sickboycp

Another fact: It should have been: Portugal >>> Wales. *mumbles something about cheating Russians.*

Well, this game is called Knights of the Old Republic II, so obviously the main focus of the game will be the Jedi. Is this true to the spirit of the Star Wars PnP RPG? Of course not. Does it take away some of the freedom associated with the cRPG genre? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Look at PS:T and tell me that was not truly a GREAT cRPG despite it's narrow room for characterization. Unfortunately, this means that Smuggling, Bounty Hunting, hell even Twi'lek dancing will not be of major importance in the game. Maybe someday Lucasarts will comission an RPG where the Jedi are in the background (or not in the game at all.) Just don't hold your breath, and if it does come out- don't expect it to sell well. 'Cuz then, you'll get munchkins complaining 'Where's my Lightsaber? I wanna be a Sith Lord!!!"

I've been a part of a Call of Cthulhu group for about five years now; of course since I started graduate school (in another country nonetheless) it's been a lot harder to get together. I'm home for the summer, and just started a Cthulhu Dark Ages campaign with my group, which will probably be my last hurrah before I finish grad school, get married and become 'respectable.' Like that's possible

Latvia and the Czech Republic coming up...let's hope 'The Latvian Michael Owen' Marian Pahars does better than his English counterpart. BTW, how messed up is it that Marian Pahars gets to play in an International tournament and Ryan Giggs STILL HASN'T????? We were robbed against Russia.

And lord knows that Lucasarts won't be happy with SW:Battlefront and Mercenaries as only two Holiday options; SW:Battlefront will only appeal to gamers with online capabilities, and traditionally, none of Lucasart's original IPs (well, since their graphic adventure days ended, anyway) have sold well...see the sales figures for Wrath: Unleashed and Gladius for just two examples.

My favorite character from Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and its fine sequel Porno. Mr. Simon David Williamson. I added the cp 'cuz the college I was at when I first read 'Trainspotting' had the initials YCP. I couldn't find any good pics of Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy so I had to use Ewan MacGregor emerging from 'the worst toilet in Scotland' as my avatar. Heh...probably says something about me that my favorite literary character is a Scottish heroin and cocaine addict and petty criminal.

From the Kevin Spacey school of villany: Keyser Soze John Doe These two are very Palpatine-like; master manipulators, planned out for every eventuality, and probably the smartest guys in their respective worlds. I'd also like to see a character like Franco Begbie from Trainspotting; you know, the mad dog type who may be on your side one moment then smashing a pool cue over your head the next; of course, this is already a 'type' in most cRPGs so maybe we'll see it again (see Ignus, Korgan for examples)

Well, seeing as Lionel Stander has been dead for ten years, unless Lucasarts has a necromancer on staff, there might be a problem there. As far as an Orson Welles sound-a-like, I'll again use this opportunity to put forward Maurice LaMarche (The Brain). He was Welles's voice in 'Ed Wood' and everyone has to admit that The Brain is obviously Orson Welles in mouse-form.

IGN goes into a bit more detail about the possiblity of a holiday release date here: http://xbox.ign.com/articles/522/522989p1.html The most interesting thing from the article is this quote: "The cool thing is that our source is eh-hem, not usually the type of person to say these things, so it's very likely to be true."

Incidentally, if anyone cares Grey Delisle is an accomplished folk singer who has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors from various organizations including a few Country Music awards. And she's quite pretty too, if you go for dark haired pale women. Check out her website: http://www.greydelisle.com Her site also mentions that she'll be doing VO work for the entire months of July and August...here's hoping it's KOTOR2.

Good point... I got a little confused there...Cam Clarke played Liquid Snake.. I always get him and John Cygan confused. On the subject of the various Snakes...maybe someone can get David Hayter away from the Watchmen movie long enough for a little VO work on KOTOR2.

Well, I just checked the Internet Movie Database (which has an amazing amount of videogame information, surprisingly) and it seems that Lucasarts hires the same actors again and again for most of their titles (and there's quite a bit of overlap with some BIS titles)- here's a few names that have played major roles in multiple Lucasarts games- I imagine we will see these folks in one form or another in KOTOR 2. Jennifer Hale (FFG, Dynaheir, Mazzy, Bastila) Jeff Bennett (Kyle Katarn, Xan, Saemon Haveran) Jason Marsden (Myron, Brejik Rosh Penin from JK:JA) Kevin Michael Richardson (Saverok, Jolee) Grey DeLisle (Viconia, Senator Amidala) Cam Clarke (Drizzt, Solidus Snake, Calo Nord) Kris Tabori (HK-47, Usus from Gladius) Raphael Sbarge (Carth Onasi, Terry Malloy from Grim Fandango) And of course- what RPG would be complete without a B list celebrity lending their vocal talents. In KOTOR, we had Ed Asner, so may I suggest Dwight Schultz for KOTOR's token minor celeb with a minor role and prominent billing? Hey, Murdoch has already done it for Arcanum, he might as well show up here. Or if we're being serious, maybe we can get David Warner in for a voice? Please?

Seeing as KOTOR was the only Lucasarts title I've ever played that utilizes VO, I was wondering if anyone knows how Lucasart's track record is on voiceovers. Do they have a regular "cast?" I recognized Jennifer Hale, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Jason Marsden from work in PS:T, BG, and Fallout 2 respectively, but those are the only voices I really recognized...besides Ed Asner. I'd like to see Lucasarts bring in Rob Paulsen (Morte/The Animanics) to do a character, and maybe Maurice LaMarche- imagine The Brain as a Sith Lord! Maybe Jim Cummings too- he did Minsc and most of the voices for the Winnie the Pooh cartoons- he's a real talented VO actor. Just as long as we don't hear Raphael Sbarge's whiny Carth at all during the game (except maybe for a death scream) I'll be happy though.

Gamestop has the 12/06/2004 release date too...but again, like someone else says, until someone says different here or at Lucasarts, then 2/8/2004 is still the official date.

Well, according to the poll a few pages back (I think it's on page 3 or 4) 121 people wanted to see romance implemented somehow in KOTOR2 as opposed to 15 who wanted it eliminated altogether, so the majority of people (at least on this board) overwhelmingly liked the romances. I liked them insofar as they were probably the only really meaningful character interaction that Bioware implemented in the game (and it provided a way to kill Carth). If Avellone and company succeed with their stated intention to develop other types of relationships they will become significently less important to the game-at least to me. Of course that's just my opinion and you all know what opinions are like....

I'm of two minds on the whole- KOTOR1 NPCs in TSL. On one hand, this is probably the one thing that could ruin my gaming experience. I'd almost prefer it if none of the original characters appeared or were mentioned-obviously this is impossible, given the what the devs have already said, the clamour from most folks on these boards, the game's place on the timeline as well as simple marketing sense- but I will certainly be approaching TSL with a great deal of trepidation on my first playthrough. The characters at the end of KOTOR (both LS and DS) have just literally been through a war, and five years on, the galaxy still hasn't recovered from the consequences of their choices. The growth of these characters in those five years is something to be considered very carefully. Any backsliding, any cheap "offscreen" deaths, will just take me out of the game completely. On the other, these are the guys who did Torment and Fallout, two out of the three games on my CRPG 'Holy Trinity.' (Arcanum is the other) and especially given their work with NPC growth and development in Torment, I think if anyone can handle updating the KOTOR NPCs it's Avellone & co. So, I know I don't really have any reason to be nervous, but some reason I still am.

Will there be alignment-specific sidequests in the game, a la the Genoharadan(sp?) quests you could pick up on Manaan that gave you some pretty good premium items but a bundle of DS points?

Maybe it'll be a KOTOR1-type of situation where, instead of the Jedi sensing the Force-potential in you, you sense the Force potential in one of your NPCs. For example (I say example because I have no idea whether or not this is true, but I'm using it to illustrate my point.) what if the PC senses that one of his/her NPCs, say, Mira, is Force-sensitive. As one of the few remaining Jedi in the galaxy, do you take it upon yourself to train her- do you guide her towards the light or dark side? Is your own behaviour changed by having an apprentice following in your footsteps? I must say, it has some very intriguing possibilities for roleplaying- as well as replay value.

I think that both Bastila and Carth will make at least a token appearance depending on which KOTOR 1 ending you choose: after all, I'm sure Obsidian doesn't want to deal with 1000s of whiny Bastila fanboys and Cartholics bombarding them with nasty emails bemoaning their absence.

Has anyone really considered why the PC was exiled from Republic space? We know that he/she was a veteran of the Mandalorian Wars and not much else. Has anyone seen Dogma? Jason Lee's character, Azrael, is banished to the depths of hell because he refuses to take a side in the war between God and Lucifer. Could we perhaps see the same thing here- the PC refuses to fall to the Dark Side along with his/her commanders Revan and Malak, but at the same time refuses to aid the Jedi Council in the war against former friends that the PC believes can still be brought back to the light? It's a thought.

To avoid the whole male/female Revan question Revan will be voiced by none other than...BEA ARTHUR.

Another question: Feargus mentioned on the IGN Livewire Radio interview that one of the rejected NPC character concepts was a slaver who had enslaved some of the Kashyyk Wookies. Does this mean that the dark side NPCs in KOTOR2 will be considerably 'darker' than their KOTOR1 counterparts. Don't get me wrong- I like Canderous and HK-47, but both seemed to be lacking that extra something. Canderous had that sidequest where he reconsidered his views on killing and HK-47's 'eccentricities' made him a lot more difficult to take seriously. He was like a straight C3P0 with a mean streak. I want to see an NPC you can't turn to the light and is a bit more...shall we say, serious about the path he/she is on.

I just hope it isn't what typically is considered a 'twist' in most cRPGs... 'the NPC whom you thought was loyal turns out to be an Assassin sent to hinder your progress/kill you' (see Yoshimo in BGII; Vollinger in Arcanum etc) I'll be happy. Though it could be interesting if it were the PCs love interest...

As my previous questions seem to have been eaten by the board, I'll repost: Is the "final choice" point in the game going to be handled in the same way as KOTOR 1 (that is, even as a completely DS character you could choose to say 'No Bastila, don't fall to the Dark Side!' seems a bit hypocritical to me.) On that note, will your dialogue options change as your alignment shifts? And on a Star Wars EU nerd note: Will KOTOR2 have any more references to the Great Sith War? (Exar Kun and the like) I thought this was very was very well-done in the first game and references to Kun, the Qel-Dromas and Nomi Sunrider seemed like a treat to those of us who were familiar with the Dark Horse comics series. Hmmm....I notice Kreia appears to be about the right age to have been a young Padawan at that time!

The twist: YOU ARE CARTH! (cue mass suicides as players everywhere get sick of the constant whining and that damned shoulder shrug) :D