen on some of your characters, but will do on others. For example, my main character cannot talk to Bastok chocobo renters, yet my mule can talk and rent a choco with no problems. A simple way to see this in action is: load PS2, make a new character, select bastok, go to bastok-mines and talk to every npc in the zone. You can talk to all npcs fine, all but 1 npc - Echo Hawk. Echo Hawk seems to freeze 100%. After you freeze on hawk try taking the Zinc ore quest from Parraggoh in the same zone.. after trading the ore to complete it Parraggoh will freeze, reload and talk and its ok.. but now more npcs will start to freeze on you! (Stay away from the steaming sheep in port, just about all npcs outside it will freeze you). I do file check, finds nothing, i have reinstalled many times, i have tried this with router/modem/wireless and nothing fixes it, port setting doesn't do no good either. Square know this is an issue but cannot fix it, it seems.
I use my xbox360 more now, so i guess since that new expansion wont come to PS2 i am done playing on it.