SteveThaiBinh

It would be good perhaps to start on one planet - your home planet? - and stay there for the first third or so of the game, visiting a town, a city, a jungle etc. - variety, but holding back on space travel so that you'd really appreciate it when the Ebon Hawk swoops in and takes you off travelling. The question is, could they make it work? Obsidian wanted to hold back giving you a lightsaber in Kotor 2 so that you'd really appreciate it, but it ended up just being annoying for me (should have got it from Atris, maybe?).

Speaking of awards and Spellmar, Obsidian's home page now has the following: I'm not emailing them with spelling corrections again - I did it last time with 'openning'. Looking down the long list of games, the only other contender for best PC game for me would be Bloodlines. I shall have to think on this. Oh, and it's actually 'Girl's' choice. ( x3)

Just wondering what kind of emoticon that would make In the way GoA means it, nothing that would pass the censor, I think. :ph34r: LucasArts does seem to have great power to intimidate. Maybe they're all hoping to be taken back in the current round of hiring. Maybe they will be.

My brain won't let me read drivel this irrelevant - my eyes just switch off. I think it's a self-preservation mechanism.

Obviously you can't create a whole planet full of people, places and things to do, so you have to limit where the player can go. I agree that boulders were somewhat overused, but that's surely a limitation of the engine which requires small areas rather than the wide open spaces of Morrowind. It's also true to the movies in that the characters always arrive at a planet and are only seen to visit a tiny portion of it. I think the epic qualities of the stories in Kotor contrasts unfavourably with the small feel of the planets, but what to do? Have more of the world visible, but out of bounds? Have your character say "On second thoughts, I don't really need to go there" every time she wanders to far from the action? Try to have several cities or places to visit on each planet? Telos was like that, up to a point - it didn't change the feel of the game. Maybe filling up the empty spaces with more clutter and more NPCs would alter the feel of the game. I've yet to see a genuinely bustling market in a game, for example. Too much for the computer, perhaps, but maybe the new consoles will be able to handle it?

I'm surprised there haven't been any rumours or leaks from the LA team that was sacked last year while Kotor 3 was in pre-production. They presumably had been told what LucasArts wanted to do with the third game - in fact, they might have been the ones telling Obsidian what to do with the ending of Kotor 2. And since they were dumped by LucasArts, why aren't they dishing the dirt?

I found the reused planets in Kotor 2, Dantooine and Korriban, to be weaker than the others. Perhaps it's because the writers didn't feel sufficient 'ownership' of the setting. I liked Kotor 1 but I don't think it needs to have homage paid to it. I'd like to go back to Taris, however, and the idea of starting as a Tarisian survivor (whoever it was thought of it) was a pretty good one that's grown on me as I've read this thread and some of the other ideas proposed.

A well-written RPG of 30-40 hours length will in fact give 100+ hours of play because the replay value will be high. Better for developers to stick with the 40-hour convention and focus on multiple paths and several role-playing options for each action. The Kotors offered enough for 3 or 4 plays through, games like Arcanum arguably 5 or 6 at least. Kotor 3 needs more difference between the paths, in particular between the endings, rather than to be longer overall.

And Obsidian. They could have taken it out of Kotor 2.

I haven't even finished the demo, yet. I'm unlikely to be buying the game in the near future, so I though I'd leave the demo until buying the game became a more serious proposition. There's a danger that when the cold, lean RPG-less months set in, your mind can play tricks with you, and you can tell yourself "Ah, I'll just get it, I don't think the review/demo was that bad."

It's extremely objectionable, and very foolish of either Bioware or Obsidian to allow it into the final version. We accept, up to a point, that no game will ever be perfect and there will inevitably be bugs, but for the developer to give the impression that this is amusing and not something to be taken seriously is yet another public relations blunder.

You don't. It's not necessary for the game, and the game doesn't allow you to do it. Grenades are for throwing at enemies, and that's about it. Containers and doors can be opened with mines.

I think that damaged containers are opened with mines, not grenades. However, there's rarely anything in them that justifies the bother, in my opinion.

I played it and loved it, a few months ago. It was the most powerful and emotionally draining game I've ever played. Three times now I've started to replay it as an evil character and given up because I was I was dreading the emotional impact of playing some of the key moments as a heartless sod. There was never another game like it. Not exactly like Torment, and not in the next few years, but I think the market for interactive stories will grow as the technology improves and more writers take an interest in the medium. Powerful storytelling will matter a great deal in the future. No, it's not; at least, not financially successful. However, I wonder if Obsidian could have been founded and got two very prestigious projects (Kotor 2 and NWN2) without the critical success and acclaim of Planescape.

He does. We're used to him as this towering figure, dominating the screen. Here he looks like a receptionist. This picture could work as one of the sense/perspective tests. Which is really bigger? Now watch them swap places...

If you murder anyone who is vital to the main quest, a box pops up saying something like 'The thread of prophecy is broken' i.e. you've screwed up the main quest. It's made explicit, and that's important because Bethesda were really encouraging the approach that you're taking (evidenced by the not-very-special main quest, in my opinion). Actually, in almost all cases, even if you kill someone 'vital' and get the message, it's still possible to take a backdoor route and complete the main quest. That's something you definitely don't want to investigate until you've finished once. Remember also that Morrowind is one game that allows you to continue once you've finished the main quest, and there are a few new things and choices that appear only at this stage.

Were they free-range or battery-farmed eggs? That's what I want to know. Publicity? Spite? A laugh? You're right, there's a serious point behind this. I take freedom of expression pretty seriously, and deliberately silencing someone else's music is like burning books - it always makes me uneasy. But the Osbournes are not the most stable of people, and if they and Iron Maiden don't get along, why were Iron Maiden at the concert at all?

It would work for the first few rows, but even a drunk rock star is going to have greater range with an egg.

Listening to my CDs of Turandot. I saw this live once and the singer playing Calaf was in his seventies. That was a lot of make-up, even for opera.

The cynic in me says 'publicity stunt', but the press release on Iron Maiden's website seems genuinely angry and upset. Since no-one seems actually to have been injured, I doubt there'll be legal action. This interested me: Lighters, yes. Bottle tops, yes. But eggs? From a few yards away is objectionable, I agree, because it doesn't give the victim a sporting chance to dodge. But it's important to stress that throwing eggs and rotten fruit is a centuries-old tradition, audience feedback in its purest and most honest form. If the band don't like it, they should have their own supply to throw back.

I don't think I've seen more than two or three, so yes, that would be great.

It would make sense for Obsidian to put up a concept art gallery at the same time they release some information about PNJ, or nearer to NWN2's release date. Anything to get attention from the gaming websites and get more people here (or at the Bioware forums? ).

I always use the random name generator. For RPGs in a fantasy setting, I make up my own, because I've read enough fantasy over the years to have a store of names I'm comfortable with, but anything I create in a Star Wars setting sounds silly and wrong. Most of the random-generated ones sound silly and wrong too, of course. However, eventually I always find one I like.

Amazon.co.uk says September 23.

Going gold is not the same as being released, or at least that's my understanding of it. They've produced the completed 'gold' version which will be copied, packaged, shipped and sold. We'll be able to buy it in November. They now have two months to work on the first patch.