Objulen

From some of the sound files in the game that didn't make the final cut, it seems that KOTOR 3 is at least alluded to at some level. Whether or not this means one will be prduced, however, is a different matter. Here's the conversation: Mandalore, to Visas, "You sound like Reven, at the end. Do you know what she told me, as I lay dying on the outer rim? That the Mandalorian Wars were our doom. That we had been decieved, that it had never been our decision to wage war on the Republic. Reven said the Mandalorians didn't invade the Rupublic's space because it was our choice. We were tricked; our entire people sacrificed as pawns, and never knew it! She said there was a war coming, that it was waiting in the unknown regions, in the dark, waiting for us to destroy each other." Visas, "A war? This war?" Mandalore, "No, not this one. Another one, more terrible, against an evil we couldn't begin to comprehend. A war of belief that had been fought for thousands of years. Reven went off to fight it..." Visas, "... and left you here." Mandalore, "Reven was one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy. In history. She had no use for a people who had already been beaten once. She said the time of the Mandalorians was over. The Mandalorian wars had killed us. And she laughed." Visas, "And that is what burns in your heart, and that is why clan Ordo was reborn: to prove Reven wrong." Mandalore, "No, not Reven." This is appears to be the dialog for a DS female Reven. There are a few extra sound files for male and LS combinations.

Which war? Hyperspace War (from what I gather, this was about the Jedi who found the Sith homeworld returning to the human areas as Sith... I never knew the Sith were a seperate people til this game), Jedi Civil War and Mandalorian Wars. Did they give it a name? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> NO. Here's the conversation: Mandalore, to Visas, "You sound like Reven, at the end. Do you know what she told me, as I lay dying on the outer rim? That the Mandalorian Wars were our doom. That we had been decieved, that it had never been our decision to wage war on the Republic. Reven said the Mandalorians didn't invade the Rupublic's space because it was our choice. We were tricked; our entire people sacrificed as pawns, and never knew it! She said there was a war coming, that it was waiting in the unknown regions, in the dark, waiting for us to destroy each other." Visas, "A war? This war?" Mandalore, "No, not this one. Another one, more terrible, against an evil we couldn't begin to comprehend. A war of belief that had been fought for thousands of years. Reven went off to fight it..." Visas, "... and left you here." Mandalore, "Reven was one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy. In history. She had no use for a people who had already been beaten once. She said the time of the Mandalorians was over. The Mandalorian wars had killed us. And she laughed." Visas, "And that is what burns in your heart, and that is why clan Ordo was reborn: to prove Reven wrong." Mandalore, "No, not Reven." This is appears to be the dialog for a DS female Reven. There are a few extra sound files for male and LS combinations.

Bah. Most death metal ends up sounding like a gorilla with drums and a microphone.

This would be a bit difficult on the Revan side, since you kill about half your party if you go DS.

Miles Sound Tools works for the Stream Voice and Music, but it doesn't have any sound for the canned sounds like battle cries. Then again, those don't matter that much anyway.

I generally do as well, but something I love about this game is the morally ambigous presentation of the Force, such as when Kreia points out the downside of either charity or cruelty. It makes the Dark Side seem more necessary than evil, unlike KOTOR 1, which I loathed the DS when you had to betray almost everyone you had met to stick with the DS and turn into a raging egomaniac in the process.

I've been listening to some of the sound files in the game, and it seems that there was alot of interaction between Visas and Mandalore cut from the mission on the Ravager, including a part where Visas heals/raises Mandalore. Check out the directory here SWKotOR2\StreamVoice\852 There's also mention of a war outside of the one in TSL that Reven alluded to (KOTOR 3 perhaps?)

THAT seems more difficult. I've played it backwards and it sounds like a lot of voices crowded together. They seem to be saying different things but I can't tell exactly what because of the overlapping. Seems to be repeating "Betrayer, betrayer, betrayer, betrayer" except all overlapped. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Interesting.

Hanharr is great, or at least he would be great if his Wookie Rage was working properly. At higher levels, it gives him two extra attacks that aren't showing up, along with the normal strength and hp bonuses. Tack on the third level of Flurry and that's five attacks a round.

Can you translate what the Sith holocrons say with the final encounter with Atris.

I have to ask: what's the point? Seriously, you might as well ask the question, "Who enjoys bugs and a subpar ending?"

Visas has Force Sight automatically as a racial ability that you can use with first-person point of view

I don't know how familiar you are with D20, so I'll just throw this out: If you are going to set the level cap to 20, then you need to make it so the character gains access to her/his PrC when reaching the 11th level (i.e. leveling to that level) so it can be finished, since the average PrC is 10 levels. I don't think that Atris would be the best choice, since she clings to the light (at least in her own mind) at this point in the game, and she is very antagonistic. Leaving this with Kreia would be better IMO.

The entire SW storyline has a tendency for destroying planets and threats to destroy planets. It serves as an epic threat, but after a while it just becomes pedestrian and annoying. G0-T0 hit it right on the head -- these constant crisis are proving tiresome. TSL was about subtle war, and it would have been much better if nothing particularly newsworthy happened until the very end.

Darth Nihilus was great. He's the icon of evil in the game, the manifestation of everything you are fighting against and what will happen to the galaxy if you fail. Darth Sion should have had an expanded dialog in the ending, and added material when you fight him at Korribon, if nothing else. He's a slave to the Force, a representation of the Force being downright cruel to those who use it, even evil. It should have been explored much more. Darth Treya's encounter was lackluster, though the ending in general was. The final conversation was a bit short, and exploring and expressing her hatred of the Force, to the point of getting in a debate about the matter (it would have been great to see a DS character debate the purpose of the DS with her at the end), or at the very least the sort of discussion that would have been on par with the one you have with Malak in KotOR 1 at the end.

Manadalorian women seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the Mandalorian men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among other races that there are no Manadlorian women, and that the Manadalorians are all clones.

Overall, I would not consider Revan to be a hero in KotOR 1 during the events that lead up to her/his capture. The game clearly depicts Revan as a villain, as are all Dark Jedi/Sith. The difference is that in KotOR 2, it raises the issue that while Dark Jedi/Sith are certainly not heros, they may just be anti-heros who are not quite evil per se, as demonstrated by the "greater" evil of the Sith and their design to destroy the Force, i.e. snuff out all life. As for Lucas, he's non canon as far as I'm concerned. The entire metaclorian mess and near-Jesus complex in Episode 1 killed it for me. He created a great universe, but he can't direct (at least by himself) and he can't write.

KotOR 2 is an overall great game that lacks polish. The story is compelling and engaging, taking a different tone from the standard SW fare that I'm sure everyone is familiar with in the movies. However, especially evidenced by the ending, the game was, for some reason or another, left with a rather hollow ending that breaks with the mood and the issues and leaves a great many questions open. Some spoilers below. Read at your own risk. My favorite part is the exploration of the Light and Dark sides of the Force. Instead of the general Light = good, Dark = evil equation, the Light side, via the Council, is presented as much more human and capable of error, instead of the nigh-perfect monolith of good it generally is seen as, and the Dark side is presented more as the unplesent aspects of the cycle of life, i.e. the Force, that are necessary, albiet painful, and good in a Machievellian sort of way. With the Dark side, things break and people die, but if they don't the consequences are worse, as presented by Darth Nihilus and the oblivion that he sybolizes and the other Sith seek. There are some flaws, however. Party member explinations are sometimes buried, deep in influence lines, and I can see how people would miss them -- I did the first time through, before loading with a FAQ to gain more influence (saved from about half way through the game). The bugs are somewhat annoying; these can be fixed, whcih will hopefully occur. However, the real disappointment is the ending, which breaks with the moral ambiguities and resolves in a hollow, anti-climactic resolution. The Jedi Council is vindicated by their choice to stay out of the war and the Dark side is reaffirmed as evil with the revelation that the oblivion represnted by the Sith, the villians of the story, was brought about by you in the war with your actions on Malakor V, and the oblivion that threatens to destroy the Force is placed squarely at the feet of the Dark side with Kreia's betreyal, since she was the one who introduced these ambiguties, and her credibilty was shot to hell wihen her design to destroy the Force is introduced. Then you get into the last area, which you are unceremoniously dumped into without any party members or pre-ending meeting and no explination of what happened to anyone other than G0-T0 (and Myria, apparently, though I haven't played LS), and no mention of them is offered either, except for the Ebon Hawk falling into a pit. You then fight your way to Kreia, who reveals her plot, defeate her, and get a rather cut-and-dry epilogue (that still doesn't explain what happens to your allies), and then, despite your dialogue choices, get the same ending depending on if you are LS or DS. Along thematic lines, a conversation between Kreia about the role of the DS as part of the Force, as opposed to oblivion, would have been good and keeping with the previous themes listed above.

A bit of a spoiler below. This is an overall great game. My favorite part are the moral ambiguities presented between the light and dark sides of the force, thought the events with the Council and Kreia at the end of the game take away from this in giving the standard "light side good, dark side bad" set-up vindication: the Council was seemingly proven right in not rushing to war, as it always will be, and you were being manipulated by Kreia. It was much more interesting when the Dark Side was presented more as the darker aspects of the natural cycle of life, i.e. the Force, that were good in a Machievellian sort of way, with the true evil being the oblivion presented by the Sith and embodied by Darth Nihilus, the Council could make mistakes, and there was no great discinction between the Sith and Jedi in the eyes of the populace. There are, however, several flaws. The bugs suck, but they will be patched, I would hope. Above all else, the game lacks polish. The ending is as hollow as the Exile, and outside of the that, while the explinations are all there, actually getting to them is not always apparent or easy.

This is all great material, and it is a pity it wasn't included, for whatever reason. I'm not going to sit here throwing around blame, but whoever is responsible: for shame. This would have made the ending infinitely better -- as it is, it is only a bit better than the infamous HL2 ending, covering nothng about your companions (are they dead on the ship? G0-T0 survived. What about th others?). I only played through the dark side (Sith Lord -- I love the morally ambiguous presentation, where the light side isn't necessarily good and the dark side isn't always evil), and the ending was not only empty but self contradictory with the title of the movie I got. Going back to PS:T, the game has an open-ended enough resolution for potential sequals without sacrificing said resolution to the dark demons of anti-climax.