Leferd

"6. You can only gain Influence with companions who are in your party." Just to make it clear and less ambigious...what does "in your party" refer to?

"Yes, yes they do. It's called Jade Empire 2." I'm thinking more along the lines of MDK3.

The best predictor of future success is past history. Obsidian Entertainment has no such history to draw upon. However, since the key players of Obsidian Entertainment does have a significant body of work to draw upon from their days spent with Black Isle Studios, we shall use that. To draw upon this further, Black Isle has significant history in developing games using Bioware Corp. engine technology. With this sample size, we can make aguesstimateon the critical reception of an Obsidian developed game using a Bioware created engine. We shall use gamerankings.com as a standard for critical assessments. The following Black Isle games are derived from Bioware's Infinity Engine. *note that we are not counting expansion packs. Only full fledged games. Planescape Torment: AVG gamerankings score: 91 Icewind Dale: 85 Icewind Dale II: 82 The mean score of these three games = 86 Furthermore, we can include Fallout 2 as another Black Isle developed game using a pre-established engine. Fallout 2: 87 Mean score of 4 Black Isle games = 86.25 The average gameranking scores for the original Infinity Engine games from which Black Isle developed their own IE games are: Baldur's Gate = 94 Baldur's Gate 2 = 94 Fallout was developed internally by Interplay (pre Black Isle). Fallout = 92 Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic as developed by Bioware was also a critical success. KotOR xbox = 95 KotOR pc = 94 Black Isle has a consistent track record in developing good games out of pre-existing engines. There have been no outliers, flukes, or one shot wonders. The key contributors of each of those four games are for the most part developing K2. On average, Black Isle games have scored ROUGHLY 5 to 10 pts lower than the engine originals. Using the data compiled above, I would guesstimate that K2 would score any where from 85 to 90....plus/minus 3 pts.

I agree that PC users (I included) are getting the shaft. But they are making two versions, it's just that between the two versions, it would be the lesser of the two evils (sales wise) to give the shaft to PC users. ps Just because the engine has already been made doesn't mean that the bug fixing problems is going to go away. The PC market is still strong I imagine. But PC exclusive gamers make up a fraction of the market share in video games. I don't claim to be an expert on this, but if I were a betting man, (and I am a betting man) I'd put money on the console exclusive industry over the PC exclusive industry if I could choose only one. Do you like baseball? Take the Red Sox. GM Theo Epstein had to get rid of NoMaH. His health and contract issue was a big blue whale. If sentiments got in the way objectivity, The Sox probably wouldn't have won the World Series and they'd have to deal with this albatross of a contract. The PC market is still quite viable, but right now --consoles have the market share. That is the reality of the beast unfortunately. Thankfully, there are still good independent studios making quality crpgs. If they have to make console games to sustain their pc making enterprise --I won't complain.

Are you an Associate Producer on NWN2 or is it on super secret project New Jersey? Georgia even??

Obsidian has a staff of roughly twenty working on kotor 2. Bioware had atleast double that and then some working on Kotor 1. QAing for PC is more resource intensive (time, labor) than for a console. Console games tend to be much more stable than pc games. It is expected of AAA pc games to be patched. Patches cost money. And then, there is the great equalizer: $ales. Xbox (or ps2) games outsell PC games. Both on initial release, and on shelf life. And to tell the truth, I would imagine it would take LA and Obsidian quite a few patches to get the PC version as stable as Bioware's. Unlike Bioware, Obsidian does not have a dedicated full time QA staff. *edit --I stopped counting Bio's workforce on Kotor after 50...too much

Oh gee whiz. What's the point of any rpg in which the PC's party has to go around various locales to move the plot along?

I prefer the PC but I can't blame Obsidian for this at all. It's a good decision. It makes much smarter economic sense to put out the x-box version first. Suck it up.

In much the same condition as it is going to be found some oh....4 thousand years later...

Well...now that THAT little detail is out --spoiler gloves goes off. Why shouldn't he die like that? It's consistent with the rest of the tale. Unlike the other TOTJ's, Redemption was NOT epic. It does not involve dark lords or dark jedis. There were no villains. Each of the main characters had their own inner demons to conquer. The characters were seeking personal redemption. In Ulic's case: How could a former sith lord (with no force powers at all) attain redemption? That was the goal of the story. Making him save the galaxy would be cheese. I'm glad Anderson and Gossett did not go that route. The way he died made Ulic's redemption complete.

Respect? Respect for older users?? Puhleeeze. Respect is earned. Not gained through seniority or post counts. That is ridiculous.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ulic Qel Droma made an appearance as an apparition. Interestingly enough, Ulic was voiced by John Cygan in the Audio novelizations of TotJ. John Cygan was the voice of Canderous Ordo.

Here's a cool little snippet of what could have been. CLICK only if you clicked the links above.

The Chronicles gives the impression that Ulic is a bigger pansy than what he really was. I agree. Redemption was quite good.

Congrats to Uncle Fergie, The Chris's, Darren Monahan, and all the other Peons and Grunts. Does your crunch extend until February or do you have a short reprieve to fill up your tanks for the PC crunch?

Ever hear "Don't judge a book by its cover?"

sarcasm

Exactly. This could simply be one of the mentioned ecological environments. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's LUDICROUS!!!! There are no such things as multi-ecological planet environments in Star Wars! That would break canon.

Not enough "zots" to implement, playtest, debug, and balance for a team of twenty working on two platforms AND make the game well polished.

And your attitude could only be shared by Kevin Anderson's wife, defending his mediocrity at every turn. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ouch.

"Ulic Qel Droma sought refuge on Rhen Var, and he is buried there." *puts on geek hat* Ulic was never buried.

Assuming Peragus is not a planet, I wouldn't be surprised if Hoth Jr. was Rhen Var. Rhen Var being a planet connected to Ulic Qel Droma.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Bio, Obsidian, or Lucasarts ows WotC nothing. WotC has to pay Lucasfilm the rights to use SW and not the other way around for d20. d20 has an Open Gaming License.

Mixed bag. I enjoyed some of the early novels and comics before I outgrew it. Plus the decline in quality due to quantity.