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Different kinds of "Dark Side" behavior?


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Alot of people here have commented on how the Dark Side in KOTOR was poorly handled. Most Dark Siders were just stupid, one-dimensional punks, and most things you were "supposed" to do if you wanted to get Dark Side points consisted of being:

 

-Crazy for no good reason

-A wiseass

 

Hardly a "seductive" path to the dark side, or the stuff of bad guys that are supposed to be scary villains. IMHO, this was the big weakness in terms of characterization that KOTOR suffered from.

 

Now, the Obsidian folks have said they are going to make evil more interesting and have more depth. Given the experience with games like Planescape: Torment, I can belive that. This is something I'm really looking forward to.

 

Thinking about it, I think there should be several DIFFERENT "evil/dark side" paths that should be available to you in terms of dialogue/actions. In other words, there should be more than one kind of dark side character type. For instance:

 

-The sadist. This character simply gets off on hurting people for its own sake. Gaining power is gratifying because it makes it possible to manipulate, dominate and control more people. They aren't pissed off, they just like inflicting pain. This is closest to how the PC's DS dialog choices are written, except that in KOTOR your dialog choices for the DS were often simply stupid, which sadists are not. A sadist will act quite nice and "normal" until they have a favorable opportunity to attack a person or group.

 

-The vigilante. This character has a grudge, and will do anything to get payback, and then some. This desire for revenge may be focused on one individual, or an entire race or even society. They are willing to destroy anybody who obstructs their mission in the slightest, and their nihilistic "ends justify the means" outlook leads them to become as bad, or worse, than what they set out to destroy in the first place. In fact, they may completely lose sight of their original motive for revenge as they spiral into the Dark Side.

 

-The tyrant. This character is concerned with the rational, thoughtful, systematic aquisition of power. They will not kill random people for no reason, or act openly crazy or evil. In fact, they don't per se enjoy killing at all. But they have no ethical constraints whatsoever, only their own self-interest in mind, and so will murder or betray anybody that gets in their way or becomes a liability.

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FU has mentioned that this is being worked on.

 

However, I still think people will have issues with any game that only allows two or three choices. I'd like to see two or three varieties of good, and two or three varieties of evil options as well.

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FU has mentioned that this is being worked on.

Yeah, I read that somewhere around here. I like the fact that the devs picked up on that (long before any of my silly posts ;) ), it was one of my few complaints about KOTOR.

 

I was just throwing out some ideas for HOW to do it.

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The reason KotOR was like that, CB was because this IS in fact BIO's version of evil. The same can be seen throughout all of their games.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

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I'd like to see a seductive, manipulative and tactician character type for the DS. More DS dialog options. The same goes for the LS: I couldn't stand the LS dialog with Malak at the end. I'd like to be able to have a more neutral dialog and not only stuff like the LS will always prevail blah blah blah... (ok I admit this line is very Star Wars and has its place in the game but I'd like to have the option to say something else).

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What villians spring to mind as good examples?

Big Brother?

I love Big Brother.

 

ME TOO :unsure:

 

Well seriously, open any history book and you'll find tyrants of every style. You don't have to go very far back: even the new millenium has it's lot ot tyrants. Apart their defects, many of them were charismatic and knowledgeable people. And all of them had a personal life in which they didn't threatened people all the time. Still they were bad and commited atrocites...

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I like the Hannibal Lechter school of villiany.

 

You have to play cat and mouse with your target. But don't let them get too smart. When they put 2 and 2 together, you eat their liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

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Something more rational, more "normal person", more "Jolee Bindo" and less "because I'm LS, I win" especiallywhen the opposite party has the exact opposite dialogue "the DS is stonger and the LS is weak". As I said above, Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without the possibility to answer this stuff but I'd like to have more options. It's an RPG after all and it involves character development.

 

"I win because I have the power to face you, no matter whether LS or DS, and because I have an army behind me. ". "I face you because I disagree with what you are doing. People suffer and I can't let this continue" (with more style of course, that's just a general idea and i don't have time to add bone to this right now).

I also liked options where you don't have to give a reason like on Taris were you were able to simply answer: "I'm glad I could help."

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I never played Jedi Academy. How does the Dark Side work in it?

In academy, when faced with the equivelent of kotors temple scene, you have a character that betrayed you, he is wounded and you have the option to kill him or to put your lightsaber away. Also when you meet up with a few jedi's later on, they start to talk to you and you just push them aside and say "out of my way"

 

And the build up to falling to the darkside is handled better also, with the whole betrayal thing going on.

Le donne sono da venus, la scopata sa dove sono gli uomini da.

For a different kind of Kotor chat

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I think so. Dark Side users (unless especially malicious and sadistic) show a complete disregard for those inferior.

 

It's a waste of time and effort to even kill many of them. Just shove them out of the way and get on to business. That's why I thought it was silly that you have to kill Mission as a Dark Side Character. What's she going to do to stop you? She's not a real threat.

"You shall not pass!"
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