In case you haven’t checked it out all ready the Final Fantasy XIV website has gone live with plenty of gorgeous pictures of the races to play as and places to travel too in the land of Eorzea.

Final Fantasy XIV will be a massive multiplayer online game like Final Fantasy XI and will have many of the features and playable races will be similar to that previous FF title. Square are even working on a way to make it possible to port across your player name from Final Fantasy XI to XIV. I must confess that I never played Final Fantasy XI and despite being eclipsed by bigger MMO’s it still retains a pretty faithful fan base of players. When I first heard this was going to be an MMO, never mind that I hadn't even got my hands on Final Fantasy XIII yet, my brain immediately switched off, but after combing over a few screenshots this new game looks just too damn pretty to pass by.

Take a look at the website here.

Immediately of interest are the playable races in FFXIV which include:

The Hyur, who are basically the boring humans. They are divided into the Highlanders and the Midlanders.

Elezen who are basically elves and are described as the original inhabitants of Eorzea.

Lalafell who look a lot like gnomes and easily fulfill the cuteness quotient for a Final Fantasy game.

Roegadyn, a big strong race of warriors who sailed to Eorzea from some where to the north. Definitely your tank race.

Miqo'te, a much more original race of cat people divided into two groups: the sunseekers and the moonkeepers. Definitely your furry friendly race.

Furry powers ACTIVATE

The background plot of Final Fantasy XIV is pretty straight forward. Eorzea is split into various nation states that have been slugging it out with each other for centuries. Then along comes a bit of a technical revolution and suddenly there are flying battleships and other incredibly powerful weapons. An arms race stale mate has occurred, like the cold war, easing tensions between the nations.

Unfortunately this means that heaps of soldiers and mercenaries are now on the dole. Lacking any skills other than fighting they organise themselves into various guilds and become adventurers. Journeying out into the world to discover hidden riches and fight monsters during turn based random encounters.

Obviously there will be deeper elements to explore in the game plot wise and if you troll through the website there's all ready platters full of rich creamy lore to be devoured if you really want to get into the world. This could potentially be a Final Fantasy game that people might keep playing into infinity, and it looks set to be the first console MMO RPG when it appears for the PS3.

I don't what the hell it is but I'm pretty sure I want to kill it

As Flight of the Concords say 'Bret you've got it going on'

Whats most interesting is news that, despite being an MMO, Final Fantasy XIV won’t depend on leveling or experience. Apparently your characters attributes and abilities will depend on weapons and equipment. Apparently quests and activities will develop naturally from the narrative experience of the player rather than having a group of vendor like quest givers at various locations. It will be interesting to get some play with the game and find out just how these elements are going to work and how Square intend to keep people intravenously hooked to this game Warcraft style with out the narcotic of leveling and experience. It has to be said though that an MMORPG that didn't require endless grinding is a pretty interesting idea.

Make sure you keep scrolling down to see some very attractive concept art work of some of the locations to explore in Eorzea. In case you're not impressed enough they're captioned with appropriate noises of appreciation.

Final Fantasy XIV will go on sale in late 2010 for the PS3 and PC.

I think I see an ATM over there

Ooooh

Aaaaaah