Cliandin

Or they will barely mention Revan enough that the people who here about him but have never played the KOTOR games will go out, get KOTOR 1, say, "WOW!", get KOTOR 2, and then want a KOTOR 3. Lol. YEAH! LOL one can dream. Even in KoTOR2 Revan was barely mentioned, and it was done in a vague enough way that the player could chose what Revan was to the player. For people like me, who did not play KoTOR before playing KoTOR2 it was just enough background to put things together, which was the real pint. In TOR there will be no need of Revan, so why put "him" in and risk angering people. 300 years later few people will care about "him" except that "he" once beat the sith back into unknown space.

IMO the problem with following Revan or the Exile is you then take an established character and allow for enough customization to make everyone happy and call lvl 1 equal to whatever lvl was the max for Revan and the exile, then you make them even more powerful then they were at the end on the other games as you play the new ones? What about LS/DS options...do you make them neutral all over again? Just how powerful can you make them? I don't think you could make them too weak, because that will just piss everyone off. And yes, I understand you make the enemy stronger too, but it could easily become ridiculous. As it is by the end of KoTOR2 ( dont recall 1) you are so powerful nothing hardly slows you down. Like I said, just my opinion but I don't see a good way to make that work. Also it adds the complexity of needing more background for those who have never played a KoTOR. Personally I played KoTOR2 before I played KoTOR1.

I am sure they will charge a fee, likely $15/month, but at least $10/month. They are going to have you start at neutral and you become light or dark based on how you complete the quests, much like they did in the single player games.

I assume you mean a DS male exile, but there are more options then that, because you can still has a DS male Exile and have Bastilla LS. But the fact comes down to is both Bioware and Obsidian left the characters completely open to what happens at the end. The only thing we know for sure is Revan left known space and did not return (we don't even know that much of the exile). IMO you will be disappointed if you expect Revan to be significant in the TOR lore. No, I'm saying that the sith holocron that Exile finds only works (I think, it's been a while) when Revan is selected as DS male. and besides revan would be easy to venerate. He's been on both sides of the tracks (a Jedi and a Sith) prior to Kotor 1 and he's also got body armor that makes him androgynous. So theoretically you could get a way without defining him. I however think they will define him at least a little so that they can get work out of him. He is after all their character so they can do what they want with him. It would be easy to mention what he did and venerate what he did to help the Republic, but of course we still don't know what he did AFTER that when he left. Some people might be angry about the great leader Revan leaving and not helping rebuild the Republic, especially when they don't know what he knows. I still think they will be incredibly vague if they mention Revan. Too many possibilities. Revan could have been male or female LS or DS, the savior of the republic or its crippler. How do you get into a character like that without bugging someone. it is much saver to just leave Revan alone or make Revan horribly vague (which will also offend people).

Yes, we know the sith lose, but they still have some 4500+ years to lose badly and be considered extinct by the time Episode I occurs. This may be a first, but I completely agree with you on this point. I think players will just be happy to have a KoTOR3. And even if it were 1000 years later people would be happy because they could seriously tie in the aftermath of whatever Revan and the Exile did into the game, after all the events would have occured outside known space and just start being felt in known space a 1000 years later. I think it would be an easy story for most players to buy into.

Which just proves my point that players would happily follow a new character, especially if they tie the games together in a similar manner. And if they are smart, which I bet they are, they will never tie off the storyline. It would be the exact opposite of smart to not tie of a storyline. IMO, they need to tie off K1-K2s, with a K3, then start an entirely new trilogy or something following some new characters in a different time setting... and these games can take place any time period they want them to take place in... Much like the original movies. They finished the plot of IV V and VI, and then came back 20 years later and started the trilogy that explained it all... it took 20 years, but they still did it. But there is really no reason to tie it off and kill the following. If they dont tie it off the following will continue. It is not that it is not smart. Might bother some people, but they will still follow it, always hoping to have an end. Really Star Wars is good at that. everything in star Wars eventually ties to Luke Skywalker and the original movie trilogy. Arguably even KoTOR does, in that the lore that surrounds KoTOR has developed from the books that spun off from the movies. Yes it is much more developed, but still there.

I assume you mean a DS male exile, but there are more options then that, because you can still has a DS male Exile and have Bastilla LS. But the fact comes down to is both Bioware and Obsidian left the characters completely open to what happens at the end. The only thing we know for sure is Revan left known space and did not return (we don't even know that much of the exile). IMO you will be disappointed if you expect Revan to be significant in the TOR lore.

Which just proves my point that players would happily follow a new character, especially if they tie the games together in a similar manner. And if they are smart, which I bet they are, they will never tie off the storyline.

I seriously doubt that LA and Bioware are going to produce a game that falls dramatically short of promises. The MMO market is big, but they are picky, which is why so many MMOs fail. If you go out on a limb and say that the game will have all these things and then dont deliver people will not play it. It is better for them to play down, not play up how much and how big the game will be, I would think that games like Connan testify to this. Cin was saying that it took 240 hours to get from 0 to 70, that's one heck of a ride, From 70-80 is significantly shorter And my real point is for people who want to play a game that has some real play time single player games typically are lacking. Even super fast players in WoW will take 120+ hours to get to 70, and most people think getting to the top level less than 1/2 of what the game has to offer. You'll see Kotor three after wargamers see Warcraft 4. I think you are much more likely to see another KoTOR game that is based on a different time frame. for instance, maybe 1500 years after KoTOR2 which will give freedom to do whatever they like and not interfere with TOR and it would still be the old republic so they could still call it KoTOR3. And you can complain all you want about the idea, but most KoTOR players would still buy and play it.And Warcraft 4 will never happen, but that discussion is for a different thread.

I total disagree. I bet they will avoid Revan like the plague. The best we get is a mere mention that Revan fell to the DS and was redeemed from it and killed Malak, but likely not even that. The reason for it is that KoTOR1 can end with Revan as LS or DS. and in KoTOR2 there is a part that tells you the Bastilla and Revan lead the Sith (holocrom in the old sith academy, normally is broken but not always). Therefore to put him in TOR assumes too much.

Exar Kun

This seems to be the common thought. that the games have to go back to Revan or the Exile. I don't agree. If that had to happen then KoTOR2 would have followed Revan, but instead they created the Exile, and everyone is so attached to that creation. 95% of everyone would happily follow the exploits of "Jedi X" through the would of KoTOR3, and the other 5% would grumble about it and play it anyway. Then everyone would love this "Jedi X" that they created for KoTOR3 and say we had to go back to Revan, Exlie and Jedi X in KoTOR4. Personally I would like a game that followed Exar Kun, or a Jedi that battles him.

Yes, it is true the storyline in MMOs leave most people wanting, but the same can be said of many SPRPGs (anyone really happy with KoTOR2's ending?). Anyway, if Bioware is to be believed then TOR will contain the aspects that a SPRPG player wants from a MMORPG. They claim that TOR has more content then every game they have ever made put together. Also it will allow your story to truly unfold as you go with your choices actually meaning something, unlike in other MMOs. It will, in essence, make a complete SW adventure that will allow you to choose LS or DS and become whatever you want to be. If they pull this off then every player will be dramatically different, rather than the basic cookie cutter style characters you get from other MMOs. I love the SPRPGs and play the MMOs too. Now I play MMOs because the SPRPG get boring after you beat it a few times and with about 30-45 hours of play time to beat KoTOR2 compared to WoW (I dont know the time to get to 80, but 70 was generally considered 240 hours as fairly fast) does not allow very much play time. As pointed out MMOs make money through subscriptions, so there is a vested interest in making them as big as possible and continuing to expand them (thus WoW has BC and LK). SPRPG make money one time and there only needs be enough content to sell the game to someone (30+ hours). Now I agree there are different markets for SPRPG and MMOs, but they do seriously overlap. Personally I let me subscriptions expire on the MMOs when I get a new SPRPG, (no idea how average that is, but I bet a good percentage of player do the same, but even if it is 10% then for WoW that is 1.1 million subscriptions). Personally I think that if there was to be a KoTOR3 is would have to release before TOR or after TOR is all but dead. But, if TOR is as good as they hope I think WoW will be gone first and they are going on their 5th year with 11 million current subscribers, so don't hold your breath.

well if he wants to impact the Sith empire he either has to get some position of power within the empire that would rely upon him using the dark side, or he has to somehow forment a rebellion within the Empire but that would probably not come to a head within his lifetime. Why does he "have to?" He could do what you are saying, and infiltrate their ranks by falling to the Dark Side, or he could do something else. Impacting an empire from within is not the only option. if he is to have the impact that would cause the Sith to take an extra 300 years to attack the republic he'd have to either form an army of disgruntled slaves or become powerful enough that he has his own army to forment discontent. while the disgruntled slaves would probably allow him to remain Lightsided the Nobility line would probably end up with him stuck in a terrible spiral leading to his darkside tendancies coming back to haunt him. Hmm.... He doesn't have to lead a slave rebellion in order to impact the Sith empire... Refer to my earlier theory.... Nor does he have to willingly fall to the DS again and get in some position of power (because the Sith probably wouldn't just hand over a position of power to Revan because they probably wouldn't know him too well.) In general the way a sith organization works is that in order to move up in the ranks (at least at the rank where Revan would need to be to have a large enough impact) you kill the person above you. Generally wanton slaughter and the keeping of pleasure slaves is not conducive to rising in the sith ranks. Also I would expect a Lord to be able to sense the alignment of another Lord. Which is why he probably wouldn't want to fall to the DS again. Does it make sense? Revan leads against the Mandalorians, then turns and attacks the Republic... Then his mind is re-wired and he helps the Republic, even AFTER remembering who he was before this "Jedi re-wiring thing". If he fell to the DS purposely and attacked the Republic to save it, why doesn't the Canon Revan go DS and finish his onslaught of hte Republic? Something else must have been at work in my opinion. He must've realized he made an error somewhere along his judgment when he fell to the DS the first time. So I highly doubt that if he goes to fight the True Sith, he will fall to the Dark Side. This is because the aforementioned events. He fell to the Dark Side the first time, and ended up nearly destroying the Jedi and the Republic. He left decimation in his wake. He must have realized that one cannot simply fall to the Dark Side and then hope to do good, the Dark Side rules your destiny. Your lust and craving for power is all that matters. And yet without either support from another unknown kingdom, or the Republic, Revan wouldn't have the influence or power base necessary to do significant damage to a society designed around power and war. It'd be like taking a German General and plopping him down in Siberia during world war two and expecting him to have ANY effect on the Russian War Effort. Not sure any of this has to do with the MMO. Based on what Bioware's VP said this MMO is intended to have a time frame where the sith and jedi are constantly fighting. That means that you wont have Revan coming back having destroyed the Sith. Also, all this talk about the "True Sith" Kreia said the "true sith" was a believe not a people, and that is part of Obsidian's story line anyway and Bioware will ikely not use it. The new MMO is just going to be a game where you get to decide over time between LS and DS. And I agree that the reference to the MMO being KoTOR3-12 is a reference to how big the game content will be, since Bioware is saying there is more game content in TOR then all their other games put together.

what part of 300 years later makes the MMO "the same setting, characters, locations"? Also as evidenced by the many threads here the people that play MMOs are different from the people that play stand-alone games. I personally would play both. I said the books versus the movies. I never mentioned the video games in reference to Biggs. To your point 2. I think everyone is hoping Obsidian will get KotOR3. To your point 3. Additionally after you visit the Jedi Enclave the 2nd time (once the three Jedi Masters are dead) if you ask Kreia if all the Jedi are dead she says she does not know but she doubts it. To your point 4. As the republic is concerned KotOR2 only involved one small battle that ended quickly at Telos (and of course the lose of Pragus). This would be similar to many of the post Return of the Jedi books that have small battles going on all the time. To have a KotOR3 you do not need to include the republic as a major side.

I don't pretend to assume to know how BioWare will handle staffing, but logical business practices would say to not overstaff for an expectation of a hit game, but to reel back other projects and use the staff you have in place. That is why I thought BioWare would not have the ability to spearhead KotOR3 for a few years. I don't know what game you played, but in the version I played four Jedi and two Sith (three if you count Kreia) were killed. Not exactly significant. Also depending on how you play you can end up with four or more Jedi that don't die, plus yourself and the end of the game does not truly determine where the exile goes. In fact Kreia even say she had hoped you (the exile) would follow Revan's path. lets look at that idea. KotOR2 occurs about 5 years after KotOR. If a KotOR3 occurred 5 years after KotOR2 how much will that effect an MMO that occurs 290 years later. Do we really think it matters if rebuild starts 295 years or 290 years before the MMO? I see no reason a KotOR3 could not be built off the idea of something happening 5 years later. You can't tell me that all Sith and Jedi were destroyed anyway. Even Kreia says that when one Jedi or Sith is killed another rises to replace it. From what I have seen of LA from both the movies and books conflicts are not really that much of a concern. Yes they don't want major problems, but many books were written prior to the re-release of A New Hope that talked about Biggs and how he died and LA changed that. Also, as others have noted in these forums, characters designs changed from book to book (even Luke Skywalker). And again I would say you can avoid that conflict by placing KotOR3 near the same time as KotOR2.

Darth Revan returns after 6000 years and rules forever!!!!!!!!! No really, there is no way to ever have ultimate victory of good or evil (light or dark, Sith or Jedi), because it is human nature (and the nature of the aliens created by a human mind) to go against the flow; therefore, "rinse and repeat" gets my vote.

I am not sure that it could really be summarised in a way that would make sense The EU is the "Expanded Universe" of Star Wars, which means all the stuff that you can find in novels, books and comics. Some of the publications are good, some are bad. What is being discussed is the ideas and storylines introduced which were not part of the movies. The prophecy was that Vader would bring "balance" to the force. Balance does not mean completely destroyed. It would mean the Jedi and Sith, or more accurately to the movies, the light and dark sides should be equal to each other (forever locked in battle with the light trying to "maintain the balance", really meaning maintain the control, and the the dark trying to take control) anytime one is greater than the other it is out of balance. Also, My vote is the suncrusher. I hate the suncrusher.

K3 won't be developed at least not until the MMO is completly played out. And heres why Yes the TOR will be taking place 300 years after the Kotor games, but on a galactic scale 300 years is probably just enough time to rebuild after 2 devestating wars in which the Jedi Order was wiped out, the jedi repository of knowledge was wiped out when a dark jedi detonated a cluster of stars near by. Mandalorian and Sith forces attacked corescant, an entire species was wiped off the face of Yavin four. Now the Jedi Order in particular is the problem because 10 generations is enough that you could have a population that is capable of contributing in a sizable way in a war effort, before that? not so much. Add to that the fact that games practically HAVE to have a conflict that is on the galactic scale or has galactic implications, and you get a republic that couldn't hold off a swarm of mosquitos much less an army of Sith. those 10 generations practically have to be used to return the galaxy to "normalcy" otherwise you're forcing the Sith to either be over powered when invading and are stopped only by a deus ex machina that has to have a "only works once" tag attached to it, otherwise you couldn't set up for the conflict in the MMO. Point Taken. However; my point that Bioware would be busy with the MMO is that MMOs take constant updating, and will require a large staff to get started and if it is popular, which it likely will be (cause really every fan of MMOs that is a Star Wars fan has been dying a decent Star Wars MMO), will require a large staff devoted to support and upgrade the game. WoW releases updates every few days to every few weeks. I can only imagine how many support issues they deal with daily. Also, as I believe you posted before (could have been someone else) the exile will not likely play a part in the new game or even have an impact that is felt in it. If anything somewhere along the line if you dig long enough they may make mention of an "exile" but not likely. It seems most people would agree that KotOR2 was better with a better storyline than the original (up till they got too rushed). While KotOR2 was a "save the galaxy" type of game it did not impact the Sith, Jedi, or Republic in a detrimental way. It would be easy enough to create a few Sith Lords venturing out that require a Jedi to destroy. This Jedi could easily be form the newly established Jedi Academy. It would be easy for them to set it 10 years past KotOR2 and say the Jedi and Republic are rebuilding, but a "new threat" looms in the distance that must be defeated to protect the republic. Yes, I know we get to be evil if we like, but the story is still directed to protect the republic. After all, lets be real here. This is the Star Wars Galaxy and in the Star Wars Galaxy Luke Skywalker, a half-trained Jedi, creates an academy and rebuilds the Jedi in 1-2 generations, and that after all other Jedi are dead and no one knows they can use the force so he has to find them too. Heck, they already have an academy built and ready to go on Telos. That means they could rebuild and almost destroy the Galaxy 5 or 6 more times before the MMO. Never the less, LA is unlikely to allow production on KotOR3 before the MMO releases, and even then it will be sometime down the line from there (guessing a couple years) before they would allow it. But it would be a smart way for LA to introduce us KotOR Fans to the new animation and give us a taste of new classes they might release.

Guess I will throw in my 2 cents. First, I remember when WoW was being developed and I remember everyone I knew hated the idea. Yet it is a wildly popular game (and extremely profitable). I assure you if there were postings about WoW during development the attitude would have been similar. Second, there is to be 350 years between KotOR2 and this MMO. That allows for plenty of time (some 10+ generations) for anything to happen between KotOR2 and the MMO. Third, I have played WoW and KotOR and KotOR2. It is really unlikely the main target audience for the MMO are fans of KotOR and KotOR2; if they are the main audience the game will fail. KotOR and KotOR2 are so far from real time play of MMOs most hard-core KotOR and KotOR2 fans will be lost in the difference. Fourth, I would rather BioWare have the MMO, because it will leave Obsidian with the KotOR3 project, and honestly Obsidian did a much better job. I bought KotOR because I thought KotOR2 was so good, and was disappointed; even now I think the interface and variations KotOR2 has is great 3 years after I bought the game. Ok, now everyone can disagree with me, but I think the MMO will likely be great. Yes, from what I have seen on the site its graphics look goofy and that may kill the game before it starts, but I will likely buy it and try it out anyway. But, I am still going to hold my breath for a KotOR3 from Obsidian (just hope they take a bit more time with the final parts of the plot this time around).