Akari

I can only imagine so. But there's a good number of new heads to chose from. This happens to be one of them. -Akari

Okay, back now. Took a lunch break. New combat feats... hm. I didn't work on feats much so it's hard for me to pick out what's new at a glance. There are some combat feats that relate to increasing the effectiveness of unarmed combat. Some party NPCs have some unique things too but I can't disclose them at this time. -Akari

It's probably going to be the latter case. I doubt it will be something that gets unlocked after your first pass through the game, though that is an interesting idea and something I'll pass along. There are plans for at least one thing that will be unlockable by completing the game though. -Akari

I don't know how finalized the table is that handles that, but currently the Sentinel starting class is still going to have substantially more skill points than the other two. It's something that is probably being looked at in the QA process. There's a lot more parameters that go into determining skill points per level than I have time to do the math on right now though. -Akari

Okay, here's another chance to ask questions about KotOR2. I'll be in today and probably tomorrow, so between builds I don't mind taking some time to answer questions you may have about the game in progress. Some guidelines: I stay away from story matters as much as possible when it comes to giving answers. Partially because there's a lot of things that I don't even know about the story, but also because I think this is one of those stories best experienced rather than have ruined in advance. Having us be tight lipped about story details is for your own good. I try to answer questions in the order they're posted. Keep in mind I'm also, in theory, working today. So there may be long periods of time where I don't have time to post any answers. When I leave for the day I'll lock the thread, so you'll know when I'm actually done. Try to avoid repeating questions. Like I mentioned in the previous week's thread, I don't like repeating myself. Read the previous week's post and see if your question has already been answered. Since Adam's in today, there's a chance he might weigh in on some things too. Which is also cool. -Akari

Okay, that's all the question answering for today! Hope I gave everyone some new things to think about without ruining anything either. The game is coming together nicely and I'm looking forward to everyone getting a chance to play it. -Akari

That's still in, I think. I dunno about you, but I like that kind've stuff... I play RPGs for the characters and story, personally. Anything that adds more to the characters is cool in my book. Not that my opinion has anything to do with this feature being in or not. -Akari

I'm not sure what this is referring to. It was something I posted in questions to the devs ------------------------------------------------------- For which the answer was Ah... hm. If there's anything going on with that, I haven't heard about it. It's a logistics problem with controls... I mean, how would you quickly and conveniently work that into the interface? Any ideas? -Akari

Both. -Akari

On the right track... I might point out that the NPCs that may appear in the game may be affected by how you answer the questions near the beginning that explain how the first game's story went for you... -Akari

On the question of saber colors, since there's confusion there... The original had 5 basic ones + 2 special ones (The orange and turquoise). Right now in KotOR2 there's at least 10 basic ones and an X number of special ones. -Akari

There's been improvements made here. -Akari

Yeah, I am. Though I'm going to start skipping repeated questions (because they're starting to pop up). One thing I really hate doing is repeating myself. I prefer to answer something once then let those that know the answer spread the knowledge to others that come along and don't know it yet. It's like a pyramid scheme of information. B) -Akari

At least 10. -Akari

Hm... I think that option was already in KotOR1 now that you mention it. I don't believe it's been changed any. -Akari

So you think you'll have apprentices, huh? That's interesting speculation. B) -Akari

I'm not sure. I suspect *not*. Most of the NPC models are the whole body and head, whereas the PC (and most human NPCs) are a body model and a head body, which lets us alter the appearance of their head without having to make a whole new model. I know there are some NPCs that do change appearance throughout the game, but it isn't automatically happening because of alignment shifts. No idea on this one, sorry. -Akari

No idea. We've had them in the game for a while, so it's just a matter of screen shots being taken with them... -Akari

I love my job. I don't even mind working weekends. Of course, even before I got this job, I spent a lot of my free time sitting around programming, so I guess this isn't a major change of pace. I don't do it for the money. And really, it's not a good career to go into for the money. I could make more money doing non-game programming. But I can afford to super size my Burger King dollar menu meal, at least. -Akari

I think there's some big areas in there. I'm really not sure. I haven't even sat down and played a single area from start to finish yet. I hope to soon. -Akari

Well, pretty much every interface that lists items (Inventory, stores, upgrades, item creation) has item filters now, to help manage those long lists. You nagivate the filters with Left and Right (on the X-Box) or button clicks (on the PC) and the filters are all along the top and always visible, as opposed to cycling through them with X like you did in KotOR1. By the way, I had nothing to do with actual interface layout when you see it. That was all done by Scott Everts, who has done interface work for I believe nearly every Black Isle game that was developed internally. I just do all the code to make the interfaces work. -Akari

A fair question. The hoods being up or down is a lot more time/memory consuming than the flourishes. The flourishes are a single fire animation that simply play and don't affect anything else. Having your hood up or down is more of a 'State' and impacts pretty much every other animation that character has. It's a complicated thing, but maybe this will help you understand the difference. -Akari

Oh. Yes what the button for both platforms? On the X-Box it's an action in the Action Bar. I'm trying to figure out how to make it a button, but all the buttons are taken. Left/Right for changing targets Black for changing party members White for pause Back for Solo mode Start for the panels Y for flourish and clearing the combat queue B for cancelling things A for interacting with things X for queueing things in combat All out of buttons. Maybe it could be a combination of buttons... I'm not sure yet. The PC will have a mappable key for it. I don't know what the default key will be yet since I haven't even added the support for the key. There is also a button on the interface over by where the Stealth and Solo buttons are on the PC version that works currently.

Hoods will still be in the game. They'll just be either always up or always down depending on the character and their current equipment. Basically, hooded robes will always be hooded and non-hooded robes would always be non-hooded. -Akari

I think the battles all around are going to be more difficult. We've added in a lot of scaling support so that areas will get progressively harder as you get more powerful. I don't really know how hard Sion will be in the end. Right now he hopelessly decimates the party but we haven't actually done difficulty balancing on everything yet. -Akari