Kotor 3: Ideas and Suggestions

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

With Atari as their publisher it will break Obsidian.

 

Remember ToEE and MoO3?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Complete agreement on my part. And it's worth noting that the same was true for Kreia - she was completely linear throughout the game with no choice by the player altering her actions.

 

Obsidian were considering an alternate ending, where Atris would have taken Kreia's place as Darth Traya, but interestingly it was dropped as soon as the deadline was approaching, which only seems to underscore the idea that deep characters are impractical in a CRPG unless their development is fixed and linear and therefore completely predictable to the developers.

 

Something similar can be said for Jolee in KotOR1. You could argue that he was not linear, since he dies in the dark side ending, but the only difference is for Jolee to object wildly to the main character's decision, only to then immediately be killed off by the player and then replaced by another NPC in the group. Jolee had no death scene and his demise had no noticeable influence for the rest of the game - he might just as well have been injured and unavailable in the group, since the only consequence of his death was that you could no longer select him among the NPCs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Kreia is very much a constant which definately adds to her strength as a character.

 

Well there is a sort of catch 22 with the whole choice thing. And its this. Most people dont actually finish games, let alone replay them. Generally this means that you cover more people by making the game longer and more detailed, rather than making the game more replayable.

 

KOTOR only lets you kill off NPCs when they are no longer required. It really dosnt matter if you do kill them or not at that point. You wont be seeing them again anyway. Obviously you cant kill someone off when you meet them because they are required to tell the story. For example without Bastila you dont have much of a story at all so she has to be protected from death by the writers. It dosnt make that much sense from a realism point of view, but thats one of the dowsides of using the party as the main plot story telling device.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

IMO, there needs to be at least 3 ways to finish the game:  LS victory, DS victory, no victory (at least in K1 there was the illusion of the DS path being a seperate path).  While I have not played it, I have heard that the classic cRPG Chrono Trigger is all about multiple ending possibilities.  Also, VTM: Bloodlines has multiple endings as well.  And Pirates!, while not properly a cRPG per se, explored the multiple ending thing quite well....options, such as marriage and military rank, were also incorporated quite nicely.

 

It does become more complicated with voice acting and 3d animation, I suppose, but the next game absolutely has to be less linear than K2 IMO.  As I see it, the trick is to only have about one or two NPCs in the game that are absolutely essential to the main story...everyone else is expendable.  if you get married, your spouse is little more than an informant that you get info from on a certain planet (again, think Pirates!).  If one of those 2 essential NPCs gets killed off, then you get to complete the game without full victory (but that is not the only way to get that ending).  Party members can be killed off and/or rotated out and faction affiliation determines what your overall NPC pool is anyway.

 

Don't make K3 Morrowind (true open-endedness) but give us more than one possible path and give more of an illusion of openendedness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well JE has a surrender monkey ending but it's totally pants and a bit nonsensical.

Chrono Trigger has a LOT of endings, but it also has the possibility of being a really short game.

Pirates is different. A lot like Princess Maker in the way that your career is rated and your given an ending. It's not really a game model that you could fit into story based RPG because the whole idea is that you are writing your own story each time.

FFX-2 has several endings, but they are not based wholy on picking options, but rather are a rating of how complete you were. Ditto with Suikoden , in order to score the best ending you need the 108 stars. Otherwise you get a very different ending which you wouldnt exactly call happy. Star Ocean has something like six buried in their somewhere. Shadow Hearts II is much more straightforward with two endings.

 

Different games require different approaches. I'm happy to admit i'm totally spoiled by 20+ minute ending cinematics and that things like KOTOR are all very blah when it comes to endings. I see the ending as my reward as the player of the game

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

It does become more complicated with voice acting and 3d animation, I suppose, but the next game absolutely has to be less linear than K2 IMO.  As I see it, the trick is to only have about one or two NPCs in the game that are absolutely essential to the main story...everyone else is expendable.  if you get married, your spouse is little more than an informant that you get info from on a certain planet (again, think Pirates!).  If one of those 2 essential NPCs gets killed off, then you get to complete the game without full victory (but that is not the only way to get that ending).  Party members can be killed off and/or rotated out and faction affiliation determines what your overall NPC pool is anyway.

 

Don't make K3 Morrowind (true open-endedness) but give us more than one possible path and give more of an illusion of openendedness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

One of the key elements is how important is a particular aspect to the game you are designing.

 

If you take something like Harvest Moon. Getting married is a key element of the game as is forming relationships with the other villiagers. At the same time, you have to run a profitable working farm (which is where most of the gameplay is) but what you do on the farm will carry over into the more social elements of the game too.

 

For example another key aspect is finding out what each person likes and dislikes.Giving them something they like will make them like you more (in KOTOR terms you get possitive influence) giving them something they dont like will make them like you less (negative influence). Forming friendships will get you things like recipes (which you can then use to gain more influence) access to locked rooms in their houses which will play new cutscenes. And most useful perhaps, they will open their stores out of hours for you.

 

But the biggest influence factor is getting married and unlike your typical dialogue based stuff, this one takes some real effort (and a ton of cash). Because while you are wooing your prospective wife. So are some other people in the villiage. And if you wait too long, then your rival will end up marrying her. So it's not just a case of someone sitting around and waiting for you to ask, work too hard and dont spend enough time socialising and you will find yourself out of prospective wives.

 

Of course in a game where relationships and marriage dont play such a large part it would be nonsensical to spend quite so much time on it wouldnt it?

[Meresin]

I'll be happy as long as the NPC party members are a lot more interesting and interactive. I liked the influence system, but I think that there should have been more dialog rewards along the way as your influence with a particular party member got higher.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I'll be happy as long as the NPC party members are a lot more interesting and interactive. I liked the influence system, but I think that there should have been more dialog rewards along the way as your influence with a particular party member got higher.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well that would be one of the advantages of a smaller pool of NPC's if you halved the number of NPCs in theory at least you should be able to give each twice as much dialogue.

[Dark Moth]

If they do include the influence system in K3, they should seriously rework it. It was a good idea, but poorly executed. In K3, they should design it so that you can get full influence with NPC's as both a LS and a DS. In K2, it was a pain having to play through again as a different alignment just to be able to earn full influence. And in many scenes, it seemed as if the NPC was influencing you, not the other way around. *cough*Kreia*cough*.

 

One thing I did like was being able to do more than get just dialogue, but more rewards such as exp., abilities, or converting the party members into Jedi. K1 did that with HK-47, K2 took it a step further. If they can rework the influence system to make it more player-friendly, it'd be perfect.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

If they do include the influence system in K3, they should seriously rework it.  It was a good idea, but poorly executed.  In K3, they should design it so that you can get full influence with NPC's as both a LS and a DS.  In K2, it was a pain having to play through again as a different alignment just to be able to earn full influence.  And in many scenes, it seemed as if the NPC was influencing you, not the other way around.  *cough*Kreia*cough*.

 

One thing I did like was being able to do more than get just dialogue, but more rewards such as exp., abilities, or converting the party members into Jedi.  K1 did that with HK-47, K2 took it a step further.  If they can rework the influence system to make it more player-friendly, it'd be perfect. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But thats the whole point of the influence system. It's to represent the reality that people with like goals and outlooks become closer and those without dont.

While you can obviously manipulate people by pretending to be their friend (another thing the influence system allows for) you are to a certain extent going to have to play their game, and that may in fact rub off on you.

 

Kreia is simply beyond everyone else in her experiences.

 

At some point you have to draw a line between being player friendly (ie spoonfeeding the player) or challenging the player. Since Bioware appear to have the spoonfeeding thing going. Its nice to see something with more depth from Obsidian.

[Dark Moth]

Yes, but the definition of influence is being able to convince others to your way of thinking. In K2, you weren't able to do that. If you stuck by with what you believed when an NPC disagreed with you, you lost influence. If they want to make it better, they should design it so that you can convince/manipulate people into agreeing with you to gain influence, even if they disagree with you at first. In K2, you had very little of that.

 

Often, you had to choose dialogue options that were the opposite alignment of you if you wanted to gain influence. With HK-47, I frequently had to choose DS dialogue and loose my LS mastery just to gain influence with him. With that, it's not fun, it's just a chore. Just because something is "player friendly" doesn't mean it's spoon feeding.

 

And I don't know if you noticed or not, but most people like not having to bust their brains just to gain a little dialogue and influence. From what I've seen and read, most people actually liked the K1 system better because it was an easy sure way of getting information from party members. The influence system would have been better, but it was poorly executed and so many people were dissatisfied with it.

[Nartwak]

Chrono Trigger isn't a cRPG Plano Skywalker. <_<

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Yes, but the definition of influence is being able to convince others to your way of thinking.  In K2, you weren't able to do that.  If you stuck by with what you believed when an NPC disagreed with you, you lost influence.  If they want to make it better, they should design it so that you can convince/manipulate people into agreeing with you to gain influence, even if they disagree with you at first.  In K2, you had very little of that. 

 

Often, you had to choose dialogue options that were the opposite alignment of you if you wanted to gain influence.  With HK-47, I frequently had to choose DS dialogue and loose my LS mastery just to gain influence with him.  With that, it's not fun, it's just a chore.  Just because something is "player friendly" doesn't mean it's spoon feeding. 

 

And I don't know if you noticed or not, but most people like not having to bust their brains just to gain a little dialogue and influence.  From what I've seen and read, most people actually liked the K1 system better because it was an easy sure way of getting information from party members.  The influence system would have been better, but it was poorly executed and so many people were dissatisfied with it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Actually you had a lot of it. Mira would be the obvious example. The thing with the influence system is its going to work differently with someone like the exile, than it would with a "normal" human.

 

Thats realistic. If your character dosnt share HK's outlook then why would they want to get to know him ? Perhaps they would want to find out some of the history, but you really dont expect a sentient being to just give it up for free to anyone do you ? If you thought your LS mastery was worth what HK knew, well thats choice and roleplaying is all about those.

 

Whether or not developers should pander to lazy gamers is a whole different issue. You have to wonder if it's the system or the gamers who have become accustomed to spoonfeeding who are at fault. Personally I never had any problems with the influence system, its probably more straightforward than many I have encountered.

[metadigital]

Very few things are impossible, but it's certainly improbable.Forgetting for a moment the subjectivity of it.

 

JRPGs have done it numerous times. But they dont have choice as a core element. While you do get some choices (nothing as obvious as a dialogue option) in how the story works out. The games are written as a narative with gameplay elements wrapped around them.

 

It's one thing to set out a journey for a known character. But quite another to set it out for an unknown character without railroading them.

 

Again JRPGs have done this for years. Killed off party members, NPCs and even PCs (at the mid point of a game). Bittersweet endings are quite common in JRPGs. FFX being the obvious example that springs to mind.

 

But to actually write something like that were the player could alter the story in a meaningful way. Not likely. If you examine any story then its a series of events that have to occur in order for the story to work. Add in choice and you risk "breaking" the story. What would LOTR been if Isildur had dropped the ring into the volcano.

This leaves you with two options. Try to fool the player into thinking the trivial choices they get matter , or weave a more open story where the choices do matter, but the story suffers as a result.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I couldn't disagree more.

 

just because it is more difficult, doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

 

For example, back in the eighties, Infocom published Planetfall. In the game, very early on, you meet a little robot, who becomes your companion, until it suddenly risks its life to further the plot

and dies. It is one of the most poignant memories I have from playing games for decades

. Granted this is linear, but the only difficulty with scripting optional characters is managing the difficulty: this could easily be adjusted with "magic" items and enemy NPC numbers, for example.

 

I really don't see how it is so difficult to script in the death of a party member, and have it affect the plot. (It was done in K2, albeit poorly, in Malachor.) There are numerous sections of both KotORs that have enforced solo and mandatory companions gameplay sections. It's really not much more difficult than that; I don't see why you think this is so hard.

 

Even if it was just one of the party, randomly chosen, that would be a step in the right direction. Or a random party member (default love interest / padawan / master) or, failing that (if the party member survives, for example), an innocent hostage is taken (LS) or special "magic" item is stolen / escapes with retreating enemies (DS), impelling the party / solo character to give chase.

 

It's not hard, really.

 

That's LS, DS, male and female all taken care of, in one paragraph!

[metadigital]

Actually you had a lot of it. Mira would be the obvious example. The thing with the influence system is its going to work differently with someone like the exile, than it would with a "normal" human.

 

Thats realistic. If your character dosnt share HK's outlook then why would they want to get to know him ? Perhaps they would want to find out some of the history, but you really dont expect a sentient being to just give it up for free to anyone do you ? If you thought your LS mastery was worth what HK knew, well thats choice and roleplaying is all about those.

 

Whether or not developers should pander to lazy gamers is a whole different issue. You have to wonder if it's the system or the gamers who have become accustomed to spoonfeeding who are at fault. Personally I never had any problems with the influence system, its probably more straightforward than many I have encountered.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd like to see a lot more interaction between the party members, for example, like the Kreia-Atton enmity. Some NPCs should not want to work with others, on principle. Others might work, but grudgingly, and even make snide criticisms when they make mistakes, etc. A bit like the Tomb challenge on Korriban, but better.

[Musopticon?]

The Truth

[metadigital]

Come back here, I'll bite yer kneecaps off!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But beware the bukkake head shot my little friend.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mine, or theirs?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

just because it is more difficult, doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

 

For example, back in the eighties, Infocom published Planetfall. In the game, very early on, you meet a little robot, who becomes your companion, until it suddenly risks its life to further the plot

and dies. It is one of the most poignant memories I have from playing games for decades

. Granted this is linear, but the only difficulty with scripting optional characters is managing the difficulty: this could easily be adjusted with "magic" items and enemy NPC numbers, for example.

 

I really don't see how it is so difficult to script in the death of a party member, and have it affect the plot. (It was done in K2, albeit poorly, in Malachor.) There are numerous sections of both KotORs that have enforced solo and mandatory companions gameplay sections. It's really not much more difficult than that; I don't see why you think this is so hard.

 

Even if it was just one of the party, randomly chosen, that would be a step in the right direction. Or a random party member (default love interest / padawan / master) or, failing that (if the party member survives, for example), an innocent hostage is taken (LS) or special "magic" item is stolen / escapes with retreating enemies (DS), impelling the party / solo character to give chase.

 

It's not hard, really.

 

That's LS, DS, male and female all taken care of, in one paragraph!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes it does, or rather it might. There is more to design than simply doing it.

 

Same thing happens in Grandia II. What do they have in common ? They are linear and dont have choice. In a JRPG you can do pretty much anything with the story because the player knows from the outset that it's pre written and they are along for the ride and to handle the gameplay elements. Your not trying to fool them into thinking their actions are important or will have an impact on the story(although in some cases they will even though the player wont know it at the time).

In a game like KOTOR if you want choice to matter then you cant have these programmed destinies. There have to be workable alternatives and most players are going to go for the perfect and miss the poignient. But thats just how it is.

 

Yes but what you have there is a snap shot. It dosnt take into account any previous actions. Anyone can write a snap shot like that , but actually writing a workable story around them, without simply making it linear and "pre destined" isnt as easy as you might like to think. Any PnP DM will tell you that a campaign rarely survives first contact with the players intact. It must be fluid enough to move without breaking the story.

 

It's very like your example of tension. You totally disregard the alternative of just going another way or chucking a few grenades into the darkness.

[jodo kast 5]

man, you sure do take your games seriously meta

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

man, you sure do take your games seriously meta

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'd tend to call them unrealistic expectations. Unless you actually wrote a KOTOR in the same mold as a JRPG. And while I love JRPGS to bits, its not like there are more than enough coming from Japan so having something different and more open makes for a welcome change of pace.

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

I don't feel like I have an unrealistic expectations.

 

When I put the game in my computer or console, I expect it to work and have fun.

[XboxSithLord]

awwww how cute they kissed and made up....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

(w00t) (w00t) (w00t)

 

we can all be friends again

 

and who says we need the justice system to settle arugments. :D

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I don't feel like I have an unrealistic expectations.

 

When I put the game in my computer or console, I expect it to work and have fun.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

expecting a computer game to work out of the box, what a novel idea.

 

Any console game that hasnt worked has always been down to a bad disk.

[metadigital]

man, you sure do take your games seriously meta

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd tend to call them unrealistic expectations. Unless you actually wrote a KOTOR in the same mold as a JRPG. And while I love JRPGS to bits, its not like there are more than enough coming from Japan so having something different and more open makes for a welcome change of pace.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see, so unless I am a games developer or publisher, than I haven't really got any right to make judgements?

 

I do not agree with your notion that it takes too much effort to write. It is just writing. Good writing, yes, but that is what compels me to play, and what transforms an ordinary, forgotten-next-season game, into a classic that is remembered indefinitely.

 

I would rather play an old classic firecracker than a new damp sqib.

 

I donated

[metadigital]

man, you sure do take your games seriously meta

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see no point in doing anything half-heartedly. I work hard; I play hard. I have excruciatingly high standards for myslef, and I have very high standards for those that I interact with; I do not suffer fools.

 

If I purchase a product from someone, I expect it to be commensurate with the hard-earned cash I have laid out.

 

I am not unrealistic, just discriminating.

[Musopticon?]

Meta' is badass :cool:

[6 Foot Invisible Rabbit]

I don't feel like I have an unrealistic expectations.

 

When I put the game in my computer or console, I expect it to work and have fun.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

expecting a computer game to work out of the box, what a novel idea.

 

Any console game that hasnt worked has always been down to a bad disk.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not in KotOR 2's case.