SWTOR

[luckton]

Generally when I see people in General crying for help on something that everyone and their brother could figure out or solo, my response:

"It's 2011.  If you haven't figured out how to Goggle this shit by now, you're playing the wrong kind of game."

[Surlyboi]

I generally beer goggle the shit instead.

[eldaec]

I suspect the mmo nature of the game will actually help instill a little discipline on the writers, who can no longer rely on the crutch of destroying a city or planet just to give an event impact.

Benefit of this is likely to outweigh the issue of team members being on a contradictory storyline.

The more interesting question for me will be whether in a group setting anyone can be persuaded to RP the conversations rather than just click through, and how much wow combat limitations compromise the overall experience.

This design is literally attempting to trick mmorpg players into roleplaying, EA have bet hundreds of millions on bioware achieving this. It is a brave choice.

[Malakili]

This design is literally attempting to trick mmorpg players into roleplaying, EA have bet hundreds of millions on bioware achieving this. It is a brave choice.

If RPing just means putting a small amount of thought into which dialog choice you want, then yes.  My feeling is that for the average player they will take it in stride, lots of people that will play this have played Dragon Age or Mass Effect and it will feel familiar.  The "harder core" people will probably end up boiling it down to some kind of optimization, but I don't know that doing that will really make the experience any worse though, it'll just be another mechanic to be analyzed for those who want to, and a bit more interaction than the normal "click accept and then run to where is says on my map" questing method for everyone else.

[Mnemon]

Why you should care about Companions

To begin, companions are essentially full fledged party members. Unlike in World of Warcraft where a Hunter needs put little thought into his pet beyond acquiring it, your companions in TOR have full gear slots like  playable characters. You’ll have to equip all of them with armor and weapons, the droids with their separate droid equipment.

As each class has five companions, and they’ll all be fulfilling different roles, you now have six slots of equipment to juggle. On the plus side this means that any random drop you get is not worthless if its not for your class. A Jedi Consular who manages to pick up a green blaster can now give it to one of his companions, and gain actual benefit from it, instead of being forced to sell it for a pittance.

I didn't realize it was like this.  This is actually really neat.  I like the idea of companions being able to use all that loot I'd normally just vendor or AH a lot actually. Definitely adds a lot of interest.

thanks for the link ;-) that's actually my site.

[luckton]

I'm smelling some fresh cake in the air..

[Comstar]

Are there NPC romances?

For that matter, what companions can you get? I saw a smuggler with a droid and a jedi with a parawan. Is it the same companions for everyone, or 5 different ones for each class?

[sam, an eggplant]

Every class gets different companions.

[caladein]

Some of the companions can be romanced, yes.  (I think that's what you were asking.)

[01101010]

Jedi's can get a padawan? Can we abuse it as well? In fact, can we abuse any of the companions? Will they go away if we do?

[Shatter]

Jedi's can get a padawan? Can we abuse it as well? In fact, can we abuse any of the companions? Will they go away if we do?

Gonna make em clean your lightsaber?

[luckton]

Jedi's can get a padawan? Can we abuse it as well? In fact, can we abuse any of the companions? Will they go away if we do?

I've gotten mixed messages from fansite commentary that companions can actually be killed/disbanded.  Some say yes, other no.  I think you can shit your relationship with them to the point where they won't talk to you, but since they're making companions such an integral part of the experience (crafting/grouping/storyline),  I doubt you can actually get rid of them.

For Jedi, you'd probably get a padawan later in level life, assuming that you're starting out at level 1 as a padawan yourself.

[sam, an eggplant]

From what I read, you can indeed piss off companions sufficiently for them to take a hike, but the game provides very explicit warnings before allowing you to do so.

This seems like the kind of thing they'll remove before going live. If you play a ranged damage dealer and piss off the tank companion, for example, you could end up screwed.

[Lucas]

Nice "before & after" pics of Nar Shaddaa Promenade from today's dev blog ("The Post-Writing Polish Process"):

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110617

Before


After

[Mnemon]

Are there NPC romances?

For that matter, what companions can you get? I saw a smuggler with a droid and a jedi with a parawan. Is it the same companions for everyone, or 5 different ones for each class?

Right now we only know one companion for almost every class. We actually don't know any of the Consular's companions, but know two for the Bounty Hunter.

these are the ones we know ...

- Bowdaar (Smuggler): Wookiee arena champion.

- Tanno Vik (Trooper): Weequay military demo specialist with a criminal background.

- T7-01 (Jedi Knight): An astrotech droid.

- Mako (Bounty Hunter): Slicing and technology expert. Also a healer.

- Blizz (Bounty Hunter): The jawa companion unveiled at E3.

- Vette (Sith Warrior): Former twi'lek slave who became a pirate.

- Kaliyo Djannis (Imperial Agent): Rattatak assassin/enforcer.

- Khem Val (Sith Inquisitor): Force resistant troll type thing (called a Dashade).

one of the Jedi also likely gets a padawan based on the features trailer we saw before E3.

[Murgos]

There is a dev tracker post, or maybe something that was said in a Q&A at E3 that says there are 5 companions per class and a total of 40 available.

[Amaron]

I thought I read something that said companions can die due to your choices.  I know I read they can be pissed off to the point of them leaving or whatever.

[luckton]

I thought I read something that said companions can die due to your choices.  I know I read they can be pissed off to the point of them leaving or whatever.

Like I mentioned above, conflicting things from various sources.  Games been in development hell since '07-'08.  Things are bound to get changed around a lot, but as it stands, I really don't see how they would allow you to shoot yourself in the foot by letting you shoot your companion in the face.

[01101010]

I thought I read something that said companions can die due to your choices.  I know I read they can be pissed off to the point of them leaving or whatever.

Like I mentioned above, conflicting things from various sources.  Games been in development hell since '07-'08.  Things are bound to get changed around a lot, but as it stands, I really don't see how they would allow you to shoot yourself in the foot by letting you shoot your companion in the face.

It's all about the RPs man... the R Peeeeesss..

[luckton]

I thought I read something that said companions can die due to your choices.  I know I read they can be pissed off to the point of them leaving or whatever.

Like I mentioned above, conflicting things from various sources.  Games been in development hell since '07-'08.  Things are bound to get changed around a lot, but as it stands, I really don't see how they would allow you to shoot yourself in the foot by letting you shoot your companion in the face.

It's all about the RPs man... the R Peeeeesss..

RPs be damned.  It works in offline games where you can do practically anything you wanna do, because you can just hit the reset button on the whole universe.  MMOs don't have reset buttons (unless you're Sony, of course  ).  Again, as I stated above, companions are too intricate to how your character gets shit done. 

Put it another way: Would a Ret Pally really be effective if he decided he wasn't going to use two-handed weapons?

[Lantyssa]

Well, since they were saying it at this year's E3, I'm going to assume losing companions is still in.

[sam, an eggplant]

Indeed. There's just no way it'll stay in, unless companion roles are duplicated and they don't plan to use them for live game content updates and further expansion pack questlines/stories.

[Amaron]

There's just no way it'll stay in, unless companion roles are duplicated and they don't plan to use them for live game content updates and further expansion pack questlines/stories.

You get 5 and you're not going to like at least 1 of them so why on earth would it be a problem if you "lost" that companion by repeatedly kicking him in the nuts?

[eldaec]

Or they could just add a quest line to recover a lost companion.

Or they could simply not make expansion quests limited to specific companions.

Or they could say fuck it, make an alt or run the quests for one of the several other companions you have.



This seems like it will be an alt heavy game so honestly I can't see any reason they wouldn't let players chase companions off, though I imagine it'll involve going out of your way to piss them off before explictly telling them to fuck the hell off, much like in a Bioware single player rpg.

[sam, an eggplant]

You get 5 and you're not going to like at least 1 of them so why on earth would it be a problem if you "lost" that companion by repeatedly kicking him in the nuts?

Because you can permanently gimp your character if that companion's role isn't duplicated, and since the game is fully voiced, allowing players to use whatever companion they want isn't always an option.

[Sky]

You'll have to go out of their way to do it, and they've said they're pretty blatant about the point where the companion will get killed/shove off/whatever.

I'm ok with people getting gimped if they push it that far with the companion they need to complete their playstyle. Don't be a retard and it should be fine.

[luckton]

You'll have to go out of their way to do it, and they've said they're pretty blatant about the point where the companion will get killed/shove off/whatever.

I'm ok with people getting gimped if they push it that far with the companion they need to complete their playstyle. Don't be a retard and it should be fine.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with games punishing retards.  I just don't see how BW in good faith would allow it to happen in a MMO like this, especially with the inevitable backlash of "Derp, my companion is gone and now I can't do blah!  BW, fix it or I'm cancelling en masse!"

Although, the BW devs are credited for saying that players can sometimes be idiots...

[Sky]

They should just post in any whine thread, a screenshot of the plot point where they put in a giant warning flag *If you do this, YOUR ONLY HEALER will leave FOR GOOD and there is NO RETURN from this decision.* And then mock them for doing it anyway and then having the audacity to whine about it publicly.

[Abelian75]

There just doesn't seem much point in including the option unless there's something that we're missing in the discussion here.  Why not just add an option to ask the companion to return?  There'd be more of a case for the feature if you couldn't keep all your companions or something.  That would still be potentially very problematic (as it would essentially be like having no respecs), but there would at least be some gameplay value added.  The option to just kind of eliminate flexibility with no gain is sort of pointless.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe because some players would want to do so, or they really just don't like that one companion.

You've got five, they have slots for ten with expansions, and each class can perform several rolls.  If someone really, really, really wants to kill all five of their companions then more power to them.

Ultimately all they have to do is give a Hire Mercenary option so people can have a custom companion for dungeons or raiding or whatever.

[Malakili]

Maybe because some players would want to do so, or they really just don't like that one companion.

You've got five, they have slots for ten with expansions, and each class can perform several rolls.  If someone really, really, really wants to kill all five of their companions then more power to them.

Ultimately all they have to do is give a Hire Mercenary option so people can have a custom companion for dungeons or raiding or whatever.

It sounds good on paper, but come on, you KNOW that this will be a point of contention.  MMORPG players seem to HATE when their decisions are final.   Hell, I don't even personally care that much, but I've been around the genre to know its a bad idea to make a one click decision final, even if there is an insane confirmation warning.   Even best case scenario, on day one there is a "my cat walked across my keyboard at the confirmation window and now I lost my companion"

[Amaron]

Because you can permanently gimp your character if that companion's role isn't duplicated, and since the game is fully voiced, allowing players to use whatever companion they want isn't always an option.

I doubt you'd be gimping yourself since you can't raid with them or use them in seriously difficult content anyways.   I can see your point though.  It would suck if you gave up a combat pet you could of used to solo some daily group quest or some such.

They could theoretically add new max level "alien speaker" companions if it becomes a problem.

[Fabricated]

The thing I'm looking forward to is people complaining endlessly about the RP stuff when they've run a dungeon before, or when they're playing a new character if the RP shit is one-time only per character. Also bagging on new players if they take too long making their decision. Even if there's a timer, using it up will drive the "srs bzns" people insane.

"Why the fuck did you take so long deciding you faggot, it doesn't matter" etc etc

[Merusk]

This page has been pure Hilarity.

To reiterate what was said earlier:

Players: "We want change, we want something different! We want choices that matter!"
*something different given*
Players: "WTF Why is this different. Why did you change this. Why did this fuck me?!"

 

[Amaron]

Also bagging on new players if they take too long making their decision. Even if there's a timer, using it up will drive the "srs bzns" people insane.

"Why the fuck did you take so long deciding you faggot, it doesn't matter" etc etc

Yea this shit is why I see being able to solo everything as a serious matter.  I was pretty irked that they even considered taking out the ability to use companions in anything story related.