Disappointment.

[Darth Flatus]

Much conceit you have to believe all your long winded posts would be read hmmm?

[Saberist]

JediHuh,

 

>>

what fun would the game be if you couldn't walk through an army of sith by yourself laying waste to them with your saber, and I got my light saber on my first planet after telos so I had it for the majority of the game.

>>

 

I didn't. And given that, IMO, the Saber IS what makes the Jedi who s/he is as a status symbol 'class weapon', making me fight for half the game with conventional swords that look like cavalry sabers on steroids lessens 'the moment' when I first start acting like a Jedi again.

 

I also found it bitterly ironic that I couldn't get one for ages but then every refugee on Nar Shaddaa started handing them out.

 

Waaah-Waaaah-Waaah-WAAAAAAH.

 

That said, you are NOT a Jedi when you start. So it would be nice if, either you had to be saved by (what you thought was) one to have a sufficiently 'cold water, large bucket, moment' so as to wake up to the threat of what was now chasing you. Or if you had to use alternate means (Dark Forces = GUNNER) to survive.

 

i.e. if Cloaking Fields depend on proximity and 'displayed weapon' as a function of technology and not Force Morals intent, why can't you use a grenade and run away? You certainly should be throwing them from distances too far and/or too much 'around the corner' broken LOS to be detectable.

 

>>

if you didn't like the game thats all good. but some people play video games to get away from reality. if everything was as realistic as how you want it your character would be dead as soon as its sees its first oponent that hits it wiht a sword or shoots you.

>>

 

Indeed, I would rather the notion that Armor IS 'blaster proof' to at least some degree.

 

And similarly capable against mechanical weapons like vibroblades.

 

But I want a saber to be like liquid death.

 

Killing or incapacitating 'on contact', with every touch.

 

With that combination of sneakyness and smarts (and a high level JEDI in your party, which is what the robes that Kreia wears, if not the Code by which she acts should mean) you should be able to survive long enough to get off Peragus.

 

I would also add that you should be 'eligible for government contract' rewards (taking the various log tapes from Peragus station would make a lot more sense than the notion that there is some kind of 'wreckage' left to analyze after the entire Asteroid belt goes up in a manner similar to the appearance of Peragus Prime).

 

MONEY is the key to success in all the KOTORs.

 

Because cash buys tech. And with tech, you can leverage a small force against a larger one.

 

Until the point where you ARE a Jedi. And can walk through armies like they weren't even there.

 

>>

man take it easy its just a game. and just because someones opinion of love doesn't match yours it doesn't mean that that persons view is wrong.

>>

 

I'm not suggesting that it does. However; your own viewpoint, intentional or otherwise is that you can't have a 'realistic' Star Wars environment without either making it impossible to win. Or impossible to enjoy.

 

My counter to which is that if it flows along in a fashion by which your subconscious is 'secretly agreeing' with all the things that are happening; then it is EASIER to immerse yourself in the moment of gameplay.

 

Even as it is more dramatically intense because you FEEL the terror of consequence inherent to real defeat leading to real death.

 

As an example: Say that the Sith Soldiers do indeed disable the Hawk 'just like that' (Massive Ion Charge over the engine bays or a simple Grenade up the exhaust).

 

Kreia isn't with you, having disappeared 'someplace' behind (and you _decided_ not to wait any longer as a function of making your dash to the Hawk as the docking port depressurization alarms go off, telling the Sith _exactly_ where you are and what you are doing.).

 

Having 'made the best decision possible' you are still captured. And end up being hauled before Sion at the front of a mass of his troops when...she appears.

 

Why did she wait to save you NOW?

 

Maybe because she KNEW that the Ebon Hawk could never escape a Republic Cruiser (tractor beams and heavy cannons which DON'T MISS).

 

Maybe because she wanted you to lick the taste of Raw Terror that was the result of a dedicated Loner and Runner facing off with a Sith Lord determined to rip out your heart and eat it while you watched.

 

In any case, she does what _you_ want, 'wailing away' on the conventional troops and forcing this living Terminator back and back yet further.

 

So that you can then escape while he twitches on the ground (electroshocked or death fielded into 'possum mode'). As MORE Sith troops respond to the alarm on the Cruiser.

 

And she can't finish him (or maybe she just doesn't want to) before you are forced to flee.

 

NOW, you get to disable the Cruiser and/or set it to explode. Before stealing the Sith Marauder (those troopers had to come from somewhere and I doubt that they could ALL be cloaked and not detected by the Cruiser's Republic 'away team' sensors) as a NEW SHIP to play with.

 

Why is such realism a 'bad thing'? IMO, the Ebon Hawk looks like a Cylon Raider that had a nasty collision with a set of woodclamps. It's painted like a U-Haul trailer. It is _MASSIVELY UNCOOL_ to look at.

 

A /true warship/ (milspec sensors and weapons systems, not merely cobbled together 'smuggling' civil tech) could be ever so much more interesting. Even as it gave you a visual metaphor for 'breaking away from the last remnants of KOTOR 1'.

 

Rather than trying to Bondo cover the Frankensteinian seams of two such disparately themed storylines.

 

ALL because _I_ gave realism. And _YOU_ got the Jedi you wanted to be.

 

HAD TO BE. To overcome the level of /accurately/ 'threat modelled' enemy capability present.

 

 

Saberist Out.

 

 

P.S. One of the coolest moments in the game comes when Kreia walks across the bridge to the Trayus academy and all those Sith Assassins appear around her. Only to fall dead, without a single 'sign of cause'. At her feet. THAT is **Power**, because it doesn't come with a flash and a bang. But silently and irrevocably.

[Saberist]

Alan C,

 

>>

The engine and combat mechanics: The KotOR games are not swordfighting games, nor were they meant to be. In an RPG, the character knows about swordplay, but the player does not. If you want tactical swordsmanship, look to the JK series. And adding long-range combat would have been just silly. Even if Obsidian wanted to just throw out the Odyssey engine and start from scratch with something like the Unreal engine, that just wouldn't look like Star Wars. Which is, you know, the point.

>>

 

This is where you are wrong. Jedi Knight was a fun FPS which broke down as soon as you got a saber because the inability to independently control Facing (always turning to meet your opponent 'head on' means you don't have to worry about footwork. It also means that your REACH is about 1-1.5 _feet_ shorter than if you turn sideways and extend your arm out laterally). Pacing (how fast you fight with a given expenditure rate of total strokes). And Spacing (if you fight on the outer 1/3rd of a weapon, you can take on opponents stronger than you because they cannot 'lever' a blade lock until you eat their edge. But you also have to swing across a tip arc which covers as much as 4-6 FEET of swing and is therefore /very/ tiring). All meant that you were reduced to basically a 'run and slash' type methodology.

 

Saber-X helped this a /little bit/ by giving you more independent blade cuts but in turn it required MORE SKILL to combine mouse angle and key board leg movements to 'set' the attack pattern.

 

OTOH, JKA and JKO were not games of any sort so much as interactive movies with automated (big thumb) saber fighting.

 

_MY SYSTEM_ is based on a combination of the two. In that you 'know', from the stance and weapon hold position of the character if not his clothing color, what Kata it takes to beat him. Sith low-level (Assassin, Commando etc.) training not being as 'flexible or complete' as that used by Jedi. Because they fear giving away powerful techniques that might leave them vulnerable.

 

Facing and Spacing and Pacing are keys that can be controlled independently. But are also integrated within the Kata System of cuts. Which, 'as you earn, so do you learn' to expand upon. While STILL using them as basically preprogrammed (1 thru 0) selectable attacks.

 

In this, you can have /wildly/ 'sophisticated' attack forms (30-50-100? Even a 'creator tool' to make new ones at the player's own preference). And each one executes fluidly as they do in JKO/JKA.

 

BUT.

 

WHO you attack /first/ (second, third) is still -tactically- important. Because if X + Y have 9 and 7 strokes and you only have 9 yourself, you _cannot_ afford to be locked up fighting both of them, when Z comes around the corner with another 5.

 

'Swordplay' doesn't exist. It is desperately hard, sweaty, /exahusting/ WORK. Just watch the original _Three Musketeers_ or _Rob Roy_. But once you master it to a given level, it tends to (especially in battle not foppish 'duels') become instinctive with ingrained psychomotor pathways and 'muscle memory' leaving you much more time to choose /how/ the battle goes rather than -what technique- specifically you are using.

 

I am far from so foolish as to think that you can emulate a system as complex and dynamic extreme a physical activity as swordfighting with a keyboard. I _want_ the cool animations that make it all 'look like a movie'. But I want to UNDERSTAND how those animations _will kill_ a specific opponent so that I can know that, at least in my head, I am in control of what techniques I employ. As a function of what tactics /between/ individual enemies I can use to improve my survival.

 

>>

General storyline: Your main objection boils down to Obsidian not writing the story you would have. And you actually have a couple of workable ideas. But proclaiming that "K2 was supposed to answer the question of 'why'? Why be an emperor in charge of an endless herd of sheep when you are a minor god in the things you can do on your own." displays impressive arrogance. What K2 was supposed to be about simply isn't your call to make.

>>

 

Perhaps. But it is wrong to ask 50 dollars for a game that falls so short of what it promises. If a snake oil salesman promised cures for everything from the common cold to lethal diseases and the only thing that happened was the town got drunk and he 'got away' (slithering into the night) then that is one thing. Obsidian and Bioware made MILLIONS on KOTOR and K2. And yet they failed to fix what was wrong initially (a 'statistical' rather than /tactical/ fighting system). And they 'stayed til morning' on the dialogue based story that never went anywhere.

 

To steal a line... "Get a rope."

 

>>

Having said that, I'll agree that the motivation for seeking out the Jedi Masters in K2 is very weak.

 

Kreia: I'll accept that it's possible for her to have been Arren Kae, though it's not very well supported by evidence. But to call her motivations selfish is preposterous. She's willing to die to further her goal of shaping the Exile. (Do Sith ethics permit that?) And if she considers herself expendable, how much more so would her lesser servants be? Also, she is a Darth Treya; there have been others. Kreia did not create the Academy. She found it, presumably after the battle of Malachor V.

>>

 

Kamikaze's were willing to die to further their ends of an Emperor who was himself a hollow figurehead. As a function of this, they NEVER ONCE attacked a ship en-masse. Never ONCE had someone standoff or even "if you don't find a carrier, come back!" to _return_ with an after action report. And so they ended up one-man, one-ship fighting most of the battles from the PI to Okinawa without any REAL chance of victory.

 

What's more their dogmatic willingness to forfeit life based on a 'Samurai' ethic of having no VALUE for those who chose to surrender (all the atrocities in Malaysia, The PI, Wake Island, China etc. etc.) made them seem so un-human that many historians believe the hysteria of the atom bomb attacks (we would have won in another 6-10 months based on strangulation of their economy and attacks on their food sources) was a _direct result_ of their seemingly rabid desire for 'to the last man, woman or child!' battle lust.

 

In the end a seemingly noble willingness to sacrifice themselves 'for a cause' thus brought about even worse horrors upon those they nominally _should have been_ set to protect.

 

I play lightside 90+% of the time. From that perspective, Kreia brought down a 'Samurai's' fait upon hundreds of millions of lives. To further the goals of what (K1) set out ot be Revan's desire to _protect_ those lives is contraindicated to the point of being a contradiction in terms. This IS Obsidian's fault because rather than make Revan a standout character in his own right, changing _in the eyes of the player_ as he is recalled through Exile's memories.

 

i.e. Obsidian can't afford to follow in Bioware's footsteps so they utterly assassinate Revan by reinventing his motives a _Darkside_ based, while excusing their actions based on introducing their own hero, Exile.

 

Yet in doing this, they pull the same idiocy that Bioware did which was leaving the central character himself so devoid of driving motive 'who you are' that Exile is, at the end, no less a phantasm of Kreia's delusional behavior. Than Revan was a 'belief' held by the likes of Juhani, Mission, Canderous and Bastilla in K1. You _do not kill BILLIONS WITH A B_, in needless conquest of their independent lives, only to 'suddenly redeem yourself' through a few minor Boy Scout quests.

 

Nor can you support such actions as Exile OR Kreia by making it seem like your own slaughter of innocents mimics or justifies his actions.

 

If Obsidian wanted their own hero, they could just as easily have crafted a niche in the SWU for him. Humble or otherwise, it is better to be your own man than to stand in the shadow of someone you are not, trying to steal his limelight. Grafting one atop the other just leads to a beast of many heads with ZERO 'continuity' inherent to knowing any of them.

 

>>

The war against the True Sith: We can't argue coherently about this since we don't know what's going to happen in K3. But it's likely that this will not be "war" as the term is commonly understood. No fronts, no armies, no positions. DS Revan had armies of Dark Jedi. He deliberately threw them away. Therefore, armies of Jedi are not valuable. (The implication is that Revan developed new insight after K1, since before his reprogramming he had been attempting to create such armies.) Edit: possible alternative explanation -- DS Revan has gone over to the True Sith.

>>

 

Fine. In military doctrine there are two kinds of 'auxilliary missions'. Force Enablers. And Force Multipliers. An enabler is a preexisting condition (a UAV to find targets or a stealth strike fighter to knock out a radar or command center) that MUST be happen before a lesser (capable) mission element can accomplish their own objectives. A Force Multiplier acts /within the execution window/ of a given mission to add to or increase the effective capabilities of a given warfighter. An ECM pod is not a force multiplier because it means losing a weapons pylon that could otherwise carry more fuel (to hit targets deeper in enemy territory) or another bomb to improve the weight of fire or number of targets struck. A dedicated jammer plane that acts as either a standoff or penetration escort IS a force multiplier however because, in trade for it's specialized platform cost, the fuel needed to send it along for the ride and loss of bomb carriage by ONE plane, it renders all aircraft around it safer and more lethal.

 

Given we have already seen (in the movies) how little Jedi can do to effect the course of 'real wars' (on a soldier to soldier basis), it can only be that they are 'Force' Enablers/Multipliers who open a hole for or ADD TO the mundane grunts ability to fight.

 

The difference then being how many such specialized assets you have available. Because, again, 'real war' is about not fighting merely in one place but in many. And if your Jedi is not on the field, he is not able to support the mundane anyway.

 

Such is a critical consideration when you realize that creatures such as Nihilous would _still require_ 'full military force' assets to deal with his planet-killing abilities on the level of 'first you must find before you can kill him' level of phantom Osama Binh Laden wombat hunting. And yet, without a Jedi to cancel out his 'wide area death field' abilities, those conventional forces would not be able to close with and annihilate him, even once he was pinned.

 

THE ONLY ARGUMENT which could be made for the 'better a few good than many average' (Ultra Jedi, Jedi, Mundane) is that 'there can be only one' Force user in a given battle. That ALL available Light/Dark power tends to flow through a single polar avatar and there is not enough left over for anyone else to use.

 

Somehing I don't buy given the size of the Galaxy and the nature of 'two Jedi, one Sith' battles in the movies.

 

>>

Gender representation: It's highly amusing to see the same arguments that feminists developed fall into the hands of whiny white males. Sauce for the goose, eh? Though as a white male myself, I'm kind of embarassed by this sort of thing. Thousands of years of male supremacy trickling out like this?

>>

 

There is no doubt we live in a feminized society in which 'whiney' socialization skills exceed those of the traditionally isolative combattant/hunter 'physical' male. However; what your counterargument is truly endorsing is even worse than 'my opinion'.

 

Namely that if all power corrupts, blacks, hispanics, orientals and females in general are still too stupid to occupy a position of power from which they are MORE THAN shunted-aside victims of the 'superior males' (the whole scene with Kreia getting brutalized, followed by her 'indignities' comments later on, -screams- of rape as the only accepted 'gender norm' means by which females can suckle at power like Mynocks on a Conduit but never TAKE IT or indeed MAKE IT, for their own.).

 

Don't accuse me of primitive reasoning when I am working AGAINST the blatant sexism by which Obsidian and Bioware -each- present females in 'situationally compromised' positions.

 

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Sion: He couldn't really perceive Kreia, so couldn't kill her. But he guessed what she was up to. This explains why he didn't finish her off. When your assumptions start to give you trouble, it's time to reexamine them.

>>

 

Sigh. I put any three 'normal' men in a pit with Bruce Lee or Jean Claude Van Damme or (name your favorite martial artist) on condition of 'only a single survivor will be thrown a rope'. And you can lay pretty good odds on the Martial Artist being the winner. And probably sooner rather than later since his edge will diminish with hunger and weakness eating into his mental as much as physically focussed superiorities, like anyone else.

 

OTOH, I can put TEN MEN into that same pit with a half starved Tiger and you'd better have a ramp handy. Because kitties can climb paw over paw.

 

WHY make a female deliberately weaker (blind) and then humiliate her with _mental_ incompetence (her 'vision', no better than his that he could strike blindly and amputate a limb while she could not even add a new scar)? Only to leave the audience 'Forced' to believe that that Tiger, living for others pain and locked in a _coat closet_ of sealed space. Didn't manage to finish her off.

 

Bahhh. You denigrate the Jabberwhockey, you denigrate the Hero sent to kill it.

 

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Malachor V and WMDs: Not really sure where you're going with that. Our last 'industrial all out attrition war' ended with the use of WMDs too. And the moral aspect of mass destruction doesn't change whether the means used is Force-based or standard technology. Either way, it's power, and death, and responsibility.

>>

 

But that's the whole point. WHY is it that an army of 'ordinary' Jedi is no better than a Just One? Indeed, WHAT is it about Jedi in general that lets them compete in a system of systems based logistical/industrial attrition warfare environment to begin with?

 

In Bastilla it is clearly an ability to reach out telepathically and amplify the sense of 'oneness' (cogs unite!) in Mundane warriors. In Exile is an _empathic_ skill to sense 'the battery itself' which is The Force that -every living thing- bonds itself to the universe with. The difference being that of understanding the binary code by which a computer acts to execute programs. And the base electricity by which it is empowered to do so at all.

 

These are PERSONAL things. Things which 'make a hero a hero'. Instead of 'history as a dry record'.

 

If you cannot recognize the difference between compelling drama (emotional/moral struggle of the individual with whom one can identify as a person) vs. the 'grand struggle' which HAS NO personality. Then you aren't getting the moral and philosophical basis of _story telling_.

 

Kreia's baseline moral motivation is that All Power Is Dangerous. But where it _should have gone_ was towards a Player-as-Audience realization of the conflict inherent in determining "Is it in the use of personal power for larger goals that the danger of faulted perception leading to skewed objectives is corruptive? The exploitation of larger (than self) power for personal goals that is wrong? Or is it one and the same with only the 'in moment must be balanced against shifted outcomes' situational ethic that matters?

 

As is, the hero causes suffering and yet is 'let off the hook' at the end (by vacant story telling resolutions) on the notion that it's 'not really his fault after all'.

 

And that's just wrong. Because however 'entertaining' creative dreaming is, it should also never fail to teach you a lesson about yourself.

 

The Mass Shadow Generators then are just a last-second DEM means to rescue the player from facing his own conscience in the face of a pyschopathically delusional Kreia whose own morals have no 'point' of reasoned endgame.

 

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Mira: There's a lot of outright babble at the beginning of your reply. At first I thought you were on drugs when you posted it.

 

Anyway, which confrontation are you referring to? Under Jek'Jek'Tarr, Mira is justified in believing Hanharr dead. And at Malachor V, she can kill him at the player's option.

 

But no argument at all with the throwaway nature of the M5 sequence. The whole ending of the game is deeply compromised. (I presume you're up to speed on the cut endings... if not, there are plenty of threads and a restoration project.)

>>

 

Unless you quote me the exact nature of my psychobabble AND the reasons for you disbelief or misunderstanding, I will assume you 'get it just fine' and this is merely the cheapest way you can whine you way into a counter argument.

 

FWIW, I assumed that (if there ever was an original, linked, idea-package on where KOTOR was supposed to go other than to the bank with my money) they were creating three archetypes for an Herald. A Shapeshifter. And a Goddess Encounter/Guardian character rather than have simply a single 'hero'.

 

The first to open the way into Campbell's 'Special World' of self discovery. The second to upset the player/audience perception of what the nature of that gateway if not the man who unlocked it by circumstantially different 'witness recollection'. The last (AT LAST, a deliberately -dominant- female protagonist!) a means by which the divergent male psyches can be either thrown off the path of a false quest (traditional dribble of the egotistic male 'humbled' by the all-seeing femme). Or forced to merge their attitudes in achieving it before returning them to the 'normal world' of post-quest resolution.

 

Since Kreia is no longer alive to fulfill this role, the 'firey-independent redhead' character stereotype seems a far more dynamic (barely self-balanced) mode to work with than either the stiffly unresponsive Handmaiden. Or the easily dominated 'lushly evil' Visas.

 

But if so, they did everything they could to subsequently make her seem _incompetent_ which is something NO hero mold should allow. Again, this is so incredibly (misogynisitcally) 'ironic' to me because it virtually yells out that someone on BOTH development teams can only view a strong female as one who submits to even stronger males.

 

From the moment Hanharr is in a position to shatter her spin with a simple twitch of his wrist (no trained bounty hunter would let such a dangerous threat within TEN FEET of them, unrestrained). To the time when 'all bets are off' and she STILL fails to kill him in the Arena. To the moment when (admittedly I, myself) failed to kill him on M5 (because I _hoped_ that her's would be the 'civilizing' influence that kept Exile from becoming ferally lethal like Sion. Or natively dishonest in a psychotically manipulative fashion like Kreia).

 

ALL these things point to a woman who is in fact _weak_ 'only until it comes time to TAKE THE PLACE of the male she has beaten.

 

Mira is not being set up to fulfill an honest to goodness female heroic arc. She is just another 'gender normed' (nobody has gonads, everybody is femm'd out) blah narrative tool that...goes nowhere.

 

>>

Jedi bashing: yep, it's hard to not get the sense that the Jedi Order has failed in the KotOR games. But this is just like the films.

>>

 

The sadness is that one of the many (false) assumptions you can try to take away from Kreia's 'live life without The Force, rather than through it's wisdom'. Is the notional ideal that she is creating a smarter, stronger, less inhibited OR overreacting Jedi. When in point of truth, none of the Jedi Masters of the films is as strong as the weakest of the Jedi Padawans in the game. Thus she has (somehow) castrated the connection by implying that it is a corruptive influence rather than an 'all encompassing' enlightened one.

 

Something I find to be a particularly BITTER pill to swallow because right up to the last, she is using The Force to do everything from break free the Ebon Hawk to telling Exile 'what he should discover for himself'. And never once is the hypocrisy of her nihilistic suicidal superiority complex brought into question.

 

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R2D2 and droids: Destroy his behavior core and anything you rebuild is a new droid. So yes, he can die. Sure, he took a shot to the head. But who says the core's in his head.

>>

 

Fair enough. I still believe that Lucas uses automatons to isolate himself from risk of audience and/or ratings 'disapproval'. And in turn the /attitude/ that this has spawned is one of self-indulgent refusal to understand the CLASSICAL REASONS for story telling sacrifice and tragedy. Namely that the power of victory is both stronger and more bitter-sweet when it is 'in memory' of those whose souls live on only in your heart.

 

It's one thing to make an automaton take the dismembering blow. It is another to turn humans /into/ behavioral automatons. Because they are never put in a position to Have To Choose.

 

That you then have endless iterations of Deux Ex _Machina_ intervention as both the ultimate symbol of evil. And life's salvatation from it. Is just... not what the first film's argument against technologic reliance was about I guess.

 

>>

And bringing up the fact that nobody important dies in SW films is true. But again, not relevant to anything. Does this thread really need any more subjects?

>>

 

It was a thread I started to illustrate what is being done SO WRONGLY in the KOTOR series as to need complete reconstruction to be saved in this or any followon Jedi/SWU based game.

 

As such anything which is relevant to those mistakes is applicable. And I included the 'machine replaces conscience at too many levels' notion in my opening argument.

 

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I'm going to have to call BS here: "It is clear that Lucas is too frightened of his fanbase to do more than play 'sop to the saps'; killing ONLY non-living creatures (imagine if every droid soldier that was effectively cut in half at the waist by a saber on Naboo and the orbital battleship was in fact a human)." This completely muddles up two distinct concepts -- the death of a creature and the visual spectacle of its death. Lucas doesn't kill characters, whther droid or human. He butchers cannon fodder right and left, both droid and human. Due to ratings issues, the droids tend to die less cleanly than humans do. But that's just a tendency. Humans are dismembered too -- Luke, Anakin (twice!), Jango Fett, the bar thugs in ep. 4.

>>

 

I forget what the exact standard is (I looked it up in an argument about the use and abuse of 'PG-13' in _Aliens Vs. Predator_ forum of IMDB) but it's clear that you cannot show an excess of 'red blood' and you cannot show /the act/ of dismemberment, without bumping up the ratings. This is why ESB was shown the way it was as a 'scenclipping' between holding the saber and having the hand flying away AFTER. It is why Ben lunges and filips in one shot and the arm is lying on the ground in the next.

Even in the scene with Maul there is OBVIOUSLY no 'wound' inherent to even a hairline cut in the Sith's clothing. Yet, from one frame to the next as he falls, the distance-blur doubles and his body separates, cleanly, without sign of massive bleeding or organ descent as the supporting mesentary and cavity encapsulate/structure is lost (diaphragm and ribs compresse to contain the lungs etc.).

 

ROTS stands a fair chance of being worse if the multiple leg amputations and severe burn issues are true and Padme does indeed suffer major brain and/or spine damage as a function of being slammed into a wall.

 

Yet the fact remains that even /they/ will be 'post accident scarring hidden' by the masked visage symbolism of the gargoyle Vader suit.

 

What I am saying is that THERE IS A MISTAKEN DISCONNECT. Between the reasons Lucas hides and/or limits his 'kills' _in an MPAA_ environment. And the ones which should NOT equaly apply to a game. Namely, you can rate a game 'teen' and not chance horrifying a 8-12 year old. You may also save and go back to 'alter fate' if you don't like the way things turn out.

 

AND by virtue of activateable dismemberment (JKO but not JKA) and 'clever storytelling' you can make death seem terrible because of _what you lose_. Both in personality and in _capability_. Compressing your choices through the loss of force options by which to accomplish a goal 'more cleanly'.

 

Yet: "Angus was a brave man, we will miss him tonight. We will miss his sword..."

 

Applies only if Angus is indeed GONE. And as long as that doesn't happen. As long as you confuse a movie need for a 'happy happy joy joy' ending with a _victorious_ one in which there is a /chance/ for happiness to be found again. You lose one of the deepest meanings inherent to ANY War Story.

 

Namely that it /hurts/. And for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, that 'hurt' is inherent to never getting a chance to be 'happy' in this world, again.

 

Such is the sad sack endgame that Lucas has cut out for himself with the guaranteed OT/PT flop he has engineered for himself. Because 'knowing Vader' is knowing a small minded, spoiled, brat. Who (the Galaxy) would have been better off remaining a slave because the ONE EVIL he killed, was not so strong as to need his 'special' attention (the ROTJ ending was pathetic).

 

While the notion that the 'happy ending' of the OT is justified on a -technical level- of 'this came /before/ that?' filmmaking craft is utterly laughable.

 

The point I am trying to make in this instance is that it is _better not to go there_. Attempting to link stories through different creative teams without any real coherency of motive or arc. When you could break away from ALL assumptions. And simply make _K3_ free of the foibles which have ruined it's parents. And the movies which begat their twisted moral sense.

 

>>

You seem to be simply assuming that droids aren't people. There's no evidence of that in the SW universe. Lucas certainly doesn't think so. The droids were originally going to be major characters. (Whether a droid is capable of moral choice or not is an interesting side-issue).

>>

 

A droid whose basic behavioral functions can be externally alterred 'without say or guilty conscience afterwards' is not human. Lucas, whether intentionally or otherwise, illustrated this with both the R2 flight into the desert. And 3P0's misadventure as an SRS 'changed' battledroid (actually grew a pair, whodda thunk it). It will be FURTHER highlighted by the notion that one or both are mindwiped to 'hide all secrets' of the kids at the end of ROTS.

 

Any time you can erase a personality 'without damage' of creating and overlaying another one atop it, you are illustrating a NON HUMAN, UN-PERSON-AL characteristic.

 

You could not inflict such soul-altering effects without severe damage to the mind and body of a human. That is what makes them valuable 'as is'. That is further what makkes their 'never the same again' /deliberate sacrifice/ a more deeply felt gift. Whether they survive their risk or are lost to it.

 

>>

Personal shields: Good point that we don't see them in the movies, and so they shouldn't exist in the KotOR games. Blame BioWare, not Obsidian. They set this up in K1.

>>

 

As stated above. Who Cares? Make a game the way YOU want it. So long as it is an improvement over what came before (and I would be lying if I did not admit that I have as many if not more 'issues' with K1) continuity doesn't really matter. If only because the notion that a _20,000 year_ technology base has never improved beyond the level of OK Corral Gunfights and Saber Duels is itself ludicrous.

 

In particular the best Combattive Force Power out there is likely Force Enlightenment. As it auto-activates all your 'best' Speed, Shield, Energy Absorb options while doubling the fluidity and lethality of your Saber work.

 

WHY THEN can I not hit a similar 'go/no-go' switch on my ARMOR to enable all available stims, activate power amplification of movement and/or bring online _inertial dampeners_ to make the physical impact of blaster hits more withstandable.

 

Ahhhhhh, you see, you _don't have to have_ shields to make your armor 'better able to withstand hits'. Or indeed to make Combat More Fun. You just need to have an ability to make _staying on your feet_ after the impact more believable! (Look at the Millenium Falcon /staggered/ by ISD hits on her shields and tell me that these are simple 'light beams').

 

The thing which should replace shield-technology and 'explain' how armor works without being effectively destroyed with hits of energized plasma that strikes with MEGAJOULES of force and heat is this:

 

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fict...asp?NewsNum=108

http://www.argee.net/DefenseWatch/SillyPut...Soldiers%20.htm

 

In that, imagine you are wearing a suit which uses 'something like' STF. But in a form which 'explosively' evaporates and forms a countershock (like reactive explosive tank armor) to prevent both physical breaching and thermal overload of the outer plate. As part of the supercooling process by which this paste returns to a superdense but viscously mobile 'sludge', then being that some element of it is vented off. And so for each hit you take, your Liquid Ablative Reservoir or 'LAR tank' _goes down_.

 

And for each enemy body whose kit you rifle through /after/ a kill. You get a refill on your STF sludge tank, from his.

 

If there is time.

 

Such would rewards the player who follows the soldiers code of 'short wars, not sport wars' (no dancing about with melee weapons in a gunfight or fighting against overwhelming odds 'just for the helluva it' for instance).

 

Even as it makes the pursuit of 'more accurate fire from a bigger gun' a realistic possiblity for both YOU _and_ YOUR ENEMY. As your ability to connect with each other without 'critical damage' (statistical bull crud) as a constant dice toss is relevant to your own ability to control your troops engagement level and exposure (break contact, press to a finish tactical command options).

 

Indeed, once you achieved a basic armor level, suit defensive AND offensive capabilities (weedeater type scythe blades built into shoulders for 'close combat' anyone?) should come as _automated_ addons that did things like provide powered exoskeletal anthropomorphics (necessary for all 'heavy' class systems) so that you didn't suffer a mobility penalty.

 

And the inertial fields I mentioned which made being spun around by a 'lucky hit' less likely to take YOUR sights off your enemy.

 

Even as it rendered the process of robbing the dead less ugly/unbelievable (during the middle of a literally 'running' gunfight where maintaining contact is critical to avoiding ambush, what IDIOT stops the parade?) and more practical (no 'suddenly' finding Unobtanium Type B armor on a dead Sith Private!).

 

I -hate- having to waste Melee rounds 'pumping up the jam' on combat modifiers when ONE BUTTON 'break glass in case of emergency' internal hypo and combat system activation should be the norm.

 

Even as I _despise_ the notion that once a fight breaks out, I am STILL going to be in an endless series of 'fight-pause-restart' modeals. That just destroys all sense of the 'urgency' that is battle. Especially on spaceships with perhaps a couple THOUSAND crew for me to wade thru.

 

 

Saberist Out.

[Jedihuh?]

wow, Im not going to even bother reading that, all I can say is...at least your passionate about complaining! I don't think I could sit on this site for I dunno how logn it took you to write what you wrote. my eyes hurt just grazing through it. to the point tho. It was a good game and the majority of the people think the same. despite the cut content. Maybe you should try some Half Life 2 that game was pretty real looking.

[Xacharia]

I think Saberist is mad

[Aishur-Rim-Nisheshu]

[diplomatic]He's extremely... passionate...[/diplomatic]

 

His posts give my right index finger a good cardio on the scroll wheel, that's for sure. All pumped up!

[Vashanti]

Sounds like you would be happy with a different game than the KOTOR series.

 

I suggest uninstalling them and giving them to someone who might enjoy them.

 

Doing a wipe of your memory core regarding KOTOR and KOTOR2 would also help.

 

:ph34r:

[Darth Flatus]

In addition to what ^he said delete your posts.. and stop snorting coke before you post on the boards

[AlanC9]

Ah, another Saberist tome. I'm not sure I can keep up with these, but I'll indulge once more, mostly because you obviously need help.

 

The JK series vs. the KotOR series: such a lot of wasted typing from you, since you missed the point completely. Whther or not JK did swordfighting well isn't the issue. I agree that the saber duels weren't all that -- I've seen better melee combat implementations.

 

The point is that tactical swordfighting is something that the JK games should try to do, and something that the KotOR games should not try to do. It's simply out-of-scope for a statistics-based RPG.

 

General storyline: That depends on what you thought you were promised with K2. If you thought you would get a different combat system you are, frankly, an idiot. As you yourself said, they made millions on K1. Why would you expect Obsidian to rework a major aspect of a successful game? What's the incentive to do that?

 

Obsidian promised nothing but more of the same, with a plot written by their people. And we got exactly that. You didn't like the story they wrote? Well, that's a shame. (I thought the story was just Planescape:Torment with lightsabers, but since I like PS:T, that's not a big strike against it.)

 

Kreia: More typing with no discernable purpose. Your discourse on the Kamikaze ethos is true, but irrelevant. (You're making a habit of that.) It has nothing to do with the question at hand -- is Kreia a Sith? Or have you abandoned that proposition? You should, since it's untenable.

 

But to say that Obsidian reinvented Revan's motives as Darkside-based is not only untrue, it's the opposite of the truth. Kreia argues that even DS Revan's motives were fundamentally LS. He needed to go DS to preserve the Republic. (You're stumbling around the edge of a really interesting topic -- Kreia's view implies that the LS/DS dichotomy is nonsense, which is a blatant assault on the metaphysics of the SW universe. I'm amazed LA approved)

 

And when you talk about Bio and Obsidian "leaving the central character himself so devoid of driving motive," you show a fundamental ignorance of the nature of RPGs. When I'm playing a character, I provide the driving motives. I am playing someone who ordered the MSG used. But I decide why he did that, and how it felt to do that. (Some RPG purists would say that you shouldn't give an RPG character that much backstory. If you want to take up that topic, let's move over to the general forum, or maybe RPGCodex.)

 

The war against the True Sith: I don't know what you think you're responding to.

Third time now: However the struggle with the True Sith is portrayed, it will have to be consistent with DS Revan abandoning his position as leader of the Sith, with everything that implies. Since your ideas on how such a war could be fought are not consistent with this decision, your ideas are going to be proven incorrect.

 

Gender representation: What did you imagine I was endorsing? I just find it quite pathetic that white males are now trying to play the "victim card."

 

Sion: What "sealed space" are you referring to? That level was pretty open, and she could always run back to the upper level.

 

The MSG, the Force, and heroism: If the Exile killed me, it doesn't matter if he did it with the Force, with his lightsaber, or by ordering Bao-Dur to flip a switch. I'm still dead, and he's still personally responsible. You were the one trying to make the technological means an issue, but you have articulated no basis for that.

 

And for someone who likes to pontificate about "the moral and philosophical basis of story-telling," you don't seem to have a very good grasp of stories when you experience them. You've completely misinterpreted Kreia's motivations; in fact, you've interpreted her motivations in contradictory ways. (She's a Sith! No, she's delusional! No, she believes All Power is Dangerous! Pick one, already)

 

And you persist in declaring what the game should have been about. Again, not your call. Write your own game if you think there's a story that needs telling.

 

Where did you get the idea that the hero is let off the hook? There is no suggestion that anything he did was excused by anything

 

Mira: I was snarkily pointing out that you often post a lot of concepts that have nothing to do with the ostensible subject. Specifically, the quotes from Predator. Nothing to do with KotOR, since Hanharr hadn't done any personal damage to Mira at the point she spared his life. I'll apologize for the snark, and give up pointing out the obvious. Your style is your style.

 

Why you made assumptions about the archetypes that would go into KotOR is beyond me. Even assuming that there was such a detailed plan -- and there almost certainly wasn't, from what I know of the development history -- what made you think you would come up with the right ones?

 

Though it is consistent with your intellectual style. You seem to pick a theory and then try to pound facts into whatever shape they need to be to conform with it. So let's turn to the facts:

 

In the arena Mira believes, reasonably, that Hanharr is dead. I don't know enough about the limitations of Force Healing to know what level of damage this implied, and the gore-free engine isn't much help. My interpretation is that he actually was dead -- heart stopped. (This could help him, since if he exsanguinated it might make Force Healing him much more difficult.) You may have a different interpretation of his condition. Neither interpretation can be proven with evidence, but my interpretation has the advantage of leaving Mira competent. Once again, the troublesome aspects come from your interpretation, not the facts as presented.

 

Jedi bashing: come to think of it, there's a second assault on SW metaphysics. It pretty much looks as if Kreia's right -- there is no truth or wisdom in the Force.

 

Droids, etc.: You know, it's been said that Lucas has droids because he likes droids better than people. He certainly doesn't seem to be very good at working with actors. And I'll agree that Lucas' portrayal of heroism is hollow.

 

Speaking of sacrifice and whatnot, it appears that Obsidian had originally intended for some of the companions to die in the endgame, though the exact plans are unclear (Atton seems to both die and live, for instance). It seems that LA approved; Obsidian got as far as recording VO dialogue for these endings, which is how we know about them.

 

Having seen Anakin's being, um, disarmed in Ep. 2, I don't see how more gore would have changed the meaing of the scene.

 

"And simply make _K3_ free of the foibles which have ruined it's parents. And the movies which begat their twisted moral sense." -- OK, so it's a Star Wars game, except not. And a sequel to KotOR 1 and 2, except not. You're joking, right? You buy the license, you buy everything that comes with the license. Especially since the games have been successful.

 

Droid mindwipes: Yep, they're not human. But they're not simply things either. We need a new category.

 

Personal shields: Again, what you're asking for has nothing to do with KotOR, and not much to do with Star Wars, and no chance of being implemented. And you know that already. So why bother with typing all that irrelevant nonsense?

 

Thanks for the ROTS spoilers, BTW.