Ivan the Terrible

I wouldn't worry. Usually, when a thread is derailed with obscure historical information, it just pops right back on track due to the rampant indifference of most posters.

Man, that must have taken some work.

Curst was rushed, without a doubt. But given the amount of dialogue already present and how long the game had already been delayed, I can't say I blame them. Better to have a rushed Curst than a cancelled Torment.

I find it rather depressing that an interview of 5 of gaming's MASTER STORYTELLERS reveals that.....a good proportion (2) of them think all stories in games suck.

On an unrelated subject, anyone else getting the feeling that Tim Schafer has all the enthusiasm of an impotent man in a brothel for this article? Geez, Tim, you aren't restricted to a paragraph, you know.

'Hates the ending' would be too strong, which is why I kept it to a milder 'didn't approve of the way things turned out.' Nevertheless, it's been my experience that often a good author or writer has no greater critic of his own work than himself. I'm not sure who wrote the ending sequences, but I think if so many people around the world have had such a strong, negative reaction to the end, then I would venture to guess he saw the flaws well before we did.

Chris Avellone's "Confession": Since, as a lead designer for the company, the guy can hardly come on the board and screams 'I ADMIT IT! KOTOR II's ending was HORRIBLE!', it's good to see him take a more subtle approach to letting us know he didn't approve of the way things turned out, either.

Only stable Americans can be trusted with gibbing children. History certainly proves that.

For the record.... Many Japanese anime and continental European movies dubbed to English are just as painful to watch.

I disagree entirely. I didn't consider it important exactly what he did, anymore than I considered it important exactly what his original name was; in fact, the aura of mystery that was created to surround the first incarnation, from his actions right down to his name, would have been crippled by any real look at what happened. After all, how much do we really learn about the first incarnation? He fought in the Blood War. He did something horrible, or many horrible things, and later came to regret them. He petitioned Ravel to grant him immortality, and then was murdered by Ravel to see if she succeded, ending his independent existence and ushering in the second incarnation. Compared to the Practical and the Paranoid incarnations, we know next to nothing about the guy. I think BIS intended him to be a complete mystery from the start, without any intention of revealing who he was. You consider this a flaw; I consider in-depth knowledge of the first incarnation's actions to be unimportant, even harmful to the atmosphere. We're unlikely to proceed any further given that difference of opinion.

In this case, I think is Feargus covering up....but I don't consider that a notch against him. You don't bite the hand that feeds you; simple as that.

Well.....if anyone on this board ever did something so horrible that it makes all the assorted crimes of TNO's past incarnations look like a drop in the bucket in comparison, I'd guess that someone on this board is Pol Pot, Stalin, or Hitler. But yeah, if they had mentioned what it was, I'm guessing I would end up thinking 'that's it? That's the uber-evil thing that no amount of good deeds can redeem? Meh.' Whether it be incinerating a planet or subsisting on a diet of live baby flesh for most of his life, I'm guessing anything the writers could have dreamed up for the first incarnation's crime would have been underwhelming.

At first I couldn't tell what you were laughing at. I thought for a moment, given that you're not a PS:T fan, you were mocking the insinuation that the briefcase from PF and the evil deed from PS:T were comparable. Then I read the thread completely. Ok, ok, so you thought of the comparison first. A good point made twice is still a good point.

The Good Incarnation tells you he's the original if you pursue the dialogue far enough.

You might as well say Pulp Fiction had a Plot hole. Missing link. Loose end for not letting us see what was in the briefcase. Yet, over a decade later, people are still debating what they thought it was. If they had shown, would anyone remember or care? They can and should leave a big question like that unanswered, for the very simple reality that anything they could come up with just wouldn't be as interesting as whatever the individual player's imagination allows. All we know is that, whatever it was, it was truly horrible, enough to render every other incarnation's crimes a pale shadow in comparison.

Finish Telos playing as a man. You can't miss her, I don't think.

Paradox lives up to it's name. It releases it's games way too early, which makes me dislike them, but then it keeps patching those same games long past when it makes economic sense and long past when the major problems are fixed, which makes me love them. I was never able to get into Hearts of Iron or Victoria (even though I beta tested them both)....but I ate Europa Universalis and Europa Universalis II up. I still break out EUII every now and then; easily one of the best strategy games ever made. Have still yet to play Crusader Kings or Hearts of Iron II.

Serves 'em right.

No, he's the Chosen One. He does indeed bring balance to the force....When he's finished, there are two Jedi left, and two Sith left.

I've despised the prequels so far, so my expectations are low. But man, if this movie does end up sucking, I'm going to have to at least watch it to see how he could screw up something which is looking so good right now.

Both, but definetely more of an RPG fan than a Star Wars fan. I never play most Star Wars games, but I play virtually every story-based CRPG I can find.

All of this guy's posters are almost exactly the same.

Precisely. I remember when I started my first game of R:TW as the Julii, I was expecting desperate pitched battles of countless Gauls or Germans smashing against my vastly outnumbered (but much more disciplined and professional) Roman legions; instead, I almost casually walked over Gaul and then Germania, sending any barbarian army running with an almost effortless cavalry flank whenever they attacked me. Oooh, boy. Not now. While conquering the Gaulish cities on my side of the Alps, I had more than one occasion of having a nearly full Roman army bled dry and forced to return to the nearest city that could offer retraining. I never realized how powerful the Roman general cavalry units were until I was forced to use equites alone at the start of the game. Yep. I was wondering when someone would attempt Cannae.

I've met others....but you're really outnumbered. The reason for this is because, frankly, the Bush administration is amongst the most diplomatically incompetent in the history of the United States, ostracizing decades-old allies to little gain while indulging in childish temper tantrums when countries don't go their way. Given the ideology of the Project for the New American Century and the general aura of ignorance and contempt for world opinion the administration gives off, I find it little surprise Bush is so unpopular outside the U.S.; why support a group that takes the position that you're a complete irrelevancy?

Kreia was KOTOR 2. So much revolves around her that the game could just as fairly be considered her story as it could the exile's. She's definetely one of my new all-time favorite game characters, and she also happens to be my second favorite