SE is always SE... Rage inside... :/

[Aion]

I think what some people are missing here is that "active FINAL FANTASY XIV account" is referring to an "active FINAL FANTASY XIV service account" listed under "Select Service -> FINAL FANTASY XIV" on your Square-Enix Account Management page, which hasn't been explicitly canceled.

You don't need to have any paid options (ability to log into a character in FFXIV), to keep your FINAL FANTASY XIV service account active. Keeping an active FFXIV service account without any active characters has always been free. As long as someone had an active FINAL FANTASY XIV service account they could apply for Alpha.

This is a result of Square-Enix designing the billing system for FFXIV 1.0 to be user-friendly. You could let a month lapse, have all your character options canceled, and during a future month only need to re-activate you character option(s), without the hassle of needing to re-activate your entire FINAL FANTASY XIV service account.

I predicted this outcome back in September, so I'm personally not surprised.

This is not true, actually. I have a friend who was able to apply to the Alpha without an active XIV account. She had played the game before but her XIV account was closed when she applied (and still is). I've read people like this receiving invites from several sources and I don't have any reason to believe it wouldn't be true.

please explain, Im confused

[Nix]

please explain, Im confused

There's two stages to be able to play FFXIV - When you register your FFXIV code, that makes your account active (able to buy service options etc)
But you are not allowed to play XIV until you buy an option.

Technically, everyone who has registered XIV to their service account has an active FFXIV account (since if they had an option/content ID/whatever) they'd be able to log in.

And having an active account = being able to apply for alpha


I hope this makes more sense to you, it's 7am and I've had no sleep ; ;