A small bit of dialogue put a smile on my face last night but possibly not in the way you expect. I’m used to being amused by my Smuggler’s facetious and glib responses but in this case, I was pleased to note that an NPC acknowledged that there were two player characters talking to her. It wasn’t even a group quest, just a little breadcrumb side-quest from Padawan Fia on Tython. It was a very nice touch, in the same way that some NPCs dialogue is gender dependent (see an early Trooper story quest on Ord Mantell) or even race dependent. In fact, the subsequent quest where we talk to Master Tillin, the Kel-dor Jedi stationed near Kaleth, ended up with him and my Miralukan Consular friend making mocking comments about humans right in front of my human Knight.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love the multiplayer dialogue in SWTOR. Having one or more people talking to the same quest giver and being able to roll on dialogue responses is inspired – and I’m surprised that not many people seem to talk about it. (Either that or I’ve missed it and just been reading about the people who seem to think this is nothing but a single player game with some multiplayer elements tacked on and oh, by the way, grouping is hard.) Even though grouping has its own rewards (chiefly in the form of social points and the alleged bonus xp from quests) I think that the multiplayer dialogue system is a reward in itself.
So for the first time ever in my experience of playing MMOs as a habitual soloer, I’ve agreed with my friend that we’re going to level our Jedi together and avoid playing them unless we’re both questing at the same time. I actually find myself quite excited at the prospect.
I noticed that too – that the NPCs were acknowledging that they were talking to multiple toons! My husband and I were questing together with our companions, and one of the quest givers said “Wow, I asked for some help and so-and-so sent an ARMY.” Aww, we’re an ARMY!