An article over at SCRAWL extracts mass quantities of information about Final Fantasy XIV Online from a video interview on the DVD of a Japanese magazine, Famitsu Wave.  I clearly need to read up on this game more, as I've (embarrassingly) been completely clueless about it.  I'm not very well versed in the worlds of FF, much less Final Fantaxy XI, which I absolutely should have played more -- maybe I need to fire that sucker up and give it a whirl again?

At any rate, if you want some spiffy info on FFXIV Online, straight from the developers, you can get a synopsis, along with the video itself at SCRAWL:  Final Fantasy XIV 'Famitsu Wave' Interview Pours Information.

...BTW, I'm not sure how excited I should get about this game, but watching their teaser and checking out some screenshots, I'm thinking "gorgeous" would be a word that works.  As usual, it's unclear how much of the visuals in their marketing gobbledy-gook is pre-rendered nonsense, but looking through the screenshots on the official Final Fantasy XIV Online site, they've got a stunner brewing at Square Enix.  Zowie!

We'll see what claims of "You can trust that we plan to create a world of new possibilities that redefine the MMO" end up producing.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds good to me!

I love this idea: gaming marathons for charity.  I've seen a couple similar projects roll by recently, but I missed one that you guys/gals will maybe want to contribute to:  WoWathon. "Three Players; Two Characters; 80 Levels; Benefiting Child's Play"  I love it!

The concept for this "WoWathon" was spawned when the participants came across the Mario Marathon that recently raised about $30,000(!!) for the Child's Play Charity when they crushed through all seven Super Mario games in sequence.  Amazing.

This event looks something like this:

"We're going to be gaming around the clock (rotating 8 hour sleeping shifts) until we hit level 60. We're going to be broadcasting live from our dining room in the hopes of inspiring you to donate as well. If we reach our quota, we'll raise our targeted donation cap and game until we hit 70 (and so forth with level 80). We've started a small pot, but we're depending on you to help us reach our goal of $1000 (and beyond!)."

Currently, they've passed level 40 and are working their way to the $1,000 mark.  Donations are handled through ChipIn, so don't worry about the money not getting to where it belongs.  Child's Play is a fantastic charity, raising many hundred thousand dollars over the years -- well into the millions, actually -- in support of Children's Hospitals and other childrens' centers in hospitals all over the world.  Spread the word on this WoWathon effort, as well as generally supporting Child's Play and consider yourself as having done a Very Good Thing.

Sorry for the hassle, but if you entered the Faunasphere beta giveaway before today (July 30th) at 4pm MST, and were NOT logged in with a MassMOG.com account, your entry was not likely saved properly.  Gah!  Again, sorry about that.  Just run over and fill 'er out again and you're golden.

However, this does point out the simple lesson to be learned here:  membership has its privelages, eh?  :P  (Even if they're unintentional.. I did not do this on purpose just to weed out the slackers who don't want to join the MassMOG.com bus.)

Once more, I'm sorry about any inconvenience on this one.