AlanC9

True, but packaging and shipping are minor components of a game's cost. I'm not sure how many sales it's worth losing to get that savings. 2%, maybe?

Someday, but not today. Actually, I hear DVD-ROM market penetration is at something over 80%, so that day may be quite soon. The thing is that DVDs aren't that much bigger than CD-ROMs -- it's not at all like going from floppies to CD-ROM. So there's no real incentive to switch the market over. It'll probably wait until something as big as Half-Life 2 goes DVD-only. Then the whole market will convert in a few months.

Because PC DVD drives are useless frills. The question isn't whether I can find a DVD drive. The question is why I would want to install one. Do I really want to spend $30 and crack my case to save a couple of CD swaps when I install a game? No. And there's no other rationale for having a DVD drive. Unless you like to watch movies on your PC. I prefer using my TV for that.

What makes you think that mod would have been any easier even with Bio's own development tools? There's no reason to assume that there's any way to put that property on a lightsaber. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. We don't know.

The problem is that this is an argument against making a PC game moddable. What good does a game's longevity do LucasArts? Are you willing to pay more than $45-$55 for a game? Would KotOR have moved any more units if the developer tools had been in the box?

Hasn't Obsidian already declared that blasters will be more effective in KotOR 2? This will make bladed weapons less useful, but probably won't change the balance of power between Jedi and non-Jedi all that much. How much better than non-Jedi should Jedi be?

Because sabers can deflect blaster fire and melee weapons can't? Fair enough.

Yikes! Maybe downgrading melee weapons is important in itself.

Obsidian better get us some new info fast. These threads are becoming idiotic.

Agreed. The specific numbers are irrelevant. What counts is the relative damage between weapon types. Of course, more damage can mean faster combat, and possibly more difficult combat depending on healing rules. I've seen people arguing both for blasters doing more damage and for lightsabers doing more damage. Except for hurting blade wielders (a good thing IMO), how would doing both really change the game? Wouldn't we be in the same place we are now?

Is that really correct for the setting? Vader didn't seem to think he had anything at all to fear from Han et al., and it certainly didn't look like he had any reason to. Then again, he might have been far higher in level than Han? (OK, he's not a soldier, but you get my drift) Edit: That sounds like I'm advocating that Jedi should rule the game. I'm not - I'm actually conflicted on that point.

Would having only boss characters dismemberable work?

Something's bugging me here, although maybe this is a bit OT. The Jedi outclassed the other companions in KotOR. My impression is that this was A Bad Thing. Wouldn't improving lightsabers just make this more pronounced in KotOR 2? Even if skills are increased in usefulness, that still leaves the equivalents of Carth, Canderous, and HK-47 in the lurch.

All creatures are clickable, in case you haven't noticed. However, the click produces different results depending on the faction of the creature. Hostile, and the click means an attack. Nonhostile, and the click means an attempt to communicate. How do you propose to tell the game whether you're trying to talk to someone, or trying to kill him? Through dialogs on every creature? Option 1= "Hi there", Option 2= "I'm going to kill you". That's what you'd have to do. I mentioned this in the post you quote, which you seem to have quoted without reading. @triCritical -- should have been more specific. Killing Gorion wouldn't have broken the BG1 plot. It sure will break the game. But come to think of it, even someone who wants to kill Gorion would want to wait until outside of Candlekeep, so it's really just a question of Sarevok stealing your kill.

That works on Drizzt too. But how do you get the Wand in the prologue? Pickpocket it off of someone?

Surely there are some characters whom it would be completely unfeasible to murder, though? Or even if they can be killed, retribution would be so swift and certain as to make the act irrational. I don't mind it when a CRPG doesn't present irrational options. It beats having a half-assed response to my using them. Edit: the funny thing is, killing Gorion wouldn't break BG1. You'd only have to redo Sarevok's diary and Elminster's appearance, and probably not have Imoen join you.

I think it highly unlikely that you'll see this sort of thing in a game with all dialogue spoken. That puts a serious constraint on the number of possible paths, right? You could still do Morrowind's approach as long as you don't care about making folks react appropriately to your behavior. Thinking about the earlier example of not wanting to do the Taris underground quests: it would have been amusing to let players frontally assault the Vulkar base, only to find out that it's irrelevant because Bastila isn't there. This would actually be easy enough to allow for - all you'd need is a couple of dialogs with the Beks when you end up having to talk with them anyway. Though there'd be big cutscene issues later, since going that route means you'd probably never pick up Mission and Zaalbar. triCritical, did you mean Lothar earlier? I'm pretty sure he's the invincible one in PS:T. edit: What happens if you attack Gorion in BG1? Even without any special programming, shouldn't he simply annihilate a 1st-level character?

You're missing the point. The engine problem isn't that the KotOR non-hostile NPCs are plot-flagged (though I presume they are, or they could be killed by grenades). The problem is that there's no way to target a non-hostile creature, so there's no way to start a battle with them. That's why you need new interface functionality. You could add a dialog that turns the NPC hostile. But you'd have to add that for all the NPCs, even those who only have one-liners currently - unless they turn the whole planet hostile the moment you kill any innocent NPC. A lot of work for something fairly worthless. I didn't see how the Morrowind method added anything to gameplay. OK, I can kill anybody. Then I get to reload. Whee. Arcanum's system is better, but I still don't see that as being a really useful feature. Then again, I don't play psychopaths, so plotlines I'm never going to see are worthless from my standpoint. YMMV.

It's going to be just like KotOR 1 -- the game will ship with all cheats on, and you'll have to mod the game to deactivate them.

Fine, it's game over if you kill that guard. So let it be over. Why protect players from their own stupidity? The real problem is with the plot and other NPCs. It would be a ton of work to make the game accomodate psychopaths. Sorwen, it's not a question of an on/off check. Odyssey handles non-hostiles differently from hostiles - they can't be targeted at all. (Unlike NWN). You'd need UI work to make this possible.

Alignment shouldn't be destiny, but what about character? Is is such a bad thing if a game prevents people from behaving in an insanely inconsistent manner? It can't be bad for "role-playing" - a role-player wouldn't play such a character in the first place. Of course, the obvious objection is that the game doesn't know your motivations, so you could have a consistent personality that the game doesn't understand (which is something like the issue Hubert raised above). But as a theoretical point, I don't see a problem.

My impression is that most developers put in some kind of cheat to aid in debugging stuff. So it's just a question of making them avaialable to the players

I don't see any disagreement here - we all seem to agree that KotOR would have been better if there was a real advantage to bringing a skill character (Mission, T3) with the party, instead of having an all-Jedi party being inevitably better at everything.

But if you're roleplaying, Tyrell's proposal makes sense. If you are playing a conflicted character, you'd get both options. If you're playing a pure good character, the evil options simply don't occur to you. The problem is, that's not how evil works in SW. If it was any other genre, I'd say the idea has some merit - let folks work their way up to pure evil or pure good. Or not. But that's just not right for a Star Wars game.

He repairs the Falcon's hyperdrive at the end of the film, allowing them all to escape the Executor.