Mongoose

I wouldn't hold your breath for a patch on the console. The original KotOR had a rule breaking bug with the double lightsaber and a bug that would completely break the game if you used stealth at the wrong time, plus that whole Galaxy Droid thing. None of those problems were ever fixed on the Xbox. And this game has many, many more little things wrong, like animation snaps, model clipping, conversation segments being skipped, broken dialog trees, skill and power inconsistencies.... Besides which, any fix that did come would require a subscription to Xbox Live, which is added money. And I'm still skeptical the game can be fixed through a patch to begin with or whether the devs even are thinking about doing so.

Interesting read. I don't know if there's any flaming possible, really, because there's nothing that I disagree with (or don't know enough of). I didn't mean to imply that 60 FPS will guarantee smooth movement for games, if that's what you're contending, just that more FPS is needed for games that involve fast movement as compared to, say, Freecell, and that the eye can detect things at more than 30 FPS.

maybe its part of the story or maybe its a glitch. But you say it attacked a character? then it might be part of the story but a glitch in the game prevents you from speaking to her <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I sorta doubt the hologram recording from T3-M4 is supposed to stick around and attack things.

* Force powers are not giving any defense bonuses. This weakens the Speed series and makes the Aura/Shield/Armor light side powers useless. * Workbenches do not account for the character using the workbench when breaking down items. They always use the Repair skill of the main character, unlike its behavior for item creation or the behavior for the lab station, which follows the skill of the character using the station. * Many instances of glitches in characters during cut scenes. In particular, Atton will turn sometimes around or stand when you talk to him on the Ebon Hawk, which is impossible since he starts off sitting down on an unmovable chair. Plus, he's too far away from the console and looks like he's pushing buttons in thin air during conversations. Characters disappear faster than the fade in and fade out, characters shift or teleport positions between scenes, the camera glitches and briefly shows different characters for a split second, and so on... * Dialogue options are inconsistent and bugged. For instance, the Handmaiden will teach me Battle Precognition the first time I talk to her on the Ebon Hawk, but clearly I'm not sparring with her during the dialog as the dialog indicates, and I likely shouldn't have enough influence with her to be able to reach that option to begin with. Same thing with Visas Marr, she'll teach me her special Force power in the first conversation, while talking about how I've traveled with her -- except I haven't left the Ebon Hawk with her yet. * Not necessarily a bug, but were all characters intended to have the same To-Hit progression? That's a big change from the lower To-Hit that anyone except a soldier type would have in standard D&D-type rules. * Where's the feat for unarmed finesse?

Actually, that's untrue. The human eye's ability to notice changes depends on the amount of change and movement in question. If the scene is a black screen, then you don't need more than 1 FPS (in fact, you don't need more than a single frame). If something is moving, then you need as many frames as possible to cover the movement with no gaps in the movement from one frame to the next. Thus, the faster something moves, the more frames per second you need, because the object moves more distance per time. 24 FPS is the usual quoted rate for movies, and movies don't even need that much, because they include motion blur to tween together frames. The eye notices no gaps because the film media blurs the image from the movement during film exposure. Games and animation, whether cel or digital, have no such easy way out; with no motion blur, if something moves faster than the frame rate, it will create gaps in its movement animation that the eye can easily see. Thus, the faster the game, the more FPS you need. Something like a fighting game or first person shooter needs to be 60 FPS due to the herky-jerky movement in the game, while something like a strategy game can do fine at 30 FPS. Of course, movies aren't actually shown at 24 FPS either. To make sure that you can't notice the black gaps between film frames, each frame is actually flashed three times so that you don't notice when the film switches frames. So, films are actually shown at 72 FPS. 24 FPS is way too slow to fool the human brain into not seeing the black flickers between frames on the film. As digital animation has no concept of film, games don't have to account for this black flicker problem. (This is a refresh rate problem, rather; It'd be the equivalent of having a 24 Hz (ouch) versus a 72 Hz refresh rate on your monitor.)

Ah, man, now the workbench has gone back to breaking down by my main's skill. What gives? With this, broken Force powers, dialog trees that inexplicably skip through conversations, glitchy cut scenes, dangling missions.... I'm starting to get rather ticked.

The description of this problem involves part of the story, so don't read on if you don't want to know... So I managed to coerce the hologram of Bastila out of T3-M4 after leaving Telos. Then I went and repeated the same dialog line to check out the hologram again, and I noticed something weird: behind the zoomed up face of Bastila, a second hologram of Bastila was standing around. After the hologram was done, I wandered around and discovered -- the hologram is still there! There's a transparent blue Bastila standing around in the Ebon Hawk, and I can't get rid of her. Not only is she still in the ship every time I board, she moves around and fights. I've been buffed with Force powers walking around the ship, and when Visas Marr paid me a visit the Bastila-hologram went and attacked Visas, too. How do I get her to stop haunting the ship? It's dang creepy...

I don't think there's any doubt about it. Nor is it unexpected; Christmas is one of the biggest events in retail, and not having a product out in time for Christmas if you can is losing a lot of sales.

Interesting. Got myself off Telos, and the first workbench I reached once I stepped off the Ebon Hawk (the one in Nar Shadaa) behaved differently. I was able to get vastly different rates between my main and Bao Dur when I checked. I wonder if the bug is tied to the workstation in use rather than the game mechanics as a whole?

I haven't had any major errors, but there have been multiple instances of glitches in cut scenes, quests that aren't completed, and Force power and skill bugs. Definitely tempering some of the enjoyment of the game for me.

Ooookay. And I'm sure you'd just be in heaven if the game turned out to be an unplayable mess, because the devs musta put those flaws in just for the Xbox version. I like my PC games as well and hope the PC version is better, but wishing ill on the same game but a different platform is not a good idea, because not that much gets changed between ports.

I'm mystified as to why PC users are gloating about the Xbox version being buggy. There's a very good chance the game will use the same code base, so any bugs in the Xbox version that don't specifically have to do with Xbox hardware (and there are a good number of those) are bugs that are going to have to be fixed for the PC version, and that takes time away from PC optimization. Sure, the PC version can be patched, but it's better to have a bug-free game to start. Rather than being spiteful because you can't play the game as early, you should've been hoping the devs caught all the bugs for the Xbox version so as to not have to catch them for the crunch time in between the Xbox and the PC release.

Unfortunately, I can confirm this. The defense for your character doesn't change at all when using Force Aura, Force Shield, Burst of Speed, or Knight Speed. The speed powers are still usable for their travel speed and extra attacks, but this makes the Aura/Shield/Armor power set useless, and is a significant blow to the forces of light.

While I see the logic, I don't agree. Item creation is a significant new aspect of the game compared to the first KotOR, and doing as you suggest would essentially remove that aspect from the game unless the character has Repair and/or Treat Injury. Since item creation is dependent on the character using the workbench or lab station, item breakdown should be as well (unless creation is also supposed to be only determined by the main character, which I'm not sure would make anyone happier...) The point of having companions is to utilize their skills. If you have a tech specialist on your team, it makes no sense to me that you cannot use his skills when doing something tech-related.

Either the lab station or more likely the workbench is bugged for item breakdowns. The lab station's chemical return value for items depends on the character using it. If you have NPCs with higher Treat Injury values, they can get more chemicals back for item breakdown. The workbench, on the other hand, is rigged so that it only gives back components based on the main character's Repair skill level, no matter what character is using the bench. As item creation is also dependent on the character using the workbench or lab station, I'm inclined to believe the workbench breakdown behavior is a bug. This is a major disappointment for the upgrade creation aspect of the game for me, as you simply cannot get a good component return on items without having a main character with Repair as a class skill, which is the case for me. Love the game in general, but this game needed a good amount more testing before heading to the presses...