Commissar

Well, at least you haven't forgotten how to dream. KotOR II was certainly flawed, and having never played the original I suppose I can't make a comparison, but it really wasn't that bad. I still enjoyed my run through. I bitch, and will continue to bitch, about the stupidity of the amnesiac Jedi storyline, but it was still a regrettably nerdy little thrill to get ahold of a lightsaber for the first time. There are plenty of pleasures to be found in a game that, overall, was an enjoyable experience.

Could you explain this please? I don't know what it means, it's not ment as sarcasm but English isn't my mother language. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No problem. I actually did mean it as sarcasm. I was indeed poking fun at Obsidian; I don't like the story that has the character starting out as a Jedi/Sith who has forgotten everything he ever knew about being a Jedi/Sith. Doing it for a third time in a row would just be a bit too much. George Lucas got away with two Death Stars, but imagine a Death Star assault at the end of every single movie. It'd get kind of boring, no?

Wholly depends on the context, as others have said. Looking at it from the most common perspective, that of the small unit, it very often comes down to survival. If insurgents are employing civvie screens, and literally shooting over the shoulder of a woman carrying a baby, who's volunteered to act as a shield, many of the moralists around this joint would insist that our unfortunate fireteam/squad/platoon/whatever get shredded, since shooting back would knowingly result in a civilian's death. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. There's no doubt that those two bombs ended the war with Japan, which likely would've involved a massive invasion, from which many more deaths could theoretically have come. Does that justify it? I don't know. I'm glad as hell I wasn't the one who had to make such decisions - though as they tell us around here, winners want the ball. Maybe it's an occupational hazard, but I err on the side of our guys. I'm very well aware that the American track record is far from perfect - I've pointed it out myself several times - and I've repeatedly stated that we need to fight as cleanly as possible at all times, but I really don't understand the mentality that actively delights in latching onto any shred of wrongdoing and screeching as loud as possible about it. Not to be pompous, but a lot of it really does stem from the given individual not having a clue in hell as to what they're talking about. Edit: And I just read via the AP that the peace activist group that had four of its members kidnapped by terrorists on Saturday blames, you guessed it, not the terrorists, but rather the coalition for initiating the war in the first place and forcing them to go...you know, act for peace, in the region.

Instant gratification is, indeed, a very bad thing. I don't have much of a problem with it via games, since I rarely have time to properly game, and whenever I do it's at 4AM, the game I want to play has usually been out for at least a month, and the local Wal-Mart consequently gets to see me at my best. Amazon, however, is the bane of my credit card. I've bought more books than I'll ever have time to read just browsing around that accursed site; it's gotten so bad before that I've had no idea what I ordered when the weary UPS man finally gets to my door.

Not to mention the fact you can totally go for this way, and then get dropped into Onderon before you even reached the first assassin, still on the Fight Ring Side... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bwahaha. I did not know that. I must've played that encounter for a solid half hour, asking myself, "Man, is this a bug, or is this really supposed to take this long?" If I ever play through again, I'll make sure to immediately head for Mandalore's office.

You kids are weird.

If you were right, I'd agree with you. That's not the way terrorists fight. They don't attack bridges, unless there are plenty of people on them. They don't attack a gym, unless there are people in it. They're not looking to take objectives or destroy our ability to conduct a war, because they're very well aware that they cannot accomplish that goal. They'll attack our soldiers, but they'll also attack anyone they think might make us decide to throw in the towel. It's called unconventional, asymmetric warfare for a reason.

This one's still fresh in my mind, since I myself just beat the game for the first time over the weekend. Was he supposed to be particularly hard? Guardian/Watchman build didn't have any trouble with just normal combat, good ol' Master Flurry in good ol' Shii-Cho form. I think he managed to hit me once, and I was a little surprised at the amount of damage he did, but beyond that, piece of cake.

Well, that's more likely to get your attention than a couple of semiautomatic shots that you might not even hear. But my overall point was that if they were genuinely looking to do some random killing, better targets presented themselves in a couple of spots, and they apparently ignored them. I'm not really defending these guys; all I'm suggesting is that, quite possibly, the cars they fired on resembled the sort of threat profile they'd seen before. I know I'd be considerably nervous if a civilian car came roaring up behind me over there, and keep in mind these contractors are huge targets, partly because a lot of Iraqis don't know the difference between the military and these private security companies. Unfortunately, many of the contractors don't help matters much - I've seen a couple who'd managed to get their hands on MARPAT before. Some of them are quite professional, and I'd even almost go so far as to say they deserve the unbelievable salaries they're getting, but many more really are just Soldier of Fortune readers. Bottom line is, the way things work over there at the moment, they're allowed to defend themselves against a perceived threat - the signs plastered all over their cars say as much. These guys either really were out for a murderous joyride or were defending themselves far too aggressively. Whatever the case, PMCs are one of those things we really need to sort out.

I've actually been obliged to build one of those before. It's not quite as easy as that little guide makes it look. In fact, it's downright impossible. I have no idea how the Eskimos do it. Were I ever in a situation that truly required it, I'd just bury myself with an air hole rather than trying my hand at arctic construction again.

Well, sure. But that's clearly where the focus is. And I'm not saying that I myself wouldn't like to play as a Jedi, I'm just sure there are plenty of people who'd give a mundane class a roll through or two. Probably, but I don't see them. Not if we're following the Unknown Regions storyline. I would very much not like to play as Revan again, simply because he's not my character. A possibility that I could live with would be playing one of these new, anonymous, non-epic Jedi that your companions from KotOR II apparently stay behind to train. You forgot one crucial element: a "True Sith" with amnesia.

Eh. I really wish the stupid Elvis song hadn't been dubbed in, so I could hear what they're actually saying over the radio. That aside, the gunfire sounds to me like it's suppressed, which I suppose is possible. Furthermore, it's difficult to tell which of those cars are actually being hit - other from the one that crashes, most likely. Keep in mind that these guys have signs all over the back of their official vehicles, in both Arabic and English, warning everyone that they're security vehicles and that they're authorized to use lethal force, and consequently everyone ought to stay way the hell back. "If you can read this, you're probably being shot at," kind of thing. If anything gets too close, they light it up. That's not the case with all of the contractors over there, of course, but it is with many, simply because they're very much targets. There's a possibility that they hit the cars that were speeding at them, getting too close, and were just firing warning shots at the others. I'm inclined to think that if they were really trying to randomly whack people, the guys running from the scene of the crash would've been pretty easy pickings - furthermore, as someone else noted, a couple of the drivers actually got out of their cars and stood there in some of the scenes. These guys don't have enough oversight, it's true. Hell, this whole thing might not've even been illegal, so that ought to tell you just how much we need to figure out a way to set up some rules.

I saw The Ice Harvest over the holiday weekend. While I enjoyed it, it wasn't what I was expecting based on the commercials, which make it seem not necessarily light-hearted, but far more of a comedy than it actually is. There are some genuinely funny moments, but it's much darker than what I was expecting from ol' Egon.

Never played the original, so I can't comment. Though your point does tie in to mine, about how we need to get rid of this having to learn how to be a Jedi all over again bit.

I prefer a level cap myself, honestly, provided it's calibrated to coincide with the endgame. Give levels some meaning, keep the challenge steady. I'm certainly not the KotOR II master, as I've played it through precisely once to date, but by the time I got to my second planet after Telos there, in all honesty, wasn't an encounter that even caused a little bit of worry.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61890 Never played it myself (did play EQ though) don't think this machine will run it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hundreds of Jedi running around between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back? Pff. Pass. I certainly can't hold the nerd candle to most of the people lurking about here, but I am at least something of a purist when it comes to a faithful rendition of the story. In other words, -I- should get to play the only Jedi.

Well, that's the trouble, isn't it? The inclination is to please the fans; if the fans went for it both times, the logical conclusion is that they'll go for it a third. I doubt that'd be the case, since, as I mentioned, the pre-lightsaber part essentially becomes just an extended, annoying prologue in the minds of many, but more than that, it has indeed been used too often. But how do you alter the successful formula while still attempting to keep within the "theme" of the series? Ideally, we'd be working up to the point of taking control of Revan, not desperately trying to find some way to tie future sequels into that first plot, but there's no way they could've known KotOR would've been as successful as it was, and consequently the developers almost certainly weren't thinking about a sequel. A lot of writers get into the same sort of trouble. You could argue that Lucas himself did. I'd suggest a clean break - this ties into my request to dump the "epic" storylines and characters. Let's either get some sort of ancillary plotline that occurs during the Revan-Malak-Exile troubles, or else something that happens a couple of decades into the future with a suitably anonymous Jedi. Don't take us to the "Unknown Regions" or wherever to fight the Sith with Revan and the Exile; there's no way that can be done well. Stick with charted territory.

I have not. Never really been a fan of the MMORPG craze. Don't have the time required to get anywhere with 'em, and hasn't SWG been out for a couple of years? I imagine I'd be a ways behind the curve.

I would argue that fan favoritism is a close-run thing between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would enjoy playing a scoundrel or soldier or something of the like who can much more successfully hang out in a moral gray area, or at the very least not be restricted by various Jedi ethics. That said, I'd be just fine if they stuck with the current formula of a Jedi main character, as long as they got rid of the whole needing-to-relearn-how-to-be-a-Jedi bit.

Well, faking it would involve the sort of compliance you're not likely to find, unless you're paying really well, and that begs the question of why you'd go to all of the trouble in the first place. It may very well be authentic, but like I said, there's something odd about the whole thing, and I don't know what it is.

There's something odd about it that I can't put my finger on.

There's absolutely no reason to even need level 50. If you're playing on Normal difficulty, you can't die even if you try past level 22 or so.

Well. I just finished up the game, for the first time ever - and right as leave expired, too. Way to time that one, Commissar. I was considerably underwhelmed by the ending, and everything after you meet up with the remnants of the Jedi Council on Dantooine, for that matter. But I'm sure completing the game has been suggested before, so I'll skip it. Instead, I'll reiterate my points from a different thread. 1. Stop with the "epic" characters. By that I mean, quit writing my character's backstory for me. If I want to play an average, run-of-the-mill Jedi who happened to be in the right place at the right time, let me. Don't make me some dork absolutely, positively fated to change the universe. No more, "Oh, you're secretly Darth Revan," or, "Hey, you're the jerk who blew up Malachor V, leading to your current predicament! You're as unique and special as a snowflake! A mutant one!" I'd much prefer to be Anonymous Jedi Who Survived Whatever Catastrophe And Is Struggling to Survive...Number Three. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd prefer it if I didn't feel like I was just borrowing Obsidian's character for the length of the game. I'd like to make my own. 2. Jedi. We ought not be obliged to play one. It'd run contrary to the whole spirit of the series, so if they're going to do it again, I respectfully request that we knock off the whole, "I've forgotten everything I ever knew, and am obliged to use a blaster rifle and wear heavy armor for half of the game," device. It was pretty obvious throughout KotOR II that I was going to pick up a lightsaber and a Jedi robe at some point, so until I actually did, I'm not ashamed to admit I breezed through stuff as quickly as possible, and that that's precisely what it felt like - doing the necessary chores to get to the good stuff. You could very easily start off as a competent Jedi - just make every level count. Baldur's Gate had, what, a level cap of nine or something like that? I'm not suggesting that it be capped, but the feat/skill/power progression could be spread out a bit more to allow people to play as what I presume they really want to play: a Jedi, right from the start. 3. Difficulty. Not only did I not die once I acquired said lightstick and said bathrobe, I never even came close. I know I could've upped the difficulty. All the same, I can honestly think of only one even remotely challenging encounter - it involved three disembodied lightsabers. Up the difficulty a little bit. 4. The party. I liked the wide range of choices for party members in the game. I did not like the "romance" angle. I would suggest making it entirely optional. Likewise, I think it'd be nifty if you were limited to training one party member as a Jedi/Sith, since I seem to recall that only one apprentice is allowed. My knowledge of the Star Wars universe is rather hazy (and I wouldn't have it any other way), but it'd add a little more replayability, and it'd contribute to increasing the difficulty. I never thought about it while I was actually doing it, but training three other guys/gals as Jedi pretty much allows you to watch TV while you engage in combat, since they'll own just about anything. Those are the main points. I really did enjoy the storyline of KotOR II, at least up until things went all screwy after Dantooine. I never played the original, though I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed it, judging by what I know of it. As I imagine I made clear earlier, I'd be much more interested in a storyline that doesn't involve taking control of some sort of uber-savior/conqueror. I think there's plenty of fun to be had in a "smaller" scale of plot.

There'd be no way to pull it off. If it happened, it wasn't a serious discussion. I know plenty of Bush-despisers who engage in rather graphic conversations about what they would do to the man with five minutes and a blow torch. We do not like al-Jazeera, al-Jazeera does not like us. I'd be willing to bet Nixon suggested chucking a few nukes in Moscow's direction from time to time. It happens. You know, I'd like to see Bush out of office as much as the next guy, but some of you folks are really going to have to learn to pick your battles a little more carefully. Jumping on every issue and letting your tone rise to a rather unpleasant, high-pitched screech reminiscent of an indignant fishwife is not really going to convince anybody that you can consider things in a rational manner.

I got kicked out of the house this Thanksgiving.