Master Dahvernas
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Posts posted by Master Dahvernas
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uhn i always miss too, of course i only have str of 12, a dex of 14 but i don
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If I am getting the right idea from your post, I would have to say that mine are the same quality (i.e. 'fuzzy'). They certainly are not the crisp, high-quality movies that I'd have expected. Whether this is an issue or by design, I cannot say.
By design.
The movies are native 640x480 resolution and can't be resized. They are this way because native TV (NTSC and PAL) screens resolution is 640x480 and these are the exact same movies the XBox version uses...
That is why they look "okay" on a TV screen, but not a monitor that has much more depth and pixels to it.
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It may be a balancing issue. I had my character miss 15 straight times in one fight (I was so annoyed that I started counting them). It routinely misses even with Lightsabers or any weapon for that matter. This is my second run and in the first this wasn't an issue but in this second one, it looks like my character is fighting with his eyes closed.
The behaviour was 3 misses 1 hit, 4 misses 1 hit. Not until I got master flurry that I started connecting... but even then I am having 3 hits 1 miss, 5 hits 2 misses. I got killed a couple of times because I just coulnd hit anything... had to start using the force...
I can confirm this.
I am only on Telos (Surface), at the old military base facing off against the whorde of Mercs... And it is frustrating that you can't make mince meat of what should not really be tough opponents considering you have two Jedi and Bao-Dur with his uber-soldier abilities in your party at this point.
I don't want the game to be a cake walk... But combat is made irritatingly and ARTIFICIALLY difficult because your weapons don't hit a good 90-95% of the time and neither do blasters.
Conversely, some players say the game is too easy (oddly enough).
It may be in some parts, but in others it is frustratingly difficult because you know the math isn't adding up behind-the-scenes and half of these battles should go in your favor provided you've invested your skills, feats and powers wisely and can manage them on the battlefield in turn-base, or real time.
I think this is finally the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
I've been patient with the number of other bugs I've encountered that haven't been game stopping, but this one major element is enough for me to quit the game until a patch comes out that hopefully takes care of the technical issues as well as this huge gameplay issue because there is no fun in fighting battles that are already stacked against you and you can't do anything about it no matter how well your characters are managed in terms of their skills, feats, powers and abilities.
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I dont think its a bug the "problem" is that no matter what you want you are an unarmed specialist, probably due to having the lightsaber taken from you or somthing, though this isnt explained. SO you can specialise in unarmed automaticaly but you have to spend feat points on specalising in melea or ranged or lighsaber so you are always better in hand to hand than an unmodded weapon for me saber has to do above 5/6 min damage a go to be better than hand to hand.
I actually posted this in the "Bug" thread in that I also think it may be an actual gameplay bug or balance issue because if you do equip melee weapons and have improved feats/stats like improved flurry; critical strike...
They miss 99% of the time and it makes armed melee combat (non-Lightsaber) almost useless and defeats the purpose of spending points on these feats/skills as well as upgrading vibroblades and Force Pikes since you are better off just bashing away at someone with your bare hands even if they have a blade or even a blaster.
Also, from a purely asthetic perspective... It looks silly that you are punching away at a guy who has a sword or a blaster... And you effectively are doing more damage and can kill the guy.
It is issues like this that confirm the game wasn't properly tested not just for bugs, but for gameplay balance issues in my opinion.
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-Stacking commands in the combat qeue often doesn't do anything. Your charcter will simply stand there and do nothing.
This happened with my main PC as well as NPCs. This started on Telos and there seems to be something inheret in the code as it happens on other planets as well during combat as well.
-Combat system appears more random than KOTOR. It appears there are serious balance and mathematical issues that need adressing as most of the PC melee combat feats (critical strike; improved flurry; etc.) will miss 99% of the time whereas in KOTOR they did their job and increase your character's defensive and offensive abilities for the most part.
Some say the game is too easy... But some of the fights I have encountered should be much easier than they have been given the stats (points, vitality, implants, shields, et. al) of my PC and Party members vs. who I am facing off against (Mercs; Non-Jedi Opponents).
This is a balance bug/issue and is paramount for a good RPG... Or what's the worth in playing it then?
-Graphical glitches such as one half of the "letterbox" only appearing when you go into dialogue scenes with NPCs. The top half will not be there and instead is the last piece of dialogue the NPC said floating in mid air above my character's head. Unpolished and unprofessional looking.
-Random crashes for no apparent reason. Especially, transiting back and forth between hubs for some of the quests. Ironic, since the Readme.txt actually warns that the game will crash UNLESS you do a lot of transitions. Which one is it?!
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A good 90% of the time it IS the publisher(s) to blame for why a game ships in what amounts to a post-alpha/pre-beta state.
As others have illustrated and the article confirms... Game devs are given impossible deadlines with very little resources to reach that deadline and are under contract to fulfil that deadline and deliver a product or face legal (and financial) consequences.
It is only going to get worse with big publishers like EA and UBISoft gobbling up smaller dev houses in an effort to monopolize and "dumb down" the market.
This is not the 1990s anymore where it was "Games by Gamers for Gamers". It's all about the profits and "Greed is good" menality that is hurtling us toward what I fear will be a catastrophic financial failure thanks to the idiots in charge (of the country and business).
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1) It is a bug in the retail version of the XBox. A lot of people get this because Obsidian put in a timing code (that makes the game pull stuff from the DVD drive).
If the DVD drive is a Thompson (first gen XBox) then this may be the problem.
2) He may have copied the game to his hard drive if his XBox is modded. This is exactly why Obsidian did number one (above) and there is no way around it.
Well, actually, there IS a way around if it is being played from the HD. Google for the fix (there is one on a particular forum).
The easiest way around it is to just play the game off the DVD until that point and then he can play off the HD.
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OR RANDOM CTD (CRASHES TO DESKTOP):
[Game Options]
UseLocalContent=1
just tried it, didn't help
That is good to know in the sense like I said, these may have none or a lot of impact on a peson's game given the engine and the person's hardware.
Keep testing...
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I'm going to post some various SWKOTOR2.ini tweaks here just so you guys can mess around with them and maybe, perhaps one (or all) may give someone better performance and or stability in one way or another.
I suggest you make a backup copy of your original swkotor2.ini file just so you have it in case any of these tweaks seriously screw up your game as well as having an original just to keep track of any changes if you try if you do various combinations.
NOTE: Some of these commands are form the XBox version of KOTOR2. I don't know if they apply to the PC version, but it is worth a shot as the engine can't be to radically different since XBox games are basically PC games written in XBox Development Language which is very similar to the PC. I will annotate which commands are from the XBox version where appropriate.
1) Tweak One: I have the original KOTOR installed and did a side-by-side comparison of the swkotor.ini and swkotor2.in files and these are the entries I found Sith Lords has that the original does not:
[Game Options]
UnlockedPlanetSongs=7
TextureVariation=1
BodyVariation=4
AppearanceType=138
PCGender=0
GameCompleted=0
CurSithLord=0
EnableScreenShot=0
Reverse Mouse Buttons=0
Reverse Ingame YAxis=1
Reverse Minigame YAxis=0
The most basic tweak is to just DELETE the above entries.
Why? I think it may be activating unnecessary things that may be slowing down performance and or causing stability problems.
For example, I have tested the game with both TextureVariation=0 and BodyVariation=0 and seen absolutely zero difference (graphical) in the game... But the game seems to run smoother in areas where there are a lot of NPCs than it did with these enabled.
You can try various combinations as well. Deleting/adding one parameter and not another to see if there is any improvement in performance (and graphical quality) or if it worsens. Results may vary depending on system specs.
2) Tweak Two: Here are various parameters from the XBox, swkotor2.ini:
[Video Options] <---------------- Same as [Graphics Options]
EnableFastGrass=1
NumDynamicLights=8
Enable HardwareMouse=1
AntiAliasing Mode=0
Enable VSync=1
ShinyWater=0
NumShadowCastingLights=3
EnableVisualEffectsHigh=1
Enable Truform=0
Enable AnisotropicFiltering=0
CreatureWindSetting=1
EnableGrass=1
The most basic tweak would be to just substitue these lines for similar lines that exist in the PC swkotor2.ini. For example, replace Anti Aliasing with AntiAliasing Mode set to whatever you want (2x; 4x; 16x). Test it and see if the game runs any better, the same, or worse.
FOR ATI USERS:
Enable Truform=0.
Since the Odyssey Engine is an older engine, it may have the old Truform parameters that aren't needed with today's high end graphics cards that are left on (by default; in the engine) and may be causing some of the slow downs on ATI cards along with the Vertex Buffer Object error in the code that is publically known.
FOR RANDOM CTD (CRASHES TO DESKTOP):
[Game Options]
UseLocalContent=1
Add this to presumably force the game to use what is cached on the HD (versus the play CD). It may have zero effect, but it is being put here for experimentation as are the rest of these parameters. It may actually cure some CTD if the game is trying to incorrectly load things from the CD; Not tested yet.
3) Tweak Three: Less is More. This involves just deleting certain parameters and letting the game set them itself. This came about by comparing the XBox swkotor2.ini with the PC swkotor2.ini and noting a lot of the functionality was left out... Which may be a good thing since the XBox is basically a 1999, low-level PC and having "less" options may improve performance and stability on newer hardware, ironically.
A) [sound Options]
Disable Sound=0
The only thing that is under this should Disable Sound=0. Delete ALL of the entires except your volume (music, movies, dialogue) parameters. Again, maybe the engine is trying too hard to manage too many things and only really needs to manage the bare-bones basics (volume and whether there is sound).
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I hope this helps.
Remember, results may vary and you may not even see or feel any changes to your game at all depending on combination of parameters and your hardware specs. Performance may get worse. It may get better. I am putting this here as a kind of resource for those who may be having severe problems and perhaps these simple tweaks may solve some of these problems until a patch is released.
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It's an example of the problems of big business. And a direct result of the MASSIVE increase in development complexity and time.
As the kids say... True 'Dat.
Here is an article that pretty much confirms what a lot of us were speculating about why the game is in such bad shape -- both techincally and even artistically towards the end:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/588/588057p1.html?fromint=1
The main part (if you don't want to read all four pages):
Oh, and we know that LucasArts is notorious for handing developers ridiculously short development timetables, and forcing them to shove things out the door before the holiday rush. It's the reason why most of the company's titles suffer in one massive way or the other...Anyone in the industry will hear "12-month development schedule" and immediately grimace. You can't make a complete game in 12-months, not one of that scale, let alone one the size of KotOR II. It's not possible. So you get Jedi Knight II, a functioning game with mediocre content, or you get KotOR II, a broken game with great content that gets abandoned near the end.
This is symptomatic of most (all) major publishers, but LucasArts seems to have it down to an exact science at this point. I think the only reason KotOR managed to largely avoid these issues is that BioWare was simply too large, too established, and too concerned about its (excellent) reputation to allow LucasArts to bully them. A startup developer working on sequels doesn't have the same luxuries that the world's premiere RPG powerhouse does. I'll be curious to see whether Obsidian is given more time on Neverwinter Nights 2. 'Course ... I didn't like the first game, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.
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It might also have something to do with shadows.
You can of course disable shadows completely with shadows=1 and soft shadows=1/0 if your card supports it.
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In all fairness... Most Tech Support people for companies like LA actually do not know what they are talking about. Seriously.
They have very little training and are being paid very little (hourly most of the time) and have answer databases that they look at whenever a problem like yours comes in. These answer databases are basically things any savy PC owner/gamer already knows after years of experience with their system (like the MSConfig thing... Which, by the way, is not the best way to shut down servies. Try Services.msc for better results).
In other words, I don't really blame these guys/gals on the other end... But on the same note, they should hire people with more motivation and training to fill those "lowly" positions and actually report BACK to LA and Quality Assurance about some of these issues. Especially, the ones that keep coming up over and over again like the ATI card issues people are having. It just makes good business sense to gather as much data before they go to Obsidian for a patch... But then again, good business sense and consumer responsibility/relations are apparently two diametraically opposed things in the corporate world which is very ironic considering without customer relations you have no bottom line.
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I am running the game on a Chaintech 5900 Ultra, AMD 64 3200+, 1024 MB RAM with 66.99 Drivers and everything was going smooth...
Until last night when I enter dialogue scenes. Only the bottom half of the "letterbox" is rendered leaving me with half a black screen and nothing above my chararcter's head except the NPC dialogue "floating" in mid air.
We know this game needs a patch and this bug was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I am not going to play it anymore until we get a patch.
Besides, as mentioned, regardless of video hardware, there are serious gameplay bugs like the Swoop Racing bug and others that basically make this game unfinished or unplayable because these are integral parts to the game if you do Swoop Bike Subquests like in the first KOTOR.
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It's a combination of a buggy engine -- the Buffer Vertex Object error -- And ATI's OpenGL drivers.
While you may play Doom III and other OGL games fine... The truth is even FX cards like the 5200 will actually outperform an ATI 9800 as far as OpenGL performances goes (benchmark for benchmark) because of the architecture of Nvidia chips that just gives Nvidia cards better performance in OGL as well as their drivers.
The exact opposite is true for ATI and D3D/DX9c games.
Basically, the problems with the Odyssey Engine is that it is an old 2002-2003 engine that isn't really that efficient and uses OGL at a time OGL was being phased out in favor of D3D/DX9 specs and these problems are compounded with ATI's poor OGL drivers.
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Only 3 CTDs
One when loading a new area and two when an ingame cutscene was supposed to start (Not bad for 20-30 hours)
Performance issue when skipping title logos, solved by letting them play
AMD 2500+ Barton
512MB DDR 400 - 2x256
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra - 67.65
SBLive 5.1 with last available drivers
Now, this is interesting.
Another thread said that they had better in-game performance if they SKIPPED the intro movies, specifically the Obsidian Entertainment one.
Hmm....
For the record:
AMD 64 3200+
ZNF3-250 Chaintech Mobo (NForce Chipset; latest BIOS)
1024 PC 400 DDR RAM
*Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 (O/C to Ultra speeds)
**Windows XP Pro (SP1)
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS w/ 5.1 DD
*I have an ATI 9800 but switched it out for Nvidia's better OGL performance for this game and Chronicles of Riddick
**I recently reformatted and decided NOT to update to SP2. There are serious performance slow downs in all applications with SP2 even if it is a stable release.
The game runs well... But at times, peformance will literally slow to a crawl and that is what I am most concerned with along with "broken" quests and other show stopping bugs.
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I think I know why this works:
When the intro movies are shown... The game is probably cacheing the files it needs to start up (namely the main menu and any sounds the menu needs and probably some global stuff that will get executed once you load a save; create a character, etc).
I bet by disabling the movies you are bypassing something getting cached THAT IS CORRPUTED and that is why performance is better once you skip the movies.
This has to be a memory allocation bug or something similar (or just a bad file that gets cached like I said above).
This is just speculation on my part, but that is why most intro movies for games are played: To hide the fact the game is cacheing files need to actually start playing.
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What I think is happening here is that Obsidian put in TOO many variables in how to solve some of these quests and the game (engine) may in fact just get "confused" as to what you are doing.
An example is reaching the Ebon Hawk (Peragus Hangar).
The designers give you a lot of options once you get to a certain point (I don't want to spoil it for those who aren't this far). You can play a mini-game, you can destroy the console, you can hack the console (if you have enough spikes), you can repair the console and you can even just bash the main door open that leads to the next "chapter" of the story (rejoining Atton and going to hunt for T3).
While it seems like a great gameplay feature to give the player a lot more options than in KOTOR... I think the engine wasn't really designed for this many simultaneous variables and this is why some of these quests are buggy and not calling up certain scripts because it is getting "confused" with the "correct" way something should be done.
I am not a programmer, but I have very basic understanding of the Odyssey Engine a sneaky suspicion this is what is happening.
Also, I have KOTOR I installed and I compraed the subfolder structures and KOTOR 2 is missing some vital files and other things. Granted, again, I am not a coder, but it looks like KOTOR 2 is missing a lot of .rim files (in the rim subfolder) that basically define the level functions for some of these quests... among other things.
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What has game development come to?
Cutting costs at every possible turn, yet expecting windfall profits from said (buggy) products that are released. Kind of ironic (and hypocritical) don't you think?
I saw it coming too. KOTOR 2 was developed in like 1-1.5 years at most. That's not enough time..... and this is what happened. Shortcuts, dropped promises.... Obsidian probably did the best they could.........but I think LEC came up with the crazy deadline.I knew KOTOR2 was going to have problems since I own and read about the XBox version prior to the PC release.
What amazes me is that because of the development time was so short... You would think that Obsidian really couldn't "screw up" that much considering no real changes to the gameplay (or engine) were made and it wasn't like they were taking on an entirely new project at least from a technical standpoint is concerned. At least, not from the consumer perspective (I am not a coder; this is just an educated guess on my part).
Also, there is a debate raging about whether or not Sith Lords really is a stand alone game or an expansion.
I consider it an expansion mostly because it is the same engine, same graphics, same structure and a lot of other elements that the first one used. The only real original thing in KOTOR2 is in fact the storyline... And even that is using set pieces -- actual locations -- from the first game, so they are stretching that orignal element out as well.
As far as the low-res music (to go along with the low-res movies)...
Thank LA for probably putting too many constraints both time wise, contractually and technically on Obsidian and letting Obsidian do what they were hired for: To deliver a top notch RPG with modern-day production values... Such as high quality music.
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There really isn't anything we can do, unfortunately. Our best hope is to POLITELY request Lucasarts and Obsidian to upgrade the textures and movies for PC users with mid and high end systems.
The movies after Peragus ARE better, but the low res still bothers me.
I don't think you understand.
These movies are just that: Finished movies.
You can't "retexture" them or whatever.
It's just like watching a DVD... Except these images were made with CG and not film. It's done. It's a complete video segment. There is nothing that can be done.
Sorry to burst the bubble
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I hear you loud and clear.
In fact, some of my thoughts... Being an "old timer" myself (30s)... Can be found on these two threads:
http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=29907
and...
http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=29366
What it comes down to is both the industry itself, gamers as a whole (regardless of age) and possibly outside forces, I.E. maybe a regulatory board/agency of some kind to really have a lasting effect on this industry because it ISN'T going to get better any time soon in the foreseable future as far as consumer rights go.
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Along with the changes to both the Graphics and Display options...
You have to add this to your KOTOR2 desktop shortcut via properties:
-w
"-w" = windowed mode
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why not just boycott games then? or start a protest at their headquarters. i might never buy certain games from certain companies.
Because just like any protest or boycott, it only works if you have enough people on a massive scale to actually get major companies to sit up and take notice.
I hate to be a jackass... But part of the problem is gamers themselves to some degree.
What I mean by this is:
1) As gamers, this IS our hobby.
This is our "vice". Sure, we may have more important things to do in the real world and other hobbies as well. But that's just it. Gaming is a distinct and unique hobby and I enjoy it just as much as a lot of people who love to go sailing, golfing and anything else they chose to spend their free time doing and can afford.
How can you ask them (us) to just stop cold turkey?
2) You have a segment of the gaming population that, I am sad to say, really does not care that games are released in faulty states and see it as a challenge to get the game to work... And often blame everyone else who can't get it to work on "user error" -- Even other fellow "expert gamers" and tech gurus.
You know who I mean.
These people will never just stop "cold turkey" to have an impact on large companies because their attitude is "If it works for me... Shut up! You're obviously a NoOb who should stick to Nintendo 64!"
Again. You know who I mean.
Also, while I applaud their efforts (and I used to be one of them) of trying to get a game to run when it is obvious it needs a patch...
There does come a time when you say, "enough is enough!" -- Mostly, when you get older and it is YOUR money (versus parents) that you are spending on these games that aren't worth it considering the relatively expensive price tag most games come with at launch -- And it isn't "fun" anymore to have to tweak your system because you just want to play and have less and less time to do it as you get older (family; friends; work; etc).
Bottom Line: I would love it if gamers would unite in a large boycott of games (across all genres/developers/publishers) to force the industry to sit up and take notice... Possibly even enact some kind of standards and business practices... Especially, if it started to hurt them in the pocket book...
But because of some of the reasons I listed above that just will not happen. I think it SHOULD happen because the writing is on the wall with what is going to happen to this industry in the next 5-10 years and it doesn't look all that great from the consumer end.
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The low-res movies are because this game was originally meant to be displayed on NTCS (and PAL) TV screens which is only 640x480 (60 Hz) resolutions for the XBox.
There is no way to change this as is the default resolution they were rendered in.
Patch NEEDED!!!
in Star Wars: General Discussion
Posted
I assume you are playing on normal, correct (as I assume we all are)?
Actually, what I have noticed is that if you use regular, default attacks (melee or ranged) they seem to do MORE damage than any special feats/attacks you get.
That's just not right in my humble opinion.
Again, what is the point of playing an RPG if leveling up and gaining what are supposedly advantages over your enemies when all you really need are the default attacks from Level I?
Anyway you slice it, it is a balance issue and needs addressing in my opinion.