Gromnir

gosh spitz, when do you find time to WORK on games? no doubt 'bout it... you is in the right industry. HA! Good Fun!

klingons. what? HA! Good Fun!

"As long as Jedis and Force Users are the focus, its not going to happen." the problem is economics. sounds strange? it shouldn't. developers does a major quest... do maps, and critters and scripts and all kinds of stuff. takes lots of time, and resources and money to build that quest or section o' game. now, from developer's perspective, does it make sense that only a certain player build should be able to access or complete the quest? you has just done stuff that 'mounts to an hour or two of gameplay, and you is gonna make unavailable to 90% of players? game is gonna play same for every character, and is gonna throw you some occasional treats for taking extra points in a specific skill. you got computer skills? great, you can access a computer that tells you 'bout some secret room that gots a bunch o' stolen credits and a weapon or two in it... or maybe a computer file leads you to find some kidnapped child that you save... get exp points and light or dark points depending on if you rescue child or sell her to slavers. maybe a half dozen times in game you gets such computer skill treats. wow. hope you ain't expecting anything more substantial from your computer skills... 'cause it not economical to do more. is probably too much to hope for that the developers would actually make game play noticeably different for different folks

heck, Gromnir recalls when sargy was a plain speaking poster (no garbled writing style,) who was hopeful that "Mr. Gaider," might just, maybe, perhaps, put some of sargy's suggestions into the ascension mod. HA! is 'mazing how a couple o' years can twist a person so that now he not even sure whether he is pretending to be Gromnir or krazy or someone else... just parrots his betters. truth ain't really a factor for him... after all, somebody will eventually tell him what to say and how to be saying it... and then he will suddenly 'members that version o' things. HA! Good Fun!

am rarely frenzied... anybody not wanna know whether kotor2 will have more content than kotor? anybody not wanna know whether obsidians is willing to release a product that is little more than kotor + epic levels and some prestige classes? anybody here not want to hear from obsidians what their views on the issue is? HA! Good Fun!

drak says silly things. has never been in doubt that some games announced as sequels has turned out to be products with very little new material.. seem to be just trying to take advantage of guaranteed sales from fans of original game. other sequels has offered much in the way of new material and new content. so the real question is, what kinda sequel is kotor2 gonna be? is it gonna be a glorified expansion, or is it gonna be an honest to goodness sequel. observing that jedi academy started out as an expansion means what in the present context? HA! Good Fun!

same stuff done for hotu... an expansion. this is a sequel, not an expansion. obsidian ain't building a new engine, and they is adding epic and prestige classes with help from bio who has already gone through growing pains of doing such things in sou and hotu... should be far less effort for obsidian. story aspects was strongest attribute of kotor, and we expect obsidian to at least put in similar effort. so, with everything else being equal, should fans not be getting more detailed worlds with more content? HA! Good Fun!

see, that is the point... if they ain't doing engine improvements or adding lots of features then you is expecting MORE from story and content... just as is Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

having seen articles in magazines, and having read lots of posts from developers, we is getting feeling that kotor2 is gonna be much like kotor. combat is staying relatively same, and engine is pretty much same, and sounds like skills, feats and powers and all other gameplay mechanics issues is going to be pretty much same... with some cosmetic improvements. call Gromnir greedy, but we cannot help but feel that if relatively little effort is going into engine and gameplay improvements, obsidian should be having that much more time to be devoting to content. ... what we is trying to say is that if we ain't getting lots of new features, we is going to be wanting content to make up for the shortfall

over the years Gromnir has occasionally been mighty critical o' bis and fergie... but we has always been impressed and vocally supportive of the art in bis games. whether it were portraits or the painted tilesets, 2d bis artwork has always been beyond reproach. no matter how many talented artists leave, fergie always seems to be able to reload more than adequately. is good to see that obsidian is keeping up one of the good bis traditions. HA! Good Fun!

the less kotor2 relies on known star wars elements, the better. bio set kotor 4000 years in past... and they still had to contend with fans and lucas being all slavish to canon. heck, Gromnir thought EU stood for European Union 'fore we seen the bio star wars boards. HA! Good Fun!

I think what I'm saying is that PS:T was indeed a failure, but that it shouldn't discourage developers from making games that are meaningful and deep, so to speak. The fact that PS:T had a interesting story and well-written characters is not the reason it failed, and successful games need not be fun only in the most superficially gratifying sense of the word. But I think the devs of Obsidian are already well aware of that. agreed. for years we has been suggesting that the conventional wisdom concerning ps:t failure was wrong... and truth to tell is that it was all just Gromnir opinion. didn't have no extensive research or market surveys to back up our suggestion that ps:t did not fail 'cause folks was too simple and uncultured to appreciate the quality of writing in ps:t. was always disappointed that developer thought ps:t failed primarily 'cause of too much text or excessive reliance on slowly developing characters. kotor seems to dispel many misconceptions 'bout what can and cannot succeed in crpgs. meanwhile, we will sit back and let krazy prove our point for us... is doing a pretty good job when he responds exactly as we claims he will, no? HA! Good Fun!

adding "lol" to start to virtually every reply to us not give your posts anymore merit than does your single-minded reliance on conclusory and unsupported statements.. statements that is rejected by the mass number of critics, fans and developers who not only thought kotor was best crpg last year, but best game of year, and one of the bestest crpgs evar. no doubt gotta assume that those folks is all fanboys

LOL, and you keep denying that SW is KotOR's greatest draw. You not known for much common sense ever since you became a fanboy in exchange for a cameo. ah, that tired old reply from krazy... always comes out when the quiver is empty... expected it sooner. again, if star wars is such a powerful draw that it can elevate a simply "ok game" like kotor to blockbuster status, then why has so many other star wars games failed so miserably? why did jedi academy not sell better. clearly it too was at least an "ok game.". nevertheless, kotor far out sold jedi academy. kotor far out sold any star wars game we can think of... so no doubt, kotor did something that other star wars games did not. sorry, but krazy ain't making sense, and the lame arguments you is now resorting to just makes that fact more obvious. "So in terms of success, I think that PS:T was in fact successful - not in the commercial sense, but in garnering a very dedicated fanbase for whom it has been virtually deified." there is a small group of folks who also think that arcanum is the bestest fantasy crpg evar. am not sure what you was trying to say above, but we feel compelled to note that you can always redefine success to make any game a success if you try hard 'nuff... try hard 'nuff to ignore the obvious that is. bis made ps:t to be popular with some minimum number of crpg fans who would buy the game in the first two quarters following release... and it failed. ps:t was immediately embraced by critics. that has never changed. unfortunately, the folks ps:t was built for, the crpg fans, did not think that ps:t was fun. you can keep redefining "fun" all you want, but it not change the fact that ps:t was built to be fun for crpg fans, and crpg fans largely rejected or ignored ps:t. the fact that you notes other games which you thinks was good and fun and popular should be making apparent the fatal flaw of ps:t... but that ain't happening, and we admit to being baffled as to how to proceed. HA! Good Fun!

and you just keep repeating self w/o saying anything. "KotOR sold primarily because it is star wars." keep saying over and over won't make it true... no matter how many times you try. HA! Good Fun!

"All in all, it's a combat game with mediocre combat and not much of a story. What does it really have other than SW? All you people making this silly claim that it is a great game on its own merits haven't pointed anything out that makes it a great game without SW. " sure they/we has... "Ok, first I should warn you: when people like me praise Torment, we aren't praising it's combat system or whatever, 'cause Gromnir is right about that; it isn't very good. In fact, it sucks; since you're immortal (long story, but suffice it to say when you get killed you come right back to life just a short distance away), you can essentially kill a Demigod with a rusty fork if you're patient enough. We're mostly praising it's storyline, it's characters, it's setting, etc. " is same thing folks is saying 'bout kotor. repost: kotor is an honest reviewer

nobel and pulitzer is judging two different things. in theory, it should be easier to identify a great author, at the end or late in his career, as 'posed to identifying a single good book that a group of folks can agree 'pon as the best in a given year. for most yearly awards for a best work, Gromnir generally looks at nominees as 'posed to winners, to see how spot on the judges was. is tough to get any bunch o' folks to agree on much concerning lit, so fact that out of a group of books, so-called experts choose the wrong book as best is unsurprising. is easy to see why nabokov might get passed over for lolita and pale fire and other works. lolita was published same year as faulkner's "fable" and was 'bout an old man in love with a young girl. pale fire was a book that mocks literary criticism. etc. nabokov often seemed to go out of his way to write books that critics would have to be brave to publicly support. GREAT books is often controversial, and it is hard to select controversial works as bestest. now, lifetime achievement awards is a little different. stinebeck not get nobel soon after writing "The Grapes of Wrath,"... a book that polarized academics and the public alike. even today, many scholars question the greatness of "The Grapes of Wrath" as a novel... but having the benefit of hindsight, and looking back on stinebeck's entire body of work, it would be hard to imagine that stinebeck would not have eventually been recognized as a Great author, even if folks still disagree 'bout his individual works. the old adage, "hindsight is 20/20," has great merit... and nobel is an award that in theory should be judging with the benefit of hindsight. have always thought that it would be great to see a major award given to the best book from 10 years or even 20 years ago... get academics and critics to agree on best book of 1994 as 'posed to 2004 would probably be much easier... would be less likely to inspire cowardice in panelists too. in theory, that is what the nobel does... is giving the award to a person for recognition of his/her body of work... looking back over time. "Masterpieces of gaming are not some kind of "high art" that can only be appreciated from a impersonal, distantly objective perspective. They too can be loved, cherished, and appreciated for being "fun."" but if they is only appreciated by some very small segment of folks, how can you say that they is successful... 'especially since the reason why they ain't successful is the fact that they is patently un-fun to so many other folks. as you said, a game ain't "high art." ain't writing a game for posterity... to be appreciated years down the road by folks who finally understand the genius of a work and recognize that it gives people a new, if painful, perspective on the human condition. masterpieces of literature and sculpture and paintings and poetry often ain't made to be enjoyed by folks who experience them... (though some small segment of folks will invariably "get it," before their peers,) and that is ok. but a game that ain't fun for the majority of folks who play it? we is talking 'bout crpgs. the fact that a developer is making a crpg means that he is already tailoring to be popular for a relatively small group o' gamers... and if you can't reach a majority of that small sub-set of people... if you can't make game fun for a majority of those people, and make it popular now, today, then not only will you be out o' business (e.g. black isle,) but you will have failed to make a game that is fun. ask fergie whether he would rather have had more or less people enjoy ps:t. the goal was obviously not to be making a cult classic

we suspect that at this point, even krazy knows that his initial "KotOR sold primarily because it is star wars." statement is silly... not worth debating. heck, even krazy can come up with better arguments most times. HA! Good Fun!

again, all those fans not help battle grounds or yoda tales or any of the multitude of other sw stinkers over the years. and again, we never denied that sw was popular... but you has hardly shown that kotor was undeserving of acclaim... krazy opinion not seem to count much 'gainst weight of so many respected critics and developers. if there is so many delusional sw fans out there, then why does so many sw games tank? HA! Good Fun!

"But did Harry Potter?" did harry potter what? sell well? sure. what does that have to do with "one hundred years of solitude," or any number of updike best sellers? popularity does not preclude quality. "It's not so much that the market analysts have the wrong ideas, but that they have the right ones and can exactly pinpoint what people want, and in the process, defeats the very drive for originality underlying true masterpieces." for chrissakes... you does realize that we is talking 'bout games, right? just say the word, "Games." does we even have to acknowledge that a "game" should be fun? creating a masterpiece or a work of art has to be a secondary or tertiary concern at best. if a majority of folks not find a game to be fun, then we suspect that there is something wrong with it, don't you agree? "To judge a book by its reception by these people simply defeats the whole purpose of writing literature, so in a way good literature *has* to be exclusive, *has* to be elitist, because otherwise the best literature would be something like Stephen King's horror novels (not his "greats", but his "horrors"), and American society would become truly shallow, indeed." ridiculous. the notion that literature must be elitist to be good is ridiculous. if a work of literature must be dismissed just 'cause it is popular, then we think you might be surprised by just how many Great Works of lit actually was very popular when released. should popularity be the only measure for lit? no, of course not, but popularity not preclude quality neither. even so, these comments 'bout quality of lit continues to ignore the fact that games is a different beast. is more like architecture we s'pose. building a cathedral or monument or office building is an expensive undertaking that requires the labor of many peoples, and inherent in the design is gonna be practical concerns... will have to be functional. heck, buildings is even less needing to bend to practical concerns than does games. a game lasts for how long... gots how much of a shelf life? some millionaire/billionaire might invest in a building as a way to gain immortality, but what kinda person is gonna do something similar with a computer game that will be largely forgotten w/i a few years? "Nope, its sufficiant to note that KotOR and other SW games have sold better than they should have otherwise. " hogwash. http://www.bioware.com/games/knights_old_republic/awards/ large numbers (if not a majority,) of fans, critics and other developers seems to agree that kotor was a good or even great game... but krazy thinks it sold better than it should have. am not convinced. HA! Good Fun!

most folks thought jedi academy was a good game... aside from the fact that it was a star wars game. galactic battle grounds, on the other hand, despite fact that it had great pedigree of engine AND star wars label did not sell... http://www.gamespot.com/company/lucasarts.html looks like a 50/50 proposition that a star wars game will pan out for lucas... interplay did better than that and they has not fared well. might be a better example to point to crappy games that sold well... could then attribute success to star wars label. am not suggesting that star wars label was a non-factor in kotor success, but to simply state, "KotOR sold primarily because it is star wars." seems naive at best. HA! Good Fun!

fact is that most star wars games in recent years has not been particularly great sellers. HA! Good Fun!

"I am sure Salvatore novels and Dragonlance crap and Fabio and whatnot sell a lot more than Nobel-prize writers. Does that tell us anything about the quality of writing? Admit it, Grommy. " admit what? dragonlance does not sell more than gabriel garcia marquez books. try to find out how many copies of "one hundred years of solitude," has been sold over the years. recognized good lit does not mean it is poor selling. if john updike wants to take 4 years to write a novel, more power to him... but how much does it cost to develop a game and how many folks is employed in such an endeavor? how much of a shelf life does a game got in reality? a novelist can do whatever the hell they want with their time... they can live off of top ramen and jolt for four years while they write the Great American Novel. the novelist with integrity can does a james joyce and refuse to cave to publisher wishes... refuse to make changes to "dubliners." wait an additional bunch of years finding a publisher who will share vision. heck, a novelist in these days can self-publish if they wants... true self-publishing. games is different. is a reality of the business that computer games has got to be popular or folks is out of money... and they can't be developed with notion that maybe 5 or 10 years from now they might be popular. publishers ain't gonna make a game as a prestige piece just to garner good will from industry. can name the independent developers that can afford to self-publish on one hand

Like, say, Bioware's writing ?!? Frankly, i'll take Torment's over-floressant prose over that. must always come back to fact that kotor sold... and ps:t did not. we can go back and forth with blame games and excuses, but try to recall what we has heard from bis/obsidian developers in past when they talks 'bout amount of character development/interaction and text we will be seeing from them in torn, jefferson, iwd2, and fo3. "there won't be as much as you saw in ps:t." the above comment we seen over and over was not meant as a criticism of their own projects, but rather as a way to reassure potential fans. bis developers clearly was under the impression that one of the things that hurt ps:t was the 'mount of text. bioware, following bg1, came to conclusion that crpg fans did not mind dialogue, but that long segments o' dialogue was tending to result in folks just trying to scan quickly through such dialogues, or not reading at all. so, why write stuff that most folks ain't gonna read? bio instituted a guideline whereby they tried to keep individual dialogue options to no more than 3-lines. was obviously not a hard rule, but seems to have served them well. and