Pet options

[Rattletrap]

-Howdy. I always hoped for a game that allowed a bit more variety in pet options for player customization purposes. For example, instead of summoning additional zombies in games like CoV and Champions online, why can't i just summon a bigger, badder zombie strong enough to be equivalent to the three-four-five that are hard-wired into the game?

Any chance i can just have one Steam Golem that grows in power with me instead of 5 smaller ones? For proper context, let us say there is a pet you can take that is a traditional "tank" pet. You get the tank pet, he grows in power over time. Is it possible/feasible to get a horde or swarm of steam-powered spiders to do the same thing mechanically but provide a different look?

What do you think, dear reader?

Rattletrap

[Steampunkette]

Swarm Creatures.

Swarms tend to be hard to animate, especially in any game where certain animations must be pre-programmed in full rather than specific region animations (I.E. the whole body will be animating based on our current models, rather than simply the upper-body while the legs remain still). The reason behind this is that, regardless of how cool the idle animation might look, all the members of the swarm (the individual critters) will "Teleport" to a starting location when any animation begins, as that animation is based on the idea of all of them being there and was, thusly, modeled out with the individual spiderbots/rats/etc in a set location in relation to the motion of the animation.

So while it is, technically, possible to make swarm entities it's highly unlikely you'll see them in the game due to technical limitations.

As for the idea of a single powerful pet rather than a small army of pets: It's Possible, we're on the drawing board. We're actually considering making multiple talent pools for each class or a more likely branching system. Perhaps even both. It's entirely feasible that one branch might wind up offering single-pet buffs rather than spreading out into multiple allies. But we'll have to wait and see!

-Rachel-