Stretch Goal - Proper companions

This won't seem like a Ultima spiritual successor to me with proper companions.

It worries me that they may not be in the budget/plan.

I propose that some of the increasing crowd funded budget go into a new developer who just works on AI and companion systems, and a full time writer for companion dialogue.

Thoughts?

 

Richard covered this in one of the recent deep dives.

Essentially what he said was that early companions will be, essentially, pets. But, as time goes by, if they can build more into them, they will.

It's just not feasible to have "all singing, all dancing" companions by release, when there's a ton more core stuff for them to be getting through.

 

Unfortunately this is the opposite of what he was saying during the kickstarter. I had a feeling one of the core elements of the single player game would be dropped due to rising issues with the MMO.

 

Do you think companions are only a single-player thing? I could envisage people using them in the MMO as well, surely?

 

Sure it could but it is a very minor feature to an MMO...where as in single player it is a defining feature, one that is basically dropped. Tell me how this can't be seen as another step towards the MMO and away from single player?

 

One of the aspects I loved about ultima series was having your diverse set of companions. My first exposure to the Ultima Universe was with the Blackgate and having spark and the various recruitable people.

Also in Serpent Isle, I liked how we were able to collect various body parts to create Boydon which was essentially like a flesh golem. He would make a great house NPC or companion.



I also liked having Montenegro, if you put him to sleep with a potion then ran away from the area, he wouldnt get zapped by the teleportation storm.

 

On the MMO front Guild wars : Eye of the North introduced Heroes - Strong companion NPCs each with their own unique personality, backstory and skill sets. (Including specific dialogue and quest lines)

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Eye_of_the_North_heroes

I can see how something similar could work very well both in single and multiplayer here.

 

Companions are a major defining feature in SWTOR. They're very fleshed out and have plenty of dialogue.

 

I want a Wordpress plugin that connects my blog to my house servants, so that i can have them reading my news at key house locations...actually, if you can input a rss feed into your servant, thatd do the job.

 

Yes indeed, as someone who played GW1 for years, I remember them well. The question you were replying to was more rhetorical, and relating to SotA.

 

Yes it did, but it was the exception to the rule not the norm.

 

Yes, SotA definitely needs proper and complex companions if it also wants to be a single player RPG.
I would even say that companions are as important to a single player RPG as PvP is to an MMO. So PvP is in the MMO part, but where are the complex companions?

 

For Episode 1 I could imagine companions to be not as complex as in later episodes but I hope that they will at least have these features:

1. We should be able to manage their gear, inventory and skills.
2. They should at least give a few comments during key scenes in the story (at least if they are in the "party" during such events).
3. We should be able to talk to them at least a bit about their background so that they are not just static "pets". This doesn't have to be much for Episode 1 but enough to learn a little bit about them, their personality and motivations.

In later episodes they could become more complex.

 

I think we're going to get 2 and 3 in Episode 1. They'll have plenty of dialogue and even speak up on their own in certain scenes. Feature 1 looks like it will have to wait for future episodes.