"If you ignore them long enough.."

[Synrin]

SWTOR had NPC companions from the beginning.
There is another MMO but the name eludes me.

Honestly the NPC group thing would be lovely. As it'd help with a lot of the community's complaints.

I found them annoying. I also found how crippled you were compared to others without one demotivating.

[Chasely]

Also, when will they fix the random lag in Chocobo racing?
When will we get new racing areas?
Do they have any plans to fix the way stats are inherited? Using the grandparents rahter than the parents is stupid.
When will we get server-wide racing leaderboards?
At what point are they going to fix the glaring annoyances in Lords of Verminon? Just adding a few extra minions on top of their clunky system isn't fixing anything. Just like throwing more cards at us isn't going to fix the blatant win-trading in Triple Triad.

[Jetstream_Fox]

I don't get the impression that they're ignoring the issues - I think it's genuinely a matter of them having to work with limited funds and a small team of developers that are likely overworked.

Then where is all the monthly fees and cash shop money going? I find it hard to keep believing that SE isn't giving XIV any type of support given how successful ARR has proven to be. It could be yes that the money from XIV is being funneled into the development of KH3 and XV. But that would be the first time I've heard of one game supporting two others in development.

[Saccharin]

It's staggering to think of how much more FFXIV would be capable of if the talking heads up above yoshi-P weren't redirecting FFXIV's money towards overhyped projects headed by the same people that ran this franchise into the ground in the first place.

If you believe the reinvestment crap they sprout about the cash shop well you're beyond saving. Every single one of them is there for the money. Companies dont make games because they love games they do it to make money. I doubt much of it goes into new titles it goes straight to shareholders in the from of dividends.