Shneider

I hope we can convert Dustil to the dark side in The Sith Lords, if he hasn't already been killed. Oh how I would imagine Carth would be seething at that in whatever afterlife awaits him. If Carth is alive he better be like that insane "Fishie Fishie" scientist in the Manaan Harvesting Facility. Hiding in some compartment on board the Ebon Hawk, suffering from severe trauma at the realization that Revan corrupted his ittle wittle boy. :D

I feel somewhat odd in mentioning this but I don't believe there was any point to Palpatine's actions only that he did it for the sake of doing it. If you recall one of Yoda's proverbs he mentions something to the effect of: "Once you journey down the path of the darkside; forever will it dominate you"-or some such. I suppose the point is that there was no point to it ultimately... Anyway, is it just me or does Palpatine seem to possess this vaunted Battle Meditation skill as well. I've reread some of the sequels and Grand Admiral Thrawn makes a point in mentioning that the Imperial Navy was enchanced by Emperor Palpatine's will, hence the primary purpose of the Death Star in creating a mobile station with which he could coordinate and augment Imperial efficiency as it were. And I double checked, Mara specifically states it was Vader's right hand that was removed.

I would argue that the system of applying such an artibrary scale of right and wrong is flawed (or light and dark as it were), in that it should be applied locally to these vaunted force adepts. The concept of force and destiny is in and of itself riddled with contradiction, in that given this concept of destiny none the less, it applies the determinist philosophy to which was referred.

To be honest, I didn't much care for the "light/dark side scale" in terms of reputation of sorts, especially when applied to non force adepts/jedi/sith- basically droids and the vast majority of non jedi. Things such as using the force to corrupt the minds or enemies, settle disputes or determine treachery or basically any manipulation of the force to solve whichever event should determine whether one walks the dark path or light path as it were. Not thievery, unless it could be determined that such and such a character used the force to aid in this. Different dialogue trees would add more replay-ability from my perspective, I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as fixing anything as some stories are just linear. No big deal if they are done well. Combat needed some balancing. Passive deflection of blaster shots should be tossed out the proverbial window. I should not be able to leave my jedi character alone and completely unmanaged while half a dozen combat droids fire at him/her, leave and return a few minutes later with the droids in a smoking pile of rubble. Projectile/range whatever weapons need balancing as well. If you were hit with a stun weapon with a setting that could take down a wookie, your character should be unconscious or somehow adversly affected while he uses these jedi abilities to reorient him/herself. Apply rules or status changes in some proportional way for different species or characters with specific feats conditioning what have youl.

It should also be noted that Lord Vader lost his right hand to Palpatine after the Death Star incident, as this was reported by Mara Jade to Luke Skywalker in Timothy Zahn's extrapolation of the Star Wars saga in Dark Force Rising.

First off, was Knights of the Old Republic 2 announced at some point? Until I see anything other than supposition I will reserve judgement on whatever Obsidian has in the works. Also Visceris, on what grounds can you make such a sweeping statement as "All the games Black Isle has produced in the past have been overrated..." You are entitled to your opinion, but to automatically dismiss those of people who have enjoyed BI titles such as Planescape Torment, the Baldur's Gate Saga et al is a touch hypocritical, wouldn't you agree? On that note, let Obsidian produce a track record and then make judgements from that; then your views might have more integrity to them.