There are few companies as willing to shell out time and effort for their fans than Square-Enix. In the pre-merger days of the company, the Square wing would often throw Fan Days in San Francisco to either show off a product early, launch it, or just give gamers the chance to check out goodies from the people that made the games they love.



With a huge push into the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre that's currently dominated by EverQuest, Squenix needs to rally support behind their epic cross-platform MMORPG – especially on the PS2 where the only way to get the game will be to shell out $100 next March when the HDD add-on is made available.



After a few weeks to hammer out any remaining bugs, the Final Fantasy XI beta will shut down tonight at midnight, but that doesn't mean the beta testers can't watch their hard-earned characters go out with a bang. In a move that at the very least should reaffirm for the beta testers why Square-Enix is so beloved by their fans, the company is planning a special treat for anyone who logs into the game from 6:00-9:00 PST.



Any testers who log in during that three hour block to their respective home points in their starting towns will get the chance to battle monsters not previously seen in the game. Square-Enix claims it won't matter what class, nationality or level you're at, so it's presumed all characters will have some kind of 11th-hour stat boost to make kicking mystery monster booty more doable.



Here are the proper home points:

-South San d'Oria-

-Bastok Markets-

-Windurst Woods-

-Jeuno Port-



For those looking to hook up with the PSX2.com crew, we'll be logged into Windurst Woods as the character Xiou. See you there!