Grand_Commander13

Okay, I'm going to have to repeat myself for you guys: So character skill in combat is not necessary in an RPG, though player decision making in a character's preparation for combat (or the main gameplay; again, combat is not a must) must play a role. And yes I liked Invisible War. Go to Bethesda Softworks.

Alpha Protocol's setting is really so unimportant. It has some great characters in it, but in a sequel you don't want to bring back too many characters after an ending like Alpha Protocol's (big sign of sequelitis). More important is the skill that went into writing those characters. Truth be told all of the great stuff about Alpha Protocol could be moved over to a sci-fi game or a modern game in a different setting (I'm partial to a PMC fighting terrorists in an unnamed country myself; call me ) with no trouble at all. If they decided the name was a liability that needed to be shed. If they wanted the name to carry on, well, I say go with G22.

America's Army (the deploy client, anyway; had to manually delete the main folder), KOTOR, and Space Siege. I also deleted the image of the ME2 DVD since I hadn't needed it for a while and the case is sitting within arm's reach if I get the burning desire to play. I think that's the full list. Trying to install the Visual C++ from Disc 1 didn't seem to do anything, rebooting didn't help, and from what I've seen online reinstalling the game doesn't seem to help either.

I'm getting the same trouble on XP SP3. What's odd is that I was able to complete 2.5 playthroughs, and the only thing I've done to my computer since playing AP last was uninstalling a couple of games and installing Fallout 3 (a disappointment).

Okay. Okay, that was beautiful.

There's nothing inherently "roleplay"ey about the dungeon basher gameplay that Baldur's Gate and all its ilk use. It's just that they were the gold standard of roleplaying for a decade, and so it's come to be expected. To be honest I'm almost (almost) surprised people don't try to say Fallout wasn't an RPG because it had turn-based combat rather than real time with pause... >.> To be honest the combat is one of the least important parts of what makes a game truly an RPG. People whined about Invisible War not having the skill system but the game was no less an RPG for lacking it. You could make a perfectly good RPG where the core gameplay was solving puzzles, for instance. Think Myst but rather than an adventure game with a set path you choose your own. In fact, take Mass Effect, remove all combat and references to Shepard, and you play as Liara going to various Prothean dig sites working your way through the ruins trying to solve the mystery of the cycle of extinctions. Side quests earn you extra funding and backers for your published research, and conversations with scientific peers affects reception of your whirlwind of sudden finds and eventually whether you can present a convincing enough case to plead before the Council. Why didn't Bioware publish this game?

Yeah, stealth as it is is fairly well balanced with the exception of the Invisibility spell. You can do well using reasonably quiet armor to sneak up on lone guards or any old armor to get into advantageous positions, even without a single point, but some parts of the game require stealth skills if you want to sneak past them. Very well balanced I'd say.

More open levels, bodies not disappearing (*guard looks down at dead guard body* ... "I'm going to have to report this." ... *continues patrol*), more missions where you have a choice in handler (are their small bits of dialogue really that hard to write and record?), slightly more accurate weapons, and documentation on what each weapon attribute means. A good list for starters.

Alpha Protocol's accuracy is probably closer to reality than Counter-Strike's... Counter-Strike gives you single-shot accuracy almost like what you'd get if you bolted the gun down to a table, except it's in a combat situation. That analogy fails on multiple levels. You buy bikes and games for different reasons, and the design goals when making them are very different. Bikes are not a creative outlet, games are. Buying a bike rather than building your own is more like leasing a game engine instead of programming your own, not like copying a game's gameplay rather than making your own.

So can we finally put the Shadow Operative complaint to bed? I think the stats in combat complaint has been taken care of sufficiently.

Do you insult everyone who disagrees with you? Alpha Protocol gives you plenty of feedback about your character's inaccuracy, what with the large but shrinking target reticle. Even in celebrated pure shooters like Counter-Strike there is an inaccuracy effect if you don't take care when aiming or if you are using an inaccurate weapon, so don't act like the presence of initial poor accuracy (represented by a large targeting reticle) followed by improvement in accuracy (represented by that reticle shrinking as you aim) is the mark of poor shooter gameplay.

But once you've played it, wouldn't that then be "how good do you think it is?" rather than the poll's "how good do you think it will be?"?

Only if those rockets are smaller mechs dual-wielding machine guns that fire midgets dual-wielding SMGs. (And realistically, the idea of the main character toting a heavy machine gun is just silly. A light machine gun would be fine, but a heavy is just no.)

Urge... To play more Red Orchestra... Rising... Oh, I know the game is in very good hands. But... >.> I'm not gonna be putting away my rifle so I can make an accurate distance shot with my pistol, am I? Depending on how the story was written though, the strictly dual-wielding nature of SMGs can be made quite reasonable without causing a spazz attack in tightly-wound people like me. And I sure won't complain about dual-wielded SMGs being inaccurate, no siree bob! For the story thing to work though, the dual SMGs would have to be offered on only missions expected to see heavy action. Otherwise you'd have them on lighter maps and people would be wondering why Thorton couldn't drop one and... *slaps self* Yeah, I think a little Red Orchestra would do me good right now.

Oh I know, I know. Part of my insistence is I'm still reeling from Mass Effect's pointless unrealism (they could have just as easily not included the pistol at all and nobody would have noticed, but instead they made it more accurate than the assault rifle, and potentially more DPS too [and always more damage per bullet]). But the great thing is: you can be realistic without being all hardcore simmy. Do I want some scenes where Thorton can bust two SMGs out on some dudes? Heck yeah, recoil be darned! But I never wanna catch myself saying "uh-oh, that dude's pretty far away, lemme put away this bullet hose of a rifle/SMG and get out my pistol so I can make an accurate shot." If it was something that could or would be changed, believe me, nothing would make me happier than helping you by tossing out some more ideas to help make each weapon useful without taking away from that action movie feel you're going for (and we're all wanting) OR from a reasonable facsimile of "realism". I enjoy helping much more than throwing stones, but as I said, I'm just afraid you'd have that decision long since locked down and coded.

Okay, I hate telling people how to do their jobs, but unrealistic weapon design based solely on game balance is something I hate even more. I mean... No, no NO!!! There are all sorts of things you could do to differentiate pistols, SMGs, and assault rifles without making them so grossly unrealistic. Pistols are easy to conceal (I know people are praying for loadout for stealth versus combat to make a difference in this game), differentiating them from SMGs which are better in a fight but hard to act casual with. As for SMGs versus assault rifles, three things come to mind: make the mouse sensitivity higher on the SMG than the assault rifle (yes, people can just adjust their sensitivity to taste, but then there's always...), make body armored enemies that body hits with the SMG can't hurt, and finally, have RANGE matter. Oh, if only I had gotten here earlier in the development process...

Bao-dur is an awesome character. Unlike what seems to be the majority of people, I like his voice. Also, his link to the Exile from the war makes him feel like an old friend. It's annoying having to have him in your party when you're holding his levels, but he really whoops it up once you Guardianify him. Yeah... Put him in the Krath armor (heavy works, but holy is better)... Not only are the stats good, but the color is nice too. Give him a blue double-bladed saber, pimp out his Strength and Flurry, and watch all the bad guys die. I still wish they had expanded on his character a bit more. More war stories like Canderous had would have been pretty boss...

Nope. Mira/Hanharr are the only NPCs that are restricted by alignment. Handmaiden/Disciple are restricted by gender. Aside from that, you don't HAVE to rebuild HK-47, and you must get everybody else.

Sometimes I feel like the only person out there who cares about KOTOR 2 being more FUN than KOTOR 1. AND the story wasn't that bad, either.

Aye, that it would be. Ah... A Consular/Marauder with two red sabers and his hood up...

This is a forum, not a chat room. Give it a few hours before you even start thinking "well, maybe nobody knows." Wait until the next day to bump it to the top with a "well?" kind of post. Anyway, no hoods. Nobody can know how to use something that you can't use.

The fix I told him to use works. I had to find it myself on my first playthrough of the game.

Okay, it doesn't say "Visas' Lightsaber" or anything. It acts like any other lightsaber you get from somebody who you would normally get a piece of your lightsaber from (that is to say, it will randomly be a "Lightsaber" or a "Double-bladed Lightsaber" or a "Short Lightsaber" with nothing special about it). So yes, it is upgradable and such.

I liked going through with a melee main character, and HK-47 and Mandalore both using fully upgraded Repeating Blaster Rifles (Crippling Scope Mark III, Pure Rylath Energy Cell, and Mandalorian Chamber Mark III). They can lay the hurt down, especially once they get +10 damage from the final Precise Shot. As for female Mandalorians: They exist. When you play through as a female, the miners still hypothosize that you are a Mandalorian. So either the developers are clueless (which may very well be the case because the conversation is about you being at Malachor V, and there are no female Mandalorian warriors...), or... Yeah.

All true. Though when I was suggesting an weight system for KOTOR 2, n00Bs jumped all over me, so I don't think it's gonna happen. As for random loot: YES! SO TRUE! And my own suggestion: Let us "rename" individual items, or at least "tag" them to belong to a certain character. I hate having to think "hmmmmm... Now whose was this?" or having to try to figure out which vibrosword is which when upgrading.