How did KotOR fail?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

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.

It's basically down to who you ask. Some people liked the more open exploration in BG. Others just got annoyed by having to traverse those wide open areas.

 

Just as some people like the wide open areas in MW and it bored other people to tears.

 

In this case there is no right answer.

[FrankK]

It's basically down to who you ask. Some people liked the more open exploration in BG. Others just got annoyed by having to traverse those wide open areas.

 

Just as some people like the wide open areas in MW and it bored other people to tears.

 

In this case there is no right answer.

I think as long as you aren't forcing people to explore too much just to advance the plot of the game, you are OK. If exploration is there as an option, it works much better. The nicest aspect of Morrowind was the fact you didn't HAVE to go to every dungeon, or each ruin. You could explore them as you came across them or just stick to the ones you needed.

[Judge Hades]

If you can put the story of KotOR in the openness of Morrowind, make it hard core Sci fi, and you would have finally made a game that would knock Fallout off its perch as number one game of all time.

[neriana]

The story of KoTOR could not possibly be hard core sci-fi: it's Star Wars. I don't believe a TOTALLY open-ended world like Morrowind could accomadate a strong story, though I'd love to be proven wrong. And there's a reason "hard-core sci-fi" isn't very popular. It's generally poorly written, has bad characterizations, and is phenomenally irritating on every level.

[Gromnir]

not see no point to "openness" unless there is something worth doing at a majority of those non-essential locations. you can have a huge and sprawling world that you can explore at your leisure, but if 99.9% of encounters is dull or repetitious then why should we care that we could spend 40 hours of game time just walking from one pointless location to the next.

 

a handful of orcs who jump you in the middle of nowheres

[mkreku]

The nicest aspect of Morrowind was the fact you didn't HAVE to go to every dungeon, or each ruin. You could explore them as you came across them or just stick to the ones you needed.

Yeah, that was the nicest part of Morrowind. Unfortunately the worst part of Morrowind is closely connected to the best part, namely that EVERY dungeon/cave/whatever in the wilderness had a door (how stupid is that?!) that all looked exactly the same and the inside of everyone of those hundreds of tiny little caves/dungeons/tombs looks almost exactly the same as the next one. And to top it all off, most of them were completely empty, except for some generic monsters. Now, THAT's an effective way of killing any kind of fun you might get out of exploring a world..

 

By the way.. I waited several years for Morrowind (since I loved Daggerfall), pre-ordered it from North America (very expensive) and got it way ahead of most of Europe. Then the stupid game dies on me after only 5 hours of playing. Therefore I think I am entitled to despise this game. At least a little.

[FrankK]

not see no point to "openness" unless there is something worth doing at a majority of those non-essential locations. you can have a huge and sprawling world that you can explore at your leisure, but if 99.9% of encounters is dull or repetitious then why should we care that we could spend 40 hours of game time just walking from one pointless location to the next.

 

a handful of orcs who jump you in the middle of nowheres

[tripleRRR]

No, since nothing has been announced yet, I declare this on topic.

 

And in response to Kefka the only problem I really had with Halo was its boring and repetetive level design, the gameplay, story, music, and graphics were pretty good I thought.

 

 

TripleRRR

[Enoch]

[some lovely stuff about cause and effect quests.]

All that really sounds intriguing. My chief objection to the non-essential locations in BG was that they comprised forced meta-gaming. A character who's just witnessed his/her mentor give his life to protect him/her from a powerful assailant who wants to capture or kill him/her for unknown reasons probably isn't going to be very inclined to random wilderness exploration. (Granted, he/she is not particularly likely to want to investigate rotting ore from an iron mine, but that's another story.) The only reason my characters ever did such was to see why the areas were included in the game (and later to hunt down the valuable treasures that remembered being there). I hate doing things in games for no reason other than it's a game. Some real in-game effects of these non-essential quests and places would go a long way towards addressing this problem.

 

My secondary objection to the non-essential locations in BG (and my first to it in Morrowind) was that it wasn't much fun. Randomly generated encounters and areas don't tend to be particularly well laid-out. This has to do more with the nuts and bolts of gameplay than high-minded concerns of story and linearity, though.

 

 

That said, Gromnir's point about finite resources is still relevant. Making all those effects balanced and meaningful, and adjusting the main plotline to accommodate them inevitably takes time and effort that could be placed elsewhere. Would it be a worthwhile use of resources? Who knows?! Nobody has seen an RPG where such has been pulled off. But I'm worried that the fact that it hasn't yet been done doesn't lend much support to Frank's claim that it's relatively easy to do.

[Darque]

If you can put the story of KotOR in the openness of Morrowind, make it hard core Sci fi, and you would have finally made a game that would knock Fallout off its perch as number one game of all time.

I tend to agree.

 

Can we say Holy-Grail of gaming :D

[Darque]

I would love to see more cause and effect quests.

 

Agree*3!

 

I think these kinds of things would really add to a gaming experience, playing in a "living world" has sooooo much more appeal than playing in a static backdrop.

[E_Motion]

Hope that you are working on a KOTOR2.

 

The query is -- how did the game fail?

 

Simply put, it didn't fail. Nevertheless there were things lacking that I wished were there. Let me say first that IMO KOTOR added a new dimension to RPGs, namely a well developed npc that the player can interact with. Yes, its there in other games, but not to the same extent. Take a look at the Bioware forums -- they're still analysing Bastila and Carth.

 

And that wonderful strength spawned, at least for me, a corresponding weakness. Once you get to the end of the npc's scripted options, e.g., the Bastila romance, interaction is kaput -- gone. So here I had developed what seemed to be damned near a real relationship, and now all I get when I talk to the character is "I suggest we move on." The difficulty fixing the problem is apparent -- only so much can be scripted. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the npc should at least be able to make comments on the task at hand -- or on the task just completed -- or where to go from here -- or something.

 

And I agree with commenters who viewed the Temple and the Leviathan encounters as weaknesses. Those scenes, at least to some extent, may as well have been cut scenes since you couldn't influence the character -- and particularly in the case of Bastila at the Temple, her actions and personality seemed seemed completely out of character -- she was so stuck on the dark side and more importantly, she had lost all emotional depth.

 

The ending -- I agree something was lacking. At least we should have been able to talk to the npcs about what we had done together -- what they might do in the future -- something, just something.

 

Having said all of that, it was a great game in my view. I believe it added more options to the land of RPGs in a good way.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

and particularly in the case of Bastila at the Temple, her actions and personality seemed seemed completely out of character -- she was so stuck on the dark side and more importantly, she had lost all emotional depth.

That was spot on. It's not called the darkside for nothing. Just look how Anakin is compared to the robot like figure he is in EP IV.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

This really depends on how clever you can make what seems dull.

 

Imagine if killing enough orcs in random encounters leads to rewards from local lords, or if the orcs start to take notice and increase their numbers and bring spell casters and chieftans on their raids. Maybe what looked like a good thing leads to higher prices at merchants because the suddenly more brutal orc parties are raising the cost caravan guards. From a design perspective, this looks more difficult than it is...it isn't.

 

I think designers need to focus on getting a good story out there, but not forget to add the optional fluff that puts the perennial carrot on the stick.

 

"If I kill 100 orcs, I get the Sword of Uberness from Lord Floozle, but the orcs become tougher. I wonder what happens if I kill 200, or if I go to that camp on the world map that just opened up that says Orc Chief Lair? Or should I just continue the main story quests...well, maybe just another 10 orcs..."

 

I would love to see more cause and effect quests.

 

If the player is stealing a lot, then the thieves guild may start showing up as random encounters demanding tithes, or the number of guards may increase, or the difficulty of the locks on people's chests might increase (but so might the value of the items inside as they hoard their items to the 'safest location').

 

Perhaps as you loot more crypts, you start encountering rival grave robbers, or the increase in grave looting leads to an order of monks defending the entrances, etc.

 

I'm rambling now, but I think you get the idea. All of these encounters are still random, the dungeons are still random. But they are evolving as a result of the players actions.

 

Is it too soon to declare this thread hijacked?

Reminds me of the cursed sword quest in Final Fantasy VI. You got this basically useless sword which would become the ultimate weapon if you did something like 125 encounters.

 

The basic difference is that with the FF games the reward actually tends to be worth the effort. Like the celestial weapons in FFX. Huge bother to get but well worth it once you got them.

 

Morrowind on the other hand didnt really have that. I was collecting Daedric gear at level 4 which you really shouldnt be able to do if the game was in the least bit balanced.

 

Possibly the worse aspect of Morrowind being that by straying off the plot path (why else have such a huge world ?) you ended up with a really easy game. One I never completed because it bored me silly.Not much point having a non linear game if taking things out of sequence makes it that easy.

 

Another thing about the FF games. Is that the consequences of your actions are not imediately apparent. Take FFX-2, if you fail a certain quest in chapter II that has consequences in chapter V. Likewise if you dont complete the areas in chapter IV then chapter V will play out differently.

 

Perhaps the most start example is Garik Ronso. If you dont defeat him, then the Guado are massacred.

 

In order to change that outcome you would be talking about reloading around 10 hours of game. So the consequence means a lot more than making the wrong choice and hitting quickload 5 minutes later.

[E_Motion]

ShadowPaladin -- I see your point about the effects of the darkside -- must confess that I don't have the Star Wars/Jedi knowledge and history that many who play this game seem to have. But btw, that's another great strength of the game IMO -- you don't have to have intimate Star Wars history to play and love the game -- indeed I was reluctant to start the game at first thinking it might be too 'genre-specific' (for lack of a better word) -- but the game creators completely avoided that.

 

Back to your point, which is well taken -- I probably didn't express my difficulty with the Temple scene very well; or perhaps not correctly. And I'm not sure if I actually can -- but let me go at it from another direction. In retrospect, I think the final Temple scene gives an artificial feel -- and I believe the reason is that the game creators needed a device to move to the next part of the game. That aspect overwhelmed the character development/interactivity/believability that had been so carefully (and successfully) established. Once we reach the Star Forge, the darkisde Bastila miraculously regains depth, and she is once again influenceable -- back in character with the rest of the game.

 

So I guess my point is that there is a danger in prescripted aspects of any story -- in that the author/creator can have such a strong need to advance the plot in a specific direction, that it becomes easy to lose sight of the overall impact on the character. And the difficulty of the task shouldn't be underestimated -- its extremely hard for any author. But the net result is generally seen in the difference between a story that seems to be real -- almost alive -- so that, at the end of the book, or movie, or game -- one is left with experience of a whole, complete experience, a character that was a real person. And in this case, the KOTOR authors achieved a sucess level with Bastila (I obviously played as a male) well beyond anything I've ever seen in the gaming world -- Its amazing just how 'real' this character is to people -- however the character in the Temple final scene was at that point just too fixed, a still life painting or sculpture, out of character with the rest of the game.

 

Perhaps this clarifies my incomplete thoughts. But how did you react to the final Temple scene when you played -- and in your retrospective of the quality of the KOTOR experience?

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Back to your point, which is well taken -- I probably didn't express my difficulty with the Temple scene very well; or perhaps not correctly.  And I'm not sure if I actually can -- but let me go at it from another direction.  In retrospect, I think the final Temple scene gives an artificial feel -- and I believe the reason is that the game creators needed a device to move to the next part of the game.  That aspect overwhelmed the character development/interactivity/believability that had been so carefully (and successfully) established. Once we reach the Star Forge, the darkisde Bastila miraculously regains depth, and she is once again influenceable -- back in character with the rest of the game.

 

So I guess my point is that there is a danger in prescripted aspects of any story -- in that the author/creator can have such a strong need to advance the plot in a specific direction, that it becomes easy to lose sight of the overall impact on the character. And the difficulty of the task shouldn't be underestimated -- its extremely hard for any author.  But the net result is generally seen in the difference between a story that seems to be real -- almost alive -- so that, at the end of the book, or movie, or game -- one is left with experience of a whole, complete experience, a character that was a real person.  And in this case, the KOTOR authors achieved a sucess level with Bastila (I obviously played as a male) well beyond anything I've ever seen in the gaming world -- Its amazing just how 'real' this character is to people -- however the character in the Temple final scene was at that point just too fixed, a still life painting or sculpture, out of character with the rest of the game.

 

Perhaps this clarifies my incomplete thoughts.  But how did you react to the final Temple scene when you played -- and in your retrospective of the quality of the KOTOR experience?

Bioware are notorious for those sort of cheesey partially interactive cutscenes.

 

Like on the Leviathon I killed Malek outright I mean reduced his HPs to 0 but he still managed to go about his business.

That was much worse in my opinion than the temple scene.

 

The Darkside is like a controlling force although previously the only redeemed Jedi (Anakin) was dead.But you could see a very stark difference in personality there too.

 

I dont think the temple had a great deal of effect perhaps because I was playing the type of character the story was written for. I would have gone after Bastila , scripted event or not. Nothing would have turned me to the darkside again having regained my "humanity" with the second chance she gave me. No way would I have turned on companions that had supported me on my journey.

 

So my temple scene was Jolee, Juhari and I preparing to storm the star forge and either turn Bastila back , or kill her before her battle meditation finished off the fleet....

 

I can see how if you approached it with a different character concept it would seem forced .But for my particular character it could have been written for them.

 

The end battle was another one of those "cheese" moments. I didnt have anything that could destroy the tanks so It was a case of go stand around a corner. Hit Malek till he ran off and recharged. Repeat 5 or 6 times. It just didnt have the feeling of an epic Jedi/Sith battle.

The battle with Bandon had a much more StarWars feel to it.

[E_Motion]

Hey ShadowPaladin (like your name, particularly the V1.0 aspect; query whether you get to be 'patched' as time goes on -- there have been some times in my life when I sure could have used a 'patch' :>) )

 

Agree with your thoughts on the Leviathan. And see your point about the Temple -- I too had embraced the redemption and felt sick that, Bastila. who had brought me there, now seemed to be lost -- (I will admit however that my strong lightside, high integrity, character wasn't completley immune to Bastila's darkside perfume, her promises of unrelenting passion responsive to my desires ... -- well I can't say that temptation passed by unnoticed.)

 

Interesting point you make about the tanks -- I was able to destroy them -- but I didn't even see that as a possibility the first time around on that battle. Those tanks were probably too sudden -- you weren't prepared to deal with them, and I didn't know I could.

 

As to your comment on Bioware, I believe they have done good work -- so I wouldn't go so far as to call the artificialities "cheese" -- but I do see your point -- I guess I'd say that the lure of an easy quick fix is always there; a darkside-like choice of paths. The consequences of taking that path can be dire ... even in the real world.

 

Regards.

[Judge Hades]

I have to agree with SP on the cheese. If Bioware or Obsidian can make a game like KotOR without the cheese it would be rather nice.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Agree with your thoughts on the Leviathan. And see your point about the Temple -- I too had embraced the redemption and felt sick that, Bastila. who had brought me there, now seemed to be lost -- (I will admit however that my strong lightside, high integrity, character wasn't completley immune to Bastila's darkside perfume, her promises of unrelenting passion responsive to my desires ... -- well I can't say that temptation passed by unnoticed.)

 

Interesting point you make about the tanks -- I was able to destroy them -- but I didn't even see that as a possibility the first time around on that battle. Those tanks were probably too sudden -- you weren't prepared to deal with them, and I didn't know I could.

 

As to your comment on Bioware, I believe they have done good work -- so I wouldn't go so far as to call the artificialities "cheese" -- but I do see your point -- I guess I'd say that the lure of an easy quick fix is always there; a darkside-like choice of paths. The consequences of taking that path can be dire ... even in the real world.

 

Regards.

I think it added impact because the last memory you have of Bastila is probably the one being trapped in the cells together.

 

I think the ammount of time that she has been away dosnt come across all the well in the game but it's a pretty significant chunk of time. I think if you are shocked by the Bastila that confronts you at the temple, then the writer did his job well.

I suppose if you were really into her you could have gone along with her. But the Sith ethos dosnt really support long relationships

 

Oh I tried everything. Threw thermal detonators at them, grenades , mines, tried hitting them...

I think you get a hint about the tanks in the dialogue at some point.

 

Well in order to tell a story you need structure. Unlike a PnP rpg every possibility has to be accounted for before the player has even started the game.

Biowares method is simply there way of keeping the story on track. Sqenix simply take the cutscene approach. Both methods are storytelling devices.

 

The issue I have with the Bioware method is that it can sometimes lead to situations like that on Leviathon which really kill the credibility of the game. Generally you need some method of enforcement because once the player is aware of the forthcoming situation, they will probably be able to beat it even if its difficult. Which would kill the story on the spot.

[Gromnir]

"Imagine if killing enough orcs in random encounters leads to rewards from local lords, or if the orcs start to take notice and increase their numbers and bring spell casters and chieftans on their raids. Maybe what looked like a good thing leads to higher prices at merchants because the suddenly more brutal orc parties are raising the cost caravan guards. From a design perspective, this looks more difficult than it is...it isn't."

 

what exactly does your example prove? seems to show us how you can cram more complex and intriguing quests into less space. recalls the encounters in bg2 where if you continued to cast spells in amn you would get attacked by increasingly tough opponents? nothing new you suggest. and not seem to require a bigger world with greater freedom to explore non-essential areas at all... quite the contrary in fact. is a good way to get more stuff into a smaller and more limited world.

 

*shrug*

 

regardless, we thinks it is kinda silly to suggest that a complex situation where random encounters with orc bandits leads to increasingly tough encounters and where local merchants and politicians reacts different to you based on how you deal with such encounters is being no more complicated or time consuming to develop than some insular bandit encounter in the woods.

 

we hate being the voice o' common sense... just seems so... wrong.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Schazzwozzer]

Imagine if killing enough orcs in random encounters leads to rewards from local lords, or if the orcs start to take notice and increase their numbers and bring spell casters and chieftans on their raids. Maybe what looked like a good thing leads to higher prices at merchants because the suddenly more brutal orc parties are raising the cost caravan guards. From a design perspective, this looks more difficult than it is...it isn't.

This is but one reason that I'd like to see more robust global reputation systems in RPGs. In most RPGs, it seems like variables are only set on the PC when he makes very specific choices, generally via dialogue (your average PC RPG player can smell such choices from a mile away, I might add). If a system were to constantly collect data on the player's actions and interactions with the game world (the stuff that happens in the actual gameplay), there are any number of interesting ways that such information could be exploited, to great effect, potentially without a staggering work load.

[AlanC9]

regardless, we thinks it is kinda silly to suggest that a complex situation where random encounters with orc bandits leads to increasingly tough encounters and where local merchants and politicians reacts different to you based on how you deal with such encounters is being no more complicated or time consuming to develop than some insular bandit encounter in the woods.

It's more work, but it's not all that hard. Increment a variable on the PC whenever an orc is killed. When the variable passes a certain threshold you make things happen. Change dialog trees and encounter spawns, etc.

 

I'm actually doing something like this in NWN with stolen goods.

[Darque]

Agreed.

 

All it is is scripting, something like this I would love to see in more games.

[AlanC9]

I thought I should actually post on-topic as long as I'm reading the thread.

 

I had two big problems with KotOR, though overall I consider the game to be a huge success.

 

First, the game is too easy. I'm not a big fan of difficult games; my ideal difficulty level is one where I can get through the game without a single reload as long as I make no mistakes. But in KotOR I don't even have to worry about making mistakes, since it's so easy to recover.

 

Mostly the problem is with the healing rules. As long as you keep a good stock of healing kits - and Jolee makes them for free - you can't lose a fight unless you simply aren't paying attention. I'm OK with the (non)death system; letting characters die would wreak havoc with a character-based game, unless you simply made folks reload whenever someone dropped.

 

I should note that the game is only easy for some builds. Like most Bioware games, an offensive melee fighter can blast though KotOR without a challenge. Is this their house style, or do they think that's the equivalent of a difficulty slider? Well, at least the endboss isn't quite as unbalanced as HotU's.

 

My second problem is with the evil options. The big evil path is OK, but the everyday evil choices are not very tempting. You're a greedy bully, but it's all so petty. Most of the options are simply beneath a Sith Lord.

[Anaril]

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"?

Wow. It really is the horny half-orc... man, I remember you.

 

So, I mean, what happened? Where did you go in spring 2002?

 

Don't tell me there were other games about fire-giant beards...

 

And Volourn, nice to see you. Did you stay to the end of BIS?

 

Gronmir, notsomuch. How's the grammar problem coming along?