Yay! Chris Avellone working on Divinity OS 2

[Nonek]

 

\ P.S. Kreia nonsense: That's full of crap. Everything you wrote about Kreia is nonsense. She is not a mature woman 9not coutning the fact her ugly oldness).  Being  force = evil is not mature. It's lame and simpleminded. And, she LOVES violence. She enjoys drinking the blood of people. EVIL. She doesn't udnerstand the enmy. She  just speaks pscyhobabble and puts her feelings upon others therefore epic fail.

 

 

B.b.b.but i'm old and ugly as well, you unfeeling brute. No, I will not lose faith in you Volourn, you are our voted for God and I shall believe in your higher wisdom.

[gkathellar]

personally i am waiting for the 2mln stretch goal...

Alas, it seems unlikely, unless they see a huge increase in pledges over the next 60 hours. I don't care personally, but it's true that people won't truly shut up about wanting a new NWN without the addition of a DM mode.

 

Spoilering Star Wars junk for length and for whocares.jpg

 

 

 

It's a fairly divisive argument in real life too since it tends to mirror the moral absolutist vs moral relativist division.

 

It's interesting to me that you enunciate at great length the superiority of a nuanced worldview, and then divide all morality into two distinct camps.

 

Fundamentally the problem is that Lucas mandated SW is boring.

Look, I don't want to give Lucas too much credit when I say this (most of all because the man was unable to take a consistent position on the subject), but there are a lot of things from his editorial mandate that were pretty good - at least as ideas - and went starkly against what you're saying here. He pretty explicitly stated that the Force was not supposed to be a binary good/evil thing, but a natural rhythm in which the "Dark" side was an unnatural corruption. He also noted that the old Jedi Council were specifically wrong about their whole interpretation of these things, and that their mix of a binary worldview and pathological repression were supposed to be the specific cause of their fall.

 

Now, did he totally screw that up in the prequels, and by making a lot of specific statements contradicting those broad ones? Yeah, sure. Nor did it help that this idea clearly evolved after New Hope, if not after the entire trilogy. But I think the EU as a whole did far worse by invalidating everything that happened in the original film trilogy and (for the sake of them franchise $$$) turning the original conflict into an endless war between two factions of pseudo-fascist space samurai.

 

Good vs evil is unimaginative and limiting,

 

That's why there are no compelling but morally clear narratives, right? "Morally gray" stories, after all, are absolutely never just a stew of puerile angst and nihilistic fascination with suffering from authors too cowardly to believe in anything.

 

Good vs. evil can be very compelling if it's done well, but that depends on nuance, just as doing anything else well does. Just because the question is basic does not mean it's simple - if anything, it's just the opposite, and narratives about good and evil flourish in the hands of those who are able to see that sophistication. In reality, human beings are tugged in opposing directions by their better and worse natures. There's a reason why the throne room scene in Return of the Jedi is so incredible - it is a full enunciation of the personal struggle to be good in a world without good choices, the rejection of both New Hope's naivete and Empire Strikes Back's cynicism to actually stand by and believe in one's fellow people, rather than a set of abstractions.

 

(I'd argue that this is the whole point of Luke's arc in RotJ. The scene where he confronts Obi Wan and Yoda's ghosts and is forced into the realization that they're completely full of **** is really, really well done.)

 

The funny thing is, I can understand people not liking Kreia and what she says, but not thinking she's a crap character. You don't have to believe her, you don't have to agree and she isn't proved right, at any point. What she does do is challenge the status quo and beliefs, and some people just hate that especially if it's done well.

 

This I agree with, yeah. Kreia is not a nice person, and you're not supposed to think she's a nice person. But a lot of people confuse "great character" for "likeable character." Kreia is a great character in the same way that Milton's Lucifer is a great character.

 

Kreia is a sad, bitter old woman whose disappointment in the world and in the causes she's given her life to have left her icy, pained, and tired. That's why she's such an amazing character.

 

And, I'd like to ask you that question. If Kreia is supposed to be wrong, why does she succeed everything she does? Hell, even when you beat her, she still wins. She has the entire galaxy warped around her finger and even if you rebel, you end up accomplishing her goal.

 

Which goal? Kreia lies constantly about her goals, and part of the reason she always seems to win may just be that she's sort of counting on the Exile to determine the outcome. She may or may not actually want to destroy the Force using the wound created at Malachor V, and she certainly fails at that. She was definitely after the defeat of the remaining Sith lords - Sion, Nihilus, Atris, and herself - by the Exile's hand, which does work out. It's doubtful that she wanted the remaining Jedi masters dead; more likely is that she wanted them to accept that their worldview was misguided, which fails and forces her to kill them herself when they try to kill the Exile. She sought an end to the Sith and Jedi alike, probably including herself. She does succeed by that measure, but fails insofar as the Exile surpasses her expectations and trains their companions to become the founders of a new, better Jedi Order.

 

So yeah, she wins in the sense that she's the Exile's mentor, cares more about the Exile's life than her own, and probably wanted the Exile to kill her. Considering that Kreia lies all the time, to everyone, including herself, I dunno that she even had a true endgame plan. She wanted to destroy the existing power structures of the force, so she found somebody that those existing power structures basically all wanted dead.

 

Edit:

She enjoys drinking the blood of people. EVIL.

I ... what? When? Where?

Edited September 28, 2015 by gkathellar

[ManifestedISO]

It's easy to tell who reads Kreia's story and those who choose "I'll be going now."

[Volourn]

It's easy to tell who takes what Kreia says as gospel and who realzies that she likes to lie and make up fairy tales. She is full of crap.

[melkathi]

Never liked Kreia. Felt obsidian was trying too hard to create grayness and force moral dilemmas onto people, where the dilemmas only really existed so they could be forced onto players. "Maybe giving poor people money is not charity, because then they have something worth stealing and will become victims of violent crime."

That silly scene is pretty much all I remember though. I have forgotten most of the rest of the game.

[Zoraptor]

"NWN was successful in every way that mattered."

 

Only nazi sjws think that.

 

"Everything you wrote about Kreia is nonsense."

 

No.

 

But, hey keep crying.

 

Never liked Kreia. Felt obsidian was trying too hard to create grayness and force moral dilemmas onto people, where the dilemmas only really existed so they could be forced onto players. "Maybe giving poor people money is not charity, because then they have something worth stealing and will become victims of violent crime."

That silly scene is pretty much all I remember though. I have forgotten most of the rest of the game.

 

Well yeah, there is no dilemma there because whatever you choose Kreia criticises you for it and the result is the same for the guy you give money to (or not). That is literally a rhetorical exercise illustrating the rather ridiculously simplistic LS/ DS dichotomy where either picking the goody two shows LS option or the nasty DS option ends with not only the same result but criticism of whichever extreme you pick. It's also, of course, deconstruction of the rather silly way RPGs deal with good and evil dialogue, though the deconstruction is far less prevalent than it was in PST.

 

Personally I like that, the vast majority of games are pretty dumb and assume youa re moran too, a bit of depth and introspection is rare. And it's seldom appreciated as such.

[Madscientist]

Personally I like Kreia for a few reasons:

 

One, she's not the usual squeeing idiot spewing jokes every few seconds trying deperately to be liked, she has pride, gravitas and is unashamedly opinionated. A woman of strength and character, rather than a giggling girl child. Maturity in an RPG is extremely rare and welcome, though of course no one will champion the inclusion of the aged as it is not fashionable.

 

Two: She is for all of her terrifying strength and determination realistically flawed: She is blatantly speciesist, lacks almost any kind of empathy despite (or maybe because of) her psychic knowledge of people, is far too sure of her own abilities and manipulations, is immoral in many ways when her goals are met by obstacles she cannot overcome, and can be unnecessarily cruel which is counterproductive to her manipulations.

 

Three: She has experienced life, with and without the Force, this is what differentiates and empowers her from the usual Jedi or Sith whom are for all of their justifications addicts, whom have never known what it is to live life without their drug, their binary philosophy or the comfort of their group and its brotherhood.

 

Four: She tries to understand her enemy, and in knowing them is able to outmaneuvre or overcome them, for instance using Nihlus addiction to destroy him or Sion's mental frailty to bend him to her will. Studying the enemy is extremely rare in an RPG, TSL and Alpha Protocol are two of the few games that do so. Ultimately she uses this technique to turn the Force against itself, one can imagine that Kreia would be a fantastic practicioner of Judo.

 

Five: In knowing and serving both sides of the Force, and more importantly being without it, she has come to the logical conclusion that this binary tyranny pitting one philosophical side of the same religion against each other for no reason whatsoever must be ended. A brave and radical decision that she alone pursues, asking for neither aid nor reward, she pursues a selfless task because she believes that it is the right thing to do, rather than because of the rewards she harvests. She is an idealist.

 

Six: She spurns violence, in her own words it is better to open anothers eyes to ones cause rather than close them forever. Massively refreshing, especially in a genre (and admittedly) a game that relies on racking up massive amounts of death and victories to harvest experience and items.

 

A masterfully written original character, that really builds on the fertile acorn that Ravel was, sprouting into a thriving black barbed mighty Oak. In my opinion anyway.

 

Thank you. You said it better than I ever could.

 

I do not like Kreia (I mean, in my real life I don´t want to be in the same room with such a person)

I do not agree with her.

But she is one of the most interesting chars in gaming history because of the points above.

 

PS: TSL means The Sith Lords, the game we talk about, right? There are too many abbreviations in this world.

 

@Zoraptor:

You are right. Both jedi and sith are psychos.

 

jedi codex (in my own words)

You are a tool of the force. You must not have emotions. You must not think about your own needs. You must sacrifice yourself to help others.

My comment: Every person who tries to live that way will either leave and hate this nonsense or will go insane. People have emotions and they must learn to live with them without being completely dominated by them. When you consider yourself a tool and you think you do only exist to serve others then you should realy visit a doctor.

 

sith codex (in my own words)

Only in the fighting of everbody vs everybody else it is ensured that the strongest rules. Kill your masters and suppress your servants to improve your position. Other people are only tools that you can use to achieve your goals.

my comment: People who are unable to cooperate and to respect each other  will never achieve anything. They will never build a huge empire. The fact that you could kill your master is not enough as qualification to be a good (good means effective, not the opposite of evil) leader. Everyone who tries to live like this will become paranoid or die by the hands of the people around him.

 

As I have written before: jedi and sith are mages who are drunk with power and who follow extreme ideals that will finally fail.

 

But they are good to make a 2h movie full of epic fights, special effects and big emotions. Who needs realism when you have all of this

[melkathi]

Well yeah, there is no dilemma there because whatever you choose Kreia criticises you for it and the result is the same for the guy you give money to (or not). That is literally a rhetorical exercise illustrating the rather ridiculously simplistic LS/ DS dichotomy where either picking the goody two shows LS option or the nasty DS option ends with not only the same result but criticism of whichever extreme you pick. It's also, of course, deconstruction of the rather silly way RPGs deal with good and evil dialogue, though the deconstruction is far less prevalent than it was in PST.

 

Personally I like that, the vast majority of games are pretty dumb and assume youa re moran too, a bit of depth and introspection is rare. And it's seldom appreciated as such.

When it comes to deconstruction I feel Geoffrey in Arcanum went unappreciated, when in the conversation leading up to the last fight he jokes about joining Kerghan and illustrating the silly motivations NPCs so often have in other games.

[Althernai]

The idea is that you can only do something simple like Good vs Evil for a set amount of time. So it's a fine premise for the movies, all of which I enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent, because a SW movie is what a SW movie is; SFX pr0n with a variable quality supporting story that is not Shakespeare or Tolstoy and isn't intended to be. You're not going to a movie to do much more than be entertained for an hour and a half, it's rare for any movie to do a good job of being thought provoking even when they aim to do that.

Not really. Some of the most complex speculative fiction stories are Good vs. Evil; it's the execution that matters. The main problem with KOTOR II is that it simply was not finished. No amount of deconstruction will save a character (or for that matter the game itself) when the associated content density drops by a factor of 3 two thirds of the way through the game. You can see how much was missing by installing the restored content mod. The latter does a pretty amazing job at reintegrating the content and makes the game better, but given that the mod's creators could only work with what was there, the game is unfinished and unpolished even with the mod.

 

As to the tone and story of the movies vs. KOTOR II... this is a case where to do deconstruction well is much harder than it looks. Star Wars is a straightforward implementation of the monomyth (also known as the Hero's Journey). You can see it very clearly in the structure and Lucas has said as much. The monomyth is a story that can be repeated a seemingly unlimited number of times and, as long as there is some variation, it doesn't get old. The original KOTOR borrows a lot from the movies and, to a considerable degree, is also a retelling of the monomyth. KOTOR II is a deconstruction and a rather dark one at that. Since the monomyth is so common, deconstructions of it are also quite common and it's hard to make one that is both original and good. KOTOR II manages the originality, but at the cost of being weird and not in a good way. Maybe it would have been better had it actually been finished, but as it stands (even with the mod), it's just not very good.

[gkathellar]

As to the tone and story of the movies vs. KOTOR II... this is a case where to do deconstruction well is much harder than it looks. Star Wars is a straightforward implementation of the monomyth (also known as the Hero's Journey). You can see it very clearly in the structure and Lucas has said as much.

I dunno, for all that New Hope is clearly modeled after the Joseph Campbell's Magical Book Of Ignoring Anthropological Research And Interpreting Freud Literally, I think the other two entries in the trilogy are intended very much as subversions. Empire Strikes Back asks, "okay, you've had your hero's journey, what now?" while Return of the Jedi is a take-2 loaded with criticism of the whole original idea (and it bears remembering that Lucas didn't write either the second or third entry, and that a lot of the major plot points in those two originated with the lead writer.

 

The original KOTOR borrows a lot from the movies and, to a considerable degree, is also a retelling of the monomyth. KOTOR II is a deconstruction and a rather dark one at that.

 

Again, I'd just argue that TSL has pretty much the same relationship to KotOR as ESB and RotJ have to New Hope.

 

It's easy to tell who takes what Kreia says as gospel and

Uh ... has anybody professed to that? I mean, Zoraptor seems to agree with what she puts forward more than some of those who say they like the character, but the general consensus I'm seeing is distinctly not what you're saying here. Are you just using hyperbole to insult the people who disagree with you and call them dumb, or is there a point her that I'm missing?

 

who realzies that she likes to lie and make up fairy tales. She is full of crap.

Yes, absolutely. Kreia is a lying hypocrite who is absolutely certain of her own objectivity. Her flaws are on full display from the first. This is all part of why she works so well as a character.

 

Only nazi sjws think that.

ITP: "This person disagrees with me! I'm going to associate them with this group of mostly fictional internet bogeymen-scapegoats who I dislike, and then invoke Godwin's Law! That totally constitutes a meaningful response and definitely doesn't sink to the level I claim to be criticising!"

 

But, hey keep crying

Dismissing others by equivocating their claims with childish whining doesn't really constitute an argument, regardless of how unsubstantiated aforementioned claims may be.

Edited September 28, 2015 by gkathellar

[Alexander1]

I dunno, for all that New Hope is clearly modeled after the Joseph Campbell's Magical Book Of Ignoring Anthropological Research And Interpreting Freud Literally, I think the other two entries in the trilogy are intended very much as subversions. Empire Strikes Back asks, "okay, you've had your hero's journey, what now?" while Return of the Jedi is a take-2 loaded with criticism of the whole original idea (and it bears remembering that Lucas didn't write either the second or third entry, and that a lot of the major plot points in those two originated with the lead writer.

 

I disagree.  Joseph Campbell was more closely aligned with Carl Jung, who was mentored by Freud but didn't really follow in his footsteps.  He also was heavily influenced by two anthropologists:  Leo Frobenius and Adolf Ellgard Jensen.  I would argue that the original three films are better storytelling than anything written since, even though many of the comics are very good and many projects since have had fun and creative moments. 

 

I'm not a purist -- I liked some of the Old Republic ideas (and thought the cartoon series was better than the prequel films) but to claim that A New Hope is based on a flawed interpretation of Freud is oddly specific and seems to ignore the fact that it's better than nearly every Star Wars  - related work of fiction that's come since.  Everything else you pointed out I generally agree with. 

Edited September 28, 2015 by Alexander1

[Volourn]

"es, absolutely. Kreia is a lying hypocrite who is absolutely certain of her own objectivity. Her flaws are on full display from the first. This is all part of why she works so well as a character."

\

I don't hate Kreia as a character. I think she's an above average character. I just believe her fanboys overrate her.

 

 

" ITP: "This person disagrees with me! I'm going to associate them with this group of mostly fictional internet bogeymen-scapegoats who I dislike, and then invoke Godwin's Law! That totally constitutes a meaningful response and definitely doesn't sink to the level I claim to be criticising!"

 

 

"Dismissing others by equivocating their claims with childish whining doesn't really constitute an argument, regardless of how unsubstantiated aforementioned claims may be."

 

\Chill out and relax and don't dismiss his posts with childish whining just because he wrote something you disliked.
 

[Zoraptor]

 

 

Not really. Some of the most complex speculative fiction stories are Good vs. Evil; it's the execution that matters.

 

I don't disagree, actually, it is very much in the execution- but a more nuanced view helps with that execution and extends the setting by allowing more than a small subsets of plot lines. You didn't give an example so I'll provide one which is similar(ish) to Star Wars: LOTR. It's got a great setting, at least in theory, highly detailed, well regarded and is a basis for a lot of the subsequent fantasy. The actual plots that take place in that setting are well executed as well, but the stories themselves are pretty generic good v evil and temptation tropes which while not as overtly based on religion as CS Lewis's stuff is still pretty derivative thereof. Ultimately, the LOTR setting has only 5 core books, SW's EU had 50ish plus hundreds of comics and dozens of games which were very seldom even half as well written or well executed as Tolkien's stuff. If there were that many LOTR products I'd be 100% confident it would have exactly the same problems that SW has.

 

ITP: "This person disagrees with me! I'm going to associate them with this group of mostly fictional internet bogeymen-scapegoats who I dislike, and then invoke Godwin's Law! That totally constitutes a meaningful response and definitely doesn't sink to the level I claim to be criticising!"

Dismissing others by equivocating their claims with childish whining doesn't really constitute an argument, regardless of how unsubstantiated aforementioned claims may be.

Not familiar with Volourn, are you? A veritable world of wonder awaits.

 

(He's been using the 'nazi sjw' insult in about every post for the past two weeks- don't take it seriously, no one else does or will)

 

I mean, Zoraptor seems to agree with what she puts forward more than some of those who say they like the character, but the general consensus I'm seeing is distinctly not what you're saying here.

 

 

I only agree with her on an out of universe meta level, in universe she's wrong in much the same way she'd be if she claimed gravity doesn't exist or was trying to kill gravity; and the game makes that absolutely clear at every step.

 

That's why I used the Sword of Truth example albeit it's more obscure than SW or LOTR; in universe whatshisname and whatshername are undoubtedly heroes because the author regards them as such- out of universe though they are, essentially, psychotic mass murderers because their author is an extreme objectivist whose moral absolutism is so extreme it loops all the way around to moral relativism in practice and the main justification for the stuff the heroes do is that they are the heroes.

[Volourn]

"(He's been using the 'nazi sjw' insult in about every post for the past two weeks- don't take it seriously, no one else does or will)"

 

Don't lie. Only nazi sjws would think like that. I use it a lot but in 'about every post'? NO.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Volourn

[Hurlshort]

"(He's been using the 'nazi sjw' insult in about every post for the past two weeks- don't take it seriously, no one else does or will)"

 

Don't lie. Only nazi sjws would think like that. I use it a lot but in 'about every post'? NO.

 

Yeah, plus it has been more like 6 months. 

[Labadal]

I guessed that this would reach $2 million when it launched and I still believe it will make it.

[deathcoy]

 

OH SNAP

 

Also, I'm very pleased to see they hit the 1.65m stretch goal. Maybe people will stop asking for every RPG and its cousin to include a campaign creation toolset now the D:OS2 is finally going to provide dedicated editor support.

 

I... I really don't know how to feel about it.

 

If he works on the lore and writes way to integrate gameplay ideas into the story, it's awesome. But don't let him write characters (at least, not on his own).

 

I don't really get that. Character writing has always been what Avellone does best.

 

Well, that and just generally tearing existing properties into little pieces.

 

personally i am waiting for the 2mln stretch goal...

 

 

Same here, could really use a DM/GM mode.

 

Sword Coast Legends is horrible and a disappointment...

[gkathellar]

Well hey, they might actually get there if they can move another 90k in the next 13 hours.

 

Final push, folks! Tell your friends!

[Darkpriest]

and there it is... 2mln stretch goal

[melkathi]

Let's just hope they manage their money better this time

[Madscientist]

About SW:

I play KotoR2 and yesterday I saw SW A new hope on TV.

My thoughts: KotoR2 (mostly Kreia alone) has more depth then the 6 movies together.

So KotoR2 is truely very unusual for SW. The movies have better graphics and better special effects, but the story is really flat.

We already discussed something similar : http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70520-does-the-term-realistic-have-any-meaning-in-rpgs/.

Is what we called "deconstruction of the monomyth" in KotoR2 the same thing as realism in the video of Sakai? Or simpler, is KotoR2 realistic?

 

about the thing that used to be the topic:

I am happy that Larian achieved all stretch goals and Chris writes for them. Before the good news many people demanded Chris as stretch goal, but Swen answered "Sorry, Chris is too stretched already." I am happy he was wrong and I hope they make a great game.