Logan

But you can convince Bastila to leave Malak for you... Also, I thought one of the powers of the Dark Lord was that of persuasion, further -even if you took control of the Sith academy it is just a minor victory, not as though you have turned the whole Sith army against Malak. You would still have to face the star forge anyhow. In KOTOR you end up destroying the Sith academy anyway (I suppose you could have sided with one of the Sith masters, but I never did). What difference would it have made to the game if you destroy the Sith academy (light or dark side), you infiltrate and leave (light or Dark), or you take control (Dark side only). The whole scenario should be dependent on a persuasion check or force persuade/command. Then Malak could have some nice dialog about how he would have revenge for you taking his Sith academy. Anyhow, playing Dark side was pretty unsatisfying. There was no real incentive to be evil.

At that point in the game you can take out the entire Sith academy no problem. You would want to find the star forge either way. In fact, it would have been better to make Korriban only available after the Leviathin. That way it could be played in two ways -the light side infiltration -as in the game. Or the Dark Lord come to reclaim his/her title.

SPOILERS You can convince Bastila to follow you instead of Malak when you meet her at the end of the Temple area, if you do this you officially decide to become the dark lord of the Sith, if you are currently light side you will swing all the way to dark side. Back at the ebon hawk you tell your party of this choice, some split (Carth), some stay with you. and you can force Zaalbar to kill Mission, based on his blood-debt to you, all pretty evil stuff. This also alters some of the end game sequence, Bastila uses the battle meditation to help destroy the republic fleet, and you end up facing Malak alone, end game cut scene is altered as well, with the Sith being victorious. Overall, the Dark side option is well fleshed out for the last in-game sequence. My problem was that you are not able to reclaim the Dark Lord of the Sith title once you find out your are Revan. Yoiu should have this option -although I can understand why, from a programming perspective, they would not want to spend the Resources $$$ to do this.

I was pretty dissapointed when I played my second game as a nuetral char that would make a big swing to the Dark Side once I "discovered" I was actually Revan. I wanted to go full dark lord mode right there on the Leviathin -or at least back at the Ebon Hawk, but that had to wait until the Bastila confrontation at the Temple. I think Bio should have made the leviathin confrontation another possible dark side swing point that would greatly influence subsequent conversations should you choose Dark. For example, you should be able to to make the Wookie kill Mission right then instead of later. (I thought this was the best dark side roleplaying opportunity in the whole game) Logan

I disagree. BG1 -escape from candlekeep part1 -you have to clear the mines before you can get to the bandit camp -clear the bandit camp before going to the cloakwood -clear the second mines before getting into the city -deal with being poisoned before you die -escape from candlekeep part2 -confront sarevok before getting the endgame sequence. BG2 -exit the start dungeon -Free to roam in chapter 2 for easily 70% of the game content -Go to asylum to begin the end-game sequences Asylum->Saugin->underdark(somewhat non-linear area)->Amn->elven village->end game I dont understand why everyone claims BG2 was too linear, I played at least 10-15 different games, most of them I spent 30-40hrs in chapter2 and then just started a new game. There were so many non-plot quests in chapter2 (all of the city, the beholder in the temple district, the planar quest, the ranger quest/shadow dragon, red dragon quest, druid quest, trading city place, stupid castle with trolls, ect, ect.) how is this any less open than the wilderness in BG1?, I guess the main difference is that you travelled directly between maps instead of exploring mostly empty wilderness. (the following is a public service announcement, not directed at Iolo) All the negativity about KOTOR makes me wonder if you ever play a game that you truely enjoy, or maybe the games of yesteryear loom so great in your memory that any game released today just doesn't cut it. Also if you played KOTOR too many times it is nobodies fault but your own. I can't imagine what the developers think of the general tone here regarding KOTOR, especially if they are making the sequel. Bunch of know it all ingrates who will likely tear apart whatever they make with completely unrealistic requests and criticisms. sorry for the rant, I just can't stand the obnoxious armchair developers that dominate this board. Logan

One thing that is not really clear..Who owns the license to make BG games on the PC? Bioware? Atari? If Atari, why? They own the D&D license, but BG was licensed to Interplay-Bioware-BIS before Atari/Infogrames aquired the license, who did Interplay lose the right to publish BG (on the PC) to? I also agree that the chance of Obsidian making any "official" D&D game are close to nil, I think that both Bioware and the former BIS staffers have had it with all the legal problems and WoTC restrictions on content. IIRC Jefferson was cancelled as much because of WoTC content restrictions as it was due to Interplay losing the rights. It might be that when Interplay/BIS determined they would have to gut Black Hound in order to publish it that they then determined that the effort involved was not worth completing development and retaining the BG PC license. Hence they let the license go. In fact, I hope that the good cRPG developers starve the D&D license holder (Hasbro, WoTC, Atari) of revenue from cRPGs until Hasbro releases its' money grubbing, moral high ground death grip from D&D, until then, all we will get is D&D fluff. Hell Troika helped this process along by producing a complete failure of a D&D game. Only through death can there be rebirth. Logan

Maybe project X is BG3, here is why... Interplay lost the rights to publish BG3 on the the PC, who did they lose them to? Perhaps Bioware? Who has Obsidian entered into a partnership with? Interplay was fighting to regain these rights, why fight anymore what with BIS dead. If Bioware gave this project to Obsidian it would be a nice way to give Interplay a big fat FU. Too bad such a BG3 would not be jefferson -I doubt they would buy that unfinished work from Interplay. Yes, I know -when hell freezes over. But when are we going to get another really good party based D&D cRPG? ToEE fell on it's face and probably will not inspire more Troika-Atari remakes of classic modules -too bad, such a concept had real promise.