What is the direction of FFXIV?

[Platinumstorm]

Many of us have read the plans for the future of the game and we understand that the job system is under development, that mounts are under development, we now have solid confirmation that the zones are being redone, and we know crafting is having significant revamping to it, a battle with Ifrit will ensue, and that the battle system and the UI are undergoing constant revision.

I don't really know what the direction of the game is, though. I'm not sure what the objective of FFXIV is going to be, nor what kind of focus the developers want to have in the long term, and I honestly don't even care about the time table.

I would have to assume the game is focused on being accessible to players, since a healthy player base is needed; but some of the changes being made and statements being made regarding leveling seem to put up significant barriers to accessibility [4 months to hit rank cap for one class at 2 hours a day is a significant barrier, but seems to be the goal for Yoshida.] Just who is the game being aimed at?

There's content that needs to be made for all level ranges, and I guess it would be nice to know how they plan to prioritize adding content into the game.

This is just a random stream of questions to highlight so much of the confusion in the game:

Are all rank ranges going to be supplied with a healthy amount of content in the new zones? Are the mission quests and lackluster class quests being redone? What will happen with the original stories that are seemingly dropped at rank 20? Is the focus of the game going to be on story quests, small-scale dungeons, large scale raids, or what exactly? If guild leves aren't going to be the primary focus, then what is?

I don't even know how to plan my caster classes right now. I'm very interested in black mage, but it seems like conjurer keeps being driven towards the white mage, while the lore seems to favor conjurers being black mages and THM being white mages. Ranking up classes takes a big investment of time, and I just don't have an indication of what's being done!

Will there be a significant amount of "retcon" done to the lore in the game? How can the nations even hope to take on the Garlean empire given the vast technological differences [Arrows vs airships of death is very hard to swallow.]?

Are the main cities also being redone or retouched in significant ways? [Ul'dah is great, but could be more lively]

Will the revamped zones be "themed park", or will mob distribution be semi-random still for ranking levels? Are you aiming for a hand-holding experience, a semi-sandbox experience, or a sandbox experience?

Will stationary groups be focused on or will you try to develop Tanaka's vision as he spoke of in which [paraphrasing] "the mobs form groups and hunt you"?

How do the producers plan to tackle the massive amounts of gil held by players that will lead to high inflation with any sort of significant item demand?

Will we be able to attack multiple mobs without being penalized in sp?

Is the game still being focused on for the Playstation 3 vs the Playstation 4? I ask this because waiting until [estimate] 2013 to launch FFXIV on the PS4 could really solve technical issues that were rumored around the game's beta with 1/3 1/4 resolution on PS3, and reduce the technical limitations of future content. PS players will not hate you for making a better game in the meantime.

How about the payment options? There is a vocal community on both FFXI and on FFXIV but we're not really getting answers regarding this; and right now the lack of answers makes me concerned about contractual obligations to Click and Buy.

Perhaps the mots important question of all: Why do firestarter imps use ice attacks?

What's going right? What's going wrong? What will future battle system refinements and UI changes have in store? Will we get the desired drag/drop and multiple action bars on screen at once?

So all these questions are in really random directions, and they honestly just kind of sum up how the information that we're receiving in the community is extremely fragmented. I know we're still in a "reboot" phase, but it would be great to get some direction into what's happening long term without getting hit with a plan table and a 4 word caption by it. I appreciate those too, don't get me wrong, and I understand that the development of the game is in full-force so we can test the new systems and get to a point where the game is actually ready for "release", but I just don't feel like I have a great idea of where the game is headed right now because of a lack of communication, and it would be great if we could have not only more communication, but in a more organized fashion too.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to add your own questions too!