Darth Credulous

Big thing with PS:T - if you don't max (and I mean MAX) Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma you miss out on half the story. That's not immediately obvious. Like, playing to have at least 25 INT, WIS and CHA by the end is the aim. So, I'd guess that a lot of those who felt PS:T was incomplete had a fighter or a thief Nameless One, as opposed to a mage. It's not that the game's full of holes. It's just that it's not necessarily all there for you if you don't make that choice at the character generation stage. A design flaw? Maybe. But then it makes sense - if you're not that smart or wise, then you won't be able to figure it out. As for PS:T being a poor game in terms of combat - I get the feeling that if Black Isle could have gotten rid of the combat entirely or replaced it with a different system, then they would have, but as things stood they were restricted by the engine of the time. It's not a game about combat - in fact, all except two combats in the entire game can simply be avoided, and in the cases where you talk your way out of them you generally get a higher XP reward than you would do for fighting and winning. For the dialogue fans, there was PS:T. For the hack and slash fans, there was Icewind Dale. For those in the middle, there was Baldur's Gate.

'OWNING' is a relative thing. Try it with the patch, cooler movies/music, restoration project content and some rebalancing tweaks and compare and contrast your gaming experiences. Deal?

The response I've managed - that let me progress - was to first agree with my comrades that Kreia was evil and a Sith and bad, but then to tell her that you'll defend her - or, rather, defend her chance at redemption - anyway. Light Side points, things move on.

The musical analogy is just that, an analogy - a reference to a music of the spheres, almost. I will try to flesh it out. 'To dance along', in this case, is my way of trying to express what trying to follow the Light Side of the force is like. A Jedi spends his entire life learning not only how to listen to the Force, but also to synchronise with it, almost. Luke: "I feel the Force!" Obi-Wan: "But you cannot control it." - "Empire Strikes Back" We therefore are given to understand that there is a difference between being a 'Force Sensitive' (someone who can listen and dance along) and a 'Force User' (or Force Adept?). Obi-Wan uses the word 'control', and that's what the goal of a Jedi's synchronicity with the Force is - rather than being able to simply follow the tune, a trained Jedi can, if you will, execute a few 'dance flourishes' of his own - work his own will into the music. And the key point is, if it is done RIGHT, then the Force, the music, will respond and change and complement what the Jedi is doing just as the Jedi complements the Force with what he is doing. Thus the Jedi is not simply able to follow the beat - and be in the right place at the right time, as Jedi are so often able to be - but are also able to affect the world by influencing the 'music' with their own will. So what we have is a symbiotic relationship between the 'music' and the 'dancers'. We can postulate there is something underlying the music, a second 'music of minor chords' that is the Dark Side. It's crashing, it's discordant, and it's what a Dark Side user brings to the fore, dancing to that tune and causing it to drown out the natural, balanced music of the Light Side around him, disrupting the natural order of things and making it very difficult for those trying to follow the Light Side's 'music' to hear anything. Anyhow, I say, then, that the Force has a will, but it's not a will in the way that we would understand a sentient will - a composer understands what music will sound good and what note should follow another note to achieve a result. That's the Force - every 'note' of the music naturally follows the next. It's a harmony.

I get the impression that the Mass Shadow Generator was not a last-ditch weapon but a carefully-prepared trap that Revan lured the Mandalorians into. A trap that required the bait of a lot of Republic men and women, but a trap nonetheless.

Maybe we should stry seeing the Future and the Force in different lights. The Force has a will, maybe, but no-one said it had *sentience* - let's try thinking of it as a heartbeat in the background of the universe, or a freeform piece of music that's always changing as the universe changes. If you were sensitive, you could 'dance to the beat', as it were. Or, if you were dark side, try to use your will to force the music into what you wanted, while unknowingly being drawn into it. Farseeing the future through the Force would therefore be akin to a doctor forecasting a heart failure by picking up on a flutter in the heartbeat, or an engineer hearing an engine not sounding quite right, albeit with visions.

...actually, that'd be nice...but...just wishful thinking... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, that's exactly what happened with Baldur's Gate 2.

As things stand, yes. Nihilus is meaningless. The point everyone is making is that he could be meaningFUL. As to what Nihilus could offer, that's fairly simple - the Exile either has the chance to assume his/her place as the premier darksider in the Galaxy, with Czerka and the Sith remnants behind him, trying to put Revan's plans back together - or he/she has the chance to affirm once and beyond doubt the fact that despite being a wound in the Force, he/she is an agent of the light; by challenging the other embodiment of that wound and casting it down. Not to mention 'making amends' for the deaths the Exile is responsible for at Malachor, if there's any guilt over that, by saving a whole bunch more.

Hey, ESB is an example of a well-handled ending to a second part of a trilogy - it foreshadowed what was to come, and made a clean break, setting things up for the third and final part. By the end of it, you knew what was going on, and you were looking forward to what was going to come (rescuing Han, Luke and Vader meeting again). The end of KOTOR2 leaves too many unanswered questions - we're not even entirely sure what we should be looking forward to in KOTOR 3. It is important to note that neither ESB nor KOTOR2 have a cliffhanger ending in the strictest sense.

The old trilogies had their moments. The old trilogies also had Vader, and say what you like, he had a *presence*. The prequels stand or fall by Revenge of the Sith, in my view. Ask this question again when we've all seen that.

In addition, it is important to remember that we're not talking about 'the standard Star Wars plot' - we're talking about exposition, suspense, building to a climax and delivering on that climax, some very fundamental rules of drama. I merely used KOTOR 1 as an example of that. Planescape Torment managed these things very nicely while being far more revelatory and deep than KOTOR2 could ever manage.

I conjecture that, with more exposition, a final confrontation with Darth Nihilus, and coming face to face with the true nature of what the wound in the Force means for the galaxy, could have been every bit as deep as the final confrontation with Darth Treya. I do not say that the game is about Nihilus - merely that I feel he could have made a much more interesting *final* step on the Exile's path to rediscovery than Treya. Nihilus IS as close to Malachor V personified as things will ever get, and the ramifications for facing him down and what that would have meant for the Exile could have been so much more than they were.

I think Drakkonen has a valid point of view. To try to put his words in some kind of context, imagine: it would have felt strange, would it not, to have flown to the Star Forge and destroyed it, and *then* to have to fly to the Unknown Planet Temple to deal with Bastila and Malak?

The only things - the ONLY things - Jedi Outcast can beat Jedi Knight on are the sophistication of graphics, game controls and of course multiplayer. Jedi Academy has its' subgames in its favour (speederbikes!) but is just too short a game to compare. The story of Jedi Knight was gripping, the villains superb, the level design epic in the extreme and, of course, the FMV movies were fun. Not to mention the fact that Jedi Knight - amazingly enough - had a dark side path that really ended in a big Dark Side way (Kyle becoming the next Emperor!). The whole 'I found a lightsaber in a garage and that makes me a Jedi!' thing was a bit odd, but then that's the case with most of the franchise.

Here's a conjecture; the Force is not the death of Free Will. Although it might guide your life to a specific point, even a series of specific points, the choice of what to do when you reach those points is entirely your own. Looking at another science fiction classic - a literary one - I use an example taken from Dune, and examine Paul Atredies' 'future sight'. He saw the future as like a landscape, a series of highs and lows - the highs were these 'specific points', the crisis points at which crucial decisions were made, and he was unable to see what lay beyond that ridge - the rest of the future, in other words - until he had reached the top and he was at the crisis point. At which point he would be able to see all the way to the next ones, but not beyond them. If we look at one genuine example of farseeing in Star Wars - Luke's visions of Han and Leia being tortured in Cloud City, while he was on Dagobah - he was able to see to that crisis point, that important pivot in his destiny. The Force gave him that vision, but it was his choice to go there - and, likewise, things could have gone either way, for him to die, for him to reject the dark side, or for him to embrace it. Ergo - the Force is not the death of Free Will, but if one is Force Sensitive, then the Force tends to make the choices you are presented with very important indeed.

Well, besides the clone, there's the other, broad, sweeping comparison between the two. Both of them were trying to conquer the Republic in order to use it to fight a greater threat. In Revan's case, the True Sith; in Thrawn's, we never find out, but it's a fair assumption to say it's the Yuuzhan Vong (augh). Thrawn leaves a legacy of followers sworn to combat this threat in the event of his disappearance. Revan doesn't even seem to tell his/her apprentice what's going on, let alone educate him in what must be done, and Kreia's left to pick up the shattered pieces of whatever plan Revan might have had. From this, the point about Revan being unable to forsee his or her own defeat and demise is made all the more strongly.

It's a throwaway line, but just as Han, Chewie and Luke are taken away by Jabba's guards to be shipped off to the Sarlacc, Luke calls out, "That's the last mistake you'll ever make!". What makes it great is the grin on Luke's face as he says that, which would suggest that he's completely lost his mind - and, looking at the situation at face value, it seems he has.

Hmm. Let's leave Alexander aside for a moment, as he is history's only military commander with a win/lose record of 100%/0%. You're not going to be able to top that. If you think about it, the way Revan and Thrawn fight is pretty similar, at least as far as I can see. Thrawn's tendency to know exactly what his opponents are going to do - even prod them gently in the direction he wants them to go without them realising - and have a counter ready before they've made their move is the essence of what Sun Tzu meant when he wrote "The highest evolution of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans." Likewise, Revan's final strategy - the colossal trap at Malachor V - is so very unorthodox and 'unfair' I wouldn't blink if I read of Thrawn doing something similar in a novel, especially as Revan seemed to have manouvered the Mandalorians into that battle. Looking at their failures, they're likewise similar. Thrawn: had Bilbringi well in hand until the unexpected arrival of Karrde's smugglers, which was totally out of the blue. Was ready to respond to that when he was stabbed in the back when his bodyguard turned against him, which on reflection he might have forseen, given that he confided in Pellaeon that 'I don't know what, but there's something wrong with the Noghri.' Revan: seemed to be doing pretty well until a bunch of Jedi boarded a command ship and started playing things personal - stopped trying to beat his armies and instead trying to beat him/her. Seemed to be holding his/her own until Malak played his hand, which again Revan really should have seen coming. Not a great deal he could have done about it, of course. The TRUE decider, I feel, is this: Revan's emergency plans in case of failure: none that we see. In fact, Rev is pretty lucky there was anything of him/her left. Thrawn's emergency plans in case of failure: had a clone of himself ready to be revived ten years after his death. Thrawn wins by default, just because being able to admit the possibility of defeat and death - and PLAN for that - shows him to be the more pragmatic and sensible of the two.

He is indeed the Chosen One. Bear in mind he doesn't just equalise the numbers - he destroys the old, fossilised Jedi Order entirely, and he kills the Emperor too - in the process, killing himself, leaving both Jedi and Sith non-existant. He gives Force-users in the galaxy a chance to start again, afresh, allowing Luke to rebuild the Jedi tradition free of both the shadow of the Dark Side and the strictures of the stagnant Jedi Order. That is the 'Balance' that is referred to.

Christmas deadline most important, my foot. This should have been scheduled nearer to the release of Revenge of the Sith, when Star Wars feelings were running high.

Kreia, Master Vrook, HK-47. The voices BECOME the character.

I tend to give each of the NPCs a 'starring role' with each planet. On Nar Shadaa I'll take Atton and Bao-Dur. On Dxun, I'll send Visas, Mandalore and G0-T0. On Onderon, Handmaiden and Kreia. And so on, and so forth.

It's a Mass Shadow Generator. It generates a 'shadow' of mass, and with the mass comes a gravitational pull. The Mandalorian fleet, and quite a sizeable part of the Republic fleet too, was pulled from space onto the planet's surface, where they crashed. The planet, likewise, collapsed - creating the broken ruin you see when you arrive there. When the remote reverses the generator, the planet begins to break apart and seperate - all that was holding it together was Bao-Dur's generator. The whole thing was akin to dropping a nuke on a battlefield with troops from both sides still present. After being responsible for that, anyone can understand why the Exile would want to give up the war for good.

So, your argument is: a game that BioWare made a good decade ago had an ending as unfulfilling as KOTOR2. Well, do we want these kind of mistakes to continue to be made? I thought not. This isn't counting the fact that the end plot of BG2 actually comes to a complete, proper end in BG2. The saga of Irenicus comes to a close with the end of BG2, explained, done and dusted. If you ask me, the end of BG2 reminds me more of the LightSide end of KOTOR1 - it's a story arc coming to a close. The romances come to a close as well, or at least reach a point where they can be considered to be 'in abeyance' until the next part in the story. And you know what? There's a huge modding scene out there for BG1 and 2, filling the gaps, restoring the missing bits, the cut quests, fixing the bugs unofficially, bringing closure. That's not even counting the official expansion pack - yes, an expansion pack. BG2: Throne of Bhaal is not a sequel, but an expansion pack. That can't happen here. No-one has the tools needed to mod KOTOR2. So, the only thing anyone can do is go straight to the developers. Ok, we'd like them to do this themselves, but if they simply don't have the time I'm sure lots of folks would settle for some modding pointers. That's probably against contract, but quite frankly so is restoring the cut stuff. So it's all a case of '300 Spartans' - but that doesn't stop us asking, does it?

Kreia leads you to believe that you begin to hear the Force through her. If anything, the exact opposite is the truth.