Gromnir

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

must admit that we is mildly surprised that lucas would let us create characters more powerful than yoda or the emperor. HA! Good Fun!

you is preaching to the choir 'bout hk-47. http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html...346860&forum=76 nevertheless, the awards heaped at hk-47's metallic feat is substantial, including awards from peers. http://archive.gamespy.com/gdc2004/awards/ "for better or worse," hk-47 was VERY popular with fans, critics and fellow developers. "so yes, it was basic stuff....but really, it fits well with the mood of Planescape in general, and sets the game apart from 'here's the bad guys, KILL 'EM!', as is practiced in god only knows how many RPGS......KOTOR included. " funny, but we thoughts that kotor was 'bout redemption... much like ps:t. "For me, it was the defining moment of the game....especially since I finally got to see the ol' Practical incarnation get what was coming to him for so long." *gasp* sorta a "KILL 'EM!" attitude, no? nevertheless, is obvious that reasonable minds may differ. is not so clear-cut an issue as some might have suggested. HA! Good Fun!

This is sort of a half-answer, so bear with me. In KotOR some skills may have felt neglected by the end of the game. In our game we try to make each skill get more "air time", if you will. Ideally speaking if you have bought any particular skill by the end of the game you should feel like you got some good mileage off of it. There will probably be some skills that are more desirable than others (which is almost always inevitable), but all skills should have their moments to shine and be relevant. -Ferret seems like you is saying that instead of just one opportunity to get some use out of the repair skill (i.e. upgrading hk-47,) you may get three or four opportunities to use repair. seems like what you is doing is similar to jedi powers... nothing really different, just more of same. *shrug* people liked kotor, so we ain't surprised at the approach being taken... just seemed like despite fact that kotor was fun for lots of folks, there was still much room for improvement too. was hoping for more than a long expansion. oh well. HA! Good Fun! p.s. asking if experience awards is gonna be implemented more along the lines of what j.e. sawyer suggested was plan for jefferson now seems ridiculous to even be mentioning.

"And Jolee is the one KOTOR who could stack up against any one of the solid PS:T characters. I was impressed with Jolee, but his associates are 'Waahh! The Sith killed my family!' Carth and 'Waaah! The Jedi took me from my daddy!' Bastila." and for better or worse, hk-47 has made just 'bout every magazine's best npc award. bastilla coulda' been better. she never really whinned 'bout her daddy as you suggest, but she was decidedly unlikable. even so, we would take canderous over vaihlor, and if not for sheena easton doing annah's voice, we wouldn't put her much before the god awful writing and character development we seen from fall from grace. yeah, we all get that ffg is the "mystery that is woman" character, but that ain't no excuse for failing to develop at all. taken as a whole, the joinable npcs in kotor stacks up pretty darn well 'gainst ps:t. and we wasn't comparing korriban to just a few lame ps:t parts... was pretty much everything after you leave sigil... and a few things from before. *shrug* ps:t, much like fo, benefits much from a cult following that sees things through the foggy lens o' nostalgia. example: "Technically, KOTOR didn't have the room to be as good in writing as PS: T, because KOTOR didn't have the descriptions of the latter game. The only writing was dialogue or direction for a quest. " most of ps:ts descriptions came via dialogue options... was not great sections of narration for most part. and using more words rarely equates as being better writing. hemingway's "a clean, well-lighted place" is only a few pages long, and he cut out any extraneous descriptive language. was a true minimalist 'fore the movement became popular. am not thinking that ps:t or kotor is in same class as hemingway's story of something like 1,500 words. kotor was not quite as self-indulgent as ps:t... was not forced to listen to cliff's notes for dummies versions of basic philosophical concepts like those spouted by coaxmetal and the transcendent one. ps:t was at its best when it skipped the florid prose and remedial philosophy and when it told simple human stories. ask eldar what he likes best from ps:t. he likes the tiefling storyteller from the brothel, and her simple stories... delivered as dialogue. and what did Gromnir likes best? morte after you encounter the pillar of skulls and the mebbeth/ei-vene/marta/ravel encounter once you return from curst is examples of when ps:t was very, very good... 'cause chris a and the other writers was taking completely unbelievable characters and making 'em more human than any crpg characters we ever met. sure as hell weren

repost: now that the devs is answering questions, Gromnir is wondering if the obsidian folks is taking an "if it ain't broken..." approach to skills as they is to combat. will skills be treated largely as they was in kotor? if changes to skills is made will they be superficial or substantial? will there be more quests that is limited to folks whose primary character has a requisite skill level? will game play be different for folks depending on what skills they takes? will the skills be better balanced than they was in kotor? etc. whatever thoughts developers wish to share concerning kotor2 skills would be much appreciated... honest. end repost possibly gets a little more attention in this thread... or not. HA! Good Fun!

"The writing in Torment was much better than the writing in KOTOR, the characters much more three dimensional, and the general feel much more mature." ask 100 folks who the best character in ps:t was. will see morte and annah and tno and the transcendent one get mentioned... you will even see votes for fall from grace, and she is one of those unfinished and half-baked characters that we was mighty disappointed with. far down the list you may see ravel mentioned. even so, ravel is the one ps:t character we would stack up 'gainst jolee. korriban were also better developed and better written than a number of areas in ps:t. in fact, ps:t really was, for Gromnir at least, more of a sigil+ game. the fortress of regrets, in particular, was kinda lame. heck, baator was so underutilized as to be a bit of a joke. after you leaves sigil, the game, save for one important encounter upon return to sigil, was anti-climactic for Gromnir. furthermore, as much as chris a was clearly the lead writer and soul of ps:t, he didn't write ps:t all by his lonesome. hell, many of the really good ideas for ps:t was characters, place and situations lifted from underused planescape supplements. collin mccomb never did get his due from fans... and for those of you who liked the brothel, well, that was dave m doing the writing. the number of people who mistakenly thinks that the pillar of skulls was chris a's idea, raise your hand. similarly, david g did not write kotor. dave did hk-47, carth and jolee, and got a planet, and he helped on some other stuff, but ain't like his stamp is everywhere on game. oh, and keeps in mind that kotor also very cleverly disguised the fact that it was recreating the entire star wars story arc alongs with characters and themes lifted from the first three movies. that alone, while seemingly a minor thing, is getting big points from Gromnir. was only an intuitive approach from hindsight, but it was perfect for what kotor was trying to accomplish. is also also something that we rarely seen professional or amateur critics of kotor mentions when talking 'bout strengths and weakness of kotor. seems to us that many folks missed the mostest important aspect of kotor story writing. how many folks on these boards has mentioned that they not like the lightside ending of kotor? not seen one of those self appointed pundits note that the lightside ending was almost a forgone conclusion considering how faithful bioware was to the source material... was an ending exactly like from the original star wars movies. the ending, like the rest of the game, was an homage to the first three movies. no matter what, you was gonna end up with an ending that took most of its elements from star wars or return of the jedi. why folks would expect a different kinda ending considering how closely the game followed the story arc of the first three movies is beyond Gromnir. any other kinda ending woulda been maybe more fun for players, but from a writing standpoint it woulda' been a glaring incongruity... an incongruity that almost none mentions. *shrug* Gromnir liked ps:t better than kotor, but we also recognize that kotor did many story things better... and am not seeing why you find a comparison of chris a and david g so meaningful or even clear-cut. HA! Good Fun!

"You want reassurance? Most of the guys at Obsidian are former Black Isle developers. Heard of Black Isle? Made Planescape: Torment, and the Fallout games? The top 3 PC RPGs of all time? Reassurance given. " top 3 rpgs? really? not based on anything objective like sales figures, that is for sure. heck black isle's IWD sold better than any of the games you mentioned. and fallout is probably the mostest overrated game we ever played. average writing and poor balance is just a couple of the oft overlooked flaws of fallout... adolescent males seemed to be liking the Mad Max style setting and bloodshed and mature content as kinda a reactionary response to other fantasy crpgs. even so, Gromnir liked fallout, am just not sure that a top 3 consideration is warranted. best we can say is that you named some games we like very much despite their mediocre sales. furthermore, how many obsidian guys actually worked on fallout? is probably more guys at obsidian who worked on Heart of Winter, Torn and IWD2 if only 'cause they was much more recent projects from bis. so, does those titles inspire confidence in folks? a former bis developer sarcastically noted that the bio ceos had mentioned that fergie and bis had never produced a AAA game.

"No, but as it stands they have the worst." reason it is worst is 'cause it is relatively underpowered compared to guardian and consular. "They do actually, force regeneration for example is not present at all in Star Wars d20 and as I am at it weapons CAN be customized in Star Wars d20. " and there is special lightsabres in d20 too... am not seeing the dif... and we not see what your point is 'bout force regeneration. that again is an issue dealing with force powers and how they is implemented much different than the d20 skills based powers, no? also, armour in star wars gives dr... is no ac bonus. but lightsabres ignore dr. makes the lightsabre even more powerful in d20 star wars than in kotor. you not seem to be talking 'bout the same skills Gromnir is. we is talking jedi skills in d20, right? jedi skills must overcome dc checks just like all other skills. is not like how if you got level 20 and a 30 in spellcraft you can add epic spells to your level nine pool of spells. example: if we recall correct, force grip not check skill level to see if he can cast... got 1 skill level in any jedi skill and you can use that power. skill level checks sets the dc for the opposing will save. if you gots lots of skill levels, the will save for an opponent becomes more difficult (the dc is also modified by the dark jedi's int score... and not all dark side jedi skills is modified by int. can be wis or con or charisma or other stuff too.) force grip cots 4 vitality points to cast... which is akin to hps. no spell levels, and the skill checks works much different too. loose vitality points for casting. sure... mechanics is exactly the same. HA! Good Fun!

"Now I said unfinished, I once said the Sentinel have the combat skills of a consular and the force skills of a guardian and I stand by my observation. "It needed more work, not having immunties that come into play once in a blue moon ... if grip was actually stop by those immunities I could say the Sentinel was almost equal. "Powergaming comment is from the all the high level equipment hanging around and the very odd creation of the implant system." you is still trying to have both ways. the immunities come into play infrequently, making the sentinel less powerful... but now you is suggesting that sentinel combines best aspects of consular and guardian? HA! the crystal upgrades still not allow for 5d8 or more, does they? the other weapons not get upgrades in d20 neither, so lightsabres would still far outstrip other weapons. you not getting this balance thing is you? "Reason that was done was for the "best of two worlds", Bob even said so." you realize that this means nothing w/o context. the biowarians did suggest that adding bluff and intimidate to hotu weren't as easy as you suggest, but we concede that it could be done. "However HotU have epic spells that look for the spellcraft skill." come now, you ain't equating the way d20 star wars does jedi powers with the epic spells in HotU, or is you? we hope not. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir gots a long memory. noticed how quiet it was 'round here til announcement. when boards first started up, developers was talkative for a couple of days

"point in case is the Sentinel class that despite being a good idea it failed to compared with the others." "Also my view of BioWare staff is they are the powergaming type," no doubt you can see why these comments might make Gromnir question you. sentinel sucked compared to other classes. sentinel was less efficacious than the other classes. sentinel is the one class that bio invented. bioware must be powergamers. huh? also of note, bioware actually made the jedi classes less powerful than the d20 counterparts when it was coming to combat... and 80%+ of the game was combat. if we recall correct, a lightsabre in the hands of a jedi with 15 levels of guardian would be doing 5d8 damage per hit. as to why you might combine various skills into diplomacy... well, if you is using the aurora engine as the basis for kotor, it seems kinda obvious why skills look similar to nwn... also explains why there is similar slots for magic/techno items. didn't you ever wonder why jedi powers is NOT based on skills in kotor? HA! Good Fun!

"there weren't many things to be learnt from HoW." sure there was. makes a list of things NOT to do in future games based on mistakes in HoW. is long, no? Gromnir most often learns more from his failures than from his success. no doubt at least some of the folks now at obsidian learned a few things from HoW's failure. HA! Good Fun!

now that the devs is answering questions, Gromnir is wondering if the obsidian folks is taking an "if it ain't broken..." approach to skills as they is to combat. will skills be treated largely as they was in kotor? if changes to skills is made will they be superficial or substantial? will there be more quests that is limited to folks whose primary character has a requisite skill level? will game play different for folks depending on what skills they takes? will the skills be better balanced than they was in kotor? etc. whatever thoughts developers wish to share concerning kotor2 skills would be much appreciated... honest. HA! Good Fun!

before HoW, bis folks not seem to mind giving estimates on hours o' gameplay. ... seems that those folks at least learned something from HoW. HA! Good Fun!

only because the insiders kept going on about it.. and because they are insiders we believe them. oh please... we knew that obsidian was working on a pre-existing bioware title. we knew that the new obsidian game would be for consoles and pcs. we knew that bioware had stated many times that they was NOT doing kotor2 or a kotor expansion. we knew that the bg license was the subject of ongoing litigation. we knew that shattered steel and mdk2 was not great sellers. those was the things we knew w/o any inside info. given the above, only 2 real options was kotor2 or nwn2

I hate inside informants the best part 'bout folks who suggest they gots inside info, is their reactions when confronting them with their own statements weeks or months after the fact, when it becomes evident that they didn't know near as much as they thought they did. is petty? sure it is, but the folks who act like they gots some sorta special knowledge is kinda asking for it, ain't they? HA! Good Fun! p.s. if you wants inside info, just shmooze some developer... those guys is generally pretty excited 'bout their jobs, and they not need much coaxing to spill stuff.

am not sure what obsidian style is yet... however, if have to guess based on past works of major players, we would assume that kotor2 will be cancelled before lucas ever officially announces

oddly 'nuff, we got no photos of self on computer... will maybe find something later. ever seen that bissel commercial with the bald biker guy? "smoothies!" picture the biker w/o the facial hair... and add black hair on noggin. looks like Gromnir according to numerous aquaintances of ours... though we don't see it. ... we discovered recently that the commercial in question won some sorta "out of the closet" award from a magazine that is published by/for the gay community... seems that the biker guy character was very popular with homosexuals. Gromnir keeps going back and forth as to whether we find this news disturbing or amusing. HA! Good Fun!

question: what, if anything, should obsidian do to improve skills in kotor2? as far as Gromnir is concerned, skills was pretty much broken in kotor. lock pick skill? ha! we could bash every door save one anyways. computers? always had spikes or the droid. repair was utterly useless save for if you wanted to upgrade hk-47... but that was it. why not able to upgrade t3-m4? would have been kinda fun if with repair skill you could upgrade both droids to jedi quality standards... maybe repair some ancient special equipment on occasion too... but no. we saw no reason to take any skill save the diplomacy skill, and 'cause the only thing intelligence modified in game was largely useless skills, there not seem to be any good reason to boost int above 8... save as a nod to role-play and wanting our character not to feel like an idiot. am understanding that making game experience different for folks dependent on their skill selection might not be particularly economic. would be nice to be able to solve quests and access completely different quests and areas based on skill selections made during character generation, but spending time and effort on stuff that only a small percentage of total players is gonna see is currently frowned 'pon by crpg developers. so, keeping in mind the realities of industry, how does one make skills useful? HA! Good Fun!

we gots no problem with being critical of kotor. was much critical of various aspects of that game our self, but can we try and keep this thread more of a FAQ thing... post just the stuff we has discovered will be in game? is already a dozen "what is wrong" and "what is right" with kotor threads on these boards and they not got stickies. would be nice to keep this thread a convenient source o

can't have it both ways chum... at one point you is saying that ghouls and supermutants is just altered humans anyway... and at same time you is suggesting that they is so exotic as to be unplayable. *shrug* you might not like what fo2 did, but that game seemed to show us that ghouls and supermutants was quite plausible as pc characters in the fo universe... in fact, fo:t actually made those races playable as part of your squad. btw, d&d zombies is mindless