Ivan the Terrible

New info: So sayeth the Avellone of Chris.

Good. It worked in PS:T, but usually it's the most tired cliche in gaming history.

[Whine]Not memory loss againnnnnn.....[/Whine] Hey, on that note, maybe your PC will turn out to be the Nameless One.

Crap. Ok, serious question; I'll check with my doctor about the other. Will the decisions you make about the outcome of the last game have a major or minor effect on gameplay?

It burns when I urinate ever since the announcement. Should I be worried?

Here's hoping for something new and original. I hope Obsidian comes up with some great series of it's own rather than purely warming up other company's leftovers.

Yes, but they can't have it change too much. They can't, essentially, make an entire other game based on your choices in KOTOR; I'm guessing most of the results of Revan's actions (whether for good or bad) will show up in dialogue rather than actual major changes to the events of the game.

Oy gott.

That would be interesting if Bastila was one of the title's 'Sith Lords.' But I doubt it, since it would mean completely changing the storyline based on whether KOTOR had a Light Side or Dark Side ending. After all, it's hard for Bastila to be a Sith Lord when she was redeemed or killed.....

That's probably your solution to everything.

I didn't. But if such is the case, good on them. The more KOTORII looks to PS:T for inspiration, the happier I'll be.

Think they'll tell us 'Delaware' is 'KOTOR II' sometime before it hits the shelves?

Ok, we already know that the outcome of Revan's actions in KOTOR will be determined by questions asked of the player early in KOTOR II. But isn't it a rather radical departure between the Light Side and Dark Side endings of KOTOR? SPOILER WARNING: Most likely anyone here has already finished KOTOR, but just in case, I'm about to describe the endings of both Light Side and Dark Side. Move on if you don't know and don't want it spoiled. In the case of a Dark Side ending, the Republic fleet is crippled around the Star Forge and the Sith armada is (apparently) without opposition in advancing into the Core Worlds and conquering the Republic. Revan is the new Dark Lord of the Sith with Bastila as his/her apprentice. In the case of a Light Side ending, the Star Forge is destroyed, the Dark Lord is dead, the Sith fleet is routed, and Revan is a Jedi hero. The Sith threat appears to be ended. Rather drastic differences, I think everyone would agree. Drastic enough that the entire course of the game could be altered by those initial questions that decide the outcome of KOTOR. It also leaves questions unanswered depending on what happened: If the Dark Side ending is how it played out, why did Revan go into exile? S/he is the head of the freaking Sith, for crying out loud. Also, presuming the Sith haven't conquered the galaxy, what stopped them from winning total victory following the battle at the Star Forge? If the Light Side ending is how it played out, why are the Jedi nearly extinct? The Sith were apparently routed at the Star Forge, after all. And again, as the Hero of the Republic, why would Revan go into exile? We won't know the answers until the game is released, of course, but just consider this an exercise in guesswork and creative thinking.

More missions that require Diplomacy and thought and persuasion rather than just running in with guns blasting. Korriban and the Sunry Trial are perfect examples; victory through intelligence and deception rather than brute force.

I was under the impression that you start with Force powers, but that they're weakened because you haven't been using them. That makes perfect sense....so long as they have a good justification as to why you haven't been using your powers. And I highly, highly doubt they'll try to pull the ol' identity switcharoo again. Everyone will be expecting it this time; what would be the point, except to make everyone roll their eyes when the 'twist' is revealed? Since you're the last known Jedi, it only makes sense you have SOME force powers.

Isn't that exactly what they did in the original KotOR? ...and in episode IV and VI too, having a huge battlestation is abit of clich

Well, they DO kinda hang around Korriban.... But been there, done that. Must be some other planets which are dark side-oriented.

On my second time through, in order to see the different dialogue options opened up, I went through Korriban after the Leviathan. Did anyone else kinda roll their eyes when it came to the final test....or any of the big tests, for that matter? The Dark Jedi you meet elsewhere in the game would have no chance in hell of defeating two Terentateks single-handed. I find it ironic that the 'final test' you have to take before they'll even teach you is far more than any of the wussy Sith teachers at the academy could handle. Yeah, I know. Nitpicky....but these are the kinda things that bug me.

Just what major events happened there? Sure it was major to the movies... but nothing really "historyworthy" happened there. Oh! And I vote for the lost (from KotOR) world of Sleyheron You know; Anakin Skywalker is born and raised there, Luke Skywalker is born and raised there, and of course it's one of the planets with a surviving Star Map visited by Revan. Ok, admittedly, that's not TOO much....but it's just a patch of desert that the Star Wars universe keeps revisiting. I wanna see new stuff.

betazed, vulcan, larry, curley and mo. in that order. You'd put curley before mo? It takes all kinds....

I wanna see Sleyheron this time, dammit. I would say Coruscant as well, but I get the bad feeling it would just be a glorified Taris.... And no Tatooine, please. I honestly don't know how the place continues to be a forgotten backwater when every major event in the Galaxy takes place there....

Any opinions on what you'd like the other five to be?

Hmmm....Lemme make an argument. "I joined the Sith because the Republic is a stagnating relic of the past. For years, they've limped from one war to the next, barely surviving each one and yet never being prepared for the next. The Galactic Senate has thus proven itself ineffective in the face of change, a bureacratic mess which exists only to leech off the people for it's own benefit; what the galaxy needs now is decisiveness, action, and direct leadership. What we need is a leader who can make firm decisions and have them carried through without all the red tape, a (wo)man who can unite the people into a new golden age. What the Galaxy needs is Revan!" There was some hinting made at this viewpoint, for example with the Selkath judges, but it was never really carried through. The efforts to present this charade by the Sith themselves were pretty feeble to non-existent. And I would argue that even in the case of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, etc. there was a half-way reasonable ideology being put forward rather than just 'let's kill people'; if Hitler had stepped before the masses and said, 'Let's crush this puny Continent, my minions! We shall bring a new age of darkness to Europe, and all the world shall despair!', I doubt he'd have gotten much support. With a villain like Sarevok, who's inner circle was so small and his 'evil' plans unknown to the vast majority of the guys who were going to fight for him, such an approach can work since it's never expressed outside of that inner circle. But Revan and Malek were leading an army of millions upon millions of soldiers! In answer to your last question, to subjugate a galaxy and crew all those ships being churned out by the Star Forge, you need a lot of people, and you just aren't going to get a very dedicated or large group if your only argument is that you want to enslave the galaxy.

Even Irenicus was a disappointment. When I first started BG2, it almost seemed like he was trying to help you reach your true potential; i.e. that he was evil, a torturer and murderer, but that he was doing so to help you, which would have been an interesting twist. But nooooo....he was just trying to get at your soul so he could lay waste to his homeland. In the end, he was trying to get revenge for something when they were perfectly justified in whatever they did to him (he DID, essentially, try to kill them all so he could become a god.) It was thus difficult to sympathize on any level with him. He could've been a contender....but no.