Comparing Intro Levels

[dufflover]

Which intro level do you think was the best? It can be for any reasons, but try to leave quest bugs out of it (although I suppose this mainly applies to Telos).

Vote and tell us why

 

I say Taris:

- great peaceful & Coruscant-style atmosphere

- good demo of RPG's: walk around, talk around

- lots of situations of LS or DS choices

 

And NOT Peragus or Telos because:

- Peragus starts alright, but then it just drags on, on, on.....on on on.

- Peragus has no real conversations; not every level needs to have lots of different talking but I don't think it's a good first impression or sell.

- Telos loses to Taris in side quests

 

Telos is probably more like the Dantooine of K1 rather than an intro level, since it's an initial world you can return to with interplanet quests, but if it was between only Peragus and Taris, well, I don't think Peragus has a chance. Even if Peragus was shorter, Taris does a better case of "showcase"-ing KotOR.

[Hive]

Taris, hands down.

 

Peragus was boring, repetitive and linear.

 

Telos was too short and small. Though some of it's quests where pretty good.

[DevilCat]

Taris - cool city, many places to go, lots of sidequests. Telos Citadel Station wasn't bad, but I prefer to run around in the open air rather than steely corridors. Sure it also has interesting sidequests, I particularly like helping the Ithorians. But Taris still wins. Peragus would be ok if it was shorter like in.. half. Hate running along the same grey corridors, especially without any companions at all. It's just boring as hell. <_<

[turner105]

I'd say it was a tie between taris and telos because although taris allows for more npc interaction and choices the missions on telos are more interesting.

But I have to say I despise peragus it drags on soooo loong and it just puts me off going through the game again because I know I've got to drag myself around that damn mine.

[AlaricQelDroma]

I'd say it was a tie between taris and telos because although taris allows for more npc interaction and choices the missions on telos are more interesting.

But I have to say I despise peragus it drags on soooo loong and it just puts me off going through the game again because I know I've got to drag myself around that damn mine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Pah! I say they are ALL bad.

 

Taris had graphical flaws throughout the entire map(s) that caused the framerate to crawl at several points, where the framerate would be silky smooth in other areas.

 

Peragus was even worse, especially right after you got off the elevator to the fuel depot from the mining tunnels...That area is SO messed up graphically that I was crawling at 5-12 FPS for much of the level...It did stop by the time I reached the Tech Officer's console room, but from the elevator to the engineering console, the entire thing was a slideshow...

 

Yet, Dant runs perfectly...It has nothin' to do with my settings or my hardware, it has everything to do with model and/or texture mishaps in the level-design, which can and BETTER be fixed with the patch (assuming we ever see one, damn you Lucasfarts!! )...

 

If it wasn't for the total slideshows at certain points with Peragus, I would not mind it so much, as it DOES give you a ton of items that become critical if you duel with Vrook first (mainly selling them off to make creeeedits to buy thermals)...

 

Telos was ok...Ran as silky as Dantooine did...Same terrain, for the most part, and Telos was fun for me...I loved doing everything DS and screwing Grenn...I even made a mod two days ago to allow me to slaughter Grenn (The game will crash afterwords, heh...) if I wanted to :D

 

Here's the way you manage to buy those early thermals for Vrook: Get the creeedits from the bad Duros, and from Jana Lorso, between them I got something like 12,000 credits, when combined with selling off all the extra crap you get at Peragus and so on..

 

I almost never use upgrades until I get my saber, the first upgrade is the Bio underlay for con and regen, the second, if I can, is one or two middle-tier non-ion saber upgrades...The only way I could survive Vrook's first attack and manage to hold out until I could get behind that left tree to heal again was by having a very high CON (I had 18 by the time I fought him at level 12, which also set me up for a Universal D-Pack by the time I faced my second "Master" at level 18 or so)...

 

I always give CON to all my allies until they hit 18, the reason? There are two D-Packs: Universal, and Immortality...Those two are VERY useful, Immortality is INSANELY useful on people with low feats like Kreia and Atton, and Universal makes you and the carpet virtually unstoppable when you combine it with other equipment.

 

Heh, having Master Toughness and +4 CON pretty much takes care of the low-health, low-feat people, mainly Kreia...I remember using her throughout the ENTIRE game once...People say single saber blows, but when you have enough HP on Kreia, and Master Tough, she is a wrecking machine, the only way she ever got stopped was by mass nades or devastating mines, which she almost never got hit with anyway..Silly AI

 

Kreia's EXP bonuses and her innate Storm/Death Field spamming, combined with yours and another Jedi of your choosing, will outright vaporize just about every enemy you ever face.

 

Pah...Ok, I've spammed this post enough now I think

 

Sorry for the rant, but I had to say my bit

[dufflover]

Gotta admit, very lenient having Telos as an option....

 

Alaric, how would rate them on quests then?

[AlaricQelDroma]

Gotta admit, very lenient having Telos as an option....

 

Alaric, how would rate them on quests then?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Quests-wise...I think they could have been more extensive, far more extensive...When Lorso simply finished with the Exchange, I felt bored because there simply was not enough killing and creeeedits to go around.

 

Telos's quests...UGH! They were WAYYYY too linear once you hit the planet's surface!

 

I mean, there are two, big, shiny doors in the base level that are locked!! WTF is with THAT? Why did they even leave those doors there if they cut the sub-level out because of the HK-50/Droids thing?! Those doors should have been WALLS!

 

Don't even get me started on the Peragus quests...Talk about LINEAR...Even Taris was less linear than Peragus was!

 

I think I'll be re-doing the quests a little when I do my mod...I really dislike the entirely-too-linear nature of the starting quests...K1 had more extensive gameplay all-around!

 

K1 took me four days to finish the first time I played, and K2 took me one night! I was like "WTF?!" when I finished K2 so fast..

 

Granted, my complete mastery of K1 would doubtlessly made K2 a total breeze, but I can't even beat K1 in less than 2 days, even when I rush through it.

 

K2 I can finish within 8 hours, hands-down.

 

That just shows the linear nature of K2, and the depth-less nature of the quests in the game.

 

Taris lasts 4 hours, Peragus/Telos lasts 2 hours...At least for me. That just shows how un-complex K2 is compared to K1.

 

Of course, with enough modding, I can fix K2, and I will once I finish with X-Wing Alliance. I promise that. When it comes to SW and modding the franchise's games, I never give up, even if things seem impossible to mod, I keep going. SW game modding became my life after the LSF fell 7 years ago.

 

I'm even working on this stuff while I am at work (Heh...Having a rock-stable network gives me a lot of empty time as an admin ), so...

 

I hope I can go to Cali and get my game design degree soon, within the next 2 years...I've been in college for 5 years now, getting my network admin degree, but I don't like being an admin, not nearly as much as I love designing games, so I'm going to try to change my career, hopefully working with SW games...

 

The one company I will never have anything to do with: Electronic Arts...Those clowns suck even worse than Lucasfarts does right now, if you think Lucasfarts and their console/prequel game obsessions are bad, just take a look at how addicted EA is to those type of crap games

 

I tried modding Battle For Middle-Earth, and I made some huge success, but EA never released an actual patch for the game to fix the de-functional code of the game...Kinda like what LA is doing to Obsidian and K2 right now...Sigh...

 

I won't give up on an SW game like this, but if this were any other franchise, I would have left this game alone a long time ago...Not with the nearly de-functional nature of K2...

 

When I see a patch coming soon note from the developer, and the publisher withholds the patch against the developers wishes, well, that tells me all I need to know about the game's future, which won't be a happy future...

[Rosbjerg]

both had some nice elements .. but Peragus quickly felt to lonely and since you could easily kill the robots you never felt "scared"..

 

I thought the quests of both places where good! it was cool to discover what happened to the miners and it was cool to try and find a way to rescue Bastila!

 

but the tutorial level "Endar Spire survival" vs "Ebon Hawk repair mission" TSL wins .. it felt really cool to control T3 and repair the flying remains of your former ship

[Sarjahurmaaja.]

Peragus would've worked better if the robots were less common, tougher and wouldn't have made so much noise. Probably having less human contact would've worked better, too.

 

edit: Or, rather: Peragus would've worked better if it had been more like System Shock 2.

 

Still better than Taris, which was pretty but boring.

[Kor Qel Droma]

I thought Taris was better than Peragus. Peragus felt too linear, while the amount of time you could spend doing pretty much what you wanted to on Taris was quite cool. I agree with Rosbjerg in that the tutorial for TSL was much better than the one for KOTOR

[AlaricQelDroma]

both had some nice elements .. but Peragus quickly felt to lonely and since you could easily kill the robots you never felt "scared"..

 

I thought the quests of both places where good! it was cool to discover what happened to the miners and it was cool to try and find a way to rescue Bastila!

 

but the tutorial level "Endar Spire survival" vs "Ebon Hawk repair mission" TSL wins .. it felt really cool to control T3 and repair the flying remains of your former ship

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ah ah ah! It's *NOT* your former ship!! :D

 

It's REVAN'S SHIP, *NOT* the Exile's...Be more clear and concsise when you make such statements

[Rosbjerg]

it actually is *my* ship .. Bioware approached me before making KOTOR for the rights of using my interstellar ship in their game .. so get *your* facts right buddy!

[AlaricQelDroma]

it actually is *my* ship .. Bioware approached me before making KOTOR for the rights of using my interstellar ship in their game .. so get *your* facts right buddy!   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh, blow it out yer ass!

 

Come on, let's not get into a pissing contest over who designed the ship first...That has happend in the XWA community far too often, to listen to it going on here

 

Pah! I remember the debate over the Nebulon-B Frigate that was made at the XWAU, first DTM made one, then Master Qui-Gon comes and makes an even better one, but then that confuses everyone as to which Frigate is official XWAU

 

Naturally Qui-Gon and Darksaber said that the new Frigate was not XWAU, but at the same time, neither was DTM's...LOL...Still haven't resolved that little debate.

 

I still look at Qui-Gon's Nebbie as the real XWAU version, as DTM's looked rather...Cartoon-ish...

[SteveThaiBinh]

Taris didn't work for me after the first time. Running around doing quests and helping people knowing that they're all going to die is just depressing. It affects me more when I play LS than DS, of course.

 

Still, at least it wasn't as bad as Ultima VII: Serpent Isle, where nearly every living NPC was wiped out.

[darth spock]

I didn't really like Peragus except the music and the Atton dialogues for female Exhile. After playing the entire game of KotOR I many times, I hated Taris... dragging on, and one quest depending on another meaning you do someone else's servant work, fetching this and that. There was a lot of stuff to do on Taris which made it more interesting than Peragus. But I can't really compare the two because they're so different:

Peragus: You're all alone in your underwear fighting mining droids with either a lone vibroblade (vibrosword?) or a mining laser. You start off as a somewhat-amnesiac Jedi in a kolto tank. Peragus only takes about two hours tops (if you're slow).

Taris: You've got four team members just joining you on Taris. You've got armor and equiptment galore. Starting off you are just a soldier, scoundrel, or scout. Taris takes me three hours if I do all the quests. It's a lot of legwork too

[kalimeeri]

Glad I'm not the only one who liked Peragus as an 'intro' level. It seemed just long enough to get into the rpg spirit, and to get used to handling the game engine with your main character. It introduced the NPC's smoothly, without handing out a ton of unrelated sidequests--those tend to get a bit frustrating when all you want to do is get off the rock. Through it many aspects of the backstory are hinted at. I really don't mind it at all.

 

Telos was a natural progression, with the complications that 'organic' interaction brings. Hats off to level design, to avoid needless backtracking and running from area to area to area to solve quests. The transport devices were neat, although the station itself was so small I'm not sure they were needed. My first game, I didn't even notice them, and wasn't really annoyed about the running.

 

Strictly speaking, Taris was not really the intro to K1; Revan woke up on a ship he had to get off of. It was very short, and I tend to forget it. Taris flatly annoys me. I HATE that planet and cheer every time it gets blasted from known space. In terms of pacing, the sidequests slowed the story to a crawl. For me, the game never really gets started until I get off that floating hunk of... :ph34r: It is the Nar Shaddaa of K1, long and heavy. Not quite saying its placement in the game is wrong, just that it's personally frustrating (which is probably exactly how Revan felt).

[Janson]

Well, I was going to write a long reply but I think that kalimeeri put it much more succintly than I would have done!

 

Peragus seems quite long the first time, but when you go back and replay the game I think it is just the right length; not overly long, not really short either. There is an excellent atmosphere perpetuated throughout the level. The HK droid was really very creepy. Having droid opponents felt more appropriate for a low-level character than having to try and fight ridiculously weak non-droid opponents.

 

Kreia and Atton's introductions were very nicely handled, and are very typical of their characters.

 

Taris - in Taris there is just so much pointless running around. The corridors and levels are very long. I realise that you can return to your hideout instantaneously but if you are trying to do all the quests there is still much running around to be done...

[Darth Frog]

it felt really cool to control T3 and repair the flying remains of your former ship

 

Ah ah ah! It's *NOT* your former ship!! :D

 

It's REVAN'S SHIP, *NOT* the Exile's...Be more clear and concsise when you make such statements

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

LOL, you should engage your ultima-brain before activating your ultima-vocabulator to make ultima-blunders. Rosbjerg was Revan in KotOR, and so the Ebon Hawk is certainly his former ship - he bleeding stole it personally from one hood called Davik! And so did you and I and everybody else. :D

 

Regarding the poll, I concur with all people who liked the TSL intro better. The Endar Spire feld artificial and constructed, the typical KotOR 'emergency' where everybody stands around bored and yawning.

 

As regards the newbie areas: getting to play T3 on Peragus and getting to meet an HK were nice touches, and the story was probably on par with the original KotOR. On Citadel there was even a somewhat consistent quest/event chain (Czerka vs. Ithorians). But gameplay-wise Taris wins hands-down, absolutely no contest.

[AlaricQelDroma]

it felt really cool to control T3 and repair the flying remains of your former ship

 

Ah ah ah! It's *NOT* your former ship!! :D

 

It's REVAN'S SHIP, *NOT* the Exile's...Be more clear and concsise when you make such statements

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

LOL, you should engage your ultima-brain before activating your ultima-vocabulator to make ultima-blunders. Rosbjerg was Revan in KotOR, and so the Ebon Hawk is certainly his former ship - he bleeding stole it personally from one hood called Davik! And so did you and I and everybody else. :D

 

Regarding the poll, I concur with all people who liked the TSL intro better. The Endar Spire feld artificial and constructed, the typical KotOR 'emergency' where everybody stands around bored and yawning.

 

As regards the newbie areas: getting to play T3 on Peragus and getting to meet an HK were nice touches, and the story was probably on par with the original KotOR. On Citadel there was even a somewhat consistent quest/event chain (Czerka vs. Ithorians). But gameplay-wise Taris wins hands-down, absolutely no contest.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh blah blah blah!

 

Don't you dare turn this into a troll/flame-war, the last one I fought with the XWAU lasted years, and it's still not over, and it will probably never be over...I don't think you want us to be hunting each other for the next 10 years

[GhostofAnakin]

Taris. More things to do and less linear. Plus a significant amount more NPC interaction on Taris, which I enjoy.

[Aegis]

Taris, easily. It felt more alive than Telos. And obviously more alive than Peragus.

[Odinson]

Taris. Especially the commentator in the battle arena.

[Fionavar]

OT: I assure all involved that flame wars will never last years @ Obsidian ... so let's not bait one another into one ...

 

/now back to your regularly scheduled banter ...

[Odinson]

What's a flame war?

[Gorth]

I didn't vote, because polls like this are generally useless. I'll just make a quick note of what I liked and disliked about each.

 

Taris: Was fun the first time through. It had sewers, 'nuff said, no self respecting crpg should be without sewers, I love sewers. The quests were pretty basic, but introduced you to a bit of background, the Sith and everything else with a big red sign that said PLOT THIS WAY -->. The downside to Taris was, after the first run through, you A) didn't care because you knew the planet would be nuked anyway and b) You wanted to avoid levelling up because of the stupid unvountary jedidom enforced upon you.

 

Peragus: Pretty much the same as Taris, was interesting the first time through, because you could piece together a rather interesting story of what happened after your arrival. Suffers the same drawbacks as Taris too, the place gets nuked and it's just getting a few xp and some loot and off to start the "real" game.

 

Telos, I would compare to Dantooine, and frankly, I liked dealing with Ithorians, Czerka, The Exchange, The TSF and others more than killing Kath Hounds and settling feuds between farmers (and that murder case that I made a point of avoiding after the first time)...