Jediphile

It's very much a matter of taste, though most people seem to think the male Exile has more or at least better developed romance options than the female exile. Then again, the female exile is canon, if that matters to you... Personally I like the male exile better (and I have completed the game with the female exile) because I feel the plot hangs together better for the male exile. Still, most of us seem to prefer the exile as whatever gender we are ourselves, so I should probably just recommend that. First of all, don't worry about balancing the jedi classes. The game is easy enough that you don't need them anyway, even if you set it to the highest difficulty, and... well... without giving anything away, it's possible to have a significant number of jedi in your party. Even if one turns on you, this will not cause problems. So feel free to choose whatever jedi class you like. Of course, you might then consider what combinations are the most powerful. TSL has prestige classes, which means you can choose a "super class" later in the game if you're strongly LS or DS. If you've played KotOR1, you'll probably have a preference in classes. You used to play scout/jedi guardian in K1, because I needed the scout's skills to be able to repair HK-47 and a few other things while need the guardian's combat ability. In TSL, however, you're always a jedi, and every class uses the same to-hit progression. But since skills are by far - and I do mean far - more important in TSL, I most definitely prefer the sentinel over the consular or guardian. If you begin with INT 14 and build it to 16 or above, you can have every single skill above 20 toward the end of the game, which is most definitely highly useful. For the prestige class, I prefer (if LS) the jedi master (sith lord if DS), because the special abilities are greater number of force powers seem better than then combat ability of the jedi weaponmaster (sith marauder if DS) or the skills and stealth ability of the jedi watchman (sith assassin if DS). That's entirely down to personal taste and min-maxing, though - no class or combination is "wrong" or unplayable. For skills, I recommend Demolition early in the game. It'll be useful to collect mines on Peragus, earning you some nifty xp. If you go with the sentinel, it won't be a class skill, so I'd recommend not putting points in it during character creation, but using your initial feat to make it class skill and then use all the skill points you get to up it on reaching level 2. Make Repair a class skill when you get another feat at level 3, so all skills are easy to build - you'll need it to repair your droids later in the game. But like I said, no skills are unimportant. Stealth and Treat Injury may not seem so important, and aren't early in the game, but all the others have significance early on, though mostly Demolitions, Persuade and - to a lesser degree - Computer Use, Awareness and Security (to open doors).

Actually, I'd say ignoring her own motivations and feelings is the real cause, which her Sith artifacts could then subsequently play on corrupt her over the years. Atris' greatest flaw is her utter refusal to acknowledge that she is neither infallible nor incorruptible, and she had that flaw in spades long before she ever saw any artifacts, Sith or otherwise. But yes, they are what eventually made her fall, and as a jedi master she should have known better. To keep such artifacts around while accusing the exile of giving in to the dark side by going to war is, as HK-50 would say, the highest form of hipocrisy.

Actually, I found most of the places in both games pretty forgettable, but if I had to pick one, it'd probably be Korriban. In both games. Not sure why exactly, but I suppose it's because it's such a mysterious, haunting place that still has plenty of mysteries left despite all the exposure. Besides, I didn't like most of the places in KotOR1. Taris was uncompelling, since it's blindly obvious that Carth and I are escaped republic soldiers, yet it's impossible to even make the sith soldiers suspicious of us... Dantooine was nice, but all those peaceful grasslands crawling with Kathhounds was overkill somehow. And we see Tatooine so much it's a reason for hating it onto itself. Yes, it was well done, but we see it SOO often. Kashyyyk was one of the better places, but had too much pointless running around for my taste, while Manaan was annoying due to the arrogant attitude of the Selkath. And Rakata Prime was an overgrown hack-fest. It had to be Korriban for those reasons alone. But I think I like Korriban even more in TSL, because the plot progression is more tense somehow. I'll admit, though, that it works as such only if you ignore the advice and visit the tomb before the academy, so that you end up running from Sion straight to blast off in the Ebon Hawk, as it's otherwise a bit "OMG!! Sion is after us, and we can't kill him!! Well, maybe we should go explore that dark cave for a few hours before we continue running screaming into the night..." But if you play it the other way, it works dramatically, and the visions in the tomb are among the best parts of TSL if you ask me. As for the rest of TSL, I didn't hate Peragus as much as some people do. Yes, there are too many bloody droids (!), but I actually enjoyed all the subsequent errand-running on Citadel Station even less. Note for the future - having the protagonists arrested for narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Sith is not fun when while they captured, you allow: 1. An assassin to infiltrate the authorities and make an attempt on their life. 2. Take all their gear away from then and force confrontations before they can get it back. 3. Let their impounded ship (and a droid crewmember) be stolen. 4. Other annoying stuff I've since repressed from memory (I know it's in there somewhere). The above left the party with nothing to do but run errands around the station until they can escape ona stolen shuttle to Telos, where - yes - the shuttle is promptly shot down... That said, Telos was more fun to explore, though maybe only because we heard Carth go on and on about it in K1. I like Nar Shaddaa plotwise, but it's a disgusting hive of scum and villany plagued by bugs Everybody hated me on Dantooine, and so I hated them back for treating me like dirt and for being a repeat of the first game. I didn't like Dxun and Onderon that much either, which might be partially because we're immediately shot down (again) and because they didn't feel like the places I knew from the original comic books. I mean, where they heck were the wild forests of Dxun and Onderon? Dxun looked more like jungle canyons to me, and we never left Iziz on Onderon. The civil war plot was cool, but most of the rest left me cold. The Onderonians not noticing an army of Mandalorians on Dxun didn't help the plot's credibility much either, I fear. And the less said about Malachor V the better...

There might have been an element of that, but that can neither be confirmed or denied from what we learn in the game (and the cut content), where Atris simply states that she did this to make the sith reveal themselves. She even leaked information of the jedi conclave on Katarr to the Sith and so caused the destruction of the planet that Nihilus wrought there, except that comment was cut from the game. Note, however, how the masters are surprised to hear that Atris is on Telos, if you mention it to them, since they thought she too had died on Katarr.

That would be a reasonable assumption. However, Bastila appears with the companions in the LS ending of KotOR regardless of Revan's gender... Exile is hunted instead of Bastila or the masters on the council because Atris arranged the Exile's return to the Republic and then leaked information about him to the Sith in order to make the Exile a target that the Sith would then try to kill, thus believing revealing themselves thinking there were no other jedi left to stand against them. Pay attention to what HK-47 tells the exile about reading about him in the coreward databases and how Atris admits having staged the exile's return and made him a target for the Sith when you finally confront her after meeting the masters.

One maddening thing about the KotOR games is that those jedi who seem to best embody the teachings of the jedi are those who have turned their back on the order. In KotOR it is Jolee. In TSL it seems somewhat true of both Zez-Kai Ell, Kreia and perhaps the Exile. Note how Bastila falls to the dark side exactly because she follows the code, thinking a strict adherence will make her a good little jedi and unable to be tainted by the dark side. Atris has had a similar story in TSL, because it is her refusal to deal with internal struggles that cause her downfall - it's something outside the jedi code and so she cannot deal with it and falls, thus proven Kreia's point. And Vrook... Well, if you look up "arrogant" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Vrook next to the entry... Kavar is what I would call a more standard jedi in the order. He follows the code but also his convictions. But he's a strategist, not a philosopher. Zez-Kai Ell is, however, and that's why he says he is not a jedi. Because he sees something wrong with the jedi, and as a master, he therefore cannot count himself as a representative of what the jedi should be. It's pretty much the same with Jolee - the order felt there was extenuating circumstances in his case, but he could never forgive himself, and because they did not understand this, the order failed him and he left. Bastila may follow the rules of the jedi code, but Jolee lived the spirit of the code itself, rejecting the more orthodox interpretation. Which of them fared better overall in the final analysis of things? I count Zez-Kai Ell as a jedi in part because he confronts his right to the title - he doesn't take it for granted, and he is open enough to be humble about his own position and question the decisions of the council.

And how much is SecuROM going to care if people run into trouble with their games three years from now? How many people will it matter to, if someone wants to play Mass Effect on the pc and cannot three years after the game's release? Let me guess, those people will also be too few to matter, right? I must confess that I find your position that this is a non-issue because it matters to few people disturbing. How many gamers do things like this have to be a problem for before it can be counted a legitimate problem in your eyes? Because society in general mostly works around the idea that it just takes one person getting screwed before it's a problem, and personally I tend to agree with that position. Besides, this surveillance is a problem in principle. I'll concede the point that it is probably not a huge problem in practical terms. But it can and will be one for some, and that is enough to my eyes. And even if it isn't, it's still distasteful that customers are treated like suspects as a matter of course. People shouldn't have to accept that companies or governments or whomever trample all over their privacy just because to protect their own interests. What firms like SecuROM is basically doing is allowing only two classifications for gamers - pirates and potential pirates. Is it wrong of the customers to say they don't like being profiled as either? Also, calling the naysayers "mob" and "rabble" is pretty low. I'm not going to argue that Bioware and similar companies don't have understandable concerns about piracy, but if they meet their potential customers with this level of suspicion and distrust, is it really so strange if the customers being to feel the same way and be suspicious of their motives? Distrust breeds distrust, and the customers did not start it in this case. So if Bioware is met with mistrust and suspcion here, they're really only reaping what they sowed.

Incorrect and confirmed as such by Lucasarts. http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/852/852342p1.html

Why not? If winning is eliminating ALL piracy, yeah, they cannot win, but I think they'd be satisfied with cutting down on 'casual' piracy. Except it won't. The pirates will simply remove the code in question, meaning that the pirates will keep playing, while some potential customers, like myself, feel that Bioware is meeting us with suspicion and screwing us over by treating us like criminals. Hence we won't buy the game. Net effect: Piracy is unchanged, while Mass Effect pc sales suffer. The problem is that as a customer, I'm being met with suspicion. I have to prove that I'm not a pirate, and I have to repeat doing so consistantly. And there is, of course, a notable difference between the examples you cite and what Bioware wants to do in that all your examples take place in public. Gaming, however, takes place in your private home. Now, obviously people will argue that it's only people who have something to hide who argue against this sort of thing. It's essentially the "Bush doctrine" of "you're either with us or with the evildoers", who are pirates in this case. Then the rationale comes that if you dislike this sort of thing, then it's because you know you're doing something that's wrong. Just the same argument as used against people, when they argue against surveillance by cameras and what not, which doesn't work anyway btw - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1 I saw a guy give the perfect response to that once, however. Someone said to him that he only resisted being surveilled, because he knew he was doing somthing wrong. The guy responded by asking the person who questioned him, if he had curtains in his bedroom. When the other guy had to reply that he did, he asked if there was something he was hiding and didn't want to find out about. It's the perfect way to put it. It's as if the idea of privacy is being slowly undermined these years, as if we're no longer allowed to have a sense of privacy. Everybody is suddenly to be allowed to have access to EVERYTHING about us. The government needs to know that we're not planning terrorist acts or whatever. The gaming companies need to know we don't pirate their games. RIAA and MPAA need to know that we don't download music or movies, etc. It just goes on and on. It's sickening. And when you resist, you're stigmatised because you dare to defend your right to privacy and question the right of the government and the companies to bulldozer all over your rights. Well, I'd have liked the opportunity try Mass Effect on my pc, but I won't be, since I absolutely refuse to pay for a product that spies on me and installs spyware on my system!!

And they wouldn't do it because deforestation is the mark of the dark side

Vin Diesel as Malak.

WTF? Bad tags, it should have been this: Kotor 3 in development Oh no, not this again. Honestly, if I had a penny for every time someone claimed KotOR3 is in development...

Well, I sort of like him as a character. I mean, he's a manipulative villain who sacrifices others as a matter of course, but then you could say that of Kreia and HK-47 as well. I like his creepy HAL-2000 impersonation and the voice-acting is excellent. He just as has the same problem that T3 did in the first game - he's useless as a partymember. But I like his story and the way you can use him in a few places.

BLASPHEMY! *throws stone*

The four of us? Probably not. However, the question is whether there is reason to think your concerns on the matter are unique to us among potential customers in general. Personally, I don't see why these concerns would not apply just as well to most other potential customers as they do to us, in which case Bioware could find Mass Effect selling very poorly on the pc... And there is a market for games on the pc.

I agree with Tigranes - you don't need to play KotOR1 first. While I played them in order, there are people on these boards who did not and enjoyed TSL (=KotOR2) just as much as I did. I do recommend playing KotOR1 first, however, if you want the full experience, since it will give you a bit more insight and perspective on certain things in the sequel. Besides, playing KotOR1 first will mean that TSLRP is probably done by the time you're finished and get to TSL. It's true that LucasArts pushed the deadline to make Obsidian finish TSL faster, and IMHO the game suffers for it. There is a great deal of cut content, and some areas of the game are badly designed and bugfilled as a result. It's still playable, though, and I find the story far more interesting. TSLRP (The Sith Lords Restoration Project - http://team-gizka.org/ ) is a project where a group of modders are working to restore the content that Obsidian cut out of the game, and it seems to be nearing completion. The only other mod I consider noteworthy is Dstoney's attempt to restore the cut planet M4-78, which TSLRP will not restore, because Obsidian never finished planning it. TSLRP will restore only stuff that Obsidian intended to be in the game. Since planning was never finished on M4-78, we can't know what Obsidian intended with it, and so Dstoney's mod - http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/M478;89207 - is based on stuff he thinks should have been in there. Now, the games are old, yes, and were both written primarily for Windows XP (on the pc, I mean). However, I've run them both on Windows Vista without particular trouble so far, at least not more than the occassional crash or glitch I experienced on XP. Other people have reported problems on Vista, however, so you might want to check some of the topics on that out.

Sorry. But in fact you've now become an example of exactly why this approach is a problem. You wanted to buy the game, and now you're reconsidering. I might have considered buying it, but knowing the level of authentication Bioware will put me through and the level of distrust and suspicion that naturally comes with it, I'm very unlikely to buy and play it now. Between the two of us, that's probably at least one lost sale already. And we're the potentially paying customers. The issue will not matter to the pirates, who will find a way around the authentication anyway. And while I suspect you and I will not get a pirated copy in order to play, choosing instead not to play at all, you can imagine people out there who feel the same way, but who want to play Mass Effect anyway and so get an illegal copy. Hence, sales are lost to piracy. Not really because the pirates are evil, but more because Bioware's measures to prevent piracy drive more people to it, thereby making their claim of pirated copies of their games a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alas...

So because it affects few people it means it doesn't matter? Or let me put it another way, how many people does this have to be an issue for before the companies should care about their customers? 500? 10.000? Besides, who are they to basically tell me how often I can reformat my hard drive? If I want to reformat it 20 times over a year for whatever reason, then isn't that my right to do without being stigmatised as a potential pirate and denied the use of software I paid for?

28 non-feature bugs remaining, which means 28 bugs before version 1.01c (= public release). http://team-gizka.org/wip.html

In the unmodded game, Bao-Dur cannot wear robes because of his arm, but it was intended that you should be able to sacrifice a robe that only he could then wear, except the feature was never implemented... Not sure where I read that, though. However, there is one piece of clothing in the unmodded game that Bao-Dur can use. It's the miner's uniform the exile finds at the beginning of the game. It's crap, but it can modified in-game, which is still better than regular clothes. I don't know... It seems to me they intentionally avoided letting Mira be a romantic interest, and I don't think it's right for Bao-Dur either even for a female Exile, due to the role he plays in the story as the old "war buddy" who is the only one who can sympathize with the exile's problem. A romance would somehow be in the way of that... Yeah, I know - Blasphemy! Blasphe-you...

There may yet be a pc version, as there soon will be for Mass Effect. We don't know, though. There might not be one, in which case I'll never play the game.

I fail to see what is so terrible about looking at the claim that pc games (as of today) have more piracy than console games in a broader historical context. However, since you can apparently find only fault with anything I say here, I shall simply let the matter go, as any other response seems destined to be counterproductive.