Game post: Final Fantasy XIV--adventures in purchasing and installing
Thursday was the first day Final Fantasy XIV was available to the public. Today was the first day kaligreeneyes AKA Lady Kali and I were able to get out together to buy a copy. The first place we went to was the Game Stop by the Whole Foods in Ann Arbor. They were completely sold out. The clerk did tell us there was at least one copy of the collector's edition at the Royal Oak store. It turned out there was just one.
After parking in front of the Salvation Army store in Royal Oak, then browsing through the store (the store is smaller than the one in Ann Arbor, but it seemed to have a more pleasant atmosphere and better merchanise, if about half as much of it), Lady Kali and I went to the Caribou Coffee on Main Street. She then sent me to the Game Stop across the street. I asked if they had any of the Collector's edition. The clerk pointed to the box high on the wall behind the cash register and said, "Just that one." "Good," I replied, "you're now all sold out of it." With that, I purchased the box set and walked out of the store. When Lady Kali saw the bag, she gave me a big thumbs up. We then went home to install the game.
Lady Kali had very little trouble, although her install took a while--more than an hour. During that time, we went upstairs from the Root Cellar to cook dinner and eat it in front of the TV. When we were done, we went downstairs. She logged into the game, where she was greeted with another half hour of updates, at least one of which dated from the day after beta testing ceased. Then, she finally started playing.
The good news was that she was able to retrieve and use her favorite character from beta testing, a catgirl named Berry Crystal. The bad news is that she had to start the character all over again from first level. All that gil and hours lost!
Then, I tried to load the game. It was an utter and complete failure. Three times I tried and three times the install crashed. I'd get 60% through and then read the following error message:
Feature: New Feature
Component: New Component 2
File: Data2
Error: Data error (cyclic redundancy check)
I looked up the error and it results either from the CD drive being unable to read the second layer of data on the disk or from the disk being scratched. I tried updating the driver with the latest firmware, which should have fixed the inability to read the second layer of data, but the system kept saying that I had the best software for the driver and would not update it. That was frustrating.
Lady Kali and I looked at the disk, and it seemed that this brand new CD already had a fine scratch on it. I guess it's time to get a new disk.
BTW, this is the third time I've tried to join Lady Kali on Final Fantasy online. The first time, she tried to add me to her Final Fantasy XI account. No dice. The second time, I bought a new FFXI game disk, but was unable to get an account because none of my credit cards were on the approved list for the game. This was odd because Lady Kali was using one of those same cards, but was grandfathered in. *grumbles*
As you can see from the music, she's playing right now. I wish I could join her.
I'll keep you all updated on my attempts to join my wife in her online gaming.