With Final Fantasy XIV’s standard edition set to be unleashed, ZAM is pleased to announce a Final Fantasy XIV site re-design that should make searching our expansive database and wiki easier than ever! With a cleaner, fresher front page, you'll find it easier to browse through our coverage of the game.

For a guided tour of our new features and functionality, continue reading after the break. We hope you enjoy this new look, and if you have any compliments, comments, or feedback, please let us know in the forums!

UPDATE: We've adjusted links back to their original blue color make forum viewing a more pleasant experience. We are working on an alternate, darker theme as well.

EverQuest II Oktoberfest parties continue this week as the SOE Community Team moves from the European servers to Test Copy. After each party the Community team will dash from server to server, opening up a portal for the Community Lounge across all the regular live servers shortly after each party for you to have your own parties!  Be sure to pop in, because most of the goodies are free for the taking!  There are also a few vendors with inexpensive festive cloaks and hats.  Click the picture at right for our gallery of items and fun from Monday's party!

See EQII Players for full details!  There are three parties left this week:

Just when you thought all the other sites were getting all the exclusives, ZAM comes through! TERA Senior Producer Brian Knox was kind enough to answer the hard-hitting questions that sprung into our minds following the Penny Arcade Expo earlier this month. Since this went so well, I personally hope to write even more stumpers for our readers, people working on TERA, and especially for myself. That means you can expect even more TERA coverage on ZAM!

Knox answers questions on all sorts of topics, ranging from combat to the game's music and artwork. You can read everything he had to say after the jump! Also, be sure to check out the TERA PAX demo walkthrough video that En Masse just released to see the game in action!

With Final Fantasy XIV launching in just over an hour, us folks here at ZAM have been thinking up ways to make this week fun and exciting for those of you patiently waiting for the game. That being said, we are very happy to announce that starting from tomorrow, we will be begin a five day launch week contest: The Great Eorzean Scavenger Hunt!

With 17 Final Fantasy XIV servers coming online today at 5 PM PST, the Eorzean community is waiting in anticipation as launch time ticks closer and closer. Reports surfaced yesterday that some customers in Australia had already received their copies. Amazon is offering release day shipping again. Pictures have shown up on Twitter from Japan, showing store events for the release.

For those of you that will be taking your very first steps in Eorzea, we've prepared a few guides to help ease your transition into Square Enix's stunningly beautiful world.

Alternate Advancements, or AAs for short, are a means of further enhancing your character. They can give your character powerful new skills and enhance existing skills. In addition to levels, they are a means of measuring how powerful your character is relative to other characters of the same class. 

We are pleased to bring you this Alternate Advancement guide, submitted by Xalmat, which explains the basics of the AA system.

Today marked the end of the Open Beta for Final Fantasy XIV and with it goes any progress that testers had accomplished. The good news is, Open Beta players will be able to retain names used in the testing phase when the servers go online for official launch on Tuesday, September 21 at 6:00 PDT.

Do you have a parting shot of your friends like this one from a ZAM linkshell? Share it on the ZAM forums!

Did you know there are 42 Lore and Legend quests in EverQuest II?  Lore and Legend mobs can be found all over Norrath, but some zones tend to have a higher density of certain mobs than others. Certain species of mobs can also be difficult to track down due to their obscure names, and sometimes when you find a hot spot, you may discover that you detrimentally impacted a quest hub's faction.

We've done the research for you! Please enjoy this handy Lore and Legends Hot Spots Guide!

If you're one of the future Eorzean adventurers that isn't in beta and you're still undecided on which city-state will be your character's home, we've got some beautiful hi-resolution shots for you to get a better idea of Gridania! Take a look at the various areas of interest around this lush and beautiful city in the middle of a sprawling forest called The Black Shroud.

The above shot features sylphs, which are described as having a demeanor comparable to that of an innocent child, but their propensity to frolic, jape and prank has all too often been the cause of untold anguish and even tragedy for their hapless victims. For this reason, there are many who harbor an absolute loathing for the little forest fiends.

Now that all those boring game facts are out of the way, we can discuss Eorzea Prelive -- the event!  Part 2 of our Eorzea Prelive coverage explores the journey, the set up and a behind-the-scenes look at the extravaganza itself.

Discuss this in the ZAM Forums!