"Today's patch preview offers a closer look at Frontline, where adventurers will do battle to claim disputed territory in the name of their respective Grand Companies."

"Frontline is a new PvP challenge which engages three teams of adventurers, each team representing one of the three Grand Companies. Teams consist of up to 24 players in an alliance, allowing for a grand total of 72 players in a single battle."

Questions this brings up;
  • Can we only party & queue with players that are members of the same GC?
  • Will the queue sort people by GC solely or will ranking be involved??
  • How do we play with friends if they're in another Grand Company?
  • Will switching Grand Companies still cost 50,000 gil and reset our PVP Ranking?
  • Example: too many Maelstorm players queue and not enough Twin Adders queue for Frontlines will the game balance the teams accordingly?
  • Will we be forced to re-queue if the game cannot balance the queue according to Grand Company?
  • Do teams simply get assigned to a Grand Company for the duration of the battle?

The last point is bold because I am hoping this is the case; as much as we all love our Grand Companies we can all acknowledge that a system that is stringently locked by your Company affiliation would be a nightmare & would likely lead to "trending" in communities where players will flock to whichever Company seems to win more frequently (thus further disrupting the balancing act that would be required to even enter a match)!

I hope that Square has answers for all these questions; I know these are specific questions and may not be immediately answered but please understand how absolutely critical some of these points are.

If it is locked by Grand Company allegiance I do hope the requirements for changing are not so stringent as to completely negate the possibility of participating with friends.

Could these points please be defined a little more clearly when you're giving us a preview?

Thanks!