I was in a BlackBerry group as well as an MSN group all chatting with my friends about the Pookypoo livestream when that happened. Yep, I took out my 3G stick and burned my 1.5GB data out of 1GB that I had per month… streaming that live.

After a day, the hype still haven’t died and you could still see twitter as well as forum posts regarding the hottest video released yet.

And as the celebrity frenzy that marked the Alpha testing launch dies down, reality is replacing hype – by Pookypoo. Some Japanese even call him “God”.

The verdict so far? Oh it’s amazing. It’s Diablo II + WoW + FFXI, merging the good stuff together! Let the in-game cut-scene (updated) speak for itself.

We couldn’t come up with a number of how many Alpha testers were selected. It’s safe to say a fair amount, since we do recognize a few names in some of the footage.

“This video is full of win!” says one of the people in the channel while the footage is being broadcasted live. Another said “I was holding back onto FFXIV, not anymore after I saw this!”.

The peak viewing was up to 1600 users simultaneously. The channel was under “Slow Mode”, meaning each user could only type one message per minute on Pookypoo’s justin.tv channel.

Users in the channel were all contributing when Pookypoo was playing, exclaiming “You’ve learned a new skill!” or “Use those attribute points!”  It was amazing to be there, we all felt like we were playing it as well.

Generally, there was a huge amount of players, causing sluggish gameplay and tremendous lag. However, the existence of “instances” was definitely a nice add-on. There were even messages warning you “You are about to enter/exit an instance” – a good move for areas that could eventually contain a large amount of players.

On web forums, as the alpha testing begins, testers voice numerous complements about the game so far. They all seem very positive, ranging from “excellent graphics” to “you could spend a whole day creating your character.”

Unfortunately, like other alpha testing, the alpha testers are subject to a non-disclosure agreement, the violation of which unfortunately got Pookypoo removed from the game. There was rage on the forums directed at the person who even called Pookypoo out.  However, aren’t you all supposed to be testing the game? ^^

“I can’t wait to see him get banned,” “Ban his FFXI too,” and “Ban this website too,” were just some of the comments beside the stream. Even with all that harsh content, Pookypoo continued doing his job and reporting bugs as he saw them.

For those that missed the stream, well don’t worry. There are other “authorized” website such as famitsu, 4gamer as well as andriasang which contain the alpha-gameplay report. The game will be even better when it launches as the final product. The alpha had lots of restrictions that are expected to be removed before beta such as a limit of physical level to 20, no Miqo’te to play and a non-working chat filter.

After everything, Pookypoo got his account suspended. However, he had his reasons for doing what he did. He explained it clearly on his website (3 different letters). He had a great point: Your fans wanted it. They have waited too long for any worthy information about the game. From the bottom of my heart, I was one of them.  I’m sure that’s also true for many of the readers who weren’t selected as alpha testers as well.

Check it out here in HD! http://www.youtube.com/finalfantasyxiv#p/u/0/n-vjy97RuoA

FFXIV Trailer + Music presented live is just HQ+2. Composed by Nobuo Uematsu and conducted by Arnie Roth, Distant Worlds presented the FFXIV Trailer with the music played live on December 12, 2009 at the Rosemont Theatre @ Chicago. I wanted to go, was only a 1hr airplane ride away, never happened, so can only YouTube at just a few cam recordings

For future performance schedule, please visit their official website, or follow them on twitter!

Thanks to Otak from Quetz for the news!

While everyone is all focused on the newly released MMO – Aion, SE have countered all that hype with a new high-res Trailer of Final Fantasy XIV.

There are a lot of details in that video, different customization, hairstyle, looks of armor, guildleves, NPC, environment and various other little objects in the video, but we’ll leave the imagination up to you! However, you can share it though via the comment system

You can also hop over to Final Fantasy XIV’s Official Website and take a look

For those that can’t load the trailer for whatever reason, Otak screen cap a few shots for you to see The pics would fit on your mobile phone for viewing.

• The Lalafellas!
• Ship and Bullet.
• Miqo’te Chatting
• Lalafella
• Miqo’te and Elezen
• Roegadyn and Guildleves
• Guildleves – The Cards
• Forest
• Lalafella and Hyur Chatting
• Airship Battle Scene

You’d love the battle scene, the music, and the gathering showing all the guildleves!

Remember to use HD BUTTON!

Video 1

• PvP and PvE servers will be there, but they believe PvP is only a minority. (Well judging from how PvP in FFXI turned out, I’ll pick PvE)
• S-E wants to focus on PvE, then come back to PvP at a later date.
• They talked about their target market. First being FFXI players, 2nd being FF Fans, and 3rd being people who never played FF series or MMO series.
• Although they are targeting FFXI players as well, they won’t stop supporting as long as the players keep playing, and did say will leave the option open to the players.
• Voice Chat will not be integrated like WoW. Although no one really uses the WoW version. However, they just said if people have equipment, they can just talk to each other hence. Use Ventrilo.
• They realize cultural barriers, and offer bilingual GM’s. =_=; How about different servers.
• They will be more open in terms of regulations to the players. No more ninja-bannings.

Video 2

• Unlike Leveling Characters, this time is leveling your own weapons.
• You are leveling your skills – hence skill cap / skill ups.
• Guildleve are still the main confirmed quest system. You get quest from Aetheryte.
• Aetheryte is still the main transportation system.
• They clearly said solo and party play is possible. In fact, party size seems to be flexible too. They mention “requirements”. These can either be players, or skill-based requirements, hence “level”.
• Switch jobs on the fly just by switching the weapon.
• There’s going to be a deep storyline, with High Quality CG’s, with voice.
• They also mentioned Chocobos, but they will play a different role in FFXIV.

We’ll keep you posted as we find more interesting FFXIV news!

A video interview with the development team of Final Fantasy XIV from E3 was included with this month’s Famitsu magazine. Many thanks to Elmer for bringing us the feed direct from Japan!

A trailer that was released on Final Fantasy XIV’s Official Website.

I can see Hume, Elvaan and Galkas for sure. However, not sure if Mithra or the TaruTaru race will make it into Final Fantasy XIV. Lets hope they do, since they were one of the most popular race in Final Fantasy XI.