Chi`ara

I'm not sure exactly what model my X-box is. It was bought in 2002, so it's one of the earlier ones. I'll check eventually, but it's a pain to get out of the entertainment unit. Removing the DVD-player adapter did help with the loading crashes a bit, but there was still a lot of lag during combat. Ah well. Finished the game despite the bumps.

If what I've written crosses the spoiler line, well... move it, I guess. I apologise, as it was my intention to be spoiler-free and give only very vague explanations instead. I'll edit, but it's been quoted so it wouldn't do much good. About the map problem, the whole map was not on the map screen, just map tags to it when it was not yet there. I could go taking pictures of my TV screen, but all I can say without spoilers is, I wasn't imagining things. My exact reaction was, "why is *that* there? That's not here! Did I miss something?" The battle on the ship, as I admitted pre-edit, it might not have been a glitch. Regarding the repeat-sequence issue, this was not your average repeatable conversation. Many of those exist, yes. I can't get into detail without spoilers, but it did not only replay a conversation, but an entire battle afterwards. After messing with this a few times, I did not try to initiate dialogue after the sequence and the NPC who was there disappeared (and therefore couldn't be spoken to) as I assume was the intended end of that sequence. It was something of a sloppy transition where for about two seconds, you could click on that NPC again, and replay an entire battle, before it properly vanished. Items: there *were* two of them. I sold four of them. Even after, they were still visually equipped on the equip-item screen but disappeared completely when I re-equipped the character. I'll muck about and take some pictures of this, I guess. Lag usually happens in battle, but I get it at other times, too. Still, this is more or less the same engine as KotOR 1, so these problems should be avoidable as they were not present with the first game. My X-box is not modded. The only "foreign" addition to our X-Box is the stupidly expensive DVD-adapter piece from Microsoft since our DVD-player bit the dust last summer. I'm not sure if that would cause problems. I guess it's possible. I'll try playing the game with it unplugged and see what happens. The X-Box itself is an older model (2002), but hasn't fizzled out on any of the 30-something other games we have. I *expect* to have to upgrade my computer. I shouldn't have to upgrade a game console to a model made 2 years later. As for QA, my point remains, the game just doesn't seem like the finished product a console game needs to be. Sure, other companies do this, but as Obsidian's first product under that name, it's not a very good start into the market.

Ok... I've removed anything that might be spoiler-esque from this post but I will warn anyone reading that parts of it quoted before I got around to it may contain minor spoilers (no specific characters or plotlines mentioned, though). As for it being in the "wrong" forum, I've been told X-Box forum, tech forum AND spoilers forum, so I'll just say "whatever" and let the mods decide if it's general enough for here. I've been playing KotOR2 for about 30 hours now and while I *want* to like the game, while I *want* to LOVE the game because I absolutely adore KotOR, it's so damned buggy, it drives me crazy - it's difficult to enjoy. I'm sure there are a... few other topics just like this one, but here's me grabbing my own space to say, "dammit! This is a CONSOLE game. There is no 1.0X patch let alone 1.0X.Y patch. 'Playable' and 'good enough' are standards you can get away with for a PC game release that can be patched 650 times. You can't skimp QA on a console game. If it is not *polished* when it goes gold, it's an utter failure." I would guess that trying to get the game out for the holiday rush had something to do with it, but a lot seems to have been left at "good enough" and any previous goals of "good" or "great" were abandoned on the QA side of things. It's hard to go through certain bugs I've encountered without spoilers, but I've hit a few of them that stick out like a knife might out of the side of someone's head. Specific examples: 1) At least once, clicking to initiate dialogue immediately following a specific sequence led to the repetition of an entire 2 minute dialogue/action scene. Infinite light or dark side points available here. Next... 2) Certain map points appear on the map screen before the object associated with those map points is present. 3) This *might* be considered a spoiler, however vague, so I'll remove it entirely 4) Item duping - get rich and confused at the same time!!! Selling equipped items occassionally leads to them being duped and while this has pleasant financial consequences, it messes up your characters' equip item screen. On Dantooine, I attempted to sell two items currently equipped on one of my characters... but I ended up selling them twice, raking in over 12,000 credits where only 6,000 should have been earned. First, the screen would show me selling them as equipped and then as unequipped. But this little issue prevents the item from disappearing visually from the equip screen. It's still "equipped" on the character previously in possession of it, though sometimes the equipped slot image flashes between the item icon and the "empty" slot icon. So far, the only harm this causes is confusion and the desire to do it again (and again and again), but there it is. The really, really annoying issues: 1) I've had the game fail to load several dozen times (leading me to now save every 5 minutes). KotOR 1, which has been played a good 50 times between the various people in my house, has never... ever failed to load. Considering how long loading takes, having to turn off and on the X-Box repeatedly eventually starts to get really annoying. 2) Simple actions such as using a medpac or switching first person characters often lag up my X-Box for a good 5 seconds. A lot happens in 5 second in a battle. Like my characters dying. This drives me mad. 3) Often, the sound/voice for dialogue scenes is entirely absent. Alternatively, a character's head is absent and my PC is conversing with a beheaded NPC. 4) Various missing/messed up textures, animation errors. 5) For a number of selectable items (NPCs, consoles, footlockers, etc), you must be standing *just so* or the interaction fails. The scary thing is that I haven't *tried* to analyze the game for errors, but they are there. I'm more than just a little disappointed with this supposedly "polished" release. It's simply not polished. Ok, ok... Not to be a completely negative grouch here: I have really noticed improvements to the AI. While regardless of the chosen combat macro, your party will run suicidally through a minefield without hesitation as they did in KotOR 1, pathfinding to objects is noticably improved. Finally, nothing *intentional* regarding the game has struck me as terrible. I only wish the gameplay were a little smoother so I could enjoy the game as it was intended.

Heck no! There were like 16 or so possible "Revan faces" in KOTOR, two genders, and several possible outcomes to the end-game. What's the point of "Choose your path" only to later have it chosen for you?

Gimme DVD. New computer games are constantly requiring players to upgrade various system specs. The argument that not everyone has a DVD-ROM holds about zero weight with me. It's okay for games to require you to go out and buy new RAM, graphics cards, processors, etc. but asking consumers to pay $30 for a DVD-ROM is asking too much?

Aw, Visc. Not every game will have something for everyone. *hands you back your tail* There, there. No one's twisting your arm to buy this game, though if you really want someone to, so that you have good reason to complain, I will.

I'll keep my opinion on America in Iraq private, but FYI, some of the info in this docment is pushing the truth, breaking it entirely in places and taking extra credit where none is really due: 4.5 million Iraqi citizens were without clean drinking water for 12 years because the Americans blew it up in the Gulf war. This also applies to sewage systems. There wasn't a problem with them anywhere in Iraq until the last war and power, too - it was all blown up over a decade ago. Very hard to rebuild. Municipal (or other governmental) elections are not yet taking place in Iraq. NONE whatsoever have taken place. They are scheduled to start on or after June 30. The councils are interim bodies. Students where schooling was available were taught sanitation before America/the UN/Red Cross/etc. came in. You know, they weren't walking around without a clue as to hygeine just because their leader was a jerk. Girls were already permitted to attend school. It's the establishment and attendance of schools in rural areas that was and is still a problem for children in Iraq, male and female. "It's about time?" Women were never denied education. Iraq is not Afghanistan. Sure, you can play on some people's ignorance of what Iraq was before the war, but some of this is downright inaccurate and corrections are in order.

The first time I played KotOR I went light side with the light side ending. My second time through, dark side with dark side ending and I fell in love with the game all over again. The thuggish options were a chore and I'd like to see some improvements, but it was SO much more immersive going dark side at the end, though in a gut wrenching way, when your PC was actually being an evil SOB and not just a punk. Even so, I'll definitely go dark as dark can get for my first run through KotOR II. I'll go light the second time, but I have a feeling the dark side will be much more... rewarding.

Just piping up to say that I believe that romances are a must have for KotOR 2, but in saying that, I'm already sure they'll be in there (else there will be bloodshed. I promise). As others have already said; what made KotOR the great game that it is was the incredible character interaction and depth. The story itself was great, in my opinion, but the character interaction is what set KotOR apart. The romances in KotOR have such an impact on so many players not only because they are, well... romances: The interaction within them was so much more than a back-story or info-feed leading into a quest. They were personal interactions between Bastila or Carth and you. *That* was their unique appeal. When talking to Mission or Juhani, for the most part, you got nothing more than a big long back-story. The character just talked about him/herself at you rather than talkinging with you. As interesting as the stories may have been, they might have been telling them to anyone who took the time to enquire. You, former Dark Lord of the Sith, just happened to be listening. One could argue that Juhani coming to trust and admire you counts as relationship growth, but I felt no great deal of impact from this. It was entirely automatic, so long as you continued to say anything at all to the character. That's not deep interaction. It's filler. I loved the way interaction with Jolee was handled, but it was mainly (interesting) lecture for the most part. Even Canderous, who does a complete 180, does not relate any differently to the PC through the game until it is revealed that you are Revan and even then, you only get a one-line pledge of fanatic loyalty and that's that. For the most part, these character relationships were static up to their conclusion. Your relationship with them didn't really grow, even when the writers made efforts to develop the characters. If there was any growth at all, it was a giant leap of some sort (e.g. Canderous) and too sudden to have a lot of depth. The romances however, are very different. With both Carth and Bastila, you not only unlock the character's past but develop a relationship with them: One that progresses step-by-step rather than all at once and one that the player therefore become engrossed with. While I believe that keeping the romances is a must, another must is applying this dynamic to relationships with other party members. It's nothing special to learn about the past of your party members, but to have the ability to also develop friendship, loyalty, rivalry or downright enmity between characters is like the %$(ing holy grail of character interaction. I get the impression that this was the message intended by the original comment to which this thread is in reply to, and if I'm correct in that assumption, I'll be a very happy camper. This engine offers sooooo much potential down this avenue. Please, please, please make the most of it. Back to the romances: To the folks who don't want a romance in the games they play, I simply say don't pursue the option, but the option is vital. If such interactions are nothing more than a hurdle to your beloved hacking and slashing, may I suggest you either stick to hack and slash games or click-click-click your way through the RP content of RPGs. But to complain about RPGers wanting more RP in their G where an RPG is the topic at hand is, well... a little silly.

Ooooooh... "There weren't many of us left after that last battle. Mandalore himself was killed at the hands of the Jedi Revan. The best of us could not defeat him!" So it does. This I did not know until now. That kinda sucks, so I guess the standard Mandalorian excuse/flamebait above probably works best, unless on the off chance that last 'him' was supposed to Mandalore, but I sincerely doubt it was.

I'm thinking this was a faux pas of artistic freedom on behalf of the voice actor, who didn't 'get' that where the script (and screen dialogue if you pay attention) said 'Revan,' 'his' or 'him' were not appropriate substitutes given that Revan's gender was supposed to be secret and interchangeable until the revelation. *swipes run-on sentence award on her way out*

Tigranes has got it. There is such anticipation for KotOR 2 that retailers like this will pull a subtitle out of left field and wait for trigger-happy consumers to bite. As information becomes available, they'll change the developer and subtitle as necessary, but by then they've already got a long list of credit card numbers to bill. Happy, happy for them. Now, had they chosen "Sith Empire," "Sith Remnant," or any other marginally plausable sub-title, I might pause two full seconds to contemplate whether there was more to this, but as it stands, it's a shot in the dark - and an obviously poor one. These guys are just hedging their bets on a likely-to-be-released title and setting a likely-to-be-accurate retail price. I'm willing to bet the developer and title on that item will change in the near future. You know - when they actually know more than everyone currently does.