I think I made that post
As for me, there is a story i'd like to share.
I started playing around NA release and I loved it. I had a character who was a level 51 White Mage, Level 40 cooking, and all other jobs to at least 20. At the time, however, I wasn't really happy with the game. Stress from real life started to get to me and I was considering quitting.
Then one night, I'm out leveling (DRG/WHM I think) when my TV screen suddenly went black. I thought that was weird. I then noticed my PS2 wasn't on. It had died on me. Third one since 2000 that had done this to me. I figured now was as good a time as any to take that break.
Anyways, around September of 2004 I heard about FFXI being released for the Xbox 360 which I had pre-ordered but never got, thanks again, GameStop! So anyways, after I heard FFXI wasn't going to be a launch title I decided to get another PS2 and start playing again on that, to hold me over until the 360 version came out.
I called POL customer service, we got my router configured, I reinstalled FFXI on the HDD, downloaded all the updates. All of this started at 4:00 on a Thursday and ended around 11:30 that night so I couldn't play until after work on Friday /cry. So I get home on Friday, all excited to see my old character again. Well, there was a problem: I could see her but I got an error message when I would select her. Called POL customer service again and I got a very knowledgeable customer service agent who knew what the problem was because it had happened to him: My character's data was corrupted by the "Improper logout" when my PS2 died. So I deleted her from the Content ID she was tied to and recreated her, this time as Keavy (I hated the old character's name.)
Starting on that Friday with money from my mule I was able to get Keavy to level 20 as a Monk, 8 as a Warrior, get her subjobs, and do the Chocobo quest by Sunday night. After that there was no stopping me. I immediately started leveling Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage, Within a couple weeks I was unlocking advanced jobs, farming up a mint in gil, and I was so happy to be back.
As for when I will leave, probably when SE shuts down the servers.
