Marrying npcs.

[Oatmealraisin]

I don't think that they're opposed to a dating game (see the e3 interview ). They would likely be separate in some way from the MSQ characters just in case.

This is not going to happen any time soon according to Yoshi himself.

I was a bit confused by these two posts but actually it seems you're both right:

PSU: [W]ould you be willing to explore possible romantic ties or deeper relations with future characters as the story proceeds?

Yoshida: We don’t intend on having any sort of NPC fall in love with a player character in the main story.

The reason is that say for example in real life, you’re a male gender, but in the game you’re RPing as a female. I feel that it should be the player’s choice for who they fall in love with and what kind of relationship they have.

That being said of course, when the player character has someone they like and want to get to know more about them without being related to the main story- that might be something we can explore. We are busy working on other material right now but it might be cool to have some kind of a dating game.

From the terms used it's not completely clear, but I think what he's saying is that -

a) SE won't put a love story in the MSQ, meaning that they'll never force the player into such a storyline in order to proceed. Unlike, for example, Final Fantasy VIII where Squall is the main character and you don't get to choose whether or not he falls for Rinoa, in FFXIV the main character is your own creation so it would be disconcerting to have them involved with someone against your choice.

b) But, they're open to the idea of adding optional side content where your character could form a relationship with someone. Not in the near future, but it's a possibility.

After reading this, I've upgraded the probability of romance content happening a bit. Which I'm okay with, if it's more story-focused and includes actual plot/lore instead of being just a Fable-ish "marry anyone but they're all cardboard cutouts" system.