» Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:46 pm
Huge fan of companions.
I love Emma and Grumpy's fare, such as the staff of the Dome Home and the Lokken peoples, and the WitchGirl Morgana and Laura Craft, because they are scripted to acknowedge one another and have dialogue that triggers when in proximity. That makes them gold because it is kind of sad when you have a companion and few to none acknowledge that they are really there. Kind of like how the Romance Mod's aspect of having children just make the parents cognizant of the childs life, not anyone else. I would love to see a tweak to such mods that make your marriages and births trigger a global, such as how Emma made your marriage to her Lokken folks. Even the King of Morrowind had a trigger and acknowledged your marriage. That's some sweet coding there.
The MCA companions have interesting backstories, which add so much to having them around. CM Partners are another set that surprise me every time I engage one to accompany my characters across the lands.
Jac's Jasmine and the Ninja Girl Mod with Kumiko also offer a very detailed companion to have. Like the above poster said, there are also some en masse companions such as the Nevena's Clubs and Courtiers that are excellent, because these companions have well thought out and detailed scripts for entertainment, as well as dialogue. There are even a few Slave related mods that are far much more than just meat shields and two legged donkeys.
Westly/Princess Stomper's Gatanas Dremora companion is as tough as Grumpy's Ingred Rems, and she has a global where whenever you are in a different town without her, you can have her "snap" to a location there just by engaging the conversation option of "Where is Gatanas?" The only thing I wish could be done for some of these companions are the linking them to voice files, even if you piggy back them to an existing race. I love how Emma handled Laura Craft, because she is a Breton using an Imperial voice file that makes her genuinely unique. MCA's Shareel has her very own voice file, that to this day many of us are wondering just who voiced it because it is unique and very interesting.
That is why me and the Mrs. decided to start a voice repository. We always run into very interesting people with even more interesting voices, and with a sample script sheet of common terms such as "Ho Outlander", "Well Met", "Thank You" and so forth, we hope to create a nice bank of voices that can add so much to the games.