KOTOR 2 question: ANSWERED, thanks.

[MikeTwain]

Can anybody explain to me why this game apparently starts with the Sith having wiped out all the Jedi? Does KOTOR2 presuppose that Revan returned to the dark side or something and wiped them out?

I'm really wondering whether I should buy this at full price in three weeks when it comes out for the PC. Although the reviews are good, I keep hearing things that bother me. I wonder whether I would be better just letting my experience with KOTOR1 stand alone and not let it get sullied with a crappy remaquel.

:(

[MikeTwain]

Incidentally, Cathcart is refusing to tell me this. He thinks this is a significant spoiler. If that's the case then maybe don't tell me. Maybe just hint or something.

I don't know.

:cry:

[Matt Perkins]

Incidentally, Cathcart is refusing to tell me this. He thinks this is a significant spoiler. If that's the case then maybe don't tell me. Maybe just hint or something.

I don't know.

:cry:

I don't know the answer yet, but I gather that it's a BIG point of the story. I'm about 18 levels in.

[Kool Moe Dee]

It is a big part of the story. Don't spoil yourself by eating dessert before dinner. :lol:

[Silverlight]

Incidentally, Cathcart is refusing to tell me this. He thinks this is a significant spoiler. If that's the case then maybe don't tell me. Maybe just hint or something.

When's the last time someone refused to give away the plot to a badly-done story?

[MikeTwain]

Thanks for the warnings everybody. I guess I'll just play the game...still not sure if I want to pay full price though.

[Alan Au]

...still not sure if I want to pay full price though.
Just pick it up at the week-3 sale, which is three weeks after the release date when all the chain stores knock $10 off the price to coincide with whatever promotional sale they have going on at the time.

- Alan

[noun]

Can I jump on to this topic with a KOTOR 2 question of my own?

In the original KOTOR, playing dark side was much more fun than playing the light side due to the painful light side dialogue, better dark side NPCs, and better dark side force powers. Does the same hold true for KOTOR 2? I was really lukewarm towards the original after playing through with a light side jedi, but had a blast as a dark side jedi, and would rather play through the better experience first.

[Thomas Wilde]

Well, you do get to slowly corrupt all your party members.

I'd go Light Side long enough to pick up Mira, though. She's better than Honharr the Dark Side Wookiee.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I felt pretty overpowered for the whole game as a super-force person. Whatever the classes were, I was the "mage", tons of force power with no emphasis on physical combat. I was a god among insects. By halfway through the game, Force Storm was my primary mode of attack. I was completely maxed out on light side points, but even with the penalty the cost for dark side spells was trivial. So anyway, I can't speak to the dialogue or NPCs, but the powers aren't too heavily influenced by your alignment.

[MattKeil]

Honharr the Dark Side Wookiee...had a very shiny nooose....

[raoulduke099]

I finished the game for the light side a couple of weeks back. Now maybe I hit some weird plot related bug and missed something, but I don't feel that I ever got a satisfactory answer as to what happened to the Jedi order after the first game, let alone answers to a whole lot of other nagging questions. The entire plot was structured around finding out what had happened after the end of the first game, and for me it didn't happen. Maybe it's because I never quite figured out the whole influence system well enough to get the companions to spill their guts completely, or at all in the case of Bao-Dur, HK-47, and the male Han Solo wanna-be whose name wasn't interesting enough to remember. I bet I'd have found the story more enjoyable if the NPC interaction had worked the same as it did in KOTOR 1. If I had it all to do over again I guess I'd still pick it up, but I wouldn't pay full price for it again.

[MattKeil]

You didn't miss anything. They forgot to put in the end of the damn story. At least five plot threads and character arcs are left completely unresolved.

[McCrank]

Hmmm, I have this title on preorder and after reading so many medicore reviews on this game across different game forums, I'm starting to get disheartened. The first KOTOR felt immensely epic in it's scope, gameplay and story, and I'm expecting the same from KOTOR2, is this what I'm gonna get? I remember finishing the first KOTOR and feeling completely fufilled with it's great plot twists and gameplay. Graphics and sound come second to the story and atmosphere, and the first KOTOR felt better then any of the new movies to me storywise. Any opinions on this? I can't help but have visions of Vampire Bloodlines in my head... really good first 3/4 of the game, and then the last quarter was incredibly linear and crappy.

[MattKeil]

The story in KotOR2 is awesome, right up until the last 30 minutes where it falls apart completely. The rest of it is great. Quests are good, powers are cool, fun both Dark and Light, awesome. Just don't expect the ending to satisfy.

[quatoria]

You didn't miss anything. They forgot to put in the end of the damn story. At least five plot threads and character arcs are left completely unresolved.

They didn't forget - it was hacked out with cleavers. There's an 90% finished dungeon in the game as the resolution to (SPOILERS) HK47's '"hk factory" quest. It connects to the military base you find on the surface of Telos - behind the door that never opens, near the HK droid that has no function but to explode. The dungeon is in the game, along with several quests related to it. Someone hacked a save file to let folks check it out. From what can be gathered through playing the game and exploring the code, this dungeon, it's related quests, and a whole lot of other similar sidestories, plot elements, and quests were hacked out of the game wholesale. What isn't obvious is why - I didn't follow the development of the game, so I don't know whether the team was behind schedule, overbudget, missing milestones, or what not, but it's clear that KOTOR2 underwent some last minute emergency surgery, and ended up as an amputee. I'm hoping for a post-mortem to find out what was cut, and why, much as I'm waiting for the Fable post-mortem.

[Wholly Schmidt]

The story in KotOR2 is awesome, right up until the last 30 minutes where it falls apart completely. The rest of it is great. Quests are good, powers are cool, fun both Dark and Light, awesome. Just don't expect the ending to satisfy.
Agreed.

[Thierry Nguyen]

I think it's going to be mailed soon, but in the new EGM, there's an afterthoughts write-up with Chris Avellone, and he comments that the HK subquest was cut due to timing, and they tried to tie that up by saying that all the HKs were hired by G0-T0.

[quatoria]

I think it's going to be mailed soon, but in the new EGM, there's an afterthoughts write-up with Chris Avellone, and he comments that the HK subquest was cut due to timing, and they tried to tie that up by saying that all the HKs were hired by G0-T0.

The really unforgivable thing is that they left in all the HK dialogue talking about the now-amputated quest, including direct instructions about how it should be advanced, leading scores of people to be frustrated in attempting to complete a quest that no longer exists. It was really frigging sloppy, the way it was hacked out of the game. As I recall, there are a couple other similar quest stumps, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. It's certainly not as bad as the butchershop pruning that fable got shortly before release, but it was still pretty glaring.

[Kalle]

Well, you do get to slowly corrupt all your party members.

Whoah. KOTOR 2 just sold itself to me. One of my fondest wishes in KOTOR was to turn Bastila to the dark side. Instead you got a Deus Ex Machina.

[noun]

ANOTHER incomplete RPG? Thanks for the warning, I'll wait until this hits $20 or less.

[Shieldwolf]

1. Mira rocks especially in slave girl oufit
2. end of jedi?? tell that to my whole party jedi

[Silverlight]

ANOTHER incomplete RPG? Thanks for the warning, I'll wait until this hits $20 or less.
Must be a new trend in X-box gaming. So what's that so far - Fable, Halo 2, and KOTOR 2?

[noun]

Never played Fable, primarily because I don't have an XBOX, but because they cut out like 90% of the features that made it interesting in the first place.

I consider Vampire an unfinished RPG due to its bizarre transformation into a console action/RPG 2/3s through it. Half Life 2 wasn't an RPG, but it sure ended abruptly.

[MikeTwain]

Half Life 2 wasn't an RPG, but it sure ended abruptly.

Yeah well thank goodness. I don't think I could have stomached even 10 more minutes of completely pointless physics.

:evil: