ZAM has translated part of an article published by Famitsu covering a game developers conference going on in Japan right now. The Final Fantasy XIV article focuses on the creation of the game, such as the basis for the characters and the work they put into the armor. You can read the translation over at ZAM. You can find all the images from the presentation in our gallery.

UPDATE 1: As a few of our forum members have found out, they won beta keys that are outside of their region (IE: having a Square Enix account in North America, but winning a German beta key). To work around this, you may need to create a Square Enix account to match the region of the key you won.

UPDATE 2: We’ve udpated the interviews translated by FFXIVCore.

UPDATE 3: 4Gamer has a similar article to the Famitsu one. (google translate)

Famitsu Interview
Famitsu has published another FFXIV interview from Gamescom (translated by FFXIVCore). Here’s some high-level points from the interview.

• Open beta is planned to start the beginning of September.
• Complaints from beta testers about the mouse control mainly came from players outside of Japan. Japanese gamers don’t really use a mouse, which is why it hasn’t received a lot of SE’s attention.
• They are working to improve party play and give players more of a reason to group with others.
• Open beta will grant players access to the other 2 starting cities. Ul’dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa should be playable in the open beta.
• They plan to add more classes in future version updates and expansion. We may see another magic class in an early major version update.

Additional details (from update 2):

• There are mechanisms built into FFXIV to slow players down when playing a single class. If you play one class too much in a short period you start hitting “surplus experience”, which means you’ll be getting less EXP per kill. This is meant to make it so hardcore players won’t get too far ahead with 1 class.
• If you switch classes (weapons), surplus does not carry over, so you can start leveling a second class once you hit surplus EXP.
• SE is debating how much gear will be sold by vendors. They seem to prefer that crafters provide a majority of gear.
• You will be able to choose the server you start on when the game releases. But you may be unable to create character on overcrowded servers.

North American Beta Key Giveaways
FFXIVCore has announced that they will be giving out the beta keys from their competition here in the next few hours. If you put your name in the hat for a key from FFXIVCore, be sure to check your Private Messages on their forums to see if you won.

Eorzeapedia has also received their beta keys and are emailing the winners of their contest.

Random News

• Destructoid had a video interview with the FFXIV development staff, all very basic information, not really worth your time unless you want to stare at the development team.
• Some Japanese cyber cafes will be installing the Final Fantasy XIV open beta client in their stores. The cafes will be giving away beta keys to those who visit their stores (at select locations).

Andriasang has posted a translation of an upcoming Famitsu magazine. The translated summary is listed below:

Famitsu has an interview with team Final Fantasy XIV this week. Here’s a summary of the bullet points that were listed at Game Jouhou:

• The Beta version will see some system changes that will make it so that you can more easily string together your attacks.
• The alpha test had bad tempo with insufficient explanations. They’ve made some revisions to the beta, resulting in a completely different system.
• It will be easier to save up Gil.
• You remember that amazing comparison shot showing how much better the beta looks compared to the alpha? It seems that the beta uses a different technique for its shadows. The alpha version used something called “Project Shadows” while the beta version uses “Depth Buffer Shadows.”
• The city of Limsa Lominsa will have two levels.
• There will be a robust log filter in place. This is something that wasn’t finished in time for the alpha.
• They’re readying something large scale for your home, which functions like FFXI’s Mog House.
• They’ll soon be adding alpha testers as part of the new “alpha 2″ phase. They’ve already selected the participants via drawing!
• As you play the game, you’ll be able to freely change the god that you select during character making.
• Vehicles for FFXIV include Chocobo, horse driven carriage, boat, and air ship.
• You’ll be able to select different colors for your equipment.

Now we just have to be patient and wait for the beta to start. There are rumors that Beta 1 will be starting sometime in June. Lets hope that it does make its way to us that soon.

Update 5/28: ZAM has translated a Dengeki article covering similar topics as the Famitsu one up above. This article has more details than the Famitsu article, we recommend giving it a read.

BeyondVanadiel was first to post on a new Famitsu magazine that has been released. This new magazine covers the world map and some other aspects of Final Fantasy XIV. Checkout the screenshot below. As well, FFXIVCore has done an initial translation of this magazine.

Update 1: Added a higher resolution version of the World Map below (Source: ZAM).

Final Fantasy XIV hype has died down on forums, IRC, twitter, and other public discussion tools. The last alpha test was a week ago and the alpha testers haven’t been given a date on when testing would resume. Due to a number of issues that were found during the previous few alpha tests, Square Enix has postponed testing until the servers are more stable for people to experience the game. This is not uncommon when a company is doing alpha testing; things should pick up quickly once some of these initial bugs are worked out.

Over the last day, two interesting pieces of information have spread around the internet:

1. FFXIV is has been re-confirmed to be on schedule to release in 2010.
2. FFXIV is at least 65% complete.

To us, these two statements somewhat contradict one another. A Japanese site published an interview (translated by Google) with Yoichi Wada (president of Square Enix) where Wada re-confirms that Final Fantasy XIV will be released this year.

The statement about FFXIV being 65% complete came from a Famitsu magazine article not published on the web. Lucky for us, ZAM has translated the article. The interview is with a few people from the development staff (Tanaka being the primary speaker). Here are some high-level points:

• JP, EU, and NA all of the same number of alpha testers.
• Japanese testers have filed 5000 reports, EU has filed 19,000 and NA has filed 25,000 reports. (the difference in numbers are being attributed to cultural differences).
• The game is 65% complete.
• They intend to have players from around the world on a single server once the servers can stay online continuously.
• The current content available in the alpha test is less than 10% of what they expect to be available to players upon release.

When you combine the data we currently have available: expected release in 2010, is 65% complete, and has been in development for 5 years, things don’t add up. A person like Wada tends to always try to oversell things (think of him like a marketer trying to keep interests high). A person like Tanaka (more on the development side of things) will take a more pessimistic view as to when a product will be ready for consumers. Combine these 2 statements and you may get a late 2010 (mid-end of December) release of FFXIV if you are extremely lucky. But it’ll really depend on how the alpha and beta testing goes. We’ll keep watching and reporting alpha testing information to give you a clearer picture as to when FFXIV will be in your hands.

While we wait for an English fan site to translate this article, we would like to present you with a new Famitsu article talking about the Final Fantasy XIV alpha. Today’s article seems to focus on the city of Limsa Lominsa and the shops it contains (this the only city currently available in the alpha testing). It talks about 4 shops/guilds within the city: Alchemist selling potions, seamstress selling cloth fabric, engraving/metal-worker selling circlets and eye-wear, and woodworking shop selling shields, bows and staves. We’ve added the 15 images from this article into the our gallery of images from magazines.

Update 12:45pm: BeyondVanadiel has translated this article.
Update 4/25: ZAM and FFXIVCore have translated this article as well.

A blog post from Famitsu talks some more about the on-going Final Fantasy XIV alpha test. One interesting piece of information from this article is the bloom lighting effects that FFXIV seems to implement. Bloom shader effects are a way to make bright light act realistic/brighter than they actually are. This is meant to simulate being in a dark area then going outside into the sunlight, where you eyes need to adjust to the new level of light. (Click on the image on the right to see the full size version.)

FFXIVCore has translated this article to English.

Famitsu has published another article detailing the game-play mechanics of the Final Fantasy XIV beta. Our friends at BeyondVanadiel have translated it and posted it for our reading pleasure. Here’s a high-level overview of the article:

• The User Interface is flexible. All pieces of the UI that are always display can be moved anywhere on the screen.
• The Main Menu within the game has 10 functions, they explain what each does. The menu items are:
  • Status & Gear, Actions, Attribute Points, Item List, Journal, Party, Map, Teleport, Return, and Logout.
• Lists all available emotes with screenshots of some in action.
• Covers Trading with other players and running a Bazaar.
• Bazaars function almost exactly like FFXI or Aion. You choose the wares to sell, set a price, and people can inspect you and buy items. Bazaar items have a 5% tax attached to them. Lets say you list an item for 100 gil, another player buys it, it will cost them 100 gil, but you only get 95 gil from the purchase.

Update 7:50am CST: 4Gamer has posted a similar write-up to Famitsu. The most interesting addition are more screenshots.
Update April 17 11:15am: Eorzeapedia has done their own write-up and translation for these articles.

4Gamer and Famitsu gaming sites in Japan have published screenshots from the Final Fantasy XIV alpha testing along with their impressions of the game thus far.  Various English speaking gaming sites have translated these articles for your reading pleasure:

• ZAM: Dengeki Future Beta Plans.
• FFXIVCore: Famitsu’s Alpha impressions and 4Gamer Alpha impressions.
• BeyondVanadiel: Dengeki Future Beta Plans and Famitsu Alpha impressions.

We’ve also updated our gallery with alpha screenshots that have been released via Famitsu and 4Gamer.

Update 9:10PM (CST): ZAM has posted their translation of the Famitsu article. The magazine got some hands-on playtime with the game, we recommend you check it out.

FFXIVCore has translated a leaked Famitsu article. They broke down the information into a bullet-point list of new information that can be seen below. This information is synced up with what is in the current alpha build that goes live tomorrow.

• Area changes between cities and the field are seemless
• BGM flows naturally
• Private instances will not be interrupted by things happening around you (chat, crowdedness)
• The L3 button is the target lock
• Everyone can use teleport from the beginning
• Warp (like FFXI) sends you back to your home point, which is defaulted to the last Aetherite you used.
• There are only male Highlanders.
• You can only play as female Miqo’te, but males exist. (males will not be playable)
• There is a difference in starting stats between tribes, but this can be overcome with character growth (?)
• Gender has no effect on play
• Roegadyn females exist (does not say they are playable)
• The difference between tribes isn’t that big
• The opening will be real time, not pre-rendered.
• Flow of battle:
  • Select target with directional keys
  • Draw weapon with R1
  • Select commends with directional keys
  • Effect gauge charges
• Alpha was made with casual gamers in mind, too, but it may still be difficult
• Players will be able to reallocate stats in the final version
• They want to make teleport and warp available for all classes, and make it low-cost.
• After alpha comes beta 1, then beta 2. PS3 should be playable from beta 2.
• Alpha and beta 1 will be mostly the same thing.
• Parties cannot be formed unless the other members are close to you when inviting them.
• There are five different ranks of guildleve difficulty.
• After being defeated in battle, there is a five minute “weakened” state (It may be possible to be revived without a raise spell?)
• There are things like attack magic which can be used without MP
• Casting while moving is possible
• There are MP restoring abilities
• HP regenerates pretty quickly in passive mode