What we know

[Che]

According to the article, character creation will go much further beyond slapping together race and face. Players will be able to customize a wide range of features, such as hair color & style. Exactly what else will be adjustable is unknown at this time.

There appears to be five selectable races so far, with one picture of a horned creature speculated to be a Gria-esque race. The setup looks similar as well, with male and female Hume, Elvaan and TaruTaru races, but only female Mithra and male Galka. A lot of the characteristics of the races are strikingly similar as well.

The Hyuran are said to be the most prolific race of all Eorzea. This is pretty much in line with Vana'diel, as they again appear to take the role of "default race." The article says that they migrated to Eorzea in large number from neighboring islands and continents. They brought with them great technology and innovation that raised the civilization of Eorzea to new heights (quite literally, judging from the trailer). Having immigrated from a variety of lands there is great diversity to be found amongst the Hyuran in terms of language and culture. The two main classifications of Hyuran are "Midlanders" who migrated to lower areas of Eorzea, and the "Highlanders" who migrated into the hills and mountains.

The "Elvaan" of Final Fantasy XIV are called "Elzen." However, the official English spelling is not visible in the pictures. The Elzen are the anscestral race of Eorzea, and have clashed with the Hyuran in the past to defend their homeland. In addition, they are said to possess impeccible hearing, but this could just be a joke. Let us not forget the rumors of Sumo Wrestlers in Final Fantasy XI spread by those clever Japanese players. More information will be avaiable on them soon. The Elzen, that is.

Lalafell are short, munchkin-looking creatures not unlike the TaruTaru of Final Fantasy XI. They are a race of farmers who live mainly near the Southern Sea. They also boast an exceptional degree of intelligence.

The Roegadyn are a muscular race of fishermen that live near the Northern Sea. It appears that some work as hired mercenaries or bodyguards, but others lead a less noble life as pirates. A portion of their explanation is cut off, so I will get into more detail about them upon the magazine's release.

Miqo'te are cat-like people who are again known as fierce hunters. They are mainly separated into "Sunseekers" and "Moonkeepers," the latter of which are nocturnal. Together, the Miqo'te are a minority race in the land of Eorzea. It is rumored that the Miqo'te will be even more cat-like than their Mithran counterparts. More information to come once the full blurb is visible.

Jobs will work on what is called the Armory System. Judging from what we can see, the player can change the growth path of their character by equipping different weapons, and within each path are a set of classes. Again, there may be better details available on Friday, but we can still see a couple of the professions from which we will have to choose.

The path of the Fighter is for those wishing to be adept at wielding great weapons of battle. Classes that represent the way of the Fighter include Fencer and Archer.

The path of the Sorcerer is open to those who possess magical weapons imbued with fantastic power. The picture shows a staff, but it is possible there will be other weapon types available. Classes representative of the way of the Sorcerer include 呪術士 (ju-jutsu-shi), which may be a first for Final Fantasy. The upcoming Four Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden on the Nintendo DS will also have a 呪術士 class. It can translate to a couple things, such as witch, shaman or warlock. The second class, 幻術士 (gen-jutsu-shi), literally means Illusionist, but has appeared before as Conjurer in Final Fantasy III, and Caller in Final Fantasy IV.

Now this is interesting. The article says that equipping crafting tools will put you on the path of the Crafter. This would suggest that crafting has been absorbed into the job system itself. No more mid-battle juice? Anyway, by taking a tool, such as a Blacksmith's Hammer, in hand, you are on the path of the Crafter, which contains classes such as Blacksmith and Chef (probably sans hammer).

The path of the Gatherer is activated by equipping harvesting tools. In the example picture, the horned mystery man is holding a hatchet. Classes included under Gatherer are Gardener and Fisherman.

It is impossible to confirm these bullet points right now, so anything listed here could change. Here are a few of the more interesting things rumored to be in this week's article:

* The difference in ability between races is said to be less severe than that of Final Fantasy XI
* Battles progress in real-time, but are not action-oriented, i.e. There is more to consider during battle that simply targeting the enemy and wailing away on it
* The Armory System allows for job changing anywhere, so inventory space is of great importance. Therefore, ways to change armor quickly and easily are being considered
* Currently investigating whether to allow all skills to be mastered, or have a see-saw style system like crafting in Final Fantasy XI
* "Guild Leave" will be a system of quests that include monster hunting, skilling up and a myriad of other activities. Players will obtain items to allow them to travel instantly to their required destination. There seems to be a lot about this system in the article as well, but we'll save that until it's fully visible.
* There will be weather effects and night/day transitions. One game day is one Earth hour.
* Final Fantasy XIV will be casual enough that even playing one hour a day is sufficient to enjoy the game.
* The game currency will be gil.

You can find screenshots of the game here: IGN: Final Fantasy XIV Online Screenshots, Wallpapers and Pics

New Info 8/31

Dengeki Online - Developer Interview

Dengeki Alpha Report, Developer Q&A

• All 4 languages will have a simultaneous release
• Auto-translate function is planned. They want to improve it, but not too much so as to make it confusing
• Skill level will determine what equipment you can wear. There will be a skill cap.
• Crafting can be a full-time job this time around. You skill-up just like a battle-oriented job and have unique Guildleves tailored to your class.
• One aspect of FFXIV is that adventuring isn't limited to grinding off enemies. For example, a player could become a "high level" Weaver without engaging in a single battle.
• Weapon durability will be present to balance crafting and battle-oriented jobs. Crafters will depend on battle-oriented jobs for backup, while those jobs will rely on Crafters to repair weapons
• 3 starting nations, Limsa Lominsa, Ul'dah, Gridania
• Free-roaming NMs with special drops are a maybe, large-scale HNM content planned for Guildleve
• Players cannot steal monsters involved in someone else's Guildleve
• Voice acting for cut scenes - all versions will be in English, other languages will get subtitles
• There will be a trade function, but they are planning to build something new and different from XI's Auction House system.
• They hope to make use of Square Enix IDs and Security Tokens for FFXIV logins

Couple more pieces of info I found from Japanese Magazine translations 9/01:

• Four new classes revealed! Monk (Martial artist), Archer, Tailor, Axe Warrior
• You can freely set 10 of your abilities on the action menu (these will change according to your equipped weapon). You can also choose your items and emotes from this menu. Furthermore, "Dodo attacks from the right" appears in the message window. Could the direction attacks come from also be important?
• When you clear a Guildleve, a warp point appears.
• You select your ability or any action from the action menu. The gauges to the right of your character are what has been selected to measure the availability and strength of commands. The gauge under each ability name is the action gauge, to the left of the icon is the power gauge.
• When the action gauge for the selected ability fills up, it then activates. The level of the power gauge determines the power and accuracy of each move, and the type of moves you can use change depending on your TP gauge.
• The layout is freely customizable!
• The status bars and the message window are all freely customizable. The player has the ability to move them to where they prefer them to be. The player can also change the size of the message window.
• Like the religion of Altana in FFXI, “[Eorzea] will have its own religion. It’ll be a really unique type of world,” FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka says.
• As to the aesthetic of the game, Tanaka explained that “This time with the world of Eorzea, what we’re trying to achieve is a very unique world. It’s going to be difficult to say whether it’s in the future or in the past. It’ll have some type of sci-fi element to it, and at the same time having medieval elements, so it’s really going to be difficult to say what type of world it’s going to be.”
• Surnames may be added to the game. However, Tanaka explained that the goal of such an addition is to facilitate easier name transfers for FFXI veterans attached to their current monikers.
• inally, Tanaka expressed happiness that Nobuo Uematsu will be doing the score for FFXIV. “As he’s very busy, we didn’t expect him to do all of the music for FFXIV, but this time he kindly suggested that he would take care of the whole [score]," he said.

[Che]

Reserved, I'm going to be updating this and organizing it once more info is released.

[Ryu-Kentoshii Hirokima]

Thank you Che for this information

[Fluffy]

Don't know if you've noticed, but the official page has been updated with this information a while back.

FINAL FANTASY XIV | SQUARE ENIX

It has pretty pictures to go along with all the info. I like how the city-state of Gridania looks from what we can see so far.

[Che]

Definitely noticed, I'm just compiling information here for future reference.

[Ryu-Kentoshii Hirokima]

I'll Probly add a few things myself as well.

[Che]

Anything anyone would like to add, I'll be looking to add it to the first two posts. PM me if it doesn't get done fast enough.

[Ryu-Kentoshii Hirokima]

Okay, Will do Well, we know that its gonna be an online game for the PC, and PS3, but we need a bit more info then this, so I will try to find out more about it later.

[LocoColt04]

Che, I'll let you have your run with keeping us up-to-date and compiling all of the information in one place. In the meantime, I am sticking this topic.

[Midnight Panda]

thank u for the info. much appreciated

[TobiasRainey]

Final Fantasy XIII isn't even finished and Square is already starting XIV? Its a little soon, isn't it?

[Andromeda]

Square Enix has multiple development teams. One team is making FFXIII while a completely different team is working on FFXIV. The people that made FFXI are making FFXIV. Because its an MMO, it actually makes a lot more sense to bring them out close together. Since only a part of the people that normally play FF games are going to get FFXIV. So the general group wanting a single player FF won't be waiting a long time for FFXV when it comes out like they did between FFX and FFXII.

[TobiasRainey]

I suppose that makes sense then, still, I hope it does well. XI died pre-maturely because of WoW so if XIV can over take its place in MMO ratings it will be a good day.

[Phantom]

This looks very awesome. I was thinking of quitting FFXI soon anyway, it's getting rather boring, and it's not the same as it used to be. In the old days, I had more fun on it, and would spent hours even stay up at night partying, but meh, this level sync thing just killed it for me. FFXIV looks very interesting and from the info and the beautiful screenshots it might even outlive FFXI. I'll definitely think of getting it once it comes out on PC.

[Che]

New info posted in the original post.

[Andromeda]

The weapon durability was the most interesting piece in there since that is something that distinctly not in the first game. It will certainly help out crafters to know that weapons take damage and I'm guessing to a point can be broken. Which will certain improve the weapons economy. Though it will mean higher prices overall on even standard gear since they are just a perishable now, well not exactly, but you know what I mean. Hopefully, money won't be as difficult at times. Seeing as in FFXI NM and HNM is where a lot of the money is made unless you are a high level crafter. NM and HNM were always about luck and I never had it when it came to wanting to make money. Meant I had to do the hard way, farming and grinding away the few gil I could get. I don't mind money being difficult, but it was a real choir sometimes when all you wanted was an upgrade. And gear is going to be really important in this game from the looks of things.

Excitement still rolling strong for me though. ^^

[Fluffy]

The weapon durability was the most interesting piece in there since that is something that distinctly not in the first game. It will certainly help out crafters to know that weapons take damage and I'm guessing to a point can be broken.

This is what I'm hoping for. I don't think they mentioned anything about breaking, though, which worries me. If it's just reparing, that's just going to be an annoyance. If it eventually breaks, though, it'll be a huge improvement over FFXI. Prices drop to stupidly low amounts because there are just too many items in circulation. I used to have some of my most fun in crafting. Now, most of it is a loss.

But that's me, as I've always been one to focus on crafting. I'm sure that most non-crafters will hate this kind of system.

And I'm hoping they don't do the same thing with NM"s this time. I'd prefer that all of their equipment is only usable by the person who got it.

[Che]

I'm wondering if the durability is basically going to be like Wow's, where you simply have to repair about once per day. The more you use something the more it wears down until it finally breaks, which doesn't make you lose the item, it just means it acts as if you don't have it equipped until it gets repaired. This will be awesome if you have a crafter in your party though, to repair on the fly.

Which gets me wondering. It said that there will be no fighting required for crafters, but high level dungeons would. What is the group roll of a crafter? Is it gonna be some kind of Alchemist or something to make stuff to throw at the mob for damage while repairing weapons on the fly without having to go back to town?

[Andromeda]

Yeah, no fighting for the crafter and hanging out in a party sounds like a really boring time for the crafter. Since there is no experience then it is not like they are going to be leeching, but yeah does make you wonder what they will be doing. It seems like it would just make more sense to have someone that is a craft as well another job and when there is equipment trouble the party breaks and the crafter fixes all of your gear. Then the crafter switches back and you go back to killing things.

But I'm figuring things will work like how the fishing rods do currently in FFXI. Which is funny that they are the only items in the entire game that have a break status that can be repaired as well. Its really weird that way, but I'm figuring that to be the case. I bet if you broke something you could sell the broken gear on the AH or whatever and some crafter could buy it and fix it. That would be my guess, but you'll need some sort of system to let the player know the status of the condition of the weapon so you know when you're going to lose it. Unless it is just a random thing like with the fishing rods.

[Che]

Well when the fishing rods broke, they were called something different in your inventory, thus there were really two different items altogether. Broken Lu Shang's Fishing Rod, and Lu Shang's Fishing Rod, for example. But I don't think that's how they're going to do it. You have to think about "Rare/ex" or "soulbound" items that are going to have durability. You can't sell those on the AH.

And with the crafter thing, I hope crafters have a significant role in a party or guild for endgame. That would be so freakin cool. I hope it's not just wait around and be bored, or change your job to fighter. I hope you can "main" in crafting and still play the game like someone who "mains" a Warrior.

Maybe that's asking for too much, though.

[Andromeda]

I think that would be the hope and the way that they were talking about it some way. It would be very cool to have someone that literally mains as a crafter and can get by in the world and game by just doing that.

Though bringing that up I have to wonder how aggro will work this time around. Since there is not going to be levels how will monsters decide not to fight you or when to chase you. Because a crafter that doesn't fight is going to look like an easy target even if he is a "high level" crafter. But without levels how do you check the strength of monsters.

[Che]

In a way though, you could reach the "max level" in the game as a crafter in FFXI. I knew guys who would come into the game after I had two jobs at 75 and be in a sky/hnm linkshell, and they'd start the game and just craft until they were max level and rich. Then they'd level up to 75 super fast because they had money to buy the best gear (Eurytos for RNG job, etc). Technically they could have just stayed as a Lv.1 job and still been 100+2 in Alchemy as the "max level". I hope that's not how it is in FFXIV.

And with the thing about levels, from what I'm seeing you will still have levels, although you won't be named a certain level. You will raise your skill, like in FFXI, so that you cap out. Like skill level 267(i think that's right...) was max for a level 75 before merits.

[Full Life]

why are they makeing ff 14 when they havent finished ff 13

[Andromeda]

There are two different development teams. One is working on FFXIII and another is working on FFXIV, specifically the FFXI team is working on FFXIV. Though there are plenty of other development teams since they produce a lot of games in a single year, though they also publish a lot of games too.

[Che]

Should I just put that in huge red font at the top of this thread? Jesus christ people. It's like those people that go to interview developers when a new game is announced and instead of asking what the combat is like they ask if there's jumping in the game. Retarded.

Yeah they're working on FF14 while FF13 isn't even out yet because they don't care about the series and they hope it fails miserably. Use some common sense.

[Che]

There's been some new information leeked from the next issue of Famitsu, but it is not 100% confirmed yet, so I'll wait to add it to the top. An interesting thing to think about is Tanaka has apparently stated that the graphics are only at 50% currently (if you've been watching the videos from the alpha version of the game).

• Necklaces, belts, and rings, unlike XI, will be reflected graphically when equipped
• It seems as though westerners translated my comments as “everything would be seamless” but in actuality not everything from towns and the worlds will be seamless
• Seamless movement in an area equivalent to the size of a region in XI will be possible.
• You will be able to draw weapons in towns.
• Battles with enemies will take into account front/back/left/right positioning. Haven’t thought about elevation effects
• Characters will not age, however, you will be able to change your hairstyle
• Deterioration of weapons may be reflected graphically as well
• Translated in the west as fully voiced, but not all NPCs will have voice
• Etherlite (sp?) is not just a warp device, but can also be a place for people to gather
• Character movement utilizes motion capture. Was not used at all in XI
• Character’s visual expressions will also change during the game
• Basic play will be in windowed mode, rather than full screen mode for PC version
• Miquottes only have ears above (positioning?). Some Miquotte will have glasses like Humans (forget what they’re actually called) but please don’t ask why they can wear glasses (probably due to ear stem positioning vs. ear position)
• Tanaka: Even with this, graphics are at around 50%. Please look forward to the graphical aspect

[MakotoKin]

Well that's quite a statement. If the graphics are still only at 50%, then we should expect these graphics to be quite breathtaking by the end of it I would assume. It's really shaping up well. I am very pleased that they are saying it's going to be more solo friendly this time around. In Final Fantasy XI you needed to group for almost everything to be done. Don't get me wrong, groups are awesome fun and all, but sometimes you just want to solo by yourself and have fun that way, but Final Fantasy XI rarely gave you that option. I do hope they keep good on that promise anyways.

[Rnin]

Thanks for the great information, Che!

[WilsonDean1990]

Thanks Guys, Defiantly looking forward to this game now can't wait

[Messiah]

I'm looking forward to it, but i heard alot of bad reviews about XI, I haven't actually played FFXI yet, so i cant really say much, but i hope its better than XI was reviewed.