Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida has posted his 36th Letter from the Producer this week to bring more news on the upcoming A Realm Reborn alpha and what players can expect in November. The alpha test for A Realm Reborn should get underway later this month, but following a recent vote by players, the current version of the game will remain in operation beyond the scheduled shutdown date of November 11th. Despite a 64.6% portion of the vote not favoring the option to continue playing the current version given that none of the data will transfer beyond November 11th with the A Realm Reborn launch, servers will come back up after that date and remain under observation.

"Overall, about 35% of you voted for keeping the servers open, regardless of the fact new data won’t be carried over. While these numbers make for a tough decision, I was planning to keep the servers open so long as 30% of the players voted for it. And so, a few days after the servers go down on November 11th (00:00 PST), we’re planning to bring them back up."

Source: FFXIV Letter from the Producer