How did KotOR fail?

[Iolo]

Since apparently only how KOTOR failed can be discussed in this thread...

 

I dont see how anyone could say that KOTOR failed. Things could be improved but thats true of any game and hardly constitutes failure.

 

Biowares great strength seems to be that it can appeal to your average buyer while at the same time not alienating all but the most radical fans of the genre.

 

In which case Bioware has little to gain and much to lose by listening to such radicals.

As a business model its hard to fault the one Bioware has adopted.

 

I don't think the point here is that the game failed overall. It shipped in Oct or Nov 2003 and sold more than 500,000 copies before the end of the year, on the PC. On the XBox, these numbers were blown away even more. It certainly didn't fail sales wise.

 

But one can enjoy a game and still feel it failed in some ways and discuss that. That is I beleive the point of this thread. Morrowind for instance has its flaws but I still enjoy playing it. I enjoyed KOTOR as well. I don't see why BioWare wouldn't listen to some fan input. How about ideas for more skills, making skills more useful, a little bit more nonlinearity? It would be arrogant for them or Square to think that they shouldn't consider some fan input unless any feedback at all as to how the game could be improved would be looked upon as "radical" fans. BioWare certainly considered fan feedback for NWN's expansions. HOTU seemed to take efforts to eliminate many of the original OC's flaws for instance.

 

But if it's a hindrance to them, maybe BioWare should just eliminate their forums entirely or just leave them up for troubleshooting and spoilers. No fan feedback or criticism no longer allowed. I may be exaggerating slightly but where do you draw the line between constructive feedback that would only improve the game and "radical fanatics".

[Volourn]

KOTOR has many flaws. Bio's only "worst" games are the OC (though its combat and rules and gameplay was much better) and SOU which was overrated.

[Hubert the Beardless]

Heh. If I happen to become a game designer (I have my doubts, but who knows ?), I won't give a darn what fans want. I won't be working my arse off to satisfy a bunch of geeks. Yup, that's the plan, guys.

 

About KOTOR ..., nice game, played it twice, and I'm done with it. I miss the bucks I gave for it, but, hey, NWN was quite cheap for it's value, so I am not too sorry about them.

 

I am afraid that we will see more of KOTOR's kind in the future. Development costs are much higher today, the masses want nice plot, graphics, voiceovers, cutscenes, and all these will make the game experience more intense, but lower the actual "size" of the game. It's like we are going consoles.

 

Too bad, because I would like games which are extremly difficult to master, have a unique universe with considerable size to explore with good amount of random stuff in it for greater replayability. And I want gore, of course. I know they are not cRPGs, but I play Civilization and Myth 3 these days. The first, well, that is a classic I imagine playing it the next fifty years.

[leombruno]

I'll take a stab at some contructive criticism.

 

I thought KOTOR was pretty impressive though I set it down after one play.

I agree with Shadowpaladin's observation, the major twist only has it's full impact for a certain percentage of players looking at it that way I guess you could question the desicion making during design, though I wouldn't say the plot was bad or poorly don't after that item.

 

In terms of wishfull thinking I would have like more of a throw back art style, all the humans especially looked like the new star wars, clean, neat and bland.

 

Grooming, costumes, and types of faces could have been better and more atmospheric, taking away lightsabres and familiar types of aliens this could have been any campy sci fi visually. Darth Malak and Bandon especially have very corny appearances with their chest and shoulder enhancing armor. Between their armors and corny toughguy lines, the only antagonists that successfully represented any sort of threat or sinisterness were the dueling leaders of the sith academy.

 

Malak is a very poor villan, probably one of the worst on reflection.

 

Other than those things I consider the game solid and enjoyable and look forward to what this team will do with the property, assuming the inuendo holds true.

[birdiedude]

Squaresoft has always had a particularly vocal group of fanboys. There are people who would probably fight to their death attempting to "protect" the name of this software company who doesn't give a crap about them or how much their product is worshipped by nutballs on the Internet. So why are these people so adamant about defending a game franchise? Don't they have anything else to do? Isn't there anything else in their lives or are they forced to attach their tiny egos to a successful game company and then absorb any insult to this company as if it was personally directed towards them? We've never understood the Internet fanboy mentality and probably never will.

The thing about this is that Squaresoft/Squarenix has a large enough fanbase that even if they did something stupid that alienated half of it's fans they could still do very well with the other half. If you talk to many of these fans you see there are some extremely strange trends such that one person likes feature X, but not Y. Another fan likes feature Y, but not Z. Yet another likes Z, but not X. Basically if you talk to someone that has seen his favorite feature in every single game then they will be more than happy to go on about the how great the company is. Even if others have been betrayed it's usually only a single game out of the many series' Square offers, so they too can affort to support the company. Thus far they haven't really had a string of games that truly screwed with their fanbase.

 

As I started to post earlier, KotOR falied in many respects, this doesn't mean that it isn't a good game that deserves recognition (OK I don't actually agree with that, but hey ) but that many features that sounded interesting on paper failed in implementation and so shouldn't be repeated.

 

Personally I think the game is extremely overrated and the only reason it did so well was because 1) there are so few RPG's on the Xbox or 2) Many people were wowed by the simple things CRPG's have done for years, but that they'd never seen before.

 

Of course as I posted elsewhere I think the CRPG thing of presenting choices every five minutes is itself overrated, but it was such a new thing to the audience that they couldn't help but like it.

[leombruno]

I wouldn't really atribute all the success to lack of RPgs on Xbox or the infamiliarity with CRPGs, at least I wouldn't base an arguement that it was 'overrated' on those facts. I mean if it had no direct competition or no lesser know superior product then how exactly can someone overrate it? I suppose you could also say it 'oversold' due to those facts.

 

Being a starwars game that didn't stink doesn't count for anything?; not that they all do or I could assert definitively this one didn't. What about the novelty of a game that lets you create your own jedi gives pretty decent options to let that particular jedi act in its own character. Calling it overrated is basicly implying everyone else is buying games for the wrong reasons and ruining the market for you, all of your dismissalls of why the game had to much success too easy are the types of selling points that I would guess get projects greenlighted.

[mkreku]

I kind of see KotOR as the Call Of Duty of the RPG genre.

 

Call Of Duty is like Quake.. But dumber! The reason it became a success was because the developers made it extremely cinematic and scripted. Apparently, if a game is cinematic enough it sells bundles and gets rave reviews all over the world. But if you look closely at Call Of Duty, it's just a simple rail shooter. Always only one way to walk (a corridor), everything always happens exactly as it did the last time you played (scripted).

 

KotOR is kind of the same way. The maps are all so small you can never get lost and there's never any doubt over where you should go next. It also looks extremely good and has a lot of scripted events and cutscenes. Unfortunately (at least for us who enjoy "deeper" RPG's) it is also very shallow and simplified. But I guess I shouldn't bash the game too hard. For some reason I had a lot of fun with it, despite of all its shortcomings.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

KotOR is kind of the same way. The maps are all so small you can never get lost and there's never any doubt over where you should go next. It also looks extremely good and has a lot of scripted events and cutscenes. Unfortunately (at least for us who enjoy "deeper" RPG's) it is also very shallow and simplified. But I guess I shouldn't bash the game too hard. For some reason I had a lot of fun with it, despite of all its shortcomings.

Thats true ,well except for Manon.... But getting lost is overated anyway.

I would disagree there. You have quite a few avenues open to you. Of course they will all ultimately lead to the same conclusion, but you dont know that at the time.

Although it didnt feel that "StarWarsy" except for Tatooine. Probably because its really the only one with a movie reference...

Well cutscenes are there to advance the story. I find it amusing that people who dont like cutscenes are usually the same ones that didnt mind readin mini encyclopedia's in PST. Although it has to be said Bioware have a long way to go to make cutscenes that are are as dynamic as Squenix.

 

I enjoyed it a lot too. Although I didnt find much urge to replay it because of the very strict "guidelines" you have to operate under. Having to be a Jedi seriously cuts down on the replay. As does the overall low level of difficulty. There really isnt a lot of meat there for a second course. But as one off game I found it very worthy.

[Drakron]

Manaan problem is bad map design, not only its easy to get lost (not due to map size but from no directions) and it also slows down the game.

[Karzak]

Yet, like you, he continues to buy and play them. You twoa re the biggest fanboys ever.

LOL, a fanboy is a bioware apologist, like you and grommy. Bio bought grommy with a cameo, whats your excuse.

 

And why do you keep claiming I bought any Bio game since my bad judgement with NWN? I haven't put one red cent in Bio's pocket since NWN and I won't ever again.

[Karzak]

HOTU seemed to take efforts to eliminate many of the original OC's flaws for instance.

Only because hack pacs and fan generated solutions were doing a better job of it than Bio did. Bio had 5 years of fan input for the NWN OC, you think they really listened when that pushed that crap out the door.

 

You think the fan input for the PC version of KotOR was "please give us a console port"?

[Drakron]

True, PC SWKotOR forum area was a wasteland after they anounced the Xbox being done first and most BioWare staff members posted in the Xbox forum area and rarely posted in the PC area.

 

Of course BioWare defends the idea each version was developed independent ... not that many people (non fanboy) buy into that ...

[Drakron]

double post

Edited March 15, 2004 by Drakron

[tripleRRR]

True, PC SWKotOR forum area was a wasteland after they anounced the Xbox being done first and most BioWare staff members posted in the Xbox forum area and rarely posted in the PC area.

 

Of course BioWare defends the idea each version was developed independent ... not that many people (non fanboy) buy into that ...

As well they should not, it is so obvious that KotOR for PC is a port from the Xbox that you would either have to be blind or an Idiot not to see it.

 

 

TripleRRR

[Karzak]

True, PC SWKotOR forum area was a wasteland after they anounced the Xbox being done first and most BioWare staff members posted in the Xbox forum area and rarely posted in the PC area.

 

Of course BioWare defends the idea each version was developed independent ... not that many people (non fanboy) buy into that ...

As well they should not, it is so obvious that KotOR for PC is a port from the Xbox that you would either have to be blind or an Idiot not to see it.

 

 

TripleRRR

Or a fanboy. I'm sure one will pop in here soon and deny that it was a port

[tripleRRR]

 

 

TripleRRR

[Volourn]

It wasn't a port.

[Darque]

*waits for Karzak to flip out* B)

[Karzak]

*waits for Karzak to flip out* B)

Why would I flip out? Volo is wrong, he is usually wrong.

 

KotOR is a port, it was just ported during console development instead of post console development.

[Darque]

*waits for Karzak to flip out*  B)

Why would I flip out?

Because you give that impression at times

[kefka]

KotOR is a port from the Xbox, but a very good one.

 

Just like Halo on PC is a port, but a very bad one.

 

Ports are not a sign of quality, the original design is. And KotOR would never be like a traditional PC RPG with its Xbox roots. It was no less enjoyable for that though.

[kefka]

btw, I've been wading through Baldur's Gate the last few days, and frankly, I don't know whether I'd want another RPG like this. The huge maps that take an eternity to reveal are very tedious after KotOR's tight structure. (BG2 was an improvement in that regard).

 

BG's story is good, and the maps certainly encourage exploration, but the lack of focus seems dated somehow, with most areas just an excuse to kill monsters to increase your level. I prefer KotOR.

 

Story-driven RPGs need focus. They can still be 'deep' (like PS:Torment) but they tend to be linear by nature. KotOR made this even more apparent. However, if Delaware is KotOR 2 I would certainly hope for more freedom this time around.

[tripleRRR]

Hey, Halo wasn't too bad for an Xbox port, just bad level design. The rest of the game was pretty good.

 

 

TripleRRR

[kefka]

Actually, I never even played Halo on PC. I'm assuming it was a lousy port because the vast majority of people said it was. Gearbox did a really poor job of optimizing the engine for PC.

[Darque]

btw, I've been wading through Baldur's Gate the last few days, and frankly, I don't know whether I'd want another RPG like this. The huge maps that take an eternity to reveal are very tedious after KotOR's tight structure. (BG2 was an improvement in that regard).

 

Well, as the first of a new "kind" of RPG, you'd expect it to be rough

 

When people say they want a BG-like rpg, I'm thinking they're wanting the good parts, not just a carbon copy of all aspects.