Can We Move On, Please?

[Delerius_Jedi]

Personally I think we should frame Feargus's reply to Torrentus in the other thread: It took alot of guts for him to say that, and the fact that he's being honest about it and in his own way is admitting that they made mistakes with KotOR2 gives him a bonus in my book.

 

Unlike Mike Gallo at LA, Feargus is really showing integrity and sincerity here when he replies: I mean he apologizes for the disappointments over the game. Something I doubt we'll ever see Gallo do.

 

This has earned Obsidian some more respect in my book: I'll still wait a bit before buying their next products, but I won't intentionally avoid them after reading this as I had previously made up my mind to do. KotOR2 is in the hands of the modders now, so we should focus on supporting them however we can.

 

Just my 0.02 credits.

[Janson]

I completely agree with the original poster and many of the other opinions expressed in this thread. KotOR2 certainly shows a huge amount of potential and still contains a lot more content than most fully complete games do (certainly in my opinion anyway). It's not going to stop me buying any products in future and I'm still looking forward to KotOR3. I just wish Obsidian better luck in the future.

[Vanarion]

I'll keep a simple point of view.

 

Fact is that I paid 44 Euros for my copy of the game.

 

Did I get what I expected for my money (in general and not based on my expactations after Kotor1)?

 

Speaking only for me it's clearly: No

 

 

In my opinion the endgame is rushed and unrewarding and doesn't much reflect my actions throughout the game. For me that's an KO criterion for a game like this.

I don't say the entire game is bad. I just say I don't see that the game is worth the money I payed.

 

If this won't be changed (and I don't care about the internal franchise/LA/Obidian stuff, that's their problem) I've got to except this. They have my money, ok.

Do I think they deserve it? No.

 

So what am I going to do in the future?

The next Obsidian/LA game I buy will be for no more than 20 Euros, more likely below 10 Euros, no matter how good the game will be. That'll cover my losses.

I can only judge if a game is worth my money after I've bought it. I can't return it for my money.

Kotor2 is a game I have trusted to meet my expactations, so I bought it.

I've learned my lesson now .

No more trust in the future. I can wait " and read what others say about a game before I buy it. And then lets just wait a little longer to get it for a lower price with a final patch available, hardware requirements that are easy to meet and so on.

And imagine I can minimize the money they get even further by buying a used copy of a game instead of a new one. That way I can possibly help a poor bloke that payed the full price :D.

 

If devs and publishers out there want *me* to buy a fresh and new game in the future, they'll have to do a very very good job.

And don't expect me to ever take into account any circumstances under wich a release had to suffer. I don't care any more, because I can't expect any other than technical and bug fixes.

[Bastilla_Skywalker]

Well the ending should've been with you standing beside Revan at least <_<

[Nevan]

Ill wait for a patch to come out before I move on.. However If they dont address the many plot holes in the patch I will not be buying or supporting LA or OB anytime in the future. I can deal with a buggy game just not a unfinished one.

[~Di]

I enjoyed the game. I enjoyed it a lot. I even enjoyed the ending.

 

Yes, I wish there weren't so many bugs... I'm particularly peeved by the Bao Dur bug, where you can't ask him to make you anything and as soon as he becomes a Jedi your only dialogue options with him are "Yes, General?" and "Never mind." Boy, I was really ticked when I made him a Jedi before he finished my lightsaber... and when I got all the materials, discovered I no longer had the option to have him make up my lightsaber. Bummer.

 

Still, I loved the creative gameplay, the story-telling brilliance shown by KoTOR II. In every way except finish-polish it was superior to KoTOR I, in my opinion.

 

So there.

[mutombo]

i think nearly everybody who played kotorI will be disappointed.

 

the game isnt bad at all.

but,.....

 

1. they didnt fixed anything the community blamed already in kotorI, like

fightqueue and much more.

 

2. The game is WAY TO EASY!! i played on difficult and its a joke.

No real Brainfood, no real fighting. malachor was soo boring. i had more than

100 big medpacks....

 

3. The lvls are all smaller than kotorI?? narshaddarr and onderon/dxun are the

only places that are close to the size of lvls kotorI had.

 

4. The Gametime is very short, i played it through in one weekend. KotorI has

much longer gamefun, i think because there were more sidequests and you n

need to travel between the planets more often.

 

5. more freedom of choice? where is it? the most time i felt pushed somewhere and

couldnt do what i want. Like i want to kill kreia from the beginning, and i

discovered her betrayals very early. So why not kill her with your teammates?

Atton and Handmaiden surely would be happy about this

 

about the story and the ending: thats hard to jugde and its much about what you like. i liked the story very much, sure ending is a bit :damn-already-november-we-need-to-hurry.

 

the whole thing dont looks like kotorII its more like kotor1.5.

btw where is the multiplayer? there are already options in the swplayer.ini.

I think this game would become great, if its released in 6 months with all the missing stuff.

 

obsidian has the option now to show how they are.

ascaron's port royale was ver very nice game, but bugged beyond hell.

(like kotorII), so they released a free small addon a few month later.

they only a small company and perhaps dont have the resources for big testing and stuff, but they show heart for their fans.

 

When i read suchs posts like: "sorry its ****ed, nice you throw your money away, but we already working on the next project to suck you out a bit more, so dont await we fix this, you should have known that we dont care".

 

P.S.: i wasted more than 12 hours trieing to leave dxun before i reinstalled the game and started allover. damn 1/3 load bug.

 

P.P.S: for sure i wont buy the next kotor(if it comes), before i've played a borrow version and only if obsidian learned something I'll buy it.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Already moved on

 

Fun game ,vaule for money nothing more to ask of a developer.

 

Playing the Xbox version might have helped but having seen the state of PC software in general I wouldnt blame anyone for PC bugs without some real evidence.

[Darth Invictus]

Truncated ending or no, I quite liked it and found it generally superior to the original, although of course lacking the original's freshness, which was probably unavoidable. You know, unaware of the endings that were excised, I found the ending that is present affecting and enjoyable. It certainly wasn't significantly better or worse than the original KOTOR's ending -- in fact I found the whole Trayus Academy sequence very reminiscent of the battle royale in the Star Forge -- and I liked Kreia's newsflashes of my companions and the worlds I'd visited. The parting shot was poignant and left me wanting a sequel.

 

For me, they delivered ... but perhaps I'm simple.

[Master Dahvernas]

Truncated ending or no, I quite liked it and found it generally superior to the original, although of course lacking the original's freshness, which was probably unavoidable. You know, unaware of the endings that were excised, I found the ending that is present affecting and enjoyable. It certainly wasn't significantly better or worse than the original KOTOR's ending -- in fact I found the whole Trayus Academy sequence very reminiscent of the battle royale in the Star Forge -- and I liked Kreia's newsflashes of my companions and the worlds I'd visited. The parting shot was poignant and left me wanting a sequel.

 

For me, they delivered ... but perhaps I'm simple.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't think you are "simple". I think that is a very valid opinion of the game.

 

In fact, I do like the "darker" themes and more in-depth character revelations than the first one... But the fact is they never wrapped those interactions/backstories up that I and many others have a problem with more than the game itself if that makes sense?

 

Yes. The game is very buggy... But I think a lot of the anger toward OE and LA is the fact that this is becoming the norm for PC Games (vs. consoles) where developers are given impossible deadlines they know they can't meet and publishers ship out unfinished, untested and buggy games just to make a quick end-of-the-fiscal-year profit to put on their Stockholder reports to make everyone at the corporate level feel better to be blunt without any real consideration for the gamers who actually helping BUILD that end-of-year profit margin FOR them.

 

I think this is the real, underlyng anger that a lot of fans are venting at OE and LA right now... And it is justified to a certain degree.

 

 

Ill wait for a patch to come out before I move on.. However If they dont address the many plot holes in the patch I will not be buying or supporting LA or OB anytime in the future. I can deal with a buggy game just not a unfinished one.

 

This is also a legitimate concern. Unfortunately, OE has said there is not going to be any kind of "resolution" to the cut-content and what we bought is what we get, unfortunately...

 

So again, this point of view is valid and I also share it because the game is just not finished content wise. Period. No ifs, ands or buts.

[CrashT]

Troll.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hypocrite.

[Darth Jebus]

And here's more evidence that OE is doing the best they can to respond to their fans and try to correct things.

 

Again, we're free to critisize all we want. Hell, constructive critisicm is probably encouraged. But Chris Avellone has not only responded, he just created a friggin thread to discuss the patch.

 

He also just said that a content patch was requested by OE sometime ago, and LA has never responded.

 

So, not to beat a dead horse, but like I said a while ago, the majority of my ire has been reserved for Luca$art$.

 

Not that that would do anything either, btw.

[Darth Jebus]

Okay, f*** it. I am going to beat a dead horse.

 

These are the people you should be yelling at:

 

Sorry Needed to Edit out the Names.

 

Taken from this thread here.

 

For what it's worth. Though, not much I suspect.

[Haitoku]

Truncated ending or no, I quite liked it and found it generally superior to the original, although of course lacking the original's freshness, which was probably unavoidable. You know, unaware of the endings that were excised, I found the ending that is present affecting and enjoyable. It certainly wasn't significantly better or worse than the original KOTOR's ending -- in fact I found the whole Trayus Academy sequence very reminiscent of the battle royale in the Star Forge -- and I liked Kreia's newsflashes of my companions and the worlds I'd visited. The parting shot was poignant and left me wanting a sequel.

 

For me, they delivered ... but perhaps I'm simple.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree with everything you said

 

And it's true... Kotor ds or ls ending wasn't much better. But It did leave me with a feeling of... closure I guess. Kotor2s ending left me wanting more, and maybe that was the hole point?

 

 

It's an amazing game.

 

EDIT- Any story that leaves you actually feeling something for the characters and their struggle deserves praise

[gamesneal]

No we can"t move on. I love all the technical improvements, (switching weapons, empty containers, reading datapads without having to scroll thru inventory, etc) but I hated the heavy hand of the story. Kreia was obviously evil from the start but you could not do anything about her. So many plot developments violated known game rules with some mumbo-jumbo explantion. Kreia offing the Jedi council with a wave of her hand, Darth Nihilus wiping out planets with his special hunger power, Sion unkillable in Korriban, you having to run from him, Handmaiden beating the hell out of Atris but Atris sudenly wining the battle, no matter if you had a mask or immunity Mira knocking the PC out. Goto wants a live jedi but the bounty hunters trying to kill you.

Many of the characters who join you have no motivation and you have no reason to allow them on the Hawk, but later a lame explanation of your "special" ability to bond with others and get them to follow. No reasonable plot but a seccession of Deus Ex Machina.

The constant insulting of the player was gratuitus. Revan departing and if LS acomplishments in vain, Republic in trouble, jedi dead and scattered, i.e. everything you did in Kotor was a waste, you are a war criminal for the destruction of the mandalorians at MV but at Dxun no problems with working with them. There is a hole in the Force, Obsidian understands nothing about Star Wars.

[Haitoku]

Obsidian  understands nothing about Star Wars.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are the kind of fans that keep pissing me off....

 

It's not like Star Wars huh?

 

BIG DEAL.

 

God forbide someone try to tell a different kind of story.

[AlanC9]

Goto wants a live jedi but the bounty hunters trying to kill you.

 

I'll cut them slack on that one, since it's explained. The bounty hunters are exceeding their instructions. Goto doesn't much care --- if they can kill you, you're not what he was looking for anyway, so it's no loss.

 

  Many of the characters who join you have no motivation and you have no reason to allow them on the Hawk, but later a lame explanation of your "special" ability to bond with others and get them to follow.  No reasonable plot but a seccession of Deus Ex Machina.

 

It's just a straight-up ripoff of the Planescape: Torment situation. But somehow it seemed more reasonable in an out-and-out fantasy game

 

you are a war criminal for the destruction of the mandalorians at MV but at Dxun no problems with working with them.

 

Now that's just silly. "War criminal" isn't a meaningful concept to the Mandalorians. Why should they have a problem with you?

[AromisTallion]

I give KOTOR 2 a

 

8.8 out of 10

 

 

I thought the game was pretty good, and I hate all of you people bitching, 'cause you know what I bet that now that Republic Commando has come out you will bitch about that too. You know opinions are like @$$holes, everyone has one, and it seems like alot of you are to immature to realize that every game that you play is going to have problems due to time constraints and the parent company wanting to make a quick buck, but you always buy the new games anyways so live with it.

[Lurker]

Is this only me, but doesn't this whole thing remind anybody the Star Wars - Galaxies combat rewamp that never arrived. I never played the game but I had also lurked at those forums while the discussions were most heated. A few reminders of that incident:

 

1. The game was in alpha shape while they called it the beta.

2. Game goes live in an uncompleted shape (bugs and game balance issues)

3. Developers promise things will be sorted as they go along (carrot dangling)

4. They don't fix things, instead put more content into it

5. The lead developers are made to work on an expansion instead of the patch

6. Every attempt they make at balancing the game breaks it further (Maybe they should take some game balancing and polishing lessons from blizzard guys )

7. They release the expansion for essentially a broken game.

8. I stopped lurking at that time, so don't know the rest but don't think they fixed anything

 

How it relates to the current discussion is I believe there is a pattern about the LA guys approach to SW games:

1. Get in

2. Milk the cash-cow

3. Get out

 

I believe there won't be a content patch for KOTOR. LA got what it wanted, they moved in, got the quick cash, got out. From this point on they don't have anything to gain so why would they care. As the obsidian folks have said they are already working on their next game. (This is likely more information than LA folks would like them to release) It's highly unlikely they will ever look back. Put yourself in their position for a while. You know that you can practically package junk (no I don't imply that KOTOR2 was junk), slap the SW logo on it and it will sell! From their (manager/beancounter) perspective KOTOR2 was a big success. KOTOR is a classic (and that is thanks to BIOWARE not LA) and KOTOR was a good game which sold well. The sad truth about LA is they don't care about the SW franchise or as we like to call it the SW universe. Anything playable with the SW logo will sell and that is all to care about.

 

About KOTOR, it is a classic thanks to bioware. They weren't that easy to push around and had more resources to spend on the game. They can risk lower profits and resist LA in order not to damage their reputation. Obsidian in the other hand is a new company. Besides LA most likely forced them an offer like: Take it if you will do it in 12 moths or we'll find another company that will bend to our desire. It is also likely that the bioware people saw this coming and that's why they delegated the sequel to another company. 12 months is nowhere enough for a game that intends to be the sequel to the best thing that ever happened to the SW universe. The deleted stuff shows that obsidian wanted to make it another classic and they were indeed on the right track to accomplish exactly that.

 

Now obsidian doesn't have the resources to put up the content patch. Even if they had the resources LA wouldn't allow them to do it because it would put LA in a bad point from a PR perspective (ie. reveal them for what they really are)

 

On other various ramblings, I believe NWN2 will be one hell of a game. First obsidian people are the ones that created the games we (crpg players) love. I personally for one respect these guys and their games. Second nwn is bioware property. I trust bioware will not act in a way to hurt their reputation and property. nwn just doesn't have the kind of blind followers (like we are) LA is enjoying with SW intellectual property.

 

What will happen now is, (I believe) LA will force OE to close down the forums (clean any evidence against them, don't let the community become more informed, oh boy I can't imagine how much they wanted to shut down SW-galaxies forum ) It's just plain sad that the dedicated community get's this treatment. You can't really see them pull these kinds of tricks off with non-SW games. LA has other really good games, (monkey island, grim fandango, full throttle) and they were all finished and well polished because they needed to be good to sell without the SW logo.

Then they will wait, until we cool off and forget. And forget we will. I am not sure whether whey will do / are doing a KOTOR3. I expect/hope even they know that they can't get a KOTOR3 in 12 months.

 

I just hope (but don't expect since who would stop milking the cash-cow we are?) someday LA changes her attitude towards SW-games.

[AromisTallion]

About KOTOR, it is a classic thanks to bioware. They weren't that easy to push around and had more resources to spend on the game. They can risk lower profits and resist LA in order not to damage their reputation. Obsidian in the other hand is a new company. Besides LA most likely forced them an offer like: Take it if you will do it in 12 moths or we'll find another company that will bend to our desire. It is also likely that the bioware people saw this coming  and that's why they delegated the sequel to another company. 12 months is nowhere enough for a game that intends to be the sequel to the best thing that ever happened to the SW universe. The deleted stuff shows that obsidian wanted to make it another classic and they were indeed on the right track to accomplish exactly that.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Actually KotOR was being made before the first game was released. Which would have given them a little more time to work on it. But I agree with the fact of Obsidian being a new company, and they would want to get a big hit under their belts to start them out on the road to greatness. LucasArts probably gave them an offer to make the sequel and then when they had gotten started LA told them that they had to step up the process so they could release the game earlier.

 

Now I don't know about all of you, but when I have someone breathing down my neck at work wanting something done sooner than it should be done things get done half-@$$ed. I in no way actually blame Obsidian for anything about the game. I blame LA for making OE rush a great game. But oh well, now I have moved on from KotOR to Republic Commando, and then I will move on to Episode 3, and whatever games for Star Wars that come out. (Praying for a KotOR 3 and Jedi Academy 2 {Preferably with Xbox Live features})

[213374U]

it seems like alot of you are to immature to realize that every game that you play is going to have problems due to time constraints and the parent company wanting to make a quick buck, but you always buy the new games anyways so live with it.

No.

 

 

I in no way actually blame Obsidian for anything about the game.  I blame LA for making OE rush a great game.  But oh well, now I have moved on from KotOR to Republic Commando, and then I will move on to Episode 3, and whatever games for Star Wars that come out.

Behold this masterpiece of illogic. First you proceed to take any blame off from those who actually made the game, and place it all on the publisher. Then you state how much you hate LA. Following which, you say you will buy any SW games that come out, no matter how crappy they may be. Yeah, that's pretty coherent. You love to hate LA.

[Zeshin]

Well, I feel that K2 is an overall enjoyable game. It's not without it's issues, but it is an admirable job from the OE team.

 

As far as some comments about LA not willing to allow a content patch, based on reasoning of poor PR....well, I think it's a little too late to be worrying about bad PR frankly. There's plenty of press out there for K2, both good and bad, with much of it being thrust upon LA.

 

As a big Star Wars fan, I find it a difficult decision not to purchase new games set in the GFFA. I do so enjoy playing them.

 

Getting back to PR, LA is in a sticky situation. Yes, they own (or whatever legal definition is the choix du jour) the game, and they can do (or not do) whatever they please with it. Whatever happens, they are pretty much damned if they do, damned if they don't. The bug fix patch coming will be a welcome thing, to be sure. A content patch....I think it would do more good than harm. A lot of people see it as LA admitting to a mistake. Well, in a sense, they would be correct. Still, releasing a content patch would at least show they also want to fix that mistake. That action alone would prompt me to continue buying LA products.

 

It's all subjective of course, and I'm sure some LA financial group has a bunch of equations they use to determine the monetary impact of such things.

 

For me, if LA continues to stay silent on the issue, I will not purchase their products. If they do not release a content patch for K2, I will not purchase their products. If they release a content patch (or allow one to be released), then I will continue to purchase their products.

 

Yes, I know, big deal. It won't hurt their bottom line. It won't change the way they do things. Quite frankly though, I have no desire to continue to pay for unfinished or rushed games.

 

We'll see what happens I guess.

[Darkling]

While I agree that asking for a content patch is pretty much asking for the moon from LucasArts, I don't think asking for a proper expansion pack would be out of line. If we, the fans, let LucasArts know that we want Obsidian to create an expansion pack, they would be crazy to not take the opportunity to make an extra $30 off the large number of folks who have already bought this game. Not that I'm knocking LucasArts for wanting to make money, since I would definitely be one of the ones paying for it.

 

It's up to us, people. We can present a united front and get results, or we can continue to complain...

[drowninginjello]

I agree Darkling.

 

Demanding something from a company that has no comprehension of the word 'free' where Star Wars is concerned is very unlikely to produce results.

 

Let's be patient and wait for the patch. Once the patch is done and released, then we can calmly mention in the LA boards (not Obsidian's boards) or even start a request board for an expansion pack over at the LA boards.

 

Once LA see's this, they are likely to hear the din of cash register drawers closing and cash receipts printing and push for it.

 

On the subject of KOTOR 3, let's please not jump the gun. I've a bad feeling that LA won't be having Obsidian do KOTOR 3 because of the patch and bugs (LA will pass the buck and the blame).

 

I hope I'm wrong on that bad feeling, though.

 

[Judge Hades]

I agree that a content patch needs to be done and I am sure that the Obsidian people would have no problems in doing one if they get the go ahead and funding from LucasArts. The question is will LucasArts support their game. personally i hope that Lucas Arts does get someone else to do KotOR 3. Not because Obsidian wouldn't be up for the job. Quite the opposite. I don't think that Obsidian should be saddled with a publisher with unrealistic expectations who don't give a crap about the game in the first place.