Waiting anxiously for the Final Fantasy XIV alpha to begin?  Dengeki Games hit bookstores today with a little extra information to tide everyone over.

Let's take a look!

Discuss this in the ZAM Forums!

Battle Q&A

Q: Above the chat log, there are two tabs: General and Battle.  What's the difference?

A: General displays the entire Chat Log, while Battle acts as a filter and shows only what is relevant to the battle.  For the final release version, we are thinking of putting in even more tabs to let you control what you want to see in the log and even allow you to have 2 separate log windows.

Q: How much can you move around the different parts of the on-screen user interface?

A: Anything that needs to be displayed on the screen, the HP/MP gauges, mini-map or chat log, can all be moved around freely.

Q: What is that red mark next to the target's name? (ペイスト, on the lower right, above red bar)

A: It's the strength of the enemy's party.  It's like in FFXI, when you would check an enemy and have its strength displayed in the chat log.  However, in FFXIV there are many cases where you fight parties of monsters, so that mark is used to indicate the relative strength of the enemy party.

Class Q&A

[These were essentially the same questions as the previous Dengeki interview]

Q: Out of the weapons and classes presented so far, there are still some weapons from FFXI (great sword, scythe) which we haven not seen yet.  Will they appear in FFXIV?  If so, what classes might they be added to (e.g. great sword on Gladiator?)  Will all weapons be on separate classes?

A:  I cannot tell you when, but those weapons will definitely appear in FFXIV.  As for which classes they will be associated with, I'll have to ask you to wait and see.

Q: Before heading out on an adventure, you can change your class at whim, but are there any limitations to this?  For example, only being able to carry 3 weapons, and thus change between 3 classes, at once.

A:  At this stage, there are no limitations in place.  However, there is the possibility we may adjust this as we go forward.

Q: Can you change classes in battle?  If it's only possible when not in "battle mode," could one just sheathe their weapon and then change classes?

A:  In FFXIV, there is a Passive Mode, wherein you recover HP as you move, and Active Mode, which is when your weapon is in-hand and you are poised to fight.  Players can only switch classes while they are in Passive Mode.

Q: Can you switch between these two modes at will?

A: Yes, you can change modes anywhere you like.

Beta Test Q&A

Q: Do you plan to let players transfer their character name, etc, from the beta test into the final release version of the game? [For people unhappy with the notion of beta testers getting a head start, they seem to only be referring to name/appearance, though it is not fully specified.]

A: We do plan to allow that, but when official service starts we will have to add new worlds and players may have to transfer.  We need to put some rule in place in the event a new player chooses the same first and last name as a beta player before the beta player is transferred over.

Q: Will beta testers on both the PS3 version and Windows version be playing on the same worlds?

A: We don't have any specific plan to separate the different platforms, but it may turn out that one world leans towards having more of one platform.  However, like with FFXI, we intend to let people login from any platform they choose with a single account.

Q: For the beta test, are you planning to separate worlds by language?  Also, will there be some kind of Auto-Translate Function available in the beta?

A: Whether or not we implement language-specific worlds or an Auto-Translate Function is something that hasn't been fully decided yet.  For the alpha, testing times will be separated by region (Japan, America and Europe.)