Jediphile

Yeah but... dialog is kinda the biggest aspect of the Kotor games. True, but that's what "replay value" is all about. As far as I know, Int 16 and Wis 16 will as well as high values in certain skills, particularly Awareness, will allow you to see all conversation paths, depending on chosen responses obviously. Me too. Kreia may be annoying, but her mentor ability sure rakes in the xp. Besides, you can't escape her rants anyway. Also, you don't need to exploit cheats for infinite xp. The trick is a high Demolition skill and lots of mines. Just plant a bunch of them. Then leave the area, return, then retrieve them all again. You get an xp award for every retrieved mine, but you must have left the area before you do so. Cheating? You tell me... After all, the game allows it without restriction.

No, it's fine. I usually have a similar set up, except I put 14 in Charisma instead of Strength, which I lower to 12, still taking 10 Dex. But then I tend towards the sentinel/jedi master combo. One thing to note, though, is that skills are far more important in K2 than they were in K1. Most of them are highly useful if not essential at some point during the game, and none of them are useless. Hence I prefer the sentinel (who gets more skill points) over the consular or guardian in K2, whereas I always went for the guardian in K1. You'll be hard pushed to create a character combination to bring you into trouble, though, because this game is easy - even set to highest difficulty level, my sentinel/jedi master still walked through all opposition no problem with all the buff items and stuff you'll find in this game. So don't worry about that. At most you'll miss some dialogue options and such along the way. Oh, if you like implants, note that there are no Implant Level feats in K2 like there were in K1. Instead ability to use implants defaults to your Con ability, with an 18 Con required for the most advanced implants (and bonuses to Con from items and similar will not count toward that goal), but you can up your Con when you get your stats upgrade every four levels, and unlike K1, K2 does not have a level cap of 20. It actually has a level cap of 50, but you're exceedingly unlikely to ever get there or even want to - usually you complete the game around level 27-28, unless you exploit bugs or similar to go higher.

Why bother? If the LA/Bioware MMO is KotOR, then they already made their choice. Besides, I'm sure LA already has someone skimming boards like this one for reaction from the fanbase. And if they're not, then they don't care anyway.

I'd probably write about how the aging Luke Skywalker's last days as grand master of the jedi council. I like Luke and always have done, which is probably because he was one of my great childhood heroes (of which there are few indeed). I don't want to see Luke brutally killed, but the way the post-RotJ/New Jedi Order novels are going, it's probably only a matter of time, because Luke has become a force-god who can defeat any opponent, no matter how potent. The Sith or any other evil guys out there basically have no hope of success ever, unless they do old Luke in somehow. I'd hate that. I'd much rather see a slightly disillusioned Luke, who comes to term with the position he holds among the jedi can gradually comes to see that the order stagnates because of it, because everybody expects him to fix all the problems if things go wrong, and so nobody aspires to their full potential anymore. Done right this could even become a threat to the Republic itself. I'd have Sith and just plain criminals inspire a cult to Luke's honor and then use that cause dissent in the Republic that they can exploit through a "divide and conquer" tactic. It'll end with a big, dreadful confrontation, where a bunch of Sith and villains ambush Luke on his own, certain that as powerful as he is, he cannot fight an army on his own. They're wrong, though, and Luke hands them their rears in fierce duel. I imagine the major bad guy saying, "even you cannot defeat all of us alone," and Luke answering, "then maybe I need help from my father", after which he grabs both his own green lightsaber and Anakin's blue one. It ends with a Luke that is triumphant and is hailed as the hero by the people, who are then shocked to hear him announce that he is stepping down as grand master of the council and leaving the Republic. Leia will object, but Luke will remain firm and say that he has become a problem, because his presence impedes growth in the Republic and can be used against them - Luke is still just a man, but too many won't accept him as anything less than a higher being. With that Luke leaves the Republic, never to be seen again, but passing into legend with the obvious stories about how somebody saw him on this world saving some people from pirates or sightings of a mysterious robed person coming to the aid of the people in their time of need. It's a fitting end, I think, and avoids the problem of having Luke's dead corpse thrown upon us. Okay, so I take a page out of G'Kar's chosen exit from Babylon 5, but I find it even more fitting for Luke. Besides, Leia is then the likely candidate as grand master of the jedi council, which will be an entirely new challenge for her, creating the possibility of new plots.

Personally, I'm sold on "The Dark Knight". I think it's the best film of 2008, and I say that knowing full well we're only half way through. But really, I see nothing on the horizon to challenge The Dark Knight for the title. I love the X-Files too, but I have to admit that I see no way for Mulder and Scully to top Batman this year. None. That goes for everything else out there too. "The Dark Knight" is not merely a Batman classic or even a superhero-movie classic - it's simply a movie classic.

To quote from a similar discussion in the game Band of Brothers: "...He can shoot lasers from his eyes. From his EYES!" Superman doesn't have laser-sight, just heat-vision. That can be deadly, but then Batman seems to have a tendency to carry Kryptonite around, it seems...

Seriously? Moore is 3 years older, and has never been the physical presence Connery has. Can you picture Moore in the PTS fight scene? The fight at the Heath Club? Any fight scene? Now if want to argue that Octopussy released the same year is a better film, then you might have an argument otherwise Connery>Moore My point was sort of that they should both have stopped long before they did. Moore shouldn't have done Moonraker (bleh...) and Connery shouldn't have done Never Say Never Again. Sure, Moore was a different Bond, but that doesn't make him worse by default - he had a certain classy (perhaps over-class, as in arrogang) style and finesse was resultet in some hilarious moments. I won't dismiss that so easily just because Connery excelled in other areas. And before anyone says Connery was the "real Bond", we all know that the real Bond must be the original, the person who first played the character, which would then be Barry Nelson

And in non-Dark Knight yet movie related news, I just had a chance to see Connery's last stint as Bond again in "Never Say Never Again" on dvd. Ouch... I must say, Moore has nothing to be ashamed of as Bond after Connery did that bit. I just couldn't get over how much younger they try to make him look on the dvd cover, and how much older he looked in the film. Some things you just shouldn't return to...

Why not just put Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" on the big screen then? Batman surely kicks Superman's rear at the end of that But then I don't think they have the rights to do that. Or at least I don't think Nolan does.

Ouch, new crash bug, which means it's now 6 bugs remaining (plus 11 feature)

No, the Joker is an insane psychopath. The Riddler is "merely" a highly intelligent thief with a compulsion for overly elaborate schemes and challenging the Batman to outthink him. That difference would be practically cosmetic. The Joker of the movie issues challenges to the city or he'll commit a crime. The Riddler issues challenges to Batman to stop a crime. The only major difference in activity is that Joker is asking the people to commit a crime for him. But that's the difference - the Joker does it to incite anarchy and chaos among the population. The Riddler merely wants to get rich. The whole point of The Dark Knight is that Batman is helpless against the Joker because there is no motive to figure out - "some people just want to see the world burn," as Alfred puts it. The Joker doesn't do it for personal gain. But Batman can always catch the Riddler by interpreting his clues, and unlike the Joker, the Riddler doesn't kill. So why should Batman even bother? Sure, the Riddler will rob money, but how bad is that to the drug money taken in by the mob or the chaos the Joker creates? The Riddler looks small time by comparison and scarcely someone likely to make Gotham City fall apart. The Batman simply has bigger fish to fry in these movies than hunting down some hoodlum looking for cash in a sleuth-plot with only himself and the Riddler, where Gotham City is not an issue. In these movies Batman's goal is to prevent Gotham City from falling apart and degeneration into total corruption and apathy. The Riddler simply presents no threat to that goal, and so his presence could not carry a movie by himself. He could only be a side-character.

You can't do that - this is Star Wars, and it always ends well! Well, at least we solved the mystery of why these boards aren't the place to show off...

No, the Joker is an insane psychopath. The Riddler is "merely" a highly intelligent thief with a compulsion for overly elaborate schemes and challenging the Batman to outthink him.

It's even funnier seeing HK-47 bathed in light side mastery

I say Riddler. The only Batman villains that I think would fit Nolan's realistic take are Riddler, Hugo Strange, and Black Mask. Black Mask is too new to use and Hugo Strange I don't think could carry a film. Use riddler, make him a polic cryptoanalyst on the Batman case Who decides the best way to lure Batman out for revenge is to become a criminal himself. Considering how The Dark Knight ends, I'd say Hugo Strange's public psychoanalysis of Batman in the "Prey" storyline by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy would be perfect to open a third movie with. Hugo Strange has never been done on the big screen, and it would seem fitting in the light of Batman going nuts trying to take down the Joker for someone to pursue him for being a demented madman. And given how The Dark Knight unfolds for Bruce Wayne romantically, it also wouldn't be a bad time for Catwoman to enter the scene. She has always been the enticing femme fatale of Batman, whom he desires but knows he can never reach for. Depending on who could be cast, it could be fantastic to see the pair in a waltz of a chase across the rooftops of Gotham City similar to what can be seen in the animated Batman series. I don't think the Riddler, Penguin, Bane, or Mr. Freeze are right for Nolan's vision of Batman without either heavy rewrites of the characters or being incredibly cheesy, and in either case why bother. Riddler and Penguin could only work as small time crooks, with Penguin working in the position the comic books eventually assigned to him as a fence using a night club as cover. Clayface, Bane, Mr. Freeze or Killer Croc (though he does appear in the "prequel of sorts" animated Batman: Gotham Knight) would all be too much "action-pumped" or "visual effects bonanza" for the type of Batman Nolan is doing, and we DON'T want ANY possibility of a repeat of Schumacher's "Batman and Robin", thanks. I consider myself a Batman fan, but I'll freely admit that must one of the worst movies ever (with Alicia Silverstone's bodytight latex-suit as the only redeeming detail... )

But what would you get? If I interpret it correctly, you seem to suggest that an MMO would give you control over who your character is, unlike the KotOR games, where the character is Revan (K1) or exile (K2) with a huge background thrown upon you as a player whether you like it or not. Well, that's true, but don't recall that the strong plot of the games come from those backgrounds - there is no "poetic justice" or "balance" in choosing between whether to kill Malak and take his empire or overthrown him to save the Republic if it's not Revan doing it. By the same taken, only the exile - as a wound in the force - can defeat Nihilus and have the interest of Kreia due to a huge back story that is fixed by the developer. The exile is a wound in the force because of that backstory, and everything that happens in the plot follows as a result of the choice the exile made, which made him/her so. So it comes down to a simple question - do you prefer a fixed background by the devs that you have no control over, but which makes your character the focal point of the plot, or do you prefer to have the character to have whatever background that exists only in your made, while his only representation in the game itself is a collection of stats? Because you cannot have the rich background of Revan or exile in an MMO, at least not to an extent that matters in the plot. Now, I'd certainly like to have it both ways myself. As a tabletop GM, I always encourage players to make distinct backgrounds for themselves. Granted, I'll nix 'I was a sith lord' or 'I'm the secret lovechild of Revan and Bastila', but 'my father was killed by the evil Darth Monstrosity' or 'I'm likely to have contacts to the secret TIE Defender project because my uncle worked on the project' are viable options that can be explored in the game and make the character unique. Of course, in K1 and TSL, you don't even get a choice of your background. As far as RPG goes, that sucks to some extent, since you should ideally be allowed to decide what your background is. But naturally the devs cannot write a gazillion different backgrounds, and in any event, even with only one fixed background in the single-player CRPGs, that's still one more deep background than you'll get in an MMO, because none of those backgrounds are in an MMO. So the choice becomes whether to reduce the character to a set of stats with a fixed background written by the devs in a single-player game or whether to reduce the character entirely to a set of stats in an MMO where the background that exists only in the player's mind and can even be contradicted by the plot. Given the choice I'll go for the former every time. You may imagine the character in the MMO to be closer to the backstory you imagine for him or her, but if you sacrifice the plot to get that option, then I consider the price to high. I play for plot. If I have to accept a fixed background for my character to get that, then so be it. It's still more fun, entertaining and enticing than pure monsterslashing and spelunking IMHO.

Why? LOTR was brought in relation to comments about the implications of killing Revan and exile in K3. One argument was that killing them suggested bad writing, because killing them would be because the plotwriter did not know what to do with them. I then mentioned Boromir, because he was definitely not killed in LOTR because Tolkien did not know what to do with him, since his death has major influence on how the plot unfolds later. Besides, with all the knights and mysterious "force" wielded by "a crazy old wizard" (spoken by Owen Lars about Kenobi), Star Wars seems much closer to LOTR than it is to Star Trek or Blade Runner. Star Wars is a morality tale told with very classic definitions of good and evil, and the technology is incidental to the story. We may know now how a lightsaber supposedly works or how the death star was built, but we surely had them long, long before anybody bothered to think of the technology, and even when they did, that was still only incidental to the plot. You can do sci-fi plots in Star Wars, sure, but when did we see one outside a comic book or a minor story in an anthology - one where the technology was more significant to the plot than the battle between good (LS) and evil (DS)?

Yeah, that's right! "Lucasarts can leave their KotOR MMO plans be!" "They'll get no damn MMOney from me!"

http://digg.com/design/Star_Wars_Photoshop...Contest_Artwork

It doesn't matter WHEN it happened, my point is just that it ended with the main character's death. Actually, we don't know that Frodo died in LOTR

☜ Tbh I might'e done that too

I always put Bao-Dur and Mira in that group (Mira needs to have built her Demolitions skill, though). Those two are always certain for that mission. For the last member (and usually group leader), I tend to take Handmaiden or Atton, occasionally Visas - it depends a bit on what group buffs I've built for which character.

I played a sentinel/weapon master who kicked rear and took numbers by the end of the game, and I had a starting Strength of 12 with Dex 10 and the rest of the stats on 14. I didn't even build strength. So don't worry too much about the stats. Heck, even my sentinel/jedi master was a dual wielder who dropped people left and right in saber battle. So really, any combo is viable. The feats you choose along the way are far more important than your initial stats setup. The jedi weapon master has some particularly potent combat feats for dual/double lightsaber combat.