A new Dengeki magazine just came out in Japan, it covers a few more aspects of the current alpha testing. No English speaking fan-site has translated this yet, but we were able to piece out some of the information. FFXIV-Fan, a Japanese based fan-site has released their overview (google translator) of the article. Here’s some of the pieces we were able to take away from it.

Gods/Guardians
“The Twelve” gods have had their names revealed. When you create your character, you choose a god to allign yourself with. It is unclear at this point how a god will affect your character.

• Nald’thal, the Traders
• Nophica, the Matron
• Azeyma, the Warden
• Thaliak, the Scholar
• Llymlaen, the Navigator
• Halone, the Fury
• Byregot, the Builder
• Althyk, the Keeper
• Nymeria, the Spinner
• Oschon, the Wanderer
• Menphina, the Lover
• Rhalgr, the Destroyer

Nameday
Along with choosing your Guardian, you get to pick something similar to a month and day when your character was born. Details on this option are sparse.

Mining
You are able to scan for nearby nodes, when you do a directional arrow appears on your minimap along with the distance to the node. You go up to the node and select “excavate” and you receive a message about how difficult it will be. You are then presented with a ring that moves inward and outward continuously, you press the “activate” button at a certain spot on the ring. You repeat this process a few times to mine the ore.

There is more information but Google Translator fails with it. We’ll update this post once some English speaking sites have picked it up and translated it.

Update 4/25, 11:15am: We just noticed that this came from Dengeki magazine, not Famitsu. The title has been updated to reflect this. As well, here is a link to the Amazon page for the magazine.

ZAM has translated an article in a recent Dengeki Japanese Magazine covering similar material to the Famitsu article that leaked a couple days ago. The one addition was a question and answer session with Square Enix. Check out ZAM’s article for the full write-up.

Some high level points:

• The alpha test is earlier in the game’s development than FFXI to allow them to make larger gameplay changes prior to release.
• As you level, you get points that you can distribute to your various attributes.
• You will be able to redistribute points in the final game (probably will have to be done in town, may have an associated cost).
• Max party size is 15 people. Average party size is around 6-8 players. It is fine to party with 3 people as well.
• You can teleport to any Aetheryte crystal you’ve visited. There will probably be a cooldown on how often this can be used.
• Lalafell are super cute (it’s true!).
• PS3 beta testing will begin with beta phase 1 or 2, which could be months away still.

Update 4/10 10:00pm: FFXIVCore has posted their translation of some new information posted on the Famitsu. It has some more details about the quest system along with battle regimens (think skillchains).

Another issue of Dengeki Games magazine hit the bookshelves in Japan today with a short Q&A. ZAM has translated it for your reading pleasure.

Here is a summary of the Q&A:

• The chatlog has battle and chat separated into different tabs (like many modern MMOs).
• All parts of the user interface can be moved around.
• There is an on-screen indicator showing your /check of a party of monsters.  This is useful as it shows a group of monsters strength as a whole instead of a single monster.
• You should be able to switch between any of your classes in the field as long as you are carrying the weapon for the class.  From a previous article, you cannot switch classes in the combat-ready stance (Active Mode), you can only do it while in Passive Mode.
• Beta players will be able to carry over their name to the live servers.  This will only apply to the servers that transition from beta to live.  New servers will be created when the game releases so you can have a shot at getting whatever name you want.  All progress beta players make will be reset when the game goes live.
• PS3 and Windows players will be on the same servers.  As well, if you activated and play primarily on Windows, you could log in just as easily from the PS3 version of the game.
• The beta test will separate Japanese, American, and European players. They do not intend to separate these regions once the game goes live.

As well, Eorzeapedia posted their second part of a older Dengeki magazine.

The information has started to flow. 4Gamer.net has given us a few more images. The collection of the new images are below. The most interesting one shows the game’s user interface. Though, this may have changed quite a bit already, and will probably change more before the game releases. There are also some images from the opening trailer/move for the game (that was shown to people that attended VanaFest). Be sure to check out the other information that came out over the last day.

Update 3/11 8:46am: Here’s an updated song from the Japanese FFXIV Website (right-click and save-as to save to your computer). Sounds like battle music to us.

Update 3:15pm: No official website update yet. The FFXIV Beta website did launch for those with access, but it currently only has a forum available for people to talk on. No alpha client is available for download yet. On a side note ZAM, Eorzeapedia, and FFXIVCore have all done write-ups on all the new discipline information that came from the Famitsu article.

Update 3/12 3:40am: A second Japanese magazine has been released and translated. ZAM is covering a Q&A session done by Dengeki magazine. It’s a fairly lengthy Q&A talking about many different aspects of the game, though it has some overlap from the Famitsu article others have already translated. As well, only the Japanese website has been updated still (as reported yesterday morning), but it’s content seems to be equivalent to what we’ve seen from the magazine translations. We’ll keep an eye out for NA and EU updates still.

Update 1:50pm: Eorzeapedia has done a write-up covering the Famitsu Q&A session along with a breakdown of the user-interface screenshot seen below. As well, FFXIVCore has done their own write-up on the Dengeki Q&A that ZAM already covered. On the official website side of things, there still is no updates for the NA or EU sites.

Rendered and Cut scene images:

FFXIVCore has found some leaked information from Famitsu and Dengeki magazines that people got their hands on early. There is some new information about the battle system, jobs/classes/disciplines details, and other random game information. This new information means that the official websites will be updating soon. We’ll update this post if we find any new information. All new information can be found below.

Update 1: BeyondVanadiel is covering the same leaked information but translated it a little differently. We’ll merge it with the FFXIVCore information if anything is new.

Update 2: Looks like Famitsu (google translate version) has published the information on their website. We’ve updated the image collection below.

Update 3: FFXIVCore has translated the Famitsu article and pieced it together at their site. We’re hoping the official US website updates soon with all of this new information.

Update 4: ZAM has posted their translation of the Famitsu article. It’s probably the most comprehensive translation out of the group.

The folks at ZAM were able to translate the latest Dengeki Games Interview with Square-Enix. There is some interesting information in the Question and Answer session, but nothing groundbreaking. We’ve highlighted some of the more interesting questions below in red.  Below is that full interview.

Update Jan 28: FFXIVCore has released their translation of this magazine. Be aware that they scattered this post with a lot of speculation along with the translation.

Q: How much of the game will players be able to experience in the beta?
A: We started at about 10% of the final product with the playable Alpha version and are ultimately trying to perfect the underlying game system. The bulk of the game won’t be made public until the retail version is out.

Q: Will the servers be named after summons like in FFXI?
A: There’s no doubt we’ll use names familiar to any FF fan, but the scheme will be a little different than FFXI.

Q: What can you tell us about the transition from the Beta to the final version or about world transfers in general?
A: Once service starts, we want to make it so you can move along with the friends you make during the Beta to the same world. As for world transfers, that may be a possibility in the future, with some limitations probably.

The team over at ZAM has posted an interview from Dengeki Playstation magazine, talking about the future of FFXI. The interview was with Hiromichi Tanaka (producer) and Kouichi Ogawa (development team). It sounds like the game will be running for a very long time, so if you are a FFXI player, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Check out the full article here.

We also included a copy of the aticle after the break.

Dengeki, a magazine publisher in Japan, published an article from the E3 announcement of FFXIV.  They had a chance to publish some Q&A that was not originally reported by IGN and others.  The full interview is after the break.  The interviewees were Hiromichi Tanaka (FFXIV Producer) and Nobuaki Komoto (FFXIV Director).

New(ish) Information:

• Eorzea is not the entire world name (like Vana’diel), but rather the name of a region/continent.
• They are looking to make the transitional from FFXI to FFXIV easy for players, but not give them an advantage over new players.  No real details yet.
• Your character will not progress with the standard “level” system.  You can bet there will still be a grind.
• FFXIV will feature a job system where you can be multiple classes on 1 character by switching which class you currently are playing (just like FF11).
• Beta will begin sometime in 2010.  (FF11 spent 8 months in beta in Japan.  World of Warcraft also spent 8 months in beta).