On the subject of patches

[Betelgeuzah]

would love to see a "test server" to test new things coming out ....... kinda like eveyother mmorpg nowadays , players can help , reporting bugs ect

This isn't realistic given the current state of development. I doubt the game they're working on behind the scenes is even playable, much less testable, as they work on the very core of the engine, servers and game data.

But giving rough outlines ahead of time would be, imo. Do they intend to release materia system in 1.19? Job system too? Are companies intended to be released in 1.18? Ifrit battle?

Yoshida already mentioned that frontier hubs are coming in 1.18 while beastmen hubs will be saved for 1.19, and that the guildleve balancing will go into full swing in 1.18 I bet he can go further than that.