Expeditionary Force is a feature on JP Button that chronicles Final Fantasy-based events in Japan.

There are several events a year that are important to FFXI players, but not everyone can attend them all. Especially ones in Japan, like VanaFest and Tokyo Game Show are inaccessible to a large amount of the player base. Expeditionary Force aims to bring the fan base along with the JP Button staff to experience these conventions together.

In 2008, we covered VanaFest using an iPhone and CoverItLive. It was tough keeping up, but it was a lot of fun and great to see that people enjoyed following the trip to Tokyo as well as the show itself. Another interesting surprise was that right after the show, Square Enix posted all the information in English for foreign players to read.

As convention season rolls around, we are looking to attend Tokyo Game Show and VanaFest. With so many sites popping out to cover these events, and with Square Enix so generously translating information, we think Expeditionary Force can put a different spin on covering these events.

Combining Twitter feeds with the great functionality of CoverItLive, we are looking to provide not just show coverage, but chronicle a trip across Japan and let you come along every step of the way. Twitter allows us to post pictures, video and audio quickly and easily, while CoverItLive lets us organize it into a simple iframe that lets viewers watch without the hassle of registration.

Feel free to pop in and out as you wish as the chat history is always available to scroll through. If you have an interest in Japan, check out our pictures as we travel. If you want to reporting on the event, you can load up the page during event hours. We’ll try to keep it fun and interesting for gamers and include FFXI trivia, recap FFXIV news, etc. Like many things on JP Button, it’s going to be experimental and we hope it contains something that you enjoy.

To participate, you will need to sign up for a Twitter account and send an @ reply. Unfortunately, mobile CoverItLive does not support all the functionality, so it’s the best we can do. We will try to check out your questions and comments, and may copy and paste them into the blog to show everyone.

I hope you look forward to checking out our coverage and testing out Expeditionary Force with us!