Talk:Companions of the Avatar

"The Companions of the Avatar" is sometimes used to describe just the 8 characters from Ultima IV, but other times is used to describe anyone who is currently joining the Avatar at the time. Spark is not a "Companion of the Avatar" under the first sense, but he is definately a companion of the Avatar by the second. In the future, should we be more careful to link to the appropriate page, such as Party Members in Ultima VII on pages like fairies, or should we expand the concept of "The Companions of the Avatar"? Dungy 15:12, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

I THINK (though I don't have proof right here) that "Companions of the Avatar" has been officially used ONLY to describe the 8 U4 ones. It seems to me that this wiki has started expanding that concept. I would prefer to keep The Companiosns for the original 8, as use "party members" or "possible party members" or the like for the rest of the joinable NPCs.--Sega381 23:50, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

Problem. There's already a template on this page for Companions of the Avatar. There's a different template used for party members in different Ultima games. Ideally both templates should be on this page, but that looks really terrible. Any idea how we could make that work? Dungy 11:45, 7 December 2010 (PST)

About category labels

Why is this page labeled as "Non-Playable Characters of Ultima IV/V"? All the Companions can become party members in Ultima 4 and 5, and as such they become fully controlled by the player, therefore they are playable. Did I miss something? --Abacos (talk) 06:47, 16 May 2018 (MDT)

Taken to mean "non-playable character", I can see why there might be confusion; however, my understanding is that the common usage of "NPC" is to mean "non-player character". It's an important distinction, as the player character is often considered to be the specific entity a player creates or adopts as their representation in the game, especially with the second-person narrative most Ultimas feature. In a broader sense it can be situational, whereby a PC is any character who is currently being controlled by a player as opposed to the game engine (or GM/DM in the case of tabletop RPGs), while all others are NPCs.

As for the companions, although you do directly control them during combat in U4 and U5, the rest of the time it can be said they simply follow you as in later Ultimas. U6 is more murky, since in that game you can take individual control of any party member at any time.

Regardless, the companions qualify as non-player characters for every Ultima in which they appear, so I'd call it an accurate descriptor. --Terilem (talk) 06:47, 17 May 2018 (MDT)

Thank you for the explanation. Indeed, the difference between "non-playable" and "non-player" is a subtle one, but the difference between "NPC" and "NPC" is impossible to guess. See why I dislike abbreviations? On the other hand, I love subtle distinctions and details like this one. Therefore, thanks again :) --Abacos (talk) 06:44, 18 May 2018 (MDT)

I see now that I forgot to save my last comment. I rewrite it.

Since the Stranger/Avatar is pretty much the only player character in the whole series (with the only exceptions being non-canon games), and everyone else is a non-player character, is it really necessary to specify it every time? In my opinion, it would barely make sense if a "Category:Player Characters" page existed, but it would be a category including one page only. --Abacos (talk) 07:29, 3 August 2018 (MDT)

I guess because NPC tends to be the colloquial default for video games and tabletop RPGs. What alternative do you propose? Something like "Characters in ______"? --Terilem (talk) 07:43, 3 August 2018 (MDT)

Yes, exactly! :) --Abacos (talk) 15:27, 3 August 2018 (MDT)

You know, I am against acronyms. I refuse to use them (you chan check any of my edits). They cause confusion. For example, "PC" is both "Personal Computer" and "Player Character"; "CRPG" stands for both Computer and Consolle Role-Playing Games. I also refuse to put plural "s" on abbreviations, otherwise coherence would dictate that it should be "USs" for "United States", right? One letter for one word!

Well, I think I just had to pour this out with someone who was kind enough to listen/read. I feel much better now. Let us forget about the last four lines I wrote. In my humble opinion, "Characters in Ultima ..." sounds perfect. --Abacos (talk) 15:27, 3 August 2018 (MDT)

Blackthorn == Companion????

The article says that in Lynn Abbey's books that Blackthorn is counted amount the companions. It's been a little while since I read them, but I think I would have remembered that!--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:55, 25 January 2024 (MST)