grayjo

I think if the comic book writers ideas are such that Mandalorians got thier reputation as being great warriors came form thier great flying cocroaches that could shoot down spaceships with their great lasers that poked out of the roaches nose. good for the kiddies, but not really for adults

I find it really annoying when people say "This game has stats in it.. it must be an RPG!" An apple is red, does that make it a fire engine? For a game to be an cRPG, it needs character development, statistically and through story. It needs... well, a story. It also needs interpersonal development, though dialog, or whatever. And also whatever else I have inevitably forgotton. Just one of the same features doesn't make a crpg. ps. Dark Alliance should NEVER be spoken/typed in the same sentance as RPG, unless it is "RPG wannabe" {edit: ps I thought beyond good and evil was the last hope for adventure games... or is that action/adventure... hmmm}

yea, sorry, grammatical error. When i said it would take the work of two computer games, i meant a succesful FPS/RPG hybrid that fully allowed you to go on a FPS rampage if that is what you really want, but is not required. Adding "shootemup" as a RPG playing style, like stealth, magistry and diplomacy would take more effort, unless it comprimised the integrity of the other styles or the story. And that isn't good

[rant] And when did you play them? Did you play them when you were five? That seems really unlikely given that you were born in 1969 (according to your profile), while Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis was released in 1991, and Super Mario Bros. 1 was released in 1981. I don

I liked both kotors. I prefered the original though, but am definetly not as fanatical about RPGs as most people here. Don;t get me wrong, rpgs are the greatest, there should be more. But i never played through kotor1 more than 2 or so times, and i can't seem to bring myself back to my second go at k2. But I prefered K1. not are any tangiable reason, they are both worth games, but K1 supplied a "suspension of disbelief." I didn't feel like it was a game, but a story that I was a part of. K2 had an ok story, but it wasn't as immersive as K1's story IMO. I think half the problem was the Influence. Great idea, but the way it wa implememted slammed home that it was a game, continually reminding you with "Influence gained" or "Influence lost" or "Influence failure". It would have been better imo if they had left the feedback messages out, and have different initial responses thet reflect how they feel towards you. Anyway I digress. K2 didn't suck, but it had the potential to be so much more.

Aurora are you guys changing any code in the main executable? If you are just changing script files and the like, they probably are easily compatible either by copying the game to your hdd, and adding the extra files there or, copying the game to your computer, adding the files and burning to a black dvd... but if you are modifing exe code, someone would probably have to make an etm trainer for it or something.

OK. I will have to look into it. I bet it beats NWN though. i can't see anything as repetitive as the OC being seen as good by anyone. And after saying that, i own NWN and the SOU and HOTU.

To have a good roleplaying experience, you need more than just "3-5 ways to complete every quest in the game." A good experience for me is an immersive story. That includes character development, and i haven't heard anything about that yet. A good game needs a "suspension of dibelief". KOTOR had it. The BGs had it. K2... almost had it. If JE has that immersive feeling, so you connect with the characters then fine, good game. If not, it might as well be Dark Alliance.

exactly. how many people complained about the graphics of k2? how many said "it was great, considereing it was ising an obsolete engine"(their words, not mine) Now how many times did we hear the the kotor engine and the xbox was pushed to it's limits for k2. It only makes sense for K3 to be out on X2

Possibly, it depends on how/if they make a new engine. A lot on engines these days just use the char model to make cutscenes. voce might be a prob, but it really is jsut 4 readings instead of 2, not impossible. It would be hard, but I think that LusasArts (most of the time) puts the wants of the consumer base first, otherwise, they kill their precious franchise...

geeze take a chill pill nuke... no reason to get all hot and bothered. I don't now if there will be a council, fully developed or ragtag group, none of us do, unless we are secretly working on it for LA. And seriouly, what are the odds of that.... (someone prove me wrong... please) Anything is possible, remember, they have the advantage of time, so they can eliminate the "mights" regarding which chars became jedi, becuase they could just say they connected to the force after. And I do not think people actually mean council, as in council as in jedi order. There will probably be a bunch of guys who are semi-formally in kinda charge, but only becuase someone has to be. And remember... its only a game... no need to get frustrated

As i do not have the PC version, i have to ask... Is the xbox's file archetecture much differnt to the PC's? if it isn't it wouldn;t be hard to just use this mode for the xbox, if you eiterh put it on you hdd or burn an edited copy of it. Just a thought edit: or we could recruit someone who know how to build trainers.........

People these days seem to forget an important aspect of a sequel. For is to be Kotor 3, it needs to bring that baggage along. Othereise it would be Kotor: The sith wars or somthing. RPGs are story driven, not action driven, so totally eliminating the story thus far would not only be incredibly stupid, it would also casue a HUGE backlash. Were you satisfied with the ending on k2? do you think, all the closure you need can be supplied with a conversation at the begininng (which by the way, is an incredibly wimpy way of closing off a story)? The reason people complained about the end of K2 was the open story. People like the Reven and Exile stories, and it would be cruel to just say... ooops... they are dead, start again.

Speculation: We probably won't hear anything at all about KOTOR 3 until XBOX 2 comes out. It makes sense to develop kotor 3 for the next gen xbox, and all information reagarding development of XB2 games are held under the strictest of security.

ok a few things... <blabber> 1. we probably won't see a "council" per se, be we probably will se a ragtag semi-organisational group directing the preliminary rebuilding attempts for the Jedi. 2. Answering what the subject actually is, ideas for Kotor 3... - I minght be possible to play as the Exile again, and not level 50. (cringes from emminent Hades loud protestations that "There is no level draining in Star Wars d20"). It has always been more important to justify the lower level realisticly in the story, for there be an actuall rule in the ruleset the game is "based" on. So anyway, Spoiler: don't really like this idea though. - More interpersoanl interactions. The Influence system was a great idea, not implemented fully though, and there were no quests that allowed the NPC to grow. There should be more convos like when you first get to Nar Shadda. - change the dialong system. I would like to see every option you make affect your alignmight slightly. Put the darker options at the top, so if you just zoom through it, you get darkside options (patience is the mark of a jedi). Also, when you are slipping to the darkside, you should get more and more darker options and less light options, and the light options give you less. This would help demonstrate how hard it is to return from the dark side. You could also have the option of saying a line in jest. - more epic final battle... this gripe is differrnt to other fianl battle gripes. I was seroiosly upset when we got to the starforge on jotor1 that i had to leave some people on the ship. Why? i envision a gradoise battle where your entire posse did battle with an entire army. Same with kotor2. - closure (gos without saying really) - hand to hand forms. When you get taught Echani forms in kotor1, i expected to be able to fight wth a different style, with more grace and power. - a heavly character driven story. Even if you can;t bring lots of people with you, they should all chat on the Ebon Hawk. You should even have some non-party members traveling on the Ebon Hawk to offer insights. As i said, like the start of Nar Shadda. - Ebon Hawk can stay, but i liked how it was upgraded slightly in 2. So i would like to see purchasable upgrades fro the EH and maybe some real space battles. Anyway</blabber>

I agree with both of you mostly. I like the balancing aspect of ender's idea. It makes leveling up more believable. Oh, and about the axe, i had figured a system where using a sword doesn't just improve sword skills. Like using a sword will increase ability with that particular sword, swords in general, accuracy, strength etc, all the things you normally would improve on. If you switched to an axe halfway though, you would be at the begining for axes, but would still have the strength and accuracy to give it a boost, until you become more experienced with an axe. I don't really like the idea of "practicing in your spare time" because, when is this spare time? the only time you dont see them is when they are asleep. You could say you don't see them when they are traveling or that you just dont see them do it while wlaking around, but this could be incorporated into a LbD system. Also, with the axe, or other things, there would be several ways to increse exp, hopefully many. Like with your axe, just say you keep using the sword, but use the axe to cut down trees for firewood or cut away groth etc you would gain exp for that. But yes LbD probably should stick to MMMRPGs

Not impossible to make though, just extremly hard. non linear char dev would probably not work in a linear enviroment, unless there was somethiing pressing you onwards, like a time limit or something, and i don;t think they are very popular. I was thinking more MMORPG, because sure, you can spend 100 hours getting excellent at everything, then get whooped by someone who spent 100 hours on a single stat. There would also have to be a difficult rating. Shooting an arrow at a tree would be relativly easy to say shooting an arrow into the eye of a flying dragon. The only way i can really see this working is if there is something keeping you constantly on the go, so you cannot stop and spend countless hours "practicing" that people complain about, but arent supposed to do. It could also be made that the more you repeat a specific task, like chopping, the less you improve, you have to do different things, just to add variety. It can be more realistic, if designed properly. Even if people chose to be boring and spend a gazillion hours in the first area in order to improve, the hero could have done the same thing. you would probably have to have skill degredation too, so if someone spends hours working on one skill, the rest fall behind. But as i said, its only an idea, i didn't really expect such a detailed response

I feel the same about getting exp in othe FF games, runing around to spawn a monster, fight monster, kill monster, rinse and repeat. This is not an issue of whether your skill improve by levels or practice, this is an issue wiht the amount of fighting needed to go up in levels/stats i think it is unrealisitc to fight a gazillion creatures and have magic attack, magic defence, offence, defence and whatever go up if you just hit them with a sword. I would personally prever to go up 10 in offence than 5 in offence and 5 in magic, if i don't use magic. This system would only work if it just develops what you do. Sure is want a char that is great at everything, you eill have to grind, but the goals of most RPGs is not to become the best at everything, its to play though the story. If you play though, doing what you do best, you should be right.

I never liked it. It leads to having to do artificial things like casting spells over and over when you really dont need to, or having to trigger extra encounters just for weapon training. By the time I got to the end only a fraction of my spells were higher than level 1. Oddly enough I was going to ask if Sqaure invented learn by doing because I noticed the date on Dawn of Souls. Anyone know any learn by doing games that pre date it ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> More realistic though.... To get good at something in real life you have to PRACTCE PRACTICE PRACTICE... I tohught the idea of RPGs was to try to immerse yourself in a world, and how can that be realistically done with silly things like a point system? "Wow, i just killed 5000 baddies.... I think i'll get better at lockpicking..." or in FF's case, "I just hacked to death loads of monsters.... why is my magic skill so low?" "did you use magic?" "no, why?"

I think Obsisian sould make a neocron-esque (less violent though) gigantic FR MMORPG that spans the planes, with each plane being dedicated to a server. it would have to have an evolving story, dependant on what people do... Now i think about, it might be a bit... over the top. And hard to make.

Yep sounds like my idea... This always happens to me, if i come up with a good idea, be it for a game or like an invention, it heas either already been done, or it is done soon after

Ok, so this final fantasy had no levels? Interesting. Ok, so how about non linear magic? A system where you are shown your spell book, and you have to draw a line on it, and the shape of the line determines the effects of the spell, it's range, damage modifiers etc. I think this would be good for a MMORPG, becasue then ppl could trade spells. It wuld have to work something like a screen with lots of boxes, and which boxes in which order the line passes though the boxes determines the spell to be cast

Which FF2? jap or America, becasue i have always remembered levels in FF... all the ones i have played that is...

I didn't know that... don't you just hate it when you come up with an idea, only to have it been already done? How about a non-linear magic magic system? has it been done before too?

There is no NPC intereaction in IWD, no backstory (inles you invent it) you can't form bonds with your team, coz you don;t know them. Give me BG anyday