Akari

Just a couple points of clarification: There is no PC team/X-Box team, here. We're all one team, working on both platforms at the same time. So no, the PC version doesn't have fewer people on it than the X-Box version. It has the exact same people on it. The PC version hasn't been delayed. The X-Box version is coming out earlier. The PC version is coming out when the two were originally going to come out. Just because one platform is coming out earlier doesn't mean the other has necessarily been 'delayed'. A Feburary release for the PC version would be right on schedule. All this reaction is why I think it's not wise for companies to announce estimated release dates so far in advance. Can you imagine Blizzard having announced a specific release date for WarCraft 3 when it was just a few months into development? And then having it take 4 years longer than originally expected? Of course not. There wasn't a release date until a couple months before the title went gold. Or look at Half-Life 2, that's missed announced release dates by more than a year. They should've held off giving a release date until the end of the project. The reaction going on here is why I think that's generally a more prudent approach to handling announcing release dates. All the same, our internal deadlines haven't changed since the project's inception. Make of that what you will. -Akari

There is a main menu function that allows you to play the music for any of the planets that you've been to so far. When you beat the game, it will unlock the end-game music as well. -Akari

I didn't find out about the different release dates until a couple days ago. Internally, we've been working on X-Box and PC versions of KotOR2 with the same level of dedication and expected to have both of them ready at the same time. One of the main reasons that the X-Box version is ahead of the PC version is that we were on the X-Box version for a few months before the PC version of KotOR1 even came out so that we could get the PC version code from Bioware. As a result, the X-Box version has always been a little further along, code-wise, than the PC version. That's one reason why the E3 Demo was on X-Box. Because the X-Box build was the only one presentable by then. I have my own opinions about why there are two different release dates now, but I'm not going to throw fuel on the fire by going into them. As a mostly PC gamer myself, I was looking forward to the anticipated simultaneous releases. I'm sorry about the news for PC-only gamers. -Akari

It's because when we started up the forums, the forum software didn't support banners like that. We upgraded the forums right before the NWN2 forums opened, and that nifty banner feature was taken advantage of. I tried to bug GM into giving the KotOR2 forums one as well, but it seems to have slipped his mind. -Akari

There's no plans of ever releasing the E3 Demo. -Akari

This thread has wandered off track, but thanks for the kudos from those that expressed them. -Akari

Sorry. I'm still working weekends. Been in all day, but I've been really busy with what I've been working on today and haven't been able to take a break from it so far. It's important stuff though. Trying to make the party member scripting: Easier to change More useful Hopefully it pays off. Maybe I'll have time tomorrow, but I suspect not. This is a particularly busy weekend for me. -Akari

Hm... The PC interface has had some work, but I'll admit that it doesn't have all of the PC features that I'd like a PC game to have. Having the interface scale to your resolution is at least a welcome change for me. I really have no idea on any of those, sorry. No idea on those either. Just from the names I've seen for them, I get the feeling that some of the forms have more to do with your force powers than your saber abilities, while others are saber-centric. But I'm just guessing here. I don't know what you're talking about. B) Yeah. Most of the in-game interface is green and tan. Stores are gold and light gold, and the upgrade panels are blue'ish, similiar to KotOR2. Yeah, and they won't even care. Yeah, I'll see what I can do. It's not technically on my schedule, which means it'd have to be something I fit in fairly late if at all. But I think it's doable. If you use the 'Mouse Look Off' mode that was in KotOR1, you can look up and down a little. I don't see why that couldn't be enabled in the 'Mouse Look On' mode, but no guarentees. Anyway, that's it for today for me. Was nice talking with you all for a bit. -Akari

Topic has spammed wildly out of control. Closing it. -Akari

That's nothing next to the hours the designers have been working. Those guys are game-designing machines. But overall, a lot of us are putting in tons of extra time to give KotOR2 our best. -Akari

Robes will have upgrades as well. I'm good, nice of you to ask all the time. Going on some 60 days without a day off, but whenever I'm not in I feel a tinge of guilt and can't think about much else besides the project anyway. Definitely looking forward to getting this all done. I don't think you get a halo, no. We've been crunching for a while now. There's just so much we want to do that there's never 'enough' time to do it all. All we can do is put in as much time as we can and do our best. Hm... you will be able to pick the color of your first lightsaber. I'll leave it at that. -Akari

<Thread closed by mods> No, really. -Akari

We found a few issues that were due to ATI's drivers. Crashers from alt+tabbing out in particular. Those should be fixed now as of the most recent ATI drivers. There was also a startup crash that was the result of an ATI driver bug. I believe we just coded around it for our fix, but I don't know for certain as that stuff is someone else's forte. -Akari

I'm not sure. I have a feeling it's the same as before. If I knew much about them, I'd share a tidbit or two, but I honestly don't. I wouldn't count on it. But anything's possible, I guess. There's more than 5. And some are class specific. A lot of work has been done on that front. Hopefully you like them. I know early on one of the designers asked me to implement a way to have certain cutscenes only trigger while you were stealthed (like you overhear something you wouldn't otherwise overhear). But I don't know specifically what is being done with that. There were some ideas I had for easter eggs, but the word from Lucas Arts is that we're not allowed to put anything like that in. So to avoid incurring executive level wrath, I won't be. The same stats from before. Hm. Hm... not a lot changed there, I don't think. We've made upgrades do a number of new things that they didn't do before though. I'm not sure. I know Atton was redone at one point, but I'm not sure if Mira will be. Can't really say anything about that. It's going to use the same numbering system. I admit that's not the easiest system to represent it with, but no plans were made to change that. -Akari

We don't have 100% control of the circumstances on the PC. KotOR1, for example has been plagued by ATI driver problems that started after the game came out. If you run the game with the November ATI drivers, it runs fine, but more recent ones will cause a lot of crashes. That isn't something that Bioware always has control over. We've been working with ATI to get some of the driver problems with the Aurora graphics engine resolved. In fact, the latest ATI drivers that just came out have some changes in them that came about because of our graphics programmer, Jay Fong, reporting a problem and helping them get it fixed. We all want a stable game and are doing what we can do to provide that. In the end, though, there are a lot of outside factors that we have less control over when it comes to the PC platform. -Akari

Yeah, a lot of the time most of us are putting in lately is because we want the best for the game. While normal working hours might make a passable title, many of us here want better than that. We're doing what we can. Many of my weekend shifts have been of my own volition. If it was any other job I'd probably never be saying that. -Akari

Er, off topic as the topic says. -Akari

Sorry I didn't have much time to answer questions today. But I'll be back in tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes then. When I reopen it, I'll start with the stuff that's already been asked and go from there. -Akari

I'm not sure. I know effort was made to make skills more useful, so maybe having more skill points from INT will be more useful as a result? I don't know if it factors into dialog choices. The control scheme for navigation hasn't changed. They'll stay the same. Yeah... I know what you're talking about with that. I'll make a note to myself to look into that when I get time to focus on bugs instead of features (Which will be in about a week). Why do you think I work every weekend? All weapon types have flourishes now, both for walking and for standing still, and they're often different when walking. -Akari

I'm not sure. While the level cap is a lot higher, I don't think the player is expected to hit the higher levels by simply playing the game. After a certain point, the levels are just there for those who want to keep leveling up. However, a lot of the game's content will scale up with the player's levels, so they may find there are still some challenges even after going to a high level. I can't really comment on any of that. Well, the story is different in a number of ways, and the difference starts earlier than it may have felt like it did in KotOR1. There is also the effects that your Light or Dark side choices have on your companions that make some decisions deeper than they may have been otherwise. I'm not sure. I know that a number of combat animations do progress, but I don't know if force jump in specific does or not. Each area will have a critical path through it, sure. I can't think of any new features off hand, but you will find that your party members are a lot more active on it. Less standing around doing nothing than before. There are sections where stuff is happening in the background environment. Right now it's still just the brightness setting. I'm not aware of any plans to change that. -Akari

It will be the same as in the first one when it comes to attribute point spending. Hm... right now, mouse look seems to behave with the horizontal-lock like in the first game. Are you saying that you'd want to be able to look up and down with it in that mode as well? I can put that on my list of things to check out, but there's a lot of things that are higher priority that I have to do first. -Akari

That's a good question. The problem is that I'm not familiar with the details of the areas being shown to tell if it is a mockup or the real thing. I have to imagine that for the flyover they wouldn't have bothered setting up mockups when the real thing is already there, so the best I can say is that that was all probably the real thing, as it existed when they made the video. Everything is always subject to change of course. -Akari

1) There wasn't a lot we could change there. Armor is still going to be retextured in most cases. 2) The HK droid does have the same class, yes. -Akari

a) Lightsaber stances are not something granted, you have to earn them. b) Nothing new I'll say about those. c) I honestly don't know much about them. They're there? d) Don't know much about these either. e) There's 6 things you can upgrade now. 3 crystal slots like before, plus the lens, emitter, and... something I'm forgetting. Probably power core or something. -Akari

No real 'jumping'. There's still the force jump force power, but it can't be used for crossing gaps and the like. I think prices will all be the same again, though I'm not 100% certain on that. I believe the engine supports differing prices at locations, but I don't think we're using that. A backlog of dialog would be interesting, but isn't really possible with this engine. The log you have on the Messages panel is all stored in memory, and if it went all the way back to the start of the game, it would grow so huge that eventually the game would be unplayable. If it had some kind of caching or the like, then it would be possible, but it doesn't. -Akari