Companions – IntPiPoMo 2016 (6)

This post is the last in a series this month for International Picture Posting Month, see this post for more details.

Various MMORPGs that I play have a system whereby you can have a companion character following you around as a helper, guardian, healer or whatever. Although their artificial intelligence is often lacking, I still do appreciate these systems; especially when questing away solo.

SWTOR – companions with story

One of my abiding memories of my first long stretch in SWTOR was how much I loved the companionship of certain characters like Qyzen and M1-4X.

SWTOR – bring the companion not the role

Originally the companions of SWTOR were locked to a specific trinity role – T7 here would be the same tank role as my Jedi Knight pictured here so not the best companion to use. Thankfully a later patch freed up companions to play any role with a simple menu choice, a real boon for those with companion favourites!

Everquest 2 – mercenaries

EQ2 has a system of controllable mercenaries, paid for while active in gold, that can fill a specific trinity role for you. It enables canny players to ‘molo’ (solo + mercenary) content that is otherwise too hard to normally solo on some squishier classes.

Everquest 2 – healbot

Playing my Shadowknight tank I often used this elite healer companion as my ‘healbot’. He can generally keep me alive through a lot of danger so long as I keep him protected from harm.

Neverwinter – collectible companions

Dread Warrior

Neverwinter’s collectable companion system is a boon to soloers and small groups. It’s also content for those who love to collect things in games.

Neverwinter – weird and wonderful

Lillend – healer angelic serpent

Neverwinter, with its rich RPG setting has some pretty weird and wacky companions. I think my favourite over all is the harp-playing celestial Lillend. Runner-up is probably the frost mimic from the game’s upcoming Winter festival.

Neverwinter – companion as achievement

This summer I finally unlocked the Angel of Protection companion, a reward of having logged in and invoked on a given character 360 times.

World of Warcraft – Garrison buddy

Although Garrison’s had their downsides, the companion characters that we could slot as a ‘bodyguard’ to adventure with us were a nice feature.

Lord of the Rings – skirmish soldier

It’s kind of minor feature in LOTRO outside of skirmish instances but the soldier system in LOTRO added a layer of character development and even the chance to bring them out ‘on landscape’ for a fee. It’s proven useful a couple of times to beat a particularly challenging encounter.

Guild Wars – henchmen

Guild Wars 1 had a pretty good system of NPC henchmen and later more capable heroes that you could bring along to fill slots. This allowed us, coming so late to the game, to do the Prophecies story content at our own pace at a time when most players were simply ‘farming’ speed runs of the most lucrative instances.