I don't pretend, there weren't things, that could have been better for sure, totally agree.
But the Dream Visitor /Daisy had it''s own thread back then and a lot of people (me included) voiced discomfort about that character being too rapey and I was very glad, it was changed.
The toilet chain is true, that should have been changed. I still don't like it at all.
I'm very sure that at least Halsin, but imo Minthara too are only companions, because people campaigned for them.
I think, they lost love for the game in the end because of WotC. They don't seem to be the easiest to work with and I remember Swen or someone else from Larian mentioning, that all the people, they worked with on WotC are gone now. That can't be easy.
I agree, that upper city and more for Wyll and Orpheus would have been nice, but I still like the game a lot.
I think the fact, that they work with their own IP now should be helpful.
I'm pretty sure that the possibility to have Minthara as a companion was there from early on, because there was a mod, long before the official Minthara recruiting procedure was released, that unlocked this. With this mod you could knock out Minthara to recruit her. She also had the voice lines to give her opinion about the other companions.
What I find more amazing is that there were not more "evil" companions for a dark urge run. My DU ended at the reunion party with only Scratch as remaining companion. All the others were dead (mainly because of the DU's actions) or had left. I read somewhere that, initially, Ketheric was also set up to be a possible companion. But I don't know how close or far that is from the truth.
