Ramira

Bravo, Saberist. Well said.

Personally, I do not like it. I do not like it at all. I found it frustrating and irritating. And while I admit to thinking it was interesting the first time through, even then I recognized that it would irritate me on subsequent playings (I always plan on at least two DS/LS). And it did. Worse than being forced into another character was being forced on who could be in my party. Maybe I wanted Atton with me on Onderon. (And as an aside, why did I gain influence with him when he wasn't even there? Was he monitoring me? Did the PC forsee favorable influence? Why? Why?! ) It made me crazy. The bad kind of crazy. The not-fun kind.

Revan and the Exile weren't really exceptions, they already were Jedi before their personal mental breaks. A weak argument would be that the others could be Force Adepts or whatever since all but Mira had previous training or exposure to either Sith or Jedi teachings. But I had a problem seeing Jedi on their character sheets too. In regard to point 2... I'm not sure how that would work exactly. The way the game handles party members now there wouldn't be a difference between Revan the PC and Revan the NPC at least as far as running around and whacking things is concerned. If you mean spliting the game into several acts which would alternate between the Exile and Revan then yeah, I could see it. What I don't quite see is why two LSers would turn on each other. Or even two DSers (in the short term game time) both of which are excellent strategist and tacticians. Eh, just my two creds. Still an interesting idea.

You might like the Mind Probe Mode http://www.pcgamemods.com/10498/ You can equip it and just check their current influence then change it either way (for a minor DS hit).