During the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn London Fan Festival's opening keynote just held by Square Enix, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida introduced a lot of information about the Heavensward expansion coming next spring.

First of all, flying mounts have been announced. Players will be able to take off and land anywhere in the Heavensward areas. You press jump and you can climb into the air. There won't be any pre-set route or transition. It's all seamless.

There are six flying mounts currently in development for 3.0 including black chocobo and single-seater airships built by Cid. One of the mounts will also play a very important part in the story. It's so cool that it'll be made into a figurine included in the collector's edition.

The many floating areas that can be explored with the flying mounts could include treasure chests, monsters and even dungeons.

The Vanu Vanu are the first beast tribe included in the expansion, and it's unknown if they are hostile or friendly. They worship the primal Bismark. The second beast tribe are the Gnath. They're an insect-like race that might not be very friendly. They also have their own primal, which is original for Final Fantasy XIV, named Ravana. He wields multiple swords and he definitely looks dangerous.

As many expected, Dark Knight has been officially announced as the first new job. It will be a tank, and it won't be bound to any base class. Basically we will level up as Dark Knight from the start instead of having to pass through a basic class.

Dark knights will use a two-handed greatsword and will be based on parrying and dodging instead of blocking with a shield. Their fighting style is based both on weapons and the power of darkness. It will be very different from Warrior and Paladin.

Even if Dark Knights use the power of darkness, they won't necessarily be an evil character.

The next new job will be announced at the next Fan Festival in Tokyo on December the 20th, but this doesn't mean another rather clear tease didn't come. Yoshida removed the Batman shirt used to provide a hint to the Dark Knight, replacing with a 007 one, heavily teasing a gunner class, saying that he loves "The Man With the Golden Gun."

In addition to this, an European data center is in the planning phase, even if details on location and schedule are still being finalized.

Below you can see all the relevant slides and images shown during the livestream. Now, if I can be excused, I have to go take a cold shower, my excitement seriously cannot be contained otherwise.