I know it's a bit of an odd question, but I did a search but didn't find any info regarding this. In FO3 followers suffered from some weird pathing bugs mainly due to their inability to jump over obstacles or off of ledges, I found this pretty annoying sometimes (e.g. when I was trying to be "stealthy" and my companion would spaz out and drag a ton of mobs to me, all b/c I had jumped over a rock and they couldn't follow me).

So has anyone heard of an improvement in this regard from demos and such?

Well this is new.
And uhm, I could really do without it.
When my character jumps it looks pretty awful, seeing them jump with their AI will be even... Awfuller. (Holy [censored] this is a real word!?!)

How is this new to you?

I hated this problem. Someone would be following me, I'd get to a rocky area and they would run ALL THE WAY AROUND or just spazz out.. Or they'd get stuck on a piece of concrete and just run in place.

Yeah I'd like them to be able to, but it would look really weird, just seeing some townperson start jumping over very small objects like a tin can

All about scripting good jump-area detection.

The AI can't handle ladders yet you expect jumping?

Also, if they did add jumping NPCs it would probably just illustrate how bad the jumping animation is.

Well yeah. I'd hope that if it was implemented it would be some sort of toggle that was only active for people following you.

But even if it's not present in the game, I'd hope they'd make some way for companions (or npcs in general) to "climb" or "fall" on/off of obstacles. I find npc's/companions spazzing out to be more of an immersion breaker than a bad jump animation tho.

I could do without it but I hated how Fawkes was unable to pass a giant area of debris and had to walk around it or accidentally get stuck into the ground with some strange bug.it would look weirder if they were able to jump sooo...I would like if they didn't jump.

Only if they made the jumping animation looks like an actual jumping animation.
Every bethesda game I've ever played has had the most terrible jumping animations I've ever seen.

Jumping is better than getting stuck and running in place even if the animation looks like someone attempting to crap mid-air

Nobody likes a epileptic, the medical term for "party pooper" :laugh:

In Fallout 3, the companions were an afterthought. New Vegas seems to have intended them to be in from the beginning, so I guess it's possible.

There is a backup feature, so that if they get stuck, they can unstick themselves... Other than that I can't remember...

in FO3 dog meats path was a little better than the rest, I don't know if that has any thing to do with his shape or whatever but, yeah they'll probably be better. Right now I am taking NV as a sort of FO3 .2 although they adamently say that it is not. but when you think about it, it is. but thats good not bad, provided they are improving and adding content and not removing it... but thats a different topic.

Hopefully they've addressed the pathing issues. It was pretty bad in FO3, half of the challenge of having a companion was not losing them and all the stuff they were carrying for you.

I have raged quite a few times over that one.

Unfortunately it just became easier to play solo style for many reasons.

I would like NPCs to just jump in general.

PC: the power to jump!

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. It would be nice to take advantage of follower(s) this time around but only if they do it right ( can't wait to see the new companion dialogue wheel!)