Naso

(talking about KotOR 1): Well after the new catalyst it worked fine for me, including SP2, but my buddy just got the game, has a laptop, he can't play 10 minutes before it locks up and he has to do the whole powerbutton, scandisk, reboot thing... He's very angry, and I can't say I blame him. I know it was fixed in an ATI release, but I really have suspicions that it was Bioware's fault, not ATI. I mean for such a high profile game, I can't believe ATI would not fix it sooner if it were not questionable coding, seeing how they've been so quick for everything else, and considering Bioware's track record. That said, I'm very concerned for KotOR 2 using the same engine......

OOps, didn't notice that it was all his games.. Dumb question but have you made sure to completely remove all drivers from previous hardware? Sometimes some of that sticks around and can cause some weird stuff.

It's not your card, it's KotOR. It's the least optimized, most messed up engine I've ever seen......

I don't think it's possible to do that with the engine at all easily, and we don't have any of the tools, so I doubt we'll see it.

I remember that my dex-based guardian hit Malak a lot, but took forever to kill him. Also, damage resistance for droids and such really hurts a dex character.

Will it work any better with ATI cards? Please??????

I was so disappointed when they basically put the flight stuff in galaxies, where there's little content and I'm not going to pay a subscription fee..... That was bad... There is a market for this stuff, (they rereleased freespace 2 a while ago), but it's not quite as big as the drooling 13 year old market.....

Or pc's just don't support 3xx x whatever resolution, or whatever the hell tv's use.

In all fairness, I haven't played tactics games and such, but I did look at screenshots and it looks like a slightly beefed up version of what you get in say a final fantasy game, which I haven't played too much of, but basically amounts to showdowns of a few on a few in which you have a turn to select from 4 or 5 actions, right?

It seems a bit too systematic, making cheap quick games to tie in with trash. I mean, they cancelled Sam and Max 2 pro'lly because they can make more money by marketing episode 3 card games or whatever.....

I meant more along the lines of Rome Total War, or Homeworld, or stuff like Alpha Centauri.

Weren't most of the ep. 1 games mostly just quick cash though?

Those are mostly older though, and LA used to be EXCELLENT. The X-wing series is my favorite ever. However, lately it's been more and more cheap cash-ins, with a lot of bugs, cancelling good games for derivative crud, and a total lack of support. There were huge issues with kotor 1. Jedi Academy was ok, i guess, but the lack of support just killed it. Don't get me started on the month without working multiplayer...... (maybe that was just Raven though. not entirely sure) I do envy you the rogue squadron franchise, even though it's less simulation... Maybe my console hatred is just pent up anger

I agree about morrowind's problems, but little things, like not being able to enter text for merchant sales, stuff like that. I haven't played GTA. I tried a little of #3 and didn't like it, but that the subject matter looks stupid to me. I'm all for violence in games, but it seemed pretty crass and pointless to me. If it's truly as complicated as you say, then that's pretty bloody impressive, but would by far be the exception, not the rule. RPG's dont' always need complexity though. KotOR was great, and quite simple. Things like strategy games, however, rarely get on consoles, partly due to demographics, partly due to complexity.

Do you know how many kids play those things? I work at a summer program and so many 6th graders play GTA you wouldn't believe... Madden et all? Previous comment on football, and maybe a small one on slowed development I know about the mech thing. Sims are dying on pc's, it's true. Morrowind though? That interface was consolified, as was kotor's. There is a lot of porting, because the xbox was designed as a mini-pc and that has been influencing game design for a long time now in many ways. I didn't say that the be all and end all of interface was number of keys, and the mouse eliminates that. Consoles don't have mice, and approximating it with the little joysticks doesn't work all that well in my experience.... Wow, I love the way it edited c*ockpit. That's freakin' hilarious... unless of course you said something else

Wow. Just wow....

Yes yes, I've seen the xbox. PC games have gotten simpler because the new generation of consoles have cut into the market share, there have been more and more parallel developments, such as kotor, etc. Do you really expect companies to turn their backs on the console paradigm, which is proving extremely profitable?

They've said a lot of things.....................

Consoles only have a couple of buttons. Therefore, console games involve pressing said couple of buttons repeatedly. These repeated presses of buttons have their own term: combos. Console games, due to the lack of controls, tend to have very simple interfaces, allowing correspondingly simple interactions. This makes console games simplistic and highly repetitive, and, therefore, they are primarily marketed to small children and the sit around the apartment drinking beer and eating pizza to lazy to do anything but watch football demographic of 20-something guys who don't want to leave the couch in between sporting events.

With all the tech stuff and the apparent lack of interest, maybe they are bio-junior......

Possibility to fix it. Key word there: possibility... I'm pretty worried about this one now. It sounds like a mess and they haven't delivered on promises. Maybe I'll start my LA boycott early...

I'm not saying it's easy, but that they should have accounted for that, and didn't. I mean, as nice as it would be, I am not going to spend 50 dollars to give them an A for effort...........

Ok, I'm not talking about the lack of eye candy itself, just the whole deal. It seems like a lot of what was said hasn't panned out. I'm a pc person, but the xboxers seem to be having countless problems with the thing. You say it's all lucas arts' fault, and really, I hate them, but it's not like LA just assaults developers in some back alley and forces them to sign contracts. I understand that this is a great opportunity for a new dev and all, but really, there had to have been some opportunity for setting reasonable expectations at some point during the contract phase, and if they were not accepted and chose to go ahead with it anyway, that's their choice. The poor performance of the engine, particularly on ATI cards was a problem for me. The devs said they were fixing it. This seems not to have happened, and while we don't yet know about the ATI performance, I have serious reservations at this point, as it seems like the ball has been dropped on nearly every technical aspect.

If they don't look any different, that's really really bad imo. Complete and total laziness, and they promised more animations, which according to the reviews, they haven't given. Seeing what a buggy mess this thing is and that it doesn't have the features promised, I'm not sure I will get it when it comes out for pc.

Might have been said, but not exactly clear to me: Are there graphical indications of the form being used, ie different animations, posture, etc?