Thoughts on Knights of the Old Republic

[Qistina]

I can say KotOR is the most well planed game, the character build template is good. the problem is because it is for console, so many things in the template are wasted. For example, you must scroll a long list of what combat skill and power you want to use, that's annoying, so i basically just stick to the default ones and build from there. if play as soldier, i stick with Power Attack, because i don't bother to pause and scroll other types of attack. Most of nuffs are only 20 seconds, while casting other buff, the previous buff are already going to run out. Casting buff need one round, after cast got attacked, then cast another buff, got attacked again. So all those things in the template become useless, player just stick with one or two and use one or two each time, then rely on stats for the rest

 

Bioware fix this in Dragon Age:Origin in which good. If KotOR using Dragon Age:Origin gameplay, then it's awesome

 

Another problem is the melee auto attack range, the character keep auto attacking while the player want to move the character away, this lead to abuse by the devs (Obsidian) in KotOR 2, placing mines before the enemy, they know the character will run through the mines because of the auto attack. Even if want to control each one, the other will auto attack and run through mines. The only way is using range weapon

 

 

But i like D20 system, it only need some tweakings to make it smooth

[Luj1]

SWKotOR I-II we're ****ing brilliant RPG games. They don't make 'em no more like that... I love Pillars of Eternity, I really do, but combat mechanics have been over-engineered. KotOR is beautiful for it's simplicity of mechanics, among other things. More to mention are Neverwinter Nights and Arcanum. Beautiful, smooth, simple yet effective combat. I enjoy PoE and have learned to love this system, but it clearly could have been simpler and more efficient. Don't get me wrong, both PoE and it's combat system are far from bad in any way, it's just closer to Temple of Elemental Evil's unforgiving, hard-core mechanics than these other games. I would've just settled on a simpler foundation, more akin to BG and Neverwinter Nights.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Luj1

[Hassat Hunter]

It's IS-18 (the one standing in the ventilation area of the Industrial Zone). The correct way to deal with him is to always answer choose the first answer (1) until he tells you that he needs you to go to the Manufacturing Droid and get the number of droids in the colony and access to the terminal. On the other hand, if you input the sequence of answers 1-1-1-2, the conversation will terminate just before the final step. Talking to him about it again will result in some dialog about the reactor, but it quickly leads to a forced exit from the conversation without getting the journal update. Asking him about the planet in general does not help.

I'll take a look at it...

[Darkpriest]

SWKotOR I-II we're ****ing brilliant RPG games. They don't make 'em no more like that... I love Pillars of Eternity, I really do, but combat mechanics have been over-engineered. KotOR is beautiful for it's simplicity of mechanics, among other things. More to mention are Neverwinter Nights and Arcanum. Beautiful, smooth, simple yet effective combat. I enjoy PoE and have learned to love this system, but it clearly could have been simpler and more efficient. Don't get me wrong, both PoE and it's combat system are far from bad in any way, it's just closer to Temple of Elemental Evil's unforgiving, hard-core mechanics than these other games. I would've just settled on a simpler foundation, more akin to BG and Neverwinter Nights.

Sorry for the full qoute but writing this from phone and being lazy... Arcanum had terrible combat. Not even close to simplisticly beautiful like other games. It was down right god damn awful. A single feature that made me leave the game and never return to it even though the story premise was interesting.

 

Kotors were really fun for combat and all the animations. I really miss the aesthetic part of combat animations fro those games and NWN

[Luj1]

u missed a lot with arcaunum

[Tigranes]

How did KOTOR - either one - have 'good combat'?

 

First you had an awkward mix of party control and over the shoulder one-man oriented exploration/camera. Then you had difficulty that was so laughable you could basically leave most of the battles on autopilot, without even trying. Itemisation was poor apart from lightsabre upgrades which were decent. You could just wear whatever you liked, just pick skills on a whim (not that there were many interesting ones to choose from), and then just pew pew whatever ability you thought looked cool, and mainly watch the rest of your party mop up. It was a 'just fight the battles while watching TV' experience. 

 

They were still decent games on all other points, and if you were into the story (either one) or the SW setting it was worth playing. But the combat / character progression / etc part was textbook half-cold soup.

[Darkpriest]

Still better than Arcanum...

[Katphood]

I bought Kotor 1 on steam, but of all the old games that I've managed to run on Win 7, this one simply doesn't want to work. It keeps crashing, the videos don't work and I've went through a great deal of trouble to patch this game to no avail. I would love to play it because of all the good things I've heard about it so far. I would also like to play Kotor 2 because, well, it was developed by Obsidian Entertainment. 

[Humanoid]

Maybe check the GOG forums to see if their version suffers from any similar issues. I trust it doesn't, but would suck having to spend money on the game yet again unless it was guaranteed to work.

[majestic]

Maybe check the GOG forums to see if their version suffers from any similar issues. I trust it doesn't, but would suck having to spend money on the game yet again unless it was guaranteed to work.

 

For what its worth, my GOG KOTORs work just fine on Windows 7 except for the occasional bug where non-interactive dialogues or in-game cutscenes skip from the first line to the last immediately. Restarting the game fixes that for while but it never completely goes away. A friend of mine however had crashes with the GOG versions but none with his self patched retail versions (except for not being able to play any movies), so GOG did change something that might give people who otherwise have crashed and issues on the other versions a fighting chance.

 

Unless of course you're trying to run the games on one of them Intel integrated HD series GPUs. In which case getting the games to work is nothing short of an uphill battle. One where you're outnumbered, outgunned and have to dodge a landslide on your way up. Good luck.

[Qistina]

How did KOTOR - either one - have 'good combat'?

 

First you had an awkward mix of party control and over the shoulder one-man oriented exploration/camera. Then you had difficulty that was so laughable you could basically leave most of the battles on autopilot, without even trying. Itemisation was poor apart from lightsabre upgrades which were decent. You could just wear whatever you liked, just pick skills on a whim (not that there were many interesting ones to choose from), and then just pew pew whatever ability you thought looked cool, and mainly watch the rest of your party mop up. It was a 'just fight the battles while watching TV' experience. 

 

They were still decent games on all other points, and if you were into the story (either one) or the SW setting it was worth playing. But the combat / character progression / etc part was textbook half-cold soup.

 

Well it is a turn based combat game, not an action FPS game, what to expect other than click and watch?

 

I think Dragon Age:Origins does "fix" some of the issue but still...i know it actually using the same mechanic, so it's a no big difference. But look at DA2 and DA:I, what happen when they listen (i doubt they actually listen, they intend to do it anyway) to the fans who give the very same argument like you did, the combat become horrendous than the previous games.

[Hurlshort]

Neither KotOR is turn-based.  

[Qistina]

Neither KotOR is turn-based.  

 

It's turn based, enemy attack, then you attack, that is why there is rounds......

[Althernai]

I bought Kotor 1 on steam, but of all the old games that I've managed to run on Win 7, this one simply doesn't want to work. It keeps crashing, the videos don't work and I've went through a great deal of trouble to patch this game to no avail. I would love to play it because of all the good things I've heard about it so far. I would also like to play Kotor 2 because, well, it was developed by Obsidian Entertainment. 

Have you tried these tricks from my first post in this thread:

 

 

First, some technical details in case anyone wants to play the Steam version; the game is from 2003 and it did not work well on my Windows 7, Radeon 6770M laptop out-of-the-box. The main problem is with the pre-rendered movies; whenever any of these would end (including the ones during startup), there was about a 50% chance that the game would either minimize itself or disable the mouse or both. The hack I found online was to add AllowWindowedMode=1 to swkotor.ini and then switch to windowed mode whenever a movie came up -- for some reason, they look better in windowed mode anyway -- and then back to full screen once the game returned to standard gameplay. Also, I had to disable the Grass setting since the grass wasn't showing, but some very strange graphical artifacts were.

 

Regarding the game being turn-based: it's not. It has exactly the same real-time-with-pause structure as the Infinity Engine game (i.e. Baldur's Gate et al). There are 6 second rounds, but all of them happen at the same time.

 

And yeah, the combat and interface are both pretty lousy. The saving grace of the first one is that there is not very much of it and because it is so easy, battles end relatively quickly so most of your game time is spend on other activities.

[Rosbjerg]

Neither KotOR is turn-based.  

 

It's mechanically turnbased, in the same way Baldur's Gate was - seemingly real time for the player.

[Gorgon]

I don't remember the twist.

(Was it you are revan ?)

 

[Qistina]

 

Regarding the game being turn-based: it's not. It has exactly the same real-time-with-pause structure as the Infinity Engine game (i.e. Baldur's Gate et al). There are 6 second rounds, but all of them happen at the same time.

 

And yeah, the combat and interface are both pretty lousy. The saving grace of the first one is that there is not very much of it and because it is so easy, battles end relatively quickly so most of your game time is spend on other activities.

 

 

It is turn based, there are rounds, it just look like arcade, but the combat take turns

[majestic]

Turn on auto-pause after combat round and it'll even play like a turn based RPG, just with your and enemy turns happening at the same time. Which isn't unheard of in TB combat games. It just makes combat in KOTOR very tedious as it goes from queuing up flurry, critical strike or force lightning and watching into queuing up flurry, critical strike or force lightning and pressing space every 6 seconds. Bleh.

[Qistina]

Everything that don't need our own reflex is turn based, by means we put in stats for our character and then our character act by their own based on stats given, the dice roll calculate everything. The dice calculate for you and the enemies, so that's the turn. Dragon Age:Origin upgrade this mechanic by allow us to execute order bypass the turns such as casting magic or doing special attacks. But sadly they smash it all in DA2 and utterly destroy it in DA:I

 

In turn based, the enemy will always attack first because the first turn is always their turn.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Qistina

[majestic]

In turn based, the enemy will always attack first because the first turn is always their turn.

 

Uh... no. Most, if not all, turn based systems in video/computer and tabletop role playing games feature an initiative check of some kind. The first turn goes to however wins initiative and not to the enemy per se. Some (like D&D) even have a surprise round if you catch enemies unaware after which normal initiative applies, potentially giving the heroes two rounds of combat where the enemy can't do anything at all.

[Luj1]

Still better than Arcanum...

 

and PoE's combat too

[Mainman]

Hello, guys!

I need a help with some RPG-quiz. Did anyone remember who supposed to be KotOR's main hero before Revan?

[majestic]

Hello, guys!

I need a help with some RPG-quiz. Did anyone remember who supposed to be KotOR's main hero before Revan?

 

Huh, what, are you talking about Bastila, or some early development stuff?

Edited October 14, 2015 by majestic

[HoonDing]

I'd play it again, but my discs are scratched.

[Mainman]

 

 

 

 

Hello, guys!

I need a help with some RPG-quiz. Did anyone remember who supposed to be KotOR's main hero before Revan?

 

Huh, what, are you talking about Bastila, or some early development stuff?

 

 

Early development stuff. I mean, who should to be protagonist.