AlanC9

I'm going to go even further than kefka. I've had enough of powerful items, period. As far as I'm concerned, every item in KotOR should be generic. Item chasing is OK in a fantasy game, but I don't think it makes sense in SF, especially Star Wars.

Ah, yes, the "Oxford-educated Nazi." Didn't James Mason make a living at that? And in Ep. 1, Lucas added a couple more old Hollywood stereotypes to the list - the quasi-Asian Trade Federation folks, and the Gungans. Of course, playing off of racial stereotypes led to the predictable charges of racism.

Well, what other reason would you like them to have expressed? Are there any sensible reasons for signing up with the Sith besides wanting to commit evil without repercussions? (An Imperial officer could be in it because he believes the Emperor is the legitimate head of state, but that's not possible for someone following Revan and Malak) Truth is, it's not very hard to get folks to sign up for that sort of thing in the real world. See, for instance, Rwanda, or Nazi Germany, or frontier wars in North America, etc., etc. Of course, only a tiny fraction of the population are actually going to go evil like that. But how many do you need? Edit: a big KotOR plot hole for me was that the officers and men of Revan's fleet seemed to follow him without question. Are Republic soldiers only loyal to their leaders, and not the Republic itself? Sounds like late Republican Rome. If the Republic's that shaky, how did it last 400 more years.

Of course, they weren't even trying for that feel, so it's not surprising that they failed to capture it. But that's something KotOR 2 should have. Bring on the wretched hives of villainy!

Anyone know if there were ever any complaints from players not wanting to become a Jedi again in Jedi Outcast? I don't recall any, but I also don't see why the RPG/FPS distinction would matter either.

You're assuming that there was only one "Jedi civil war" ever. Why assume that? Technically, any war that features mass defections of Jedi to the Sith is a Jedi civil war, even if it isn't called the Jedi Civil War. There's enough vagueness in the canon to support a whole lot of bad stuff. And if that won't do, then I guess they'll just rewrite the canon to support KotOR 2. Other than the timeline, a temporary disbanding of the Order following the war with Malak won't invalidate any other materials, will it?

Ah, but Bastila is an insensitive person devoid of interpersonal skills; she pretty much admits that herself. And Carth's just kind of given up on the whole thing. They worked for me. I agree that most of the evil options didn't work. There were a couple that did, but they're mostly beneath me. The evil endgame was pretty good, but most of the rest isn't worth doing.

I'll take your word for it, since you know the rules better than I do.; although I don't know how you'd account for Jolee. Well, actually, I do. Presumably it's another rule that Bio found annoying. How do the generic force user classes work? Would they be doable in the KotOR system? Do they still "feel" like Jedi classes when you play them?

Oh man, that's rich. Never mind the weird plural/singular mix-up... That's correct in British English, I think. Let's say KotOR 1 had let you refuse to be trained by the council. I guess this could have been made to work, although you'd have to rewrite the endgame a bit. (No way they'd make a game where the Sith Lord can be beaten in combat by a non-Jedi, since it's wildly inconsistent with the SW universe; although maybe you could rationalize it by saying that Revan always has innate Force, even if untrained in its use). Anyway, what motivation would a character have to refuse the training? "Thanks, but I'm powerful enough already"

I would like to play a character like Bobofet (sp?). And that also answers this, Well, that explains your motives, anyway. I still don't get why a character wouldn't want to use the force, assuming he had the potential to. Taking Jedi levels doesn't imply being a member in good standing of the order. Hell, Jolee was a smuggler. And I hate to bring this up since it's way OT, but did AD&D really have any of the "fine detail of micro CRPG combat" that was missing from the IE? Reading some of the posts above, I can't help but think that a lot of folks here are doomed to be disappointed. KotOR 2, while hopefully improved in some ways, is still going to be More Of The Same. Folks who didn't like KotOR 1 should probably just delete their Obsidian bookmarks right now.

Well, the real reason you had to be human in KotOR is that you were Revan. If you were a Twi'Lek they'd have had to put headtails on the Revan model, Revan's too tall for a Rodian, Revan's obviously not a Wookie, etc. I don't see any reason why the KotOR 2 PC can't be a Twi'Lek, Rodian, or something like that. @triCritical: why did your KotOR 1 character hate Jedi, anyway? Hating folks just because they use the force doesn't seem exactly rational.

As for why there wasn't any KotOR demo, there's no mystery. Bio built one that was over a gig, but couldn't find any way to distribute it.

Did it really make sense, though? You ended up just moving difficulty from one part of the game to another, and the 2/18 builds really aren't all that much better than 8/12 builds. Sure, it's cooler to have more force points and powers, but it doesn't make you all that much stronger - unless you didn't think about which powers to learn.

I don't see any reason why they couldn't have your Revan in KotOR 2, as long as you stilll have a KotOR 1 save on the HD. Just import it andmatch the model.

The problem is the amount of work Bio would have to do to implement that. If Malak spills the beans, you have to do different reactions for everyone on four different planets. It'd be workable if there was only one planet you could go to after the revelation. For instance, if you only found out that there was a map on Manaan after the Leviathan. I'm not sure what Bio should have done with Carth. A lot of players found him too annoying as he was. I don't understand this perspective well enough to know how to handle it.

Actually, there is a skill element in KotOR -- the skill of understanding the system enough to do a workable build. Every time I see someone having trouble, it's because the build sucks. I botched my build on my second playthrough, in fact. LS Scoundrel/Consular built for max AC. I did everything right except that I forgot to take Breach. The last battle was a nightmare.

Such as? What's your suggestion? I prefer game interfaces that don't work like MS Office, so I'm OK with a well-done radial

Which takes us right back to the KotOR combat system, where player ability is irrelevant. :D Seriously, people do have preferences as to what kind of player ability is required by a game. A lot of folks don't want an RPG to make them think or react quickly. I'm not one of them, but I can understand the preference.

Yes, Raistlin was introduced with DL1/ Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I consider this to be late in D&D history, since I'd been playing the game for years when DL came out. You may have a different perspective. The DL novels came out starting in 1984, at the same time as the modules. And yes, the setting ended up being driven by the novels - for some reason, TSR didn't publish very many modules in the setting, and gave up altogether after 1990 or so

You can turn this off, you know. For MS Word 2000, look under Tools>Customize>Options. I think other versions hide this somewhere else. Logan, MS Office pulldown menus can be completely customized. Removing someone's Save, Close, and Exit commands can be an amusing practical joke. Customizable menus would be a good thing in a game. I can't recall too many games that do this. Hell, sometimes you can't even get keyboard mapping.

But Raistlin came along fairly late in D&D history, didn't he? It's a strange stereotype, since D&D really penalizes it. I've never willingly played a wizard without a Con bonus since Wiz HPs are so terrible. Of course, even a 16 Con wizard is still "sickly" compared to a fighter. Here's what I've always wondered about Lionheart. Did the devs themselves think the combat was playable? Was fun?

The problem is that there's no pathable z-axis. No way you're going to see that in the KotOR engine. Although I imagine it would be possible to disable collision detection for some things like branches, which would get rid of some annoyances. I don't think 4 directions makes sense as an alternative to radials. You've got all of the disadvantages of a radial with none of the advantages of an all-out hierarchical menu. And limiting the primary categories to 4 only works if you're playing a simple game like KotOR. Then again, I thought the ToEE radial worked just fine. Something funny about these boards. Everyone's proceeding from the assumption that Obsidian's making KotOR 2. And yet there don't seem to be a heck of a lot of KotOR 1 fans here.

Did you really expect that to work, though? I mean, you did notice that there is no way to turn off NPC AI or tell the NPC to stay in place, right? I'm not sure why KotOR NPC AI is so much worse than, say, the default HotU AI - which would actually let you attempt to set up an ambush, though there's a bug that often gets in the way. Edit: let's assume that they are using the KotOR engine again; that strikes me as the most probable course. What changes would you folks like to see? And keep it realistic (i.e., no z-axis).

Mind explaining how D&D is killing CRPG creativity? Is it because you end up in one of the standard D&D settings -- FR or Greyhawk? Note that Planescape went outside the standard D&D world. And didn't sell. Maybe it's the consumers and not the system.

That's only true because ToEE's expectations were so low to begin with. The problem with doing a game that isn't predicted to be a bestseller is that it's very hard to justify cost overruns to the publisher. Hence the early release and lack of bugfixing.