kefka

Well, they obviously failed in that regard, since high stats are a major reason the game is easy. It also cheapens your starting abilities when you can double, or even triple, your original stats. They've gone to the extreme with this. My weakest attribute was 12 strength but it was still 25 by the end. The others were even better. No, I don't think the rules allow for that. You have almost no weaknesses. Yes, but liches made those tactics necessary. You couldn't just wade in and hope for the best. And fighters had a real tough time once protection from weapons was cast. Only a mage could breach those defences which encouraged teamwork. Kotor2 requires no strategy. Everything goes down in 1 or 2 hits or dies before they even get into range.

Quite true, but in the 'good old days' you usually kept your stats from start to finish - i.e. what you rolled. These days, it's all about boosting stats to God-like proportions. Enemies are supposed to scale to your level but that's hard to believe when I've got 25+ in almost every stat. Just how much tougher would Kotor2 be if 18 was the maximum? Some people got wisdom up to nearly 50! The ability to spam force powers is also a big problem. Force points should be reduced or certain powers made more expensive to cast. It's ridiculous when you can just queue wave/force storm and kill everything in a room. Lichs were a nice challenge in BGII. In fact, the first time I encountered one my entire party was slaughtered. That's what happens when you simply charge at them with no strategy. However, you can do that in Kotor2 with no penalty. No need to formulate tactics at all. Just soften enemies up with wave/stasis/lightning then mop up any survivors. No challenge = no fun.

The game has its pros and cons, unfortunately most of the cons are new problems. I'd say that the dialog/story is superior but the random loot, rapid leveling, and easy combat is a step back. I also didn't like the many times you control NPCs. Sorry, but am I playing *my* character or the entire group? The ending is the least of my worries. I expected something like this ever since the 'Empire' feel was mentioned. It clearly suffered from numerous cuts though.

Major plot points should never require influence with a certain character. I mean, how many people are willing to play a game more than once just to discover the story?

Kotor2 is a decent game but IMO the original is far superior. In fact, the only thing K2 does better is that skills are more useful. -Dialog is good for the most part but I don't care for the NPCs that speak it. And there were too many responses sometimes. Conversations went on forever. I was bored to tears by Kreia's ramblings. -Story was passable. Nothing more, nothing less. -They should have kept the lvl 20 cap. leveling is ludicrously fast in this game. -You take control of other characters too many times. The Leviathan was acceptable, this is overkill. -The Random Loot is obnoxious. Absolutely terrible. Not only did I get items off bodies that should not have them, but duplicates of the same unique item. Ridiculous. -Item creation: too complicated for its own good. It was a chore to use the workbench. Bioware kept it simple and it worked. So if it ain't broke don't fix it. same for swoop racing: completely ruined. K1 did it better. Another example of too much complexity spoiling the fun. I can't complain about bugs though. I experienced very few, none of which stalled my progress. more annoying was the AI which was pretty dumb at times. anyway, KOTOR is the better game. I liked TSL but it lacks the escapism and Star Wars feel of the original. And I'm in no hurry to replay it.

Amazon.co.uk just changed my order status to 'item dispatching soon'. So hopefully I'll get it in the morning.

Yes, that's possible. I'm not in the US (the UK). Copyright laws are often very similar though. And most DVDs have lending prohibited here. It's totally unenforcable but they state it anyway. They clearly believe that lending, in whatever form, reduces the number of copies sold. I don't blame them. I never disputed that. What I'm saying is that online sharing is not the sole reason. The RIAA likes to pretend that it is. So they go after sharers as if the whole problem will simply disappear. It won't. There's a reason that downloading music is popular but the RIAA is clueless. Easier to find a scapegoat than look closer to home.

No it is not permissable. Nor is it for you to lend that DVD to however many people you want. I did look up the facts. The evidence is right before me on the inside of over 50 DVD cases. The courts disagreed with me? I wasn't aware that I was a defendant. I never claimed to be an expert, nor do I engage in "rhetoric", but it's clear that lending has the same result as piracy, albeit on a much smaller scale. If I lend a book, film, whatever, that is one less sale of that product. Fact. You can argue against that all you want. It might be impossible to prevent lending but that doesn't mean publishers/studios are happy about it.

Right, so like I said above, when I purchase a DVD I can lend it to all my friends to view. Since I originally purchased it it's now my right to do whatever I please? Not so according to copyright. Lending is also prohibited. Mission accomplished!

OK, if I buy a DVD it's alright for me to lend that to 10 of my friends so they don't have to buy it themselves? Hmm, I don't think the movie studios would take kindly to that. In fact most copyright prohibits lending. But it's mine to do with as I please according to you. Wrong! The industry saw profits plummet because they overcharged for their music. Or putting out albums which had 1 or 2 good songs and the rest were crap. It's no wonder people download off the web. The file sharers will never stop when you have greedy publishers or organizations like the RIAA. Anyway, You said that reading your book without paying is theft. If someone lends me that book I didn't pay. So it must be theft.

Yes, but I still read the book without paying. So that is one less sale for you the writer. And if every person who bought it lends to 2 or more friends just how much profit is being lost? It's no coincidence that Mp3's swapped online is called "sharing". But it's still piracy. Lending me a book is no different. Btw, I'm not condoning piracy at all. But there's not much difference between lending and piracy. It is still reduced revenue for the publisher.

What if someone buys your book then lends it to me to read? Am I a thief? By your logic I am since I read it without paying. And I bet most people against piracy have downloaded an MP3 at some point. Which makes them hypocrites.

Hmm, not too bad. The PC interface is definitely better than the Xbox version, which was far too intrusive, but it's still too large for my taste. And since it scales with resolution I bet there's no way to reduce it. You can see the difference with this Kotor shot...

Why can't characters have a bit of everything? Jack of all trades, master of none? By that I mean balanced stats. At present it seems the best policy is just to dump one stat - STR or DEX - and focus on the other. Lame. They should complement each other better. I think the main problem is allowing these ridiculous stats in the first place. When people are pushing 30 DEX with all manner of outlandish equipment there's little incentive to boost STR. So you end up with an unbalanced character.

Who says the devs are setting the hardware requirements? That's most likely the publisher to maximize sales. In a perfect world that might happen. PC code is a load of unoptimized crap. Get used to it. So do I. And this game runs fine so far. I haven't encountered half the problems other people are moaning about. It's early days yet but I think there must be some lousy PCs floating around. Hell, take a look at Valve's hardware poll. The vast majority are still using Geforce2 MX! Should we really be catering to people who never upgrade?

Depends who's doing the patching.

Yes, they do list the recommended RAM, which IMO should have been the minimum. Anyone with less than 1GB isn't going to get the best out of Bloodlines. And don't forget video RAM. I think 128mb is realistic, especially if you plan to use AA.

I played for a few hours yesterday and didn't notice anything. But I'm not going to dispute what you say. I'll play a bit longer and then see. I've heard about BL eating up over 1.2GB but I've yet to experience that. That would obviously cause severe problems on low RAM machines. HL2 is one of the best for hardware scaling. So the minimum specs are reasonably accurate. For most games tho, I would never trust the min specs. Now that I agree with. Bloodline's performance is acceptable (for me) but nowhere near the level of HL2.

I use max settings and 4x AA and the performance is good. Not great I admit, but much better than the complaints would imply. The longest load so far was 20 seconds. Most of the time it's less than 15. A memory leak would cause the game to get worse slowly. If it runs like crap when it first loads it isn't a leak. They aren't lying. The minimum specs mean the game will run on that machine. Which is true. It does not mean it will run well. It's the 'recommended' and 'optimum' specs that count. Of course, they rarely put those on the box, it would hurt sales.

Yes that's true. I feel sorry for people who try to play the latest games on 256 or 512 megs of RAM. Minimum specs are a joke. DON'T BELIEVE THEM! And he did say decently. Sure, you will be able to play the game with 512mb but not as smoothly as 1gb. Physical memory is always better than a large swap file. btw, I've just got Bloodlines and the overall performance is quite good. Load times are around 15 seconds. Not too bad. Hearing you guys complain I was expecting the worst. Do yourself a favour and buy 1 GB RAM, it makes a BIG difference.

I'd much rather have Yuthura around than T3. Of course, they would have to explain how she survived my lightsaber through her head. I always sided with Uthar.

Yes, I knew that. No surprise there.

30 hours would be near the end which is a bit silly for a Jedi. If that's the case it would be better to have non-Jedi classes.

Well, I've heard so much conflicting info recently I wouldn't know who to trust. I think the best policy is just to ignore them and make up my own damn mind. Sadly, that means I have to wait a few months. That said, I think ken the great just gave a damn good response. That sounds promising for an intelligent darkside.

huh, more contradictions... one person says: the next person replies: Just like the people who argue about how effective influence is. So which is it???