Some questions from a rookie!

Since I am new to FF XIV and the forum I shall give a brief presentation of myself before peppering the more experienced players with questions:

I am an combination of swedish/dutch female living in sweden together with my boyfriend and our two cats. I study text and informational design but in my sparetime I enjoy reading fantasy, playing MMORPGs and drinking wine. Thats about all. Now to the questions ...

Q1. How many crafts can I learn and level at the same time? And the same question regarding gathering skills.

Q2. What are subclasses? Do I level and play them separately? How do they combine?

Q3. What are Free Companys?

Q4. Do the subclasses lead me to a new type of class? Read something about monks and bards, are they results of combined classes? Is there any thread or site were I can overlook all these combinations if there are any?

...

Since I only could post 1000 characthers.. here are some more.

Q5. I have noticed a slight *hmmrrr* server delay between PS3 and PC (since my bf plays PS3 and I PC) is that normal or just my PCs fault? Does anyone suffer from this delay when playing dungeons etc?

Thanks and happy hunting!

// Rrrrrraaaage Princess!! Also known as "me"

1: You can unlock and lvl every craft/gathering class.

3: Free Companies are basically the same as guilds.

2 and 4: Yes, jobs such as Bard and Monk are each unlocked by having the main class for them at 30 and sub-class at 15. A job such as White Mage require lvl 30 Conjurer and lvl 15 Arcanist. More about which classes the jobs require can be found here http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/F...ntasy_XIV#Jobs

I hope that's the info you seek for the following questions. I left out your fifth question because I don't know the answer to it.

Hello, Hope your enjoying FF14

Q1. You can level all crafts, gathering and battle classes at teh same time, whenever you want on the same character. The armory systems allows one character to have everything 50. How you prioritize is up to you
Q2. So every class has what we call "cross-class" abilities. Abilities that any class can use as long as the host class is leveled to the required point. For example If you as a conjurer wanted to use the cross-class skill "Eye for an Eye" you could equip it as an additional ability if you have leveled the Arcanist class to 34. As you advance and transition from classes ( such as CNJ) to Jobs (such as WHM) the classes from which you can draw abilities will be narrowed for all to two. As jobs get there own abilties exclusive to them and additional abilities are there to help in that jobs specialized role

Q3. Free companies are the FFXIV equivelant of Linkshells or any other MMO's guilds. Grouping of players organized for social/progression purposes. Unlike linkshells, you can only have 1 FC at a time.
Q4. The Jobs i mentioned earlier are unlocked by having the main class at 30 and the subclass at 15 so for example in order to unlock Paladin you have to have GLA 30 AND CNJ 15, You can probability just ask in game what makes what.
Q5 Yes PS3 has a delay compared to PC, this is technical and not a reflection of your PC or internet connection.

Regarding crafting I am seriously considering to first level up my weaver and goldsmith to level 50 (but I am Black Mage 36 already), or at least to keep them 5 levels ahead of the regular classes. You can still make gears for 5 additional levels but forget about crafting HQ items. Otherwise they are practically useless. It spoils a bit the main story but it feels rewarding once you get a grasp of it.

Q1. How many crafts can I learn and level at the same time? And the same question regarding gathering skills.
You can level any class, battle, crafting and gathering all on the same character. You will not be able to do it at the exact same time however because you will need to switch over to the appropriate class in order to actually craft etc but you can level as many as you want.

Q2. What are subclasses? Do I level and play them separately? How do they combine? Sub-classes are kinda a weird way to put it honestly because each class is their own class, you're not really tieing the class together like players would do in XI.

Instead think of it as borrowing skills from one class to another, to answer your question yes you would level them separately. After getting them to the required level for the desired skill, you'd go into your actions and skills menu and look over the additional option. You'll find some class icons and some will be lit up in gold or white (gathering and crafting icons will be lit in white) and others will be uncolored because they will have no skills to offer due to the class not meeting the right level for any skills that trade over yet.

Thats another thing to keep in mind, some skills will not be able to transfer over to other classes so you can check this by checking the skill description and looking at their affinity.

Edit: One thing I forgot to note is that as you level you'll have more skill slots open to you so you'll gradually be allowed to swap over a few more skills. When you're level-sync'd in a dungeon the slots will reduce according to the amount the level requires so you may want to move the skill order around to organize the skills you'll want open if you should go to lower level dungeons on any higher class at any point in time.

Q3. What are Free Companys? Free companies are basically guilds in this game, there are linkshells which is more of a social network then there are free companies which are more organized and have buffs, housing and other neat things that only a fc can do for their members. (You can have up to 8 LS's but only one FC.) You'll be able to join one after beating ifrit for the first time and getting to that point in the storyline.

Q4. Do the subclasses lead me to a new type of class? Read something about monks and bards, are they results of combined classes? Is there any thread or site were I can overlook all these combinations if there are any? All of the jobs require a second class to level, a lot of people call them sub-classes but I just think of it as a requirement seeing some classes don't actually get any real similarities to the second class required for the job they are unlocking.

But yes, every job will require two classes to level but each job requires certain classes not just any class. However the job requirements go like so;

Warrior: lvl 30 Marauder, lvl 15 Gladiator.

Paladin: lvl 30 Gladiator, lvl 15 Conjurer.

Monk: lvl 30 Pugilist, lvl 15 Lancer.

Dragoon: lvl 30 Lancer, lvl 15 Marauder.

Bard: lvl 30 Archer, lvl 15 Pugilist.

White mage: lvl 30 Conjurer, lvl 15 Arcanist.

Black mage: lvl 30 Thaumaturge, lvl 15 Arcanist.

Summoner: lvl 30 Arcanist, lvl 15 Thaumaturge.

Scholar: lvl 30 Arcanist, lvl 15 Conjurer.

Theres a lot of places to look class stuff up at but I just use this for my class information, http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki

Another thing you may be interested in knowing is that each job is allowed to cross over skills from two set classes, no more no less. But when you change back to the base class, you can cross over skills from any battle class you have leveled.

Q5. I have noticed a slight *hmmrrr* server delay between PS3 and PC (since my bf plays PS3 and I PC) is that normal or just my PCs fault? Does anyone suffer from this delay when playing dungeons etc?
Your PC should be faster than PS3 due to PS3 being slightly delayed so yes it is normal if its in that pattern but.... if the ps3 is faster instead then... urm... the problem would be your pc. xD

Not a question you asked but will be helpful later. If you want to put more than 1000 characters in your posts you can edit them after you've posted and basically make them as large as you want.