Final Fantasy XIV changes coming; free month extended 30 days

Final Fantasy XIV has had, what I like to call in the business, a rocky start.  The initial reviews aren't very good and current players are complaining.  So Square is going to man up and fix it.  To start, they are going to be extending the free trial of the game for people who already purchased it from 30 to 60 days.

Since the official launch of service on September 30, 2010, we have received a wealth of constructive feedback from the FINAL FANTASY XIV community, and the development and management teams would like to take this opportunity to express their sincerest gratitude. For those who purchased the collector's edition and began to play one week before official service began, the month-long free play period is drawing to a close. Considering the nature of much of the feedback we received, however, and the current state of the game, we have decided to extend the free trial period for all users.

Next up, they have started detailing the upcoming changes they are going to be making to the game.  In the current Ask the Devs section, which you can find HERE, you can find answers to such question like this:

Q. Where are all the monsters?
A. At the time of release, server load issues limited the number of enemies that could appear in areas where large amounts of PCs gathered, such as aetheryte camps situated near city-states. To alleviate this, we have increased the number of servers. This, combined with the fact that players are moving away from these areas and have begun to spread out over the world, will now allow us to increase the number of enemies roaming the realm.

Finally, Final Fantasy XIV Director, Nobuaki Komoto has also posted his thoughts on the upcoming changes that will be occuring in the game:

Allow me to begin by stating that the development team plans to release a version update at a rate of once every three months, of which the large-scale version update currently planned for December will be the first. Nothing is more important to us than seeing to the prompt implementation of the various changes and features players desire to improve playing conditions. In that vein, there are several adjustments and additions which we will be introducing before December's version update.

A good deal of the constructive feedback we received was in regards to the market and retainer systems. As previously addressed in an installment of Ask the Devs, several improvements will be brought to both of these features. Among these are a simplification of retainer access which no longer requires use of the interactions menu, and specific reduced taxes in market wards which will serve to reorganize them by item types.

You can read all his update plans HERE.

What do you think about the changes?  Post your comments below.