Plano Skywalker

POSITIVES: KOTOR I: good game, good preteen kind of story. Good sidequests. KOTOR II: a better game--more mature story. NEGATIVES: KOTOR I: everything was right out of Cookie Cutter Stories 101. KOTOR II: not just the ending was incomplete. I believe they wanted to have NPC side quests but did not have enough time....so they tried to make up for it by burying main story clues in all the NPCs dialog trees....unfortunately, the influence thing was alignment-based and that made it really hard to get at some information.

Even though it is not a "true" RPG, I suspect that the Episode III game will satisfy the lightsaber itch until KOTOR III comes out. It looks to be really awesome.

Having a lightsaber at level 1 might be a bit overpowered in the d20 system. But they could develop a system where it would not be that overpowered. Another way they could balance it is with lightsaber forms....for instance, only at level 5 do you learn an offensive form. The default form would be offensively weak.

Good point. Indeed, "True Sith" does not necessarily have to mean the "racial Sith" or Massassi. It can refer to the decendants of the fallen Jedi from the days of the Great Hyperspace War -- mostly human with some mixed race. And by having them beyond the Outer Rim at this time, it does not mess with continuity as much.

The next phase in open-ended RPGs, as I see it, needs to be spontanaity and replayability. All of the Mage's Guild (or, for that matter, any faction) quests are exactly the same and in the same order each time. Having the quests and/or the order of the quests be different every time would help this kind of game out alot.

IMO, Morrowind is not really *gaming*, it is *immersing*. Sometimes I am up for that and sometimes I am not. I personally think they should make TES alot more like a MMORPG that is playing single-player. It is already that in some ways but if you could buy property and businesses and otherwise have more RTS/SIM elements to it, I think that would help that kind of game alot.

In Arcanum, you have a percentage chance to hit (for instance, 58%). With a 1,000 point system you have a 580/1000 chance to hit. The same, right? In a sense, yes but it allows for a more granular approach to leveling and combat modifiers. A +10 sword is not as over-the-top in a 1,000 pt system, for instance. It effectively allows the game to remain competitve later on at the higher levels and with the buffs maxed out.

Just to clarify, I do not want this to turn into an action game, either. If they cannot make these enhancements without sacrficing the story and the dialogue, etc, then I also would be against it. But I am not talking about making this Morrowind. Not every planet needs to have a long-distance quest and not every planet needs to have 2 cities instead of one, etc. As far as dogfighting goes, I would rather see more explorable terrain than dogfighting if I had to choose. Truely, these games are fairily linear and that is one of their strengths.

Obsidian is developing their own next-gen RPG front-end to the Unreal III engine. They are doing this for Project New Jersey (which, apparently, is NOT a licensed product). I suspect that they essentially told LA "look, we will do it and we will use our new technology...but this time, it has to be on our timetable". Whether LA chose wisely or not, I am not sure. Hopefully, we will find out at E3 in few days.

good idea....the dialogue in KOTOR II was not bad but there is room for improvement...maybe there could even be a random element to what the person might say next...you know, mix it up a bit. In the first KOTOR, when you were at the Republic Embassy on Manaan, do you remember all the dialogue options when questioning the prisoner? And if or when to drug him, etc? That was really good stuff, IMO.

One idea that keeps coming up is bigger and more explorable areas. I agree that we could really use that . However, I would offer that we need to explore far away from the starport once in a while....the place you need to go is so far from the starport that you and your 2 companions have to take swoop bikes out. Now, if KOTOR III uses the same engine as the first 2, this would not be feasible (you would get a load screen every 5 seconds). But this is the kind of thing I would like to see if they end up with a really powerful engine....real-time swoop biking across terrain and maybe real-time dogfighting in space.

I've been playing 3rd Age and, I have to say, the combat system is pretty good. It is True Turn Based and it is based on a 1,000 pt scale (I think that's right). Maybe that is what we need: old-fashioned turn-based combat based on a 1,000 pt scale (to keep it interesting at the higher levels).

I agree that the story arch we are currently in needs to be wrapped up in KOTOR III....this needs to be a trilogy, not a soap opera. HOWEVER, KOTOR is a time period, not a certain story arch. As long as they wrap up the present story, I don't mind if they have a KOTOR IV, V, whatever. And, hopefully, those games will be totally self-contained...no need to have a trilogy every time.

I just wish we could know whether we are spending our time wisely by posting KOTOR 3 suggestions here. I mean, we could be posting these suggestions on EA Games website or Bethesda or the Collective or whatever. I know the mods and devs probably can't tell us anything one way or the other until LA makes a statement but it would be nice to have some guidance on that. Incidentally, I have also begun posting suggestions on LA's site and would encourage others to do the same.

The cut content with regard to Droid World is one thing (they admitted in official interviews that this was cut because of time constraints). HOWEVER, has it ever occurred to anyone that some of the stuff may have gotten cut because it sucked? I mean, really, Atton dying, everybody ganging up on Kreia and STILL have a cliffhanger....no, they handled the ending right. It was not a *satisfying* ending but it was *supposed* to be a cliffhanger--having beaten a non-traditional enemy (who was not the real threat).

Totally agree! No matter how much you sway them, . IMO, the best way to deal with this is not have influence be alignment-based at all. It would also be SAWEEET to be able to release party (ship) members and pick new ones up (as in Balder's Gate). And influence should be about side quests....nothing you need for the main story should be contigent on influence. It was a really good idea--it just needs alot of work.

I look at it like this...they are Easter Eggs. They do not make it into your journal but they are fun nonetheless. Another example of that is the hologram that the protocal droid has on Dantooine....also, if the Dantooine mechanic sees your lightsaber, he runs off to warn the others. Same could be said of the Bastila holocrons on Korriban. Unofficial Easter Eggs.

Yes and no. With Nihlius, I Force spammed but I had 2 others fighting so it really did not matter. With Sion, I beat him with almost 100% Force spamming (and this is without Force Storm--did not take it for role playing reasons). The last boss--no way Jose. Had to break out the old lightsaber. For those of you who replay this game and have not yet tried going Consular/Master, I would recommend it. When you play this kind of character, the Jedi Masters teach you Force Forms instead of Lightsaber forms. I have found Force Affinity to be particularly useful as it lets you regen Force points during combat....I barely had to use a lightsaber at all once I started using that form.

I looked on the exhibitor list and they are not listed as having their own booth. However, I guess they could still be there in their publisher's booth.

I take you do not read my other posts on this board? No, I am quite satisfied with what I got in the Xbox version of the game. There ARE NO showstoppers in the Xbox version unless you got a bad disk. I am definitely of the "anti-whine" brigade and I am sure Obsidian/LA are rather tired of it too. Hence, the question. They took the time to take it off the PC version, why not the Xbox version?

yeah the "stupid Xboxers" do not even know it is there (w00t) at least not until a real (pc) manly man showed them! I take it you are one of these "over my dead body" pc holdouts?

From what I have heard, the cut content (such as Droid World) is not on the PC version but it is on the Xbox version of the KOTOR II cd. Someone figured out how to port the data over into a PC format and is now working on a mod that will allow PC users (and, ironically, only PC users) to experience at least some of the cut content. I personally think it would have been better for this stuff to not even be available (if it did not make it into the actual game). I am positive that Lucas Arts does not want this out there. The question I have is "WHY was it left there?". Any thoughts on that?

Why not? LA as the publisher and EA as the developer? Hey, look, that is not my first choice either but it seems like just the kind of perverse situation that LA might have to go with.

True, and this was also the project that put currency in the bank account so that they can do their own stuff. They should never again *have* to take a project from a heavyweight publisher on such terms.