Spider

I seem to recall someone on the design-team acknowledging that some areas in Torment were rushed. If memory serves that was Curst and Undersigil (the sewers that were just meaningless unless you wanted to do some XP farming). And in all honesty, I think it showed. Those areas just seemed... unpolished. I didn't feel everything after Ravel was rushed though, just those specific areas.

I don't work that way with movies either. If I like a movie because it has a brilliant story, I am far less likely to watch it again any time soon unless I feel there are aspects of the story I missed the first time. If I like a movie because of the acting or visual effects (or whatever) however, I can see them repeatedly. I do see movies with good stories again, but only a few years later when I've forgotten some of the details. In the end though, what constitutes a good story is completely individual. I am just presenting my view. As far as I recall, Torment actually got very good reviews and lots of critical acclaim. It was the sales that were somewhat lacking. Funny that. When I played it I felt I knew why TNO was going to the Blood Wars. I didn't experience a plothole anywhere. On my first playthrough I did feel that I missed out on what impact my character had on the party members, but that I got when I played as a mage (with high int/wis/cha).

Opinions differ I guess. For me the storytelling was at it's peak in BG1 and parts of TotSC and went downhill from there. I found a lot of the characters in SoA to be very bland and cliche. There were some that were really cool, but most of them were just dull. This does not mean that I think either SoA or ToB are bad games, I don't. I think they are great games (or a great game + expansion pack), I've played them both more times than I can remember. But for me that only reinforces that the story isn't what makes them great since a story-driven game rarely lasts through more than two or three playthroughs since after that the story is too well known.

Play Torment with a high Int/Wis/Cha character and you'll get a much bigger sense of closure. At least I felt that way when I actually got to say good bye to my companions on my third play through. Then again, I thought the ending was great the first two times as well. I thought the fortress was great and very climactic. Torment did have it's weak parts but that wasn't it. As for Throne of Bhaal, I did like that as well, but not so much for the story-telling. ToB had a very predictable plot and nothing in it really stood out. But ToB wasn't so much about that as it was about getting to play with high level rules. And that it did well.

Because gaining levels is fun? The again, as Bloodlines showed, just gaining experience to spend on skills is equally fun. So the true answer has to be balancing. If you don't have levels a characters hit points remain static which makes it harder to properly balance a game. Enemies in the later parts of a game tend to be tougher than their early counterparts and one way of showcasing this is by having them deal more damage. But enemies that kill you in one shot aren't really fun, so having the player gain hit points makes it easier to portray their badness. It's not impossible to do it in other ways, just harder. Another reason so many cRPGs uses levels is that a lot of them are based on D20 rules (which makes sense in a way since it is the largest P&P ruleset). Even those who aren't based on D20 have to strongly consider using levels simply because so many other games do which means a majority of RPG players are used to it. Personally I could go either way. In P&P I prefer classless and level-less systems but in computer games it's different. Whatever works best for a particular game is what I prefer there.

Please define a "real deep" rpg. I have a possible reply to this but without knowing your definition of a deep RPG it'll be pointless.

There are more than 10 NPCs in the game though. It's just that you can't have more than 10 in your party and who you can have depends on the path you're taking through the game.

Umm, the BG series isn't exactly mod friendly. It wasn't supposed to be moddable out of the box, but some crafty people independently created tools for them. To my knowledge, Bioware had nothing to do with that though. The point is, I don't think it's worth going out of their way to make games moddable. NWN is a game where they did that, but in terms of costs/benefits I don't think it really had that much of an effect. Most people who bough NWN did it for the singleplayer aspect and never even touched the mods. It's different for shooters and RTS. Those games are more or less based around multiplayer and on-line play and as such the ability to create new maps is far more important (or the devs will have to ship the game with a very large number of maps of their own making) to stop games from going stale. Partly because the average playthrough time is way longer for an RPG than any other game. When developers make a game that will include toolsets when shipping they have to make sacrifices in other areas. I personally really have little to no interest in a toolset, so for me those sacrifices definitely aren't worth it. NWN, for instance, is one of the worst RPGs I've ever played and a lot of the problems stem from the fact that it was developed with the tool set as a primary focus. I've even tried a few mods but they were all even worse than th OC. I know, I probably only was unlucky when it came to the mods, but they were given high ratings at least. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against modding. The modding community for BG2 is quite impressive and some of those mods definitely adds a lot to the game. That doesn't change the fact that I played through the game 3 times without mods and definitely got my money's worth out of it even if people hadn't been so crafty. I don't mind companies making games like NWN either. If they're making a game that caters specifically to the modding audience (or multi player audience) that's great. I won't buy it, but I don't have to either. What I do mind is when a game that aims for a single player experience gets dilluted. In a world where developers have unlimited funding and unlimited time to make their games, the two wouldn't be mutually exclusive. But I don't think that is the case. You always have to prioritize and I prefer it if they prioritize the single player experience that comes with the game.

Thay have answered this though. I recall a dev saying KotOR2 won't be any more moddable out of the box than KotOR1 was.

I hope so. I think not. There already is one. It's called KotOR1

There is a huge difference though. Fallout was too short. KotOR on the other hand I felt was perfect in length. Any longer and it would risk getting tedious. I for one would actually like it to be similar in length but with higher replay value.

Hah! I knew they weren't the same...

He usually is, but in this case I think he's wrong.

1 and 4 can be explained by turning darkside. As can the shape of the eyes. But the longer distance between jaw and nose and eyes can't. It's still possible that they're the same, there could be other factors and I am far from an art expert.

Oh yeah, I also have a hard time to see either Revan or Bastila as dark side characters in KotOR2. This is one of those things that could change depending on how you answer things in the beginning though. But there is no way Bastila or Revan would fall to the dark side AGAIN if it's based on a LS game. In Star Wars mythos, I think it's unprecedented for a jedi that has fallen and been turned back to the light side to fall a second time. It just isn't done.

I disagree. I have the pictures side by side and there are many dissimilarities. 1: The nose isn't very similar at all. The dark side one is more "uppity" and shows more of a nostril flare. 2: The nose is further away from the jaw in the dark side one. 3: The eyes are also further away from the jaw and appears to be more round. 4: The dark side face seems to be more slim compared to the fairly round on in the lightside one. Now, I wouldn't bs completely surprised if the are one and the same, but if it was only based on these images I wouldn't bet on it (or maybe the artist was careless with proportions).

I don't think there will be characters included that by their inclusion alone completely invalidates any of the paths in KotOR 1. Even with the questions asked in the beginning, I think that will more affect dialogue options and how characters think of you when you meet them rather than what characters will actually be in the game. That more or less rules out Mission and Juhani since both of those could be killed by the hands of the player (more or less at least). I don't recall any other characters you could kill other than Bastila (at least I think you could kill her, personally I either turned her or had her join me on my path to be the dark lord) but there is likely an exception made for her (since she is already presumed dead, there will be an explanation why she isn't either way). I don't think Zaalbar will be in the game either for similar reasons (and the fact that without Mission he'd be completely boring). Every other character is fair game though and I think they will make a cameo appearance at least.

The only problem I had with KotOR in terms of bugs was that it refused to load when I first installed due to incompability with my drivers. But once I got newer drivers and turned on hardware mouse I had no problems at all and I finished it before the official patch was released.

It would be hard to add Mission if they are keeping true to both paths through the first game...

Funny that. I don't remember a single game going out on time from BIS. The only games I know for sure about though are PS:T which was delayed some six months from the original estimation and IWD2 that was also delayed quite a bit (though that was to work in a new ruleset and stuff like that). So in my experience, timeliness was never a BIS-trait. Making good games, however, was.

You said it's make him hit +25% of the time. Regardless, you don't get a +25% chance to hit either, since it's not a scale to 20. ACs in the end game would be somewhere areound 35, right? I'm just saying I didn't notice my character missing much without that bonus, so I don't know how important it is. I never said 2 damage per round, I said 2 damage per hit. And I still feel it's a pretty small amount when you do something like 15-20 (or more) damage per hit anyway. Anyway, I never had a character with only 1 attack when facing Malak. Don't you get additional attacks when your BAB increases? Regardless, I always dual-wielded and had speed so it doesn't matter. But I could definitely beat Malak without anything that gives me more attacks. Just use dark Jedi Powers such as Drain Life on the guys replenishing Malak and he won't be able to. He's not so tough when you only have to kill him once. I said other skills than hacking were helpful to. So the additional skillpoint IS significant. The only thing that is necessary in the game is combat and all classes can fight. You don't NEED the bonuses from being a guardian as much as they help in the same way you don't NEED extra skillpoints. Nor do you NEED additional force points because guess what? The other classes can still use theirs. Having more force points makes the game easier, but so does having more skill points. I really don't see the difference here. To prove the point I really don't have to beat Malak using no force powers I only have to do it without using the extra force points a consular has and no powers that require a save. Which I have done. Twice. So the bonuses a Consular gets are obviously UNNECESSARY since I can beat the game without them. But to hammer the point down even further I'm 100% convinced I could beat Malak without suing force powers at all. I would too if I didn't have to play through the entire game to do it which I'm not inclined to do. The character would be something like this: Scoundrel 6/Consular (to prove the point even further) 14 High Strength and Con (like 20 and 16 or so), 10 in all mental stats and as much dex as you can get after that. As good armor as you can get. Feats like lightsabre proficiency, dual wield, flurry, implants (to get even higher strength) etc etc... Once you reach Malak you just take pretty much every drug you can get your hands on (the battle drugs that give bonus to hit and damage, +4 strength, +4 con, +4 dex) and the most powerful shield that protects against energy. Then just kick Malak's ass and once he runs to heal, you heal yourself as well. The shield will need to be renewed every time he runs off and the drugs about every other time, so try and take up a position that will make him run as far as possible between ecah round. An optimized version of this build would of course be Soldier/Guardian, but it shouldn't be necessary.

My first playthrough I didn't use any forcepowers during the last fight because I didn't have any that would matter. Maybe I had Speed when I think about it, but with a better built character I could do without it. Well, I can't very well make a character that goes through the game without fighting since that isn't an option in the game and I can't very well make the other bonuses go away, so I used the possible example. BTW, your math is way off. +5 BAB does NOT translate into hitting 25% more of the time. I don't know how far BAB goes for different characters nor do I know the AC for late game enemies, but I do know my Sentinel didn't miss 1 of every 4 attacks (except maybe vs Malak, but I wouldn't even bet on that). Also the two extra damage per hit is fairly useless in the late game. Here's the kicker: You can use your force powers more often and they are more effective which makes combat easier. With a lot of skills you can often find a way around combat (and not only by hacking) which also makes the game easier. That's called balance... Now in a character on character fight I guess the consular may have the edge, but the immunities could very well make it the other way around depending on what force powers the consular uses.

I'm pretty certain I can make a consular that won't use it's force powers and still beat the game. So that would make that class unbalanced as well. I also think I can make a guardian without using any of the additional feats it gets and still beat the game, so by your definition that class would also be unbalanced.

I don't understand how you can say this, then say this: It WOULD make sense, IF there weren't enough computer spikes in game to have 0 ranks in the skill, and still "hack da gibson" and avoid battles. If the consular has advantages, and access to the Sentinel's ability to avoid battles, hows it balanced? Because there are more skills than hacking and because I didn't find that many spikes. Comparing my first playthrough with my second I found that computer made a HUGE difference (I maxed it the second time). And I picked up every spike I could find. Anyway, it's all pretty moot since even if there were enough spikes in the game it doesn't necessary mean it's the Sentinel that's unbalanced, I'd rather argue that it's the consular that is unbalanced (as in overpowered, my definition). Comparing the three classes I'd say the Sentinel is the norm (ie balanced), the guardian is underpowered (my definition) and the consular is MAYBE slightly overpowered (again, my definition). As for balance vs power, I think the two terms are fairly interchangeable (in the context of a computer game). But it's already been established we have different definitions of what underpowered means so arguing about it is fairly moot.

Unnecessary I can agree with. But as I said, that is true for most options in the game. The fact of the matter is the game isn't all that difficult and you can probably create a pretty nerfed character and still beat it. Your definition of underpowered (I saw the post containing it after I made mine) is quite different to mine. To me underpowered means less powerful than the norm. Unbalanced means either more or less powerful than the norm depending on context. In this context oviosly less powerful. So to me underpowered and unbalanced is the same. Debating is useless unless everyone uses the same definitions. So I won't use underpowered anymore. Now then, is the Sentinel unbalanced? I actually don't think so. My first playthrough was as a Scoundrel going Sentinel and while I kinda messed up some when choosing levels (didn't realize how useless ranged weapons would be for instance) had I planned the character a bit better I would have gotten all the feats and forcepowers I needed. Having more than one feat that increases your damage potential is rather redundant anyways. In my mind redundant feats < skills. Maybe the consulars are more powerful though since force powers really is what it's all about and more force points do help quite a lot. More force points makes battles easier but on the other hand skills allows you to avoid a lot of battles so it evens out a little. In the end I like skills because they give you options. And they're fun.