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Square Enix announced numerous additions and changes to Final Fantasy XI at VanaFest, a special event in Tokyo dedicated to the company’s eight-year-old MMORPG. These changes are set to be released throughout 2010, thus confirming that the game will remain afloat through this year.

Here’s a summary of the news from VanaFest 2010. Square Enix has added the caveat that these ideas are in development and some may change.

• A new add-on scenario series — Vision of Abyssea, Scars of Abyssea, and Heroes of Abyssea — will introduce a parallel world for players to explore. Abyssea will have new NMs, HNMs, and items. Square Enix has promised that Abyssea will not require extensive time commitments.
• There will be new Wings of the Goddess missions and nation quests. The storyline will end in September.
• There will be many additions to Campaign, including new Ops and rewards. Castle Zvahl will become a Campaign zone and players will have opportunities to battle against the Shadow Lord himself.
• A new quest series, Trial of the Magians, will allow level 75 players to add multiple enhancements and upgrades to their weapons and armor.
• Jobs will be enhanced. There will be synergy-enhanced recipes for Beastmasters’ jug pets. Summoners will finally have two new avatars — Odin and Alexander — though these avatars will only be active during Astral Flow. Puppetmasters will have A-rank hand-to-hand skills instead of C-rank, and their automatons will be a bit stronger. Eventually, all jobs will receive enhancements. Some of the enhancements mentioned on the official Twitter feed include Dancers using Waltz on non-party members, improved Treasure Hunter and a new kind of Steal ability for Thieves, and an ability that lets Warriors become temporary tanks.
• The level cap will increase gradually from 75 to 99. Job ability adjustments will be made accordingly to preserve balance and ensure that each job stays strong, and there will be some kind of new merit point system.
• A number of low-population servers will be merged.
• The Walk of Echos will become accessible to players as an endgame zone.
• New NMs and HNMs will be added.
• Crafting will now be focused more on synergy. New synergy recipes will be added.
• There will be job-specific emotes.

More details on these Final Fantasy XI additions are available at the official site.

Square Enix also announced that it will have a closed alpha test of Final Fantasy XIV for selected “loyal” Final Fantasy XI players, who were apparently chosen via a drawing. Beta testers should receive information starting on Monday, March 1, and the tester website will launch on March 11.