NPC Companions?

not sure if this is the right area but are there any plans to add companions from FFXI or FFXIV that can be summoned via Signal Pearl for example?. I know we have Chocobo companions but I wouldn't mind having a NPC instead of an animal. I remember having a companion from FFXIV 1.0 but it was a let down compared to what FFXI offered. One of the things I liked about it though is the characters dialogue and the story involved in it.

I hope retainers from 1.0 don't just completely replace the the NPC Companions and are instead shifted to Animal Companions. Preferred to have my Retainer fighting and not being my personal Alfred from Batman.

TBH...I'm not fond of retainers...I just find selling stuff through them to be a chore imo and I'd rather have the ffxi auction house instead of that...but perhaps i'm just not welcoming change and im just to used to FFXI...

I would love to have another personality running around with me. I suppose you might make the argument that in an MMO, the idea is to have ACTUAL people running around with you as those companions. It would be nice though in the fact that you could hire or earn through questing, a fighter if your a caster or an archer if your a fighter and then maybe introduce a romance function so you could ultimately have them move in and become your retainer/spouse in whatever turns into housing in this game! (sigh) nice idea Scarecrow...

Loved FFXI fellow system, chocobo companions are ok, but fellows were awesome :)

Yoshi-P said in a live letter that they are looking to bring our path companions back, but they'll be revamped with a fully customizable system similar to Adventuring Fellows from XI or current Chocobo companions. They haven't given us any more details though, only that they're looking to bring them back in some form in a later patch.

MagJam, I agree that the majority of content in MMOs should be done with actual people (That's why we can't use companions in dungeons after all). But one thing our path companions did that other player characters can't do is become very involved with the main story with a nicely fleshed out bg. It was my favorite part of our path companions in Ver 1 and I hope I can bring my partner back to finish her ver 1 story as well as go on new adventures with.

I think adventuring fellow helps a lot with soloing challenging mobs. Sometimes I don't mind role play a bit with my fellow just for fun ;)

I would love to be able to have an option as conjurer to charm exisiting npc's in the field. This was something you could do since Daoc.