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See, I guess there's enough of the P&P D&Der in me, or at least enough nostalgia for the spirit of the principle, that the idea that one's decisions regarding actions in the gameworld are not time-sensitive simply makes sense to me. I've never heard a DM say "You have precisely 7.5 seconds to decide on a course of action, roll a D20, and finish your turn, starting...now! Go!" The difference between standing still doing nothing in the gameworld, and standing still while paused, doing nothing in the gameworld in KotOR II seems trivial. CRPGs are half way between real time and turn based (underlying turn-based structure beneath a real-time facade), such that real time mechanisms like timers would seem, to me, out of place. And there's no easy mechanism for measuring time across all forms of non-combat action and travel within the gameworld available in D&D really, so I don't know how you'd time player actions anyway.

Exactly. Similarly, I chose hideously low Con, and low Str and Dex, with high Int and high Wis for my latest character not because I'd determined what stats would allow me to get phat lewt or achieve leet pwnage in the game. Actually, I haven't read any extensive FAQs yet, and don't intend to yet in this playthrough, so I don't even *know* whether starting with 16 Int is a good idea or a bad idea from a powergaming standpoint and I don't *want* to for now. I'm playing with a high Int in order to see how playing a character with high Int plays out, not because I've already determined how a character with a particular (high) Int and particular (low) Con plays out and I want to go through the motions of seeing what I already know the game will make of the character. That would defeat much of the purpose of character development and discovery for me. The game's easy enough that it lets you play what you like, even if it isn't the leet pwnage powergamer approach to character stat and ability choices. I intend to take advantage of that and play a character makeup to see how that makeup unfolds within the game, not to verify whether the stats that a KotOR II powergaming FAQ has told me will be the ideal stat choices are in fact the perfect build. There are people who play a given build because they just want to play that character, just like there are people who played single-saber in the first game because that's how they liked to play, despite feeling dual-saber would be the higher-damage option, and just as there are people who play with a given low-level armour through much of the game because they think it looks best on their Jedi.

<internet high five> You do know that was supposed to be a trilogy right? Man, the ending pissed me off considering how poor the sales were and we might not ever get the story wrapped up. Indeed. I suppose it's my only highly anticipated game at the moment. I tend to go for story, writing and character development, and I don't know of any other games coming out in the near term which promise those first and foremost. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If you don't mind adventure games, and you haven't already played it, Beyond Good & Evil comes highly recommended, I just replayed though it, it's still good. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Any opinion on whether to get it for Gamecube, or for PC? Or even Xbox, but MS is evil, so I tend to favour GC. I'd tend towards PC I guess, barring special circumstances, as I can as easily play a game sitting on my couch, on my TV, using a gamepad via my PC's TV-out and a long USB cable as I can via my GC, which generally defeats the purpose of buying a console version. But occassionally, a game seems to be most perfectly realised in a console version. Opinions?

Indeed, it makes sense that with his primary method of wreaking destruction rendered virtually meaningless against you, Nihilus cannot defeat a great military veteran and Jedi/Sith of great and proven renown, reduced to more conventional modes of force-user combat. Malak, you fought where and when he was strongest, with all factors on his side. Nihilus, you fight with all factors in your own favour.

Probably a game whose name I cannot recall, for the C64. It occurs to me that Oregon Trail (for Apple II) may as well be considered a roleplaying game, since I don't know what else I'd consider it, so I'll include that. I didn't play the RPGs available for my TI 99 in its heyday (Adventure and Tunnels of Doom being the major titles, which I did not own then), so I can't count those as firsts. Dragon Warrior for NES would be the first major canonical RPG which I played extensively.

Why, the "jiggly" factor of course! :ph34r: <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, I don't remember Bastila being a pointless stereotypical-male-fantasy character. Well. Maybe near the end. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Maybe in a "taming of the shrew" sort of way. She certainly fits that scenario.

Yeah, he looks far too evil for my tastes. That's why I chose this guy, like many others: I also think he's the most attractive of the male models, and better looking than Atton.

Indeed. I suppose it's my only highly anticipated game at the moment. I tend to go for story, writing and character development, and I don't know of any other games coming out in the near term which promise those first and foremost.

My Revan was an Asian (possibly Eurasian) guy. I just can't figure Revan being a white guy, after having played him as such. Seeing as my Revan was LSM and I intended him to be such all along, most of the white guy models struck me as too severe, or too goofy. Nothing merely serene.

Planescape: Torment... owns my soul.

But they aren't speaking Basic in either KotOR game. I can only assume they're speaking they're native langauge, in which case their linguistic difficulties make no sense.

Yeah, it's pretty mind-boggling. I have to think Xbox users with HDTVs would see this ugliness as well. What I don't get is why cut scene graphics would be standardised around a resolution that makes them hideous on pretty much any modern screen. Newsflash: gamers do not game exclusively on NES-era TVs in the year 2005. Building graphics on the presumption of 25 year old screen technology seems goofy.

Yeah, but that guy just confronts you for entering his apartment, essentially. Once the conversations over, you can hang around looting all you want.

I don't know whether they should be using medpacks, but enemies having completely inexplicable loot on them is a proud RPG tradition. Just like the old "run through other people's rooms taking things from their containers with impunity" principle. I've been a fan of nonsense loot ever since I bought Asheron's Call 1, killed a Reedshark and found it had a hat and shoes on it. Well, at least Reedsharks have taste in fashion.

Yeah, just look at completely pointless titles like Halo and Half Life 2 (each in development for over four years). One wonders why they even bothered to release them after so long, when clearly, with such a long development process, they were far too outmoded by their respective release dates to satisfy anyone at all. </sarcasm>

I'm going to take a wild guess and say Bane = Bane

1) Characters, story and atmosphere based exclusively off innovations drawn from Episode 3: A Lost Hope. 2) See #1.

so why doesn't Obsidian rush them to release it? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In case things work differently on whatever planet you're from: a dev house like Obsidian doesn't tell a publisher like Lucasarts what to do, much less how to conduct their post-release product support. Live with it. Go join the monkeys on the Lucasarts forums if you want to tell them to do things differently. Though frankly, given rushing the product was what caused trouble in the first place, all this bitching about Obsidian and LA not rushing the patch release seems pretty asinine to me. Because obviously, none of us knows what's going on inside LA. Maybe they're twidling their thumbs, but none of us has any means by which to know whether this is the case or not.

*Watches as Mira meticulously slaughters the last girl from Illegally Blonde* :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Rather than looking forward to seeing Mira's outfit reused, I look forward to seeing someone redo Mira's outfit itself in favour something more sensible and less repugnant to all fashion sense. I don't really have a place in my heart for the "slutty '80s trailer trash" look as it is.

Dear god, from Mandalorians to Nazis and American Foreign Policy. A new poster boy for thread degeration par excellence has emerged.

Yeah, I think we've covered this.

Also, I must say: that style of shirt was best left where it died, in the Eighties. Why, oh why did it have to make a comeback in KotOR 2?

Unfortunately, it looks like it won't be possible to mod Visas into nakedness, as her wardrobe is fundamental to her model. There will always be a damnably clothed element in this game.

Man, I hope this doesn't happen. But I admit the expectation that languages with only local speaker bases will retain their full, historical use in the emerging global culture seems improbable. And it's not just English that's doing the killing, either, even in English-speaking countries: one of my best friends spoke Hakka Chinese in his native Malaysia, but when he came to Canada, was faced with the reality that any interaction with the (very large) Chinese community would need to be done in Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese, which he did not speak. He no longer speaks Hakka. But I certainly hope the Scandinavian languages maintain themselves. As an Anglo-Saxonist, I depend for my linguistic kicks, within modern art and cinema on, in particular, Scandinavian sources. I've run Swedish Windows for long periods (most of my shortcuts read "Genv

Angry Satan Ninjas? Yeah, I always suspected they were behind a lot of the crap going on these days.