Thoughts on Knights of the Old Republic

[NightRevan]

 

 

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.

,

I think it was Ulic Qel-Droma who was being either thought of as the protagonist or a version of him, and Bastila was supposed to be Vima Noomi Sunrider's daughter. At least I think I read something like that years ago,

[Guard Dog]

Despite the technical glitches in the gameplay and control KOTOR I had a good story and decent characters and you didn't see the plot twist coming (be honest now, it you hadn't had it spoiled you didn't see it coming) and the different planets were all varied and nice to look at given the time it was made. Remember 2D isometric was still the standard at the time. 

 

KOTR II was the same except for the story. I was hooked, I was really into the story and I loved the premise and how you teased the backstory out in conversations. And of course it all fell apart. Cut scenes that made no sense, all these incredible villains whose story wrapped up in a way that leaves you say "that's it?" A short exposition with an antagonist that has absolutely no reason to tell you squat to tie up the story? It was 3/4 of a great game.

 

Of course the story of what happened with KOTOR II is well known and no need to reopen old wounds by bringing it up again. Had Obsidian been able to make the game they wanted to make it would have been one we would be talking about for years to come (only in a good way). Instead it's... well it is just what it is.

 

Just my $.02

Edited October 17, 2015 by Guard Dog

[Blarghagh]

An interesting thing about KotOR II is that I didn't understand the story at all until I played it through with an influence guide. My first impression of Kreia was "annoying old hag" so I never took her along, which meant I never heard the interesting things she had to say and all of her exposition was locked behind the influence gate. I was completely lost by the time I got to the end game. I had no clue what planet I was on, what happened to it, why I was fighting Kreia, or what her plan was. The entire thing was lost on me. I wonder how many other people had a similar first experience. It's only because I liked the original so much that I really wanted to like the sequel and pushed on with a second go at the game with an influence walkthrough.

 

Of course, it could be that I was still pretty young when KotOR II came out. I wasn't the smartest 16 year old.

[Guard Dog]

An interesting thing about KotOR II is that I didn't understand the story at all until I played it through with an influence guide. My first impression of Kreia was "annoying old hag" so I never took her along, which meant I never heard the interesting things she had to say and all of her exposition was locked behind the influence gate. I was completely lost by the time I got to the end game. I had no clue what planet I was on, what happened to it, why I was fighting Kreia, or what her plan was. The entire thing was lost on me. I wonder how many other people had a similar first experience. It's only because I liked the original so much that I really wanted to like the sequel and pushed on with a second go at the game with an influence walkthrough.

 

Of course, it could be that I was still pretty young when KotOR II came out. I wasn't the smartest 16 year old.

The biggest lesson I learned from playing PS:T is to never neglect the Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma type stats in an RPG. KOTOR II is a great example of a game where they matter.

[HoonDing]

The opposite should be true, either. 1 INT playthrough of New Vegas was occasionally hilarious.

[Tale]

I actually hated KOTOR when it first came out. Maybe hate is too strong. But I was incredibly disappointed in it. I was still fairly fresh off playing Baldur's Gate II and KOTOR was just nowhere near up to par. Three character party, what the heck? Also it's adaptation of the Star Wars universe was terrible in a few ways that bugged me, and I'm still not sure if KOTOR started those elements (kolto, the mandalorian design, the jedi code) or if they were terrible elements they borrowed.

 

I thought far better of it when I played it again following the Steam release. But I kind of have to chalk that up to declining standards in the genre. I've been forced to become used to 3-4 character parties and no choices in the time since.

[Blarghagh]

The biggest lesson I learned from playing PS:T is to never neglect the Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma type stats in an RPG. KOTOR II is a great example of a game where they matter.

Also a big factor. I started most RPGs the first time with a basic fighter class because they are the easiest to understand, thus learn the mechanics with (and although I understood most of the mechanics from playing KotOR, KotOR II took everything a step further). While I didn't minmax myself entirely out of Intelligence and such, I also didn't get any dialogue options out of it nor did I have skill points to get those options out of. KotOR II is an example that I would say goes too far, since the end game requires at least a basic understanding of the plot. My first playthrough got so little exposition throughout that by the end my character was doing plot things railroaded by the endgame that the character should not have been doing due to lack of information or reasonable motivation.

 

EDIT: Alternatively, didn't go far enough as it didn't provide options that my dumb, unskilled and uninfluential Jedi Weapons Master would reasonably be doing.

Edited October 17, 2015 by TrueNeutral

[Guard Dog]

Yeah that is a good point. It got too "smart" for it's own good.

[213374U]

An interesting thing about KotOR II is that I didn't understand the story at all until I played it through with an influence guide. My first impression of Kreia was "annoying old hag" so I never took her along, which meant I never heard the interesting things she had to say and all of her exposition was locked behind the influence gate. I was completely lost by the time I got to the end game. I had no clue what planet I was on, what happened to it, why I was fighting Kreia, or what her plan was. The entire thing was lost on me. I wonder how many other people had a similar first experience. It's only because I liked the original so much that I really wanted to like the sequel and pushed on with a second go at the game with an influence walkthrough.

 

Of course, it could be that I was still pretty young when KotOR II came out. I wasn't the smartest 16 year old.

 

It didn't help that it was buggy as hell, with ship cutscenes not firing when they should, etc. The final act of the game is a mess of barely coherent scenes and the conclusions to various semi-mutilated plot threads awkwardly thrown together in an obvious rush to get the game out the door in time for the holidays. For a game that relied so much on "show, don't tell", to have that much stuff cut out was pretty crippling. I hear the various restoration mods basically fixed the game in that regard, but I haven't played them myself.

[NightRevan]

 

An interesting thing about KotOR II is that I didn't understand the story at all until I played it through with an influence guide. My first impression of Kreia was "annoying old hag" so I never took her along, which meant I never heard the interesting things she had to say and all of her exposition was locked behind the influence gate. I was completely lost by the time I got to the end game. I had no clue what planet I was on, what happened to it, why I was fighting Kreia, or what her plan was. The entire thing was lost on me. I wonder how many other people had a similar first experience. It's only because I liked the original so much that I really wanted to like the sequel and pushed on with a second go at the game with an influence walkthrough.

 

Of course, it could be that I was still pretty young when KotOR II came out. I wasn't the smartest 16 year old.

 

The biggest lesson I learned from playing PS:T is to never neglect the Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma type stats in an RPG. KOTOR II is a great example of a game where they matter.

But that is also a potential problem, where you need to make sure your character has good intelligence, wisdom or charisma stats or to have to game influence system through degrees of metagaming (particularly via a influence guide) in order to understand the story. Some things of course shoukd be unavailable to characters not that intelligent or wise extra and some should get themselves into issues that intelligent, wise character might not, and how you relate to character should have impact desirably (though I don't think influence/apporval system achieve this end but rather tend to encourage gaming tge system ratger than RPing.

 

But none should lead to game or story not making sense unless you make sure to play influence game and that your character always needs required stats since then you are no longer RPing but necessarily metagaming throughout which would be deficiency to me.

 

I don't think KOTOR II fails entirely in this territory as I remember the overall thing well enough when I first played it so many years ago. But I do remember a nunber of things not making sense untill I also used the aid of an influence guide in subsequent playthroughs and made sure fo focus on wisdom or intelligence needing to metagame more an RP less. Now that might not be true of many others I don't know (can only speak of my own experience) but it was true of me and was a bit if a negative towards the game that I ztill enjoyed allot despite that and it's incompleteness (though in tge end despite being close KOTOR just wins out for me between them).

 

PS:T I always had a fairly wise and intelligent character in mind so I can't talk to what it's like playing throygh the narrative with a less intelligent and/or impulsive and at times foolish character and how that effects overall understanding the unfolding story (hopefully it creates a unique experience rather because was an excellent RP experience and narrative to play through).

Edited October 18, 2015 by NightRevan

[Gromnir]

ps:t suffers a great deal if you play other than high wisdom & Intelligence. charisma were also important to a lesser degree.  ps:t is the game that taught us to always play a high wisdom & high intelligence character our firstest time through a black isle and/or obsidian game wherein such a choice were possible-- is a kinda metagame, we s'pose.  iwd has a party with no specific protagonist, so the wisdom/int bit aren't genuine tested.  nevertheless, play kotor 2, motb, and even nwn2 w/o enhancing wisdom & intelligence (and charisma) and you will miss opportunities and options.  our favorite kotor/motb characters is rogue/cleric multi-class with extra points in intelligence for more skills and better dialogue options. and more recent, poe is rewarding the resolve and intellect player, which came as no surprise to us as our initial 3 runs through the game, regardless o' class choice, were with slight variations 'pon the following spread: m 10/d 10/m 10/p 16/w 16/r 16.  rogue, priest or paladin?  didn't matter.  sure enough, best options for exploring dialogues is available by inflating poe versions o' wisdom and intelligence.

 

ps:t and kotor 2 is enjoyable enough w/o focus on the cerebral attributes-- we have played both games that way.  even so, after having played a high wisdom and high intelligence character in ps:t, we always made our first run through a black isle/obsidian game with those attributes.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Qistina]

KotOR 2 for me is a changing pace, KotOR 1 pace feel so dynamic, KotOR 2 pace is slow...in KotOR 1 our character wake up in the middle of space battle, the music is loud and fast, after fighting few Sith then we off to escape pod and crashed on foreign racist planet controlled by Sith, then just go on with a mission to find a lost Jedi we don't even know if she already blown up in the ship or not.... In KotOR 2 the first character is a...robot...this robot meet other robot and repair a ship...long after that our character wake up in a silence place full with spider robot and corpses, there's a mysterious old woman we know she must be a dark jedi because she know our character is a jedi and is mind controlling...our character wander alone fighting some robots and watching holograms...

 

Playing both game need a different mood for each...

[Qistina]

Similarities between KotOR with Dragon Age :Origin

 

i. whiney handsome guy BFF

In KotOR we meet Carth Onasi, in DA:O we meet Alistair. Both character are similar in nature that is whiney and love using bad sarcasm. The differencs between the two is Carth is more responsible and matured while Alistair is a big boy.

 

ii. girly girl rogue

Mission Vao is a little girl thief, love to have girl talk and tell you about her background as orphan, she have a problematic brother who love to scam people. Leliana is a big girly girl, a spy, she love to tell stories, at one point she tell you that she was running from her troublesome lover.

 

iii. hot headed big girl mage

Bastila Shan is a strong character, egoist, have some dark nature behind her cute face, she fall to dark side. She don't have real emotion toward things because she live in cloistered live as a Jedi, she don't really know about the real world, that's why she's so cold. She is not in good term with her mother. Jedi is considered a Mage. Morrigan is also the same in almost everything with Bastilla Shan. The difference is Morrigan is never in good term with her mother. She live in the forest away from people making her view about outside people is as cold as it can be.

 

iv. old preachy mage

Jolee Bindo is an old Jedi who love to tell stories and giving advice to young people as old peoples love to do. He have a secret lover as a Jedi. Wayne is also the same, love to talk and giving old people advise to the young, she have a secret lover as a Circle Mage

 

v. funny assassin

We all know and love HK-47, a funny assassin droid. Similarly Zevran having the same trait with HK-47

 

vi. a big brute you don't mess with

Canderous is a bad ass soldier come from a bad ass war loving race. His philosophy of life is always about how to become a bad ass warrior. Similarly Sten of the Qunari is also a bad ass warrior come from a war loving race. His religion having similar philosophy with Mandalorian. Mandalore is Arishok.

 

vii. non-talking non-human companion

T3-M4  and Dog

 

viii. your BFF will let you to lead

Carth Onasi after giving you a mission just let you decide everything, later you become the leader of your group. Even though Alistair is the senior grey Warden he let you to lead in Korcari Wild and later let you to decide what to do in Lothering and later you become the leader of your group.

 

ix. tribes don't love outsiders

Wookies and Tusken Raiders don't love outsiders. Dalish don't love outsiders

 

x. main quest is find something at some places

In KotOR you must find ancient galaxy map to locate ancient evil technology. You travel from planet to planet for this, and this is your main objective. In DA:O you must find allies for final battle that is to defeat ancient evil.You travel from places to places for this, and this is your main objective.