Lord British Weighs In on Companions, Solo Play, and the Development Process
There is a lengthy thread on the forums entitled “Companions” where some have expressed their concerns about how, when, or if companions (among other things) will be implemented in SotA, Episode 1. A recent post in that thread by Richard Garriott helped to answer some of their questions:
[A Public Forum post by Richard "Lord British" Garriott]
Fear not! You are all well aware, that only a year ago, we started letting you all play when we had only a generic avatar standing in a small room, with a chicken. We have come a LONG way since. But there is an order to the development operations that may not be obvious. We add systems and data based on how they interrelate or build on each other. For example, the best way for us to test combat was for we the developers to fight each other, thus you too could fight each other, well before creatures were much fun or balanced, and are only now gaining some real intelligence to fight back. This was not meant to imply more focus on PVP vs PVE, it just helped the development process.
For many months now, we now have had our AI programmer (Erik) dedicated to the framework to making creatures and NPCs much smarter! I got a run down from him on the “Finite State Machine” and “NPC Interest” system. You may have seen the beginnings of this in the NPC lamplighter schedules, though they were a bit off. It looks to be very powerful now, and at a state where we can begin to request the simpler high-level things that will begin to make all of this “NPC life” come to, well, life.
With this tool in hand, we are now finally to the point where NPCs are beginning to get some smarts and we can start placing and tuning NPCs to do a variety of things. You will see more and more things like guards and villagers turning on/off lights and closing doors, and being “aware” and interacting with their environment. Soon you will see scheduled activities like waking in the morning and going to bed at night. NPCs who farm or fish or do other activities to bring the world alive and help support the story which is the core of the solo experience but also available in multiplayer.
“Companions” are the most difficult part. Exactly “how smart” or how “deep” a companion will be for episode 1 remains to be seen. Clearly we will have non-conversational “pet” type companions. We even expect to have household “staff” that may be more conversational, but less like a “travel companion”. How far we get in blending the two, has not even been reviewed in some time, as we have had other bigger fires to address.
I beg for your patience and understanding as we work one issue at a time. I myself started playing in fully solo player mode only a few weeks back. Me and Chris Hirokawa who works in our NYC office, are specifically combing through the main story as it is finally just getting enough “meat” to really test in game. In the next few releases, I think the solo player, virtual world sim folks will see worthy progress. I know many of you are trying NOT to get too exposed to the maps and story of the final game to keep it fresh for release… but I hope some of you join me and Chris on our quest to offer the team important feedback and polish advice as it comes online.
- Lord British
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This was followed by like 5 minutes of frantic looting of their ill-gotten gains. Everything not nailed down was pretty much stuffed into boxes, sacks, etc. Think The Grinch cleaning out a Who house. Finally his buddies showed up but I remember being so encumbered I almost couldn't take a single step to walk through my own gate spell 
