Worthgarian

Bit late for that....and I doubt it becasue it

Maybe that would be because your DVDs were overcopyprotected. Copy protections are often more problematic for the legal owners than for the pirates.

I am repeating myself but this is a myth. DVDs have thicker protective layers, a reflective layer independant from the label, a proportionally huge error correction code compare to that of the CD, they can survive being bent with 30 times the strenght of what you can bend a CD, they can survive a lot more heat, they can remain in humid place with much lesser corrosion than the CDs and DVD cases are a lot more protective than CD cases. The only was DVD are more sensitive than CDs it is to scratches and finger prints. The reason why they are more sensitive to them is because of the size of each bit relatively to the size of a fingerprint or a scratch. Finger prints can be washed, scratches can be prevented and if you can't accept that a DVD should go into their original casing, instead of letting it lay on the basement floor under a pizza box, I might have a trick for you: If you happen to have a badly scratched DVD you would still like to use, if the damages are no too extreme (let us say you just use an X-acto to cut cardboard over your favorite DVD) as long as the reflective surface is intact you can follow this guide and have it repaired. I repaired CDs and DVDs that were completely unreadable many times because I know a lot people who made it a sport to scratch CDs and DVDs and it worked every times.

That's very nice to read Thank you Fearless Jedi.

24 hours is more than enought to finish the game. You just need to do it 24 hours straight. Considering how the average PC game has less than 20 hours of playbility, people could play all games without buying most of them in legality if the agreed to play them restlessly.

That is 5.25" floppys you are refering about. The double sided ones could store 1.2 mb each, 600 kb for the single sided. 3.5" floppys would store 720 kb and 1.44 mb for the single and double sided version respectively. DVD5 are like thick CDs that can store 6 or 7 Cds. DVDs are thincker because they are more portected against scratches because the information being written smaller, a scratch is relatively more important regarding data analysis. Dual layer DVDs, DVD9 are more interesting because they can store up to 12 or 13 full CDs. I think that for a game of 3 CDs or more there should also be a DVD version. I think releasing a game on more than 6 CDs is exagerated so for 6 cds and up I would consider making only a DVD version if I was a distributor.

I wasn't an Xbox owner before Kotor II but I too couldn't wait for the PC version. Now I wish I hadn't fallen for the console side of the game. Fear not because I am not beyong redemption though: in my heart I will always be a PC gamer. There are some good moments throught it and I have a LOT of admiration for Obsidian's ideas. A lot of ideas are great and I wish they had time to completely develop them and make them bug free. At the beginning the game is a lot of fun and as you progress more flaws appear. It is knowing what the game could have been that is disapointing. Also Kotor II suffers the comparison with Kotor that was a great game and a lot more polished and gratifying. Kotor II isn't a BAD game. There are many hours of playing and in the beginning, the excitement I felt in antitcipation of what was to come was over what I had felt in Kotor. It just feels unfinished, which is frustrating.

He is in the Jedi Enclave ruins.

The early devs comments stated that there might be extra content and the jounalists often happen to be very enthusiastic about the games they decided they wouldn't bash on. A reviewer shouldn't be trusted over a dev.

I don't understand why DVDs would be more fragile. The protective layer on DVDs should be trice times thicker than the one we find on CDs. That means that a DVD media should be a LOT more reistant to sratches than CDs (in theory it woudl approximately be 3^2 = 9 times more resistant). Also on DVDs that contain DATA there is a lot more than usual redundancy (CRCs) in the information to make sure that if there was unreadable bits that they could be replaced with software. I think there a tolerance of an average of about 10% of innacurate bits that could be replaced on a DVD while on a CD there is a tolerance of less than 1%. Of course that doesn't apply to the DVD VIDEO because they have to be displayed in real time. Also for the recordable medias, the DVD-R's substrate should have a life time of about 2.5 times the CD-R's (average CD-R have a lifetime between 10 and 15 years). But that doesn't apply to pressed CDs and DVDs that should have an estimated lifetime of about 75 to 100 years. Also in order to reduce CDs cost they often put the reflective surface under the CD labels which in case you would scratch the label it would make the CD unreadable while most DVDs have the reflective surface separated from the label by a protective layer. Which means that you could peal the label of most DVDs and not remove the reflective surface (aluminium foil) at the same time. Also because this reflective surface is not in contact with the air it is a lot less likely to corrode. Aluminium is not a materia lthat easily corrodes but it does happen with time in a minor way that can be significative considering the size of a bit on the media. Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why DVDs are more fragile than CDs please ?

Hey Dark Wanderer you somehow pirated my exact thoughts ! Ahem except for buying KOTOR 2 when it gets out that is... I couldn't resist the temptation and fell to the dark side and bought a Xbox and the game the day it came out. After buying the Xbox I was still planning to buy the game on PC when it would release but somes factors like the huge amount of bugs, the ending, the shallow conversations, the lack of romance and the fact that the PC game will be on many CDs tempered my haste to get the game. I still had a great time playing the game. There was some great moments on Telos and Nar Shadaa though and those were worth the game's price but as the game progressed some kind of sadness took the place of my initial childish joy as I discovered how everything was rushed and left incomplete. The game itself is nihilistic: I felt emptied after playing it as if everything I had cared for had gone away leaving no elements for a sequel. I think that is why Darth Nihilus managed to get on the cover of the game's box even if he has a minor role in the game: his power can actually affect directly the player. Piracy is killing PC gaming. Publishers rather support developement for consoles because piracy is too important on PC. I don't want PC to be a second hand market so I buy PC games to support my opinion financialy and statisticly. Piracy is killing quality developement because it is giving extra weight to the financial concerns during a game's developement and instead of letting the devs polish the game until they're satisfied, they have to rush it to catch chrismas to make it profitable. If the devs miss chrismas, kids without money won't be able to ask their parents for the game as a chrismas gift and will instead download the game. While buying the game a year later at less than half the price I don't think as much money goes to the devs and it doesn't show as significatively the consummer's wish for a sequel.

"Knights of the Old Republic II will be released for PC and Xbox in February" Hahahahaha ... never heard that one before <_< . After going through KOTOR:TSL on Xbox I couldn't find any emotionaly strong moments. Funny, frustrating and arousing: definately yes. But nothing dramatic worth mentioning happens in TSL. I think the devs were crying because they had to rush the game for Chrismas and therefore wouldn't be able to put in everything they had planned for the game or maybe because they couldn't make a simultaneous Xbox and PC release... Oh wait didn't I just learned there will be a simultaneous release in February ? Hurray ! (PC gamers can rejoice and go dance in the street throwing flowers)

I will buy the DVD release for PC if/when there is one. None is planned so far. The one reason why I would buy the game is because I would like a sequel and buying a game is like voting for a sequel. Too bad Kotor 2's ending doesn't arouse my imagination about what might happen as much as the first one did. Also considering there won't be any extra polishing or extra content in comparison to the earlier released Xbox version, as a PC gamer I feel a bit cheated and this frustration might have me not buy the game. I don't know if I am going to buy the game but I know I would if I read a good news for the PC gamers about the upcomming PC version of Kotor 2 (it would be good to know that the PC version is improved over the Xbox version).

I don't remember where I have read this but Republic Commando will aswell come as a PC demo with KOTOR:TSL on the PC-CDrom release (I hope there is gonna be a DVD release although I doubt it). I have played the demo on Xbox and I was surprised what a great game it was. The controls are almost the same as in Halo (left trigger throws a grenade, right trigger is a melee attack). You have only one gun that can be evolved into many others (using the cross directional and pressing once or twice a direction). The action is fluid, teammates can be easily contr

Blu-rays (25 Gb per layer) can store up to 50 Gb on a dual-layer BD-DL-R disks. If they write one both faces on the disk, which would mean a disk nearly twice as thick and that needs to be flipped to read to other side's content (or the Blu-ray drive would need to have reading heads (the Blue LED lasers) both over and under which would be expensive) a disk could hold 100 Gb just as the DVD (4.5 GB per layer) can store 17 Gb with dual layer and disk flipping. Blu-ray could possibly eventually store up to 200 Gb according to the press releases. Unfortunately those 200 Gb media probably would not be compatible with the first Blu-rays readers. HD-DVD shouldn't hold more than 30 Gb per sides. For those who are unfamiliar with the optical media's evolution here is a quick summary: In the 1980s the Vynil record companies were looking for a numeric support that would not worn out by being read but they didn't wanted to have to replace all thoses presses they used to print the Vynil disks. They inveted the CD-Rom that could be printed using the same press mecanism by stamping on acrylic a numeric pattern and then pit an aluminium foil on top of it before covering the disk with protective plastic. At first the CD-rom was meant to be as large as a Vynil disk but it wouldn't sell under this form, the actuel cshape proved to sell a lot better. How it works is that a Inrared laser LED at 45 degr

Thank you TSAdmiral for your comment. You have a point. Even though it shouldn't be this way and that we shouldn't biase our opinion on so few experiences, because games released on DVD are considered to be destined for such a little market share the producers don't usually polish them as it should and I agree that a lot of DVD releases aren't even fonctional on a lot of computers. I would however, based on my many previous purchases, expect Lucasarts to put a particular attention to their production and make sureit doesn't suffer such problems. I had the same frustrations with Far Cry on DVD. Ubisoft actually suggested that we would have windows copy the DVD's content onto our hard drive and then use a no-cd to play the game until they would find a fix to it. What happens, during the game's production, is that the devs actually make a non-protected edition of the game that works flawlessly on any CD or DVD drive and then the producer sends the game to Safedisk or Securom and for hundred of thousands of dollars they apply their generic copy protection they developped and they don't test it too hard afterward (maybe they just give it a run on on of their PC since they need to rush the game out so that it can be produced on time for the release date) and then they send the copy protected copy to the editor so that millions of copies of this disk can be made and put onto the shelves. It is only afterward that someone tries the game and find out that the copy protection made it incompatible with 80% of the PC hardware. Typical.

I don't know but a non-negligible percentage of people did vote that. I am very curious to understand what reasons made them vote for this option.

I guessed it was a publisher's decision but I decided to start the thread here because we can't make polls on LucasArts' forums but I made there a post there with a link to this thread on Obsidians forums. Also I find Obsidian's forums much more agreable to use and having been reading this forum since the announcement of Kotor 2, I decided to register and post here because I feel that people who post here are a lot more open-minded. If my primary goal had been to influence the publisher I probably would have started an online petition instead (unless there is already one that exists) ... although I can't remember even one of those many online petitions I signed to have succeeded in their goal. Also I mostly did this thread for myself because I was curious to see approximately how many people don't own a DVD and how much would like releases on DVDs. Approximately 4 on 5 people in this forum seems to agree with a DVD release. I wish I knew how Europeans were able to tell the publishers their desire to buy games on DVDs. I am still curious to know what reasons drove a non negligible purcentage of the DVD-roms owners to vote againt the idea of a DVD release in this thread (those who chose the second choice in the poll).

You're welcome

"some exclusive PC content that will not be initially available in the Xbox version"... that's what I like to read :D If the pc version is to be more polished, patched and have new content.. and if they would put some other extras in the box aswell.. anything.. could be a galaxy map, wallpapers, posters, figurines, a detailed game guide or a developper's journal (containing censored ideas of quest and dialogues they had in mind) or better: the dev's constructionset to help us modding the game... Kotor 2 PC later relase would definately be forgiven . Anyways there are just too much game releases for chrismas (chrismas is way overrated as a release date) and very often it is in spring and summer that I miss good pc games the most :cool:.

Good point Alan. I didn't really considered this possibility because: 1) Most PCs that haven't been modified since they were bought and that are performant enough to play KOTOR with a decent frame rate are very likely to have been sold at a time at which DVD-roms were almost as cheap as CD-roms and therfore were very likely to come quipped with a DVD-rom. 2) The PCs that were sold before the "DVD era" are not likely to be performant enough to play KOTOR with decent graphics and framerate and were probably modified from their original state by their owners to add a diretx 8.0 graphic card (or better) and therefore those owners already had the case opened and either already know how to replace hardware by themselves or know someone who could take 10 minutes to plug-in a DVD-rom or could go to a shop where they could get a DVD-rom installed. I don't really understand where your computer falls in but my guess is that you are probably running on a Directx 7.0 or below videocard and that you will be missing the nice visual effects in Kotor:TSL that, from what I have seen on the Xbox console, are much more visible and present all through the game than in the first one. If you don't own a Laptop or a computer that is hardly evolutive, you might someday consider getting a new videocard at at the same time have DVD-rom installed. But again I am not against a CD-rom release. I am FOR a DVD release. I would like that if we could get a package with the two games on one DVd as some already said. I already own the first game but would like to have it aswell on DVD-rom. It is a game worth having twice .

Maybe I should have given another option in the Poll "Yes even though I don't own a DVD-rom" but I felt it was an unlikely answer... I might have been wrong.

I am aware that most goods are more expensive in Europe and that is why I am surprised that even though Europeans are less likely to spend money buying DVD-Roms and pay a highter price in order to get the games on DVD, some games are made directly onto DVD-Roms exclusively for the European market. I admire that somehow the European market showed the game producers their will to buy games on a DVD support. And yes if your PC can play DVD movies, it should be able to read DVD data aswell

It is unlikely that they would put both versions (CD and dVD) in the box : that would be like giving you two games for the price of one. But I would love if they did. What I had in mind was more like playing directly from the DVD without any hard drive installation but a DVD release would also suit your needs: this is why there are both Minimal and Full installations options in the installshield (installation wizard). I might be wrong but I think the newer DVD-Roms (or at least some of them) are region free because some manufacturers found out that the DVD Regions didn't fullfiled the reasons why they invented them in the first place. But anyways the games aren't really concerned by those regions. -------------- It also occured to me that the CD cases that can hold 5 cds or more are more complex, more fragile and more expensive than the regular cd case. Therefore, producing a DVD version with a single DVD that would fit in a single CD/DVD case might not be as much more expensive that the 5 or more cds version. Furthermore the multi-cd cases rarely fit-in very well the common cd racks. I am curious to know what are the reasons why some poeple voted the "No, even though I have a DVD-Rom".

It always disturbs me that game developpers or producers (I don't know who takes the decision) always chose to make a 6 CDs release of a game instead of making it fit on one DVD. Some games in Europe are sold on a single DVD while it takes many CDs here. For instance in the UK they have Half-life 2 on a single DVD-Rom and it can be played directly from the DVD without any hard drive installation at all. Are we North Americans so poor that we can't afford to buy a DVD-Rom ? I am not particularly a fan of the half-hour installations including the tedious CD changing we are bound to while buying Pc games. If the Xbox can play directly the game from the DVD why wouldn't a PC ? Also unless you are using a No-CD you still have to put the first or last of the many Cds into your tray which is pretty useless because the whole game is on your hard drive. I see only three plausible reasons in favor for the pc games to be on CD and none of them is sufficient for me: 1) Some people don't own a DVD-Rom: I have seen many DVD-Roms under 25$ which half the price of the game and if it can spare you a 3 or 4 Gigabytes installation every time you want a game installed, in the end it might be less expensive to buy a DVD-rom than to buy a bigger hard drive. 2) Pc Games have to be patchable and moddable: The game being mostly on the DVD-Rom doesn't mean it cannot be modified. Many times in the past I have seen installers that would link the game to a folder and if you put any files in this folder, they will override those on the DVD-Rom. For those who modded the first Kotor... remember the OVERIDE folder ? What this folder did was that any files placed into it would be loaded instead of the original ones when starting the game. It could be the same but with the original files on the DVD-Rom. This way you can both patch and mod the game at your will without having to carry the whole game on your hard drive. 3) DVDs are much more expensive to produce: When you are making thousands of copies of the same disk, some minor price differences can make a big deal of a difference... let us say producing a CD is very cheap and costs 1 cent per CD and that producing a DVD is