Jediphile

This topic is too much fun to allow to die yet, so I'll bump it with the following (yes, I know it's bad...) Kreia: "They were the Lost Jedi, you know. The true Jedi, upon which the future will..." Exile: "LA-LA-LA - I CAN'T HEAR KREIA, BUT SHE'S STILL TALKING!"

Sorry, but seriously, yes. Goto is really just a hologram and nothing more. GOTO even shows how he put it together from a standard program to suit his needs. That's why "Goto" never appears in person in KotOR2 and why he has all that control of droids on Nar Shaddaa. If you asked the right question back on Citadel Station above Telos, you may have heard the Ithorians mention that they had another droid assigned, but that it was lost somehow. Basically foul play by Czerka is inferred there, but GOTO actually reveals the truth - he was that droid, and he was given an order to save the Republic, which caused a paradox in his (or its) programming since he could not do so without breaking the laws. The whole thing is basically a inspired by HAL in 2001, which is a nice way to salute sci-fi in general IMHO.

Not sure if I'd call it a mistake, but you're right that KotOR3 is basically committed to the whole true Sith conflict now, which they used as a means to get Revan out of the plot and make room for a new PC (Exile), but then they don't reveal that until they drop it as a bombshell at the very end of the game. So it's a mistake if they want KotOR3 to be untied to the previous games, in which case they should have made the relevation earlier and then have the Exile join Revan in the fight against the true Sith about halfway through the game.

I think what the influence system needs in a KotOR3 is more of a DS/LS axis. I mean, it's pretty stupid that Handmaiden or Bao-Dur or whomever keeps bugging the PC about doing evil things and losing influence when they are themselves pretty evil already. And that's aside from the rather silly idea of a horribly dark-sided Atton telling you about how Kreia is a bad influence and how it's really showing by now. Ahem, ever tried taking a look in the mirror, Atton? You know, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones... " Instead there should have been a LS/DS (or good/evil) division depending on which side the character is being switched to. Star Wars morality is pretty simple (and exceedingly black and white), so you shouldn't need more than two mentalities per character. I like how in some cases a character will react negatively, but can be persuaded to see things from your side instead. The problem in KotOR2 was that this manifested itself as the 'Kreia effect' and so was a sort of "Deux ex Machina" device outside player control, when it really should have been subject to your use of the persuasion skill or even Force Persuade...

I find that on the PC, the optimal time to change gear is just before the bar goes into red. The green bar (or is it yellow? I'm not certain...) ends with this rather large "unit" that separates green from red, and just as it hits that, you can change gear by pressing the left mouse button. Usually works for me, unless I get overzealous and press too soon Btw, yes, the Telos race is broken, since you can only race once and only against the best time, which is difficult to beat. I've managed to beat all the race times on Onderon, though, and I'm horrible at this sort of thing, so if I can do, then most of you should have a good change Whether to use the mouse or the A and D buttons for left and right is a good question, though. I find the mouse (or trackball in my case) to be a little unreliable, but there are times, particularly on Onderon, where you need very precise flying to hit neither mines nor rocks, so...

I had AD&D 2e working fine ten years ago, but what was fine then is not good enough today. 3e should have been the new step, and it failed miserably to carry D&D forward. I've been patching AD&D holes ever since, but there comes a time when you have to tear down before you can build because the foundation is ruined. I find it easier to scratch AD&D altogether and build something new than continuing to patch it together. This boat is leaking and it will sink... If I can find a better Fantasy RPG system, then why should I bother? And I am, I take it? Okay, I'll bite - which RPG that I like am I trying to convince people to play? A nice way of avoiding to offer counterarguments. This is now the second time in two posts you've inferred that I have a hidden agenda. Please stop doing so. My argument is that class-based games are inflexible and rigid, and I have argued that consistently. Please don't try to infer otherwise. Especially not if you're not interested in offering counterarguments. I've been arguing that fixed classes are inflexible and rigid, and so prevent the creation of good characters in every post... Sorry you missed it Also simple - you don't. If he likes hack'n slash and Roll-playing over Role-playing, then that's his business. I've had players in my campaign who criticised how I GM because they wanted more monster slashing and dungeon crawl rather than plot and character development. I had to tell that I cannot GM such a campaign because I don't enjoy them, and I can't fairly GM a campaign I don't enjoy or don't care about. Then we parted ways, and that was fair enough. Please don't quote me (or anyone else) for stuff I have never said. I have said that I find D&D rules to be limiting due to their inflexibility and I have demonstrated why I feel that way. Go back and read the first post of this topic, and you'll see that I said I would do just, and I've been consistent in doing so since then. The conclusion you arrive at here is precisely why I have never argued taste in this topic - taste is individual, and I told people in the first post that if they liked D&D, then they might want to stay clear, since I would say why I did not. My taste better than your's? Nonsense. I might just as well argue that you're now trying to make this argument personal on the basis that I willfully say things that will cause dissent, and so infer that I should stop doing that. I'm sorry that I seem to think my arguments here are just vague attempts at proving my own superioty. However, I will not be silenced simply because you don't like my arguments against the inflexibility of D&D. If my comments here have that effect on you, then you might be better served by not reading this topic at all. I want to play a blind human who has the ability to foretell the future through his magic. Does AD&D have rules for that? I want to play a knight with amnesia, who used to be the greatest warrior in the world, but who has forgotten his past due to some traumatic experience and now serves as a waiter in a tavern. Does AD&D have rules for that? I want to play a wizard who worked as a spy in his nation, but was framed by someone and is now on the run. He is really sneaky and sly and a master at innuendo and making the perfect comeback, but he has a scar on his arm from a magical fight with his arch enemy which gives him chronic pains at inopportune moments. Does AD&D have rules for that? The answer to all of the above is no. You can't make characters like that in AD&D. But you can in lots of other RPGs. You could tweak AD&D to fit them in, but it'll be on the fly as to what the GM will allow and not something that is in the rules. You can't even do this in 3e, even though many other games allowed for things like this years (if not decades) before 3e came out...

I was playing before then. I played when 2e hit the streets. Back then it looked good. It doesn't today. That still leaves us with no RPG system ever being good or bad... Build a bridge and get over it... Maybe not, but that doesn't mean that the core system isn't still inflexible and rigid. Maybe you can make up for the inflexibility of classes in your game, but that doesn't mean that they're not there and that they present a problem in general. I'm certain they will. Can't agree with you there. Call of Cthulhu 5th edition was skill-based and yet it took half the time it took to make up new AD&D 2e characters... And it's not as if we didn't have practice in both - we may have played AD&D for years first, but we died more often in CoC That goes in any game, even AD&D. I introduced a new player to AD&D a few years ago - still took hours to explain the basics of the system to her and help her choose her class. Her choice was made faster by the fact that the group needed a wizard - she ended up liking the character, but the fact remains that the choice was not made by her but by the inflexibility of the rules, which I find difficult to see as something good. Ah, but that criticism is doubly relevant against (A)D&D, if not more so, since the archetypes are far more strongly enforced there than in any skill-based game. After all, D&D archetypes are not just limited - they're completely fixed! What, I'm not allowed to voice criticism over the system? Sure I can fix things on my own, but the question still is why I should have to - should the game be flawless and bugfree before I buy it? AD&D is less subject to this criticism than 3e simply on the basis of its age, but that doesn't mean it's without flaws - as written in 2e, the dual-class rules present a gaping hole for exploitation that simply begs players to take advantage of it if they are also lucky enough to have the stats for it.

Better distinction, yes, but I remain quite certain that there will not be distinct and different paths for the LS and DS choices in a KotOR3, since that would make the game very costly to produce. But then I have been trolling against in the past for saying so... "

I suppose they are the lost jedi in the sense that they hold the potential of of the future of the jedi, only the destruction of the order meant that they never reached that potential until the Exile chanced upon them. Note how Kreia puts it (even in the DS ending): "They were the Lost Jedi, you know. The true Jedi, upon which the future will be built. They simply needed a leader, and a teacher." I take that to mean that had the Jedi order not been brought down by the Jedi Civil War, they likely would all have been trained as jedi because their potential was great. Of course, you could argue that it's then extremely convenient that they all just happen to cross the Exile's path, but then that might also simply be the will of the Force (which Kreia hates) guiding their actions toward the Exile...

continued from above... I was a DM in AD&D more than 15 years ago, which should suggest how long I might have been playing it... And where have I said others cannot enjoy it? You seem to enjoy, and I doubt you're about to stop just because I argue it's a hopelessly outdated system. That neither means that it cannot be enjoyed nor that it is not obsolete. Well, I guess you're entitled to your opinion, no matter how flawed or misguided I might think it is... Personally I go everytime I have to use the combat resolution and when I push against the rigidity of the simplistic rules for the n'th time - again and again I find myself frustrated over why something cannot be done, why there are all those annoying spells, etc. Uhm, AD&D is dead... I had already played AD&D for years by then. It was okay back then, but this is more than a decade ago. Much better games have been written since then. Heck, even d20 is better, it's just nowhere near the quality a game should be today. Never said others can't enjoy it. I just said it's rigid, outdated, inflexible, and obsolete. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it if that's your thing... Swordfighting is outdated in modern warfare as is horseriding in modern transportation, but that doesn't mean they cannot have their own vintage charm as a reminder of history. AD&D is the same for RPG. It still has it's own historic charm and be enjoyed as such.

Simple. No alternative when I began, and now I have a lot of time invested in the game with all the revisions and house rules I made, plus I've become used to it, sort of like a pair of old shoes you've gotten used to. But sometimes you need new shoes because the old ones are just beyond hope. By that logic nothing is ever good or bad because it's a matter of individual taste. In the same manner you could say that nazi principles or similar is just subjective opinion or whatever. Similarly, there shouldn't be awards given to movies, music or whatever, since it's all just down to opinion, in which case discussion becomes irrelevant and pointless, since we can all argue individual taste. To use that as an argument is to claim that all discussion on any topic is void and senseless. If I agreed with that, I would not frequent these boards or any others. Well, D&D is more than 30 years old now. How old are GURPS, d6, and WoD? RPG has changed a lot since the creation of D&D, but D&D itself has changed very little. I would agree that 3e is very different to earlier editions, but it still has most of the things that make those editions obsolete today (fixed classes, experience levels, hit points, AC, old style xp, etc.). The other systems have changed little because they are already decades ahead of D&D, whereas D&D is stagnant because even the newest edition retains concepts more than 30 years old now. Nonsense. Rigid and inflexibility is never a good thing. Ever. There is no reason a skill-based system cannot offer just as good entry-level solutions through templates as fixed classes can. And to claim that I'm biased because I look at it objectively while you refuse to do so is rather questionable. It's fine for you if AD&D fits your seemingly limited requirements for what makes a good RPG system, but that doesn't make it any less rigid and inflexible, and claiming otherwise does indeed indicate bias. Now, you have a lot of time and experience invested in AD&D and you're used to it - I understand that because I feel just the same way, and yet I've chosen to cast AD&D aside. If you choose to defend AD&D rather than asking why that is, then it would suggest that you realize that the answer is not one you like... Not strange at all - AD&D has long since been overtaken by far better games, but I was used to AD&D and had lots of rules-tweaking invested in it, so I stuck with it for a while. But eventually I must accept that it's dead and that it's time to move on... It's puzzling to me that you're so quick to accuse me of bias against AD&D when you know I've probably played it as much or maybe more than you. You like AD&D and you don't like that I criticize it, but I find it interesting that you spend more time trying to undermine my arguments and my reasons for making them than offering counterarguments of your own. Could that be becasue there are no counterarguments and AD&D is indeed outdated and obsolete, only you don't like admitting that, and so you don't like me making you aware of it? continued...

You know, to me this sounds just like someone saying that people who like ice cream are stupid and that they can't help it if people like ice cream... There is a word for behavior like that. It's called trolling...

Sakarie: "Oh, I see that's grabbed your interest, eh? Well, there's only one way you're going to get that Quxoni crystal - one open starport visa. No visa, no rare lightsaber crystal!" Exile: "I find your lack of faith disturbing..." [Force Chokes Sakarie, then takes the crystal]

We should make a film - "D&D me" about how bad the game really is. I'm sure we could get Pat Pulling's crowd and the angry mothers of America behind that... This speaks nothing to quality. Heck, you even admit that yourself, which scarcely denies the argument that D&D is a system of poor quality. AD&D/D&D is indeed the grand-daay of RPGs - I've have never said otherwise. D&D was *the* original RPG and it always will be. That's not my criticism. My criticism is that the beast has been stagnant for about a decade and a half now, and that's just not good enough. I'm biased against it? I still play AD&D myself, so I should think I have pretty good insight into whether it's a good system or not. Besides, you can scarcely deny bias for yourself either, which doesn't leave with a good basis of references from which to offer counterarguments to my position. Millions may enjoy it, but do they enjoy because it's good or because they don't know any better? You and I both play out of nostalgia. Back in the day we could play D&D or we could play board games. We went with D&D because it was RPG. However, D&D no longer has monopoly on the RPG market (much as WOTC would like that to change...), and there are several good systems out there that are far more polished, elegant, and unrestrictive than D&D. So if you're right and millions play and enjoy D&D, the question is why don't these people play these other, better games? It's because people like you and I are still the backbone of the industry and we've gotten used to D&D the same way people have gotten used to the Big Mac. But it's certainly not because there isn't anything better out there, and new players play D&D because people like you and I tell them that D&D is fun and good entry level RPG. We have to stop that and direct them toward much better RPGs in the future. I certainly intend to.

Oh my God - they killed KotOR2!! The bastards!!!

Atton: "Ah, what are you doing to my mind... What do you want with me?" Kreia: "All games of Dejarik needs it's pawns, murderer, and this promises to be a very long game..." Exile: "Get away from him, you BITCH!!"

In most cases, yes, but how often is happens and what is changed is also frequently different between games. The games that are changed most often and have the same things changed are usually the bad ones. The d20 is one those. Huh? Why? Can't say I agree there. I definitely role-play more than roll-play, but d20 has two problems when it comes to this: 1. The rules support roll-playing over role-playing. The latter is not impossible, but it is less frequent, and the rules are very much structured toward combat. I mean, how many stats outside of skills are not combat-oriented in one way or another? 2. The rules strictly enforced a fixed class system that you must adhere to whether you like it or not, meaning that your character will be prohibited from doing certain things or combining certain abilities. In d20 palyers are on a leash - you won't feel it as long as you play within the rigid archetypes, but try pulling at it a little and you'll be reined in. True, though I don't think Fallout is a good example, since it let you fire shots one at a time - you could stop at any time between shots. The old AD&D "gold box" games (if anyone remember those - Pool of Radiance (the original one), Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, etc.) would be a better example - I once had my paladin attack the evil wizard only to find that he was protected by Fire Shield. Now in AD&D 1e that meant I took twice the damage I inflicted (not just the same as in 2e or that pathetic random dice roll in 3e). Ouch! And as if that wasn't bad enough, my paladin had multiple attacks, and the game wouldn't allow me not to use all the remaining on the same target... Ouch indeed!

Yes, but isn't that just an indication that something is flawed in the system, and that the flaw is so obvious that any player realizes it must be fixed? It occurs to me that it's usually D&D players who arrive at this conclusion, and they usually change the same things. I don't nearly as often hear of rule-tweaking in GURPS or Storyteller or several other game systems. That's not to say they don't occur, but they are far less frequent, and far individual (i.e., the players change different things in their games).

I must say that I don't really understand what people are talking about - KotOR2 is a cliff-hanger as far as I can tell - it's begging for a sequel. All Kreia's talk of the true Sith and how Revan went to the unknown regions? They already set up the third game, so what's all the fuss about? Besides, there have been several suggestions on this board regarding what could be happening in a KotOR3, so...

Like Lucas intended from beginning to let Luke and Leia be siblings, you mean?

Well, I'm not about to blame you. I gave the link to a friend who's played World of Warcraft. He laughed so hard I feared for his health... So thanks for the link - I find myself watching that bit over and over just to hear disbelief of the players :D

Nihilus: "Mmmhgggr hmmmlllrgg!" Exile: "Gesundheit"

Well, I guess we have a definite ruling by the final arbiter of all things KotOR... "

Well, Lucas didn't know that Star Wars (i.e., Episode IV) would be a trilogy either, so where does that leave us? And while KotOR2 was cut and unfinished, and therefore left a half-baked impression, I do applaud the writers on their plot. It's not easy to build a compelling sequel to a game that really is done and finished, but they actually managed to think of a reason that worked logically. I mean first you find out that you're the evil Revan who sought to conquer the Republic for the Sith and then rule the galaxy, and then in the sequel you find out that wasn't quite that simple after all. Some have argued inconsistencies and plotholes between KotOR1 and KotOR2, but I must say that I don't see them. And the overall story you want is the struggle against the menace of the true Sith. Yes, Revan and the Exile are powerful characters now, but then you don't have to play them from the beginning - even at the end of KotOR2 the Exile isn't a god (though the enemies were pushovers...). I see no trouble with working them into the game, though it cannot be during the first half.

Hmm, one of the better moments is when you're fleeing through the Harbinger, Atton tells you something is about to happen, but you continue and then suddenly you look back and see Sion behind you... No danger at all, and no need to save, since nothing happens that will threaten your group, but dramatically it worked very well, particularly because Sion appeared without lots of fanfare and ominous music - the silence was far more ominous than any music would have been at that moment, and you got this feeling that he had been quietly following you for a while...