Gorth

Perhaps a sticky "Go here and praise Kotor and then bugger off" thread

You could have a Hutt as a party member. Just put him on the Ebon Hawk and keep him there. Should be enough space for a Hutt. Having your own member of the Exchange onboard could be handy when doing controversial things B)

The thing with Yoda and Vandar is, make sure they don't get wet and never, ever feed them after midnight... :ph34r:

Yeah, right. kissing the walking icicle. Looks like she'll give your lips frostbite if you get too close....

:D

Frankly ? They can't Too many limitations for them to work with. The setting is predefined, with a lot of rules for do's and dont's. They are (re)using existing technology in form of the engine. They can at best tinker and fine tune it, but it will be an engine with mechanisms that has mostly been seen before. They are making a sequel to a commercial success. They have certain parameter within which they can operate content and character wise. Otherwise they will probably not get good references for their next project. (Kotor2, the Horror splatter BDSM game? not likely) Which is why I think that, at the best they can make a great game, and hopefully give them a name and a bit of dollars. If it's a success, they will have a bit more room to manouvre in their next project. Hopefully, they'll someday be in a position, where they have their own projects, looking for publishers Thats when they will be in a position to make small revolutions. So they are probably doing what they can (also mentioned in the interviews) to help themselves. One: fix the most immediate problems from the first one. Two: Take what was good in the first game, expand on that. Which is what they can do with the "raw material" they have. Didn't some Obsidian guy (Feargus?) mention at the founding of Obsidian that they didn't really intend to be a RPG developer only ?

I'm genuinely shocked that anybody would need cheat codes for Kotor ??? Now to unlock easter eggs on the other hand... a completely different ballgame. Bring on the lime coloured robes and the pink lightsabers

What could go wrong... A bit far fetched, but Karzak actually mentioned it. I'm probably breaking some unwritten rule by agreeing with Karzak, but nevermind. They could try too hard to make it Kotor2, thereby missing the opportunity to show what they are capable of. A good sequel is not necessarily more of the original. A new experience, that leans more on the original to save a bit of resources on the introduction department to an already established setting, would make more sense. Hopefully not the much joked about expansion pack with the same "look and feel" as the original. Might as well play that one again. Of course, this is market economy, so one never knows, but still, I'm currently an optimist, considering the bits and pieces of information given so far. B)

You always have to consider the source material when rating a game (Best Evar, Suxx, Kicks xyz's ass etc.) The Star Wars universe has a large fan following. Some love it, some are more sceptical. For them, the setting alone doesn't do it. The predecessor, Kotor was a good fun game, giving lots of hours of entertainment, not even counting the time spent on these boards. It was nothing exceptional though. Good clean family entertainment, that more people (including me) seems to like, than dislike. Nothing revolutionary or innovative in it. Given those two premisses, Obsidian has a very good hand of Pazaak cards here. As long as they don't screw up, the game will probably be good. Knowing what the people behind Obsidian are capable of, I would be very disappointed if the game isn't at least great. B) It's going to be a long wait...

*Heaving big sigh...* Why does that sound like Diablo (Eek!)... At least let some of that be optional then, for those who like a roleplaying game more than a combat game. It's never going to be a good combat game anyway (well, not compared to what is otherwise available on the market). Sounds like a better idea. Then the less combat inclined amongst us can skip some of the more tedious and time consuming combats

He does seem to be a bit of a mystery composer. Probably Lucasarts in-house game music writer. Damn, would have preferred Mark Morgan, for some athmospheric background scores... Does any of these games have homepages with a music download section (like the old Interplay download section) ?

A most artificial encounter, yes. Talk about killing the suspension of disbelief. Why didn't he just "freeze" her again, it worked fine the first time. If they had just "hidden" his health bar during the combat, it would have been more believable.

I know it's dangerous to generalize, but I was having the exact same thoughts, Kotor and Star Wars being made in North America...

I've been having withdrawal symptoms because of the absence of a decent crpg since BG2:SoA... go ahead, shoot me I might just be forgetting that there are casual gamers out there. Would be nice to have had more of an impact on Bastilas path though the rest of the game at that time though. Ah well, I'll go occupy myself with a few more games of Kotor, then Master of Orion 2 and a lot of other oldies until Kotor2 hits the shelves... (going to be a long wait)

I'm not sure about my previous morals, if any Right, you can actually spank some sense into her, if you are a darksider. Forgot about that. I still felt cheated as a lightsider though, as she just runs off (like that whimp Carth when you are a darksider :angry:). I would have preferred to kill her off there and then, feeling the loss if she was your romance option, or persuading her to stay out of the conflict, persuade her to join you for the end game, pretty much anything but the way it was implemented. Similar for darkside option, kill her if she will not follow you instead of Malak or have your new apprenctice at your side, helping you to kill off the other party members. In the end, it was a yes/no thing that determined whether or not you ended up being good or bad... I heven't explored all the options in the game yet, so I might be overlooking something... Just didn't like that particular part, it felt "wrong" for some reason.

Problem is, you can bend your own morals with the choice. I would have preferred to bend hers, to match my morals, as they had been defined by the way I played 90% of the game. Heck, they could even had Charisma bonuses count for something to sway her to your side, if you were a light sider. If you were a Dark sider, It would just be a question of persuading her to turn against Malak, because you are bigger, meaner and more suited for leadership than he. Instead it became you, Revan, who adjusted your own morals to whatever endgame you wanted to play. As I said, all question of oppinion, I didn't like the way they did it.

I still stand by that oppinion. It should just have been about whether Bastila was against you are supporting you in the end game. Not about doing moral acrobatics B)

Nah, it's probably a girl thing. Girls talk a lot *Considering where to hide from predicted retaliation*

The problem with the choice on the templetop (at least my problem with it), is that it is too cheap and easy. So people say, sure the Star Wars movies are all about lure, fall and redemption ? Blah, sure they are lured by power all the way, but in the two cases I remember, Vader/Anakin paid with his life (Poof, game over) and Calrissian paid with all his worldly possession (and I bet Bespin represented substantial value). In Kotor ? It was a joke. A few unimportant (for an evil player) NPC's was what you had to give up. That was a choice with kindergarten difficulty and makes previous gameplay a joke (from a roleplaying perspective). I tried it once (choosing opposite of my "alignment") and was appalled at how easy it was. Reloaded a previously saved game and continued as Goody the Jedi.

She looks mean... Why do I already expect her to be a sharptongued, vicious pain in the back like Jaheira in BG2 ?

I asked a similar question in Developers Corner, got a satisfying answer to why some crpgs come without tools/editors

Try this: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=560&st=15 Check the seventh post (by Chris Jones) for a similar question and answer. Should give some guidance, as to what the people in the business are looking for

Agreed, the Arena was the only minigame that truly "added" anything to the game. The turret game was horrible and thank the gods of my ancestors that some kind soul made a mod to remove all the unscripted encounters (leaving 2 left) Pazaak was fun, but didn't really belong. Letting the computer go last was a gimmick, because it's easier to let the AI make competitive decisions when going last. Wouldn't mind seeing a PDA version of it, as it's just a dumbed down Blackjack variant (and just as addictive). Swoop racing was fun, but didn't really belong in the game either. Apart from Taris where they tied it into the game, it was just there for people with short attention spans. Could be expanded upon and become a fun little racing game a'la pod racing. If they want to add a bit more twitch parts to the game, they could add something like asteroids, steer the Ebon Hawk clear of asteroids while plotting coordinates, manual fencing duels in the arena, rewire circuitry against a timer and a lot of other awful things. Personally I would rather be without them. :ph34r:

Hi, are you Satan? Anyway, I posted on the Bio forums a few times, back when I was having trouble when NWN first came out. Ha! I've been called a lot of things, but Satan... ? No, I'm just a little devil.

Shamelessly stole this bit of information while I was there voting...