FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Beta phase 3 continues this weekend, has chocobos

Chocobos! Belts! Leather flaps on stuff! Sweeping soundtracks! Pointy ears! Shapely butts! Especially the shapely butts. You can have it all. From today until Sunday morning, you can take part in the ongoing beta phase 3 of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn, a Final Fantasy online RPG adventure that takes place in the sadly fictional but madly pretty Eorzea and Hydaelyn environments.

This new phase of the beta showcases the FATEs system (it stands for Full Active Time Event, in Japanese Fu-ru Aktib Taimu Eben – one of my only skills in Japan was that I could translate English to phonetic Japanese English very well – I ate a lot of hotto-dogus and sandoichis). These are events that you may come across that you can choose to actively take part in, or pass by. For more info here are two of the game’s developers, Naoki Yoshida and Toshio Murouchi with their yoroshikus.

You know when you feel like you have a full time job playing MMOs? This is one game that sort of admits that you do have one, albeit they are slightly more exciting jobs than answering phones and doing admin:

“By achieving sufficient mastery in a certain class, adventurers will be able to begin undertaking the mantle of a related job. For instance, gladiators may rise up as paladins, stout swordsmen who shield comrades from harm; thaumaturges may aspire to become black mages, masters of offensive magic; while conjurers may find a new calling as white mages, masters of healing.

The foremost appeal of jobs is the unparalleled degree of specialization they offer. Their potential is best realized in party situations, where having well-defined roles is the key to success. There can be no doubt that jobs shine the brightest in the company of others.”