Yes.
You'll get to spend some time with Nat, Sara, Mol, Ness, Stella, Xiang, Izzi, and Cindy/Sin-D. Maybe some other people too.
The main reason this release is going to be large-ish (and take so long to come out) is that almost all of the content is going to optional. There will be some mandatory stuff, but I won't make you go hang out with Ness, or kick down Izzi's door. Since a lot of it is optional, and there isn't a strict order that you'll have to follow, I don't have a good place to stop until after everything I'm working on.