I voted for option 3, but like most people I actually prefer somewhere between 2 and 3.

Personally, I love to be surprised by things like the Bards. My opinion is that anything that drastically affects the storyline should be either completely concealed, or only mentioned through extremely vague in-game hints.

Something like a new arena game, or even something like the original release of aetherspace would be fine to discuss more or less in detail beforehand.

So basically, the way things are done now. I do think it would be really cool instead of a Divine mentioning on the forums three months in advance that something cool is happening, the IG hints that usually happen a day or two before the major event starts would start showing up a month or two in advance.

But maybe these things already do happen within Orders and I just don't know about them.

I like it when I know, at the very LEAST, that something is happening, or planning on happening. Because I like to be there for it. Random events sometimes cause me to be upset because I wasn't around to see them. So, some information is good, but keep the majority of it a secret.