On the subject of multiple endings...

[Dark Wanderer]

There has been much talk on the subject of multiple endings here... Personally, I've always been a little disappointed of the fact that in most western games, there is so few endings; at best, you can get about 3 different endings.. and it's also kind of disappointing that these two endings are ultimately tied to the question "Have you been good or bad?", nothing else.

 

*sigh*. There's two games that I've played that has had quite a great freedom in terms of endings and not just been tied to "good and evil". One of them is the rather known "princess maker". In that game, you receive a girl from the Gods that you may raise in any way you want (should be noted that Princess Maker is a SIM with RPG elements). The goal is, of course, to raise her into a princess, but it isn't easy. But depending on how you raise her, she'll end up as various things. For example, if you train her in the arts of fightning, she may become a royal knight, a knight, a martial arts trainer, a robber or a street thug (among many others). If you on the other hand raise her to do things like cleaning and such, she may become a maid, a housewife or a worker at a resturant or so. And much else...

 

The other one is one I think many of you may be more familiar with; Sid Merier's Pirates. In that game, things ended according to your own actions; how much gold you had gathered, how much prestige you had gathered in a certain nation, if you had married or not, how many family members you recovered, etc...

 

Of course, I wouldn't expect to see ALL of these things in KOTOR 2, but... would it honestly be too hard to adopt certain aspects of the games I've mentioned in games like KOTOR & KOTOR 2? Like, let's say that they make a number of endings that is tied to each character's class or something like that? Like, let's say that you finish KOTOR 2 as a Jedi Master, then you'll see an ending where your character has become a member of the newly formed Jedi council and is deeply enaged in a conversation with the said council about the future of the galaxy? Or if you finished your games as a Jedi Weapon Master, then you'd see your character training new Jedi at the Jedi Temple of Courscant. And so on.. and as for the dark side, about the same thing; if you become Sith Lord, you'll likely end up as the Dark Lord of the Sith, but if you finish the game as a Sith Assassin, you may see an ending where your character sneaks upon a target he/she is about to finish off... and so on...

 

Or if the endings were rather tied to your actions in the game (more realistic in a sense); for example let's say that there is a romance with the queen of Onderon. If you decided to play on that romance, then that means that after you had finished your quest, you'd see an ending where you ended up as the queens consort or as her trusted lover and advisor. Or, if you decided to romance one of the members of your party and were a light sider, then after your mission was done, the Galaxy saved, the Jedi Order restored and all that, you and your loved one might decide that it'd be better if you did not join the Jedi council nor the Republic, because that the Jedi Order frowns upon Jedi having relationships and even if they did give their consent, your relationship might spark jealousy and the like among your fellow Jedi, so you and your loved one decides to leave to live a life not unlike Old Jolee did...

 

Well, these are only a few examples, but I pesonally don't think it'd hurt if Obsidan/Lucasarts used these kinds of endings, or a combination of both, in their games. It shouldn't be THAT hard to do (or if it is, pardon me my ignorance, devs). It'd not only increase replayablity, but also make them more fun to play overall, or so I think. Or it'd all at least give people something different than: Dark Ending: Become The Ultimate Badass Of The Galaxy! or Light Ending: Become The Superhero Saviour Of The Galaxy And That's It!, as the endings often seems to result in; at least the kinds of endings I've suggested here would give an image, an idea, of what our characters became or did after they saved the galaxy(/world) and everything...

 

Well, that's it for what I wanted to say

[Darth Sun_Tzu]

I think alot of people will agree with you. To me it does not seem to hard for there to be several different endings triggered by certain event in the game!

[Archmonarch]

I agree with you, but unfortunately it seems too late to make any major changes in the game. Unless you want a delay.

[Darth Sun_Tzu]

I agree with you, but unfortunately it seems too late to make any major changes in the game. Unless you want a delay.

I dont think they would be too major, it mostly a case of creating new cutscenes that are triggered by different criterior.

[Archmonarch]

I agree with you, but unfortunately it seems too late to make any major changes in the game. Unless you want a delay.

I dont think they would be too major, it mostly a case of creating new cutscenes that are triggered by different criterior.

I dont know enough about programming to say.

[Dark Wanderer]

I agree with you, but unfortunately it seems too late to make any major changes in the game. Unless you want a delay.

What Sun Tsu said. But I wouldn't say that they necresssiary has to put it in NOW; they could always include that into a patch or something for later; wouldn't be the first time something like that was done. Also, even if it was delayed, I'd see it as a positive thing in this case (even through many might disagree with me), since it'd actually be used to expand the game in a sense and create something we seldom see in the western game industry.

[Darth Sun_Tzu]

Well may a dev could shed some light on the subject, but i dont see it being too difficult.

[Guest Fallen Jedi]

I think Wanderer's got great ideas and they should really be considered in Kotor III

[Jurgenaut]

I like how it was done in the Fallouts. The consequences of your actions throughout the game are shown and explained.

 

Of course.. A munchkin friend of mine made it show some inconsistency.. In FO2, Gecko, first he repaired the power plant and then blew it up.

 

"Vault city thrived with the aid of their neighbour ghoul city." (not exact wording, mind)

 

"Without the power plant, Vault citys dreams of a new society were effectively destroyed. " and then something about the vault city citizens scattering to the winds.

 

But, that's an extreme case.

[Dark Wanderer]

I like how it was done in the Fallouts. The consequences of your actions throughout the game are shown and explained.

Well, that's another kind of ending, but an ending nonetheless since it shows the effect of your actions. But in the Fallout games, you do, if I remember correctly, not get to know what happened to your character after he finished his main mission, which is also something I think people would be interested in. Your suggested kind of endings is a good suggestion since it really shows us what effects our actions had but at the same time I belieive that many would also want to know what happened to our character (and in soem cases his companions, like it was shown in BG: Throne of Bhaal) after he finished his main quest...

[Ivan the Terrible]

Another example of a game that has multiple endings not tied to whether you were 'good' or bad': Deus Ex.

 

If KOTOR II had three or more Deus Ex-style ambiguous endings in which you had to decide which outcome was best without gigantic signposts telling you which is good and which is evil, I would cream my jeans.

[Dark Wanderer]

If KOTOR II had three or more Deus Ex-style ambiguous endings in which you had to decide which outcome was best without gigantic signposts telling you which is good and which is evil, I would cream my jeans.

Never played Deus Ex , but if it is as you describe and KOTOR follows this, then it soudn slike mroe people'll be pleased, anyway . However, this is Star Wars. "Good" and "Evil" has a large infludence on the story, so I dunno if there can be that much neutrality there.. :/.

[NuGgEt]

I played Deus Ex, and I was thrilled when you had to choose, and as Ivan said, you dont really know which is good/bad. KOTOR II would be harder, again with the light/dark side, but what if there was a neutral ending, where you bought peace between the sith/jedi(unllikey) or something of that nature. It would be hard but well worth it. im tired as balls, its 5:30 in the morning, time for sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

[Craftsman]

I think the devs really want to make this game stand out. There is probarly some other feature which they wont tell till release.

[Guest Fallen Jedi]

We'll just have to wait and see

[Akari]

It's hard to say too much without dropping clues that could spoil things in advance and that's the last thing I want to do. The best I can do is paraphrase what Avellone said in one of the interviews where he mentioned that we hope to have a more Fallout-like ending, where you get a recap of the fates of the different areas and characters you influenced. That would be coupled with a couple traditional ending sequences that related to how the game ended for your character.

 

We know endings are important and will do what we can.

 

-Akari

[Archmonarch]

Excellent.

[Dark Wanderer]

Thanks, that makes me feel less worried about the subject of endings in KOTOR 2, Akari-sensei

[Darth Sun_Tzu]

It's hard to say too much without dropping clues that could spoil things in advance and that's the last thing I want to do. The best I can do is paraphrase what Avellone said in one of the interviews where he mentioned that we hope to have a more Fallout-like ending, where you get a recap of the fates of the different areas and characters you influenced. That would be coupled with a couple traditional ending sequences that related to how the game ended for your character.

 

We know endings are important and will do what we can.

 

-Akari

To me that means more than 2 endings!

 

Which i think is what most people want.

[Astatine]

It's hard to say too much without dropping clues that could spoil things in advance and that's the last thing I want to do. The best I can do is paraphrase what Avellone said in one of the interviews where he mentioned that we hope to have a more Fallout-like ending, where you get a recap of the fates of the different areas and characters you influenced. That would be coupled with a couple traditional ending sequences that related to how the game ended for your character.

 

We know endings are important and will do what we can.

 

-Akari

Hold on, wasn't Akari the dev guy who protested a while back that he really didn't know anything about the plot? I smell conspiracy...

[Akari]

Hold on, wasn't Akari the dev guy who protested a while back that he really didn't know anything about the plot?  I smell conspiracy...   

That remains true. I don't have to know the plot to provide code to create the endings the designers want though. I'm pretty sure the scripting for end-game cutscenes will fall to someone else besides me anyway. We have a few guys handling cutscene work now days and they're doing a great job.

 

-Akari

[Kill Jar Jar]

It's hard to say too much without dropping clues that could spoil things in advance and that's the last thing I want to do. The best I can do is paraphrase what Avellone said in one of the interviews where he mentioned that we hope to have a more Fallout-like ending, where you get a recap of the fates of the different areas and characters you influenced. That would be coupled with a couple traditional ending sequences that related to how the game ended for your character.

 

We know endings are important and will do what we can.

 

-Akari

I haven't played Fallout, but if it works out similar to how people here are descirbing it, I think I'd be happy.

[Meshugger]

It's hard to say too much without dropping clues that could spoil things in advance and that's the last thing I want to do. The best I can do is paraphrase what Avellone said in one of the interviews where he mentioned that we hope to have a more Fallout-like ending, where you get a recap of the fates of the different areas and characters you influenced. That would be coupled with a couple traditional ending sequences that related to how the game ended for your character.

 

We know endings are important and will do what we can.

 

-Akari

It's great to see that Obsidian have taken the 'better endings'-issue seriously. A long game(40h+) needs a long and fulfilling ending.

[Dark Wanderer]

It's great to see that Obsidian have taken the 'better endings'-issue seriously. A long game(40h+) needs a long and fulfilling ending.

*nod, nod*

[birdiedude]

A little late I know, but I'd like to add my two cents.

 

The ending to a game is important, especially in non-linear games as it is just about the only time the writers are given free reign to take control completely away from the player.

 

However, I have to say I don't like the Fallout endings precisely because they highlight this point; you got to see how your character changed the various places he/she visited true. But I would have preferred if these locations were changed during the actual course of the game, so that you could experience and participate in the changes beyond the one shot you were already given compared to simply sitting back and watching the effects.

 

For example take an anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist, currently running in Japan that will be aired in the US sometime in November. In the first two episodes the main characters are in a city in the middle of nowhere where a corrupt religious leader is leading his people toward a war. These two characters end this corruption and leave the city . . . only to miss another villain that pops up and sets the city back on the course of destruction. In the minds of the heroes everything ended happily ever after, but events beyond their control dictated otherwise. Had they ever actually checked on the city it would have become apparent things weren't as they seemed.

 

Now if the game character just makes one sweep of an area, performs all of the quests and leaves believing he has "completed" that area what guarantee is there that everyone will truly live happily ever after?

 

It's also funny to take sequels into consideration, because many games end on a happy note only to have some other world/universal threat appear . . . . Just like KotOR it would seem.

 

My ideal ending would probably something like Final Fantasy 6, in that game there are twelve important playable characters (and two hidden ones) throughout the story these twelve have various interactions with each other and reactions to the world around them. When you reach the ending these interactions are highlighted, reinforced, or finally tied up. You only actually see the rest of the world for a few hours after the ending, but it isn't important to see that everything was wrapped up in a nice little package because it was the characters that were the driving force of the game anyway. That's what I'd prefer to see in KoOR2 if it's still remotely possible.