SteveThaiBinh

Atton: Pure Pazaak. Pure Pazaak. Pure Pazaaaaaaaaaaa...... (pushed over cliff by Exile) Mira: Ouch! Are you SURE this droid is deactivated? Mandalore: Aachooo!

Gender discrimination CAN work in both ways. It's realistic that Atton wouldn't admit what had happened to him. Male victims of rape are notoriously reluctant to come forward, while more progress has been made in helping women come forward. That doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of victims of rape are female. "All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria. " Can you guess which country's constitution this comes from? Iran. A gender-neutral law still has to be enforced to mean anything.

If someone bashed their way into your mind and pulled up the most repressed, traumatic experience of your life, and then dangled it in front of you, how chipper would you be feeling five minutes later? It's the sense of intimate violation that makes it rape, although being beaten up isn't pleasant either.

Yeah, this was creepy. I mean, I thought it was even more disturbing then finding out he hunted and tortured Jedi, in a way, because this is supposedly the turning point where he turned away from the Sith. My reaction was? "Huh? Wha? Ewww." I do wish there had been more of a chance if you took him Light Side Jedi to help him face this past and find some peace within himself. It was painful to see him hate himself so much. Errr...not that this is on topic or anything. Sorries. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> "I killed her because I loved her." What could be wrong with that? No mysogyny that I can see. It's great that a computer game can have complex and mature themes, and that it doesn't throw 'correct' morality in your face. But if a game is going to raise these things, they need to be addressed a bit more thoroughly. One thing that bothered me was Kreia's invasion into Atton's mind to uncover his secret. Isn't this a form of rape?

And why were they discussing the conclusion of the game towards the end of the production process? Wouldn't this be after the voices had been recorded? Wouldn't that make it difficult to make big changes and fit them into the existing story? So perhaps it's Obsidian's lack of experience that's at the root of the 'cut ending' saga. I mean, I know that individually they're all very experienced, but as a group this is their first game. Did they panic that the ending wasn't good enough, not realising it was really too late to change it for the better? Or maybe they were pushed into it?

I'm not sure that Leia or Padme stand out as independent women. Although attempts were made by the scriptwriters (scriptdoctors?) to make them so, their function in the movies was to be protected or rescued by the (male) protagonists.

The Exile and Handmaiden aren't naked when they fight, as this would have increased the rating of the game unnecessarily. They're in their underwear, though the dialogue refers to their not wearing clothes. But that's not the point. Before you played the game, if someone had said "There's a character who will only fight you in their underwear, do you think it's a man or a women?", would it have been hard to guess? This is a gender stereotype that is being reinforced in the game. And then there's the dancing costume (yes, I'd forgotten about that, thanks). And the Twilek dancer on Telos that you can 'enslave', and so on. This is the nature of much gender discrimination in the modern world. Any individual case can be dismissed, but taken together, then the pattern is disturbing.

The depiction of women (particularly Handmaiden) was raised in the General Discussion forum. I wanted to post this comment, but as it contains spoilers, I put it here instead. The women of Kotor 2 are stereotyped. It's not deeply offensive (to me), just a bit disappointing. The handmaiden's naked fighting is silly. Can you imagine a male character doing the same? Like, say, in the Mandalorians' battle circle? They weren't naked. And don't say it's because in the Mandalorians' culture they wear armour. It's the developers' decision to include clothed males and naked females that shows gender descrimination. Visas was by far the more worrying case. A character is shown as a broken wreck, without any will or sense of self, and of course she's female. And utterly devoted to a male master (I assume Darth Nihilus is male, although correct me if I'm wrong). And then willing to surrender herself sexually to the male Exile, perhaps the female Exile too. Kreia is a manipulative witch, lying and cheating from the shadows. And twice we see her defeated by Darth Sion in open combat. This suggests that males are dominant, women are subordinated, and can only exercise power through manipulation. Again, a clear gender stereotype. And frigid of course, as all powerful women are. I do love the way the voice actress says 'indignities', though. This kind of thing is unavoidable when almost all game developers, and a clear majority of players, are male. Obsidian aren't being nasty or deliberately discriminatory, just careless. And the problem is very widespread (the Star Wars films are at least as bad, as is most of the output of Hollywood).

I have a few ideas about the motivation, although it's quite subjective as the game doesn't spell it out. But it might be better if you post the question in the spoilers forum, and I can reply to it there.

There was a patch for Non-US versions of Kotor 2 available almost as soon as the game was released here, so I never played it without the patch. Does anyone know what was fixed by this patch? I haven't had many errors or seen many bugs at all, but that may just be a lucky system configuration.

Immediately on completing the game, after the disappointing ending, I also felt unmotivated to replay the game. If you're not heading towards a satisfying conclusion, what's the point? Then I started playing, and was hooked again within ten minutes. Do it, you'll really enjoy it. The main body of the game is really excellent. But LucasArts/Obsidian, please take note. A weak ending can be more damaging than you think.

Darth Nihilus is the gizka of Sith Lords.

Fewer characters on board the Ebon Hawk. I'm with Kreia on this. I mean, there are only two dormitories (and a remarkable lack of beds). So perhaps a maximum limit of four, but from a large pool. Characters who join only if you're dark/light/male/female. Some characters who are influenced by your alignment, but others who will leave if you go too far the wrong way. Rather than having them all hang around getting in the way, I'd prefer to say to Goto "Look, I don't talk to you, I've never taken you off the ship, I sold all your upgrades for cash, take the hint already!"

I hope the cut ending is the 'real', originally planned ending. It would be worse to think that the developers really thought the existing ending was a fitting and satisfying conclusion. It's hard to make an episode of a series which is satisfyingly complete in itself and leads in well to the next episode. But it's not impossible. If Kotor 3 will return the same characters then fine, although someone really ought to make this known pretty soon to limit the bad feeling. If these characters don't return as major NPCs, then I'm sorry, but Kotor 2's ending is substandard. There are many games which don't have a dramatic and successful ending, it's true, but they don't make story, character interaction and voice-acting major selling points. This ending only looks so bad precisely because the rest of the game was so good.

You can max out Atton's influence with three or four gains. Two of these can happen on the Harbinger, so yes, it seems easy. Except that the first time I played, I lost influence a fair few times as well, and I didn't go back each time to replay the conversation because I wanted to see what happened. If you made the influence requirements too high, you would have to get every conversation right all the way through, and this would be no fun the first time you played.

Am I part of the 'forum elite'? Talk about quick promotion. Do I get a badge? I suppose it's likely that the people criticising the ending here didn't experience so many bugs as others, otherwise they would be spending more time on the technical support and won't have finished the game so quickly. It's right that Obsidian/LucasArts tackle the bugs first, so that people get a chance to experience the game properly. I don't know if the ending is good or bad compared to some of these other games that are mentioned, but does it matter? I take Kotor 2 on its own terms. The ending is weak compared with the first 90% of the game, which (as I didn't experience too many bugs) I found excellent. If it's the case that most games have a weak ending, well, that's no excuse. Constructive feedback from fans is in Obsidian's interests, and that includes a full discussion of strengths and weaknesses, both of which are to be found here. Nobody on this forum should feel embarrassed or reluctant to make honest criticisms of the game they have after all paid a lof of money for.

KOTOR 3 Storyline Opening Movie : <Star wars scroll text> Title : Here we go again... <Scroll prelude text> Ten years have passed since the redemption of Revan and the destruction of the Star Forge. Or the triumph of Darth Revan and the destruction of the entire republic fleet. One or the other, we

They're still in the zoo on Manaan, I guess.

The complaints about the ending are in these forums because the information about the cut ending is in these forums. Most players (like me) don't have the skills needed to root around in files and uncover these things. I only arrived at this forum after completing the game, and I wanted to know if others had found the end as odd as I had. Not everyone who plays these games cares too much about the story. But some of us do, very strongly. I don't even know what black isle is, but I doubt that criticisms on this board are going to drive the company that's making NWN2 into bankruptcy.

Is Obsidian making the patch, or LucasArts? I thought it was usually the publisher that was responsible for patches. This was always the problem with Temple of Elemental Evil, that Troika didn't make a patch because it was Atari's job.

Ravager (Nihilus' ship) was so like the Leviathan in Kotor 1, it's untrue! Rooms full of Sith soldiers throwing grenades, fighting your way to a big boss. So why was the Ravager so much less interesting? Lack of dramatic tension, that's why. On the Leviathan, you were fighting towards Carth's big showdown with Saul, something that had been building since the first hour of the game. Nihilus is a terrible villain, too abstract to arouse much passion. It would be like hating a natural disaster. So yes, it could easily have been cut, but there remains the underlying problem that the story isn't building towards a satisfying conclusion.

What forms do is make an already easy game even easier. I ignored forms completely my first time, until about two-thirds of the way through I found (for the first time) an opponent I couldn't beat with one hand tied behind my back. So I found the appropriate form and it became easy again. I remember the two big monsters in on Korriban in Kotor 1, where I had to run past them, pull a level to open a door, and hide in the next room firing blaster shots at them because they could kill me in three blows.

Does a Christmas release really increase sales so much over the long term? According to the BBC, Kotor 2 is selling amazingly anyway (in the UK at least), with a February release on both X-Box and pC.

The influence system was complex, confusing and extremely engaging. I liked the way you that developing relationships with certain characters would upset other characters. The first time I played, one of the characters just stopped speaking to me because another character was meddling. At the time, I didn't understand why it had happened, and was engrossed with what it might mean. After playing the game a few times, I understand the mechanics of the system better, but that first time was really great. Of course, there are downsides to influence too. By having so much freedom to develop relationships, you make it difficult to keep the dialogue consistent. The character who refused to speak to me normally would happily chip in during plot-related conversations, without a hint of bitterness, giving a rather unrealistic effect. And so many possible combinations of people who like/dislike you make it very challenging to resolve each character's journey at the end of the game - too challenging as it turned out!

I've got lots of influence with Disciple and turned him into a Jedi. When I ask him something about hating the Jedi I get an Influence: Failed response, but I can't seem to gain any more influence with him. When I take him to some of the places where he would normally gain influence, either he does nothing, or one time I got the message Influence Gained: Handmaiden! Is there a bug stopping me gaining influence, or is there no way to unlock the next level of conversation with him?