metadigital

Hollywood studios like to purchase film rights to allow for potential exercise of these options in the future (there was a Fantastic Four film made last decade that will never see the light of day: it was made solely to keep the franchise alive); I think it is a reasonable conclusion that game publishers are similarly motivated. Therefore, just because a publisher has the right to make a game, doesn't necessarily follow that the game will be made in a timely fashion, if at all.

It's not about polygon counts. (sure, higher resolution graphics is a "nice to have", and more involved combat is probably a strong attractor for the target market too, but the real deal of an RPG is the narrative. Let's not get a retread of the same couple of tried-and-true stories; let's have a brilliant, breathtaking substantial story that involves the leit-motif in a dilemma, a microcosm in keeping with the Big Picture. Any effort added to the writing, IMO, will pay back more than the same deminishing returns on graphics.

Just a quick note: a deep empathy can be created with a fictional character without the need to induce a romance. What I mean is that everyone seems to be fixated on builing multiple, deep romances into the narrative arc; this is not necessary. Simply creating a firm friend, like Obi-Wan in the OT, creates a bond, which is a serious motivation if they are threatened and a profound sense of loss when they are killed.

I think it behooves us to have the sequel utilize some common planets from the first two games, should a third game be made. I was under the impression that all the planets in the first two games were in the Outer Rim of republic space (maybe not Telos and Taris?) I think correspondents are confusing "Outer Rim" with Sith Space; I believe the two represent completely different areas. (I would assume the "Rim" reference is to a spiral galaxy, similar to our own Milky Way, and the systems on the outer edges, like our our solar system. Our galaxy is 100,000 light-years across, and even where we are, away from the central bulge, it is a dozen light-years wide

I don't doubt the will, I doubt the momentum. A Rodesian Ridgeback is about 130kg; that's a frightening amount of slavering inertia to block a door with. Compare that with a 10kg feline, and I think you'll agree -- no matter the valiance of the individual -- there is no contest.

I agree it was completely ridiculous to have Mandalore running about helping a LS Master Jedi! Why? What a lame reason!

Yes there is a cyan crystal. And you are as nutty as a fruitcake, it would seem. I want a platinum lightsabre. That's pimp. :D

How do they feel about salt?

That sounds like some sort of fiction on the same level as the endless clones of the Emperor ...

The glass is always half-full. "

Nah, the entropic nature means that they are degraded to the point of uselessness. And the ship, so far as I understand it, doesn't run off Force Points or ghostly remnants of souls (there are scenes of the X-Wing fighters and the Millennium Falcon fueling up in the OT, after all).

Play a female character, it will do you good.

Yeah, the only diffculty with that is the greater good that Harry is pursuing. If you take the first film (I haven't read any of the novels, so the character portrayed within them may be very different; I shall contain my comments to the films); Harry is all for torturing Scorpio to find the hostage girl. He is all for sacrificing his police career to kill Scorpio. He's not doing it to be more evil ... and yet he is still following a code. Another example. The Cosa Nostra (i.e. the organisation erroneously referred to as the Mafia) has a code of behaviour steeped in respect for women and those more senior members of the society / clan. The ethos is very secist, but still they would never kill a woman, for example. Lawful Evil? Sure. But what is Harry? He is striving for the greater good using any means possible, yet he has a code of conduct he abides by: chaotic or lawful?

Yes.

Or better yet, even though the corporation is corrupt, how about the LS option (not the sole LS option, by any means, an obscure and difficult to perform option) to use the corporation for some greater good cause, without the individuals in the corporation knowing, or if they know, powerless to stop it! Ditto and vice versa for a good organisation, e.g. the Jedi Order, could be used by a very clever Sith Lord. Imbeciles need not attempt these difficult narratives, however, on pain of determining the reverse of their intentions. :cool:

"PLUGH" was a teleport command from the Original Adventure. If you typed it -- or the other teleport commands -- into any of the Zork adventures, the response was "Fraud" or some other insult. :D

I noticed it was borrowed by the plot writers of the recent Alien versus Predator film (yes, I've seen it -- I was bored one day and just picked a film at random at the mutiplex. I like doing that. I saw Death and the Maiden that way ...).

I have two cats right now. I hated cats until we got these two, but they aren't like normal cats, they both respond intelligently, e.g. heel when they're called; just the other day I managed to burn the contents of a pan; whilest I was upstairs Rocky came up and proceeded to tell me I had done something bad, and that something worse was imminent (all through the power of body language and scratching and meowing). Very clever. Cats aren't too good at ripping the jugular out of an intruder, however; that requires a German Shepherd or Irish Wolfhound or similar. (I have always wanted a Huskie ...)

... and a couple of games, too.

It's more like it should have been. If you notice the bonuses granted per level of the PC far outweigh all the bonuses for ability score, feats and equipment; AND this was changed from the original KotOR. Check out the bonuses for each class (Consular, Sentinel and Guardian); there is basically no level bonus difference between the classes. This fact combined with the over-emphasis on level bonus acts to the determinent of the other bonuses impact and the consequential imbalance. New Firefox extention: [ocd 2005.06.16, by ok, released on June 16, 2005] Alerts user of changes made to specified web page, querying every couple second. Control via context menu. Messages dump to javascript console, can also be alerted see options.

Right, which shows an equal lack of depth for both LS and DS narratives, not an unbalanced extra depth for LS only.

Entropic soular eminations? :D

It's a stupid concept, because a person doesn't live for 1000 years, so the longest they would be aware of the digestion process -- maximum -- is a normal lifespan. Unless there is some suggestion that the Sarlacc grants some sort of extension to life, analogous to the anti-clotting agent in a leech or a mosquito's saliva prevents the blood from coagulating, so too the Sarlacc prevents the telomerase (or the SW universe equivalent) from breaking down as quickly during cell mitosis -- thus preventing the aging process -- together with some sort of preservation process whereby the eaten bodies don't breakdown (because when an organism dies, it is the microbes in the alimentary canal that breakdown the body).

It sounds like you are suggesting that it was just a cheap tactic, almost like there were no writers involved in the narrative ... I would say that any storing of life energies would be equivalent to adding capacity to the Exile's Force Point potential. You may be right, because every level (gained after killing enough enemies or progressing the plot) yields more Force Points. This analogy breaks down because it doesn't matter whether the heroin / crack / cocaine / whatever drug addict's addiction was self-inflicted or they were forced ( <_< ) by someone else.

"... Here sluggy sluggy slug .... here sluggy sluggy slug!"