Jediphile

Depends on how you look at it. Dracula is doing what is natural for him, to survive, what is bad about that? Van Helsing antagonizes Dracula because of his faulty belief that Dracula is evil, even though Dracula is only doing what comes natureal to him. Van Helsing is the protagonist here. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> On the basis that the protagonist of a story is always the one who goes through dramatic events that changes the character's life, I would disagree with both of you. The protagonist of Dracula (Stoker's novel) is Mina. She's one who ends up being a very different person than she started out as, while neither van Helsing nor Dracula changed their perspectives much and ended up as the characters they began as (except for Dracula being really dead instead of undead...). van Helsing is more like Gandalf in LOTR - he is a powerful and knowledgable helper, but not the protagonist. Dracula is the villain and a device for evil. We don't know, but it doesn't matter - he does evil things, and so he's evil. Besides, I find Dracula to be more effective as a villain if he remains beyond our comprehension (and yes, that means I hated Coppola's flick )

Still set in the same era of Star Wars history. Besides, the paperback collection of the original Tales of the Jedi comic books was actually named "Knights of the Old Republic"... - Hairsplitting R Us...

Over the course of the game I'd say Jolee. I used Bastila until she was captured by Malak, and then I used Juhani instead. At times Mission made it into the group because I needed her skills. The others I didn't use much, unless the game demanded it (like on the Leviathan) or if certain group members were unavailable (like Bastila being banned from the party on Dantooine).

It's not like it's a difficult thing to do if your just writing a story. It's quite another matter when it's part of a game where your choices are supposed to be meaningful. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> They were for mine (at least in my own head...), and I think they were in the other two cases as well... Even so, that's still an example of unprofessional writers being able to do it. I think we can expect at least as much from the professional writers, especially given how K2 seemed engineered toward it from its very inception. I mean, Revan goes to face the true Sith no mater what his alignment was in K1, and the Exile ends up following him regardless. That sounds like they were already setting the stage for K3 to me.

She's much the same as Bastila in KOTOR , although much better written of course. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You have a peculiar take on love interests...

Yes, it seems this was asked in the wrong forum. This is the PnP forum, and though we probably all play CRPGs (we're here because of K2, after all, so presumably we all played it...), you'll get much better response in the Computer and Console forum.

Well, I managed to outline a plot for K3 that took the final LS/DS choices in K1 and K2 into account. If I can do it, then certainly professional game designers can, and I dare say that's probably the reason why the LS/DS endings are nowhere nearly as different in K2, as they were in K1.

For totals spoilers on the game, look here - absolutely everything you ever wanted to know (except cheats and mods and so). This si the best guide I've found for the game. For how to influence your teammates (also spoiler), look here - written for the Xbox, but it works just as well for the pc version IMHO (and by the same guy as the above).

Yes, and that's exactly the one thing I ever used him for. I bought him at the droid shop, took him the short distance over to the Sith base, had him open the door, then dropped him from the party immediately before entering and never used him again. Well, I did bring him when I bought HK-47 - there are a few, ahem, humerous responses there that I like. But as a character in the active group? Nope, never. Totally useless. True. Even as useless as G0T0 is, he did make it into the K2 party more often than T3 did in K1... Not to mention that the droids were to be the only ones who could (initially, at least) exit the ship on M4-78. But then that was cut, so... Don't agree there. Mission was one of the characters I used most frequently in K1, particularly when facing areas with lots of mines and enemies. I let her sneak in and disarm all the mines, then brought in the jedi cavalry - CHARGE! :D

Wrong, you are. No KotOR3 for you, the Sith bunny says... " :D

if there is a k3... probabally, hopefully will be, because it will help patch up all those plot holes <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, I think some of those were intentionally left vague in K2, in which case they would not consitute plot holes as much as story building or foreshadowing.

Imagine someone telling you a story, and they filled in the details of yesterday. You keep watching the tv series, and they keep telling you minute details of the past. Now, someone else takes over the tv series, and they decide to create a prequal series. Without regards to what is allready in place, they rewrite the history that was allready established for thirty years. (Star Trek history expands to 40 years.) Star Trek: Enterprise was a really nice series; however, they rewrote a mess of history that has been established for 33 years. Everything you have accepted as Star Trek/Star Wars lore is no longer valid. Everything you came to like about the previous series becomes lost. You spent several year watching your favorite show, or reading you favorite book, and then someone else rewrites everything that you have accepted and loved. How would you the viewer feel? <_< <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'd feel terrible. That's precisely the reason why I hated Enterprise (that they went back in time was bad enough, but they also did exactly what I feared - the rewrote the established, and suddenly we had Ferengi and Borg several centuries too early... Sorry, it's OT, but the wounds are still sore...). However, what you describe here is just an example of bad writing. One thing I like in Star Wars is that the writers tend to see canon as a source of inspiration instead of an obstacle. Take Lady Lumiya. She was born on the pages of the Marvels comic books in the early 80s (between Empire and Jedi). After Jedi, she was briefly used as the successor to the Sith legacy after the deaths of Vader and Palpatine, but she slipped into obscurity when the comic book went under... The writers could have left her there, but no - they have revived her and use her as a major villain the new material. That's good use of background - you already have a rich and well-established character who has been there since the movies, so it's better to use that character than to create a new and similar one. She also has long history with Luke that is right there without having to do some pseudo history rewriting/addition.

It's because they're too long - then the code begins to fail. But then you're guilty of exactly what you accuse me of - you look at the rules only through your own eyes. I do too, but I never claimed otherwise, and I did point to what the rules said as well. Soccer is a game with very specific rules. In that sense it is not that different from the chess example you mentioned earlier. But RPGs are different. You cannot let your pawn feign death in chess, because the rules won't allow it. You cannot bring a chair into the penalty field of the opposing team so you can better head the ball into the goal, because the rules do not permit it. RPGs allow you to try absolutely anything you can think of. May not work, but you are allowed to try. Even if the GM tells you your action can never ever succeed, you're still the one who decides whether you will take the action or not, the GM is not. So you're comparing apples and oranges, if you compare RPG rules to the rules of soccer or chess, where the permissible courses of action are determined beforehand. Also, I've never seen a RPG campaign (and I have seen many indeed) that did not include house rules. House rules are a proud tradition of RPGs, especially in D&D, where even the elistist comments of the author did nothing to stop the tradition. So rules are obviously not nearly as fixed in RPGs, as you seem to imply. No, because you can gain rewards and certainly will gain experience in any event. Even if you choose not to face the opposition, while the thief sneaks in and steals the treasure... As pointed out before, there is no predetermined course of action that the players *must* take to succeed. The GM must eventually decide how much experience - but not rewards, since if the players can lay their hands on it, then they can take it whether the GM likes it or not - the players should get. He could punish them for not doing things the way he planned it, but being vindictive in that way is the mark of a very bad GM. Note also that the rules prompt the GM to reward the players for being ingenuitive and finding new ways to overcome their obstacles. That means that if they can avoid fighting and reach their goals in an easier why, then they should be rewarded for good thinking. That's what bonus xps are for, after all. That gives you no basis for your position. You have said I speak only from my own views, but I can point to things in the rules that supports my position, while you cannot... Again, realism, simulation, plausability, whatever you want to call it, amounts to the same thing. Maybe "world consistency", or "world plausability" would be the best terms. And yet again, D&D is not primarly concerned with world consistency. Magical items exist to reward the players, or perhaps to give them an opposition when they're being used by someone else. If they create world consistency at the same time - great, but if they don't - big deal, that isn't what D&D was trying to do in first place. "Magical items are created by some entity with magical powers" is enough world consistency for D&D. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, I was waiting for the god-argument, where it's implied that everything you can't explain is handled by some higher being. That's the cop-out answer, when you have no answer, but then philosophers have used it througout history, whenever someone pointed to flaws in their line of thoughts (read some philosophy, if you're interested - it's full of that sort of reasoning in many places). So you don't demand that the setting is internally consistent? Okay, so it's okay if you encounter whales in the middle of the desert or meet an elephant on a small 10 square feet plateau on the top of a mountain... That's fine, because there is magic and gods in D&D... It's also okay to have a wizard's tower filled with 500 iron golems, though the wizard would never ever have had the funds to build them all... Sorry, but I'll have to disagree with you. I cannot accept basic stupidity internally in a game setting, because that would mean I cannot use my knowledge of the world logically to my advantage. And that kills my possibility to suspend disbelief, and so my enjoyment of the game.

Yeah, my bad... :"> Didn't notice, and now I can't change it...

I second that or something from the TotJ period. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Isn't that the same?

A big plus. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hanharr - yes. G0T0 - yes. Kreia - no. Kreia is a great character. She may be an annoying, manipulative old hag, but she's still one of them most wonderfully developed characters I've seen in a computer game in a long time.

Well (someone familiar w/ the EU was bound to mention this) Lumiya didn't (don't know who she is? [link]). And she's coming back in the new line of novels and she's rumoured to have resurrected the Sith order. The new comic series that's coming, Legacy, supposedly features that new Sith order. But that doesn't prove anything when it comes to Luke vs Revan. Luke would still win. :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, I think he would. Revan sucks [runs from the angry mob of Revan fanboys...] :ph34r: Anyway, Lumiya is actually an example of what I like in Star Wars. She was born on the pages of Marvel's comic books in the early 80s between Empire and Jedi, but instead of just forgetting her and seeing her as an obstacle, they embrace the character and bring her back with a vengeance. This is where Star Wars sees opportunity in established canon far better than Trek - that they already have a well-established character with a rich background is used as a positive rather than seen as a burden. Funny thing is that Lumiya and Mara Jade actually have pretty similar stories, only one ended up marrying Luke and the other became hellbent on killing him by whatever means necessary. Spooky...

Not Lumiya, though.

Most recent movie? Syriana. Very political, but then I like that. Wasn't really as enlightening as I thought it would have been, though. Or are we talking outside the cinema too? In that case the most recent would be the 3/4 Musketeer movies from the 70s with Michael York and Oliver Reed - still a blast. I recommend them highly

Yep, the "third antagonist" was Karl Urban, whom you've seen as Eomer in LOTR (and as the assassin in the Bourne Supremacy). I actually liked the setting of the Chronicles of Riddick - there were some cool planets to explore. Too bad they were used so horribly by the severely mediocre plot... Still there were a few good one-liners in the script: "Damn it, I hate it when I'm not the bad guys!" "I'm going to kill you with my tea cup..."

I'd like to see that too, but I fear the fact that this is already covered extensively in the EU novels means that we won't be seeing it. After all, EU is canon, even if many fans prefer not accept it as such. The movies could progress and more be made, but if not and we stick with the six we have now, then Anakin/Vader is definitely the central character - it's all about his rise, fall, and eventual redemption and all the consequences that follow from that.

I agree, but I also think that this is precisely the role Vader will have on the tv show. He'll be a dark and foreboding figure of power, and when he turns up, you know it's someone's time to die... That's how Vader (as in Vader, not Anakin) works best dramatically anyway, if you ask me. Well, I actually disagree with you there. Obi-Wan and Yoda have to stay in hiding, or else Tarkin's comment about Obi-Wan being dead and the jedi's fire having burned out will become meaningless. It seemed obvious to me in Ep. IV that Obi-Wan being alive at all was a surprise, and they seemed to be completely unaware that Yoda still existed too. True. What you can do on tv has picked up, though. You can do spectacular space battles now (just see some of the episodes of Battlestar Galactica or the "Dominion War arc" on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), so maybe it won't be so bad. Either way, I'll wait and see what the premise of the show is before I make up my mind in any way.

Actually, I think that was specific to the Exile, who was after all unique in his ability to create powerful force bonds with others. I don't think the bond between Revan and Bastila was the same, especially since Revan basically uses it to redeem Bastila after she has fallen to the dark side... He was definitely her master in the DS ending of K1. But I digress... Besides, it wasn't your point anyway, so just ignore me - I just like splitting hairs, I guess... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hehehe... I thought they were equals. I must have missed something. Oh well, shoot me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, I guess Bastila was the stronger force user, but I also think she led a rather sheltered and insular life in the jedi order. Listening to her in K1, I get the impression she has some pretty lofty ideas and high opinions of herself (which is later exploited all too easily by Malak, which underscores her flaws). She also seemed to have not entirely realistic expectations of what life is. Note how she begins commanding people about after you "rescue" her on Taris, only to have Carth jump in and lecture her. He shouldn't need to lecture a jedi on such obvious points, which again underscores Bastila's somewhat unreaslitic perceptions and expectations. Not to mention her immaturity. Still, that was in K1. Can't say in K2 - she isn't in there much. Mara Jade on the other hand has led a tough life and faced stark reality at every second through it. While Bastila was somewhat protected by the order, Mara would have been killed in an instant if her perceptions had been as flawed as Bastila's - you don't live long in the Emperor's service if you get things wrong... She was force sensitive, but not a jedi (and never sith) until much later. But she was a tough warrior even before she became a jedi. She'd be able to improvise instantly during a fight, while Bastila would rely heavily on her lightsaber and be at a loss for what to do, if something went wrong...

Die, gungans, die! I may be LS, but I make a special exception for gungans (and perhaps ewoks)... I'm a nice guy otherwise. Honestly! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I like ewoks Let them make fish-soup of gungans <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hey, I like ewoks too... Preferably roasted <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yub-Yub! :'( <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, I see dinner is served... "I see dead ewoks..." You'll excuse me - I'm having a few old friends for dinner...

A few points to clarify... 1. You can gain in DS or LS by the good/evil choices throughout the game and jump back and forth as often as you like. You must be 75% toward one of the extremes to switch to one of the prestige classes at level 15, though. Your final choice that decides whether you play the LS or DS ending is ultimately made when you meet the jedi masters on Dantooine. You can take the DS ending by killing them one by one during that meeting or earlier by killing them as you find them on the various planets. The LS choice is to let them cut you off from the force, which will make Kreia interfere and kill the masters. You get a special power after this encounter. If you chose DS, then you get Force Choke. If you chose LS, then you get Force Enlightment (which lets you activate Speed, Valor, and Armor simultaneously in one ability). 2. I've had several colors, but it shouldn't be a problem to find them. I can't remember if you can make the color crystals yourself, but you can certainly buy several of them on Dantooine. Oh, and I do have a picture... (see below) 3. You create your initial saber only. You can't actually build more (yeah, you should be able to, I agree), but you can find them. I hear you can even cheat yourself to more by using Visas to spawn more, though I've never tried it myself. 4. Jump back and forth between LS and DS as you like. Just be aware that you need to be fairly toward either for the Nihilus/Visas cutscene to trigger and to be able to take prestige classes once you reach level 15. 5. I really don't think your LS/DS ending is decided by anything but what you choose to do at the meeting with the jedi masters on Dantooine.