Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta begins the 25th February

Has there ever been a more tortured MMO than Final Fantasy XIV? Square-Enix has announced that the beta will be starting on the 25th February - mind you, this is an MMO that launched launched on the 30th September 2010.

Of course, the original MMO was so broken that Square-Enix made it free-to-play for over a year before completely rebooting the MMO as “A Realm Reborn”.

The beta will have a level cap of 15, and will take place in and around Gridania. Oddly, there will be an instance which is aimed at level 30 players; perhaps it will give parties an uber-challenge.

The beta will also be testing a new system, called Full Active Time Events (FATE), which will simply be a random encounter of special monsters that occur anywhere in a non-instanced area.

This beta will take 2-4 weeks, the longest of the four scheduled beta phases.