Changed Endgame, Droid Planet Explanations

[Trom]

[Note: None of the following should be construed as a reason not to sign the petition, what I consider the most effective way of getting Obsidian's attention.]

 

I found links to interviews on IGN listed below in which are contained answers to almost ALL the issues floating on the board. I'm not going to list them all, but here are the answers to what seems to me are the four biggest issues:

 

1. Why was the Droid Planet M4-78 cut?

 

Chris Parker:

From a production perspective, the best thing we did was to cut M4-78, the Droid Planet. I won't go into details, but we had this incredible design for a planet of droids. We actually did the first pass on art and built the character models for the location. But we had to look at the schedule and make a big cut after E3. We cut the entire planet. At the time, we were afraid it would make the game too short - but fortunately, there is so much other content, that wasn't the case. And we used

a lot of elements from that planet elsewhere in the game. Ultimately, I think it made the game better, but it really hurt at the time, especially for the designer who had almost finished the planet, Kevin Saunders.

 

[Maybe if we each send Kevin a few bucks he'll put it back in for us.]

 

2. Why was the endgame changed?

 

Chris Avellone:

As far as the story goes, I think maybe we were trying too hard for an Empire Strikes Back feel especially in terms of the revelations toward the end game and the resolutions - we just wanted the player to feel like there was something more going on, something greater, and it may not have seemed to tie together as well as it should. We could have made more of an effort to keep the game more self-contained, but the more that option was discussed toward the end, the less appealing it seemed - we wanted more of a sense that the saga would continue, that what was happening was only symptomatic of something occurring on an even greater scale. I think this is something that sat well with some gamers, but not others.

 

3. Was timeframe a factor?

 

Chris Avellone: I think it's been received favorably by gamers and the media, and maybe we're being too hard on ourselves (as well as being too close to what we're working on), but it's actually been better received than we thought it would be. There was a lot of pressure and expectations from the first game, and our ability to even come close to that level of quality in roughly a third of the time was a pretty backbreaking amount of work. I wish we'd had two more years to work on it, but it wasn't in the cards.

 

Chris Parker: We had an extremely aggressive schedule on The Sith Lords. We first started talking with LucasArts about the title in June of 2003, but at that time, we had never seen the game except for information that was available to the general public. We signed up for the project in August and entered production, while still working on many pre-production tasks, in October of 2003. At the time, the ship date for all versions, PC and Xbox for all languages was November of 2004. Of course, it was only by that time that we really understood we were making a sequel to the game of the year for 2003 - and that really upped the pressure on us to deliver. It was around then that LucasArts decided we'd probably want to ship some of the versions in early 2005. In May of 2004, we

had a great E3, and that solidified our need to ship the Xbox for Christmas

 

[Once they locked into the XBox version delivery date, all else was secondary.]

 

4. Will Obsidian do K3?

Chris Parker:

I can't speak of what LucasArts wants or if we've had discussions with them, but if we were to do a KOTOR III, I think it would be a large divergence from the first two. We'd need to create a completely new engine, redo the rules system, and take care of a host of other 'things'. Of course, we'd stick to the Star Wars feel and story-driven gameplay. But that's outside of anything we should talk about here.

 

[Amen]

 

------

 

So there you have it. If I didn't hit on your current hot button, then I encourage you to read all of the following, particulary the Wrap Reports, the source of the quotes. Funny, but I feel that my involvement here on the forums may have been the real endgame for K2!

 

The GameSpy Interviews Thread:

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?sh...ndpost&p=276541

 

------

 

July 2, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Interview, Part 1

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/527/527990p1.html

 

July 9, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Interview, Part 2

Link

 

July 16, 2004

LucasArts Press Day Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Report

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/530/530855p1.html

 

October 12, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Sequel Interview

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/556/556465p1.html

 

November 1, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords First View

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/562/562364p1.html

 

December 23, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Wrap Report, Part 1

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/575/575166p1.html

 

December 27, 2004

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Wrap Report, Part 2

Link

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/575/575798p1.html

[Vatter]

Well, since they wanted the story to continue......Kotor 3 is real (even if obsidian isn't making it.)

 

 

(Oh, and hi guys! I'm new.)

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Chris Parker:

I can't speak of what LucasArts wants or if we've had discussions with them, but if we were to do a

 

KOTOR III, I think it would be a large divergence from the first two. We'd need to create a

 

completely new engine, redo the rules system, and take care of a host of other 'things'. Of course,

 

we'd stick to the Star Wars feel and story-driven gameplay. But that's outside of anything we

 

should talk about here.

 

This I like I think the rules need a serious rewrite. Story driven is fine but not at the expence of what you accomplish in the game.

[Darth Tratious]

that droid planet is cool i played it on action replay and the hk 50 base which was really cool

[Plooby]

Sounds to me like someone is putting on a big old happy face... "Yes, we are so happy that we cut this wonderful planet that we worked hard on and was ultra cool! See how happy we are that we had to make the ending so OPEN... isn't that better than making it actually bigger and better and about something greater?! Strained? Does my smile look strained? Nah. I always smile like this. Tears? No these are tears of joy. Working with the wonderfully pateint LA just makes me so joyful... and happy!" (w00t)

 

Look... OE kept all this great content on the game disks for a reason. They HAD to know we would find it. They HAd to know that it was way cool and they we would feel ripped off that we didn't get it. If they were really happy, happy about all of this, they would have taken it off of the finished disks. They are trying to tell us something... something that they can't SAY, but they want us to know.

 

Message received, OE.

[Tanuvein]

Heheh:

 

"Yes, the droid planet was awesome and we loved it and worked incredibly hard on it. But in the end, we didn't have time and had to cut the whole planet out, so we are very happy!!!!!@#$%^"

 

You can almost hear him crying.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

"Funny" isnt it that if it had tanked at E3 they would have had more time to finish.

[SteveThaiBinh]

'the more that option was discussed toward the end, the less appealing it seemed'

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And why were they discussing the conclusion of the game towards the end of the production process? Wouldn't this be after the voices had been recorded? Wouldn't that make it difficult to make big changes and fit them into the existing story?

 

So perhaps it's Obsidian's lack of experience that's at the root of the 'cut ending' saga. I mean, I know that individually they're all very experienced, but as a group this is their first game. Did they panic that the ending wasn't good enough, not realising it was really too late to change it for the better?

 

Or maybe they were pushed into it?

[Tanuvein]

They've mostly all worked together for many years, so its not that, I'd expect.

 

Note that he says they were surprised people liked it. I don't think they were pleased with the final product, but they didn't have much choice.

[ATimson]

So perhaps it's Obsidian's lack of experience that's at the root of the 'cut ending' saga.  I mean, I know that individually they're all very experienced, but as a group this is their first game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not really--a large portion of Obsidian was formed from Black Isle Studios. Enough where I don't think that it's fair to call it the group's first game.

 

I'd like to point out a rather interesting quote from the end of the interview: "Having members lose their limbs was a huge pain in the *ss from the art and programming side (for which I'm sorry)." Members plural. He doesn't sound at all repenitent about the cut endgame. Actually, rereading his earlier comments, it doesn't sound like he knows about the cut endgame, as odd as that sounds....

 

(And "And we used a lot of elements from that planet elsewhere in the game" could be interpreted as their having been put in the HK factory. Which, of course, is gone. Then again, it was never finished either (or, at least, the Xbox version is buggy).)

[thepixiesrock]

Chris Avellone:

As far as the story goes, I think maybe we were trying too hard for an Empire Strikes Back feel

 

especially in terms of the revelations toward the end game and the resolutions - we just wanted the

 

player to feel like there was something more going on, something greater

 

 

 

This fits in with ym theory, allow me to divert your attention to this thread here...

 

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=30618

[Zeshin]

Heheh:

 

"Yes, the droid planet was awesome and we loved it and worked incredibly hard on it. But in the end, we didn't have time and had to cut the whole planet out, so we are very happy!!!!!@#$%^"

 

You can almost hear him crying.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sounds like Gegoran, that weapons merchant on Onderon who is 'happy' to have his ability to sell weapons limited. Likely sums up Obsidian's feelings best.

 

While these articles certainly try to bring closure, I still will not rest in our petition until they give us a definitive, yea or nay.

[Sarai]

does the droid planet exsist on the PC version?

[Drakron]

This I like I think the rules need a serious rewrite. Story driven is fine but not at the expence of what you accomplish in the game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The basic rules are fine, idiotic changes to then (giving feats up, regeneration of vitality and force points, overpowerful feats, etc ...) and unablity to give enemies decent attack scripts is always going to hurt combat.

 

This game changed the rules to the worst, I cannot know who was the "genious" behind such idiotices (even if I am looking at LucasArts direction I cannot forget PS:T combat) but saying the rules must be changed when if fact they CHANGED the rules from KotOR and to the WORST makes me little hope what the new rules would be about .. perhaps even more broken were we be playing a adventure game with half-baked "lite" RPG elements.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

This I like I think the rules need a serious rewrite. Story driven is fine but not at the expence of what you accomplish in the game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The basic rules are fine, idiotic changes to then (giving feats up, regeneration of vitality and force points, overpowerful feats, etc ...) and unablity to give enemies decent attack scripts is always going to hurt combat.

 

This game changed the rules to the worst, I cannot know who was the "genious" behind such idiotices (even if I am looking at LucasArts direction I cannot forget PS:T combat) but saying the rules must be changed when if fact they CHANGED the rules from KotOR and to the WORST makes me little hope what the new rules would be about .. perhaps even more broken were we be playing a adventure game with half-baked "lite" RPG elements.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

KOTOR was no different except you didnt get the powers till later in the game. The flaws were already evident just the higher levels make them all the more apparent.

 

regenration has little effect in combat only between combat given a choice between standing around for 5 minutes to recharge or going into battle with 50% FP's most people will stand around.

 

Having implants tied to con was a huge improvement over the old rules.

[Mark Havel]

You will never see a developper or a normal people saying the work he did during more than a year is plain crap to the media. It would be as saying to all potential employeer "Don't hire me, never hire one of us!"...

[LdyShayna]

does the droid planet exsist on the PC version?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, just some of the voice over files and bits and pieces in the dialog.tlk file.

[Drakron]

KOTOR was no different except you didnt get the powers till later in the game. The flaws were already evident just the higher levels make them all the more apparent.

 

Jedi are unbalanced in KotOR, the force system was never much to my liking.

 

Yes the flaws were in KotOR but they were made worst in KotOR II.

 

regenration has little effect in combat only between combat given a choice between standing around for 5 minutes to recharge or going into battle with 50% FP's most people will stand around.

 

It have a huge effect outside combat that end up being the point, after the battle the party heals and so wastes resources that can be used in combat.

 

With regeneration its just "sit there and wait".

 

Having implants tied to con was a huge improvement over the old rules.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

BioWare make up the Implant system out of tin air, I disliked its slot system and its feat requirement ... reminded me too much of 2nd ed AD&D "because we said so" reasoning.

[AlanC9]

KOTOR was no different except you didnt get the powers till later in the game. The flaws were already evident just the higher levels make them all the more apparent.

 

I'm going to have to disagree there. The equal BAB is a bad change. It makes the classes blur into one another even more than they used to. That and the new feat charts make Sentinels the obvious pick over Guardians.

[Volourn]

Not to mention the half a dozen or sof ree feats you get at the start.

 

Not to mention making lighsabres have even more slots..

 

No, Drakron is right. KOTOR2's rules are even worse than KOTOR1 for so many reasons.

 

Alan's one exmaple is another one of the big OOPS.

 

Let's also not forget the fact that all jedi fistsa re automatically super deadly - espicially comapred to normal non sabre weapons.

 

 

R00fles!

[Astatine]

~ignores direction thread appears to be taken~

 

"All is resolved"? Er, not quite...

 

Droid planet cut a while back, sure -- but what's with the HK factory? Not the same thing, are they?

 

And ChrisA talks about party "members" plural having limbs removed...

 

 

~scratches head~

[Midnight Hawk]

And ChrisA talks about party "members" plural having limbs removed...

 

Well Kriea and Atton would have made two.

[Astatine]

And ChrisA talks about party "members" plural having limbs removed...

 

Well Kriea and Atton would have made two.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Indeed.

 

And the original post got me all worked up about the idea that some of these interviews might have been done after the final cut. Then again, it could just have been a slip of the tongue...

 

I'm so confused.

 

[greylord]

The starter post was a good post! Thanks.

[Shizuka2]

The droid planet and the HK factory aren't the same thing - one of the HK-47 soundclips left in has HK announcing that he has discovered that the factory is on Telos.

 

The droid planet is likely where B4-D4 was supposed to go after his little adventure, instead of Nar Shadaa.

 

If so, I wrote truer than I knew earlier - R.I.P. an elaborate storyline involving the conman protocol droid and his psychotic astromech sidekick.

 

Here's hoping that, at the very least, the good reception of TSL has given Obsidian enough leverage that they can move toward using a 'when its done' release schedule. While they do good work quick, they can do world-class work given time.