CastleBravo

Typically, I'd play with my character and Jolee, with the 3rd slot rotating through just about everybody at one point or another. A fully repaired/upgraded HK-47 with the Ion-X weapon was always handy.

I think it depends on what you are doing. If you are a Consular, then single saber is better because (a) your chance to hit stinks, so the +3 to hit is more important, and (b ) you don't have as much vitality, so the +3 to AC is more important. Jedi Guardians have a very high chance to hit and lots of vitality, so the advantages of 1 saber aren't as important to them, and the penalties for using dual/double weapons don't matter to them as much, either, for the same reasons. Sentinels are in-between, so it is hazier which is better there.

Not true. It just means the new features can be shut off or turned down to run on slower PCs. Kind of like how in KOTOR you could select from 3 different detail levels, turn shadows on or off, turn grass on or off, turn frame buffer effects on or off, change the resolution up to 1600x1200... you can add features at the high end, but give users the option of turning them off at the low end.

To bad Arcanum wasn't actually a good game.

So what? This isn't the "suggest alternatives" forum, it is the "Suggestions" forum, and my suggestion was to not do what was done in NWN and KOTOR concerning evil. Duh? I suggested things to AVOID doing. I'm not compelled to suggest alternatives on every single topic of discussion simply because it would be more pleasing to you.

My, aren't we pedantic around here, ladies. "No, using your example, you telling me not to eat at an Italian restaurant would stop there without an explanation or reason WHY I shouldn't eat there." Do I have to explain why copying large aspects (that weren't particularly well liked, by the way) from one game and sticking them into another game (where they weren't particularly well liked there, either) is a bad idea to carry on into a third game (where, I'm betting, they would STILL annoy people)? Do I need to draw you a picture or something? To beat an analogy to death, so maybe I'm barfing up spaghetti, pointing at the restaurant, and shaking my head. Are you going to just stand there and act peevish until I whip out a copy of the latest Zagat survey or something? Would it kill y'all to discuss the issues raised instead of start some fussy argument about what a suggestion is? In any case, I edited my starting post to spell it out for everyone.

Gee, I would have thought it was obvious... don't hurt your head trying to figure it out or anything. HINT: Read the title of the topic. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What you posted was basically a complaint, not a suggestion. Suggestion implies you "suggest" an alternative route they should have taken, or alternative solutions they didn't think of. You just pointed out what you felt they did wrong, but didn't provide examples/theories about what you think they should have done. Simply saying "don't recycle" doesn't exactly add any suggestions. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sure it does. "Don't do something" is a perfectly valid suggestion. There is nothing wrong with giving negative examples to avoid. If I got food poisoning at an Italian restaurant, I am perfectly justified in telling you to NOT eat there, even if I don't have a suggestion for a better Italian restaurant to eat at instead. Saying otherwise is just being silly. Your argument is basically that I should shut up and let you go get food poisoning because I don't have a catalog of Italian restaurants handy.

Gee, I would have thought it was obvious... don't hurt your head trying to figure it out or anything. HINT: Read the title of the topic.

A striking thing about KOTOR is the extreme degree to which it recycles the kinds of evil you see in NWN. This isn't a great insight or anything, but I haven't seen anybody bring it all together in one topic. So here goes: High-school punk evil. See: everyone on Korriban except for the tattoo-headed instructor and his apprentice, maybe half of your own dark-side-point-gaining dialogue options, and 99% of your "evil" dialogue options in NWN. Lots of people complain about this in Bioware games, especially NWN and KOTOR. Being evil boils down to being randomly, stupidly mean; selecting smart-ass dialogue options; and helping little kids beat up a 400 pound Ithorian. Box Cover Woman evil. You need at least one woman who starts off good, goes evil, then (depending on your dialogue choice at the end) is either redeemed, or killed. She must be featured heavily in the game

You obviously aren't up on your Far Cry developments. http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...0705/index.html

They just did an interview on IGN, you start as a Jedi at Level 1 and you won't have any wierd-assed flashback/forgotten personality/scrambled memory stuff going on. And I always saved up levels so I could level up in more jedi levels.

As somebody who loves how my Radeon 9800 Pro performs with EVERYTHING I can throw at it that isn't KOTOR (and KOTOR runs fast, it just crashes at random on area transitions...), this guy is just a chucklehead ATI fanboy. As for x800 XT vs. 6800 GT... the 6800 GT actually out-performs the x800 XT in Far Cry in many areas because it has SM 3.0. The 6800 GT in particular kicks ass for the price. Since Far Cry is the most graphically intensive thing out there right now, that should tell you something. Of course, Far Cry also runs great on Radeon 9800 Pros... but KOTOR pukes? Hmm...

http://swforums.bioware.com/viewforum.html?forum=80 See all the "my PC crashes when loading levels" topics for details. Everybody with an ATI card that doesn't roll back to old drivers (that screw up every other piece of 3d softare...) is hosed when trying to play KOTOR. Conversely, the cards in question run everything BUT KOTOR just fine. I'm suggesting that KOTOR actually work with, you know, the graphics cards that half the people own. Basically, Bioware has blown the problem off. Since it affects a large proportion of the potential buyers of KOTOR2, I'm hoping Obsidian doesn't do the same.

This is a suggestion that is, well, stupidly obvious. But I haven't seen it here, so here goes: I suggest that Obsidian Entertainment actually make the game work with ATI cards. KOTOR has been out about 8 months now, and still everyone who owns an ATI card is screwed. You either put up with constant crashes, disable graphical features to get only almost constant crashes, or use crappy ancient drivers that make every other 3d game you own run WORSE. Frankly, it is kind of stupid that folks are able to run much more advanced 3d games like Far Cry and un-optimized Alpha leaks of Doom 3 on ATI Radeon hardware without any trouble, but the relatively primitive KOTOR engine pukes whenever a new area loads. I don't know if Bioware or ATI, or both, are to blame, but for about half the PC owners to be screwed because they can't sort out some bug for over half a year is nuts. My suspicion is that alot of pissed off ATI owners aren't apt to buy KOTOR2 unless they have a reason to belive that it won't roll over and die just because they have a fast Radeon card.

I'll probably play a LS female, better than looking at a digitized man-butt for 25+ hours. Then I'll play DS *if* it is well implemented. I don't steal lunch money, I DEVOUR WORLDS, FOOL!!!!

Maybe you were playing the X-box version? From what I saw, in PC version,it might take from 10-20 hits, with a Lightsaber to open a door. Um, no. 10-20 hits? Maybe with 8 strength and a Bothan Shock Stick or something...

More important than the setting is how it is used: -how you design the character affects how the game actually plays in a SIGNIFICANT way -allows multiple approaches to problems -your choices affect the wider game world and how you relate to it (beyond "you just saved the universe!" at the end) -karma/reputation based on your actions affects how you relate to the game world -choices other than the "right"/"good" one should actually be tempting -a storyline that isn't numbingly obvious from the get-go -no cutesy humor in inappropriate places involving dingy broads or miniature giant space hamsters, or arrogant ice **** heroines who become arrogant ice **** villainesses only to (maybe) become slightly less arrogant ice **** heroines again, or whining sissy-boys who are supposedly tough-guy Fighter classes...

So if somebody wrote a great story with interesting characters set in New Jersey in 1987, it would be the same style as Plasescape: Torment?

Security: You can't bash Master Uthar's door open...if you're playing a Lightside, you have one of two choices 1. Bring the that little bastardization of Artoo along and have him open it. 2. Open it your own damn self with you 1337 security skillz0rs. -There is another way in that doesn't require the Security skill from anybody in your party. Awareness: If you have a low awareness, you're constantly running into the 'Deadly' mines. Not a huge deal if you're a Soldier/Guardian muscle tank, but as a more wimpy, 'smarter, wiser' counsular, it's a problem. -Just lead with your tanks in minefields. And there are hardly any serious minefields in the game, aside from the one area of the Star Forge planet. Computer Use: It was very, very useful, and you totally run out of spikes if you don't invest at least a little in it. -Computers actually did very little that you couldn't do some other way. But it IS the skill (aside from persuasion) that I liked best. Still, you only need a few points and an Interface Visor or other skill boosting gadget to use EVERY computer you want and have spikes to spare. It would have been better to just make computers a skill check... either you are competent to hack into certain features, or you ain't. That would give you a motive for maxing out the skill, at least. Repair: Might I add that HK was totally awesome with his regenerative capabilities fully repaired, very important if you're a Dark Sider who's killed most of your party off! -Repaired HK was cool, but that's it. Repairing broken-down droids was never very helpful to me, so I quit doing it. Demolitions: With a high demolitions skill, you can't take the mines apart that I know of, but you can recover them, thus adding them to you inventory to use at a later time. Useful in several places in the game, including the Rancor on Taris. -You only need 1 hand grenade to kill that Rancor. Maybe, but from what I saw, this took forever. -Anybody with a lightsaber and decent strength could bash into anything with a couple good hits.

True. Of course, many of the Obsidian folks were involved with Fallout and Planescape: Torment, two games that made heavier use of skills and abilities than KOTOR did. So the odds he isn't just blowing smoke are actually... pretty decent. B)

On one hand, the characters that definitely WEREN'T killed in KOTOR, no matter what your choices in the game were, are Canderous, HK, and T3. On the other hand, if they are really clever, the Devs might have different characters serve the same plot role in KOTOR2, depending on if you tell the game Revan ended as LS/DS in KOTOR. For instance, if you tell it that Revan was LS, maybe you meet Jolee, or if you tell it that Revan was DS, you meet a Dark Side version of Bastilla or Juhani. Simplest thing for continuity between the two games is to only have HK, T3 and Canderous carry over, though. That way no matter what, they don't contradict how you played KOTOR in KOTOR 2.

One thing about KOTOR that was lacking was the usefulness of skills (other than Persuade), for instance: -Security was a waste of time. You could bash anything open with a lightsaber. -Awareness was a waste of time, since mines couldn't hurt you much anyway, and all cloaked bad guys appeared in cut-scenes and could never be detected beforehand anyway. -Computers was sort of useful, except you get so many spikes that it doesn't matter. -Repair was just a waste of time, except for unlocking all of HK-47's abilities. -First Aid becomes useless when you get the healing force powers, and you get so many medpacks it hardly matters. -Demolitions is a waste of time, because mines don't hurt you enough to matter, and you can usually just walk around them. And so on. I gave up on getting any skills except for Persuade, they didn't seem to be worth the effort of clicking buttons to assign the points. Funny thing is, the opening scenes seem to hint that skills will matter (e.g. repair the droid or slice the computer to get past the last bunch of Sith, etc.) Also, ability scores didn't SEEM to have any impact on dialog choices or non-combat options. For instance, I had something like 20 Wisdom, but wasn't getting any great insights. Likewise, higher Intelligence doesn't seem to give you any better dialog choices either, even though 8 is a moron and 18 is genius territory. Finally, it was kind of stupid that only the player could use Repair skill to fix HK-47. I've got a trash-can-lookin' astromech droid with a 20 repair skill, but I've got to fix this assassin robot myself with a 10 repair skill and a coat hanger? It would give the game alot more replay value, as you'd really miss something gameplay-wise by taking points out of Intelligence... your character would suffer the consequences of being stupid. Having fewer skills would have an impact if those skills were actually useful, and you'd miss better dialog options because you are too dumb to think to say them.

Yeah, I read that somewhere around here. I like the fact that the devs picked up on that (long before any of my silly posts ), it was one of my few complaints about KOTOR. I was just throwing out some ideas for HOW to do it.