The Old Republic Companions Update Part 2 -Almost as good as a real player

I've previously written about the "companion characters" of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

These are characters you meet and that can accompany you in your adventures through the game.

Today Bioware has released more info about companions in ToR.

It seems that they were initially quite autonomous and players had very little control over them in combat.
Since this was a problem for a lot of people, as the AI is not always smart enough to know that throwing a thermal detonator right into that pack of Rancors might not be the greatest idea, Bioware decided to put in some manual controls for the companions as well.

Time to practice those micro skills. You know what I'm saying?

This gives players the option of for example setting the companions to not use area of effect attacks, or gives the the chance to activate some of their special abilities in a pinch.

According to Bioware, this means that if you're out on a group quest with 3 other players and one of them suddenly has to leave (dinner, girl friend, unfortunate smelting accident etc), then one of the remaining members of the party can bring out their companion and, thanks to the micro of the companion that you can do, you will still have a decent chance of completing your quest.

I am actually really excited about this.

A lot of my time playing World of Warcraft was spent playing the game without a guild.
This meant that I was at the mercy of random strangers ability to stick together for more than 10 minutes at a time (a bad situation to be in, let me tell you).

With this functionality hopefully a group will not completely fall apart if suddenly the healer has to leave to walk his dog.

"Sorry guys, but my mom's gonna kill me if she finds those magazines. Brb!"

Furthermore it opens up the possibility that some of the less challenging quests in the game could perhaps be completed by just two people with two companions, which again just means less hassle with finding people and keeping them together.

You can find the entire article on the Official Old Republic website