refuse

To progress you'd most likely have to mess around with some of the globals with KSE... I am not sure what those would be, but if you have a look on the Lucasforums TSL forums, you will find some save games. Locate a relevant save and compare the variables with your current save and make appropriate changes (making sure you back up your saves, just in case)... Sorry I can't be more specific, but short of loading up an earlier, non-corrupted save (that's what it sounds like your problem is) and progressing carefully from there, that's the only real way I can think of.

I don't think so; I don't remember seeing any options to enable any pc gamepads. I don't have it installed at the moment, maybe someone who's got it installed can have a go.

I enjoyed Peragus a lot the first couple times I played through. It had a nice 'murder she wrote' plot going on. Not having a lightsaber probably bummed a few people out.

The hissing and crackling will come from background noises (like air drafts, computer fans, etc...), faulty wires/equipment or a low quality recording. Just makes sure you speak clearly into the mic and save in a high quality bitrate. You could always record in a bathroom or shower room, as they are usually small room that are easily sound-proofed. The major problem you will face is being able to 'perform' the dialog in way to match the tone and quality of ingame dialog; it might sound a bit flat (which you can tweek in most audio/music editors etc), but crucially it will be the 'acting' part which I personally find may be a challenge. It's always a bit eerie the first few times you hear your own voice recorded and played back. But as I mentioned earlier, have a look around on tutorials or guides for DIY home-recording; I know punk bands that have recorded entire albums in their bedrooms and garages with the very minimum of professional equipment (amps, laptop, 3 mics and a keg of beer) and software and it all sounded great (beyond the sound-quality of a conventional demo anyway).

I'd say go down to your local computer outlet and have a look at what PC microphones are available. Pretty much any PC microphone will do, so long as you make sure your background levels are down to a minimum, you distance yourself from other machinery etc and do a bit of editing/cleaning up with some software. Basically, in a home set-up, on your first attempt at recording, you won't notice any significant difference between a $5 and a $20 mic and spending $50-$100 on a professional one might not be within your budget or recommended if you're just starting up. If you have a look around on google or whatever for tutorials on home recording (vocals in particular) you should be find loads more than I can possibly tell you about, on set ups, software editing techniques and microphones. Good luck!

Possibly; however they survived 40.000 years, during which lots might have happened to have damaged them (wars, natural disasters, etc). In any case, I suppose the aliens who created them would have thought of defensive mechanisms to withstand with bombardment. I guess what I really wanted to see was some sort of Revan or Malak cult of potential force-users being drawn (or having stumbled across) to the Star Maps that you could either hack away at, manipulate or help out.

Ah, I stand corrected and my ears were fooling me after all then! His voice does have that same deep quality though (I'm not familiar with the commercials you mention). Yes, they are related to Goto's identity in TSL as it was released, but it feels like it's overly-complicated a story-line for something painfully obvious from the get-go. I suppose some of the droid-related quests would have had more significance in the cut-content relating to the droid factory. Anyway, that's the vibe I get from playing through Nar Shadaa and by no means canon opinion True, but I think the path leading to it was blocked by some of the Merc's rubbish, rather than being shown the crater or whatever is in its place. Plus, considering that the Star Maps can regenerate, they'd be pretty hard to obliterate, right?

You don't really need that great equipment for VOs. You could easily do it on a simple laptop. What you need is a decent microphone; don't go for the cheapest option and most definitely don't use any internal microphones! Then you need Audacity to record. It's freeware, very easy to use and it will allow you to record your voice, exctract to mp3 and there's even support for many filters you can use to clear up yout voice. Noise reduction and playing around with chorus options are helpful, but depending on what you want to do, you will find loads to help out. For commercial products, I used to swear by Acoustic Mixcraft for it's ease and great deal of included options. It's like a more grown-up version of Audacity, although I haven't warmed to the latest version (+3.0). There is a trial version out there, I believe. It's not that difficult to get good quality audio, it just requires some common sense and preparation. Make sure you keep a bit of a distance from your mic (to avoid spitting in it when pronouncing some letters, like k's, p's, etc...) and make sure you close all windows and doors to your room to keep other sounds out. It's a good idea to have your mic away from your CPU, as that may contribute to the static and noise you get if it's nearby. The problem I find with most 'mod' VOs is that the performance is shocking, making sound quality irrelevant when it's terrible to begin with. Basically, rehearse your lines loads so it DOESN'T sound like you're reading them out before committing to tape (or, um, hd) and do more than a few takes. Oh, and unless you do it in any professional capacity try not to record all the different character VOs yourself and get others in there.

Nar Shadaa consistently bores the heck out of me. I think it has to do with everything being very gloomy and depresing in a bad way. Not in the 'wow, this industrialised dystopian future vision is neat, let's see what else is twisted and messed up' kinda way, but rather 'oh dear, more of the same damn corridors'. The Jedi Ziz-El-Whatever looks a bit silly with the walrus beard and earings (or whatever's hanging off his face) and doesn't really convince me as a character; he's voiced by the same guy who did Jolee (i believe), which kinda 'ruins' him, by not having a more unique voice. The story-lines that relate to the droid factory are quite evident in the way some of the side-quests play out, making them appear in their (butchered) format as utterly pointless or unnecessarily complicated. Plus the speeder bike quest is busted, which was quite frustrating, despite being something that could easily have been implemented to make life easier when moving around from area to area. I can't say Goto, Mira or Hanharr are favourite party members either. Eh. Lots of running around doing boring and repetitive stuff and easily some of the worst dialog options. Dantooine and Korriban were annoying (without warranting a vote though) primarily because they restricted access to areas you visited in K1. I would like to have revisited the former sites of the Star Maps, to see what happened to them, and I'm sure that there would be lots of interesting things in the Sith Lords Tombs; you could always bomb the hell out of the interior (to avoid giving definite answers) and populate them with rogue Jedi, Sith, Mandalorians or whatever, hiding out or looting, even if there's nothing there plot-wise to warrant their inclusion in TSL. Having some rubble blocking access to those areas seems like a very cheap cop-out and rushed game design; I mean if a Jedi can pick up an X-Wing with the force, surely another can use it to move a broken pillar blocking a doorway, right? I mean if the entrances or actual buildings had collapsed as a result of bombings or whatever, it'd make sense. Anyway, hopefully with the recent development of custom modules, we'll be seeing many more new and familiar areas to sort that out.

Do you have any strong grenades? They are always usefull... If Bao Dur is a Jedi, make sure you equip him with a couple strong sabers, so he can use his Force Jump to it's fullest. Use Mandalore to lob some grenades (ice ones, thermal detonators, the works) and use Visas' Force powers to heal, stun (stasis/horror) or attack (lightning, force wave etc). If you concentrate your attacks on one Sith at a time, you will get through them faster. If you are having issues, you may want to pause every few seconds to give new commands, as the pc will usually use simple attacks, rather the more advance ones.

Haveth faith!

Current build is 1.0b8

One's a duplicate though and another is deemed 'unfixable' (game engine issue)

And it seems that the next build will be 1.0b8... I figure it will be at least another couple before final release.

True, although RPGs and Star Wars are notorious for creating uber-geeks out of people if you don't watch out!

Star Wars is primarily a franchise that appeals to (though obviously not exclusively) teenage boys and grown-ups buying into the who nostalgia trip (myself included). As such, they won't ever risk getting very litteral about 'grown up' issues like sexism, racism, crime, etc at least not directly. I don't really think the game is absurdly sexist or demeaning (although at times the storywriting and dialogue in my opinion is over-the-top campy), primarily because the setting of the games is a war-ravaged galaxy; it took Europe quite a few years to overcome the social and economic inequalities created by WWII, so naturally everything is going to be messed up for a while until you can achieve stability. This brings me to main argument that, as with any other fantasy series/franchise, you can view things allegorically as a reflection of contemporary society. As such, they are the vision of one person and will therefore focus on certain issues of society that interest him or her. I think that the more you look into the expanded universe, you will find many females and aliens exceeding societal expectations and achieving great things. That is perhaps one of the main themes I recognise in SW through out the films and comics: to overcome the barriers that restrict you and do what's good/evil (depending on where you stand on the whole jedi/sith binary). The apparent racism and sexism that occurs in the game, in my mind at least, are the obvious arbitrary barriers that everyone has to overcome, is a metaphor for contemporary attitudes on the same matters.

Curiously, in my last couple throughs on Korriban with the BoS and Yavin mod installed, I was able to select Bastilla, despite her telling me that it'd be best for her to stay on-board the Hawk. I was quite surprised and a bit worried that her presence might mess up my game (well, more so) so I didn't go through with it. I don't think she responded to any questions while I had her on the planet surface, but if any VO files exist, they probably wouldn't be 'unlocked' as simply as that, through a bug. I'll give that mod a go next time I install KotOR.

Good call mkg. I don't think that this project has anything to do with Obsidian, it's the gizka team itself who've called it as such. I would agree with them using the 'restoration' tag because, from what I've seen and read about it, they are 'restoring' elements of the game that are repairable with minimal amount of personal intervention in plot or whatever, as well as repairing a great deal of bugs that plague the game. There are quite a few things that they aren't dealing with (such as the droid planet itself) because they don't have enough to work with, in terms of salvageable data or (in some cases) the technical know-how to accomplish everything. This by no means is to suggest that other content mods aren't or can't be good (the Brotherhood of Shadows and Yavin mods spring to mind). In more TSLRP-related news, it seems the next build is 1.0b6, so it's going to be a while longer until 1.0c

I think everyone should chill and figure out what they are talking about. The distinction between 'restorations' and 'content mods' seems to overlap, but there is an important difference. What is a 'restoration'? I think people missed the point Hummel made early on about what is available to modders: a few broken modules, hints of plot exposition and a few voice-overs. Everything else beyond that is clearly the work of the modder undertaking the project. Granted, he might be inspired by other 'cannon' stories and make, what he believes, are logical (or at the very least interesting) assumptions, but how is that any different to building a new planet from scratch, but using in-game textures and existing voice-overs? For me a restoration would be similar to the GTA:San Andreas 'hot coffee' mod, where the code was already there in the game, it just needed to be 'unlocked', with minimal amount of twinkering and messing about from modders. On the other hand, the droid planet was left half-finished (at best), with no clear indication of its purpose, beyond a very broad outline. A lot of work has gone into the mod (very much appreciated by the way), but would you really call it a restoration, when you don't even know what it is you are restoring in the first place (unless of course the mod is just a big empty space)? Isn't it more of a content mod that's simply based on unused game data rather than an actual restoration of the unused game data? There are quite a few 'gaps' to fill in it to make it playable or enjoyable to play.

No, the class of your character does not affect the story, not directly in any case; it affects the way you gain feats, skills and other class-exclusive bonuses. It affects the story 'indirectly' by virtue of the dialog options you can 'unlock' by having high intelligence, wisdom, repair, awareness etc. Usually though, these 'extra' options don't affect the game ending or anything dramatic, they are usually 'short-cuts' to completing quests faster or simple narratives. The other main, obvious, difference in the game is the gender of you character, which is linked to the romance options and getting a different party member in place of the Handmaiden.

No, I didn't mind. In fact, it meant I knew that my setup would run it, based on the first one. The familiarity was welcome. The only problem I have is that TSL ended up being pretty buggy, but that's probably due to the well-documented time constraints.

True, however Star Wars is notorious for being quite 'cyclical' about story arcs, themes and events, only sometimes it's not so clear whether it's a conscious decision or coincidence.

You can say the same about Force Focus. Plus Force Jump does not always work, whenever there's any obstacle, a tree, a teammate, an enemy between you and your target, anything, you cannot jump. Plus you cannot use your attack feats. Plus Force speed is always useful. And, guardians have too few skill points. In TSL skills are much more important than in K1. Agreed. It's really down to each person's prefered style of playing. I find that the game is easier to start off as a Guardian because of the many feats you get, otherwise battling the Handmaidens on Telos can be pretty difficult. It's not a life or death matter, but it means a few extra XPs. I tend to focus on other members for skill points to help with workbench stuff. The attack bonus you get from Force Jump is fairly good, plus if you follow it up with a Critical Strike you can clear enemies pretty fast. Force Jump requires you to have a clear straight line to your enemy, but sometimes when something else gets in the way, like a party member, and you've just jumped, you will land in front of the blocking object/person (rather than fly over it to your target) and the attack will still register! It's a useful 'bug' in clearing out enemies from a far.

The similarities I see are how both of them are female Jedi Guardians who have problems trusting you, from which you learn a bit about their tragic life, possibly leading to romance (although Juhani's wasn't properly implemented in the game, I believe) and both hate your guts if you go all DS. Then again, the same has probably been said about Carth/Atton/Han Solo...

If you're in the grey area you can't 'upgrade' your Jedi/Sith class. I don't think Kreia will even initiate the conversation in doing so. Starting as a Guardian will give you Force Jump, which I find to be an incredibly useful unique ability when used by the other prestige classes. Helps covering great distances too without relying on Force Speed too!