Yo, greetings.

I have a request, not sure if it has been touched on yet, my apologizes if it has. Will players be able to create or modify their pets? I am a Champions Online player and thought it would be really neat if pets could be modified like the hero. The possibilities would be cool, especially for animals.

Yes, this was already a feature planned. Although it will be something we work on towards the end of the alpha phase.

Nice, thanks! I wonder how deep the customization will be?

I imagine it'll depend on database limitations. If you have 100,000 players each with their own unique costume (and potentially multiple ones) then have minions with their own unique costume that's like having another few thousand "fractions" of a player (they'd have powers and appearance but not inventory slots, etc). Which would add up over time. Not to mention people might not want to summon 5 thugs that are all exactly identical...

Though the work around could be to allow each stage of minions or power in that set the change appearance. Maybe a base minion at level 1 then at level 5 you can edit the appearance and have 2 minions. Level 15 3 minions. Level 20 3 and a "Lt." level minion that's custom.

Would prevent too much database space from people starting a Minion controller but never leveling.

I'd even be fine with something similar to CO's Nemesis system where you select a pre-defined group of minions. Unlike CO some could be PC only while others could be NPC groups. Maybe allow mild editing (a few base costume parts or colors.

Actually, that is CO players main gripe with sidekicks and nemesis, that the minions are pre-set, and I agree, having pre-sets is awful. There are recent threads about it over on the Arc forums. The summons had very little variety. I don't think customization is a huge issue, if worst comes to worst allow a leader minion, whom will stand out from the rest. Only he/she can be customized.

As I said over on the CoT forums, the ideal would be to be able to customize ones minions individually to the same extent as you can customize your own toon, including the powers. The only real limitation would be no summoning powers for the minions and the number of powers that they get.

Such a system would have the "benefit" of making non-humanoid forms available to both yourself and your minions at the same time.

Database space (or rather HDD space by extension) is, comparatively speaking to other hardware, cheap nowadays.

Keep in mind database space and also a myriad of other connection and speed related aspects apply.

If I have custom minions and 5 with totally different looks and I summon all 5 the system has to gather that info and get it to my screen....as well as every other single player withing visual range...on top of any auras, powers etc.

Think about if you have a Pet player convention in a zone and say 50 players were there, now they all start summoning unique units and all that information has to be broadcast out to dozens of other players. if each summons 5 unique units that's the visual equivalent of 250 additional costumes being loaded in that space.

When you talk about unique creations and images it's not just raw hard-disk space we're talking about network latency, CPU load, etc not just for each player but the servers themselves.

If you ever played City of Heroes imagine a Hamidon run with another 200 people.

You only brought up DB space before so that's why I addressed that, and I'd imagine that would have the least impact in a cost-benefit analysis.

CPU. I don't see it requiring hardly any additional CPU power since I just can't see it processing that server side, it will only shuffle that "additional information" (compared to presets) to anyone needing it.

Bandwidth. I'm not sure about this but it's one burst of info that would (should!) be cached for some time, at least for that session. This mainly depends on when such info is sent, that is if it's sent as soon as you're "within range" or if it waits until you can actually see it for the first time.

So the "real" problems would be client side though this highly depends on how detailed/complex the character creator is in the first place, and how well they can optimize the engine for this.


Though I must say that this depends a lot on how much we can customize powers in general and I don't expect them to give us a 1000 times more customization on pet summons compared to any other power.

Speaking of CoT, the prototype demo was very impressive. The game was much more fluid than VO, despite VO getting the head start. I am more concerned if VO will ever see the light of day compared to customized minions. This is very doable, and I like the idea of having one main minion, whom stands out.

To Blacke's point, really like the idea of having a minion's customization system which rivals the hero. The possibilities of creating a non-humanoid character will finally become a reality. I assume animals will be potential minions, could you all imagine customizing something with four limps? Awesome.....and if we could customize the powers? Even more awesome. I assume those four-limb creatures get the option of mounted weapons.

TheCity wrote: From what I have read in the VO thread over on the CoT boards the base system for VO was originally meant to be something else, and they have had to convert or retrofit it into what they currently have. That would certainly explain a lot of things, especially the big patches that changed/updated some fundamental systems.
My biggest hope is the possibility of being a "full alpha" of wolf pack or pride of lions (or some such) instead of being just a "tamer" (even if anthropomorphic) of a group of animals.

Hello, I just wanted to chime in and say, as Jaximus said, that customizable pets/minions are already a planned feature.

The current system used for them allows the same amount of flexibility as any other character (player or NPC). How much of that is editable on pets/minions is still to be decided, however. There will obviously be many options that will differ between players and pets/minions, just as there are options for NPCs that are not available as player options.

Ohhhh, that sounds really promising (that PCs NPCs and pets/minions will use the same base character creation system), and hopefully opens up for quadruped and other forms for PCs down the line.

Nice, thanks a ton. Sounds awesome.

What I meant, was the system used to describe their appearance to the client and the system used to display them in the world are the same. The creation system/appearance editor/etc will, more than likely, be different, however.

That does mean that, yes, the same options are available internally, but not all will be open to pick from for each.

So let me get this straight?
They'll use the same assets with some restrictions but no duplications.
They'll use the same part/routine of the rendering engine to "construct" the entity visually.
They'll use the same communication system to transmit and store data.

Still sounds to me that the BASE systems are still the same between them, since it sounds like it's effectively only the client side UI (and pet-power selection) that will be different between the two.

Pet-power selection (if we get it for pets) will of course be different since they won't get the same number of powers we get, nor do I see them getting the same number of sets to select from.


Ohh well, it's still a huge step up from any other game that I have seen so far.

yes, only the client-side UI and the choices available will really be different when it comes to customizing your character vs your pets/minions.

I was just making sure i wasn't misinterpreted by anyone to think that you would have the exact same flexibility and/or choices.

Sorry, I am not tech literate, therefore some of the lingo is going over my head.

I know it is a little too early to be getting into the details, but hypothetically (Not to say that spiders or cats will be in-game), as it pertains to not having the exact choices, lets say there are three commanders. One commands spiders, the other ninjas, and another panthers. Will the spider guy have options that are suitable for arachnid and the panther guy quadrupedal? For instance, the panther guy having mane, tail, and claw style options, while the arachnid dude has style options for scorpion stingers, numerous eyes, and pedipalp styles, etc? While the ninja (Human) has the standard hero styles?

while the specifics haven't been decided yet as to what will be available for choices, yes, you are correct in assuming that different pet/minion types will, most likely, have different options and not all may be customizable

Armor for the minions during the creation process would be nice, something like mounted guns on its' back although it does not have to fire any projectiles. Want a cyborg falcon hehe.

Powerhelm wrote:
I can imagine it bringing in all kinds of bugs of it's own, as I experienced on Swtor with the companion system on that.

At one point Treek, a ewok mercenary you can gain access to, was merged with a servant droid when summoned. It was a really weird glitch. Ontop of that, in some cases characters lost their clothing or, like with one of my male companions, where he's meant to be shirtless and showing skin, the skin is replaced with the silver model base for the NPC

But atleast they won't have the Bioware problem with updates by using a voice cast. Otherwise each new update that adds minor or major content will take months.