Fanfest Q&A with Yoshida and battle designer Nakagawa.

Q. What is the most important thing to think about in making FF14’s world and story?

Yoshida: As the director, astonishment and empathy are the most important things to me. The scenario is made so there are elements where it’s good to think about our own society. We try not to make perfect characters, and we try to accept different ways of thinking.
Not sure what to think of this since I would say certain elements of EW are contrary to it.

Also:

Q. How is it decided which NPCs to make into minions? Are there plans to make minions of villainous characters?

Yoshida: Monster-style minions are left to the device of the responsible team, as for NPC minions, they are all checked in order to avoid spoilers. NPC minions are only made when their character has finished their role, so please think that if a character doesn’t have a minion yet they still have a role to play.
Still no Emet, Hythlodaeus, or Zenos minions, so guess they're all returning then! (Mildly joking here, I know it's hard to tell in text, but there's a lot of people speculating who will be coming back now based on them not having a minion yet.)