Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
KotOR 2 is gonna rock
I don't know about you guys, but I am stoked that Obsidian Entertainment is doing KotOR 2. Fallout is GOD, Feargus is the man and they are going to make this game so damn good.
Its not Fallout 3, but I suppose its the next best thing.
Heres my wish list for the game:
1. The Force Push should be expanded to a Force Telekinesis type move. Instead of just pushing a foe, your character should be able to pick up nearby objects and "throw" them at the enemy. When the power is maxed out the character could make a Force Tornado, sending ALL nearby objects spinning around the enemy causing damage for a couple rounds.
2. There absolutely must be more than a dark and light side path. Minor actions should affect the outcame of the game more. Also, you should be rewarded for being "neutral", keeping your force points right in the middle, neither dark nor light.
3. If you take the dark path, you should be able to rename your charcater with a "Datrh" title in the later stages of the game.
4. As you go light or dark, your companions should follow suit. Evil companions should get more evil and gain bonuses when they fight with you while good characters suffer penalties and distance themselves from you, and vice versa (I read that they actually are doing this).
What do you guys think?
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Registered: Sep 2000
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Point 2 is to be resisted at ALL COSTS. Any game in which you are fundamentally dealing with the concept of being a force user involves, as is clearly the point in the films, there being a definitive choice between Light and Dark, with an attempt to be neutral being meaningless. It is simply not how it works. The morality system in KOTOR is not very good anyway but to introduce a neutrality concept makes it far worse.
I think it could only be improved by having you chose Light or Dark to start with. No amount of petty choices can ever really get to the heart of what makes a person Light Side or Dark Side anyway, so the game tried to take it on evidence of how you are acting which is simply too removed and obscure to be accurate, in something as relatively simple as a computer game. As it is, all that happens is that people who want to be Light play nice and wamt to be Dark play evil- or what the game makes out to be evil, which is mostly just petty acts of selfishness- which apparerntly 'turns' you into a Light or Dark Sider on their rather ridiculous Light/Dark morality scale... what is the point of that? May as well just choose... as it is, when you compare it to the concept of Light/Dark side in the films, it is pretty feeble. Not as feeble as cortosis lined weaponry though. If they junk that I'll be a happy man indeed.
As for point one, the powers need toning down, not up. The game is too arcadey.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Apr 28th, 2004 at 10:50 PM
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
I have to disagree Ush. One of my favorite characters in the first game was Jolee Bindo, the old hermit "Jedi". His belief was that the Force didnt exist to be made into bad or good, it just was. The person using the Force was what made it bad or good. He thought the Sith AND the Jedi were full of it, so he chose to turn his back on both. In his heart hes a good person, he's just not a "Jedi" because he doesn't believe in absolutely everything the Jedi preach.
Gameplay-wise, it would be interesting to play a neutral character. You wouldn't gain any of the bonuses of the dark or light side, but neither would you suffer any penalties. It would be a hard road, as you would have to carefully monitor your dark and light side point gainage to make sure you stayed in the middle. I think it would be fun.
As for the rest, I think they did a pretty good job with the two paths, as far as games like that go. You have to take into account what the engine is capable of and what the developers timeframe is. More paths and branching would have been nice. Thats definitely also on the wish list for KotOR 2.
If you want less "arcadey"ness, play Galaxies. That game looks like it would bore me to death personally (or I would get hopelessly addicted to it and lose my life).
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Registered: Sep 2000
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Well, then we will certainly have to disagree because I thought those parts of Jolee's character were a ridiculous liberty by the game designers. Besides which, he wasn't neutral, he was Light Side- he was just out the job- and as you mention, still possessed with a Jedi's altruism- simply disillusioned; not even vaguely a half and half character!. He didn't 'turn his back' on the Sith- he was never with them to turn his back on them; they were as much people he counted as enemies then as before. Incidentally, everything he had to say about love was bull, in the Star Wars universe- the writers should have kept a closer eye on GL's interpretation of things, which overrides all others, after all. They completely missed the point about why Jedi forbid Love. He makes out that it is only passion that is wrong and that love is fine- he is simply and canonically wrong.
It does not matter a damn what the Force does or does not exist for- there is a Light Side or a Dark Side that every single user of the Force aligns to. End of story, cannot be contradicted. And your idea about 'balancing' your Light and Dark side points only reinforces my huge problem with the way they split Light and Dark in the game, with good deeds pushing you up, and bad deeds pulling you down, this ridiculous 'good/bad-o-meter', as if that is how it should work! A person who does some good deeds and some bad deeds in a weird attempt to balance his morality is none other than a psychotic mess- and pretty dark Dark Side.
It is completely contrary to the setting to go neutral. There is NO such thing as a neutral force user in Star Wars- you are either Light Side or Dark side, no inbetween. Now, is this a game based on the Star Wars franchise or not? The answer is yes, and so an in-between option simply should not be there.
A lot of fans have always gone on about the possibility of being a Grey Jedi for years now- that strikes me as a simple fantasy of people who have no regard for the whole point of the setting.
"Oh, I am a Grey Jedi, I can see the points of Light and Dark but I use my powers not for my own selfish advancment or for the restrictive cause of the Jedi..." they say- no, they are simply idiots who think it is cool to tear the point of the films apart to create their own selfish system that benefits them, and think in any way that is 'balanced'...
What about the fundamentals? The problems of attachment? Accepting the restrictions of heroism and altruism? What about using your emotions, or not doing so- a yes or no situation, with no in-between that almost totally sets you Light and Dark, and is impossible to simulate in system which simply tries to define your morality based on a few very specific acts. What about 'once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny'- how much more clear can it have been that you cannot merely dabble with the Dark Side? Once you are there, using your emotions, twsited and evil, you are there, and no amount of trying to do good actions to gain silly Light Side 'points' will change that! And aside from anything else... what about the fact that George Lucas has simply STATED there are two sides of the Force, and so anyone who tries to make out otherwise is simply incorrect...
Galaxies looks pretty hopeless to me; KOTOR is the serious sort of game but they blatantly overdid the force powers in it relative to the powers that exist in the films.
Lightning is not a big problem save that it is too easy to get but half the powers are just silly! You don't need stasis holding powers (bane of any game) and 'destroy droid' (which made portions of the game ludicrously easy) to simulate the Star Was force system!
Now, none of this matters in a mere computer game except that I LIKE my Star Wars games to remain relatively true to the source material rather than shoot off with their own very different takes on how SW should work. For my liking, KOTOR was too far in that direction with its comments on love, ludicrously simplified morality system (not actually worse than Jedi Knight's but it SEEMED worse because they were trying to be so much more serious about it) and cortosis weaponry, and I would rather any changes brought it back the other way. And in that spirit I think a 'neutral' path would be a disaster and I cannot more strongly reject that as a suggested option.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Apr 29th, 2004 at 10:38 AM
Registered: Sep 2003
Location: the bad side of the moon
anything that has to do with the star wars universe and plots that are written with star wars tonalities HAVE to go through lucas and be approved by him, because hes the one who ultimately gets paid. he has to do this in order to keep HIS story and ideas going throughout his own series.
and with the whole "love" issue: you have to remeber that this story takes place FOUR THOUSAND YEARS BEFORE THE GALACTIC REPUBLIC.
which is about eight thousand years befor episode 1. of course things are going to change, for example: the jewish beliefs and christian beliefs have changed since the time of jesus. the writers knew this to be true so the wrote in some changes to the ways the jedi functioned, and lucas loved the idea.
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
OK here goes...
Ush, I think our main disagreement stems from two points.
1. You are speaking canonistically and I am speaking from a gameplay standpoint. Of course I understand that a lot of what happens in KotOR does not mesh with Lucas' movies. You dont become good or bad based on what petty actions you take, or based on a 'good/bad-o-meter' like you said, but what else can a game do? We are a long way off from games being able to have subtle things like morality and consciousness of a players feeling, so what do designers do in the meantime? A lot of what people complain about in games like this are things that are just impossible in a conventional sense to get "right", so they do their best. Forgive me, I used to work in the game industry, so I feel the need to defend what can and cant be done in games today. Realistic Force usage just cant be done in my estimation. Ush, you complain enough about problems with the game, do you have any solutions to these problems? I'm not attacking you or anything, but I believe that if you can complain, you should be able to come up with a solution to that complaint.
2. I am possibly taking too many liberties with the pre-movie era universe and the EU in general. Let me say first that I think Lucas' vision of his creation is extremely myopic and that most of the EU stuff should embarrass Lucas it is so good. Now, I haven't read a lot of EU stuff in the KotOR era, but it seems to me that 4000 years before the movies there were a lot more Jedi, and they were a lot more powerful. For that reason I don't think the Force power usage was overdone. If there were so many Jedi and Sith back then, learning and growing, they'd probably be throwing lightning and tornados at each other non-stop. Also, with so many Force-sensitive folks in the universe, there would be some admitedly confused Force users like Jolee. With a world full of Jedi, it would be karmically ok for some to take the middle road. In the modern SW era, I would have to say that most of what you say is true, but back then I think theres room for debate.
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Registered: Sep 2000
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Well, as for the first, I did say that it is not possible to try and accurately gauge a player's morality by game actions so the game should instead just have two distinct paths, Light and Dark, that you chose at start-up. This, I think, would also allow for far better exploration of the two sides.
As for the second, we certainly disagree there; I find GLs stories far more valid and interesting than anything the EU ever did. But I cannot think of any consistently logical reason as to why the force practioners of that age should be more powerful in any way at all. Such knowledge would just not be forgiven. Besides, the films should remain the primary stylisitc influence and those powers are simply contrary to that. And furthermore, I am pretty sure had the game eben set in the Prequel era, the system would have been identical (it is based on Star Wars d20, after all, which is the same across all eras). From what I know of the EU of that era, pretty much all is the same as the EU of the later eras (i.e. equally questionable in mood).
There isn't a middle road, that's the thing. You can try and be morally neutral- whatever that really is- but there is still only Light Side and Dark Side. No amount of creative interpretation can really change that.
The Love rule is not just a vague philosophy, you know. It is one of the funadmentals! It would have been in there from the start- it is a vital part of the way that Jedi stay on the Light Side!. Besides which, almost nothing ever changes in the Republic! The point is that love- not STRICTLY forbidden- creates attachment- VERY strictly forbidden. When you have attachments, you fear to lose them. Fear, as we know, leads to the Dark Side. It is one of the basic principle the Jedi live by; they don't do it just to stop Jedi being distracted- it is an essential part of a Jedi's existence! And part of the tragedy of it also.
And GL would have had no influence on the KOTOR plot. His intervention into EU material, beyond banning a few things, is almost non-existant.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Apr 29th, 2004 at 08:36 PM
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
I definitely agree with everything you say about love being detrimental to a Jedi. I just think that with so many Force sensitive individuals around back then not all of them would have agreed with us...or conventional Jedi wisdom. You have to admit that with thousands of Jedi and Sith (or dark side users), there'd be some rebels. A lot of them would believe that they could love (or otherwise not follow the "stodgy" Jedi Principals to the letter) and still not stray to the dark side, and some of them would be right. Some of them would be able to be married or whatever and still live peaceful, positive lives. Thats the kind of character I'm talking about. I tend to think more in greys than black and white though.
So, what would you call a Force user like the one I've described? One who lives outside the Jedi Code, but still lives by a Personal Moral Code that is comparibly pious and good, just not exactly the same? Would such an individual even be allowed to exist by the Jedi and/or Sith? Or maybe you think that it would just be impossible, that the person would either be light or dark. I guess thats right, the person would be good, just not a Jedi. What do you think?
This is getting pretty off-topic, but its actually way more interesting than the original topic! I must say its nice to have a forum where people can disagree and not have it turn into a flamewar or get yelled at by a moderator like I'm a 5 year old kid. KMC is a pretty nice place.
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Well, first of all, Love invites a great risk of falling to the Dark Side. Not all risks come to pass, but no Jedi who took that risk can really be seen as objectively 'right' to have taken that risk, considering the suffering that results from a fall. We are meant to symptahise with Anakin's love, after all- but it is that love that will cast him down.
A Jedi (or ex-Jedi) that abandons the Jedi code but tries to live a continually altruistic life is a Renegade Jedi. It very much seems from the films that the Jedi never take a hardcore option against any of their oewn that are wavering- Qui-Gon remained a nominal Jedi, given a Padawan to train, and even Anakin is only threatened with expulsion. So it seems only when a direct risk of falling to the Dark Side is identified would the Jedi step in (though even that is only a presumption).
I have no objection to Jolee existing, but the point is that such people would still be kn the Light Side of the Force- maybe at more risk of falling, maybe not, depending on their attitude.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
That makes sense. I guess by "neutral" I really meant "non-Jedi" or "non-Sith". The individual would definitely be good or bad, based on their actions.
I noticed the Jedi's lack of decicive action towards renegades too. If Qui-Gon was such a rebel, why let him train others? Also, the way they scoffed at the possibility of Dooku being responsible for any type of violence, just because he was once a Jedi, seemed really shortsighted to me.
"We are meant to symptahise with Anakin's love, after all-"
I have no sympathy for Anakin at all. He's a self-centered little mamas boy with no sense of duty. I think Obi-wan should feel guilty, he should have trained that crap out of Anakin, if it was possible.
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"Did Braveheart run away? Did Payback run away?"
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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Well, I think the fact that we actually all hate Anakin is due to a failure of decent writing in his plotline- I still think we were MEANT to be sympthetic (and let's be honest here- a lot of (maybe more dominantly female) fans do indeed feel that sympathy).
Although maybe not- like father like son? Luke was pretty darn whiny as well.
Anyway, so yeah. Much as the branching plotlines have been popular, I would prefer for KOTOR to actually simply have two differen entry points for the game. Actually, I don't think multi-classing was very suitable for the game either; I think most people wanted to start as a Jedi.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on May 5th, 2004 at 05:54 PM
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: San Jose CA United States of Murrka
Actually, it would be nice to go through the game (or attempt to) as a scoundrel or soldier or whatever. It would totally add replay value to be able to play through the game as a non-Jedi. Your character would have to become so good with guns or blades that they were as deadly as a Jedi with them, but that could be done with some stat bonuses or something.
You definitely got something with the whiny Skywalker family trait thing. I'll never forget how many laughs the "But I was going to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters" line got during the re-release. Thats the biggest whine I've ever heard.
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"Did Braveheart run away? Did Payback run away?"
Apr 28th, 2004 06:30 PM
