Hubert the Beardless

Let me tell you when I felt that this DS-LS thing represented a real moral choice and not just a tool to divide the Force Powers, thus giving a one more time replayability. There is this quest in KoTOR, choosing wether to fight or not that bounty hunter on Taris. I played as a pure Light Side character, and as the developers thought, I shouldn't get involved in that fight. But I was thinking, if not me, than who will stop this man to kill some other gladiators ? Also I was intrigued how tough that guy was. So I fought him to life or death, killed him, gained some Dark Side points, satisfied my curiosity, and went on my business. Never for a moment I felt that I was wrong. I said to myself: sometimes you just have to make sacrifices, and the sacrifice here was loosing Light Side Points. I thought it was worth it, and should I have reloaded to avoid that loss I would have been the biggest hypocrite. The problem is charcteristic to the western world. We see things black or white, bad and wrong, good and evil, and we expect that the world should be like that. Well, it isn't. Real role playing does not mean choosing between some supposed to be good or bad things. Real roleplay means acting as you think you should act in thae given situation, based on your knowledge, your personality and feelings. Don't we all act like that in real life ? And our actions can be percieved as good or bad deeds by other people, or by the law. So what bothered me in KoTOR was the D&D like Good and Evil system, and how the developers decided the morality of the things you do. They can direct other peoples reactions to my actions, that's right and as it should be. But they can't decide if killing that bounty hunter is bad. Why was that different from the murder ot dozens of Lower City gang members ? Because the system will not change in The Sith Lords, my only expectation is that the developers pay much more attention to this aspect of the game. I don't want to be punished for my actions when I feel that I am doing good, and vice-versa. And make the choices harder, make the player choose and reward him/her accordingly. Make the shallow player to choose an apparently good thing which turns out to be bad, and reward the other one who askes him/herself questions. Make a third ending for neutral Jedis. Make side quests for neutral Jedis. Make those darn choices hard, so the answers are not that obvious anymore. I don't want to see choices like kill=bad or avoid/not kill=good. I want choices like: defeat and kill = bad on the short term, good on the long term defeat but do not kill = good on the short term, other choice later on lose, yeah, lose = very bad, but provide interesting side quest to avoid re-loading avoid fight at all = bad from the pont of view of teammates, very good on the long term, etc I don't want all conversations/situations to be as complex as this, but make every choice equally interesting and rewarding. I realise that this is very hard to accomplish, getting all those variables right, and it probably never will work with 100% accuracy ... but if someone, than I think the people at Obsidian can do it. Hell, I expect you doing it. All these thoughts woke in me the urge to get my hands on the NWN Toolset once again ... I have to try to apply what I preach.

Also you may choose some other subject to talk about because it is clear for the both of us that the Sith Lords won't be your game.

Think of the XBox compatibility. It must have a powerful storyline to mask the fact that you are on a trail. Yes,because this game is not made for the small group of hardcore RPG-ers. It is made to be another KoTOR like success with a large audience. So most likely things this particular group expects from The Sith Lords won't happen. I hope though that given the fact that Obsidian has the engine, and the tools, they can concentrate on the game's RPG aspect. Think of the NWN Official Campaign and fan made mods. Practically The Sith Lords will be a mod of KoTOR, made by the people who made Fallout and Planetscape Torment. You just can't ask expect more from a KoTOR mod, can you ?

Since you guys at Obsidian did not start the business yesterday, I expect hugely improved replayability. I can see how the game being developed both for XBox and PC makes hard to acomplish that, but wether you gave us much different classes, with real impact on gameplay, or develop a less restrictive multi-branched story , I expect to replay The Sith Lords more than twice. Oh, and I am eager to see those added combat animations. Otherwise, I trust you, so ... see you in February.

Can I play as a non Jedi ?

Heh. If I happen to become a game designer (I have my doubts, but who knows ?), I won't give a darn what fans want. I won't be working my arse off to satisfy a bunch of geeks. Yup, that's the plan, guys. About KOTOR ..., nice game, played it twice, and I'm done with it. I miss the bucks I gave for it, but, hey, NWN was quite cheap for it's value, so I am not too sorry about them. I am afraid that we will see more of KOTOR's kind in the future. Development costs are much higher today, the masses want nice plot, graphics, voiceovers, cutscenes, and all these will make the game experience more intense, but lower the actual "size" of the game. It's like we are going consoles. Too bad, because I would like games which are extremly difficult to master, have a unique universe with considerable size to explore with good amount of random stuff in it for greater replayability. And I want gore, of course. I know they are not cRPGs, but I play Civilization and Myth 3 these days. The first, well, that is a classic I imagine playing it the next fifty years.

I didn't knew that Jedis have this slight look ahead into the future while fighting. But it seems an OK idea. Well, a lightsaber is very close to a katana as we saw in the movies. I was searching some documentation for my feudal Japan based NWN mod, and find the Book of The Five Rings from Miyamoto Musashi. It is very interesting to read the thoughts of a man who lived a few hundred years ago, and who's only concern was how to win in fights and battles. He was one of the greatest swordsmans ever lived, so I think he might not be mistaking. So he says, that the main focus is always un cutting the opponent. You don't learn tehniques to apply them. You learn them so your body learns them, than you forget them totally on a mental level. They will snap in at the right moment without you thinking about them. By cutting he means a blow wich hits and wins you the fight. So a swordfight using so deadly weapons as katanas (or lightsabers) is very ferocius, and very short, usually. Sometimes the first attack is the last. At least Miamoto's fights were all like this. (when his life was at stake)

Well, maybe they hire you for mocap.

Yep. Let us feel the might o the lightsaber ! Right now they just feel like some shiny sticks. Let them do serious damage ! Show the horrible wounds they make. Also, I want coward NPCs. You kill one of them, let the rest of them flee. On the other hand, I don't see how the Odissey engine will allow that, so I am quite sceptical. Maybe some of the dismemberments would be achievable, with extra death animations, if rating would not be a problem. Hey I want better swordfight animations, too. The movements should have been wider. Feats like Cleave is in NWN, or Circle Kick.

Poor Jar jar ... Lightsabers are not kind to clumsy wannabe Jedis. I hope we'll see him decapitate himself. Then they'll give him C3PO's head, like they did for Luke's hand in The Empire Strikes back.

I missed this one, so I bring it up. See, in KOTOR, you are a badass when you build your character right. The experience you gain in game are represented by points you spend to build up your character the way you like it. The fun is building your character the right way, aquiring skills/feats, and using those skills/feats during combat. It practically is a more tactical, turn-based combat. In Jedi Academy you are a badass if you have a certain game experience which translates you know how to time your button hitting. I enjoy them both. I loaded the Jedi Outcast demo's last level several times just for the fun of fighting two Dark Jedis. It really requires good reflexes, knowing the combos, timing your Force powers, and it gives tremendous fun, too. But I think it is pointless to try to have both systems in one game. If you've had the second, real time system applied, than a player with good reflexes could play trough as a level 1 character. While the Star Wars setting and the third person view lured a lot of FPS fans to the game (unfamiliar with RPGs), I can understand their frustration. Most of them realised what the game supoosed to bring, and they might be RPG fans in the future. Others, for who this kind of approach was too alien, they stopped playing. They remain FPS fans. So the problem isn't that KoTOR is a console game. The problem for some people is that KoTOR is a RPG. PS. Oops ! I just saw how this last statement was argued here. Well, for me, KoTOR is a role playing game, a game in which I must play a very specific role, but I still have the possibility to create and build my character. I guess it fits into my knowledge about RPG's. Those who want better roleplaying go and play PnP or NWN multiplayer with a good DM. Singleplayer games must have a plot, a story in order to achive immersion and a goal for the player, and so they must be restrictive.

I would like to see a real time skeletal or polygon based melee/ranged collision system implemented. Where you should learn months to achive the hardest combos. Oh, crippling and decapitating is a must. Beacause these aren't likely to happen in a CRPG, I think I'll play console fighting games and Colin Mcrae Rally 4.

Elite Force II is not that bad ...

I think that the SW universe is pretty much limited. The strong archetypal elements like the farmer boy who saves the universe, the struggle between good and evil, a princess to be saved from an evil warlord, are set in an eclectic universe which has this materialist-scyentiphic shine (spaceships, droids, etc) and a symplistic religion. (those who follow the Force) Also it is very anthropocentric, humans being presented as a main race, while alien species are just, well, aliens. Actually that galaxy "far far away" isn't that far from us. The movies borrowed something from westerns (cantinas, bounty-hounters) from samurai movies (swordfights, the religious warrior, etc), the locations reproduce existing exotic places like Tunisia's desert, trophical jungles or north american pine-forests. I don't say I don't like the SW experience. It is a succesful coctail made from Earth's different cultures and places. It is a almost a fairytale. While I like fairytales, I would'nt mind visiting other, more consistent worlds like the post-apocalyptic Earth of Fallout or the galaxy of Frank Herbert's Dune. Even the LOTR universe has more depths than the SW one, in my opinion. Star Wars feels somehow weightless.

Yup, it is easy. Playin' it second time (PC), difficult setting. Only a few time I noticed that raised difficulty. Also, because I am a character building pro now :D, and have a dual wielding Master Flurry/Master Speed character (4 attacks/round, with two +6 AB lightsabers, I usually kill anything before my companions get their first hit. (they fight melee, too). /Karzak, go end play Jedi Academy, than. KoTOR is just not that kind of game. As for Obsidian developing the sequel ... I don't care. I hope Bioware comes up with something good for PC, otherwise I'll have to buy an XBox. (There is Blizzards Ghost, too.) It would be hard to explain to my wife, though. PS. NPC pathfinding is just desastruous in KotOR. I noticed the same strange thing as in NWN. when they have an obstacle to get around, they always choose the longer way. Why the heck is that ?

I don't care if it is Kotor 2, or not. I have a feeling that it will be something very good, anyway. I tell you what I would love the most KOTOR 2 to have: -An engine which makes possible the creation of greater areas. -Better implementation of arcade style sequences. The ability to fight as a fighter pilot in a big space battle. The ability to mount rontos, tontons, and swoops. -A more segmented plot, with much room to personal exploration, with a not so obvious main plot. Yes, let it be epic, and with turnovers, but give the feeling that you had some choices and control over your destiny. (For example, the ability to make an early choice on which side do you want to play, having a totally different path.) -As it been mentioned before: let the player play as any class from beginning to the end. I know, all these features would make the scripting of the main plot much harder, and possibly they would prove to be detrimental to that epic SW movie feeling ... I am telling these knowing the current market ... I hope with all my heart that developers will surprize us with some new and exciting approach nobody yet thought of.

This one started as a nice topic. But now I don't understand anything ... Too bad. To be on subject, maybe they are playing KOTOR as a dark Jedis. Or they are working their arses off. Or doing alternately both. //This is what I am doing since I started to work for my own Ltd (don't panic, different industry ). Since than I've been bombarded by cheap contract proposals. Glad to announce, I managed to back them off. I just got one assignment right now, but it will keep me going this year. Less is more, as someone said last century.// So I am happy for Obsidian having such a co-developer as Bioware. Latter just turnes to gold everything they touch ... Also anything coming from former BIS has good chances to have some real value. I understand what focusing to just one project means. So, people, pacience. Are'nt outthere enough games to keep ya' busy ? On the other hand, it is kinda' boring to read just ourselves' stupid posts. My heart trembles every time when I see the Developer label beside some post. Be good to us, and share. Even if it is just a personal opinion. It would make us easier to forget that you are former BIS, and think of you as Obsidian.

... Just for himself ... one copy ~ 30-45 $, let us take the latter. Than we have: 20 guys there who will develop the game through, let's say 3 years. Let us took their salaries to be an average 40 grands a year. That means we have 2.4 millions just for development. Above 53,000 copies has to be sold for that. Adding marketing costs, special costs like mocap and voice actors, etc, I would estimate that 100,000 copies sold would even bring a profit. (I assumed that 20 guys include the coders writing their proprietary game engine) Now I don't know about these things I just blindly estimated these numbers. Maybe we can make the bunny jump out fom the bush !

Hi everybody ! Just found this very nice forum. (I like dark backgrounds, staring 10-12 hours to the screen you learn to appreciate little things like this one) This particular topic got my interest ... hey, who would'n be curious to know what the big-shots' opinions are ? Ain't no developer -no game developer to be exact- actually I am an architect. I know what implementing a vision means. I also played with the idea to reorient myself and get into the game development business. I've learnt a lot of tehniques in order to implement my ideas. After that I found that the real problem is not the tehnique. Once you aquired it, you will be facing a huge, terrifying wall, having "What to do ?' written on it. This is the really hard part. The NWN editor has been mentioned here. Once I learnt how to create entire tilesets, how to make custom everything, and masterd the scripting tehniques, I was lost. It is very hard to avoid clich