Jediphile

No. They hid them from Vader and the Emporer to protect them. Neither Yoda nor Obi Wan mention using them to destroy the Sith - they just want them to be safe. So when Obi Wan directs Luke to Yoda, Yoda is against the idea of training him, in case he becomes another Vader, and - as Luke doesn't know the truth about his father - gives the excuse that he's too old - the same reason he didn't want to train Anakin. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So they're just going to pass on the only hope they have of overthrowing the Sith... Sorry, but I'll have to respectfully disagree.

Diablo is like a really bad movie - it can be fun for a while, but you can bear to watch it only for so long, and once you turn it off, it's forgotten in nanoseconds...

How very sweet. You presume something, put it in his mouth, then proceed to redicule him for it. I think he's quite capable of putting his foot in his mouth without you helping him... Very bad examples. Those games were based on new concepts. How old are they? How many games based on new concepts have you seen in, say, the last three or four years? The gaming industry being as repetitive in conceptual innovation as it has been for a while, that is an exceedingly fallacious argument. Again, it is unreasonable to compare the current situation to conditions of a time when there was far more room for innovation and originality than there is today. In case you haven't noticed, the gaming industry constantly changes - it's no longer the brain childs of a few dedicated fans working in a basement somewhere...

I still have to remind you about Icewind Dale, where your party is similar to a character in Diablo: they are totally blank. Somehow it is a fact that Icewind Dale is an RPG. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Never played Icewind Dale, so I wouldn't know...

Great, now I have Battlecookiee telling me what I think... Guess it saves me the trouble. Certainly I must bow to the great oracle of Battlecookiee that knows what I think and why so much better than I do...

I think the script says Anakin was about 10 in Ep I. Still, close enough... But I don't think the reason for Yoda's questions to Luke is what anyone here has said. Of course, they're going to train - they hid for all these years to turn him - or his sister - into a weapon against Vader and the emperor, and now they're just going to let the matter go? Doubtful. They likely waited this long for a purpose. Nothing would have prevented Obi-Wan from taking Luke to Yoda at an earlier age or even training Luke himself. That's not the reason, I think. But Yoda needs to knowt that Luke is ready for what will be taught. Last hope or not, Luke must be ready for what is taught before they can entrust him with knowledge of the force. Otherwise he could become a greater threat than Vader. Your memory of Jolee's experiences is somewhat flawed. From K1's dialog.tlk Jolee: "I loved her too much to see fault in her.And she loved me, too. I know she did. At the time, our love was a shared bliss... better than anything I had known before or since.Exar Kun is what happened. Nayama was inspired by Exar's promises of a new Golden Age. She wanted to join him.She came to me, pleading with me to throw aside what she called the decrepit trappings of the Jedi... to join her in Exar's war.I pleaded with her to reconsider, to think about all that she was throwing away... to think about what she would become.She would have none of it. Finally, in frustration, she attacked me. She drew her lightsaber and attempted to strike me down.It was a scene being repeated everywhere throughout the galaxy. Pupil against master. In my case... it was a long and terrible battle, but I defeated her.No... no. I had her at my mercy, disarmed and defenseless. She looked up at me and she knew... she knew I couldn't do it.Was I? Sometimes I convince myself that I couldn't have done otherwise... that I couldn't have seen that she had truly fallen to the dark side. But, yes, I was a fool.And I let her go. To my shame, she went on to kill many Jedi during the war until she, herself, was slain in the final battle.I grieved for her death, inevitable as it was, even as the Jedi Council put me on trial for my actions once the war was over.I had trained Nayama against their wishes. I had failed to kill her when I had the chance, and she went on to kill others.It was a travesty, of course. I told you that even the Jedi were capable of great injustices, didn't I?But I deserved to be tried. They found me innocent.Even though I... deserved every punishment and more... they let me go. Mitigating circumstances, they said. I deserved compassion, they said.That... that was when the Jedi left me. That was when they failed me.They may have been able to forgive me. I... could never forgive myself." They exiled her before she went to war. Most likely she went to war because it was simply opportune for her to do so, since she had already been cast out of the order and so was no longer tied to their rulings. Also, she had given birth to Brianna long before that time. K2 takes place about 15 years after the Mandalorian Wars began, and that is still several years before Revan and the others decided to fight. Brianna is older than 15 in K2. It's excellent proof, since Kreia never tells us that she too fought in the wars, at least not until Kavar mentions it and she clearly confirms it.

I want a new character too, and I also want it to be a new padawan, preferably on Coruscant. But please not the Fable-concept. I prefer to avoid that in KotOR. I think that's a little early. Besides, it's a bit difficult doing a truly interesting story with Darth Plagueis, when we know that he will eventually be killed by Sidious, meaning that the main character can never kill him in the game. Also, KotOR is a full 4000 years before the movies. Darth Plagueis may be able to control life and death, but I still think that's stretching it rather far... Besides, I want resolution to the unfinished stories of Revan and Exile in K3 (even though I don't want either to be the playable PC). Yeah, that could be good. That's already in there. Try smashing a security door with a lightsaber - the character will just put the sword there and hold it until the door opens shortly after. Sure did for me when Visas failed her Security checks on the Ravager... Yeah, I agree. It may sound gory, but we've seen sliced off body parts in every film. It's sort of expected. And D20 Star Wars rules do allow for it - just implement the Wounds rules. Who cares if the Sith lord loses the hand or even the head once he's down to negative vitality anyway?

You seem to argue from the idea that a genuine character is always created from scratch by the player. That is not the case. I may not have "created" Revan as such, since his background is done by Bioware, but I'm still the one playing him, and I'm still the one building his skills. I also decided his gender (or her gender...), his class, etc. But even if I was handed a completely pre-fabricated character, that does not mean that I'm not playing an RPG. It's not a question of how much influence I had during character creation (though I prefer to have that), but rather how much influence and control I have over the character during the actual game. If I play Vampire, then I'm a vampire serving the lord that sired me. I have no choice in that matter. But the character is still mine, and I still develop him or her. If I play Exalted, then I'm (in the standard game) a Solar with fantastic powes serving the unconquered sun, whether I want to or not. But I still create the character and develop him. And I will be hunted by the dragon-blooded for being considered anathema... It's still role-playing, though. Though I prefer to play my characters from scratch with complete control over creation, perspectives, and powers, I have still played and enjoyed completely pregenerated characters at conventions. That didn't mean I wasn't playing an RPG. The difference is that once I take control of the character, the perceptions and choices are made by me as the player. I get to decide what the character is going to do. Lots (in fact, all) of CRPGs may force me along the way, but I do get some choice along the way in most of them. I don't in Diablo - it is as linear as a racing game. Heck, I can't even choose to drive the wrong way...

Disciple is no mere padawan - he was at the jedi academy at the time and likely knew all the involved people, including Revan, Malak and Kreia. The fact that Kreia continues to manipulate his mind throughout the game suggests a lot. By the time we meet him K2, he is a spy/soldier for the republic with a speciality in jedi matters exploring the jedi secrets of Dantooine. Likely he has been studying jedi lore and history for years at this point. Note how he also speaks a lot about what the masters thought of Exar and Ulic and lots of other stuff... Not many lowly padawans or republic soldiers are likely to have such knowledge.

Well, you can argue that KotOR is just playing at illusionary choice a lot of the time, but you do get to make a lot of DS/LS choices along the way, and those do count toward the character you end up with. Sure, you can still take the DS ending even if you have LS mastery in the temple, but it'll be inconsistent, and the game will punish you for it, since you likely have all the wrong force powers at that point. Somehow "fighting a war beyond human comprehension" doesn't seem right to me. I'm a human (even in Diablo), and I'm still fighting that war and killing Diablo, his brothers, and all their minions. Doesn't seem to be beyond my comprehension after all. So that comment seems to fall short somehow, especially if you've played as much Cthulhu as I have - now *there* is a war beyond human comprehension... Well, I still killed the lot of them. Who does that make food? Maybe after I slaughtered Andariel and Duriel, Diablo should have thought that I might have been a better ally than enemy. Or at least after I killed Mephisto... What feelings? There are none in Diablo that I can see... I might presume stuff, but that's all in just in my head, and never gets to have influence on the game.

Which is precisely why I think Kae is indeed Kreia. Kae "died" on Malachor V only in the sense Anakin did according to what Obi-Wan tells Luke - she turned to the dark side and became Darth Traya instead of Arren Kae (like Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader). "Kreia" is just a "constructed" name after the fact - Kae+Traya=Kreia. This also fits well with Kavar's outburst that, "I thought you had died in the Mandalorian Wars...", doesn't it?

You should ask yourself the same question about Diablo. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's just it - there is no choice, no motives behind the actions that are taken. At least not in a way that I can affect or consider to have depth. Diablo and his ilk want to enslave manking, and I have to help Tyrial stopping them. I don't know why Tyrial does it, don't know why Diablo and the others do (though I can guess - wanting power is pretty easy to grasp), and nobody is asking me what I want to do. Opinions don't matter and make no difference.

I disagree. The persona I created at the beginning of the game has charateristics in my perception, and that eventually helps me to decide whether Revan should be redeemed or reclaim his position as dark lord. True. But how I perceive it is what decides whether I want Imoen with me or decide to ditch or even kill her along the way. Except here it makes no difference. There is nothing for my perception of things to affect in any way that makes any difference. I may incorporate whatever I want - it makes no difference anywhere in the game. But there is still a difference between whether the character's have goals and ambitions, whether they have depth as characters or have feelings. I don't get that in Diablo - my character is just a blank vehicle that I use to kill the baddies with and nothing more. The sorceress might as well be a rocket launcher or the barbarian a meatgrinder - they have all the personality of those...

The thing about that is that the programmers can only write for the outcomes they can anticipate, so we're pretty much stuck there. This was true even in the old text-based adventures, where you could type in anything you wanted to [jediphile closes his eyes and remembers the golden days of adventuring fondly ]. Anyway, they could allow you to type in whatever, but the game would still have to interpret your answers and try to fit it onto one of the available outcomes. Multiple choice seems to be lesser evil among the alternatives. This will not change until we all have advanced neural networks in our computers that can judge the individual situation. It is also one area where tabletop RPGs are still vastly superior to CRPGs, because you can take absolutely any action you can think of - the GM is right there to decide what happens next (though you rarely like his choice, but there you go...) Well, I guess the thing that Kreia doesn't want you to submit to her will - she wants you to learn and consider her points. She also wants you to kill her, and she doesn't leave you any choice in the matter...

Except the people who say that Kreia is not Kae maintain that Kae died in the Mandalorian Wars. How can she teach Revan again after she died (unless we consider her a LS force ghost on Malachor V... highly unlikely IMO) ? If Kae did survive the war, then that's another factor that speaks in favor of Kae=Kreia. Besides, the only way Kae can be Revan's first and last master (without being Kreia) is if Kreia is lying about Revan coming to her after he learned he was more than he had been told. That doesn't seem to be the case, since the masters tells also tell us that having Kreia as a new master is following Revan's path.

That's good to hear. Well done. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanx :D ...to hear that they loved it, or that two of them died? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes... and yes I am a GM after all, and you know what they say: "When the GM smiles... it's already too late!"

Whoever that master is, it's not Kreia, unless Kreia indeed is Kae. Disciple: "Revan sought out many other teachers to learn certain techniques. I do not recall who Revan's master was... strange. As a Padawan, Revan was trained by Master Kae, before she was exiled. Strange, I do not recall who Revan's master was after that.And it is said that he went to his first - and final - master to learn how to leave the order entirely, as she had.And such teachings and their teachers is why I harbor doubts, why I wonder if something is missing from the Jedi code." The confusion here lies with the Disciple's inability to remember who Revan's master was after Kae. Since Kreia plays tricks on the Disciple's mind throughout the game, we might presume that she is protecting her own identity, and that Revan's master after Kae that Disciple cannot remember is indeed Kreia herself, which would indeed suggest that Kreia is not Kae. However, that conclusion is disputed by other clues. Note that Disciple in the above actually mentions that Revan eventually returned to his first and final master to learn how to leave the order. We know that master is Kreia, since she says so herself: Kreia: "He came to me, yes. Both before and after, before Revan knew himself.And after, in the times when Revan was coming into his own and learning he was more than he had been told. At one time, Revan was my Padawan. In times past, long ago. But Revan, when he had learned all he could, had other masters... that fool Zhar, and other Jedi on other planets. He learned from each.But in the end, he turned back to me. When he realized there was nothing more to be learned from the Jedi - except how one could leave them forever." Disciple also confirms this by other statements he makes, which again mentions Kae as one of Revan's masters: Disciple: "Many Jedi defied the Order during the Mandalorian Wars - and it paved the way for the Jedi Civil War.There is no blame - all must accept. But at its core, one must wonder if it was the failure of the Jedi teachings... or the teachers themselves. Many of the Jedi Council trained Exar Kun, Ulic... Revan and Malak. How could they not see the danger they posed? And if they could not......perhaps there was some essential part of their teachings that was flawed. Something beyond the Jedi Code that they were missing. Revan had many Masters. Zhar, Dorak, Master Kae before Kae left for the Wars. Towards the end of his training, he sought out many to learn techniques.It is said that he returned to his first master at the end of his training, in order to learn how he might best leave the order." This confirms from both Disciple and Kreia that Revan's first master was also his last. That master is Kreia by her own admission, though Disciple never actually says so. But even if we doubt her words, the Disciple still confirms that Revan's first and last master taught how to leave the order, which would be consistent for Kreia. And since the master Disciple cannot remember came after Kae but before Kreia, it must either be someone else entirely or else this next master was really still Kreia/Kae during a part of her history that she prefers to keep to herself - she cannot dismiss the existence of Kae, but she can make Kae into another person and then distance herself from that persona... Also note that the Disciple mentions that Revan did not merely train under Master Kae, but was actually her padawan, suggesting that she may indeed have been Revan's first master, in which case she would be Kreia, since Revan did return to her in the end. Also, in Kreia's comments, she indeed says that Revan was once her padawan (her quote above), which seems to support that point.

Did the reasons for their actions make sense? Yup. And there are differences in the outcome. The masters don't turn on my on Dantooine if I'm truly DS, since I've already killed them all. Atris may want to kill me, but she's fallen to the dark side. I can *choose* whether to kill her or not (same thing for Mira fighting Hanharr on Malachor V btw). Malachor V is destroyed or continues to exist depending on my choice. But then I guess the death of an entire planet doesn't count as a genuine choice...

Lol. Loads of broken Sarcasm detectors this week. FAR above avarage... Indeed. But you tried so... "What you think of it"; Hmmmm... does that includes insulting Feargus Urquharts knowledge of RPG's <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I just love the fact that you make fun at me for not liking your sarcasm and then immediately proceed to slam me for making a far less ironic comment... Tell you what, if Feargus tells me he was offended, then I'll accept that I went too far and apologize to him. But somehow I think he has a better sense of humor than you do. You really should run down to the shop and get your sense of humor replaced - it is in sore need. And you better do it before criticising others for making ironic comments while making sarcastic comments yourself and thinking that's okay gets you into real trouble. Then again, I guess your position is twice as good as a straight standard... " I stand corrected - making deals with devils and demons is totally unheard of, of course... " Indeed they are. Kreia's choice for example is like you describe Diablo; Do I wan't to kill her with A, B or C? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's a circular argument and you know it, since Kreia won't let you make another choice- you already made your DS/LS choice at that point in the game. Your argument here is deliberately sophistry as far as I can tell.

And have you EVER seen this in a computer RPG. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Does Revan's background have relevance in K1 or the Exile's in K2? "

Besides the definition of RPG isn't really open for "personal opinion". Ofcourse if you like or not like a game is personal, but the genre is not. You cannot be right in ANY way if you think or in your opinion C&C is a TBS or RPG or Adventure or FPS. And I don't try to "make you see Diablo 2" I am just "disagreeing with you" and giving reasons why I and many other disagree with your opinion... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ahem... Lolz Doom = RPG Painkiller = RPG Serious Sam = RPG Half-Life = RPG Monkey Island = RPG Grim Fandango = RPG Gabriel Knight = RPG GTA San Andreas = RPG GTA Vice City = RPG Age of Empires = RPG Civilization = RPG Republic = RPG The Sims = RPG Boiling Point = RPG Empire at War = RPG Black & White = RPG Populous = RPG Etc. etc. etc. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Defend RPG status as in Defend it from gaining RPG-status... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Don't be silly - clearly I don't have the authority to assign RPG status to the game or not. I can only say what I think of it, and that's what I did. And in exactly what Video Game RPG CAN you do that? Can you side with Malak? NO. Can you side with Kreia, Nihilus and Sion? NO (not in the way the game was shipped atleast). Can you side with Sarevok? NO. Can you side with TTO? No (ok, you could merge, but that ain't joining like helping him in his fight)... You base your "Diablo 2 is no RPG" on stuff you don't even find in what you think are RPG's... and I can tell you it doesn't help in convincing others... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The option to become Nihilus' apprentice was cut from K2, but it was considered. And Kreia doesn't want you to submit to her - she wants to force you to acknowledge the truth of the force and what your force wound means. Whether you handle that in a LS or DS manner is up to you. Of course you don't side with Malak - he usurped *your* power and *your* rightful throne. So obviously you want to either cast out the usurper (DS) or else end the tyranny of the oppressor (LS)... Oh, wait... Those are not choices, right?

It's not a matter of who dicates the background as much as whether that background has any significance in the game at all. I dare say people can ignore the Diablo class descriptions without losing any context in the game. In KotOR I may not know much about the characters when I begin, but I'm interested. I found it really annoying that I knew so little about the Exile's past, when I began K2 - made it very difficult to understand the character. In BG, my character grew up in Candlekeep, and Imoen is an old friend. In Diablo I don't know and it doesn't even matter. You never click any answers in Diablo, and even if you did, they wouldn't matter in the plot. You can define your character background as you want, yes, but it hardly matters. It has no significance to the game at all. But what does it matter if that springboard doesn't lead you anywhere? You might just as well not bother in the first place. Except in a PnP game, the depth I give the character will have significance, since it will define how I play the character, what his choices will be, what he will say to people, etc. Over time the GM will also make this significant, since he will know how my character is likely to react and present challenges on that basis. In Diablo, the imagined background is just pure make believe, because it'll never matter...

What background are you speaking of? In the Vault Dweller's case the only information offered is that the character was born in Vault 13, and that up until the start of the game lived therein. I mean to say, there's no given rationale why my character would be leaving the Vault at sixteen rather than twenty six or why they have more skill with small guns than with first aid. A vicious loner will begin the game the same as a gregarious charmer. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The point is, you still have a pretty good idea of what the character is feeling when he (or she) is unceremoniously is thrown out of the vault to solve all the problems for everybody. You have motive and ambitions, but you also have a good idea of what you think of the overseer and other people in the vault.

The point is that you can answer most of those questions, and the rest are fairly obvious. We may not know the names of the Vault Dweller's parents, but we know enough about his/her background to presume the rest. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What about Icewind Dale then? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Never played Icewind Dale, so I really can't say. Besides, I... dislike Forgotten Realms...

Seriously ? And do you tell your players what their character backgrounds are before you start a game ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No. I get them to make it up. Once they do, I work it into the ongoing campaign.