Here is you can find general info on FFXI. New news will be posted upon its release.

• The world is Vana'Diel. Over 20 years ago, evil arose to try to obtain the powers of the world's crystals. The world fought together to rid that evil, and succeeded. Now, that same evil is back and the worlds forces must come together again to take care of that evil. The world mixes the best of the medival style [FF9], futuristic technology [FF7], and the fantasy style [FFX] that makes the series what it is known to be.

• Considering the vast number of people that are going to be playing FFXI at one given time, there are going to be several servers to hold them all. But what if you don't get placed on the same server as your friends? Well, it is not yet known, but players might be able to choose which server to play on each time they turn the game on, so friends can pick what servers they can fit onto every time. But nothing of this actually happening is confirmed.

• Conquest! Yes, conquest! FFXI will have a conquest as part of the game. In the beginning of the game when you customize your character, you must choose an area of the world to live in [Bastok, SanD'oria, and Windurst]. Outside of these areas are sections of unoccupied land. They are Gustaberg, Sarutabaruta, and Ronfaure. There are plenty of monsters that roam around these areas. Your "team" is which place you chose to live in. The object is, the more you successfully kill monsters in these areas, the more land you can gain for your "team". Losing battles in these areas can make you lose control of parts of the land that you own. So you can try to gain control of the whole world! Note, that this is just optional and you don't have to participate in this.

• In FFXI, there are no random battles. Instead, you get to go up to monsters and engage in battle yourself, but sometimes monsters can be aggressive and they will attack you. The basis of the game is going on different quests for NPC's [Non-Playable-Characters], similar to that of dungeons and dragons.

• Battles are in real-time, which is a little more different then active-time. When players cast a spell, it would take longer than normally attacking the enemy, and at all times, spells and attacks can be interrupted by the enemies attacks.

• The battling will take us far away from what we know from the previous Final Fantasys, and give us a whole new style of battling. From what it looks like in the teasers, it seems that the battling will be in more of a Chrono Trigger sort of way. The characters will surrond the enemies and attack when it is their turn.

• Players can have teams of up to 6 people. Out of those six people they must choose 1 leader [Ooh...expect lots of fits coming out of this one!]. That leader gets to choose who else joins the group, and they distribute the items won after a battle, and possibly manage the teams money. That party can make an alliance with 2 other parties, making an alliance of 18 people. There aren't any limits or boundaries to who can join your party or alliance. Anyone can join, even if they are of a different race and of a different area.

• Square is still questioning if they should include a monthly fee for the game.

• There will be airships in FFXI, its just not confirmed if they will be usable or not.

• There is a good chance that there will be random weather factors, and day and night as well.