Logan

To be quite honest, without access to the specific contract and agreements we cannot say who is to blame at all. The big difference over at Bioware for example, is that they don't seem to fall into the same trap, and the strategy of producing high quality games has paid off. Troika got a bad hand with ToEE, BIS was constantly undermined by Interplay, I just hope Obsidian takes a new path. Short development times lead to the dark side...

IWD was a rush job. My biggest peeve with IWD was the item icons, it starts out with unique icons for unique items, done in the same unique style as IWD artwork, later on all the powerful items use the BG +1 icon for that weapon, many share the same icon with other, supposedly, unique items. My guess is that the developers were using the BG icons as placeholders until artwork made the new icons, they just never had time for it, hence, a rush job. Also, IWD was way buggy on release, my first game was detroyed by bugs when an item kept raising my To Hit roles every time it was equiped, I ended up with permanent +15 to hit, I had to start over -no character editor was available or it failed to solve the problem. Last night I started KOTOR2 in "Hard" difficulty mode,. T3 got stuck and was unable to detonate a key door. For a while I thought I was permantly stuck -until I remembered to turn the difficulty down. I guess they did not test at Hard difficulty. Hence, a rush job.

I got bored about 2/3 through and decided to start a new game. When that game crashed I started up but could only chose quicksave and autosave. All of my savegames were gone! I looked in the save folder and there are five savegame folders, the quicksave and autosave plus savegame1, 2, + 3. Why doesn't the program recognize the previous savegame folders?

I've been playing through KOTOR2 and am about 2/3 of the way done. In my opnion, and many others, the game just feels not polished. Many reviews and previews have spoke to the empty feeling if some parts of the game. I think the level advancement is way too fast, and the combat is soo easy its stupid. Basically, it feels like a rush job, deja vu anyone? IWD and IWD2 suffered from the same problem. In general BIS/obsidian design philosophy seems to be centered on a quick development cycle, rapid level advancement and lots of loot. Features such as a more detailed envirmonment, sidequests and plot are marginalized. In every case people have defended the developer by blaming the Publisher, as with TOEE. I just wish that Obsidian would either make the effort or be given the chance to develop a game that is not a rush job. KOTOR2 is a good game, it might have been great. Join me in weeping for all the great games killed by the practical constraints of game development... sweet jefferson, lost forever...

Yeah, I haven't died once but have had about 10+ boot from quicksave due to desktop crashes. I save alot, but not because I'm afraid to die. I am thinking about turning up the difficulty, but the weird thing is that most worthy enemies make every save! They should at least miss more than criticals. This makes force powers that have saves (such as stun, stasis, whirlwind, choke and others pretty much wasted on tough opponents) I'm moving over to force lightning which is way too deadly. I disagree, it is both useful and entertaining -but has it's faults The item creation is unecessarily complex. The best strategy is to buy repair kits at 25cr and convert them to components at a 1:1 ratio. Because items such as armor that are worth several hundred credits are also converted at a 1:1 ratio. Since most of the upgrades cannot be found randomly it is best to use a high skill player or NPC to construct lightsaber, armor, blaster, and melee upgrades. It just sucks that you have to spend so much time navigating menus and converting items, you should be able to purchase components directly at some variable price. Overall, I find the game very enjoyable. But the begining was rocky, I was often confused and the backstory, as volo pointed out, was pretty weak. Fortunately the main plot has, in my opinion, gotten tighter and more interesting. Bao-dur (or whatever his name is), is by far my favorite NPC. Got it General? Combat is weak, but non-lightsaber combat is varied and more useful. In fact I did not get the lightsaber until I was lvl12/13. Once again, melee weapons are superior. Another beef I have with the game is the rapid level advancement. It makes no sence and seems unecessary. Some of the writing and moral choices have been excellent, I would even say on par with planescape or even better. Although I never found planescape to offer such complex moral choices anyway. Obsidian, I'm checking in for the next couple hours.

Got it 1 hour ago, the manual, really, really, sucks. No stats whatsoever, none for class levels, exp, feats, skills, ect. If you want to know when your companion droid will get their next feat, good luck. At least they could have added the same amount of info as the first manual, not less I guess making big profits was priority, it's the sequel syndrome. Invest on the title game and cash in on the sequels with short dev. times, insufficient bug testing, and shoddy manuals because text costs money!

from the IGN review... I raised this same issue on the KOTOR2 forums when it first started, I'm sorry to see that the combat interface retains this unnecessary drawback! Otherwise, I'm still pretty excited to play the game.

I called my local EBgames store today, they said they would have it tomorrow -but maybe it arrived today. I'll just wait and get it tomorrow night, I have a little bit of a cold right now, I think I might be getting *real* sick on thursday and skipping out of work. "

KOTOR would be great if lightsaber attacks were restricted to 1 / round, had a decreased chance to hit, but... did outragoues damage with the opportunity to chop off limbs, either randomly or as a called shot. Lethal attacks should cut your enemy into two pieces. Blaster deflection and defensive powers should remain as they are now. Possibly also expand the use of defense moves. Maybe some of this is in KOTOR2?

gamers are like junkies, they become addicted to the product and then over-indulge to the point where the "high" is no longer what it used to be. Then they vainly whine for that perfect fix, the game that will make them feel the way BG did, Planescape did, Fallout did, or KOTOR did. Relax, such things are like revelations, they come unexpectedly -not on demand. I have not yet played KOTOR2 and I find it hard to appreciate the complaints of people that have finished the Xbox version several times already.

I hope the delivery isn't delayed from the snow

Memory is cheap, going from 512 to 1gb system RAM will make more of a difference for most games than going from 128 to 256mb VRAM. I've seen it myself, upgrading system RAM always had a larger impact on performance than upgrading the video card, of course, you top out eventually, might not see a difference if you already have 1gb RAM or even 128mb VRAM. my suggestion, buy some more RAM Hades, what's wrong with you?

How about the option to fix the combat interface at the bottom of the screen instead of over the PC and NCP heads? I really don't like te interface over the players head, it interferes with the great immersion that KOTOR had.

But why make it a StarWars cRPG at all then? I think a party-based, sci-fi/space cRPG, similar to BG or NWN would work well. Hell even if it just meant exploring the unknown universe, ala startrek (but please, not startrek)

Maybe it could be added as an option... I really don't know at this point. The PC interface has yet to under go significant revisions. We've been busy getting the X-Box interfaces ready for E3. -Akari Thanks for the reply, don't forget to push for this option at your next group meeting!! Honestly this is one of the few things that really bugged me in KOTOR.

"1. Moving the action choices from above the character to the bottom of the screen. Definitely an annoyance in KOTOR in that the overhead display would often block opponents or cinematic elements of the game." So, is this in the X-box version only or has the combat interface been moved for the PC version as well? Please!

Any chance you guys will move the combat interface from above the player's head to the bottom of the screen or somewhere else? It kinda ruins the immersion with that thing appearing over your head during combat. Since KOTOR was all about the cinematic experience I think it would be a good move, furthermore, how hard could it be to unlock the interface from the characters head and place it at the bottom of the screen? Will there be less swords? Please.

I liked the skills, sunk a bunch of intelligence and skill points into them and did'nt really worry about it, then I came here and found out it was all a waste of resources... I guess I fell for it, but it does not bother me, I thought the game was great (combat gets a little boring). Every time I used a skill I figured I was getting some milage out of my skill points, guess not. What was up with security spikes? Never could I make use of them. My suggestions 1 - nerf the computer spikes and/or make some options skill-based only. For example, overloading a terminal should require some minimum skill level. Some computers should be way hard to hack. 2 - Make some blast proof doors that can only be accessed by high security or computer skill 3 - Did anyone ever use stealth? Demolitions? 4 - Healing was good, up until force heal. 5 - As Grom suggested, make repair skill be applied to more unique events/items. Repair a speeder? A heavy laser cannon? Upgrade the Hawk? Upgrade a racing bike? Just some ideas, been a while since I played KOTOR

I'm resurrecting this thread 'cause of the increased traffic here. I sure hope Obsidian manages to at least give the option of keeping the combat interface out of the middle of the screen, over the characters head. And great, Feb 2005, just in time for my PhD thesis....way to ruin my career guys.

If it just gave you the option to customize the menus and remove things you never use, that would be fine. If you are talking about Windows you can certainly customize the start menu, you can even drag things around or right-click and delete them. If you are talking about MS office software, well you can't change the pull down menus but you can easily customize the quickbuttons so you never have to use the pull downs.

IIRC you could do this. Hold on I'll load it up. Yup. I choose three different enemies in a row, one flurry of attacks per enemy. Worked like a charm. Stupid combat interface was appearing right in the middle of the action. KOTOR's strength lies in the cinematic experience and story, why mess it up with the combat interface right in the middle of everything? Anyhow, probably get some more feedback once this title is announced. Will feel dumb if delaware is not KOTOR2

To what?

^what a thoughtful post! Do you really think my suggestions are so unreasonable? "kthxbye" -Are you a teenage girl?

A suggestion for Delaware. One of the things that bugged me about KOTOR was that the action queue appeared above each enemy (or was it above each character?) during combat. It somewhat ruined the immersion to have the interface appearing in the middle of all the action like that. My suggestion is that you place the action queue in a fixed location at the bottom of the screen and just highlight whatever enemy is selected by placing the red circle at the enemies feet. It would save time and cursor movement if you could tab through the eenemies and simply issue commands from a single location instead of all over the screen. Also make it so you can cancel earlier commands without clearing later commands, also have a button to clear all commands. While your at it, change the character movement to allow for click to move to location type navigation, ala NWN. And unlock the camera to allow for control of zoom and camera angle. Don't forget to make a great story as well, because without a good story the game is not really worth playing. Oh and tell lucasarts to let you anounce the title already, what are you waiting for, E3? Logan

Ever notice that arguments tend to drive people to extreme viewpoints? Apparently all the people who played and enjoyed KOTOR prefer a game that lacks logic and does not function. Seriously, Logic? Where is the logic in lightsabers and Jedi knights? Not function? It was one of the least buggy games I