Sabahattin Dere

don't forget the electrocution of the Duros (?) in the Sith base on Taris; and the Romeo&Juliet conflict on Dantooine. Bounty Hunting on Taris wasn't too bad either, in fact that included one of the most evil things you could do; killing that girl (I forgot all names) who, intending to protect herself injured a gang member who wanted to rape her, and had a bounty placed on her head. Even stealing the Wraid Plate from the desperate woman on Tatooine wasn't that thuggish, since her lines were well written. Fooling the 'hopeful' waiting at the gate of the Sith academy into attacking the guard was also nice. The schoolyard bullying and the constant "what will you give me in return?" overshadowed these really evil stuff. I hope TSL has got some unsaturated evil so I'll play DS Male the first two times through.

It seems we will be able to tell Revan's gender at the beginning, which implies that either his appearance will be very brief, or that he/she won't make an appearance at all, since obsidian would have to do two sets of voice recordings for both genders which in turn would mean ridiculously inflated media storage requirements, not to mention the additional cost and time on the part of the devs. I kept looking for Revan in screenshots, etc. but this single problem pretty much rules out a full appearance. On the other hand, with Kotor not only was the voice acting superb, but the script writing proved to be very convincing as well, so I doubt we'll see anything that deviates a little bit from this high standard because that would instantaneously make people grow cold toward the game. Watching the walkthrough video what caught my attention first, trying to read the dialogue at the bottom of the screen, was its draft-like style which gave me a couple of minutes' anguish until it was revealed the demo had nothing to do with the real story.

The screen shots will be set ups, not pictures of someone actually playing the game I guess that's probably it The same PC faces will be avalable in TSL as in KotOR (plus a couple more). Those pictures just show the PC. I don't agree with this though, has it been confirmed anywhere? If the same faces were available, who would want to play through the next game with the Revan face again? I also think the devs wouldn't just arbitrarily place a Revan face in those screenshots as if it were the 'commonplace' face of a Kadir or a Hendar!

I was wondering if anyone else has had the silly idea that the guy on the 9th screenshot is *cough*Revan*cough*? That makes *4* Revan appearances total, in the current set of screenshots: #9, 32, 33 and 34. I wonder whether they just used a player portrait from Kotor, for the screenshots. Another question is whether these shots were actually 'taken' as the story itself unfolds, or represent only arbitrary poses. this is idle pondering at its higest...

sooner or later the discussion would have got stuck at a quarrel over Bastila's boobs. In 8 months everyone's going to find out what happens, all sorts of speculation proves to be futile; it serves as a pretext to incite people into quarrels. one thing, though: for the sake -at least- of next year's Kotor 3 speculations, let the leading female character have less pronounced boobs in TSL. Too inconvenient for a lady hopping around in space: Though much to the regret of many gamers, she should be thankful for the limitations of computer graphics, and the available number of, er, animations.

all we know as of yet, concerning the Kotor story is Revan's quest for the Star Maps, and his confrontation with Malak. There are lots of unknown points in Kotor 1: As M. and R. were falling into the dark side, there were certainly great Sith in the galaxy as well. I don't recall being told in Kotor 1 that M. and R. did anything more than find the space factory and operate it in order to conquer the republic -there was no mention of whether Malak confronted the greatest Sith that were already there, as he 'assumed the mantle of the dark lord'. The only person he seemed to have challenged at all was Revan, and that was more like an act of envy. My 'knowledge' of the EU is extremely weak, so correct me if I'm wrong, but at this time period, the absolute duality of the Sith wasn't yet established. Keeping in mind that in Kotor 1 we were shown only those planets with a star map on them, it's perfectly feasible that in other planets, Sith lords as strong as, or maybe even stronger than, Malak were in power; and maybe they even chose to remain silent, allowing Malak to conquer the republic with his 'endless' army, only to later overthrow the pretensious fallen jedi who thought he was the great sith lord. Now they're going to start revealing themselves, in the second episode. We know neither how M. and R. began the search for the star forge, nor how it came about, that they generated not only machinery and weapons, but founded the like of an Empire, and had flocks of people join their ranks as well. We don't know either what happened to the army that was already 'generated' and roaming the galaxy, after the 'battle of the Star Force', whether it was annihilated or not. We know little about what sort of a 'war' it was, that the Sith and the Republic were engaged in, after all. Again I think too little was revealed, what the republic army was doing all that time; was the battle ofthe star forge their first proper response against this endless army? what were they doing before? What were the jedi and politicans in Coruscant thinking to do about the Malak threat all that time? -the answer to that can't be that "they were hoping for someone to come up and start discovering ancient maps that could help", or that "they were hoping the newly programmed Revan to defeat Malak and put an end to all this". and all I was saying the previous posts was that in the next episode we'll start seeing a bigger picture; and both Revan and Bastila ought to be key characters of that 'bigger picture', I'd hate to see those characters downplayed. also: this starting interview is going to take place *inside the game* and won't be like an options screen beforehand. now, our character in TSL is supposed to be in exile all that time, how precise a knowledge of the events of Kotor 1 *can* he have anyway?

I think the possibilities within one episode does provide a great sense of individual gaming experience -not to mention that it constitutes the very replay-value that is so impoerant; but still I'd say it's a different matter when it gets to inter-episode choices. anyway, how long do we have to wait in order to find out? until Dec. or Feb.?

and everyone will cringe at seeing the Master-Vrook-like dumb character of a Bastila, or Revan. I hope nothing of the sort happens, and we get to see them as more than just accessories.

I assume that both Kotor 1 and TSL are different adventures within one broader scheme. If it doesn't really matter for that bigger story if Bastila survived or not, then 'all gamers will feel slighted'. We don't know at this point how any character of event in any of the two episodes really relates to the underlying plot; if the bigger story works well while allowing any Kotor 1 decision to find its place seamlessly, then obviously there's no problem. I just tend to think that unravelling an interesting tale where Obsidian imposes the necessary ending(s) is more fun, than seeing how well I can trace every little decision that I make in the former game inside the sequel, at the price of reducing the heroes of the first saga into guest appearances and having the core of the drama develop around different events and characters that are really independent -but again, only if there is an all-encompassing broader story which we don't know yet. anyway, I'm not sure if any of what I've said above makes sense! but one thing that ought to be mentioned is that almost everyone must have played this game more than once, to see the possibilities. Why do we have to assume that everyone has to have a deep commitment to one such possibility, and insist on seeing it in the next game?

One problem for the fans is that although we're talking about the two episodes of one basic story concerning a spesific time period in SW 'history', our experience of these two episodes will be from two totally different points of view. So the continuity between the two games is not exactly the same thing as the coherence of that one story; the latter is a broader concept and includes elements of the story that we still don't know, having played only Kotor 1, and only from one POV -although it was the point of view of the people who seemed to determine the fate of the galaxy, all by their own deeds. It's virtually impossible to imagine at this point how this new party that gamers will be leading in TSL will relate to the events and characters of the first game; but one thing is certain, and it's that the second game will *still* have its roots in whatever it was that Revan and Malak did before the events of Kotor, as they fell to the dark side, as well as in the outcome of 'the battle of the Star Forge'. Having key characters (which in my opinion excludes Mission, Zaalbar, Juhani and Jolee) just drop dead at the end of Kotor, or make sure that 'all endings happened' (so that no gamer will feel slighted) will probably rob that one story of any consistency, and won't leave a trace of coherence in case these 'Sith Lords' just pop up after whatever it is that happened after the Star Forge, and the characters of Revan or Bastila are reduced to brief guest appearances, as if they were as crucial for the fate of the galaxy, as a Rodian shopkeeper! On the contrary: I think we'll start learning a more profound story of the original conflict, while we deal with new enemies. (The problem, by the way, with the 'all endings happened' approach the way I understand it is that in case Obsidian really goes as far as to incorporate every sort of Kotor 1 final-picture that you could come up with, that would mean, given the broader scheme of things during that time period --of which the devs. must have a clear view, since they designed Kotor in at least 2 installments, and didn't decide to make a sequel because the first ep. sold well--, that all our decisions were all the more insignificant. That would make *all* gamers feel slighted!) I think we'll hear plenty about what happened before the events of Kotor, and will definitely be re-introduced to the Revan character as well -in terms of seeing him emerge as a character with a deeper history. Given the 'bond' between Revan and Bastila, I'd think we're going to learn more about her, let alone decide if she survived it or not. I think a great many surprises await all fans, as well as perfectly familiar stuff, since the bigger picture will start to emerge now. and it'll be so interesting that no one will regret that there's no 'plot twist' as the devs. have been saying -seriously or not.

Once again this brings up the issue how far the first-game-ending-interview will influence the basic story of TSL in a sensible way; you could kill her LS, you could also do many dark side deeds yet have the LS ending nevertheless -but I believe it makes a much better story for the sequel to make use of, if the LS Revan didn't kill Bastila and brought her to redemption: One can't just do away with the second most important character of the first game, because she was tricked into the dark side. Just because it was an option to do so in the first game, it shouldn't limit the story for the sequel. If she isn't dead maybe T3 will lead us to her? Maybe she has recorded a message inside the droid....

I was joking. in any case,you weren't having a conversation or anything with the Gizka, choking was just one of the silly cruelty options, like the neck wringing! In all our darkness, we could as well be allowed to tie empty cans on the Gizka's tail....

you could wring their necks anywhere on the map. but that was no threat against their species, because a new one emerged for every Gizka that was slain. so it doesn't count.

now that I think about it again, I don't know the first thing about programming but since this is difficult even to imagine given the way kotor worked, perhaps it's too unrealistic. Could still be part of special duels, perhaps.... I think it would contribute a lot to the dark side feel of the game if we could really threaten people into doing things using force choke.

given the numerous allusions Kotor made to the original trilogy, I wouldn't be too surprised if someone lost his arm at a climactic point in the story. Someone on these boards even brought up -jokingly, though- the point that the sith lord in the skull like mask could be the white haired girl's father (why are they witholding any info. about her? there's something odd with that girl). Something similar to that wouldn't be too surprising either; I'm sure we'll find in TSL some seemlessly implemented themes from the original film trilogy, the way bioware managed to do it without any feeling of insipid parallelisms. Even the little details were finely crafted; I don't think anyone accused bioware of plagiarism, due to that scene where the Ebon Hawk barely makes it through the Star Forge explosion, and even master Vandar didn't look *that* awkward as the head of the Jedi council, given the fact that but two Yoda-like creatures were even heard of in the SW universe. speaking about force powers: How about having objects float in the air, and hurl them at the opponents?

I wonder if a DVD version could in fact cost a little less, compared to a 4-cd pack. anyway, I think there should be both versions. like back at the time of Commodore 64, you'd have both the cassette release of a game, and the 5 1/4 floppy disk version.

How about another Yoda clone? It'd be a hilarious sight, to have one running behind you!

anyone who wishes to use the mantle of the force crystal again will have to get it from Revan, I guess. If you look at screenshots #26 and 27 on www.swkotor.com, one of the first game's Revan types seems to wield a lightsaber which I think has the mantle of the force color (or whatever the turquoise-like one was called). btw the pic. resembles how we first encountered Jolee fighting beasts in his hideout in the wilderness; that does invoke a few ideas about what the LS Revan ended up doing.

this picture corroborates my theory that this game will feature a cross-over of two universes: The masked warrior is none other than Skeletor, and the white haired girl is Teela. We're going to have TrapJaw and Mer-Man as team members; one of the new planets will be Eternia.

are we going to start with a level 20 T3 (that's the little droid's name, right?), or is it going to be another instance of mysterious droid memory wipe? regaining T3's memory of the first saga could be one of the quests, though.

are we going to see our own character on the title screen if we choose the Sith Lord 'prestige class'?

The start screen looks like a stand in for the demo alone; the 'evil guy' being just a generic type.

I've been following this forum since the beginning, but had not become a member; the small bit of information below is interesting enough -and as I understand, previously unmentioned?- so I wanted to post it: This is from the pre-order page on amazon.com, for TSL amazon.com computer games link for TSL in small print below it says "Date first available at Amazon: May 7, 2004"; I presume that's when they were told the release date (?) I hope this didn't duplicate an earlier post!