Companions

What does everyone think of the idea about having a Companion following you main toon?

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1034

Love it! Can't wait for one to be honest. I'm a massive fan of pets in other MMO's, actually it's one of the reason I chose the Lore-Master in LotRO. I know they're going to be completely different than normal pets and even have their own story, but it'd be awesome to have one by your side on those lonely nights when no one is on! I'm totally all for it.

I think it'll be interesting getting to know them and they may even help a lot of the characters development in the guild.

Could be a blessing or a curse. Depends on how Bioware executes it.

I mean, can you imagine an Anakin/Obi-Wan duel on Mustafar then C-3PO suddenly butts in and shoots Obi's leg, causing him to fall into the lava. Wouldn't work, wouldn't be far and it wouldn't be fun.

But, you'd have someone to interact and roleplay with. A mission into an unknown sector of space would be a lot more fun with someone by your side, an a PC can drop out at any time. From the current perspective, BW are making roleplay with companions dynamic. You can start a romance that can influence you two to leave the Jedi, or you can turn on each other once you realise that you have different aims.

To sum up though, it's looking good so far, but we have to test it out to see if it works - which I'm sure we all hope it will.

It got me thinking about how ther servers will cope with every man and his dog running around with their Companions.

I just hope they get it right

Yeah... That will be an awful lot of players and pets... Maybe they'll have a dismissal system were you can send them away or they go off by themselves when they want, and they only come back when you call them at the right time.

From what I see in videos, a companion is mostly, not around the PC, in fact, only in a few pictures and clips and even then, the characters look quite high-level. So I'm guessing they will probably be sparce.

lol everyone shouting "plz put your pets away"

Harlequin2 wrote:

Could be a blessing or a curse. Depends on how Bioware executes it.

From the current perspective, BW are making roleplay with companions dynamic. You can start a romance that can influence you two to leave the Jedi, or you can turn on each other once you realise that you have different aims.

Do you have a link to where it says that about the Jedi? As far as I knew you just stayed in your chosen class and if you piss the companion off they'd leave, or if you pleased them then there was possibilty for romance. Hubba hubba!

Tando wrote:

lol everyone shouting "plz put your pets away"

*cringes* Oh please god no! I hope thats not the case. Some of the idiots I quested with on LotRO really didn't know anything about how important pets were! Admittedly some people with pets were just awful and set them to attack all the time!

I think it'll be a great story tool and clever device to enrich the players experience. Giving you tit-bits of rumours and info pertaining to environments or NPCs. So I'm all for it - as long as you get to choose or can get rid of the annoying ones somehow.

Redwatch wrote:

I think it'll be a great story tool and clever device to enrich the players experience. Giving you tit-bits of rumours and info pertaining to environments or NPCs. So I'm all for it - as long as you get to choose or can get rid of the annoying ones somehow.

Tee hee.

Really, though, I think companions will be unequivocally great. Even if they can 'ruin the mood' like H2Whoa was talking about you can put them away, so it isn't that big of a deal. Having a pet in MMOs just makes soloing easier and more enjoyable. The companions are one of the greatest parts of the KotOR games. I do kind of worry though because in Jade Empire and Mass Effect most of the characters were kind of bland. But I hope it will be great.

I just hope we can change the apperance of them, as I got fancy seeing people with the same companion

Tando wrote:

I just hope we can change the apperance of them, as I got fancy seeing people with the same companion

Yeah thats what I'm worried about. Having clones everywhere would suck. It'd probably be more like the Clone Wars than the Clone Wars! Maybe the best way around it would be to bring in an outfit system. That way we'd very rarely come into contact with a companion that looked exactly the same.

Interesting, now my BH can have a droid sidekick.

Tando wrote:

I just hope we can change the apperance of them, as I got fancy seeing people with the same companion

PC: Hey! Rick! I thought you were MY companion!
Rick: What are you talking about? I'm right here!
PC: Wait, if you're here, then who's he?
Rick: He's my identical brother who's also called Rick. We also have a similar fashion and hair sense.
PC: But... I see another 5 "Ricks"!
Rick: Yeah, we were quite a big family, and our parents had a limited imagination with names.

Quote :

PC: Hey! Rick! I thought you were MY companion!
Rick: What are you talking about? I'm right here!
PC: Wait, if you're here, then who's he?
Rick: He's my identical brother who's also called Rick. We also have a similar fashion and hair sense.
PC: But... I see another 5 "Ricks"!
Rick: Yeah, we were quite a big family, and our parents had a limited imagination with names.

LMAO

Harlequin2 wrote:

Tando wrote:

I just hope we can change the apperance of them, as I got fancy seeing people with the same companion

PC: Hey! Rick! I thought you were MY companion!
Rick: What are you talking about? I'm right here!
PC: Wait, if you're here, then who's he?
Rick: He's my identical brother who's also called Rick. We also have a similar fashion and hair sense.
PC: But... I see another 5 "Ricks"!
Rick: Yeah, we were quite a big family, and our parents had a limited imagination with names.

Thats probably what we should look forward to with this whole companion business. Clones. Lots and lots of clones.

No, Bioware shouldn't allow this to happen, it will totally ruin the mood and gaming experiance (at least on the duo part). I wonder how strong these companions will be, hopefully on par (or just less) than the PC.

I'm sure Bioware are thinking along the same lines on the clone worry front. But if they take just a little care it can be easily avoided. They'll have a bunch of variable looks for each companion type and could use a random generator to piece together height, weight, hair, jacket, trousers, skin tone, facial features etc. specific to that character set.

Ubisoft cracked this problem with Assassin's Creed years ago so there's no excuse for clones on a big-budget release like TOR any more.

I bet its a tool to highlight the story aspect of the game, they'll guide you through situations give you back story to the events in the universe maybe act as a living "tutorial", when you reach a high enough level they'll naturally leave you or you'll kill them
I don't think you'll have them past a certain level barrier.

PrioryJK wrote:

I bet its a tool to highlight the story aspect of the game, they'll guide you through situations give you back story to the events in the universe maybe act as a living "tutorial", when you reach a high enough level they'll naturally leave you or you'll kill them
I don't think you'll have them past a certain level barrier.

I bet you'll still have them as an option but I doubt people will use them as often at a high level. Like in KotOR even though I didn't really need companions I still brought AK-47 because I loved hearing his reactions to things, I doubt they will stop that sort of thing.

Redwatch wrote:

I'm sure Bioware are thinking along the same lines on the clone worry front. But if they take just a little care it can be easily avoided. They'll have a bunch of variable looks for each companion type and could use a random generator to piece together height, weight, hair, jacket, trousers, skin tone, facial features etc. specific to that character set.

Ubisoft cracked this problem with Assassin's Creed years ago so there's no excuse for clones on a big-budget release like TOR any more.

Yeah and make the generator random. Then we will have dudes running around in "clown" non fitting costumes...

Companions are a stupid idea and i am against it from the start. Nothing good comes out of such ideas...

Well i have full faith in them making the companions work, i have yet to play a game done by them that i have not like yet, and i cant see them messing this up

Aliendra wrote:

Redwatch wrote:

I'm sure Bioware are thinking along the same lines on the clone worry front. But if they take just a little care it can be easily avoided. They'll have a bunch of variable looks for each companion type and could use a random generator to piece together height, weight, hair, jacket, trousers, skin tone, facial features etc. specific to that character set.

Ubisoft cracked this problem with Assassin's Creed years ago so there's no excuse for clones on a big-budget release like TOR any more.

Yeah and make the generator random. Then we will have dudes running around in "clown" non fitting costumes...

Companions are a stupid idea and i am against it from the start. Nothing good comes out of such ideas...

That's a very strong opinion there, Ali. I think the positive comments about companions on this thread make good points. And on the subject of clones if you read my post which you've quoted carefully you'll see I've said "specific to that character set". As in a set of adjustable parameters specific to each companion. There's no reason for this to look unfitting or wrong.

I'll hope for your sake though that the player can opt-out of companions. They perhaps shouldn't be forced on players who think they're stupid.

I thought I'd ressurect this thread and find out what kind of companion your character would want.

For my as of yet unamed Bounty Hunter (or hopefully TMF) I think I'd go with a droid as I can't really see him working well with any other organic companions! With the exception of you guys of course. For Creed I think I'd like to go with a bit of a romance arc and have a sassy femme fatale by my side, probably either Togruta or Twi'lek.

What would your ideal choice be?...

EDIT: Come to think of it I would like a Wookiee or Rodian companion for my BH (if he's like Greedo).

My dream companion to Ketene will be a female Human (BH or Sith Warrior)

Geez, what would Skursir's companion be? Most probably a droid, only because Skursir seems to have the talking, melee and slicing handled in his character, so the droid would fit nicely in as a support role (which I can't see an organic companion doing as well). Alternatively, I guess it would be some male medic guy (I stress male because I definately don't want a romance ark.

Scratch that, I want a Jawa. (I'm serious, it would work out for Skursir so well - and I don't think he'd eat him).