On the other hand, you could call a writer schizophrenic because he writes full blown characters all by himself, including their conversations and eveery other kind of interactions =) Or children who likes to create their little world with their legos and stuff.
but I'm just nitpicking.
Nhhhh...
I think there is a difference.
The proper analogy would be that you are given a world defined very tightly by say, Larian, and you as normal person suddenly are given the task of creating characters in that world, something Larian was supposed to pay writers for and do itself, even though you paid money with the explicit goal to have this done for you by writers that are vastly more proficient than you.
For me
that would make a game a no-buy. I buy RPG's for story and immersion. And if I had to do something like described above I would not feel like I had gotten what I wanted out of that buy. In fact I would feel scammed. I guess I am just strange like that
What it comes down to is that I can agree that there should be options to cater to all playstyles. But properly written companions with character development, feels, and immersion, are for me an ABSOLUTE must and I would say make up 70% of the buying value for me. It just goes to show that everyone looks for different things in their games, and that is totally ok. As long as D:OS 2 does not repeat D:OS 1's mistakes.
In case you wonder, remaining % is 15% music and 14% gameplay and 1% graphics. ;P
Ps.: Properly written can mean locked classes, but I would be OK with it assuming I can define their level up path from level 1 onwards. (I hated that in PoE, now patched, but I don't play now, I played on release).. eh, I mean I hated that they leveled to your level on some template (which REALLY gimped the Mage)