EnderAndrew

I don't understand how people say Revan was a better character. Revan had zero characterization. What did you learn about Revan? What was his/her past? What did Revan care about? What were Revan's fears and aspirations? Revan doesn't exist as a real character. Revan is an ideal you have in your head of how you played him/her. Revan is not the same for any large group of players, and that makes Revan near impossible for a game to portray again in the near future. I haven't beat KOTOR:2 yet, but I'm real curious to find how why the Exile is an exile.

+5 to an attribute is far from crap. That's huge.

This may be a serious bug. Several people claim they saw nothing at the end of the game. Chris Avellone said there should be a series of "spash screens" giving you a mini-epilogue for the various places you've visited like Fallout's ending. And BTW, KOTOR is set 4,000 years before Episode III. Revan's not showing up. I just thought people should know. Lucas did say a character from the EU who has never been in the movies will however make an appearance in Episode III. I'm hoping for Mara Jade, personally.

I'm crossing my fingers that the PC version won't have nearly as many problems.

The game is locking up a bit more for Sarah, but the quest and dialogue seem vastly improved, and I think KOTOR:2 is a better game. Waiting until Feb to release it probably would have helped, but that was LA's decision, not Obsidians. I think you have a point that we see the game in a different light as a sequel. Instead of enjoying it as a game, we hold it to higher standards.

This is the first thing I thought of when other people brought up influence complaints. I thought of how I would design it differently. Then it occured to me that there is a problem. Let's say you decide to turn NPC1 into a dark sider. This NPC gives you influence points by being nice. Being a bully seems to turn him off. Yet, you can corrupt him to the dark side by playing upon his passions. As he becomes more and more dark, should he's be affected less by bullying? Yes and no. If we can now bully without reprieve, then influence means nothing. He agrees with what you do either way. From a game mechanic perspective we can't do that. Part of the replay value and challenge of KOTOR:2 is gaining influence with different NPCs. You can't please them all, all of the time. I think the best way to handle this is to be careful how influence checks are handled later in the game.

Fair enough. I'm fond of them. And while Shadowstrider is concerned that it turns the board into a popularity contest, I see it as a way to downgrade post count and cheer up another's day. If nothing else, I find them interesting. Does anyone remember how the board blew up in size when KOTOR:2 was officially announced, and then again at NWN:2's announce, and then when KOTOR:2 went gold? This board is only going to grow and grow. I think that as the board gets huge, it will be quite difficult for devs to read the board and see suggestions. The Bethseda forums are a nightmare. Posts get buried in a few hours and disappear forever. With karma, the devs see how certain member's of the forum share the support of other members. People who make good suggestions will receive support. Polls are the bane of most forums, while karma provides another method to demonstrate solidarity and popularity in concepts while not auto-bumping themselves. From that aspect, the mod is not only a feature, but something that can be beneficial to new users, and developers alike when reviewing posts. I don't see a real downside.

I know alot of people who said this battle was quite hard. He saved against most every Force power, and he healed himself all day long with the tubes. But I wore heavy armor, and was a lightsaber wielding tank with my Guardian character with a 24 strength. Malek went down like a chump on the first try.

Jack Bristow is a great character. And the commercial/trailer for Season 4 shows a lot of Syd's sister. She will probably be the biggest supporting character in Season 4.

Bethseda has won RPG of the year for every RPG they've ever released. I think you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that they are the WORST RPG developer of all time, even if you don't like their games. Arena and Daggerfall were great fun, even if Morrowind was quite flawed. And while you complain about other RPG houses releasing buggy games and the like, Betheseda is their own publisher. They put serious time and money in their products. They support their products heavily, and they listen to fan suggestions. So, how does that make them the WORST RPG developer in the universe?

Why is a playoff the end-all answer? Most college sports have playoff systems. Do you really think the best team in the country wins the NCAA basketball tourneys each year? Nope. Do the best 8 teams make it to the College World Series every year? No. Did the best team just win the NCAA volleyball tourney? No. The top ranked team didn't make the Final Four. Playoffs mean removing the bowl system, they mean playing during finals for student atheletes, they mean a longer schedule which means more injuries, etc. And it doesn't mean that the best team wins at the end. There is no perfect system. Pick a set of rules at the beginning of the year, and play by them. But don't bitch at the end of the year that you didn't like the rules. Auburn should be happy. They've got the easiest matchup of the national title contenders. Auburn is all but guaranteed a split national title and a bowl victory. For USC and Oklahoma, they have a tough game and face possible huge dissapointment. My idea is to take the top 8 teams in the BCS rankings and pair them together. Forget conference matchups and BS. We shouldn't have a team barely in the top 25 playing in a BCS game while the number 5 team in the BCS gets left out. If you make the top 8, you get a BCS game. That's fair.

Karma mods allow the community to recognize certain posters, and it allows new users to spot recognized members of the community.

I didn't think any of the IE games were hard to beat because I was familiar with the "twinks" inherent in the D&D rules.

Realism vs. Game Balance is always a tricky thing. There was a particular quest that popped up. My girlfriend is playing DS, and didn't want to start the quest because it only seemed to have LS potential. Yet, as the quest developed she had a new opportunity to twist the seemingly heroic action into a cruel and self-serving one. If you think like a Sith Lord, and not a thug, you'll see more in this game.

BTW, on topic.... I can guarantee you that there is no KOTOR:3 trailer on the disc. I won't advocate pirating the game, and will throw something at anyone who asks me how, but there are people who have made "back-ups" of this game. They've broken down the files on the DVD, etc. etc. I know people who are changing options in the ini file before loading it up on their XBox and the like. If it's on the disc, people have looked it over. And there is no KOTOR:3 trailer that I'm aware of. And for the record, despite owning a modded XBox, I did actually buy KOTOR:2 as my girlfriend will happily attest to. She's the one that broke down and bought it, actually.

Some RPGs practically play themselves. I saw one person here claim that KOTOR:1 had better graphics, was more difficult, better planets, and better quest design. I think he's completely wrong on every point. Especially quest design, which requires a little more thought and active playing this time around. Dialogue options require more thought, and sometimes you actually have to consider what to do next in the game. God forbid an RPG require to be awake to play it.

Here's my advice to PC users who are hesitant to play this because of XBox "bugs". Wait til other people have the PC release. Rent it if you have an XBox. Go to a retail store where they have XBox games for play on display and try it there. I ran into some lag and lockups, but no real "bugs" per se.

I don't want to cross-post, so I'll simply point here. I think the influence issue is one that pertains to both XBox and PC, so I posted in the general area. http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=27280

I didn't play KOTOR on PC, so I can't say what it was like.

Okay. I'm seeing a lot of people complaining about Influence. And then I began worrying about how it might adversely affect the game, especially people playing DS. However, I observed Princess Sarah playing the game and I've noticed a few things. Influence checks come into play mainly when you deal direclty with said NPC. If you kill people, and act like an evil bastard, the game seems to allow for that. If party members reacted adversely every single time, there would be no possible way to turn someone to the dark side, since you'd lose influence with any DS action. In the very beginning of the game, Sarah got some plenty of DS points before the first influence opportunity. When she spoke to the party members, and they argued over the course of action, you could choose to assure either member, or insult either member. You were going to gain a point of inlfuence with either member, or lose influence with one. Looking at the dialogue options, I could see a Sith Lord answering any of the four options, and a Jedi answering any of the four options. Palpatine is an evil bastard who used flattery, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi who had little to no compassion for the Gungans, and didn't hesitate to call Jar-Jar "another pathetic creature". People are missing the fact that the Dark Side path is more akin to a true Sith Lord. You can lie to your party members, placate them, and then twist them to do evil deeds. Once you have influence on them, you can corrupt them completely. If you constantly tell your party members to screw off and attempt to bully them, you're not going to turn many people. This isn't a bug. This isn't a broken system. This is exactly as it should be. If the system were changed as some people have asked (where if you turned someone dark, you'd suddenly get influence for doing dark things etc.) then basically you'd automatically get inlfuence with every party member for doing whatever you were going to do anyway with no effort. That's a broken system. Even if you corrupt someone in your brief time with them, they will have their innate instincts and personality they've developed over years. You might push someone towards violence, passion and anger, but that doesn't mean they desire innocent people to be bullied for no reason. We asked for a better dark side path, and we got one.

I find it real hard to believe that a game will refuse to install if it detects nero considering that Nero will try and stop you from copying protected/copyrighted content, and nero express comes free with most CD or DVD burners.

Hades, didn't you swear to never buy KOTOR:2? I'm glad you've had a change of heart and want to support Obsidian. I thought for a while that you were just here to bitch. (Mind you, I don't dislike Hades. We've agreed on various things in the past, and I'm sure he's a pretty intelligent fellow. I'm just holding him to his word). I haven't seen any "bugs" in the game. Several people have played flawlessly. What "bugs" I've seen are just lag and lock-ups. I'm guessing that may be due to the inferior XBox hardware. On a system with nearly 10 times as much memory, you're probably less likely to see these. However, I understand that I'm merely speculating.

Except that old ATI drivers had problems with a variety of games. There are people who use non-manufacturer drives for ATI cards. I like the hardware, but the drivers aren't always great.

You said all during KOTOR:2's production that you hated Star Wars games because Star Wars games are all about Jedi, and Lucas won't make a Star Wars game that wasn't about Jedi. Hrm. The original Star Wars arcade game Star Wars trilogy game Super Star Wars Super Empire Strikes Back Super Return of the Jedi (all three allow playing as Chewbacca or Han) Rouge Squadron I, II, and III. Rebel Assault I and II Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi Dark Forces Bounty Hunter Battlefront Republic Commando X-Wing Tie Fighter X vs Tie X-Wing Alliance Star Wars Galaxies Battle for Naboo Episode 1: Racer Racer's Revenge Starfighter Jedi Starfighter (you could use other ships if you didn't want to be a Jedi). Shadows of the Empire Galactic Battlegrounds and Clone War expansion Force Commander Demolition Super Bom-Bad Racing Clone Wars That's about 31 games off-memory where you didn't have to play as a Jedi. Either way, you bitched non-stop that you were mad Obsidian was making KOTOR:2 and said you refused to buy it or give it a chance. That was before you knew anything about the game, or knew what weaknesses it would have (save for the Jedi connection). Face it. You were predetermined to hate the game.

I agree. I think people are exaggerating about bugs, or they got bad discs, which is LA's fault. It's not that Obsidian refused to finish the game. When people can play the whole way through and not hit a bug, that means the game is pretty decent. I can name countless PC releases I've bought that aren't really playable for the first two months until two patches come out.