refuse

When I first played it as a female I was almost certain I'd done something wrong when she didn't join my party after Telos! The Disciple I found to be a better party member, since he starts as a Soldier and becomes a Consular, a good combination early on in the game. His back-story is a bit bland, but you could probably argue that the Handmaiden is a bit too similar to Juhani from the the first game. So why not play as a male Exile then? Or play as a male and switch your appearance to a female, to make things a bit more, erm, gay (without wanting to sound sexist or homophobic)? Curiously, if you were to change the Exile's gender with KSE to be both male and female (i think there is such an option, if I remember correctly), or droid for that matter, how does that play out (in terms of romancing, npcs, etc)? Anybody tried it?

He was. One reason is that there are very few places in the game to gain influence with him. IIRC, it's impossible to get 100 influence with him, unless you cheat or gain influence by killing the innocent (though he doesn't always respond positively to that). There isn't much point though, as his high influence "revelation" was apparently also dropped from the game IIRC. I think the most you can is to get him to admit that he travelled with Revan during the Jedi Civil War (= events of KotOR1). Once he tells you that story, he has nothing more to say you mean the revelation were he takes off his helmet and it turns out to be canderous, and he tells you that he was maddly inlove with bastila and that reven didn't go into the unkown regions he was actually warped to harry potter land to help kill voldemort? No, no, no, the one where he takes off his helmet to reveal his actually William Wallace, proud Scotsman and the Mandalorians are really hairy ginger tribesmen in plaid dresses...

Yeah, five hours to complete the game after Taris does seem like a very very short time to complete it. It takes me a good 2-3 hours on each planet in my playthroughs, about 30 to complete the game. Generally, unless I'm looking for specific responses, I mostly click through the dialog and cutscenes (or at least the ones you can, anyway) and constantly move around with Master Speed and the teleport-back-to-base option. Kashyyyk probably takes the longest since you can't teleport back to the Ebon Hawk, so completing the merchant side-quest can be tiring running back and forth to get everything done before the Wookies kill everyone. I wouldn't say it's impossible to complete KoTOR in 8 hours flat, but I do find it somewhat hard to believe that you'd also complete the majority (much less the entirety) of side-quests in the process.

Quite a lot has been going on with the beta testing. It seems that 1.0b4 is just around the corner.

Nothing KSE can't fix in a matter of seconds! Find the Twilek model you want (I usually go for the Assasin ones from Nar Shadaa) and change the appearance! Changing Goto from the black ball to his hologram appearance for that matter remarkably also makes him more enjoyable to play with.

It's good they are noticing all the grammatical and spelling errors, which can be fixed almost instantly, as well as any other gameplay quirks and issues. As noted with Peragus, the dialog can be quite the mood-maker in TSL. It's a real shame when you download a new mod and the dialog looks like it's been transcribed from drunken/hastily-written sms texts (or post-its, for anyone over the age of 25 ). If you're going to invest a lot of time to get that one texture right or make sure that those scripts are totally bug-free, you might as well invest some time in the text, right? No offense to anyone over their command of english (or other language, although I've only got/know the UK versions of the games), but if you're going to release a mod, please take the time to proof-read everything or even consider getting someone to help you with the dialog if you're uncertain. It doesn't have to be the Odyssey, Othello or War & Peace , but they're probably good examples of epic story-telling to look into!

Huh? I've checked the mantis repository and the main page as well. No Major ones found. I think Karka meant this.

I think Dashus referred to the 'perfection' quality of the current work in progress. I don't remember the exact words, but considering that they've noted that some content will become available in the form of a subsequent patch (something they didn't want to resort to), I suppose they've reached an acceptable level of quality and playability. I suppose in the next year or so, what with the work that's been done lately with user-made modules, that more people might give content mods a go, so there's probably a lot to come...

Totally. Their support forums are notoriously useless on top of it.

Excellent post, I agree with most of your observations. With regards to Bao-Dur's self-confessed 'sacrifice', it could be related to a quest that takes place prior to your final assault on Malachor V, like maybe Bao Dur sensing you're going to revisit Malachor, so he mentions the Mass Shadow Generator still being good for one more go, after your confrontation with the Jedi Masters/Kreia on Dantooine. So, you have to re-visit Droid planet (or perhaps speak to a Hutt or skilled mechanic somewhere else?) to pick up/buy some special jumper cables or whatever from there to properly piece together the Mass Shadow dealie, only he gets ambushed by Sith or G0-T0 or someone. As I mentioned previously, you have to play the game a few times with different set-ups to get a fuller picture of the story, but so long as you take the time to digest the dialog and make sense of what's going on, the story can be pretty straight-forward.

You honestly think its that simple? Mostly, yeah. I don't include publicity campaigns as part of game development though, just to clarify this: I mean the actual writing of code and game testing. Do you honestly think that the actual game developers take on-board the marketing duties too, particularly when it comes to the multi-million dollar franchise of Star Wars? Video previews of games are fairly formulaic and no different to say a music video; reveal a bit about the story, show pc flourishing lightsabers, show dramatic bit of cinematic interlude, have developer 'interview' stating how they are pushing the limits on technology, show pc putting the death grip on some, fade to credits. Any third-year film student can probably put together a pretty convincing video and make Barbie's Summer Blast Adventures look like the coolest game since Street Fighter 2. Particularly when it comes to Star Wars games, my gut feeling tells me that Lucas (thinks it) knows what its average customer wants from a game, so I don't expect them to go all out on the directorial/cinematographic aspect of a promo video.

I don't think Obsidian are worse off, not at least in the sense you mention them. The contract they would have signed would be to make TSL and stick around for updates and whatnot for a few months or years; afterwards, it's to greener pastures. I suppose individual employees from Obsidian could do whatever the heck they want in their free time and sure, their insider knowledge of game mechanics and code would mean they could do a lot, but there are limits; professional voice-overs need real money (unless you want an entire planet's worth of the same alien talk over and over and over and over again) and I don't know what the legal status of development tools specific to the TSL project (whether they can use them as they please, or whether they have to come up with new ones, from scratch). I honestly believe that they simply have no desire to get involved with such a project, when they could be devoting themselves to a newer, more exciting one (which will also pay their bills); i wouldn't want their next project to suffer because they spent time polishing a 4-year-old game. Anyone can release a mod, so long as it fulfills some legal requirments (such as copyright infringement), which in turn determine if you plan on selling it or giving it away. It's customary that most mods are free, however any mods that go for sale for real money are mods that have been green-lit by the copyright holder; in our case, if LA doesn't want to commission any such patch, as you describe it, so there's no patch, apart from what Team Gizka is doing. Even then, without wanting to sound negative, that is their interpretation of what is assumed to be cut content (i.e. not all 'restored' content was cut because it was incomplete or rushed) and it is limited by their modding skills and understanding of game mechanics.

Precisely. If anyone from Obsidian or Bioware wanted to 'revisit' KotOR or TSL, they'd have to do so on the same terms as the rest of the modding community, unless they are hired to do so by Lucas. So, I can't see them spending a few months on something they are not going to get paid for, when they could be working.

I'm sure videos are no-brainers (show the coolest bits of a game) put together in conjunction with pr teams and the like, so I can't imagine they really take away from actual game development. As much as I sympathise with the author of this thread though, I can't help but feel that it's all a bit pointless; no game company is going to go off and work on remaking a game unless they are getting payed for it, nor do I think they would have as much interest in revisiting an old project, with so much more new stuff they could be doing. I am very happy that there is a group of people out there who are trying to 'fill' some of the gaps in TSL, but to be honest, the only part of the game I think might have needed any more time spent on was the ending, which seemed abrupt and confusing. Eh. I suppose a more realstic fan-demand would be for Obsidian/Bioware to release a really nice set of tools for the modding community to develop their own add-on material. If anyone's been watching the Holowan forums, it's only in the past few months that someone has managed to create (and implement) true user-made areas into KotOR! A good few YEARS since the game was released! The argument is that regardless of how well or complete a game might be, the hardcore fanbase of game will always find things to be critical about, so instead of having to spend more time/money on the same project, why not give the community the tools to add more longevity (read: sales!) to the game? On a more controversial note, I suppose reviewing the issue of porting, on Lucas' behalf, might also similarly be beneficial and interesting; who wouldn't want to revisit more areas from KotOR in TSL (and vice-versa), but this is probably not worth getting into any more, legally speaking.

Check out Gizka's forum, they have a thread dedicated to what's been cut, what they plan on sorting etc...

Maybe because Bastila was not a Jedi anymore, simple as that. Perhaps due to her taste of the Dark Side (in the cannon LS ending of KoTOR) she decided to leave the order, sort her head out or something. Perhaps in Atris' mind, Jedis who had been tainted by the dark side (such as Bastila or Juhani -who might still be alive) weren't true Jedi, whether ideologically or technically... or now that I think about it, they both never never really rose to the rank of Jedi Knight and were Padawans, right? In any case not being a Jedi or Sith doesn't mean that she can't be a Force user. But if you want the real reason, I heard it's because that's not Bastila in TSL, it's Bastila's twin sister Caroline, who came back six months ago, gave her sister a brain tumour by dropping some liquid in her coffee one morning from a syringe and is now she after Revan to consumate her relationship with him. Revan (who remember his real identity and turns out to be Dylan Mackaye) is really in Baja, catching the surf and partying with Brandon, Steve and the rest of the 90210 gang. Funny story.

I doubt they update the bug-counter as often as any progress is actually made, so granted, things seem to have slowed down (or rather there hasn't been the regular/expected update yet), but I'm sure they're still with it.

I guess it all somewhat depends on what type/lvl of Jedi/Sith you have, what powers, special items you might have etc, but what you need to remember is that this battle will last a bit, therefore if you don't have that high a health, you will need to heal on a regular basis. Obviously working with Knight Speed and sorting your sabers out to inflict maximum damage and use the maxed out flurry will make things faster, and using all defensive forces right before you kick off is good, as well as stimulants. Maxed out force push can buy you time. If you see the fight going pear-shaped, you can always run away down one of the paths and heal/power up before heading back in. I think Kreia won't chase after you (although her 'sabers' will). This is a pretty good tactic if you have force jump, because on your way back in you can use that, which followed up with critical strikes and flurrys are quite effective. In any case, be patient and don't be afraid to try different things.

Yeah, that's what I was suspecting... What will this first version be? The 'closed beta', or a public version? Can't wait to re-install TSL!!

Welcome to the club!

How about another video progress report? Haven't seen one of them for a while...

Maybe...maybe not...just to be safe I never register anyways. all registering really does is gets LucasArts to send you junk in your email, etc. True. I used to register all my games years back and still occasionally get random spam offers through the old email box! I don't think that the registration is like Steam or something where you'd be screwed if you bought a second-hand copy. Furthermore, I'd like to point out that Lucas Arts ain't that good at their support services, but this is probably not the place to discuss that issue. I don't recall there being a serial number on the game though. My copy is in a DVD case, 4 CDs, keys layout etc... It'd be awesome if rather than 4 CDs they did a DVD disc version of it, maybe throw in some 'goodies' for some sort of anniversary edition? Eh?

I'm guessing exams have popped up.

Yeah, but it's not like we're talking about an OS here! In any case, from what Mantis reveals, most of the bugs left in the game are more aesthetic tweaks and fixes, rather than something that would prevent you from playing or completing their mod. Perhaps doing a release now will mean that more people will hit them up with other stuff they might have missed or not considered. Perhaps some gamers would also offer up solutions? I don't know, I just hope this gets released in the next couple months...