~Di

Where exactly is that place on Na-Shaddaar? I was able to tell Mira about the vision and offer to take her there, but we were on the Ebon Hawk at the time so I figured I'd have to return to Na-Shaddaar first. However, I truthfully cannot recall where on earth my character was when she saw Kreia's vision...

Okay, I'll confess I'm only about half-way through the game... and I'll confess I've seen some of the kooky bugs folks are talking about... and I understand that my opinion may change during the final half, since many folks are apparently disappointed in the ending... but damn. I simply must say that when it comes to innovative story-telling and gameplay, not to mention slipping in the brilliant and unexpected in ways that make me stay up all night wondering what happens next, KoTOR 2 even beats KoTOR 1, and that's saying something. No matter what happens during the second half of this game, I felt I simply had to tell Obsidian that I am impressed to my toenails with the creative brilliance I've seen in the first half. I love it. I flat love it. After all the complaints, the whines, the criticisms around ye olde forums, I figured y'all could use a few sincere thank yous... so here's mine!

Okay, I'll confess I'm only about half-way through the game... and I'll confess I've seen some of the kooky bugs folks are talking about... and I understand that my opinion may change during the final half, since many folks are apparently disappointed in the ending... but damn. I simply must say that when it comes to innovative story-telling and gameplay, not to mention slipping in the brilliant and unexpected in ways that make me stay up all night wondering what happens next, KoTOR 2 even beats KoTOR 1, and that's saying something. No matter what happens during the second half of this game, I felt I simply had to tell Obsidian that I am impressed to my toenails with the creative brilliance I've seen in the first half. I love it. I flat love it. After all the complaints, the whines, the criticisms around ye olde forums, I figured y'all could use a few sincere thank yous... so here's mine!

Okay, I'll confess I'm only about half-way through the game... and I'll confess I've seen some of the kooky bugs folks are talking about... and I understand that my opinion may change during the final half, since many folks are apparently disappointed in the ending... but damn. I simply must say that when it comes to innovative story-telling and gameplay, not to mention slipping in the brilliant and unexpected in ways that make me stay up all night wondering what happens next, KoTOR 2 even beats KoTOR 1, and that's saying something. No matter what happens during the second half of this game, I felt I simply had to tell Obsidian that I am impressed to my toenails with the creative brilliance I've seen in the first half. I love it. I flat love it. After all the complaints, the whines, the criticisms, I figured y'all could use a few sincere thank yous... so here's mine!

I lost all my workbench-created items as well. Not good. Not good at all. My PC now has no weapons. None. arggggghhhhh

Oh for heaven sake, Eru. You can do what you need to do with your current group. Trust me. What's more, you may actually have what you need alread in your inventory. At least follow through far enough to find out what you have to do before you leave poor Morte alone... and not earning experience... while you explore the rest of the area. Bah. I hope I never adventure with you. If I was ever captured, it's nice to know you'd let me rot rather than risk your own skin for me.

Troika did not make mistakes. They made "design decisions". :D

Heh-heh... I just can't believe he's being so cavaliar about it. When I lost Morte, I nearly went into an appoplectic fit, and couldn't eat, sleep, or turn off my computer until I had that vulgar little skull back at my side!

You lost Morte!!! Arrgggghhhhhhh!!! Well good grief, man, quit messing around with the wimmin and go FIND HIM!!

I'm sorry to hear it. Most folks know I was not fond of Troika. I found their games to be massive disappointments, and most of their personnel to be unacceptably arrogant and rude. But lots of people will be without their jobs, not to mention their dreams, and nobody with a conscience can take pleasure in that. I wish them all well in their new endeavors, and empathize with their current misfortune.

*cries* Bad endings just destroy otherwise magnificent games.

Eh, for the most part I prefer to create my own characters. BUT there are notable exceptions. Gothic I and II were such notable exceptions. FFVII and VIII were notable exceptions. And Planescape:Torment was definitely such a notable exception. I consider PS:T to be an interactive novel, one that kept me glued to the edge of my seat for more hours than I care to confess with characters so real that even thinking about them gives me a visceral reaction. Granted, it didn't have the massive replay value of a Baldurs Gate/IWD type game. But it continues to haunt me enough that I must replay it once a year, simply to re-experience the wonder of it. I don't have a shrine to TNO in my computer room :D ... but I have to confess that even after all these years, PS:T is still the most unique of my gaming experiences, and definitely in my personal top five games of all time. It's truly a magnificent game.

I'm interested in it. I hope it turns out to be worthwhile, but I'm skeptical of all games nowadays. I'll be reading the forum feedback before I buy, as usual.

I hated Soulbringer. Tried for ages to get into it, but never really made it past the first chapter. Probably just me, but I found it simply awful. One of a mere handful of games I never bothered to finish because I disliked it so much. When you do Fallout, be sure you do them in order. I don't think the original Fallout needs a patch, but don't start Fallout 2 until you've patched it. It really needs that patch, and the patch screws up your save games. Torment is a truly great game... but it's one of those that you will either adore beyond reason or despise more than death. Let us know what you think, and happy gaming!

There are now legal music download sites which charge a nominal fee for the service; part of the fee goes into a "royalty pot" for the artists and others who created the music. There are also fees on blank CD's for the same thing. One way or the other, y'all simply have to pay for the product and services you receive. I know some of you think you are better than anyone else on the planet, and entitled to steal anything your little heart desires. But trust me. You're not. Your mama's should have taught you this already, but since apparently some of them didn't bother, I'll teach it to you instead. :D

Extreme indeed! *shock* However, since Shadow Paladin is also in the UK IIRC, I believe we have gotten to the bottom of this earth-shattering dispute! Clearly UK and USA Copyright Laws are ... different. I did not know that, and I should since my work has been reprinted in the UK dozens of times. *sigh* Horrors. I do not know everything. What a terrible shock!! @Servant: No, I'm sorry, sweetie... I'm serious when I say I don't give out my pen name. I keep my two lives totally separate.

No, I'm afraid it wasn't. It's an excellent game, mind you, but just doesn't quite reach that epitome of magnificence that makes me want to play it again and again for years. I'm not sure it would reach my top 20 either, truth be told. But then again, I've played a LOT of games so that shouldn't detract from the strength of the fine game that it was.

How interesting. My DVD's say simply: "WARNING: Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes or video disks." Perhaps the laws of other countries are different? Okay, enough silliness. Here is the Government site on Copyright Law . Since it is impossible for me to prove a negative, i.e. point to something which does not exist, the burden of proof now shifts to you. Please point out where Copyright Law makes it illegal for individual to lend legally-acquired books, CDs, or DVDs. We'll wait. *taps foot and hums* You may also wish to look up the recent court decision which sided with the RIAA and declared Napster's "sharing" site to be an illegal infringement on copyright laws, which caused great financial harm to the music industry. You can say it didn't, but as I've pointed out, the court disagreed with you.

Yes, it is. It is not permissable for you to copy those DVD's, however. Copyright laws do not prohibit lending. You really ought to look the facts up before making such statements. The courts disagreed with you. It is you who are wrong. Ah, but somebody DID pay for that book. The book itself was paid for, whether you paid for it or the friend who lent it to you paid for it. Same goes for a legally-purchased video game lent out to a friend, or rented legally via a game rental store. So long as the original game/book was legally purchased, it may be lent out or used as a coaster, whatever the purchaser desires... except it may NOT be duplicated. Duplicating either books or games or DVD's is not legal. Anyway, you can pretend to be an expert on something about which your knowledge is clearly lacking if you wish, but copyright laws have defined my livelihood for more years than I now suspect you have even been alive, given the *cough* cleverness of your rhetoric. Whether you are ever willing to accept someone else may know more than you do about something or not is immaterial at this point. Others may learn something in reading our discussion. Or not.

Hmm. Not the news I was hoping to hear, actually. Desperate as I am for a new game, I managed to hold off buying Bloodlines... and am glad that I did... and I suspect I'll hold off buying KoTOR II. Depending upon player comments in the first few weeks, I may not buy it at all. Don't get me wrong, I thought KoTOR was brilliant... but I only played it once, and once was quite enough. It's not the kind of game that you can play over and over again, and frankly the Star Wars universe is not my favorite setting to begin with. *sigh* I've got to get a new hobby. Really. I do.

You could indeed, except that I keep my professional life and my gaming hobby totally separate. I don't give out my pen name, or the titles of my work. My publisher does not need to get crack-pot "fan" mail from folks around the web who do not like me (I know, impossible to believe ANYONE wouldn't like ME!! ) I only mention it (although my profession is old news for most folks around the forums) to give credence to the topic of intellectual property theft.

There is a massive difference between lending and piracy. You can lend your clothes to a friend; lend your car to a friend; lend your jewelry to a friend. You have paid for it; it is now yours to do with as you please. A paperback novel will fall apart after 10-20 readings... unless it's posted on the web, where literally millions of people can read it for free. Same with video games. You can lend your copy out to perhaps a half-dozen folks or so... perfectly legal. But putting it out on the web makes it available to millions, if not billions of people. The music industry watched profits plummet because music was being stolen en masse off the web. Courts have sided with the music industry because their livelihood was being stolen. Now websites offering music for download must pay into a royalty fund for musicians. There is a massive difference between one book being lent a few times, and even being resold at a used book store (which really hurts authors immensely, since we're talking about such things), and offering the work for free to millions and millions of people. You are talking about the difference between losing a few hundred dollars in royalties for legal copies (of both books and games) being loaned to friends versus the loss of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars when the property is available for illegal download, be that property illegal books, illegal video games, or illegal music. And no, I don't download MP3's either.

What if someone buys your book then lends it to me to read? Am I a thief? By your logic I am since I read it without paying. And I bet most people against piracy have downloaded an MP3 at some point. Which makes them hypocrites. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh don't be silly. Once you have purchased my book or a video game, you can lend it out, burn it, shred it, or do anything you wish with it... except post it on the internet for others to read en masse. However, if you read the book while sitting on the floor of the bookstore, then put it back, you have stolen it. If you read a copy of it that has been illegally posted on a website without my permission, you have stolen it. (And don't pull the libraries crap either; authors donate copies of books to libraries). Bottom line, you're trying to prove that people who earn their living with intellectual property, like creating video games, making movies, or writing books aren't entitled to be paid for their work, and that the public at large is entitled to steal it. That simply isn't true, and you can scream that it is until you're blue in the face but that won't make you right.

Look, I "stole" your post by replying to you. Does it make you hurt? Do you see everything in black and white? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> When it comes to theft I do. I write novels for a living. If someone reads my book without paying for it, they are stealing from me in a very real way. If someone downloads and plays a video game without paying for it, they are stealing from the developers of that game, since the only way they make a living is from people paying for the use of their product. When people justify children stealing toys... not food, mind you, but TOYS... then they are teaching children that they are entitled to take whatever they want whenever they want it, and to hell with those who will be hurt by the process. Don't come crying to me when even more gaming companies go broke because millions of people worldwide are stealing their products rather than paying from them.

It is theft. Plain and simple. They are taking something without paying the owner. That's theft. Color it any pretty words you want, but you can't turn a pig into a flamingo simply by calling it a bird.