
Originally Posted by
minar1981
Final Fantasy XIV is currently down, do *not* buy it right now. The game was released years too early, and despite generally negative feedback on the early betas, and almost sank SquareEnix. They shuffled the development team, suspended the subscription fee, and started to work out patches to try to fix it.
In the end SquareEnix decided the rebuild would be too extensive, and announced that they were going to take down the old Final Fantasy XIV servers and completely rebuild the game into a "new" game: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. That game is in early Alpha now, with betas coming in February and a release in 'mid-2013'.
You will have to purchase an account (by either buying it online or getting a box in a store) and there will be a subscription fee. How much has not been officially announced yet.
If you want to play Final Fantasy online. Final Fantasy XI is also an online only MMO, it is still up and running and is moderately popular. It has not gone free-2-play unlike a lot of its contemporaries, you will have to buy and account and pay a subscription fee.