Plano Skywalker

either something like that or have someone early on tell you about different teachers of the Force and where you can find them...

Dantooine...sometimes Jorran has it and sometimes the head salvager has it.

Ooh, "Inflexible! Linear!" shout the magazine reviewers as they deduct points. I think the idea is good - it doesn't actually reduce your freedom in the game, but it does destroy some of the illusion of freedom that seems so important to some. Unless you have the option to change your mind halfway through - a great dramatic 'life or death' decision thing. That would be great fun. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just have it done in the dialogue tree. Someone finds out that you are studying the ways of the Force and they ask you about your Force philosophy. To which you reply: A) "The Force is an energy field that encompasses all of life. It is through the Force that we learn, we grow, we love and we accomplish goodness for the betterment of all". B) "The Force is a power that is not fully understood until one gives himself to the Dark Side for it is only in Dark Side that we truely understand the mysteries of the Universe. And the greatest teaching of all is that the strong shall rule the weak and that the weak deserve their fate". C) "The Force is Balance. It is only in the pursuit of Balance that one can understand the higher mysteries of existence. Good and Evil....they must coexist. To have one without the other is death." D) "The Force is mystery. I do not pretend to know anything about the Force but I want to learn as much as I can." And there we have it: A = I want to be light side and have a Jedi Master! B = I want to be dark side and have a Sith Master! C = I want to be Neutral and have some sort of shaman teach me the path of Balance! D = I don't know, at this point, which path I will take. If you choose A, you will end up with LS mentors (could actually be more than one at different stages in the game). Your mentor is actually playable at some points and at others he is not. If you choose B, you learn from a Sith and ultimately challenge him for dominance. If you choose C or D, you end up learning from the likes of the Ithorian priest on Telos and you cannot take a prestige class. If you choose D, you can get other triggers to change your path later.

If we were just talking about a SW RPG, I would say start as a padawan. However, if K3 wraps up the story we are in now, it would make more sense for the PC to be a "lone ranger" kind of Force Sensitive who learns from a variety of people. It is my sincere hope that we never see another SW RPG in which your mentor is a passenger on your ship...no, YOU are the top dog on your ship. If the story progresses to a point where you need more Force training, then you get a visitation from a Force Ghost and he tells you where to go to find your next mentor. I am also tired of being "bound" to someone. The Force Ghost device handles this job much better IMO and is much more consistent with the movies. I would also say cut back on the number of people the PC can train but make that relationship more of a true Teacher/Padawan relationship.

one of KOTOR2's many Influence limitations was the fact that, since they made it alignment-based (which is probably a mistake anyway), they should also have changed the NPCs' personality as the NPC follows the PC to one side of the spectrum or the other. For instance, . Again, she was ostensibly totally light side when she did that....that is one example of how the system was poorly implemented. I personally think the PC should not even be messing with their alignments, except possibly as a Consular/Lord-only feat to influence them in that way. Other games have influence but this was the first time I had ever seen it woven into the actual dialogue tree. Anyway, it needs alot of work but I would love to see it in K3.

I guess you're thinking it's going to be X360 then? I think so too. I suspect we will have a K3 if, for no other reason than, MS needs as many high-profile RPGs as they can get. Even if LA decides they don't want to do it, MS will try to convince otherwise, I believe.

I like the idea of influence. I do think it was poorly implemented in some ways but, if they can fix the difficulties, it should be fine. The problem with influence in K2 is that there was often only one person who had certain information...information that influence unlocked. Also, factor in the fact that influence was alignment-based (at least in part) and it is easy to see where the problem lies. Now granted, you did not absolutely need this information to complete the game, but it did help paint a more complete picture of what was going on. IMO, anything that deals with the main quest should not be unlocked by influence. Influence should be all about training, side quests and really surperfluous conversation. In a nutshell, the problem with influence as it is now is that it does not unlock enough stuff and what it does unlock should not be locked to begin with.

If they set the identity (the whole 9 yards...voice acting, etc) then K3 is really easy to write and in a satisfying way. But that is the problem...alot of people will presumably be upset with that. That's why I recommend a split approach. I think it works. Let Revan continue to be the shadowy Charlie figure in the series even after this trilogy is wrapped up.

I agree that KOTOR III absolutely has to wrap up the story arch we are in now. It doesn't have to end the "KOTOR" series as KOTOR is really just a time period but it does have to wrap up what we are in now. And, yes, part of that is giving us at least some resolution to the Revan/Exile saga. In fact, I personally believe they could get away with actually setting the Exile's identity complete with gender, appearance, voice acting, etc. They may not want to do that with Revan but Revan could still have a major role in the story.

I suspect most of it will be in Known Space. A couple of Core Worlds like Coruscant and Ithor would be a nice change. If we go back to Dantooine or Korriban, we need to explore areas we haven't explored yet, IMO....areas that are far away from the starport. If we go to Onderon, we need to hang out with the Beast Riders outside of Iziz. If we go to Nar Shadda, it needs to be a place other than the Refugee Sector etc, etc. Also, Alderaan would be really nice....a movie world that apparently is very underrepresented in the EU. However, the endgame might include Sith worlds in the Unknown Regions.

I hear you. And I really hope they say *something* about K3 within the next 90 days. They can't pull a cliffhanger like that and not give us *something*!

I think a Darth Nihilus Force Ghost would make an excellent DS mentor (please devs, LS and DS should have different mentors!). However, there is the problem with the alienspeak that he does.

I agree that the Chronicles are for the purposes of the KOTOR games, not official continuity (although that is getting increasingly hard to define). But just as they introduced someone more awesome than Vader and Luke, they could bring back one of the ancient Sith guys too if they really wanted. Guess we will have to wait and see.

sounds good...if we get a new PC, we probably should not *start* with the Ebon Hawk.

one thing I discovered about Mical the Disciple: he makes a great ranged-weapon guy. He is a Soldier (level 22, I believe, before I convert him to Jedi) and that means he can specialize in both pistol and rifle....that means he can wear the Multi-Spectrum Visor (or whatever it is called) that I picked up from the weapons merchant on Nar Shaada. I max him out on Dex as his attribute and give him Master Rapid Shot, give him some Dex-enhancing gloves and other gear and put a fully-upgraded Mandalorian Assault Rifle in his hand. At the same time, he is a Jedi Consular....ouch, he becomes the oh-my-gawd ranged killer from hell!

I look at it like this: LA/BW created a monster with Revan. He is both protagonist and antagonist and is way too powerful to do much with. He is a plot device. Let us say that they made a trilogy based on Exar Kun. In the first game, you actually play as a young padawan named Exar Kun. However, in the 2nd and 3rd games, Exar goes back to being LA's property and is an important plot device (i.e. the story is basically about him) but there is no way you can actually *play* as Exar once he reaches those high levels. The same thing is at work here with Revan. Now they *could* delevel the Exile since he I'm not saying they should do this but it would not be nearly as cheap as doing this to Revan. I do agree that, once this story arch is over, the other games (if there are any) need to be self-contained, non-trilogies.

actually, I think we still do fluffwise. if you decide to swoop race on Telos, for instance, I believe it is your bike that supposedly gets used. however, we have never, to the best of my recollection, had to take swoop bikes out on missions. this would add alot of ambience, IMO, even if it was just cutscreen-based.

another thing that comes to mind is the different types of persuasion. In Morrowind (a game that was not really known for dialogue), you could almost always BRIBE, TAUNT, FLATTER, or INTIMIDATE. In the KOTOR games, sometimes you see more than one [persuade] option but rarely do you see all this: [Persuade/Bribe] "Please open the door. I'll make it worth your while". [Persuade/Flatter] "You look lovely today...could you do me a favor and open the door? [Persuade/Taunt] "I betcha you don't even know how to open the door, you loser". [Persuade/Intimidate] "You will open the door or else". [Persuade + Awareness] "Your boss told me that he is thinking of promoting you. I'll put a good word in for you if you open the door." I personally would like to see more of that. In Morrowind, the Taunt thing was important if you liked fighting NPCs in town (that was not really a big issue for me). If you started the fight, you would get arrested. However, if you taunted the guy enough and he started the fight, you were within your rights to defend yourself. Actually, in addition to having a numerical rank to your Persuade skill, it might be good to have a Persuade feat tree. The higher you advance on the feat tree, the more sophisticated options you get.

having a small shuttle (granted, little more than a pod) that could land a party in a different starport on the same planet would also be a nice touch...I love those multithreaded quests! also swoop bikes that you can take over land (whether it is real-time or cutscreen-based) would be nice. the bottom line is that the Ebon Hawk is fine, especially if they beef it up in some key areas.

right, let's face it, the Ebon Hawk is a character just like Revan, Exile, whoever. I would say keep the Ebon Hawk but add true quad-laser turrets (as on the M Falcon) and a Meditation Chamber for the PC. In the Meditation Chamber, you can focus your lightsaber crystals, summon your Padawan for training, call out to your Force Ghost mentor for direction, etc.

right. I can see this being more effective in an "open-ended" game like Morrowind or Fable than in a true story-driven RPG like KOTOR. Dialogue trees help tell the story. They help get you from point A to point B. I can also see this as part of a mission. Remember the Manaan quest in KOTOR I at the Republic Embassy? You actually had a list of things you could do to get the information. You could interrogate the prisoner, you could break into the Sith base and other options you could try. Same thing here...using a "diplomacy campaign" against someone could be one of those options. Keep it rare enough and optional enough so that those who aren't interested can use a different approach.

Wrong. Apathy is death. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think you miss my point. My point is not to glorify that response. My point is just to illustrate that everything effects something else. Kind of like how a butterfly flapping his wings in one part of the world creates a hurricane in another part of the world. Once in a while, the devs might give us a "safe answer" that affects nothing. But then, those of us who are really into roleplay are not going to be using that very much anyway, now are we?

C# is basically Microsoft's wannabe "JavaKiller". It is the flagship language for their .NET technology. .NET technology is, ironically enough, all about making your choice of language irrelevant and all about selling object instantiations as web services, etc. C# is some beautiful, clean code. It looks like a mix between Java and Pascal (which, when you think about it, is exactly what it is). However, I doubt it is being used much for game programming. C++ is considered the powerhouse for just about any kind of compiled, stand-alone program. This is because C++ allows for many "unsafe" features (such as doing your own memory management) that can make a difference in performance if you know what you are doing.

actually, they could make an entire game about this sort of thing. a variation of King's Quest. but not in a combat-heavy RPG.

I do, in a sense agree with Drakon about Kreia. She is too opinionated AND too necessary for there not to be an "equal time" device. For instance, in the Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader was influencing the heck out of Luke. But, then again, there was Ben and Yoda's perpective...a kind of equal time, as it were. We really did not have that this time. We needed an Obi-Wan even if it was just a Force Ghost.