14 things to know before starting FFXIV

polygon.com:

Have you heard of critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14? Of course you have! Maybe you’re interested and you want to dip your toes in the extremely popular online game (especially now that it’s out on Xbox) and you don’t know where to even begin.

Starting the game can be daunting. People talk about how there’s hundreds of hours in content (in story alone) and knowing that, it can be tough to even take your first step into Eorzea.

Below are some of the things I would recommend the most to new players or are things I see people asking about all the time with regards to starting in the huge world that is Final Fantasy 14.

This may sound like a ridiculous beginner’s tip, but tons of people don’t really know how account stuff works in Final Fantasy 14, they get all hyped up, and then disappointed. If you own any version of the game, you cannot use the free trial. Even if you only claimed and activated the starter edition of the game from Twitch for free years ago, you cannot use the free trial to access expansions that are now covered under the free trial, like Heavensward. Does this make sense? No, but that’s how it works.

In that case, you need to weigh out whether or not whatever character you made before is worth returning to or if you should just make a new account using the free trial.

If you own the game on one console, you cannot just play it on another for free. You have to repurchase the license through the respective store. This also includes the Steam version. If you use the Steam version on PC, you have to keep buying expansions and such through Steam. The non-Steam PC license is a different license.

You can figure this all out by logging into Mog Station with your Square Enix account and selecting “Service Account Status” from the menu on the left. It’ll show you all the active licenses you own for the game.

Now that you can jump from data center to data center (within regions), where you make your character doesn’t matter too much. The most