CastleBravo

Anyway, this topic has drifted WAY off topic. BOTTOM LINE: Obsidian, please don't make the Sith a bunch of annoying weenies out to steal our lunch money while wearing gay ("not that there is anything wrong with that...") crushed gray velvet and naugahyde outfits.

Well, thanks for stating the blindingly obvious. That's why I said, "Really, the Sith don't quite fit the Nazi or Communist molds... not surprising, since the Sith are made up for a sci-fi movie." The fact that Stormtroopers are called "stormtroopers" should be a pretty good hint what Lucas was thinking about when he made Star Wars with its Evil Galactic Empire, though. And Darth Vader's (aka Dark Lord of the Sith) helmet is shaped like a German soldier's helmet circa 1939.

Here are my thoughts, very general but what the heck: Use a RPG setting that HASN'T been done to death. That means no pseudo-medieval magic crap. Some examples of potentially good RPG settings that haven't been touched: Wild West - The American frontier was freakin' HUGE, and just plain crazy for 50+ years. You could go into business, find a gold or silver mine, join the Cavalry, bounty hunt, rob banks/stagecoaches/trains, gamble, gunfight, or just plain scout dangerous territories. "Hard" Sci-Fi - Non-magical, theoretically semi-plausible deep space adventures in the distant future. Explore strange worlds, meet interesting aliens, and maybe shoot them in the face with directed-energy weapons. Present day espionage - This actually has alot of potential. You could get general missions, and figure out different ways of accomplishing them based on your team's skills. For instance, if you had to get information about a terrorist group, you could break into their compound and steal it, join the group and have them give you the info willingly, capture one of their flunkies and interrogate him for it, and so on. I think that, by and large, talented game makers can make a good game out of just about any setting, within reason.

Kind of like the "Lords and Ladies" show in the Max Payne games?

I mostly wore robes. However, I ran through one time with an armored Guardian (eventaully w/Heavy Exoskeleton IIRC), and it worked out great. You can work around the Force power restrictions pretty well, especially since you have your party with you 99% of the time. Both the robes and most of the armors looked like crap, unfortunately. Some of the KOTOR 2 screenshots look alot better than KOTOR in that area, though.

I would tend to think Communists would be nicer than Fascists. A component of fascism is a clearcut heirarchy of individuals (particularly races), placing some people as the absolute superiors to others. Communism as an ideology is generally considered a utopia with everyone working for the collective good and perfect equality among everyone. Unfortunately, it cannot exist in reality since human beings are greedy. Fascism as an ideology tends to promote racial superiority and prejudice. Really, the Sith don't quite fit the Nazi or Communist molds... not surprising, since the Sith are made up for a sci-fi movie. But consider this: Communists, while they always wind up enslaving and slaughtering people by the millions in real life (e.g. Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-Jong), claim to be trying to serve the collective good of everyone. Their ideology is based on bringing about a utopia of total equality, even if they wind up causing the opposite to happen in real life. The Sith make no such claims. Quite the opposite: Sith philosophy is based on "everyone for themselves." People are expected to join the Sith only because of their own selfish desires, not out of some altruistic ideal. If anything, the Sith are anti-Communists to the extreme: totally self-centered and individualistic. The Sith are more like the Nazis, in that they are motivated by a belief in their superiority and inherent right to rule by sheer power... the Nazis by racial superiority, the Sith by the superiority of the Dark Side. The Nazis in real life also tended to have an "everyone-for-themselves" streak a mile wide, with Hitler's underlings constantly jockying to get more power and wealth for themselves. He didnt "get Revan'ed" by, say, Goring, because he kept his underlings competing with each other instead of with him.

Um, NO. Try knowing what you are talking about next time. For those that don't know, Machiavelli is best known for a book called "The Prince," where he describes what a prince (in the context of his times, really a petty tyrant/dictator) should do to gain and maintain political power. You can read a summary of it here: http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/s...achiavelli.html And the full text here: http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/t...ince/title.html Some quotes from "The Prince": "Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity." "[it] is necessary to take such measures that, when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe by force. " "For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer." Basically, the book suggested that if you wanted to rule, you needed to be a hard-assed, devious son of a bitch.

I agree with this. Carth looked suicidal a couple of times, sticking a blaster in his ear as he talked...

I think there is more than one way to get to the darkside. The "bully" type (over-used ALOT on Korriban in KOTOR), who wants more power so they can feel superior and dominate others, The sadistic type, who flat-out enjoys inflicting pain for its own sake, but can still be very smart and cunning (Hannibal Lecter-ish) A more rational, methodical tyrant type of character (like the Emperor, who seems to be thinking 12 steps ahead of everyone else) The addicted type, who started down the dark side for maybe a "legitimate" reason like revenge, only to be consumed by their craving for it (like Yuthura in KOTOR).

Alot of people here have commented on how the Dark Side in KOTOR was poorly handled. Most Dark Siders were just stupid, one-dimensional punks, and most things you were "supposed" to do if you wanted to get Dark Side points consisted of being: -Crazy for no good reason -A wiseass Hardly a "seductive" path to the dark side, or the stuff of bad guys that are supposed to be scary villains. IMHO, this was the big weakness in terms of characterization that KOTOR suffered from. Now, the Obsidian folks have said they are going to make evil more interesting and have more depth. Given the experience with games like Planescape: Torment, I can belive that. This is something I'm really looking forward to. Thinking about it, I think there should be several DIFFERENT "evil/dark side" paths that should be available to you in terms of dialogue/actions. In other words, there should be more than one kind of dark side character type. For instance: -The sadist. This character simply gets off on hurting people for its own sake. Gaining power is gratifying because it makes it possible to manipulate, dominate and control more people. They aren't pissed off, they just like inflicting pain. This is closest to how the PC's DS dialog choices are written, except that in KOTOR your dialog choices for the DS were often simply stupid, which sadists are not. A sadist will act quite nice and "normal" until they have a favorable opportunity to attack a person or group. -The vigilante. This character has a grudge, and will do anything to get payback, and then some. This desire for revenge may be focused on one individual, or an entire race or even society. They are willing to destroy anybody who obstructs their mission in the slightest, and their nihilistic "ends justify the means" outlook leads them to become as bad, or worse, than what they set out to destroy in the first place. In fact, they may completely lose sight of their original motive for revenge as they spiral into the Dark Side. -The tyrant. This character is concerned with the rational, thoughtful, systematic aquisition of power. They will not kill random people for no reason, or act openly crazy or evil. In fact, they don't per se enjoy killing at all. But they have no ethical constraints whatsoever, only their own self-interest in mind, and so will murder or betray anybody that gets in their way or becomes a liability.

This would be more convenient.

Almost all the armor in KOTOR looked like CRAP when worn by the PC, especially the armors that were based on the generic "heavy armor" pattern... those just looked like ugly-assed jumpsuits or something with some chrome trim added.

Bottom line: it would be a neat feature, but not worth alot of developer time unless they already have everything important squared away first.