Some news, folks! It seems Famitsu has posted a new article on their site, found here. The article is in Japanese, but FFXIV Core seems to be working on a translation and will be updating their post, found here.

Five classes have been officially revealed: Woodworker (likely to be Carpenter for NA), Goldsmith, Fisherman, Amourer, and Harvester (Botanist for NA). Sadly none of these classes are from the Disciplines of War or Magic, but it’s still nice to know these guys will be making release.

In other news a poster at FFXIV Core found an interesting accounting of an attendant at Japan Expo in France, detailing and confirming some interesting information. Considering it’s from an attendee and not any official news source however please take the info with a grain of salt!

You can find the Japan Expo article after the jump.

This is from an attendee, Sruon. I don’t know if that’s his real name or not.

Made it to the Warwick Hotel at 11 A.M., and once we entered the projection room we were greeted by different Square Enix Crew Members, all very professionnal and nice with us.

They also gave us a press book to introduce us to FFXIV for the least informed of us, and among all things, it indicated there would be an automatic translating system.

Then, at 11:15, they showed the game on a huge screen! No doubt, alpha is long gone, beta is fantastic and very fluid in comparaison. On top of this screen, there were 2 computers available for us to test the game but the planning was tight and we didn’t have time for it.

At 11:30, while the attendees were waiting for the presentation, we noticed it’d be possible to configure the game from its beta version, be it graphics or controllers, which is globally a good news.

Then at 11:40, the introduction of the beta version started, and even if we didn’t notice anything new, it was interesting to see that excluding the Name and First name of Avatars, the character creation was integrally in french!

The first part of the demo was about Char creation with “Tartampion Blabla”, Lalafell Guest-star, made for the occasion. This creation was a bit limited in this beta version to keep the novelty for release, but it already allowed us to pick some very advanced options, such as birth date, Guardian (that will influence the char’s connivence(?) points (or favor), obtained by doing some things.). Which? How? Mystery… We also learned that depending on the the ethnic orientation of characters (Fire Roegadyn/or Sea), the customization was a bit different.

Now, time for the game itself! In fact, considering the beta only happens in Limsa Lominsa, it is pretty much identical to the one we had in the benchmark, and of course, possesses an english dub and french subtitles. That being said, while waiting for introduction loading, SE guy said they tried to incorporate as few pre-calculated scenes as possible, to give a better immersion impression to the player by the integration of his character in each cutscenes. The introduction CS will be different depending on your starting city.

After then, it was time to discover the fight system, and for our greatest pleasure, it wasn’t Tartampion but 2 level 40 chars (max level at this time), a Gladiator (who we can consider as a tank) and a Conjurer (fml? I’m not even sure) which, quoting “is closer from a black mage than anything”

But before unshealting our sword, a little visit of LL was imposing itself. Yes it was quick, but we could discover the harbour, which with all other transport platforms were closed until now. On this topic, SE guy said they’d be open as soon as necessary and it will be possible to board an Airship!

We discovered the Retainer service, it is possible to place it in the second covered (inside a building? not sure) market (first being dedicated to NPC sellers), and they will sell all your goods even when offline, with a 24 hours restriction for the beta. And to those who still doubted it, SE guy confirmed there won’t be an integrated Auction House.

Once that was done, we moved onto Guildleves that were a little more detailed this time around, with the EXP points, rewards and reputation once completed.Finally the formed team started a low level Guildlevels called “Megalocrabe” in which 2 level 40 chars literally slaughtered monsters.

During that guildleve we noticed the TP bar went up to 3000 and that Gladiator was really oriented Tank, with abilities such as “Phalanx” that drew attention of monsters toward you, “Circular Strike” was an AoE attack or “Red Lotus II” that looked a lot like its XI counterpart.

On top of that, the debuff received by player were showing directly on the screen in the form of text accompanied with an icon, floating for some time on your char so you could notice your character received a debuff.

Finally, they completed the Guildleve and we heard the “Fanfare” music, very familiar to FF players.

But it’s not done! Because after this hour-ish demo, there was a Q&A session, which, we’d like you to discover:

Q: “You said you should take care of Bombos because they could sight aggro, but why didn’t they aggro at all?”

A: Aggro system is indeed present, but this time we used high level characters and it was in a low level zone, therefore it wasn’t a problem. But we can ensure you such system is present.

Q: “Does timing influence rewards in Guildlevels ?” (seriously… l2alpha)

A: There is a reward table showing when you accomplish a guildlevel, listing all the rewards and time it took. We’ve had confirmation that following difficulty and time taken, rewards would be different.

Q: “Are there raids planned?”

A: Instanced dungeons are planned and the PVP question was very quickly dealt with, they told us it wasn’t to exclude but if anything, it’d be in a really long time. For now, they’re still working on a 18 players max format in a group, like FFXI, but depending on Beta testers/players feedback, it could change.

Q: “We remember in FFXI, we’d fight often NMs for equipements, will this system make a come back?”

A: Yes, but nothing is sure as of now, they may work on a repop timers for monsters.

Q: “In FFXI we sometimes had troubles to level up because there were too few EXP spots, do you have solutions for that?”

A: We’re working on repop timers so that there isn’t few spots of XP in a zone but a zone filled with XP spots. Once again, it will depend on players feedback.

Q: “About strategies, can you tell us more?”

A: Strategies will be, basically, a Skillchaining and Magic Bursting system like FFXI. That being said, they will allow for abilities that the whole group need to use and depending on order they could allow for special effects… Discover them!

Q: “About Crafts, will it be possible to level them all (Not 1 like FFXI)? If yes, is paying 3€ per additionnal characters a sort of message meaning that only one char is enough?”

A: As of now, yes, every crafts will be able to levelled to max level on a single char, because the game is based on “Armory”, which allows for quick change of role depending on equipped weapon. That being said, to balance, there could be restrictions. As for the additionnal cost, it is legitimate to think of it as a dissuasion, but also as a commercial strategy or a wish to alleviate server load.

Q: “Beta phase will be short, is it really dedicated to help developpers make the game beta through feedbacks or is it purely commercial?”

A: Of course we can’t deny the commercial side of betas, but you can rest assured that FFXIV beta is a real beta, and feedback from players are important.

Finishing with this last answer, SE guy said he saw the game change a lot between first version and current one. So, nothing is really done, and everything could change.