FFXI - Steam Overlay/Time Played Broken

[Vae]

Since there's no Final Fantasy XI forum here, I suppose I have to bring this up here.

Currently, the Steam Overlay (Shift+Tab) doesn't work for Final Fantasy XI at all. So when I get a message, I hear the ding in the background, but have to log out of the game entirely before i can read it. I don't even get the preview in the bottom-right to know whether it's important or not, so I have to quit the game every single time just in case it might be important.

Another major annoyance is the Time Played. I've put in several hours on the Steam version of the game, but my total time spent in the game still tallies to 1 minute. Steam says I'm playing it for maybe a few seconds at most, then people just see me as Online when I'm in the game. So even if I spend 60 hours a week in game, my Steam Rating will say I haven't played at all.

I hope someone gets this fixed soon.

[Avatariuz]

Well, i play windowed mode, no problem there.

[Vae]

Except that you have to play windowed mode. There's absolutely no reason Full-Screen mode, which is standard, shouldn't support the overlay. And if Xfire can keep track of time spent in-game, so can Steam.

[ninjannihilator]

I was getting the same issue. It only recognized that I was playing FF 11 when I was using the configuration app.


However, ever since monday i haven't been able to load the game. I get on PlayOnline, get to the FF 11 menu where you can get your content ID and when I click play, it does as if it were loading the game and then just sends me back to my desktop, playonline quits and FF 11 isn't running.

[Vae]

I was getting the same issue. It only recognized that I was playing FF 11 when I was using the configuration app.


However, ever since monday i haven't been able to load the game. I get on PlayOnline, get to the FF 11 menu where you can get your content ID and when I click play, it does as if it were loading the game and then just sends me back to my desktop, playonline quits and FF 11 isn't running.

I've had issues with this game before. The last time I bought it I wasn't able to play it at all, so I feel your pain. Since you can get into PlayOnline, the first thing I would do is a File Check if you haven't already. Maybe a file got corrupted or something. If you still have the problem, I believe playonline.com has a Tech Support number you can call. Good luck.

Also, thanks for pointing that out about the Configuration app. I might try leaving it up in the background to see if that works as a work-around.

Update:
I have just tested the Config work-around and it works for me. So, if anyone else is looking for a way to have Steam track the time spent playing FFXI, start the FFXI Config before you start the game and let it run in the background. When you shut down the game there will be a pop-up saying that the Config can't be accessed when you're playing FFXI. Click OK to close the Config. Steam should track the time the Config menu was up. It sucks to have to use a work-around but it's something at least.

Now, about that overlay. I refuse to play in windowed mode.

[ninjannihilator]

Thanks for the help. I guess I'm gonna call POL tech support. What bugs me isn't so much that it doesn't load, it's that it quits without giving me an error message so I can't even use google to see what's wrong.

[Fer]

Do you know if Steam is gonna fix it anytime soon?

[Elfiwolfe]

Guess Not.

[JohnX]

Yeah Steam is doing a terrible job on fixing this game.. They need to check up on the Square Enix forums every now and then.. geeesh.

[mrw874]

Sorry for a year-old bump, but, I'm having the same issue. Anyone have any fixes for the overlay yet? I Already owned FF11 beforehand, but wanted it on steam to specifically track time and use the overlay.

[demoncard]

Any fixes?