Ivan the Terrible

What trolling? Personally, I bet a lot of companies wish they could do that. KOTOR 2005, KOTOR 2006, KOTOR 2007.... The goal is simple; they release games which are neither good enough to require a ton of development time nor bad enough to be ripped to shreds by reviewers. In such a way, they stay in the black while other game companies fold around them. It's good business, but it's a really BAD situation for Joe Gamer (including you and me.)

Well, no. If you genuinely don't care, then either way, you don't lose. There's a difference. Don't be absurd. The benefit of competition to the consumer is supposed to be that the opposing companies try to outsell each other, thus giving the consumer the best possible product as each company tries to give the best deal. And it works for vacuum cleaners or shaving cream. For art or other things involving creativity (including gaming), however, it doesn't work unless your dream is for everything to be homogenized and sold only to the mass market. Do you actually long for a world in which the CRPG (with it's long development time and small audience) is regarded as unprofitable and thus completely disappears in favor of another slew of First Person Shooters? Are you actually happy to see that EA, a company which thrives by releasing the same crappy sports game every year with a new tag on it, has the money and power to buy out developers that make, y'know, good games that take a long time to develop and lack a similiar money-harvesting gimmick?

I acknowledge the game has problems, and many of them. On the other hand, I must join a chorus of others and wonder WHY YOU'RE STILL POSTING HERE? I see a lot of merit as well as a lot of flaws in KOTORII; by appearances, you see only flaws, and yet you probably post here more often recently than I do. Jesus, if you didn't like the game, move on with your life.

No, I think he just needs a new hobby. What's the point of being a gamer if the type of game you like is released maybe once every 10 years?

Rental. Sorry, I can forgive once since this is their first game and I doubt they had much say in when it was released, but since KOTOR II seems to be a success I'm not going to support continued rush jobs. They have a bargaining position now, and they should have the backbone to use it.

If you were directing this at me I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean, never played that game. All I want is an ending to an unfinished story began in KotOR 2. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, no, not directed at anyone in particular. Just noting the resemblances between what you propose and the Monkey Island series, which started out with one self-contained game, then went on to a sequel which played well but ended on a really bizarre note a lot of people didn't like. So the Developers who made the third one virtually pretended the second one didn't exist, giving the second's ending only a cursory mention at the start of the game.

An ending in which I'm not saying KOTOR II's ending was good; it wasn't. But you gotta admit a similarity.

What's to explain? It was a bad design move. And the Devs seem to be AWOL at the moment.

Sounds like you want to pull a Curse of Monkey Island. That game sucked.

Is it?

Yep. Kaiser Bill never looked sexier.

I agree as well, and Torment is definetely not 'the complete package'; it just does one thing so well that I overlook the flaws and place it at the top of my list of favorite RPGS.

You miss my point. Stripped to their basics, the plotlines of any story are going to have been done many times before. The issue is how unique and interesting the execution is. In that sense, most RPGs don't ever break beyond the 'bad guy wants to do bad things' barrier; Sarevok wants to slaughter lots and lots of people so he can become a God. Irenicus wants to slaughter everybody in his old homeland for preventing him from becoming a God, and also to give becoming a God another try. Mellissan wants to kill all the Bhaalspawn so she can become a God (notice a trend?) I wish I could tell you what the villains in NWN wanted, but I got bored around Chapter 3 and quit playing. Something about ancient lizard people conquering the world. I wouldn't be surprised if some villain or another was planning to use the slaughter of everyone in Neverwinter to become a God. Or something. The Fallouts are the only ones which comes close to breaking the barrier....but even there, with objectives you can kinda sorta see how someone might believe in, the objective is pointlessly genocidal and obviously 'bad.' Of them all, the only one which transcends the tired cliche is Torment. You can point to the amnesiac thing all you like, but beyond the set-up virtually everything in Torment is outside of your typical fare....and executed brilliantly, I might add.

The 'Amnesiac' plot? No. The plot? Funny thing, but that isn't nearly as common.

No, that seems to be pretty much the case, in my experience. Especially Forgotten Realms.

But a storyline which transcends the endlessly boring 'there's a big bad guy trying to destroy a country/world/galaxy! Go kill him!' does. Especially one as well-designed as Torment.

Yes.

Can't be. She was the one who taught him the Arts of the Sith in the first place.

Any preference of 40K or Fantasy? Or just both combined?

No specific world wins by a wide margin, but I've been redeveloping my teenage love of Shadowrun recently (found a huge stack of sourcebooks in a back room), so I'll go with that.

'I want to hold your gland' had me laughing pretty loudly. As I mentioned before, when I asked the Mandalorian at the battle circle whether there were any rewards for winning and he indignantly replied that 'Mandalorians are warriors, not merchants', I got a kick out of the reply 'Yes, Mandalorians aren't merchants....except for Kex. And you also have a repairman. Have you got any janitors?' And the Mandalorian above the explosives was hilarious all around. Ridiculing the poor schmuck as a Dark Sider is deliciously entertaining. 'You got trapped up there by Cannucks? They're practically the Gizka of Dxun!'; eventually, he gets so upset he stops talking to you, at which point I casually walked over and pushed the switch down, and yes his scream was hilarious. [/sadist]

And which game is it that can top Torment?

If you like in-depth plots and characters, yes, it's worth it. I won't kid you, though, it is a dark game.

Then we're talking to vastly different groups of people. On every board I've posted on, the words 'disappointing' and Halo 2 seem to always be used together. Not that I care. I haven't played either of 'em.

Unless....