The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Originally posted by Nephthys
Lol. I provided that extract to show whats actually needed for bias. While I've argued in favor of Kotor II's characters, I do not hold a limited perspective on the matter at the expense of others.

That's exactly what you do.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I know the arguments against Kotor II and against the abilities of certain of its characters.

Being aware of counterarguments doesn't curtail bias, Neph. facepalm

Originally posted by Nephthys
I just do not agree with your conclusions about them nor put much stock in their validity.

You're entitled to. As usual, you tragically miss the point, my child.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I'm still waiting for any evidence of bias.

You and me both. Or are we not settling for angst-fueled wild accusations (like yours on the previous page)? 😬

Originally posted by Nephthys
The difference between Kotors I and II imo is that Kotor II is way more intelligent in terms of story, themes and characters. Its a much deeper story than Kotor I which is pretty standard SW/Bioware fare. IMO, Kotor II goes beyond that into truely stellar story-telling.

Excellent, the transition from hormone-fueled dogma to fair-minded opinion. My faith in you was not misplaced. 😉

I accept your concession.

I distinctly recall how on one occasion when I procured evidence against you in a duel your only response was to complain about how badly written Kotor II was. A clear indication of butthurt.

Edit: Thats always been what I've believed. I've talked about how intelligently written Kotor II is before now. Did you really think I only liked the game cuz Nihilus and Kreia were in it?

Originally posted by Nephthys
I distinctly recall how on one occasion when I procured evidence against you in a duel your only response was to complain about how badly written Kotor II was. A clear indication of butthurt.

Kindly present such evidence.

You overestimate how much I care about this. Not enough to go hunting for threads at any rate.

Would you quit editing your shit, son? uhuh

Originally posted by Nephthys
Edit: Thats always been what I've believed. I've talked about how intelligently written Kotor II is before now. Did you really think I only liked the game cuz Nihilus and Kreia were in it?

facepalm

no

Spoiler:
I know you've always believed KotOR II is "awesome" for various reasons, not simply the presence of Kreia and Nihilus. That's your opinion and I'm cool with that. The problem is simply the recurring theme with you that anyone who disagrees with anything you like is hopelessly biased and espousing invalid opinions. You did it for years with all things Nolan and now you're doing it here. Blax, myself, and others who dislike the game have our reasons for doing so.

Tl;dr: you accuse people of bias without understanding you're crippled by it.

Nephthys
You overestimate how much I care about this. Not enough to go hunting for threads at any rate.

Fine by me, bro. I've already accepted your concession and am pleased that you've quelled the boner for this game that left your fragile brain bereft of the blood it needed to function.

Glad to have you back.

I only accused you of bias. Because you obviously are.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I only accused you of bias. Because you obviously are.

An accusation that was reciprocated because of your own glaring bias.

You only accused me because you're clearly biased towards me.

I accused you because of your own bias towards me, which I needed to objectively address.

Let me just step right in.

The second game had a more "adult" atmosphere, and dealt with more abstract ideas and themes. It's characters also had more depth to them. I don't think anyone could argue otherwise. But...

None of that matters when the execution of those ideas, the delivery, the presentation, is lackluster. There's no real drive behind the story or the player characters. There's a path they're all on, but a sense of an ending, a goal they all shoot for, is missing. I blame the dialogue and voice acting-- we get it, they're deep and mysterious, you can tone it down a bit.

The first game had wit and humour to it, and a more diverse cast of characters whose actors delivered better lines in a more varied manner. It had likeable characters. Aside from HK, I didn't like anyone in KotOR II.

And HK is from kotor I )

Originally posted by Arhael
And HK is from kotor I )

Originally posted by Nephthys
Whats wrong with Kotor II's story-telling mechanics? It's the same as Kotor I's. Your only problem seems to be that instead of Star Maps its Jedi Masters. IMO that works better as a mcguffin since the Exile actually has a personal interest in finding and questioning them.

For example, I've been asked twice now "why" I did what I did at Malachor. ...I don't why I did it. How can I? At this point in the game I don't even know what the **** I did at Malachor. All I know is that it involved some sort of superweapon, it made me lose my powers and the Jedi Council exile'd me. How am I supposed to genuinely answer that question? How am I supposed to genuinely give a shit about what the jedi master's did to me if I never even performed the act that they punished me for? This is a failing of the game that wasn't present in KOTOR1- no one was asking you "So Revan, why did you decide to betray the Republic?" halfway through the ****ing game. By the time you reach Malak, your hatred for him isn't based off of some implied slight that's apart of the character's backstory that you never actually experienced, you hate Malak because you got actually experience him torturing Ballista, trying over and over to kill you, etc.

KOTOR2's primary plot is, "okay, soooo way before this game takes place, these jedi did something messed up to you, oh and also there are some sith who want to kill you so, you're going to spend the rest of the game hunting them down, kay?" That's bad story-telling.

As far as the characters are concerned, Obisidian's ploy to make them "deep" just ended up turning them into a bunch of brooding, nihilistic assholes. There's no sense of camaraderie among the crew, like there was in KOTOR1. Half the crew hates the other half, either because of romance reasons, or because Kreia's a douche who threatens everyone, or because they're just "gritty". You have to constantly worry about your actions because if you're too evil you're going to alienate the morally good characters, and vice versa. Kreia bitches no matter what you do because apparently her role is to be the contrarian "everything is relative" person. It's really no fun at all to me. Most of the cast doesn't even have a good reason for following you. In KOTOR 1, most of the people in the party had legit reasons for sticking around. Mission had been on Taris her entire life and had nowhere else to go, Zaalbar had a life-debt to Revan, Bastila obviously is on the same mission as him, etc. Meanwhile, half the cast's reasons for staying with the Exile on his mission that literally has nothing to do with them, comes down to "Kreia threatened to kill me if I didn't." So boring.

I'm only halfway through the game, so maybe there'll be some revelations later that make up for all these short-comings, but at this point it's basically too late. Obsidian made a game that's very "artsy" and "gritty", but that does not a good game make.

Originally posted by Tzeentch._
The problem is that I, the player, have no motivation for doing what I'm doing. The starmaps are a better McGuffin than the jedi masters because I experienced the events that resulted in me going after them. KOTOR1's storyline worked because everything that formed your character's motivations were experienced by you, the player, therefore your reaction to all the subsequent were genuine, as opposed to what you get in KOTOR2, where the game is basically telling you what you should be feeling.

For example, I've been asked twice now "why" I did what I did at Malachor. ...I don't why I did it. How can I? At this point in the game I don't even know what the **** I did at Malachor. All I know is that it involved some sort of superweapon, it made me lose my powers and the Jedi Council exile'd me. How am I supposed to genuinely answer that question? How am I supposed to genuinely give a shit about what the jedi master's did to me if I never even performed the act that they punished me for? This is a failing of the game that wasn't present in KOTOR1- no one was asking you "So Revan, why did you decide to betray the Republic?" halfway through the ****ing game. By the time you reach Malak, your hatred for him isn't based off of some implied slight that's apart of the character's backstory that you never actually experienced, you hate Malak because you got actually experience him torturing Ballista, trying over and over to kill you, etc.

KOTOR2's primary plot is, "okay, soooo way before this game takes place, these jedi did something messed up to you, oh and also there are some sith who want to kill you so, you're going to spend the rest of the game hunting them down, kay?" That's bad story-telling.

As far as the characters are concerned, Obisidian's ploy to make them "deep" just ended up turning them into a bunch of brooding, nihilistic assholes. There's no sense of camaraderie among the crew, like there was in KOTOR1. Half the crew hates the other half, either because of romance reasons, or because Kreia's a douche who threatens everyone, or because they're just "gritty". You have to constantly worry about your actions because if you're too evil you're going to alienate the morally good characters, and vice versa. Kreia bitches no matter what you do because apparently her role is to be the contrarian "everything is relative" person. It's really no fun at all to me. Most of the cast doesn't even have a good reason for following you. In KOTOR 1, most of the people in the party had legit reasons for sticking around. Mission had been on Taris her entire life and had nowhere else to go, Zaalbar had a life-debt to Revan, Bastila obviously is on the same mission as him, etc. Meanwhile, half the cast's reasons for staying with the Exile on his mission that literally has nothing to do with them, comes down to "Kreia threatened to kill me if I didn't." So boring.

I'm only halfway through the game, so maybe there'll be some revelations later that make up for all these short-comings, but at this point it's basically too late. Obsidian made a game that's very "artsy" and "gritty", but that does not a good game make.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
A presence I haven't felt since....

You're only master of evil... Tempest.

In all seriousness my absense is more having to do with almost never logging on to MSN live (which was always a primary form of communication) than anything else.

That and... well shit, I just don't come around here very often anymore.

I personally prefer KotOR I. It's a much more enjoyable, fun and solid game overall, I believe. I do like KotOR II a lot, though. All of you have provided valid points in favor and against the game; it just depends on how your point of view towards the game is and how you interpret what it brings to the table.

Although, nothing in KotOR II comes even close to my OMFGWTF reaction towards the Revan revelation.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Let me just step right in.

The second game had a more "adult" atmosphere, and dealt with more abstract ideas and themes. It's characters also had more depth to them. I don't think anyone could argue otherwise. But...

None of that matters when the execution of those ideas, the delivery, the presentation, is lackluster. There's no real drive behind the story or the player characters. There's a path they're all on, but a sense of an ending, a goal they all shoot for, is missing. I blame the dialogue and voice acting-- we get it, they're deep and mysterious, you can tone it down a bit.

The first game had wit and humour to it, and a more diverse cast of characters whose actors delivered better lines in a more varied manner. It had likeable characters. Aside from HK, I didn't like anyone in KotOR II.

You can blame the rushed-development for that.

Some may not know - but the time-frame for fleshing the game out was cut short, so it could be released by the holiday season, at the time.

The finished product, while incomplete, still rivals the original.

And if it had been completed the way it was supposed to, it would have likely blown the original out of the water.

KotoR II is to Star Wars Video Games, what Shatterpoint is to Star Wars Novels.

- Oh, and Atton, in terms of depth and likeability blows any of the characters of the original away.

A character that sits there, and gives you an amazingly-complex and emotionally-gripping backstory - and then proceeds to tell you "he hasn't known who he is, in years.."?

Yeah, that'll blow away Zaalbar or Carth.

The original KotoR was straight up fun - kiddy-grade fun.

KotoR II had the depth of a Frank Herbert novel.

That's another thing - that the characters in the original KotoR are fun, but are one-dimensional, compared to the characters in the sequel.

And another reoccurring theme, if you didn't notice, was that with the characters, what you saw, wasn't necessarily what you got.

Atton Rand (derived from Ayn Rand, by the way..) seemed to be a happy-go-lucky and (very) funny smuggler, with an almost innocent outlook - turned out to be, in reality, a deep, dark, tortured person who had a past as a murderer, who literally lost himself in his murders.

Kreia, who is probably the most compelling character in the mythos, in terms of personality and complexity, reveals herself to perfectly embody the element and aspect of Betrayal.

The fact that she so closely embodies the Exile's role as friend and mentor - and then menacingly utilizes her as a tool for complete Death, itself, is indeed compelling.

And of course, turning Canderous into Mandalore and developing him a little further, was great, as well.

The original game was fun, and the group, a stereotypical merry-band.

But the second game, and it's group, was realistic, and so deep, that you actually have to play the game over and explore all the dialog just to understand what I'm really saying.

Play it enough, and the complexities will start to make sense to you - and you will see it, even in it's unfinished-state, as an equal, if not superior, to the first game.

So here's a question: Are any of you friends with your exes? Most of my friends have had really unpleasant breakups that leave no room for reconciliation.

But we're not that old, so maybe it's just a statistical anomaly of youth?

Edit: and KotOR 2 was cool.