Final Fantasy XIV’s September 2010 launch was a troubled one. So much so that Square Enix replaced most of the game's leadership team and chose not to charge a subscription while work to fix and improve the game was ongoing. But the free play ride is almost over.

In a recent announcement to the Final Fantasy XIV website, Square Enix President and CEO Yoichi Wada announced that the game will finally start charging a subscription sometime between late November and early December. During that period a new subscription-billing system will be introduced. To avoid any accidental billing, all accounts have had their automatic renewal temporarily suspended, so if you would like to keep playing once the billing starts, make sure you go into your account and agree to be billed.

Anyone who has played FINAL FANTASY XIV at any time since its release is already in possession of a FINAL FANTASY XIV service account. These accounts are set to renew their subscriptions automatically, barring deactivation by the account holder. Therefore, if we were to begin regular subscription billings for all existing contracts, players who will not see this announcement or who may not currently wish to pay subscription fees would automatically begin to be charged for their accounts. To avoid this, we have decided to first suspend all automated renewals for service accounts. Only account holders who have agreed to reactivate the automated renewal system will be billed.

There’s also some news for fans that have been patiently waiting for the Playstation 3 version of Final Fantasy XIV, but it looks like you’re going to be waiting quite a bit longer. The Playstation 3 version is scheduled for integration into the "New Final Fantasy XIV" between October and December of 2012.

The latest announcement follows the release of Final Fantasy XIV’s 1.19 update.

Source: Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 Announcement