The Elder Scrolls Online development team took the time to answer some of the community’s most-pressing questions about Companions. Check out their answers here!
Earlier this year, we prompted the ESO community for questions for the development team regarding the Companions system. These questions could be related to almost anything regarding Companions, whether it be the individual NPCs themselves or the design and development of the system. You can check out some of the questions and our developer’s answers below, but be sure to review the original thread to read them all.
What tribe is Sharp originally from? I also would like to know his Jel name. Did he even have one in the first place?
Juli Comstock (Writer-Designer): Sharp's tribe and Jel name were details I had planned but ultimately had to cut from the questline to strengthen the story we wanted to tell. I imagine discovering these things would carry some life-altering gravitas for the character, and Sharp needs a reason after his questline to stick around as a summonable companion. He gets to choose his place in the world, and right now, he's content exploring it with you in his tribe of two.
What is the team's stance on vampire/werewolf companions? Are there any plans to introduce more than two companions per year?
Philip Draven (Lead Systems Designer): Vampire and werewolf companions are not off the table for future companions. There are no plans to increase the companion release rate at this time. (They take a lot of work from many talented developers, and we want to make sure we’re taking the time to get them as good as they can possibly be.)
Would the team consider adding a "stand here" command to companions that makes them stand on the spot for 60 seconds?
Tom Murphy (Zone Lead): We do talk about ways to improve the player experience. There are trade-offs to systems like these that we don’t find to be net positives, so we’ll continue to investigate.
Will older companions (Bastion and Mirri) ever be updated to have more dialogue and quests?
Tom Murphy: I can’t go into too much detail regarding our future plans, but I can say that we have big ideas on how we can expand the Companion system in the future, and those ideas certainly involve revisiting Bastian and Mirri!
How do you decide on rapports for the companions like Bastian hating cheese? (Cheese! All hail Uncle Sheo!)
Janet Priblo (Senior Content Designer): If we can come up with something that seems like an interesting or fun quirk to a character we are developing, and that feels like it fits in with who they are, we love to add these small bits of character flavor. We need to make sure it can work with the companion system, to allow the companion to make relevant comments or reactions.
Thank you to the #ESOFam for providing such interesting questions for the dev team—we hope you learned a little more about Tamriel’s most-trusted allies in the process. Don’t forget, this is just a small sample of some of the questions and answers you can find in this thread on our official forums—go check the rest out! Do you have a favorite Companion? Perhaps one of the new ones that arrived with the Necrom Chapter? Let us know via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!