This. I was a very sad panda when I realized the new dev team had scrapped/delayed/whatever the promise of player driven Companies, which was set to see the light of day in the first version update in 2011.
Some clarification would sure be sweet.
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A company right now can't do anything a LS can't. So it would be a pointless feature.
Personally, I feel like the game should have been designed around player companies from the beginning. A free world where we group together to build economic hubs, generate our own quests, and prevent the Garlean Empire from invading our lands.
Of course it can't since it hasn't been implemented. But the promise was never "player driven companies with no content", and neither you, I or anyone else playing this game knows weather we will EVER see these things. I don't believe the OP was saying "Player companies NOW", I believe he was asking if it is indeed entirely scrapped or not.
For some people it was the most anticipated upcomming feature in FFXIV, me included. If the dev team gave some kind of info of this, even a plain "no", it would do no harm what so ever and people that did want the feature can move on.
I'm just not sure what the point of a player company is.
Building airships and houses? That could be done by a Linkshell.
Other than that I don't know what the different functions of Linkshells and Companies would be, so I'm not entirely how a Company would be implemented "in Tanaka's vision" without making a Linkshell...defunct, I guess.
I guess we could go on debating the function and relevancy of player companies, but I'm not gonna go into that. You wouldn't change my mind about thinking that information from the dev team about weather we will ever see these player companies along with the features and content to back them up, would be nice.
I'm not expecting that they derail from their current plan of new a new battle system, instanced dungeons and so on. I'm (along with others) just asking if it'll ever see the light of day.