Jediphile

No. Malachor V is forbidden ground to the Mandalorians, so Mandalore would not have gone there. The battle of Malachor V seems to have taken place above the planet, and it's unclear if anyone but Revan ever went to the surface before the battle. So because the the Malak-Exile relationship changed, the Revan-Exile relationship must have too?!? That doesn't make much sense to me. In fact, it would be far easier to believe that Malak changed his mind about the Exile because Revan never liked him. Revan got it by coming to the fight later and facing and killing Mandalore on his flagship. Bao-Dur: "I dreamt of Malachor. I remember the ships.The last stand of the Republic. The tattered remnants of our fleet, the largest we could gather, but it was damaged, weakened and vulnerable.The Mandalorians couldn't resist. They tore into us like beasts, shredding our ships to scrap as we fought back.Yet this time, there were no reinforcements for either side. Revan had been delayed out-system by Mandalorian scout ships. By the time he arrived, it was too late.And beyond Malachor, there were no more Mandalorians left to die.I remember standing on the bridge with you and watching the destruction of the Republic - watching ships full of soldiers and Jedi burn and die.

Well, there has been speculation that the relationship between Revan and exile was a strained one. For example Malak recruited Exile into the Mandalorian Wars, not Revan. Yet Malak wanted HK-47 to terminate the Exile, so that doesn't hold much What does that have to do with anything? For one, HK-47 doesn't take orders from Malak, and second, why is it a problem that Malak recruited the exile and then later wanted him killed? I don't see how that somehow invalidates the observation that Revan did not recruit the exile. What I find notable is that Revan was conveniently not there for that battle himself, which suggests to me that he had a pretty good idea of what would happen. Besides, we already know from HK-47 that Revan used Malachor V to "clean house". While Revan did pity her, she also made a good scapegoat, considering that she was a Jedi and she was involved with the operation of the MSG. She may have been the only Jedi to survive the battle (not including Revan and Malak) (but that's a very weak theory, I'll admit), and if that's true, it also makes a stronger reason to send her back to the Jedi Council on Coruscant. Pity, yes. And yet... HK-47: "Observation: Master, this is purely speculation, but there is a certain strength in parading defeated leaders before their people.Perhaps Revan felt that your return to the Council in your state would show them what Jedi were capable of - and the cost. Revan often referred to you as a Jedi who was already dead, and felt your reception by the Council would further show you their hypocrisy.Considering the council's judgment, I see they did not receive your return well."

No, the exile has no force connection. None. He had none while he was in exile, and he has none during the game. So why can he use the force during the game? Because he forms new bonds with his companions and can "feel" and manipulate the force through those - note how it's described as being "somehow far way" or "from across a great chasm" or "like an echo" the first time he feels the force again. That's because he has no direct connection - he has a connection only through a bond with Kreia at that point, which is the "distance" mentioned, as he gets the force "second-hand", if you will. So why didn't the exile do that during his decade in exile in the outer rim? That's what HK-47 tells us - he simply disconnected himself from other people, and without a bond to other people he has no access to the force. The exile is, of course, completely oblivious about this throughout most of the game.

I'm going to discount this admitted rumor on the basis that it refers to the next KotOR game as an MMO and a joint project by LA and Bioware, which LA has already denied - I may not always find IGN highly credible, but when LA admits to IGN that they are working on a project with Bioware, but that it has nothing to do with KotOR, but it seems pretty clear, since LA is otherwise flat out lying to the public. http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/852/852342p1.html

Well, there has been speculation that the relationship between Revan and exile was a strained one. For example Malak recruited Exile into the Mandalorian Wars, not Revan. It's unclear just how much Revan knew about the MSG, but either it doesn't point to good relations between Revan and Exile - if Revan did know, then he left the Exile there to be killed by the MSG like most of their fleet, and if he did not, then he left the Exile there to be killed by the Mandalorian fleet, seeing as how the Republic was on the losing side until the MSG was activated. And HK-47 tells us Revan was aware of the Exile's predicament after the battle at Malachor, but let the exile return to the council as a way of looking down on them both.

Nah. It would be a waste of Bruce's wacky charm. He's just priceless as deliberately phoney french waiter in Spider-Man 3

The reason for Revan turning to the dark side is not revealed. Oh sure, lots and lots of characters speculate about it - the masters say he fell because it was inevitable after he defied them (and they are objective on that subject, of course ), GOTO and Disciple both speculate Revan saw a war on a different front (which is probably meant as aa reference to the "true Sith"), while Kreia thinks that he never fell but rather chose to become the dark lord (and she is an impartial source, being his proud master and all ), but actually nobody knows the real reason. Why not? Because it's for the player to decide why Revan fell. The actual reason is not important in K1, and in TSL it's implied there may have been good reasons, though only by highly speculating or very unreliable sources, so the real reason again lies with the player. It's at the same time one of the best things about the writing in the plot so far and one of the most dangerous aspects of Revan as a character - he is oh so powerful and did it all for EXACTLY the reasons you wanted him to. That's why there are so many Revan-fanboys out there...

also i think she wanted to rid the galaxy of sion, nihilus, and their sith followers Well, certainly Nihilus anyway. Once he was gone, she accepted Sion and his sith followers back, after all... with herself as leader, of course

It's a definitely problem that the planets seem very small and similar all over. It was a definite plus that Telos did in fact have a cold north pole - we'll never see that on Tatooine, I fear I guess Tatooine in K1 really was the worst, as the feeling of huge, planet-spanning deserts is totally lost in very small area where you can instantly see all the important stuff in the distance upon leaving the city If they ever do KotOR3, I hope they let us explore some landscape that are both huge and empty. Tatooine would be easy - just a huge, huge desert of sand and nothing else, which it would take hours or even days of play for the player to walk across. Boring, you say? Well, let the Ebon Hawk have a portable landspeeder to break out when planet-exploring. That would be cool. Flying a speeder beats walking, and would allow the sense of vastness to return too.

But the masters on Dantooine did explain it. "You carry all those deaths at Malachor within you, and it has left a hole, a hunger that cannot be filled. In you, we saw a wound in the Force. {Quietly, like a pronouncement of doom}In you, we saw the end of the Force. Yes... you can feel the Force, but you cannot feel yourself. You are a cipher, forming bonds, leeching the life of others, siphoning their will and dominating them. It is the teaching of these new Sith, to feed on others, on other Force Sensitives. They are symptomatic of the wound in the Force. You are a breach that must be closed. You transmit your pain, your suffering through the Force.Within you, we see something worse than merely the teachings of the Sith. What you carry may mean the death of the Force... and the death of the Jedi. {Scoffs}So you think. It is not the strength of a Jedi you feel. He's right. It's... all the death you've caused to get here. You feed on it, and you grow stronger. You're like Malachor... it's in you, it's what you are now. You must have noticed as you've fought across all these planets, killing hundreds - only to become more and more powerful. Why do you think that was?But what's worse, is that bonding you have - it hasn't gone away. It's gotten stronger, and the more attachments you form, the more you draw others to you.And that is why you are a threat to us all.What if other Jedi went to war as you did, suffered the same events, and emerged as you did. What if there was a crucible that trained such Jedi to consume and kill? For you, Malachor was that crucible. What's worse, is these Sith that we face... I fear that they have learned the lesson of Malachor all too well. It is what allows them to prey on Force users, to become stronger when Force Sensitives are near. {Accusing}Somehow, they have learned their hunger from you. And so you have brought about the end of the Jedi, and perhaps all the knowledge of the Force." Of course, this doesn't tell us why the exile did not feel the force for a decade, but HK-47 does. HK-47: "That is why Revan felt that Malachor V was so important. It was intended to be a conversion tool. Assessment: When faced with a continuous series of hard-fought battles, I detected a significant statistical increase in Jedi following Revan over the Jedi Code - a compromise in principles brought about by battlefield conditions.The emotional weight of war changed Jedi morale, power, and eventually, their allegiance. Conclusion: I believe the Mandalorian Wars were to beat the Mandalorians and also to allow Revan to build the foundation of his army. But I am surprised you have not already arrived at this conclusion. Surely the loss of your troops and the Jedi who served under you at Malachor V, had a detrimental effect upon you and your ties to the Force - and I suspect, your desire to be around others ever again." Not that Kreia did not play her part though... Kreia: "Because you are a Jedi who turned from the Force and survived. And became stronger for it. No, there were not. In times past and in times future, there are Jedi who will stop listening to the Force, those that will try to forget it, but maintain unconscious ties. {Quiet}And those, as in the past just as I, who have had the force stripped from them.But no Jedi ever made the choice you did. To sever ties so completely, so utterly, that it leaves a wound in the Force.It was a mistake to try to make you feel it again, I see that now. There is no truth in the Force. But there is truth in you, exile. And that is why I chose you.Yes, always. From the moment you awoke, I have used you. I have used you so that you might become strong, stronger than I.I used your death to deceive the Sith, to make them believe they had won, so they would turn on each other.And I used you to make those who wounded me reveal themselves, so they could be killed by the Republic. I used you to keep the Lords of the Sith from condemning the galaxy to death with their power unchecked.I used you to lure them to Telos, where they could be, at last, fought and killed. I used you to reveal Atris' corruption, so that her teachings could be ended before they began.I used you to gather the Jedi so they could be destroyed.And I used you to make those who wounded me reveal themselves, so they could be killed by the Republic. It is said that the Force has a will, it has a destiny for us all. I wield it, but it uses us all, and that is abhorrent to me. Because I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost.But in you... I see the potential to see the Force die, to turn away from its will. And that is what pleases me.You are beautiful to me, exile. A dead spot in the Force, an emptiness in which its will might be denied. I use it as I would use a poison, and in the hopes of understanding it, I will learn the way to kill it.But perhaps these are the excuses of an old woman who has grown to rely on a thing she despises."

Don't worry - you're not alone

This is trufax. Christian Bale can be a good anything, really. I think Christian Bale would make a pretty good Carth. Or a pretty good Atton. Possibly even a pretty good Canderous. Or a pretty good Malak. A pretty good Bao-Dur, maybe. Oh! Or he could voice T-3! I'd swoon if he were Carth. He's a little too old for Atton methinks. But then again, he can magically make himself younger, like in The Newsies Atton is 29-32 while Christian Bale is currently 34... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000288/ http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?sh...mp;#entry184142

I was trying to get at the fact that the average CoC party consists of something like a baker, university professor, prostitute, and 40 year-old private eye with a bastball bat and a .38 revolver between all of them. DG parties tend to be a lot better prepared, organized, and equipped. They also tend to fight a lot of human opponents, like members of The Fate/Maj-12/Karotechia, etc. While this is correct after a fashion, it is unusual for a CoC game, and by far the most encounters in the game will be with humans, because the monsters are so terrible that killing them is really, really tough... assuming you don't go insane from just seeing them first. However, what I don't like about the flashier 3.Xe/4e games and their ilk is that they seem to focus on form over content - it suddenly becomes much more important to give the players flashy abilities and powers "OMG are so wicked cool" even if they don't really have much bearing on the game balance, since the opposition gets to take the same abilities - suddenly it becomes more important to make the game "seem" and "feel" cool and munchkin by letting them go through the inevitable hackfest rather than confront them with real problems. For D20 it would be more about having the rights feats and gizmos than building your character the right way. It's another reason why D20 doesn't work well for CoC IMHO, since skill levels are tied to your experience level, meaning no skill can have more ranks than your experience level plus 4. Given that CoC is a game about investigation that focuses heavily on skill use, where is frequently better to be very good at one or a few skills and suck at others, it doesn't work well under D20 since the character is only allowed to take skill ranks so high. CoC is a skill based game. You investigate and find clues. It's not about having the best magical item to hack the monster to bits, because that almost always fails in CoC and should. Of course, D&D has always been closer to the basics of dungeon-crawls and hack 'n slash than games like CoC or Exalted - I don't deny that D&D grew out of board-based wargames - but it did grow beyond that. D&D adventures like "Night's Dark Terror" or "Fate of Istus" are scarcely about exploring caverns and killing monsters. You can do that, but it's just window-dressing. Those adventures are plots first and hackfest second, and with those D&D had grown beyond the hackfest. 3.Xe threw that out in favor of a return to the dungeon-crawl like "Temple of Elemental Evil" or "Tomb of Horrors". 4e seems to continue that trend, throwing away what most RPGs have evolved into in favor "dumbing down" to go all hackfest to get back to basics IMHO. Sorry about that. Don't be tempted, though. CoC is a harsh game. I think Paranoia is probably the only RPG that has a higher fatality rate. That said, my central CoC character did go through an entire campaign without dying while people around him dropped like flies. He did not walk away unscathed, though. He lost a bit of sanity... Oh, and he began having a highly unfortunate tendency to end up eating his friends around every full moon Seriously, resist the temptation of CoC - the Great Old Ones are harsh masters and their lure difficult to escape once you're ensnared...

Kreia is the great thing about TSL, because she is either a hero or a villain depending on your own point of view. And she is about the best written and most complex (and easily among the best voice-acted) character I've yet seen in a computer game.

Sure. I did something similar in my plot speculation, although I had the endgame split into three with Revan, Exile and the new character each leading a group in a manner inspired by the split groups going to Freedon Nadd's temple on Dxun and to Iziz on Onderon respectively in TSL.

Actually, I think they signed a contract with LA to only make choices so unwise and strategically unsound that their students have no choice but to question them and then arrogantly defend their position regardless of counterarguments, so that students have no choice but protest. Or how would there ever be a basis for a plot? Also, same principle on many real-world universities, I hear

Delta Green is the only CoC game/setting where more than 5% of campaigns go beyond three sessions anyway -- and for good reason. Stock, old-fashioned Chaosium CoC is great if you want to simulate the story experiences heavily, but it kind of blows as a game. Playing "Walker in the Wastes" or "Masks of Nyarlathotep" takes many, many, many sessions, unless you play for a very, very, VERY long time in each instance. And those are classics.

Because the death rate among investigators in CoC is so high that having levels is as pointless as a cleric's weapon. The Keeper can change that, of course, but then the horror element of CoC is quickly banished to the outer realms of the Great Old Ones.

Not sure, but I think so. I play both KotORs (or other games for that matter) on the pc using a trackball only. Don't know if that answers your question.

When Kreia says that Revan never fell, but stayed true to himself no matter what mask he wore, I think that she was speaking out of pride of her former student, but I also think she was speaking more about herself than she did about Revan. Kreia was Kreia, no matter what mask she wore. The jedi threw her out because her teachings were too "dark". The sith threw her out because she wasn't ambitious and hateful enough. That speaks volumes, especially when after being thrown out by both extremes, she return to face the council with proof (namely the Exile) of her teachings - through it all, she remained true to her teachings regardless of which side she taught them on.

Another good episode. Is it just me or is death a recurring theme in BSG these days? I have this vague suspicion that Natalie may yet be back, and that death is a core theme in these episodes, given that facing death has created the cylon civil war. And note how number three, D'anna, that the rebel cylons are trying to free "experimented" with death before she was boxed. I doubt that's a coincidence. This seemed very much a "what do we do now"-kind of episode, where the fleet is struggling with the aftermath of the presumed allied basestar jumping away with Roslin, Helo and a bunch of others. I guess we're left in the dark about what became of them because the episode is all about the uncertainty and doubt that follows in the fleet, and we can't connect to that if we know more than Adama and the others left behind do. Clearly something seemed to have destroyed the hub, and there were vipers in the debris, so some kind of battle did take place. I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode then goes back and tells us what happened there. I liked the showdown between Adama and Tigh. They fight hard, but eventually end up embracing each other, as they realise their similar problems. It was nice to see both of them angry at the other for exactly things about themselves that they did not like to admit and then ended up confronting. Lambkin was back. Yeah. Oddly Gaeta was absent despite the growing focus on him in recent episodes. Adama staying behind was a surprise. From the end of one episode to the end of the next, the fleet has gone from being led by Adama and Roslin to being led by a cylon and a fairly inexperienced and idealistic president... Hands up all who think that's going to be the cause of trouble But all in all a good, solid plot-building episode of character growth. I expect the plot to really move forward soon, though.

And that's your proof? The first link makes it very clear that development on KotOR3 was axed. Could it have been resumed? Sure, but where is the evidence to support that? We just don't know, so we remain stuck with LA cancelling the project. Indeed, LA denying that the project they're working on with Bioware has nothing to do with KotOR disproves the one project that most people seemed to assume to be the next KotOR game. Summa summarum: There is still - sadly - no new KotOR game on the horizon.

I doubt it. The exile does not seem to me to instantly "absorb" force power like Nihilus does. The exile's power seems far more gradual to me and strongly based on (ab)using the force bonds formed with others, which then naturally means that these must be formed first. Nihilus has a "supa-power" to instant-drain force all around him. His sith assassins have learned a very, very limited version based on the same principle - they can "drain" force, but only to power conventional force powers. They cannot drain all force and so kill others instantaneously like Nihilus can. The exile has a power very similar to Nihilus', but it's unclear just how similar it is, since the exile remains obviously of his own powers through most of the game. I suspect he actually has just the same ability as Nihilus does, but has not gone anywhere near his potential even by the end of the game.

Nor do I, but regardless LA and Bioware are indeed working together on something. What is it? We don't know. Lots of people thought it was a KotOR MMORPG, but we know it's not, because LA has said so. http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/852/852342p1.html I find it obvious that whatever this game is, it is based on a license that LA owns. It could be Star Wars, but it's not KotOR. My suspicion is that it is a Star Wars MMORPG set in the time between Episodes III and IV due out next year when the Star Wars live action tv show is set to premiere.

I agree. While the old Jedi Order is flawed, at least they didn't allow politics in (I don't like politics in real life). I disagree completely. Politics is a fact of life, and given the power of the jedi order, it will be a political factor whether it wants to acknowledge it or not. That is the real flaw of the old order - they thought they could just stay neutral in a interstellar war waged directly against the Republic. But an organisation as powerful as the jedi order does not - cannot - exist without being a political factor. If they try, they leave a power vacuum for the enemy to exploit. Or to take the Spidey-argument: "With great power comes great responsibility." The jedi order is supposed to be the guardians of the Republic. It's their duty, and the Republic depend on the order to fill that role. The council failed the Republic because they refused to acknowledge this. Revan split the order because he realised this and did something about it. It's a "you're either part of the problem or part of the solution" kind of thing. And by deciding to not get involved and let billions of innocents die at the hands of the Mandalorians, the old jedi order was definitely not part of the solution. Zez-Kai Ell: "I, too, lost a Padawan on Malachor. Not to the battle, but to the alternative - to the teachings that Revan brought from the Unknown Regions. {Quiet}And I was not the only Jedi Master to watch a student turn on them. No, no - they were not to blame, but many of the Order did so - it was a difficult time, a time of strong emotion.Perhaps the Council, perhaps the Order itself had grown arrogant in their teachings. It is easy to cast blame, but it is perhaps time the Order accepted responsibility for their teachings, and their arrogance, and come to recognize that perhaps we are flawed.Not once did I hear one of the Council claim responsibility for Revan, for Exar Kun, for Ulic, for Malak... or for you. Yet... you were the only one who came back from the wars to face our judgment. And rather than attempting to understand why you did what you did, we punished you instead.{Frustrated}Our one chance to see where we had gone wrong, and we cast it aside. And now, that decision has come back to us, and may carry with it, our destruction. Perhaps there is something wrong in us, in our teachings. And though I tried, I could not cause that thought to leave me - so I left the Council. And I was not the only one. That is why many scattered... and why many in the Republic do not trust us. And why we do not trust ourselves. " So for all their flaws and inability to see the obvious right in front of them, I'll take the jedi order of the Clone Wars over the order we've seen in the KotOR games any time, because Yoda and Mace and the rest at least acknowledged that they could not escape their responsibility as guardians of the Republic and the part they play in the politics of the Republic. They tried and failed, but that's still better than the old order who refused to even try and just hid their heads in the sand hoping the problems would go away and by doing so did far more damage - the invasion of the Mandalorians, the order being split, Revan and Malak falling to the dark side, and the Exile becoming a wound in the force are all consequences of their refusal to step up to their responsibilities.