metadigital

The background that was "unlocked" via the influence system resulted in one telling conversation for each NPC -- apart from Kreia, who was the only NPC to have any depth, but even that was as insubstantial as Fairy Floss. I dispair at the line-by-line analyses I performed on the dialogues of the Jedi Council and Kreia and Atris, in my vain attempts to piece together a point. My conclusion was a sad one; the plot was just a mindless arrow pointing to the next scene, not a meaty statement of profundity. For example, the conversation with Atton upon leaving Peragus, the resolution of the dilemma in the Korriban tomb and the conversations with every Force Sensitive in the game were all ideal opportunities to assess the personality of the audience and feed it into the narrative. Instead, all of these occassions were just shallow dialogues to prop up the battles and cut scenes on either side. Very disapointing.

That's a lot of Ford Foci ...

I want to be the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath ...

can't really call it a game if there exist quasi-rules for meta-situations, like stupid hidden obstacles that are the result of programming error and not logical challenge.

Asimov wrote a short story called "How to Reverse Entropy" about a supercomputer that is built by humankind (all of his work eventually was about a human-only universe, as a defence against one of his over-zealous nationalistic editors) and placed in hyperspace. The human civilization rises and falls, and the computer is silent. (A bit like Deep Thought, but not.) Eons pass. The sun has long since gone Red Giant and cooled to a white dwarf. The Andromeda galaxy has careened through our Milky Way galaxy and kept on its merry way, with only a few solar system casualties. More eons pass, and eventually all the energy in the universe has degraded to a cold soup-like state, mere picodegrees above absolute zero. Eons more pass. Finally, from its relative safety in hyperspace, the super computer begins to stir. It beings: "Let there be light ..." Asimov wrote that short story for Amazing Pulp SF in the 50s, I think. Certainly nearly 50 years ago.

Well I'm certainly not going to argue that the character development was satisfactory on any level in K2; there was a lot of potential (especially with Kreia and the whole "shades of grey" spectrum of LS-DS and even Chaos-Law), there just wasn't any follow-through. Quite frankly, Mandalore's character was so shallow in K2 that it would have lost nothing if he weren't in the game; that's a pretty damning indictment of the writing.

you're familiar with those geeks that dress up and queue for days to see the opening night of a SW film, aren't you? watch this clip

How so? In basically all aspects that count, the game does pick up where Revan left off, albeit from a different perspective. This is especially true when you look at NPC's such as Carth and Bastila, and how they act in KotORII. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, from Mandalore's point of view; he doesn't know the Exile from Adam. It kinda follows, therefore, that he would act the same towards the Exile as he initially did towards Revan. (It follows, but it is still very unsatisfying and not at all unavoidable. But such is the price for development at haste. ) Yep, I agreed with that bit.

Why steal talent? Why not invest in some young fresh minds, there are plenty of people out there chomping at the bit to work in a game studio designing for a premier name like LA.

... Like what is meant by "tight" ...?

Check the timings on my and Dashus's posts; my post was meant to be a laronic attempt to lampoon the usual gang of nitwits who ask for a status request as soon as one is put up ... obviously my emoticon didn't convey the necessary amount of irony ...

... And what, exactly, do you do with this statue of Boba Fett?

Psychometric tests are so meh. ... ... No, no, no. You were doing fine, you'd been courteous and receptive to courtesy, you'd established trust with the embarrassing truth about Miggs, and now this ham- handed segue into your questionnaire. It won't do. It's stupid and boring. ... ... do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool? Hannibal Lector, Silence of the Lambs

Any update in the status? "

Maybe that's because we're playing as a new character (Exile) and not picking up where we left off (Revan). I agree, though, the character development (for all the characters) was omitted from the final draft, even if it was somewhere in the design plans ...

try PMing one of the administrators / developers.

... And get someone else to foot the bill ...

... Except that one looks forward to the work of a genius with pleasure, but yes there are brutal truth-like similarities which are not always welcome ...

Work with me Jags, work with me!

Nah, it just requires some forward planning; it's not simple, otherwise K2 would have had it right; but similarly it isn't rocket science, either. I think humans tend to cut twice and measure once, rather than measure twice and cut once. Normally, the sunk investment cost of developing a game would behoove a corporation to do their thinking up front, but you never can tell ...

It looks like your kitten ( ) is being shot from a mouse-eyed view ...

People are uneducated and lazy. But the good news is those are the ones that will die from horrible curable diseases first, like smoking-onset lung cancer. Darwinism in all its glory. "

... Or, they might be fulfilling the last part of their development contract for K2 by collecting and collating all the feedback from the game and sending it (in a summarised form) to LA.