According to a discovery by the newly launched Eorzeapedia, Square Enix will be hiring Game Masters this September, potentially in anticipation of a beta test beginning this Fall.

Of course, take this all with a grain of salt, it is, for the moment, just speculation. There are some facts that lend credibility to the rumor though. There is the fact that the game is slated to launch in 2010 and that Square Enix has stated they want a longer beta test than FFXI had (which was only 3-4 months).

Find out more info on Final Fantasy XIV, here.

Some form of closed beta I bet would be starting soon if they are hiring for game testers and community managers who are 'familiar with FFXI'.  How soon they start letting in random internet gamers though is another story. 

The sooner the better i say! That means more info should be right around the corner, im so excited :D

Color me excited. Can't wait to see how this one turns out!

If this is true it may not be that long of a wait but man there is going to be so many mmos to choose from.

Almost all successful betas are close to 1 year or more in length,  With a universal release and without 1-2 years of beta testing and retail testing in Asia I would expect FF14's beta to last at least one year.  There are exceptions to the one year rule where a game uses paid testers for most its testing prior to beta like WoW or a game is released 1-2 years early in a completely unfinished state.  LOTRO is another exception with only a 9 month beta but keep in mind they did a lot of their testing of the engine and technology in developing DDO so they started Aplha testing with a client that had no lag or performance issues. 

If there is any chance of a 2010 release beta will have to start soon.  But then again the longer the beta the better. I hope they take their time and push this release well into 2011.  Preferably I would rather see them change their plans and release in Asia 1st and then NA second as NA customers are much less tolerant towards unfinished and unpolisged releases.  Also take into account that 5 major and well funded games (FF14, SWTOR, HoT, Blizzards's unnaounced new MMO, NCsofts uannounced  MMO) will all be released in roughly  the same time period and a polished quality game will be even more important to western success. But to play devil's advocate Square might just have accepted that success in NA is very fickle and unpredictable while Asia is much more of a sure thing and Asia is where their focus should be.

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Originally posted by SaintViktor
If this is true it may not be that long of a wait but man there is going to be so many mmos to choose from.

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^^^^ So true! 2010 is going to be nuts with all the mmorpgs I want to play. Some look like they may come out by the end of 2009 but that just means, if they are good, I'll be playing them off and on throughout 2010 when these other MMOs launch.

Champions Online, STOR, STO, Mortal Online, Aion, FFXIV, that right there is enough to go nuts with, on top of a few oldy but goodies like LOTRO, EQ2 and WoW probably having expacks.!!!! I need more money! And time!

It has been awhile since I have beta tested a MMO, but what has turned me off before was the annoying way they had the beta testers report bugs (usually in some out-of-game web form or via email).

I hope SE has a very simple in-game bug reporting tool that auto pre-fills all necessary tracking info (i.e. Date/time stamp, Character name and info, location, account name, computer specs, etc.) and lets the bug tester input the actual bug description and then click send (again, IN-GAME).

If the bug reporting method is simple, detailed and in-game, then I think we have a winner and I would be more than willing to seriously beta test. :)