alanschu

You should probably rephrase that to "It's too bad I have to play as a Jedi" since the rest of us understand that the game is designed around the PC being a Jedi. Since we're here following the game, I think it is clear that we don't think it is too bad to have to play as a Jedi. You're in the minority Hades......not everyone thinks that a game has to give complete freedom of character development in order to be good (in fact I'd wager that very few feel that it is quite the necessity you make it out to be).

KOTOR should count since the only console it is on is the X-Box, and since it became like the best selling X-Box game I think it would be silly to ignore it.

But we wouldn't all want to be just a bunch of brains....have to work those twitch reflexes too in order to be a complete person

ROFL. Ivan...you rock. Always look forward to your posts

I think he was much better in Return of the Jedi though.

I suspect this is what they mean by your actions affecting your party members. You tell Juhani to slaughter that guy, and she better damn well get some DS points as far as I'm concerned And convincing Mission should have as well. I half expected it since they had their own spectrum of light/dark, but it wasn't fully realized.

Then that limits what you can truly take from life. Looking at the same situation from different points of view is the only way you can truly understand something. And only trusting your own extrapolations is rather arrogant. No one is the one authority on anything. Closing your mind to any outside opinion is elitist, and is the root cause for such wonderful things like prejudice. Please note, I'm not saying you are prejudiced against anyone or anything....but merely stating that people that only trust their own interpretations tend to be the ones that instigate prejudiced belief (and then passing it on to the gullible masses). Additionally, it basically nullifies your entire argument, as you basically admit to not caring what anyone else thinks about the topic....but if you didn't care, then why start the discussion?

CGI is probably one of the most time consuming and most expensive forms of special effects. Blowing up a car is quite a bit cheaper than doing one with CGI.

How is a "metagamer" worse than a powergamer? It seems like a logical way for you to at least attempt to play the game you want to play with it, given the obvious limitations of the KOTOR game that you enjoy pointing out over and over. And I know that it is not possible to talk your way out of violence at all, but as I said there wasn't even an option. Computer games cannot be as open ended as a pen and paper game. With my mad charming skills, my character wanted to try. Even if that meant trying unsuccessfully. As for "complete" control over your character. Looking at it from the "developing your character" stance, the only difference is that you essentially get the title of Jedi. I will give you that with respect to "forcing" some stuff upon you. But aside from saying "Hey you're a Jedi now," you could still choose how to develop your character in terms of skills and feats and attribute points, as well as LS vs DS. Was it implemented as well as Fallout....hell no. BTW, Fallout 1 and 2 are my two favourite RPGs of all-time, and easily two of the most enjoyable games I have ever played, much more so than KOTOR....so it's not that I have a thing against Fallout.

There's a similar type game coming out called The Fall that seems kind of interesting. Although I think it might be a bit more like Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel than the first two games...but here's hoping otherwise.

Sounds like a page out of Jedi Knight. I would imagine it would be stuff like bonus to defense at expense of attack type stance, or a more aggressive stance that gives you a bonus to damage/attack at the expense of defense or something. Keep up the good work on keeping us up to date Craftsman

But you're still playing a developer's character in Fallout, even if the means of the game are different. You could generally do things the bad way, or the good way. Now you could do the bad things through violence, manipulation, or perhaps persuasion....and the same goes for the good things. It was similar in KOTOR. They only difference is that you can say that one character is good at one weapon type...whereas a different character specializes in a different skill (which you could still do to a different extent with feats in KOTOR). And I still ran into similar problems with Fallout. Why were there times I couldn't talk my way through stuff, even though I had 10 charisma, 10 luck, and excellent speech skills? I should have been able to convince the evil dude in Junktown to just leave town, but I couldn't even try. As for metagaming, why don't you do it? It just sounds like a convenient excuse to still complain even though you don't have play the game like a Jedi.

Shields help. :D Being a droid he doesn't have to worry to much about G forces. We were also using real space rules variant so going full burn in reverse made the manuever quite simple. Keep in mind of Vader and his wingman's speeds. They past me in an instant. Mind you the starfighter that I used, a X wing variant, was pretty much scrap metal when I rammed Vader. I was unaware that the X-Wing could even go in reverse...mind you you did say it was a variant. The ship itself would still have to stand up to the G-Forces however....but whatever.

The only one it that list that forces you to play the developper's character is PS:T with TNO. All the rest has basic background history and then lets me to create any type of character I want. So you are saying you wanted to be a Bhaalspawn, Vault 13 decendant, or whatever? Fact is that any cRPG forces you to play a developer's character.....since a developer has to create the possibility have playing that character. If you didn't like PS:T because it forced you to play The Nameless One, then you clearly did not understand the premise of the game. At least Fallout provided some sort of non-linearity, and all Baldur's Gate did was let you choose a different class....but you were still the same character, and in Baldur's Gate 1 in particular, it was the same game regardless of what class you were, at least Baldur's Gate 2 had some class specific stuff as sidequests, but since you already stated that you absolutely do not like sidequests, we know where you stand on that one. Simply because KotOR does not let you play the class you want to play, you decide to moan about it. Oddly enough though, you spend a whole heck of a lot of time on these forums. You're like someone that hates some person so much that you cannot help but spend all your time watching their every move so you can feel satisified when you see them do something wrong. Furthermore, you absolutely will play KOTOR 2 since you hate the game so much. You'll play through it just to notice how bad it is so that you can complain some more. It's just the type of person you are. On a final note, there is nothing stopping you from playing KOTOR 2 not as a Jedi. It is only you that can choose to use a force power or use a lightsaber. The "Jedi" title can be merely ceremonial if you so preferred...but you would rather complain.

You aren't "just" saying that. In fact you rarely say it. Usually you complain that the game doesn't appeal to you.

Then use one.

I don't think KOTOR 3 would be necessary for putting in starting feats. They exist in NWN and IWD2. I would imagine all they would have to do would be set a flag that you can only pick the feat when your PC is level 1.

Yeah....many of the traits that you would pick at the beginning would take away from something as well. I never did have the guts to pick Jinxed....although I'm sure it could get pretty funny.

Any possibilities of their being starting feats that you can only take at the beginning of the game? You could make your character Force Adept or whatever for the extra FP like the first one, but maybe also Charming, Battle Hardened, or any sort of thing like that. Maybe a feat that lets you make a cross-class skill an actual class skill. (i.e. you could make a Charming Soldier, so that you can be a tough fighter that can still smooth talk his way out of some situations) Or maybe some easier stuff like Heroic (bonus to combat when HP is low or something). Look no further than IWD2 or NWN (and recursively I assume D&D 3rd edition) if no one has any ideas what I'm talking about

On a side note Hades, it must really frustrate you to know that every game forces you to play a developer's character. Fallout: Vault 13 member that has to get waterchip Fallout2: Vault 13 hero's decendant PST: The Nameless One Baldur's Gate: A Bhaalspawn Morrowind: The native people's decendant (can't remember their name) I seriously cannot think of any quality game that has you NOT play a character that isn't entirely your own.

The strengths of PS:T are a result of the "weakness" that is playing as TNO. The story would not have been possible if you created your own character. Playing as a random Halfling Rogue would not have allowed you to take part in TNO's quest, since only TNO could take part in it.

Since that game doesn't exist, PST must be high ranking! :D

Linearity is probably always going to be a difficult hurdle, especially if you just consider the story. The last game I remember where I could complete plot points in a non-linear fashion was the Fallout series (and before that Ultima VII). Even games championed for being "non-linear" like the Baldur's Gate series and Morrowind are actually completely linear stories. However, people see the ability to do random side quests as being "non-linear." Of course some aspects of linearity are required since a story tends to progress, and situations will only occur if past actions have occurred, but non-linearity I feel is actually quite the myth. Having said that, I do not think that a linear game is necessarily a bad one. Games such as Half-Life and Planescape: Torment are two of the best games ever made as far as I'm concerned.

Lucasarts had a dip in their game quality....it was good to start. I don't think their dip was that severe though. They started with Monkey Island games, X-Wing, TIE Fighter. They fell off a bit afterwards, but still had good games like Grim Fandango, Sam and Max (or was that earlier???), Dark Forces I & II.

Such a concentration of forces used in the attack against the Star Forge may have left most of the galaxy relatively undefended for another aspiring Sith Lord. That would probably be the LS way anyways.