This is an odd question I'd like to post to the community. And to any developers out there I'd absolutely love your input on this.

What NPC's or do you feel attached to and why?

This came about in a conversation in my linkshell. One of our members loves Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn, You may have seen some of their little sketches of Merlwyb about. This has caused some slight mockery in the LS, all in good fun, but it started with me sparking the point that compared to FFXI, we have no memorable NPC's.

In FFXIV I can think of a small handful of NPC's I can remember as being characters. The 3 nation leaders, though we only really get to know one of them. Perhaps the 3 main storyline characters, whos names I honestly could not guess at, I have vague memories of their character but nothing more. And then perhaps the Inn leader in Limsa who pointed me towards my first story quests ages and ages ago.

Now compare this to my memories of FFXI, and this is looking back upwards of 9 years when I first imported the game from the US. I remember Trion, Pieuje and Claidie the royal siblings, the king whom i had more face time than I have my FFXIV leaders. the power struggle revolving around the kingdom between the two princes and the ever so lovable leader of the cathedral. I remember Shantoto being both a hilarious character and insane nut bag, both in my brief visits to Windurst and through the ToAU story. I remember the absolutely epic characters involved in CoP, Prishe, Tenzena and Ulmia, the absolutely stunning music and events that accompanied it and was weaved into the storyline. Naja Salaheem, all of the generals and the at times boring empress Nashmeira. I never got to get super far in WoTG but I still remember Excenmille's struggle to become recognized. I even remember the lovable Goblins in Jeuno who I just loved throwing money and items at for bigger bags.

Now you can kind of see in FFXIV that after Yoshi-P came on board and the plans for 2.0 were set in motion, at this time the main story with the "voice" seems to have been pushed to the background in favor of the Garlean invasion and a plot device to change the world. Soon after the Grand company story line comes out as being the new man story. This brought in what I'd say were the first real characters of the FFXIV world. But we're still missing something by not getting to witness a story unfold with the characters. They're all the leaders, we cant go on a quest and arrive at Castrum Novum with them and see their reactions to gauge the situation. This is what I see wrong with most modern WOW clones. So many many little quests the forgettable NPC's, and bugger all overarching story that you get to see unfold with memorable characters. just a few major NPC's you get to see talk once in a while and that's it.

I dearly hope that 2.0 ushers in some more great characters that we get to get some progressive face time with and whom will be on par with the standard of characters we got to see in FFXI.