Cantousent

It's all about LS/DS here. What about folks who were dedicated to a balance. ...Or folks who just wanted to play without a concern about either the light side or the dark side. After all, there was at least one NPC who was more "grey side." As I asked before, what result would we get if there were a middle option? I'm feel pretty confident in saying that most folks who played the game preferred the light side overall, but I'm surprised the dark side isn't doing better in a forum poll. We represent such a small fraction of the folks who played the game and we're allegedly the "hard core" gamers. I think most of those so-called "casual" gamers pretty much followed the whole good guy idea of gaming in KotOR.

I thought Crimson Skies was surprisingly good. It's kind of a flying FPS. The multiplayer is cool, although I have to turn my headset off half of the time. I had a hard time getting used to the controls of Deus Ex. I think it ruined the game for me. Is the learning curve easier on Max Payne 2?

Well, if Obsidian does the dark side really well, I'm going to give it a shot. I'll still prefer lightside, but darkside could be cool, if...

meh. I voted middle. Apparently, though, the romance folks are winning hands down.

He did *not know* himself. That is why his mind became divided.

Then it's good we'll have a choice! If they do the darkside plot very well, I plan on making a serious attempt to play and enjoy as the darkside the first time through. I will definitely play as the lightside at least once no matter what.

So speaketh the man with "lead designer" under his name! B) What artwork have you done, Mr. Avellone? Come to think of it, I'm serious. Do some of the developers switch hats and dabble in other areas?

Great sig, Junn Kast. I'd like to see Earth. We could do a whole crossover series with Battlestar Gallactica. Seriously, though, I've always thought Telos sounded kind of cool. Most of all, I like the name. *shrug* I dunno. Maybe I had my fill of pouring sand out of my boots in KotOR and the jungle wasn't much better. I guess, most of all, I'm all for more of sweeping plains and beautiful beach scenes. Just like a Corona commercial.

Well, the responses have been pretty much in favor of darkside, but I voted lightside. I think the poll is unfair to the darkside, however. My gut instinct is that most neutral players will vote lightside rather than darkside. If that's true, then darkside will probably lose. However, if lightside has to split its votes, then darkside has a decent chance of winning. Of course, the relatively small sampling of folks makes it anyone's game. I suspect that most gamers overall would prefer the lightside, but that's just a guess. Even if there had been a "grey side" option, I would have voted for the lightside.

I voted for Vader. You young whipper snappers could learn a thing or two about rejoining the lightside from ol' dark and brooding.

Holy crap, man! Thanks. That's totally awesome that's great. I'm still curious if Michael Chu's West of House webpage has anything to do with some sort of side project or something. As I understand game design, developers can't do stuff on the side. Everything you do is "owned" by the company for which you work. Is that true? I'm really curious if you guys ever have pet projects on the side or is it a matter of, "I make games all day at work. When I get home, I just want to sit down and watch grass grow..." or something to that effect. One thing that's apparent from this thread is that a lot of you guys like playing games. :haksthumbsup:

I don't see why anyone would jump up to defend a woman any more than a man on a message board. After all, the whole idea on any message board is to exchange ideas. If you find the idea worthy of defense, jump up and defend it. Nor do I see any reason to make an issue of gender in the first place. The one thing I will say, Alexia, is that you were a willing participant in making gender an issue in this thread. I myself contributed to the current state of affairs, and for that I apologize. Still, the fact is, no one made any assumptions about women in this thread that are any more off base or offensive than the assumptions made about men, right? I mean, how many of us are actually 13 year olds here? It's not that I'm offended by the comment. It doesn't hurt me one way or the other. ...But the comment does serve to point out how silly or ugly a conversation can be when the only real thing we know about the vast majority of the participants is what they tell us. As it is, I don't think you should be forced to pretend to be a guy or a woman. Be yourself, or the persona you've decided to assume, and enjoy the boards. It's a sad reality that you can't avoid some ugliness on the boards. If you can't stand to bear it, then most boards probably aren't for you. I don't like that fact, but I can't deny it. At any rate, I look forward to seeing your opinion on this message board where the issue hasn't become one of either your gender or looks. For myself, I'll endeavor not to contribute to any such controversy in the future. To be honest, though, I was just goofing around. That's probably where a lot of such problems arise.

At any rate, Legion, I wish you luck in creating mods. If they're good, it can only provide a chance for folks to continue to enjoy the game. I just don't know how the mods would work for those of us who will play the game on the xbox rather than PC. As for your mods, Llyranor, I sometimes let my emotions get the best of me. I'm not against your toolset. I know a lot of folks who enjoy NWN most of all because of the toolset. In fact, one of my friends spends a ton of time on the Middle Earth persistent world. I still don't want a toolset to become a "necessary" component of every game, but I might want to delve into creating a mod myself some day. As it is, though, I will admit that I'm glad that KotOR didn't have a toolset. It was a great game and it's just too hard to tell what kind of impact it would have had to package it with a toolset. KotOR, for me, is the best use of the Star Wars license that I've ever seen. For those of us who remember the whole space opera beginings, it's great to see something that follows the spirit of the original movies as well as KotOR does.

Sojiro Seta, you swine! ...Or should I call you Lord Swineling. Anyhow, someone comes on the board to voice some sort of opinion about KotOR 2, which is exactly what the rest of us are doing and we give her all sorts of hell? What a bastardly bunch we are. Anyhow, I know some women play video games, and that's a good thing. I just wish my wife would play video games with me.

Obviously, Michael Chu is the most awesome for his "west of house" nod to Zork. Seeing the devs go in for the Might and Magic gives me warm tinglies. Ultima IV rocked although I can't even remember Ultima V. I've never heard of Fools errand.

you, or your party?

Well, Alexia, if that doesn't look like the real you, then it should. If it's real, then you're a babe. If it's not, then I'd rather look at your fake picture than my real one! Anyhow, most of us here really do look like normal folks. Well, Oerwinde has that wild-eyed crazy but in a handsome sort of way look. ...But the rest of us look like normal Joes.

No, not really. I take what folks say on message boards at face value most of the time and, to be honest, I don't care if you're a 250 pound Trucker or a petite young lady, it's very good to have another KotOR fan. Anyhow, my picture is so ugly they use it as the NO! image at the Winterwind boards.

Hmmm, I wouldn't dare insult the lady by suggesting that she might be a 250 pound Truck Driver from Des Moines... I look alarmingly like Rob Lowe. Hey, I'll use my picture in my avatar if you don't believe me! B)

I thought, and this is from what I understood from KotOR, that the Jedi class is actually a sort of prestige class and that the Jedi would have several levels of another class before he became a Jedi. If that's true, then I see no reason why a first level soldier wouldn't be canon fodder for a first level Jedi. Not only that, but Jedi are supposed to be the elite of the elite. It's one thing to say that a first level soldier should have a chance against a Jedi. It's another to suggest that the fight is fair. A first level fighter shouldn't win even half of the time. Now, I don't give a crap about any munchkin argument. In fact, I doubt if the vast majority of consumers care about the folks who come around here and rail 'gainst "munchkins." The fact is, the Star Wars universe revolves around the special status and fighting prowess of the Jedi. If they decide to make Jedi fall to the first Tom, ****, or Harry that comes along, then they've made a mistake.

I'm curious about the interface. It looks pretty. The spell book thing. Is that a spellbook that the character picks up and uses kind of as if it were a wand? Will every class have access to things like spell books? On the other hand, is it wizard only? The books have various charges, apparently. Does that reflect the number of charges the character has prepared in the book, or do books have a certain number of charges when you find/buy them? The monsters run from undead to monstrous to human/bandit types to giants. There was a battle with three characters against some monsters. I noticed the fighter/mage, the fighter, and an archer type. Will there be a healing type character like a cleric or will all healing be done by potion? It looks good so far.

No, I think you're a true modder if you go in and modify the game. I'm thinking of team BG. Now, I'll be honest and say that some of the modding community for NWN was quite ingenious. The thing is, you sound like you're going to pursue modding the game even if there isn't a toolset. For that reason, I actually wish you luck. I'm more railing against toolsets than anything else. ...And I recognize that my biases might be getting the better of me. After all, who says that the toolset must be a downfall? *shrug* I dunno. It's not like I don't want other folks to have fun. I just don't want the whole toolset idea to work its way into every game as if working within the confines of a toolset didn't have an impact on the rest of the design.

Ok then why have almost every thread about modding been deleted or locked at the bioware forum. What I was told numerous times from a couple Bioware Devs is that LA told Bioware Not to discuss Modding KotOR and thats why there was a ban. I don't really need a toolset, but It would be nice to be able to discuss with the Devs How certain parts of the game work. See, this is perfect. My reasoning is simple. If it's relatively hard to mod, then the only folks who will mod will be committed to creating a mod. That doesn't mean their mods will be great, but it does help weed out the folks who want to slap some ridiculous crap together and call it art. Not only that, but it also means the developers don't have to dumb down the engine or the graphics to make the game accessible to wanna be modders. I don't even feel guilty for being so brutally honest about it. I don't want to see another NWN OC from Bioware. It's the only game they've made where I thought, "wow, these guys really could have done much better than this." KotOR is really the game that brought me back into the fold. ...And to think I almost didn't buy it. I've heard good things about SoU and HotU but I refuse to buy another copy of NWN to find out if it's true.

I'll concur with the idea that I'd much rather have the designers concentrate on a good game than a crappy game with a built in editor. It's not like KotOR had bad sales, now is it. To turn it around, perhaps Arcanum would have sold much better if the developers had concentrated more on the packaged material and less on the editor. In fact, Dungeon Siege has an editor. It's not like I see a ton of Dungeon Siege mods. (Siegelets -- who thought of that?) Still, Dungeon Siege did well enough for an expansion and a sequel. ...And it didn't have the bandwagon approach from the critics like NWN did. To be honest, I'm not sure that most folks who've played Dungeon Siege have downloaded the patch, let alone a mod. See, here's where I started liking Bioware a lot again. Instead of making boring tilesets and cookie cutter graphics so every Tom, ****, and Harry had the option of making a crappy mod that wasn't worth playing, they decided to make the packaged campaign for KotOR worth playing in the first place. I'll decidedly against toolsets because I think they end up hamstringing the design team. I'll reserve judgement, but I'm glad that KotOR didn't have a toolset and I pray, fervently, that KotOR 2 keeps with the same tradition.

Well, I have to admit that I voted for Doom 3. I just can't help but go with Doom. However, I'm disappointed that, as of this post, Halo and Final Fantasy are winning.