Pre-order now?

[LocoColt04]

As of today, GameStop has added the FFXIV sku to its list for pre-order. I'm not saying "ohmigah, go get it there!" but I figured I'd point it out for anyone who does go to GameStop or EB locations worldwide.

It's up on Amazon as well, for those of you who like the convenience of delivery.

[Che]

I probably will eventually, but I don't see the point in pre-ordering it so early. The beta isn't even out.

However, it does apparently come out this year?

[LocoColt04]

Yeah, we've got it listed as 31 Dec 2010 - a placeholder for the "end of the year" until Square-Enix announces a quarter or a month (or a solid date, they're usually good about sticking to them). I don't foresee it moving into 2011 given that they're still claiming it will be a 2010 release.

[Sean]

That's somewhat good but also troubling to hear....

I would expect a closed and open beta phase to take longer than 6-8 months before it's release-ready.

Though, the game seems like it's VERY highly based off XI, so I'm sure they have a majority of the behind-the-scenes architecture in place and will probably have a pretty smooth beta phase with all the knowledge the teams have accumulated over XI's extremely long lifespan.

I just don't want to see an unfinished MMO released again. I'm sure they're attempting to hit around the same time (if not sooner) than WoW's upcoming expansion to keep a strong launch, but a lot of MMOs have tried to beat others to the release punch only to ultimately fail due to the game being unfinished (Age of Conan comes to mind here, and WoW's launch was also early to beat EQ2 but they worked around the bugs they found with the weekly maitenence)

[Zargabaath]

I would expect a closed and open beta phase to take longer than 6-8 months before it's release-ready.

I have not dabbled into MMOs that much - I have played FFXI, WoW, and Age of Conan a bit - but my friend has been playing MMos since Ultima Online and tries out a lot of them and he says that once beta starts the game will be released within the year if not 6-8 months. But this is Square and they have pushed back games.

[LocoColt04]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a 2011 launch, but Square-Enix also isn't Blizzard. (No offense, and nothing even WoW-related... but I want my Starcraft 2, damnit.) If they've been saying for over six months now that the game will release in 2010, I'm assuming they'll stick by it.