Tsuga C

Not new, but interesting feline information nonetheless.

I've made it as far as the beginning of Chapter Three and it does get better, though you'll still need to deal with the influence mini-game to ensure that the companions remain by your side at the end. There's a console command to set their loyalty to 100% and I'd recommend looking it up here so you don't have to worry about the companions being there when you need them.

Analog vs. digital? How our companions react to our choices boils down to the writers and their ideas for worthwhile companions. To me it's not the system so much as the nature of those companions operating within the influence system. Your suggestions are worthy ones. If we have eight or nine potential companions, I can certainly accept the idea of one or two of them being to one degree or another unreasonable sorts to whom we must lie and blow sunshine up their rump to stay in their good graces. No more than that, though. Sorry to be so negative, but I don't want to deal with another influence mini-game that has the potential to torpedo my gaming experience.

Leave the class as ranger. Any fine tuning of the actual role played by a ranger is up to the individual player, but the class itself should stay as is because they've already decided to include an animal companion for the ranger whith whom the ranger shares hit points (not sure about stamina). Besides, this is a game in the vein of earlier RPGs, most notably AD&D. The ranger is part of that legacy and I'd like to see it continue.

The concept of an influence system isn't necessarily a bad one, but the companions in NWN2 were a flock of loons. If you were honest with them, you lost influence. If we have to keep track of "influence points", I'd hope for a more rational and stable set of companions with which to work.

I suspect that there aren't too many ne'er-do-wells hanging around in The Woldan's neighborhood. Chop, chop! He clearly understands the Three Esses of dealing with low-lifes: slice, shovel, and shut up.

And this is a very, very good thing for the consumer.

^ That would've made a fine video. Gotta love cats being cats, hence my preference for dogs. Though I still do enjoy feeding the feral cats, mind you.

I don't recall one directly linked to attacking, but as your character will be hit regularly the constant thumping or dodging to avoid a blow will likely drain your stamina to a degree. It also stands to reason that wielding a heavy weapon (heavy for your character, anyway) or a flail that must constantly be in motion might drain a bit of your stamina, but you'll need to ask an Obsidian employee about specifics.

Good to know. This is my sliding scale of social puissance/maladaption: Well Adjusted > Quirky > Odd > Bizarre > Broken > Useless. As such, when I heard "broken" my mind conjured up visions of a lot of hand holding and other such aggravating nonsense. I don't envision very many of my characters as shrinks or social workers, so I found that word alarming. Edit: typo.

Being a little odd or having a few quirks is all fine and good in a companion as it fleshes them out and makes them more believable. Whining "emos", however, will have me ejecting them from the party or killing them in short order depending on the general morality of my player character. I've always enjoyed the Planescape milieu, but there is a tendency amongst those who write fan fiction or create Planescape modules to let things become too grim and craptastic. Life isn't all razorvine and the Hive, after all.

I do hope that you're right as I recall Chris A. in all seriousness saying something about thinking that having some twisted individual psychically enslaving people and forcing them to love either that individual or each other in a ghastly parody of legitimate love was an excellent idea. That's all fine and good for a freak we're supposed to take down, but I don't want a surfeit of dysfunctional or outright broken NPCs amongst my companions. Good ol' terra firma has enough sphincters, loons, and PMS sufferers that I need to deal with on a monthly basis, thank you very much. I'd rather not spend too many of my recreational hours sorting out more of them in a non-violent fashion if such can be avoided.

Companions are "broken people"? I hope that this isn't universal as I'd like to encounter at least a couple of potential companions with their heads screwed on straight.

Nekkid ostriches are a good thing, eh?

The craftsmanship evident in that armor is mind-blowing. Thanks, Woldan.

Let the bodies disappear once they've been looted. I don't need more strain on the GPU and bodies have the potential to fall across something I'm looking for.

No--reeks of munchkin cheesiness.

Yes, yes, and don't care.

There are high-quality chemical hand/foot warmers on the market that work very well, some almost too well. I guess you get what you pay for.

Yes, and there's plenty of examples to go around. The federal government simply has no business trying to force the creation of jobs in selected industries merely because it favors the concepts represented by said industries. They're politicians and bureaucrats playing with public monies, not investors utilizing their own private funds, and their track record is miserable. Edit:And the auto bailout was really a UAW bailout. This is a long article and it's fairly dry reading, but the highlights are as follows: 1. Bankruptcy law calls for similarly situated creditors to receive equal treatment. In the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union received much more favorable treatment than other creditors and other unions. 2. Unlike other unsecured creditors, the UAW recovered most of the money owed to its benefit funds. GM’s UAW members—among the most highly paid workers in America—did not take pay cuts as they normally would in bankruptcy. 3. Taxpayers would not have lost money on the auto bailout had the UAW not received this special treatment. The bailout would have cost $26.5 billion less if the Administration had not subsidized UAW compensation. 4. The UAW subsidies cost more than the entire foreign aid budget in 2011. The Administration did not need to lose money to keep GM and Chrysler operating. 5. The auto bailout was actually a UAW bailout.

The government claims that inflation is running around 1.9%, but it's actually much higher according to Jerry Robinson. See March 19, 2013 for the audio. Bloviating bureaucratic bull****ers are destroying American manufacturing jobs through asinine regulations and pubic "investment" in companies that are imploding. See March 21, 2013 for the interview with Andrew Smith, author of Sand in the Gears.

So long as the mechanics for ranged weapons generally run parallel to those for melee weapons, I don't foresee any serious problems. For example, if criticals and combat abilities (e.g. multi-shot) are there to keep the archers useful, then the rangers won't suffer and the complaints will be kept to a minimum. If the melee masters utterly rule the non-magical combat, however, the excrement storm will be loud and long.

Yes, it does. Profits are not enough to guarantee value in a publicly traded company. Those trading in their stock must perceive that the company has a solid future, elsewise the value of its stock and its ability to borrow money and secure investors will fall precipitously.

John Riccitiello shall not be missed. He was the agent of BioWare's downfall and as far as I'm concerned he deserves a swift kick to his groin for what he did to that formerly worthwhile company.

A dozen times over, 'tis better to be busy than not.