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It's actually possible to explain everything cleanly, especially if they charted out Season 4 in an organized manner. There are many fan-speculated plots prior to the ending that actually sounded very good. Perhaps we can only blame the writers and RDM for having a mediocre level of inspiration and imagination after all this? Suffice to say, I would've much preferred the scenario with Ellen being a hidden villain who planted the Music, Lion Head Nebular beacon, and such. Sort of like a Darth Trayas type of villain (which is about the only thing I liked about KOTOR2) but less obvious.

If you go to Battlestar Wiki's forum, there are lots of dissatisfaction with the ending as well (despite the fact that the poll indicated that most people are happy with it). The God factor is indeed a big turn off because one of the main appeals of the show is that a lot of ridiculously weird things (i.e. head characters, Starbuck's resurrection, the Music) have occurred and that we 'had' a feeling that it would not be explained by Deux Ex Machina. And so part of the anticipation of the show would be to get a plausible explanation behind all the crazy things. But ultimately, the writers were incapable of wrapping things up without using God as the plot device. Even worse, a lot of elements that were so hyped up turned out to be so... inadequately handled, i.e.: * The Opera House - What's so special about it? Why are those visions even important? * Hera - By chance, she turned out to be the Mitochondrial Eve. Her existence was not essential at all * Final Five - After all five were revealed, things went on as usual. No extra scenes to show how they interact with their children * Head Characters - OMG they are angels! * Lords of Kobol - Totally become forgotten * Starbuck - She is also an angel! OMG! * The Music - God played it! The Cylons may have had a plan but Moore and the writers did not it seems. It was no secret they were making it all up as they went along and some plot twists were employed for pure "shock" value. In the end they painted themselves into a corner and there was no way out. There were two other endings they were toying with. In my opinion they chose the best of the three. And that is saying something about how bad the other two were. http://io9.com/5191097/ron-moore-throws-ou...nate-bsg-ending Yeah, that's somewhat like Bernard Madoff. Great things were promised... except they never really existed in the end. The difference is that Madoff's investor's lost millions of dollars and RDM's investors lost nothing except for hours of bad drama towards the end. However, since so much hype was built up when the show was actually good (up to and including Rapture, Season 3), I wouldn't be surprised if BSG will win great many awards for "good writing" and its "great ending simply because of the mass media and the bandwagon effect. Personally though, this show is both logically and artistically a disaster.

If you go to Battlestar Wiki's forum, there are lots of dissatisfaction with the ending as well (despite the fact that the poll indicated that most people are happy with it). The God factor is indeed a big turn off because one of the main appeals of the show is that a lot of ridiculously weird things (i.e. head characters, Starbuck's resurrection, the Music) have occurred and that we 'had' a feeling that it would not be explained by Deux Ex Machina. And so part of the anticipation of the show would be to get a plausible explanation behind all the crazy things. But ultimately, the writers were incapable of wrapping things up without using God as the plot device. Even worse, a lot of elements that were so hyped up turned out to be so... inadequately handled, i.e.: * The Opera House - What's so special about it? Why are those visions even important? * Hera - By chance, she turned out to be the Mitochondrial Eve. Her existence was not essential at all * Final Five - After all five were revealed, things went on as usual. No extra scenes to show how they interact with their children * Head Characters - OMG they are angels! * Lords of Kobol - Totally become forgotten * Starbuck - She is also an angel! OMG! * The Music - God played it!

It's all a point of view mate, depends what you're looking for in a game. Me for example, I think KotOR2 and NWN2 are above the original games by quite a bit, specially when it comes down to actual role-playing, story and feature set. Obsidian gets a lot of criticism for making buggy games and yes, that's a problem, but their games are far from mediocre. I'd sooner name Bethesda or Bioware's games as mediocre and generic than Obsdian's. And yes, MotB counts just as much as a full game. You rarely find an expansion that offers a solid 25-30 hours of top quality content; sh*t, you rarely find a full game that's 25-30 hours long these days anyway. I am not sure which part of KOTOR2 and NWN2 are above the original games. KOTOR2's not finished. NWN2 has a crappy UI. Granted MotB is a large improvement, it's still a far cry from HotU in terms of story telling, plot, theme, and gameplay. And no, there are tonnes of games and expansions out there that offer more than 30 hours of quality gameplay.

The research isn't about who makes awesome games, if I've read it right, it's more about how random people rate them and how their games score with reviewers. And yes there is a difference between them. You're right. And although I'd say Obsidian deserves to be ranked higher (much higher actually), I'm surprised they made it in the top 50. I still experience random encounters with forumites that are so sure Obsidian games suck that they'd dip their hands in lava. Of course, these are the people that think of Halo as the greatest game in existance and Oblivion as the deepest RPG ever... Great way to generalize people who don't think highly of OE's games. I dislike KOTOR2, NWN2, and NWN2: MotB for their relative low quality compared to the originals. At the same time, I dislike Halo and think Oblivion has a lot of room for improvement even with all the fluffy and powerful mods available for dl. Next time, refrain from labeling people as tasteless when they happen to not like OE's productions.

**SPOILER** I'd say MotB is the best of Obsidian's games, except KOTOR2 and NWN2 are games that have gone horribly wrong. I'd say the quality of the current expansion is still not comparable to that of HotU and BG. To support my position, I'd draw a few contrasts: User Interface: Even after hours of playing through the OC and expansion campaign, I still find the UI rather irritating. Often times, I find myself wasting a round or spell because I examined an enemy and did not deselect him before clicking on an AoE spell. I also do not like the "smart-targeting" feature (is it optional?) that makes casting AoE spells cumbersome when large groups of enemies are involved. The quick bar is better than that of NWN1 in that there are 10 rows instead of 3, but it suffers from not having NWN1's radial menu or allowing users to select specific features of an item/spell (i.e. the many abilities of Silver Sword). Likewise, I greatly missed the radial menus for chars and such. They were so easy to use and aesthetically pleasant compared to the ugly drop-down menus we have now (which for some reason also forces the user to hold the right mouse button before they appear). The inventory system is still disorganized even though there's this sort button. Considering the amount of loot available in the game (99% of which I didn't even use because I didn't bother to look at them), more advanced inventory management features could've (easily) been implemented. An option I would've liked are sorting algorithms that sort items based on their usability, value, or weight. It'd also be nice if multiple items can be selected at a time so that you don't have to do 99 mouse drags to the Bag of Holding. "Put all weapons/armors/whatever type into Magic Bag" is also a nice feature to consider as are interfaces that allow exchange of items between bags and multiple characters. Graphics: The character models and the non-MotB companion portraits are all very ugly. there are very limited physical attributes to customize (can't even make a fat person for example). The environmental appearance is okay for MotB but disgusting for OC (considering the graphical requirements, which is comparable to that of Oblivion). There's more, but I am pretty sure many have said much about the graphics already so I'll leave it at there. Gameplay: The largest flaw of the game is that the PC and companions automatically resurrect after battle (borrowed from KOTOR, no doubt). This is a totally cheesy design and should only be implemented for the Easy difficulty. The influence system is okay, but I prefer it to be done implicitly. Although it is not a very bad feature, the way it is used is not always appropriate and sometimes defeats its meaning. For example, almost none of your NPC's will change their worldviews for you despite how much you "influence" (which is different to "being adored by") them. Kaelyn will always between you if you side with Kelemvor and Safiya will always leave you if you do not sacrifice yourself or restore Akachi. On the other hand, a few praises and reassurances of Kaelyn's goal will make her forgive you for devouring Myrkul's spirit, which is ridicules no doubt. Aside from this, another comment I have for the companion system is that dialogues should not be allowed to be repeated. If I asked Safiya about her mother, that dialogue tree should be closed after it is done. She's not supposed to appear to act like a computer database. If the designers want the characters' background info to be easily retrievable by the player, then they should perhaps save the dialogues or a summary of them in some character page (i.e. like a personal diary or something, separated from quests). There are yet more issues I have in mind in terms of gameplay, but I'll leave it at that for now. Plot: The plot of the OC is terrible and companions are poorly characterized. MotB is slightly better in that compartment, but it still lacks a bit of depth. In BG2, there are tonnes of NPC's laying around especially in large cities. Many of them have interesting dialogues and or subplots (like Xzar, Garrick, and that annoying pirate). There are also many others that serve to provide intersting backgrounds to certain places (like the drow matron who killed her son, the intellectual courtesans in Fall-From-Grace's brothel, and the tavern patrons who talk about the local areas). I mean, MotB doesn't necessarily lack these features (i.e. there's this girl and her spirit bear friend), but the volume of content in BG2 and PST is many many times that (to the point that I can't keep track of all of them). As for the overall story, NWN2 OC's is cheesy (King of Shadow? wtf?) and MotB's doesn't make too much sense (there are numerous topics on that in Bioware forum). Plot elements of both are quite predictable too. Aside from Safiya's identity, I pretty much guessed Akachi's punishment and the PC's role in early Act II. It is also obvious that Ammon Jerro is not the King of Shadow before you even reach his Sanctum. There's also a lack of suspense and feeling of threat in the game. When I played BG2, Irenicus and Bodhi periodically pop up and do annoying things to you (like stealing your soul, unleashing hordes of vampires, or kidnapping your companioons). However, I never really get that feeling in NWN2: "King of Shadow just cleaned out Highcliffe? Like he's not just goiing to sit there until the final battle." Anyway, I wrote enough. I hope this shows enough of a difference between classics like BG2 and the supposed masterpieces such as NWN2 and MotB.

I think they don't have time to polish a lot of things up actually (kind of reminds me of Dungeon Lords, though not nearly as bad). It all comes down to planning and time management.

Well.. on the other hand, Morrowind has much better gameplay, storyline, and voice acting. It is also a couple of years younger than NWN2 and has much lower PC requirements.

Don't forget that NWN1's a big jump from BG1 in terms of design and interface (despite the lacking in plot for OC). Back then, 3D graphics hasn't really been part of the RPG world so it is understandable that NWN has a long development time. NWN2, on the other hand, borrows much from NWN1 which is why it has a shorter development time. I think BG's interface is much better than NWN1's, just on account of the radial menus. BG's is better. BG's interface is "better" because there're much less functions available and thus more simple.

Don't forget that NWN1's a big jump from BG1 in terms of design and interface (despite the lacking in plot for OC). Back then, 3D graphics hasn't really been part of the RPG world so it is understandable that NWN has a long development time. NWN2, on the other hand, borrows much from NWN1 which is why it has a shorter development time. Elders Scroll series isn't bad. Morrowind's one of the most excellent games I've ever played although it is easy for powergamers to become god-like. Oblivion is a bit of a disappointment, much like NWN2, but it has some very nice innovations as well. It's not that. I can still easily lose myself in BG2, Heroes 3, MM6, and a lot of other older games.

Yes, of course. This is Obsidian's domain and I expected to be bashed. I agree that the graphics are an improvement compared to NWN1, but there's also an enormous difference in the system requirements as well. It does have a rather similar recommended setting as Oblivion, which is a game with some very amazing graphics. Yes, I was surprised too when the PC thought Ammon's the King of Shadow. In fact, I find the Ammon part of the plot quite flawed. His motivations, his requests for demons/devils going back to their cages, his killing of his granddaughter, etc, are all quite questionable. It is as if they are forced so that his role conforms to the intended chain of events. Also, why doesn't he know about Shandra? I thought he used to visit her according to Shandra's dialogues. Ah. I didn't know that. I wonder what caused this drop in standard. It's very disappointing to see a B-class game when they have made A+'s before.

I notice that there are a number of people disagreeing with my rather negative perspective of KOTOR2 and NWN2 and I'd restate that this is all a matter of taste and some people can be more gentle critics than others. However, personally, I have played a lot of PC games and experienced a lot of different cool stuff so my standards may be a bit higher than the average people. I find it difficult to believe that people find NWN2's UI is one step up from NWN1's (No, KOTOR2's fine becuase it's essentially the same UI as KOTOR1). The mini map, for instance, is very inconvenient to use. First and formost, it lacks contrast. In places like the orc camp exterior, it is nigh impossible to pick out which is the road and which is the impassable terrain. Also, the mini-map should've followed NWN1's style which contains the whole map on one screen (and zoomable). It's much easier to navigate this way. The quick bar is improved in the sense that it has 70 more slots than that of NWN1's. On the other hand, it is also less centralized. Many of us would like combat modes and all other actions being controlled through this tab and not in separate places. Also, it is much more convenient to add skills by a simple right click and pick from the tree rather than opening up the character page and drag the thing from the skills or feat page. As for the story of NWN2, I'd rate it mediocre at best, as I've said in the past. It's really nothing compared to HotU, Torment, and BG2. If you compare the character development and dialogues between NWN2 and the latter three, you'd notice a great deal of difference in quality and depth. The "influence system" soudns cool in theory, but I've yet to notice any henchmen who would give me a lasting impression like Morte, Deekin, and Minsc + Boo. Mr. samm commented he didn't try HotU out because of its epicness, but a large part of the campaign's charm comes from its plot, clever dungeon designs, and interesting universe. If fighting is all you care about, you've missed out on a large part of the fun. Anyway, what I say is entirely based on my opinion which noone has to agree with. However, I do think they are accurate criticisms towards Obsidian's two virgin projects. If they are good game designers, they probably should give them some thought and perhaps do a better job next time rather than relying on a series' pre-established reputation to earn them the bucks.

What I comment is subjective and based on my own taste. I am sure some people can be easily satisfied with a good hack and slash system without a good plot. But IMO (and repeating the opinions of many others), KOTOR2 suffers a greal deal in its plot. Atris, Nihilus, Sion, GOTO, and the Jedi Masters are all under-developed. Kriea herself is also obviously shown as a viper from the start before she saps the force out of the Jedi Masters and betrays the PC. However, I do like her a lot and she's among the few things I enjoyed about KOTOR2. Whatever cut content there is does not concern me because it is not in the game for my intents and purposes. When a consumer buys a game, he expects to be able to enjoy the game to its full potential without having to dig up its files for massive chunks of unfinished materials. As for NWN2, you should take a look at the reviews in Amazon.com. At least half of them are quite negative. I am not saying that Obsidian can't please us with big expansion that provides a big fix to the UI and a very nice campaign, but the game at this state is a bit lacking.

The most important suggestion that Obsidian should consider is that they should set attainable goals that can be achieved before their deadline. Cool perks are nice but if they don't have time to complete them, those stuff'd probably end up in the cold storage just like the AK51 robots.

Come to the think of it. There's a BIG difference in the feel of NWN1 and NWN2. Although there's no influence system in NWN1, you tend to know more about your henchies and where they come from. For example, we'd know about Linu's childhood in Evereska, love life, and journey for Sehanine Moonbow. As for the henchies in NWN2, I don't think we know much about them. Where's Neshka from? Yes, we know about the Church of Helm, but what else? Same with Qara and others. I think the most developed henchman is Khelgar, but that's it (probably because the dev's didn't have the time to do others). As for NPC's that do not join your team, the defs put even less effort into giving them character. Characters such as Aribeth (OC), Aaron Gend (OC), Drogan (SoU), the Seer (HotU), the Reaper (HotU), the Sleeping Man (HotU), and etc have been covered in great depth in their respective campaigns. We don't see anything like that in NWN2 OC. Not your sponser Sir [something], not the NW9 leader Sir Nercelle, not your West Harbour friends and family (Cormick, Lorne, Duncan, etc), and not... well other people. Other than that, the game in general seem to lack a FR touch as there's relatively little mention of other elements of the FR campaign setting other than Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Ruathym, and Luskan. Even for these regions, the dev's seem to have put very little effort in introducing them to the players. If I haven't played NWN1 and didn't read any FR-related books, I wouldn't have known what Neverwinter or Luskan is other than the fact that NW is a goodie city and Luskan's some evil city. I also haven't seen any of those mini-novels that existed in NWN1. These little details all add up to tell how much effort the design team has put into giving the game the right atmosphere. To refrain from being criticized that gamers often have high expectations for sequels, I'd point out that there are shining sequels out there that receive a lot of praises and little criticisms. BG2, Spellforce 2, GTA: San Andreas, Gothic 3, Sims 2, etc, etc, etc. I mean, not everyone of them are huge steps beyond their predecessors (except Gothic 3). Some of them have almost the exact same UI, gameplay, and graphics as before (BG2 and GTA: San Andreas). There's no need for a great deal of renovation provided the developers understand what to retain, what to improve, and what to discard. In Obsidian's case, there's also the matter of whether or not they have the ability to keep up with the quality displayed by the development studios whose work they took over. P.S. I notice that there are lots of talk about Lucas Art or Bioware being the culprit of the poor quality of KOTOR2 due to the insufficent amount of development time they assigned Obsidian, but aren't most game development teams working under similar constrains?

Actually, try NWN1's HoTU campaign. That one's hot.

I thought I should vent off a little steam and contribute a little to the voices that speak negatively of NWN2 and KOTOR2 because Obisidian Entertainment apparently has the fortune of developing the sequels of some of the best games in history but not the ability to make the as satisfying as the originals. KOTOR 2: I don't really need to say much about this game because there's already a whole collection of threads in the KOTOR2 forum regarding, what many consider as, KOTOR2's terrible quality. I played through the game once and realized how much more could've been done with it. The UI's ok - almost the same as KOTOR1's. The plot's just terrible and incomplete. Dungeons and challenges are uncreative and mostly hack and slash. Graphics are either taken from KOTOR1 or of very similar design because I hardly notice any difference. NWN 2: I already got a bad feeling when I heard that Obsidian has the reins on NWN2 because KOTOR2 didn't feel too well. Surprisingly, NWN2 actually turns out to be a WORSE game than KOTOR2. The first thing that catches my eye (and ear) is that the game reuses most if not all of NWN1's sounds, musics, and voices. How very original. It might actually be even better if Obsidian stole NWN1's UI as well because the one they designed's just terrible. The inventory system is one of the worst I've ever seen because it's difficult to find what you need and there are no mechanisms that allow item sorting (unlike Morrowind/Oblivion/others). NWN1 got around that by using bigger and better graphics. Dragging things into quick bar is also very annoying. Unlike NWN1, you can't right click a slow and select from a tree of options. If you want to put knockdown in quick bar, you need to go to feats. If you want a spell in the quick bar, you need to bring up the spell book. Very un-user-friendly.Other than the item interface, the thing that annoys me the most next is the encumbrance issue. Needless to say, it is much more convenient to display the limit that makes a character complain rather than displaying the maximal limit because most people would not want to go beyond that anyway. The way death is handled is just bad and dreadfully violates any of the D&D computer games I've played. This is not Star Wars, we have these spells and scrolls that bring the dead back. If this causes too much inconvenience, there are many more realistic ways to overcome that such as those stones and crystals in NWN1 campaigns. The character influence system is not well-designed either. There's not much to learn about each character and most of the dialogues are not very well written compared to the likes of SoU and HotU. I like the dwarf and perhaps the evil ranger. As for the rest, they are under-developed. There's almost no character development in them. In addition, I thought West Harbour and residents should play a little more role in the game. I don't like how Lorne and Cormick are just kind of dumped to the side and slowly deviate from the main storyline. Judging from the character development for the Harbourmen in the beginning, I was kind of expecting them to play a little more role in the game than just characters from tutorial to be forgotten about. There could've been more things that can be learned about them and their history. The role Lorne played in the game is almost like the game wants him redeemed (if PC's good). If not, a plotline featuring him and his old nemesis would've been interesting to witness. Anyway. I didn't have a very high expectation for NWN2. I merely wanted it as good as NWN1 and perhaps I am asking for too much. My feeling for the game is that it has terrible UI, plot, and character development. Music and sounds are fine because they are mostly stolen from NWN1. Seeing that Obsidian has reused so much materials from previous games, one would've expected superb improvements in graphics but I don't appear to witness that at this point. To sum it up, NWN2 is just another disappointment like KOTOR2. I consider this a strike two for Obsidian in the perspective of many experience PC gamers and I'd personally be alarmed when i see another well-establish game series being taken over by this design studio. My intention of saying this is not primarily to spite the designers of course, but to express the fact that they'd need to be more creative in designing their games and more adept in making better design decisions. The fact that they get good sales for both KOTOR2 and NWN2 is not that they did a great job but that their predecessors (developed by OTHER studios) had pre-built a great customer base for the sequels that Obsidian released. /vent