The conversation and decision based quest system is incredible fun and I truly believe that it is the greatest innovation an MMO had since WoW. When you interract with a quest giver, a conversation cut-scene starts rolling. Most of the time you have three choices to carry the conversation on and the best part is that; your decisions actually matter. How come you say? Here is the answer: your decisions change the way you do the quest; so two people can do totally different things to complete the same quest. From this perspective, Star Wars: The Old Republic seems like the fruit of a happy marriage between Mass Effect series and Dragon Age series.

For instance, at an earlier quest at Korriban, I was asked by a Sith Lord to hunt down and take the brain of a creature, a Tuk'ata which was believed to be a source of pure dark Force. After you receive your instructions your are sent to the apprentice of the Sith Lord to know the whereabouts of this particular Tuk'ata. This is where the fun begins. The apprentice clearly states that she is full of her master's delusional experiments and wants you to return the brain of the creature to her; just to tamper with the results. By doing that, she wants her master to be discredited by the other Sith Lords; hence, finally she might evetually be released to do something actually of importance for the empire rather than disecting creature parts all day. The decision to deliver the brain sample to the so-called delusional Sith Lord or to the traitor young apprentice is totally up to you.

The game goes one step further about making your decisions count. What I explained above was about how the story was affected by your decisions. Your character and your companion (will elaborate in a second) also gets affected by your decisions. As you give decisions, especially important ones such as letting a criminal live or die, will make you progress towards either light or dark. For example in the above quest that I have told about; I have chosen to deliver the brain specimen to the Sith Lord. I also notified him about the treason her young padawan was dreaming of committing. As a result, the apprentice was first shocked (literally) then sent to torture. And what kind of points do you think I have gathered? Pretty obvious isn't it?

Star Wars: The Old Republic is designed to be played with your character and your companion. You get your companion somewhere around level 10 and it changes from class to class. I believe that -though not totally sure- you can have a total of 5 companions; but can summon only one at a given time. Right know I have Khem Val, an ugly-ass Dashade who has sworn loyalty to me after I have bested him in a fair fight. The companions have roles such as tanking, healing and dps. They ease your troubles a lot during quests. As I said, your decisions have an effect on your beloved companions, too, altering their affection level for you. To get an insight on what kind of decisions can increase and decrease your companions, you should check the codex entry of your companion and figure out what he/she likes/dislikes.

So what does the affection level of your companions effect in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Before answering this question, one must accept that our characters in the game, whether they are a mighty force user or a renegade mercenary; are "too cool" to do the gathering and crafting to support their lives. They order their companions to go on crew skill missions for gathering and crafting items; though it is always their masters who get all the credit and appreciation for the hard work. Each of these missions cost you an amount of credits and time, during which your companion will be unavailable to summon. Back to the question: the affection level of your companion will shorten the time your companion will be unavailable. Trust me, it might seem like a minor inconvenience now; but this game is literally designed to be played with two characters. One actual player and a companion.

This is all I want to share at the moment. I will continue to add more details as I discover them for myself first.

Have fun and may the force be with you.