Quote Originally Posted by woloss View Post
I'm not sure, but if I remember right it's possible to play via Steam for free till 35 lvl. Also, no idea about current state, but before "Trial" functionality was like in WoW. So, it was possible to pay just for main account on start and invite trial accounts in order to decide how game fit you.
The trial accounts currently go up to 60, and yes, you can't form a party with a trial account, so you need at least 1 copy of the game. The downside is you can't have trial service accounts. Service accounts allow them to all be under the same Square-Enix account. Some people have elected to use a 3rd party launcher with 4 different S-E accounts and an emulated authenticator. I'm too lazy and prefer to just use the S-E phone app so I bought 4 copies of the base game for $20 each.

The game is currently 50% off so the base game is $10, the latest expansion is $20 or the whole package is $30. Very reasonable. They're also giving out an extra 15 days of gametime once you hit level 30 but I don't remember if that requires an authenticator or not.