The Days of Yore

[Enkidoh]

Welcome to Eorzea!

I presume by 'events before/after launch' you mean the backstory to the game, which was part of the (now shutdown) original version of FFXIV (version 1.0). ARR takes over from 1.0 and is set five years after 1.0's storyline, but you don't really need to know too much of the backstory as it's revealed in game (and a lot of 1.0's story has been retconned too).

There is a bit too much to really go into here, but a good summary of the entire backstory of version 1.0 can be found here: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...XIV_Storylines and especially the never-to-be-repeated events in 1.0 that occurred in the lead-up to 1.0's shutdown: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Seventh_Umbral_Era