Some questions from a rookie!

[Lillia]

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