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Love it or hate it, Final Fantasy XIV 's open beta has given players a fair idea of what to expect when the game goes live near the end of the month. But all good things must draw to a close (or bad things if you're in the other camp), and so too must the game's beta testing. Today, Square-Enix announced that the open beta will close on September 19th , a mere three days before the launch of the collector's edition with its headstart. Although the beta will be fully closed at 5:00 p.m. PDT on the 19th, the beta tester site will remain open until the following day at 12:00 a.m. PDT. While there's only a bit more than a week left of the testing, the steady pace of patches makes it clear that the game will likely be updating straight through to launch. So if you haven't gotten enough of Final Fantasy XIV testing to sate your interest, positive or negative, now would be the time to get to playing . source; massively.com

Square Enix has said the Final Fantasy XIV Online beta will begin tomorrow morning at 2am GMT. Get your registration code on the FFXIV website . Original story: As many may already know, Square Enix has delayed the opening of the Final Fantasy XIV Online beta. This had been scheduled to start today but has been postponed because of a "critical issue" with the client software, the official website explained . When the doors will open now is unknown. We're told only that Square Enix is in "the final stages of preparation", and that a "new schedule will be released at a later date". Final Fantasy XIV will be released for PC on 30th September, although buyers of the Special Edition can enter the world eight days earlier on 22nd September. Source; eurogamer.net

Final Fantasy XIV closed beta keys were a coveted item for a while, as fans sent in beta applications in the hopes of seeing the game's ups and downs firsthand. Square Enix promised to grant that wish for everyone very soon with open beta, announcing that it would begin in early September. It looks like things are ready a bit earlier than anticipated, as the latest news from FFXIV has an open beta start date of August 31st. For those of you without access to the official beta forums , fansite FFXIVCore has everything summarized nicely. News of the open beta isn't the only thing coming from Square Enix today. The company released a new pre-release trailer as well, featuring "Answers," the official FFXIV theme song. Follow along after the jump for the trailer, and we'll see you in open beta! via; massively

Square Enix is causing a bit of upset in the MMO community due to the inclusion of a feature in Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) that will punish you for playing too long in certain roles. According to the current rules in the beta release of the game, selecting a new job for your character will see you get 8 hours of play time receiving full experience points. After that initial 8 hours the experience points will start to drop for doing the same tasks. That drop will continue for 7 hours at which point no more experience will be gained. The punishment is limited, however, and at the start of every week the system is reset allowing you to get a further 8 hours of full experience points. Players can circumvent the system to some extent by switching jobs, as every job has a weekly 8 hour allotment of full experience point generation. But players are of course arguing that no such limit should be in place for a subscription MMO, and if they want to carry on playing they should not be hindered. C...

Square Enix has announced that its next MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, will go into open beta in early September. This will follow the closure of the current closed beta test tomorrow, 25th August. The news was made public on the game's official Twitter . The game will then be released at the end of September, with a special edition offering early access on 22nd September, and general release on the 30th. That's the PC version - it's been delayed until March next year on PS3 for technical reasons. We've been spending a fair bit of time in the closed beta recently, and we'll have a preview for you soon. Via; EuroGamer

Recent rumors have suggested that the Xbox 360 version of Square Enix's wildly anticipated Final Fantasy XIV has been canceled. It hasn't, according to the game's producer. In an interview with video game publication VG247, Square Enix's Hiromichi Tanaka said that though the Xbox 360 version of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game hasn't been nixed, the company has decided to "pause" its development until some issues with Xbox Live are sorted out. Full article; Cnet news