Today was the start of the Final Fantasy XIV alpha testing phase. Until recently no one expected the alpha phase to be open to the public, but it would seem Square Enix decided to let those lucky enough to get an invite to take part.

Around 1800 people from each of the Japanese, European and North American regions were selected for the tests. We don't know the criteria that were used to select the testers but if you did not get an invite all you can do is wait and hope.

The alpha tests are scheduled to run for four hours per test and will be separated by region. This means a European tester will not be testing the game at the same time as a North American or Japanese player. Each region will get to test the game on the same day.

If you got into the alpha test you can expect to encounter problems with features, glitches and numerous character resets when changes are implemented. But this is exactly what the alpha testing is about.

We don't know how long the alpha phase will last, but we don't think even Square Enix know because it will depend on how many issues are discovered during the alpha phase and how long it takes to fix these.