AlanC9

Yes, bias is inevitable. But I maintain that there is a distinction between being merely influenced by nationality, race, class, etc., and using those factors as your primary criteria for judgment. Nobody seriously believes that the Nobel is about artistic merit, so what's the point of calling it a "literature" prize? Besides a cash grant to a respectable writer, which is a good thing. edit: newc, looks like we have a different take on the way the decisions are made there. Frankly, I've got less faith in academics than typical Oscar voters.

Actually, a lot of people didn't think that PS:T was as much fun as Diablo. Obviously. Can a game that doesn't sell be a "masterpiece of gaming?" It's clearly failed in a t least one design objective. KotOR's got a better claim to be a masterpiece. Whatever you think about its design objectives, it succeeded at all of them.

The point isn't that they're bad writers; most of them are actually very good. The point is that the process lacks artistic and intellectual integrity.

Yep, you're right. Though that makes the Nobel system come off even worse. At least an elitist is trying to judge the book's merits. Edit: novels don't seem to be appropriate for analogies to computer games, since the production constraints are so different. Movies aren't much better, since there's such a large range of acceptable production values and revenue targets for movies. I think television series would be the most comparable form of media.

Actually, books that win the Nobel Prize are typically elitist crap and don't stand the test of time. But I'll take the metaphor on its own terms. The issue is the author's intent. If you're trying to write a bestseller and come up with a literary masterpiece instead, you've screwed up. (I can think of a couple of writers who've managed to work this trick the other way round, like Tom Wolfe; at least they end up well-compensated.) Whatever our opinions of the relative merits of Planescape and KotOR, I think it's absolutely clear that Obsidian would much rather make the next KotOR than the next Planescape.

This was in KotOR 1 already. There are storage containers on the Hawk. And AFAIK nothing's unsellable after its quest is completed, though some items are worth zero credits.

Well, in a sense, yes. I'm posting from work.

So the problem isn't the number of levels per se - the problem is the power of the character relative to the other things in the world. True enough. The big problem with NWN epic levels isn't the number of levels possible, it's that NWN creatures were already balanced for a non-epic world. (Or in some cases, incredibly nerfed - but that's a different argument) I'm not certain that high levels will necessarily be a bad thing in KotOR 2. It depends on how the devs implement. As long as your KotOR 2 character isn't any more relatively powerful in the endgame than your KotOR 1 character was, the actual level is just a number.

Baldur's Gate was written by Bioware.

Probably true. But the professional RPG discussion board geeks here aren't average players. And we tend to squawk more when our needs aren't met, which can lead to negative buzz. If KotOR had failed as badly on plot and characters as, say, ToEE did, would it have sold as well? Maybe it still would have sold on XBox because of the lack of competition, but I don't think the PC version would have done very well at all.

Maybe the folks who didn't like the KotOR lightside ending didn't like the first trilogy's ending either? And I think Bio missed slightly with the LS ending, even by that standard. Lucas did have Vader's cremation , and Bio should have thrown some bit of quite reflection in too. What does Revan do now? Whenever I see these debates about game writing style, it reminds me of a debate about movie directors. Bioware's always struck me as sort of the Steven Spielberg of CRPG design. Really popular, but a bit too bubblegummy for the real geeks, and prone to wreck things with lame endings. So who does that make Black Isle? De Palma? Scorcese? Stone? I'd like to see Obsidian turn out to be Spike Jonze, but I'm not sure they'd make any money that way Incidentally, I like Bio games, but usually find Spielberg's films disappointing. Go figure.

I thought Moo1 actually holds up better than Moo2, though that might be just because it's too easy to have an optimal strategy in Moo2. (As for Moo3......) Master of Magic tops both.

Wouldn't that lead to balance issues? On the subject of saber hilts, can we have them a bit smaller, please? Or were saber hilts bigger 4000 years before the films?

When did this happen in KotOR? My impression is that you're hardly ever referred to in the third person, and Revan's gender isn't mentioned until you know it. Examples, please.

Not necessarily a problem -- IIRC when someone's limb comes off in JK he's already dead. Of course, since nobody dies in KotOR until you all do, only the last man standing would ever get something chopped off. Speaking of non-party passengers, one thing that really bugged me in KotOR was that you didn't rescue anyone except party members from Taris. Wouldn't Bastila have filled up the Hawk with as many refugees as the life-support could handle? Let's not have any more ethical lapses like this unless the player chooses to make them.

You could sell them. You didn't get any credits, but they did go away.

What ESRB rating do you need for that? And why stop at arms? How about decapitation?

And another: (5) Dallas The PC wakes up to find Darth Malak in the Star Forge shower.

I'm pretty sure you can get Sunry off without DS points. That's what the Sith get for framing a guilty man.

A confirmed darksider like you would probably like HK. He'd certainly like you. It's kind of ironic that you only need HK-47 if you're doing the LS resolution on Tatooine.

But that's how it worked in KotOR already. Activating a disabled droid givers you an ally, hacking the security system could disable static defenses and/or kill a bunch of enemies. The big problem with the KotOR implementation is that it is only helpful in a couple of places (the places where skill-less characters always find a key card or some such). KotOR missions aren't attrition struggles, where you have to worry about conserving your healing resources. So it doesn't really matter if you take out the guards with skills or with combat. A couple of Force Heals put you right back up to full power. If anything, combat is cheaper, since Force Heal is free and spikes and parts always cost you. And skills are no help at all against bosses, so all characters need to be able to fight. Good thing KotOR makes you take Jedi levels. I'm not sure that removing spikes would really make as much of a difference as some people think. In my experience, and from what I understand of others' playstyles, just about nobody uses spikes to make up for not having skill points. People who want to use skills either play a scout or bring T3; otherwise, they ignore the skills and brute-force their way through. Perhaps I'm wrong. Did anyone here actually use lots of spikes and parts to make up for not having skill points?

Juhani can stealth too, you know. It's a cat thing. Jolee's also kind of fun, though he ends up running around in his underwear for the rest of the chapter. I'm pretty sure they've already announced more party-member specific missions.

Not sure what you're implying there. All the BG2 dialog was written at Bio. Karzak, I take it you didn't like HK-47 and Jolee?

That's a common complaint - Bio based a lot of things off the clock in BG2, so they could come up at really silly times. They improved on this in HotU by controlling party dialog through placed triggers, which are placed where there can't be an emergency. I'm pretty sure KotOR works like this too.

That would have also cured the lack of difficulty, I think. It doesn't seem that big a problem from a gameplay standpoint. The big issue is that you'd have to change a lot of dialog.