Shroud of the Avatar: Wie sollten Gefährten in RPGs sein?

With Release 30 of the selective multiplayer RPG Shroud of the Avatar, the first NPC party member was introduced.

Fiona FitzOwen is a bard that you meet in the city of Ardoris. She wants to experience the hero’s deeds live and therefore offers to accompany you. Once in a while, she comments during the journey, sings a song, and supports you a little in battles. However, only in the offline mode of the game. In online mode, Fiona also exists and talks to you, but she does not accompany the hero.

NPC companions in an MMORPG?

The way Fiona is integrated into the game raises some questions about how companions should be integrated into an RPG and also how they could function in an MMORPG. Sure, an MMO is designed for adventuring with other players. However, Shroud of the Avatar offers a single-player online mode where you explore the online world alone. Companions have now been introduced to make it easier for players who play alone. Defeating a large dragon alone is quite a challenge. This is where the NPC party members come into play.

In offline mode, you ask Fiona FitzOwen (and later others) if she wants to accompany you, and then you walk together through the world and fight dragons together. In single-player online mode, however, she does not join you, even though you face the same problem. Then you have no choice but to switch to the friends mode or open mode and ask other players for help. Not a big deal, but it’s a bit awkwardly resolved. Wouldn’t NPC companions also be nice in online mode? However, the balancing might suffer if everyone carries an NPC – especially if they’re all the same.

Companion or pet?

In offline mode, Fiona acts like a talking pet. She behaves completely independently. There is no way to manage her inventory or her skills. At least for Episode 1 of Shroud of the Avatar, this is not planned. This has led to discussions within the game’s community. Some think it’s good that you don’t have to be a “babysitter” and decide every aspect of the NPC yourself. But others find it illogical that companions always roam around with the same equipment. The hero finds better weapons and armor along the way and cannot give them to their companion?

Some in the community have suggested that the NPC’s AI should handle this. If you find a better weapon, the NPC wants to use it. You then hand it to the companion, and he uses the weapon or the new armor. But what happens to the old equipment? Can you take it back and sell it? Will it just be dropped? What if you want an item back? Or if you have multiple companions and want to trade items among them? Can an AI handle such things?

There’s still a lot to do

A management system for companions would therefore be beneficial and certainly necessary. If Fiona constantly runs around with her little crossbow and a dress while the hero equips a magical two-handed sword and plate armor, one wonders why Fiona doesn’t want to equip herself better…

About this system (and about several others), the developers of Shroud of the Avatar should definitely think again and expand it before the “release”. But at least the first NPC companion represents a start.