SteveThaiBinh

The game logic and dialogue really ought to be finalised at a very early stage in the development process, if you want a really good product, but I don't think this happens very often. In most games I play, I often hear some dialogue and think that it doesn't quite fit what was said just before, either logically or gramatically. I'm sure they write (and even record) more than they ever plan to use, so that they can make cuts later. As others have said on this forum, it's quite normal that you would look through the game files and find lots of stuff that didn't make it into the finished game. The cut ending for Kotor 2 seems to be different, though - a more extreme mangling of the story, for whatever reason.

Hmmm. Darth Daffy. The idea has merit...

Yes. Oh dear (terrible sense of foreboding). Then you might start Kotor 3 as the same character but effectively back at level one, having lost your force powers again and physically weakened by the trauma. That would be an awful explanation for re-using the exile.

I think you have to be clearly light side or dark side. And it only triggered for me when I spoke to Kreia on the Ebon Hawk, not on the planets.

Nihilus had no personality, and we never saw him. Malak was much much better. A real pantomime villain. I remember running around the Leviathan with Bastila's warnings 'I can feel the Dark Lord approaching', and then when he actually walked in it was pretty scary. And he won! On the Ravager, they should have built the tension first. Visas should have disappeared to rejoin/attack him, or your other companions got lost so you had to face him alone. Maybe he could have attacked you telepathically on route, so that your attributes or force points were drained as you got closer to him. That would have made him more challenging to kill. I would have like to have seen him drawing life force from Telos, killing the people there, so that the more you attacked him, the more lives he consumed and the stronger he became. What a dilemma for a light-side Jedi!

So it's the big red spot on the floor. So now I'm the new Dark Lord and I'm going to sit cross-legged on the floor until my proper throne arrives from Ikea. Maybe one of the surviving Sith Assassins has a guitar, and we can all sit in a circle and sing "Kreia's Theme".

After completing the game, I have an entry under 'movies' called Assuming the Dark Throne. It's just the camera sweeping away from the Malachor core and out into space. Huh? What's the relation between the title and the content?

You can train Atton, Bao-Dur, Mira, and Handmaiden/Disciple. It's difficult to get all of them, unless you have a really good memory for where they can each gain influence (or use gamefaqs).

To implement the influence system properly, you'd need to double (at least) the amount of recorded dialogue, so that every character had a light-side and dark-side response to every event. It would give the game tremendous replay value. However, on any one game, you'd only experience a fraction of the content, and I think game companies are averse to this. They want each dollar invested to be reflected in each game, an aim which is at odds with giving freedom to the player to affect their universe.

Did you take Mira to the special place on Nar Shaddaa where you can hear the Force? That triggered her becoming a Jedi for me.

Firstly, why does everyone assume that Obsidian will not be developing KOTOR3? To me, Obsidian looks like the most natural developer for the sequel. Secondly, the reason why Obsidian was not subject to any scrutiny is because nobody expected that KOTOR2 will go so wrong so badly, not when one took into account Obsidian's RPG experience. And, let's face it, apparently the problems with KOTOR2 are largely due to LA setting unreasonable deadlines rather than to Obsidian's negligence - KOTOR2's storyline is brilliant and the game is great, but numerous glitches and bugs ruin the overall impression. Besides, based on what exactly could the community criticise the game? The demo that was never released? The screenshots that told nothing about the game's content? Thirdly, there will never be an apology from Obsidian, because, by apologising, they would implicitly acknowledge the problems with the game, thus leaving themselves wide open to allegations of negligence. In such a situation, they'd have two choies - either to blame themselves or blame the publisher. If they blame themselves, they would damage their own image with actual and potential customers. If they blame LucasArts, the Star Wars giant will grind them into dust and they will never get to work on KOTOR3 (which, let's face it, is a major potential source of profit). So, under the circumstances, staying tight-lipped is the lesser of two evils. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I make no assumption that Obsidian will not develop Kotor 3. When I refer to the developers of Kotor 3, it might well be Obsidian. In fact, I hope it is. Kotor 2 was a very good game with significant strengths, but whose weakness deserve to be acknowledged and improved upon. I don't know very much about how the game development process works, and how credit and blame should be shared between LucasArts and Obsidian. It does seem to me that anything good about the game gets credited to Obsidian, and the flaws are blamed on LucasArts, which may be fair, I just don't know. Criticisms of the game are based on its own merits, by comparison to Kotor 1, and by comparison to the cut sequences that others on these forums have revealed. I think all of these are valid approaches. I didn't experience most of the bugs myself, so I'll leave that to one side. The story had some wonderful moments, but tailed off at the end and failed to bring a dramatic story to a satisfying conclusion. The cut sequences were emotional, dramatic and far more satisfying than the ambiguous and confusing finale we actually got. So why were they removed? I don't fault either LucasArts or Obsidian for failing to answer that yet, as these things take time, but in the end they should answer. Aside from the ending, various other aspects of the game can legitimately be criticised, and one would hope that the developers of Kotor 3 (whoever that may be) will welcome such comments. Some of Kotor 2's strengths were clearly built on criticisms of Kotor 1's flaws. I agree that an apology is unlikely, and also unnecessary. What I want is a response. Others on these forums have speculated about why certain aspects of the game are the way they are for good reason. Developers should enter into a dialogue with fans, and I believe in time they will. But it has to be LucasArts and Obsidian together, accepting collective responsibility.

Kotor 3 will be better because the developers will be under more scrutiny from us. I don't think we challenged Obsidian or LucasArts enough because Kotor 1 was so good, it didn't seem necessary. If fans stop caring, then nothing will be done. If the pressure is maintained, and the criticism is constructive, then even large companies are likely to respect that and make improvements. It's hardly surprising that Obsidian or LucasArts haven't responded yet. These things take time. The key is to keep the pressure on.

I hope you're right, and the Kotor 3 developers will probably get a better deal from LucasArts, if the rumours are to be believed and the game engine will be completely revamped. I guess the fact that Kotor 2 was using the same technology as Kotor 1 made it hard for Obsidian to say they needed more time. By the way, I hope LucasArts doesn't take too much comfort from my saying I'd buy Kotor 3 no matter what. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am, and some of the posts on this forum suggest that people are very angry indeed. Mediocre plots and rushed releases destroyed the Ultima series, once the best CRPGs out there.

You can change the colours of robes? Which robes? Which underlays work?

I am so glad you aren't forced to do swoop-racing or shoot ships in this game. I think this is one area where Obsidian really listened to fan feedback. These mini-games in Kotor 1 were either ridiculously easy (for people who play arcade-style games regularly) or ridiculously difficult (for people like me who never do). Am delighted that swoop-tracks are back for thems as likes them, and that I don't even know what they look like in Kotor 2.

Kreia says there are lots of former Jedi around (well, up to a hundred or so), but they're no longer Jedi. I don't think they've cut themselves off from the force, but they're not Jedi-in-hiding, they're retired. And as long as they don't gather, Nihilus shouldn't detect them. However, Bastila must have come to Telos after the Ravager was destroyed, as Nihilus' inability to find live Jedi there to feed on is a major point in his downfall.

Generally, you're supposed to be making the exchange angry, or working for them. I found that second time I played through, I got stuck because I hadn't triggered something to make the exchange contact me. Turned out I hadn't visited the Hutt and talked about fuel. Game flags can be very illogical. Kotor 1 had a more thorough journal, which always told you exactly what you should be doing. I didn't really like that at the time, because it meant you didn't need to engage your brain, just follow instructions. It's nice to get stuck every now and then.

Of course everyone will buy Kotor 3. What other game series has engaging stories and characters to rival a good movie? For all Kotor 2's faults (mainly with the ending, but also too much dialogue that doesn't really reflect where you and the NPCs are in terms of alignment), I can't imagine what would persuade me not to buy Kotor 3. Kotor 2 was so nearly so much better, as the cut ending thread shows.

English does need a gender neutral third person pronoun. I guessed Revan's identity pretty early on in Kotor 1 because of the way everyone studiously avoided referring to Revan as 'he' or 'she'. I thought Revan had to be a Sentinel, to have enough skill points to put into repair (He/She did make HK-47).

Has there ever been a computer game that really showed the horror of war? Or attempted to? I'm thinking of the opening half an hour of Saving Private Ryan, and how distressing that was to see. Even if you could achieve a similar effect in a computer game, would you want to? Could you go on through the game happily dispatching opponent after opponent? Besides, it would get an adult-only rating (in countries where it wasn't banned outright!). No money to be made there.

Destroying the force, and liberating the galaxy from its enslavement, would be a noble, 'light-side' endeavour. Preserving the force, which binds all life together, equally so. Which option should a true Jedi choose? I think the game dodges the question by making Kreia an evil Sith. The code of the Sith is that personal freedom can only be achieved through the enslavement of others, and like all good pyramid cons, the only truly free person is the one at the top. Kreia is a different type of evil than the insane, bloodthirsty Malak, but is not less evil. She manipulates people, and in so doing denies them the freedom that she wants so much for herself.

Kreia was unfortunately a little obvious. I think if you focus on what she says, she's obviously dark side. If you listen to the way she says it, the ambiguity is better. All credit to the voice actress who did a great job creating the character. The same cannot be said for Malak in the temple. Even the presumably light-side Malak sounded slimy. I can't imagine any Jedi being won over by him. Guess Revan was the better recruiter.

I read somewhere that Kotor 3 is already in development. That might explain why an excellent ending to TSL was cut and a mediocre one replaced it. It may have been at the request of the Kotor 3 developers. I think I read somewhere that the aim for the Kotor series was that each episode would stand alone, rather than being 'sequels' with the same characters, but this policy might have changed. I don't know who's developing Kotor 3, but I assume they had a good look at Kotor 2 while it was in development. They may have said 'We like this, we like these characters, we want to keep them. So don't resolve any of their issues, and don't kill them off!'. From the Kotor 3 point of view, it might make sense. The whole 'You start alone, weak and neutral, you gradually pick up strength, allies, and align yourself to light or dark' thing has been done twice already. How much more interesting to start Kotor 3 strongly light or strongly dark, with an existing group of people, and have your alignment challenged, or lose companions during the game. It would be original, at least. But from the TSL developers' point of view, it would be sticky, especially as this request would come late in development. Given budget and time restraints, the best thing to do would be to recall the actress who played Kreia and record a few ambiguous ending sequences, giving enigmatic but inconclusive accounts of the future of the characters. In other words, exactly what we see when we finish TSL. It would also explain why Obsidian hasn't responded to players' criticisms of the ending. Kotor 3 is still under wraps. So here's hoping that we will get satisfaction in the form of Kotor 3. If so, I'm prepared to forgive the poor ending of Kotor 2.