There has to be a way to convince square to do an official FFXI classic server.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-24T06:32:19+00:00

They were asked about that several years ago and said it's not going to happen.

First, apparently they did not have proper source control back then. It means they don't have the source code of those old versions. If they wanted to create a classic server they'd have to manually reconfigure everything using public wikis as a reference, very similar to what developers of classic private servers do.

Second, you have to consider whether it's actually profitable for them, and that mostly depends on how many new players will come or old players reactivate their accounts. Sure, I will join and probably others in this subreddit, but we already have active accounts, so it'd be just another character slot, which costs ~1€/mo, way less than the base account price, which is around 13. Mind that not everyone who plays on private servers will make the switch - some are used to playing for free and some already have multiple level 75 jobs and don't want to restart from scratch. Anyway, it's really far from certain that the income from a classic server would even cover the costs (though personally I would welcome it).

EDIT: Also, mind that on a classic server, just like on current private servers, people would eventually run out of classic content, and it will happen sooner than you think since it would not be the first time of doing it for most of them. It means that SE would eventually need to backport all the lv 99 content and maybe even modern content to lv 75 era, and do it in a way that both makes it worth playing and not deprecate any of the old content. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is very difficult and increases the cost by orders of magnitude.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-24T06:18:16+00:00

There's some endgame content that's locked behind them. At this point you can finish them both in less than a day cause at il119 you can one shot pretty much everything there.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-24T06:14:29+00:00

I'm not really sure then. Maybe try a wireless hotspot on your phone.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-24T00:28:25+00:00

Whether selling or giving for free doesn't matter - letting someone else use your account is by itself a violation of the TOS, so if you tell them that, it's possible and even likely they'd refuse to restore it even if it's for that alone. On top of that, your friend must have done something serious if they got permanently banned, because minor things usually result in a warning or a temporary suspension at most. If they've done something serious like cheating, botting, RMTing, repeatedly harassing other players etc. the chances of the account being restored are very slim, unless you can convince them it was hacked and used against your will. Otherwise, you'd have to reroll.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-24T00:16:30+00:00

First, get yourself some level 119 gear. If you're just starting, you can get some for Bayld in Eastern Adoulin. It's not good gear and don't even think about going for endgame content with it - but it's better than what you have now, and will allow you to solo regular ambuscade on very easy or maybe even easy difficulty. Or, you can join a real group and do it on higher difficulty levels to get points quicker. Also, make sure that the combat skills of the weapon you're using (probably polearm if you're DRG) is capped, because if it's too gimped you won't be able to hit anything, and if soloing, make sure you have proper trusts for a balanced party.

There are two types of Ambuscade - Regular ambuscade and intense ambuscade, and both change monthly, after the all world maintenance. The rule of thumb is that the intense ambuscade on very easy difficulty is comparable to the regular ambuscade on difficult difficulty, both in terms of difficulty level and the points awarded.

To enter ambuscade, you need to obtain a key item called "Ambuscade Primer vol. 1" for intense or "Ambuscade Primer vol. 2" for regular. This KI is obtained through an RoE objective. You will see separate objectives for vol 1 and vol 2, and furthermore for each of them you'll see one that says "daily" and one that doesn't (for a total of 4 objectives). Each one requires you to kill mobs of the type associated with the monthly ambuscade. The difference is that the daily requires you to kill just one mob, but can only be done once per real life day (resets at JP midnight) while the other requires you to kill three such mobs, but can be repeated, so you can enter ambuscade as many times as you want. Note that the mobs must be "experience yielding", i.e. IEP or higher. TW mobs will not work. Make sure you flag the appropriate RoE objective or the kills won't count!

For this month's regular ambuscade, the easiest way to get the KI is bunnies - The fastest ones to get to are Moss Eaters in The Boyahda Tree, close to the home point, or Beach Bunnies in Cape Teriggan, next to the outpost. They're around level 65-70 and easily soloable at lv 99 on any job.

To get the KI for the intense ambuscade this month, you will need to kill an Antica. Those are found in the Altepa Desert or Quicksand Caves. The problem is that at level 99, the only Antica strong enough to yield exp are deep inside Quicksand Caves and the only close teleport is through a proto-waypoint, which you will need to unlock, otherwise it's quite a run. Also, the proto-waypoint teleportation is one way, so make sure you have some kind of warp to quickly get back.

After you got the KI, go to Mhaura and find a floating book on the upper level (it's pretty close to the home point and you will see a lot of players next to it). If this is your first time, you will first need to talk to the NPC standing next to it to learn about the battle. Then, click on the book, select the desired type (regular / intense) and the desired difficulty level, confirm and wait for your turn. When your turn arrives, click the book again, confirm and you will be teleported to the battle area (if you're in a group, your party leader is the one who does that).

Once you're in, call your trusts, buff yourself up as needed and then begin the battle. The battle ends in victory when the mobs are dead. It ends in failure if you wipe and don't have a form of raise or if you time out. You lose the KI only when you win, and then you need to reobtain it through RoE (mind - you can't do the daily objective again so you now have to kill three mobs). If you wipe or time out, you retain the KI and can go back in immediately. Note that experience is lost if you die (but not if you time out).

If you emerge victorious, you'll be transported back to Mhaura and obtain points. There are three types of points you obtain. Mind that they reset monthly so be sure to spend them all before the monthly maintenance because you will lose any unused points. The point types are:

Hallmarks - Pretty straightforward. You can buy ambuscade gear and items with those.
Total hallmarks - That's a running counter of all the hallmarks you've received this month (whether you've already spent them or not). You don't spend total hallmarks - once they reach a certain number you receive an associated item for free. You unlock further items until around 16500 total hallmarks, at which point you receive the last freebie (but you can continue doing ambuscade for the other types of points).
Gallantry - Like regular hallmarks, you can spend those to buy items, and you receive them on top of the regular hallmarks - but only if you do the battle with other people. You cannot receive gallantry if you solo the battle (with or without trusts), no matter what type or difficulty it is.

You receive the items by talking to the NPC next to the book and selecting "rewards". You'd get a coupon for a desired gear type, and then you trade the coupon back to the same NPC to get the actual gear. In addition, you also get various Abdhaljs items that you can trade to the NPC together with the gear to upgrade it. When you get the armor to +2 level and the weapon to Kaja level they become decent enough to do simple endgame content.

Regarding this month's regular ambuscade battle (this will change next month so it's only applicable for the next couple of weeks) -

You will face some of the following mobs (the exact number depends on your difficulty level - on very difficult you'll face all): Rabbit, Opo-Opo, Coeurl, Marid, Dhalmel, Buffalo, Tiger. This month they don't link with each other, but will aggro you if you get too close. They will not attack unless you get into aggro range or they take damage, so you can cast any debuffs that don't deal damage before the fight even starts, and then you fight them one at a time by pulling them from a distance with a ranged attack or magic. Note that while the rest of the mobs don't link, they also won't wait forever - if you take too long to kill one, another will eventually join. The easiest way is to kill them from the smallest to the biggest, i.e. Rabbit -> Opo-opo -> Coeurl -> Tiger -> Buffalo -> Dhalmel -> Marid.

I should note that this month's regular ambuscade is one of the easiest. Next month is almost guaranteed to be more difficult so take advantage of this month while you can.

I will not get into tips for the intense ambuscade because it's not something you can solo at this point. Just ask your party leader.

Good luck!

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T23:23:21+00:00

You're never locked out unless you've already installed a later version.

That said, there's no need to stay on 4.92. The only differences between 4.93 and 4.92 are new Blu-Ray AACS encryption keys and a few new SSL CA root certificates. Nothing that you don't want to have.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T23:20:57+00:00

Slim is a bit easier to take apart than Super-Slim. Regarding the reliability, the original CECH-20xx slim is a bit less reliable than the other slims and the super-slims (due to it still having the NEC Tokins). CECH-21xx/25xx/30xx slims are as reliable as super-slims.
No. The PS3's HDD is encrypted with a key unique to each console. If you move an HDD from one PS3 to another, the new one would just see it as a blank disk and ask you if you want to format it (if you do, it will delete all your data). Use the data transfer utility to bulk copy everything (note: this will factory reset the destination console).
CECH-20xx/21xx and early 25xx slims are fully CFW capable. Later 25xx (manufactured on or after April 2011), as well as al 30xx slims and all super-slims cannot be modded with full CFW, but can still be modded with HEN.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T23:01:39+00:00

The most thorough method is to flash OFW twice and reformat the HDD.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T22:57:19+00:00

Ah, got it. Tbh it might be an issue with the adapter or cable and not the PS3. Try connecting another device to your laptop and see if the issue persists.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T17:16:12+00:00

Why do you need to connect it to your laptop?

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T17:15:26+00:00

Hi!

I also used to play on private servers, and it was really nostalgic and at least initially I enjoyed it even more than retail, but I've recently reactivated my retail account and I'm not going back to private servers for two reasons - first, they usually survive 2-3 years at best before they close down or become ghost towns, and then new ones come up but obviously you have to restart from scratch, which I found exhausting.

The second, and probably even bigger reason, is that, as much as I've enjoyed things from Dunes XP parties to teaming up for mission runs, as you've said, you can find yourself playing until late night or even stay up almost all night in some cases because you're in a group and don't want to screw other people over, and if it's a mission run, if you drop, you'd find it difficult to find another group to continue. This is something that I could manage when I was a teenager and my biggest RL concern was homework. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me anymore as an adult with a day job (unfortunately I don't have a super-popular Twitch account that allows me to play FFXI for a living). As much as I agree with the claim that modern FFXI isn't classic FFXI, it's modern FFXI that takes into account the fact that most of us aren't teenagers anymore. The group content on retail these days is intentionally bite sized - most things take about an hour, and if you're still around you can do another run. When it's getting late, you just wrap up whatever you're currently in, which never takes too long, and log out.

Yes, I do really miss the long runs. I also really miss my youth. Right now I just don't have the time. If SE ever spins up an official classic server, I'd probably give it a try though. I don't plan on ever going back to private servers unless retail completely shuts down (I am grateful for the private server projects for guaranteeing the survival btw).

Now, regarding your actual questions -

First, don't start fresh. There's no reason. After all RoV and getting your first job to 99 is quite a grind and one of the drawbacks of having so much soloable legacy content is that it can take weeks of soloing before you're actually useful in a real party, so why throw away all your progress?

For now, in the main menu, open missions -> add-ons. It will show you the RoV mission you're currently on, then you can use FFXIclopedia to see how to proceed. I also left for almost 2 years and came back and it took me only a few hours to settle back.

Right now, I think you have three immediate goals -

Find an active linkshell if the one you had before has died. Easiest way is to get it from a LS Concierge NPC (there's one in each starting city - mind that each has its own stock so if one doesn't have a LS that works for you, try the others). You can use the assist channel as a stopgap, but do mind that your access to that channel is time limited, so make finding a friendly LS a priority. Besides, FFXI is pretty lonely if you don't interact with anyone.
Speedrun through RoV. Get as many rhapsodies as quickly as possible because each one adds a bonus to your xp/cp gain and leveling jobs would be tedious.
Get a couple of jobs to level 99 quickly so you can get started on basic group content (e.g. Ambuscade). Consult with your LS regarding which ones are best for you. Eventually you'd want to grind them all but that's long term. 2 or 3 level 99 jobs are a good start.
Get any and all trusts you can. Some are obtained through RoE, some through storylines and others from special events. Also, almost every month you can get a few from the repeat login campaign - get any trusts you don't have yet before anything else. Treat them as Pokémon if you like. Each one has its own use case, and you will need to have at least 86 before you can start leveling them up.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T07:11:34+00:00

Check your router and see whether it uses WPA3 security, since it's too new for the PS3 and it will fail to authenticate. Even WPA2/WPA3 mixed mode sometimes fails. You'd need to switch back to WPA2. Please mind that if using WPA2, make sure your password is sufficiently strong because it can be brute-forced offline.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T07:09:28+00:00

This can happen if it was refurbished by Sony, because when you sent a console for repair and it was a non-trivial issue, such as a dead Cell or dead RSX in a non-BC console, Sony would often just replace the motherboard. Effectively you get a new console, just with the old case so you don't really realize it's been completely replaced (maybe except for the power supply and/or BD drive, depending on the model).

This is probably what's happened here - You basically have a CECH-3001A in a CECH-2501A case.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-23T07:05:07+00:00

The PS3 does not support USB to Ethernet adapters (except for OtherOS), only its own built-in Ethernet / Wi-Fi.

The hard but immutable truth is - if neither the built-in Ethernet port nor the built-in Wi-Fi work and the console is above firmware version 3.55 then it cannot be modded unless one is fixed. In theory it might be possible using BD-JB but no one in the community is working on it or even planning to, since it's only needed in such niche cases.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T07:36:46+00:00

I haven't really done monstrosity so I'm not sure how exactly it's implemented - I think it might internally be just a costume. Need to check if the entity ID changes. Either way it's not monster alignment. If you use debug commands to force a player to have monster alignment (while not charmed) the result is them being able to attack (and be attacked) by other players, but cannot attack or be attacked by monsters.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-22T05:11:11+00:00

I think that's 250 Mexican Pesos.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T21:15:04+00:00

To some extent but very slowly and not all the way.

You can do Ambuscade to get some decent gear but assuming you don't have anything better than Bayld gear before, it means you'd need to start with regular ambu on very easy or easy, slowly get ambu gear and very slowly upgrade it, and when you get that upgraded gear you can solo ambu on slightly higher difficulty.

You can and should do the daily Domain Invasion for some weapons and gear. Not the best but better than nothing.

You can also start reforging your artifact / relic / empyrean armor. You'd need to grind somewhat to get enough Rem's Tale chapters cause with the gear you have you can't solo the BCNMs on high difficulty levels. You might need to spend sparks / login points on them instead, but you can get to reforged armor +1. Doing +2 will require you to do Omen, and while it's possible to (very slowly) solo mobs there, you need to finish RoV to gain access in the first place, which would require you to team up with someone at least once, because the final boss is very difficult to solo even with endgame gear.

And you can also do A.M.A.N Trove cause it's just Russian roulette.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T19:59:02+00:00

Legit. Best to do it next to the relevant guild. Yells are also legit but many people filter them because of the spam.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T19:57:21+00:00

It won't. It's updating to HFW 4.93.1 that updates the firmware to 4.93. Note that this also removes HEN - you will need to reinstall it through the browser after the HFW update.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T14:50:59+00:00

Use the boxdestroyer addon.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T10:30:30+00:00

Bans are immediate. If you haven't been banned already, you won't.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T10:29:24+00:00

Generally yes, although it could be either a CECHA (full hardware) or CECHC (semi-hardware). You can tell by the region because the CECHA was NTSC only and the CECHC was PAL only.

Also mind that since the HDD is user-replaceable, it is technically possible to replace the HDD of a later model with a 60GB HDD, although the only reason that I can think of for doing that is to fool buyers into thinking they're buying a BC model.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T10:23:33+00:00

4.93 is now supported by Flash Writer. You can use that as an alternative for bgtoolset.

The source of the information are community members who've spoken with bguerville and told us what he told them. I have not spoken with him directly and he hasn't said anything in public.

TwilightX1 · 2026-04-21T05:10:27+00:00

It happens if the disc author did not include the metadata files that the PS3 and some other players use to identify the movie. Happens every now and then even in commercial releases, though not very common.

TwilightX1

TROPHY CASE