Enoch

They'd be doing no better with Smith, IMO. He's great at taking the "safe" option, but a solid defense with a conservative gameplan shuts him down pretty consistently. And you aren't going to put together many deep playoff runs without getting through a few solid defenses. Kaepernick is less consistent, but he's not awful and there's at least a chance that he hits a Eli/Flacco-like upswing for a playoff run. SF's bigger problem is the erosion of their OL's effectiveness.

This doesn't have much at all to do with skill levels; more the order in which you do things. I was able to get that "extra quest" because I completed it before I went into the silo. (Once inside, my weak skill with Alarms made killing a couple Monks a necessity, but I got back on their good side by promising to Enola that I'd complete his quest.) You need some explosives or Brute Force to get by one DBM patrol, but there's noting stopping you from taking them all out after you've talked with Sadler. (Indeed, you should-- they're probably carrying better weapons than you are.)

I think that

I do agree that the usefulness of a melee character is situational. And, given the sacrifices that you need to make to have a good one, it might not be worth it. I mean, it's nice that I have an 8-STR character to haul all my crap, and he has been occasionally useful as a damage sink and debuff applier (by getting right up next to enemies using ranged weapons), but I'd probably be getting more mileage out of a second combat-focused (i.e., 4-INT and 1 CHA) gunner-- there are entire combats where my brawler does precisely bupkis. (Note: His STR is high primarily because of the weirdness in the Brawling mechanics-- a blunt of bladed melee'er probably doesn't need more than middling STR.)

It's probably overkill to focus on maxing certain skills, particularly doing so earlier in the game than you start seeing top-level skill checks. For example, Demolitions is a priority skill that I had 8 ranks in before heading to LA. But, shortly after landing, I found a trinket that gives +3 (!) to Demolitions. So I'm never putting another point there. (Similar with Rose's Surgeon-- I bought a +2 Surgeon trinket from the Monks at Titan. No need to raise that above 8 unless I find a medical item that requires it and is also very useful in combat situations.) Definitely Max Perception. Go all the way with Toasters (the skillbook is available early to buy that expensive 10th rank, and I've yet to see a trinket that affects it). I can't abide the possibility of missing a ___ Ass check, and I saw my first 10-level check at Angel Oracle. (My Ass has 9s in Hard and Kiss and alternates +1 trinkets for each; Pizepi has 10 in Smart.) I've got Locks and Safes at 9 on my guys, waiting to see if I find a book or trinket to take me the rest of the way. Field Medic probably doesn't need to go above 7. "+Outdoorsman" trinkets are common, and the downside of failing a check is ... more XP! I can't remember the last Mechanical Repair check I saw. Alarm Disarm seems to be more relevant in LA than it was in Arizona-- it's probably the skill that I've most missed not having at tip-top level. (I did have to kill a handful of Monks to get to see Titan.) I can't abide having crowds of beasts blocking my maneuvering in combat, so I skip Animal Whisperer. Barter is pointless. (Maybe if it was +5% per rank, but +1%? Pffft.)

For my part, 3 of my 4 Rangers had at least 8 in a weapon skill by the time they were level 25-ish. I probably missed a few checks in things like Brute Force and Alarm Disarm, but nothing that I really remember regretting. Meeting Ertan makes me wish that Satanism had been one of the religion options at character creation.

Yeah, I had trouble there, too, and the Gamma Ray Blaster was pretty much the reason that I had any chance at all. Those nuns have high armor (7 or so?), a good amount of CON, and some high-tier weapons. I had to use my secondary medic to resuscitate Rose. Edit: And I decided to stop at Angel Oracle on the way back. That led to one other distress message, and certain events ensuring that I bring that quest arc to some level of completion before leaving. Still haven't gotten back to Rodia.

I had the same issue that Gromnir did, and used the same basic workaround. Also, it just happened again. In California, when I had the option to give up a "hostage" (hey, something Ralphie is good for!), his weapons were stripped, never to return. At this point, it'd be a pain in the butt to go back and re-do everything I had to do to get him back, and I was planning to upgrade his weaponry at some point soon, anyway. Unforunately, his secondary weapon was The Lariat, a unique item you can get from Mercaptain. I might go look for a save editor to get that back.

Question about narrative urgency (or lack thereof) early in California: As I finished exploring the Rodia map, I got a radio message from base about an issue well off to the West (Santa Monica, I think?). The radio message sounded as if this was time sensitive. Is it?

Looking at the table of available weapons, it seems that SMGs are a little deceptive. There is only 1 of them that costs more than 7 AP for a maximum burst. Unfortunately, that one is the best SMG in the game. I already had one of my Rangers and Rose both using Snipers, so I spec'ed Ralphie into ARs. He's not great, but he can burst-fire if he doesn't have to move. Still, I might demote him to "go get him when I see a toaster" status if I find an NPC I like in California.

"Capable of dealing with" doesn't mean that you can't complain about it, or try to bring the issue to the attention of others so that it gets less irriating. The video was an attempt to say, "hey, you might not be aware of it, but this kind of **** happens all the time, it's annoying and sometimes creepy, and I think it'd be great if it happened less often."

My "mistakes" in Arizona were mostly

I've only just started the California part of the game, and it doesn't exactly start off strong. Santa Fe Springs looks neat, but it has lots of open space with nothing interesting going on. And, from a narrative point of view, It should be interesting, though, visiting locations that I vaguely know from the fact that my in-laws used to live in the area. ("Cerritos?! I've been there!") The local geography was one of the big reasons that I found FO3 enjoyable, overall, in spite of some of its flaws.

Romo's owie will get the headlines, but he'll likely be fine. The bigger news for Dallas is that they've probably just lost Justin Durant for the season. His play is one of the big reasons why that defense has surprised people with its not-awfulness, and there isn't much in the way of depth behind him. Also, maybe the Cowboys were hesitant to use Murray more because he's on-pace for over 400 carries. It's a long season, and RBs don't generally react too well to that kind of workload. Anyhow, good for Washington. Their fans don't have a whole lot to cheer about this season, but a nationally broadcast upset win over their most hated rival will go a long way.

Has this been linked here yet? I'm hardly White's biggest fan, but I thought it was a pretty congruent take on the whole thing.

The only default keyboard binding that gave me trouble was "swap weapon" on X, because I hit it often by accident when going for the "highlight interactable object" effect bound to Z. But, yeah, the camera rotation is not fantastic.

That's weird. All I found in the hole at that particular Shrine was a single piece of junk. (I think it was a Blow Dryer.) (Edit: This references Hiro's post, regarding the Shrine between Titan and Damonta.)

I don't think you understand what sexism is. Sexism is, for example, the fact every female humanoid in the first Witcher game who the developers bothered to give a name was either (1) somebody the player-surrogate could have sex with, (2) represented by the "hunchbacked old crone" character model, or (3) the madam of a brothel.

Well, policing games media has never been especially high on my to-do list. So I don't feel obligated to differ from my current approach to deciding what games I might or might not want to play: avoiding as much of the pre-release hype cycle as I can, taking mainstream games reviews with a pretty huge grain of salt, and relying mostly on recommendations from folks who I've figured out have similar tastes in games. (And, as far as the sexism goes, well, the worst offenders aren't really in genres I typically play much of. I'll speak up when I encounter it and it bugs me, and it affects the likelihood that I'll play future titles from whoever made it.)

Not showing empathy is perfectly normal. Maudlin pitches in the media get ratings, but they aren't for everyone. Stiff upper lip and all that. Not having empathy is basically the clinical definition of psychopathy.

The "equalism" stuff makes me laugh. I mean, that schtick was old when Bill O'Reilly started doing it 2 decades ago-- pointing out its ridiculousness ("A problem clearly doesn't exist if it's not a problem for people who look like me!") is a large part of what made Colbert a household name. Can I be for "honesty and integrity" and also honestly admit that most mainstream vidyagames are pretty disappointingly sexist?

I feel that these SJW's aren't really feminists. It's just a title they've given themselves to be holier-than-thou. The situation with TFYC is proof that helping women get into the gaming industry isn't a goal of theirs. They're just a clique of hipster douches who want to be considered intellectuals, but don't want to bother learning what they're talking about. It's unfair to hold feminism in disdain based on these people. We've already seen with the Factual feminist and TFYC that these pretenders don't represent actual feminism. I wish I could agree with your sentiment, but Hoff Sommers has been attacked for her "antifeminit viewpoints" by those claiming to be "real feminists" (the one's I'd liken to the group Volo is talking about) for way longer than GG has been around. There has been a fair amount of long-term cultural conservatives getting very excited about this whole thing because they see it as an opportunity to bash feminists and get people who aren't all 60+ white dudes to listen.

Those are some interesting articles which show that some journalists simply don't understand the problem. There's a very interesting response from one of the posters in the article you last linked, David Ward. "These articles were proof that games media was hostile to those that consumed games media, not because we are the stereotype but BECAUSE we had thought a natural progression had already occurred where the stereotype was disproved, but our media hadn’t gotten the memo. To think we’re simply mad because we heard “Gamers are Dead” hur dur derp, anger, is condescending – we understand they’re not trying to “take away our games.” We’re hurt because we’re alienated, we’ve had stereotypes thrust on us since the 80s, and it hasn’t stopped since but we’d hoped that our media (our advocates) were the last people to perpetuate those stereotypes." I'm not a GamerGate supporter (I guess I'll have to say this a thousand times) but I still feel insulted when I hear the press' stereotypical definition of "Gamer". But, oh no, sorry guys we don't mean you, when we say gamer we only mean the sort of virgin, neckbeard, obese, cisgendered, white, male, crybaby that we immediately think of when we say gamer, and you're not like that right? Yeah, that's not at all insulting. Edit: The Felicia Day article, well, I can certainly understand how she would feel that way considering that there are people out there that do have these very negative views on anything female and that the press puts all its focus on them. It's a shame because it honestly isn't a reason to avoid people who look like gamers to her (can you really tell? Is there a secret handshake I missed?). And that's the thing really, because all the focus goes out to the toxic GamerGaters suddenly all gamers seem to be suspect. That is an interesting post, but, as you note, there's still a step between where you are and where core GG'er supporters are. And (not to presume too much about your motivations) I think that step is largely political-- it's all this rage at "SJWs." As such I don't think that NYMag article is missing the point by much.

For what it's worth, the thresholds for this are 12 (2 of them), 18 (2, mutually exclusive), 22 (1), and 25 (1, mutually exclusive with the 2 18s). There are 9 joinables with no CHA requirement. By the way, you get credit for the CHA contributed by the NPCs you've already recruited, and they average around 3 points apiece. (The hobo and the mutant, unsurprisingly, are 1s.) So the 12s are easy to get, and the 18s aren't tough if you have a Leadership character with 5+ CHA, which you should unless you like your allies doing dumb things.

Clarification: by private twitter feed, I mean one that is tied to a private individual. Not a company, organisation or public persona. The kind of thing that is read by five people. It's less public than writing something in a toilet stall. Toilet-stall writing can't be sent to Gaben, Valve PR, and the FBI with a simple "RT@" by any one of the guy's followers.