KOTOR3 Not Yet In Development

Galvatron · Post by **Galvatron** » 2006-04-11 05:32pm

LucasArts not yet committed to another RPG sequel.

BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment are chiefly responsible for installing a new found confidence in the Star War license with their two Knights of the Old Republic RPG games, but in spite of their success critically and commercially, LucasArts apparently has yet to commit to a third installment.

TotalVideoGames was chatting with Obsidian Entertainment's CEO Feargus Urquhart about their upcoming Neverwinter Nights 2, and they came to discussing the possibility of Knights of the Old Republic 3, which Urquhart confirmed they'd been discussing with LucasArts for a year and a half.

"We have been talking with LucasArts to do KOTOR3 since August 2004 and we hoped to do it since KOTOR2 was done," he told the website. "LucasArts is thinking what they want to do with it and we would happily make KOTOR3, if that's what LucasArts wants to do."

What's LucasArts thinking? Expectedly, the publisher doesn't have much to say on the subject. "There's nothing to announce about a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic III at this time," said a LucasArts representative. Shocking news, I know.

LucasArts has announced almost nothing in terms of next-generation game development, though, so maybe E3 will shed some light on when we'll be rolling some virtual dice to see how much attack power our lightsabers have.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-04-11 05:49pm

They still need to finish KOTOR 2.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2006-04-11 05:53pm

Vendetta wrote:They still need to finish KOTOR 2.

Amen. I feel friggin' ripped off.

Darth Tanner · Post by **Darth Tanner** » 2006-04-11 06:04pm

This is sad news

I heard that KOTOR 2 sold considerably less than the first one (wow, i wonder why) so i assume the suits are not as willing to fund the development of a third game. The plot would also be more difficult as there would be two seperate games worth of background, each with varying gender points that effect the story (ie a female Revan & male exile and vice versa).

Dorsk 81 · Post by **Dorsk 81** » 2006-04-11 07:59pm

Well, from what I've read on their forums, atleast the KotOR2 Restoration Project isn't too far off completion.

I just don't understand what the fuck LA is playing at, they'll continue to dick around with SOE in that travesty of an MMO SWG, yet they won't take their thumbs out their ass to start on a sequal to one of, if not the best series of SW games? What the hell is wrong with them?

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2006-04-11 07:59pm

I think Lucas Arts needs to get all there developers together and make a several NJO games at once. Yuuzhan Vong are the perfect opponent for a new Jedi Knight(cause you know, we don't need the Empire finding ANOTHER way to instill the force into people) game, the Rogue Squadron Series really needs to make a game outside of the OT, a Battlefront game, as well as Knights of the New Republic.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-04-11 08:21pm

Dorsk 81 wrote:Well, from what I've read on their forums, atleast the KotOR2 Restoration Project isn't too far off completion.

I just don't understand what the fuck LA is playing at, they'll continue to dick around with SOE in that travesty of an MMO SWG, yet they won't take their thumbs out their ass to start on a sequal to one of, if not the best series of SW games? What the hell is wrong with them?

Evidently, its like Blizzard and Starcraft. They have within their capability the ability to produce a sequel that will, without question, be one of the best sellers of the year before it even goes into distrobution, and yet they've sat on their hands about it for half a decade, in part because WoW is pumping them with so much easy money. Since, somehow, despite being one of the worst managed and executed games in LA fanchise history, SWG seems to be similarly profitable, they seem content to postpone production of games that, you know, might actually be decent and innovative.

I think Lucas Arts needs to get all there developers together and make a several NJO games at once. Yuuzhan Vong are the perfect opponent for a new Jedi Knight(cause you know, we don't need the Empire finding ANOTHER way to instill the force into people) game, the Rogue Squadron Series really needs to make a game outside of the OT, a Battlefront game, as well as Knights of the New Republic.

I agree completely. The Vong are almost tailor-made as opponents in a Jedi game, and for all its flaws, the NJO's basic stroyline is actually good and deep enough to make the period highly fertile ground for games.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-04-12 04:25am

Dorsk 81 wrote:Well, from what I've read on their forums, atleast the KotOR2 Restoration Project isn't too far off completion.

Where did you read that? I want to play KOTOR 2 again but with the restored data that was left out. But I would have thought they'd be done by now since they've had a lot of time.

Dorsk 81 · Post by **Dorsk 81** » 2006-04-12 05:28am

On their forums. That doesn't include the planet that was cut though, M4-78, that still has some way to go.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2006-04-12 06:47am

As soon as that mods out, that game is going straight back on my harddrive

Faqa · Post by **Faqa** » 2006-04-12 07:12am

Yeah, it didn't sell well - because it was maybe 80% of a game, dumbfuck suits.

Yes, I know the cycle of "fuck up, see consequences, blame others" is one of the most common in business, but seeing it happen to KOTOR just hurts. KOTOR2 had high potential. It had Planescape-esque writing combined with a kick-ass storyline. If the suits had just sat on their hands a little longer, they'd have seen huge profits. Instead, the game stumbled out the door for the Christmas rush, and of COURSE it turned up buggy and holed! It wasn't finished!

Morons. I blame X-Box, too. I didn't see them rushing out the PC version....

*grumbles*

Utah Jak · Post by **Utah Jak** » 2006-04-12 07:31am

Faqa wrote:Yeah, it didn't sell well - because it was maybe 80% of a game, dumbfuck suits.

Yes, I know the cycle of "fuck up, see consequences, blame others" is one of the most common in business, but seeing it happen to KOTOR just hurts. KOTOR2 had high potential. It had Planescape-esque writing combined with a kick-ass storyline. If the suits had just sat on their hands a little longer, they'd have seen huge profits. Instead, the game stumbled out the door for the Christmas rush, and of COURSE it turned up buggy and holed! It wasn't finished!

Morons. I blame X-Box, too. I didn't see them rushing out the PC version....

*grumbles*

The Bugginess was the worst part! Hell I couldn't even play it for at least 3 weeks after I bought it because it would crash before I could even enter initial character creation!

Perseid · Post by **Perseid** » 2006-04-15 07:23pm

Thats what happens when you hand something as important as KOTOR2 to Obsidian, they fuck it up. Force only knows who's gonna get to design KOTOR3.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-04-15 09:00pm

Mr CorSec wrote:Thats what happens when you hand something as important as KOTOR2 to Obsidian, they fuck it up. Force only knows who's gonna get to design KOTOR3.

As if it was Obsidian's fault that Lucasarts demanded they publish before Christmas, whether the game was finished or not!

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-04-15 09:13pm

Lucasarts forced the game out when it was incomplete, then whined when it didn't sell well.
GEE I WONDER WHY! The fact that they're reluctant on KOTOR3 means they're unrepentant and fully blame KOTOR2 for their mistakes.

Ignorant dumbfuck suits.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2006-04-16 01:29am

KOTOR 1s story was complete regardless of whether the player chose light side or dark side. In light side ending Revan is redeemed and in dark side Revan returns to his old life. There are no unresolved plot issues left. Either way it is a complete story and what happens next is best left to the player’s imagination. A second Knights game should have focused on another era, perhaps the New Jedi Order.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:I think Lucas Arts needs to get all there developers together and make a several NJO games at once. Yuuzhan Vong are the perfect opponent for a new Jedi Knight(cause you know, we don't need the Empire finding ANOTHER way to instill the force into people) game, the Rogue Squadron Series really needs to make a game outside of the OT, a Battlefront game, as well as Knights of the New Republic.

What would really be awesome is if a new Jedi Knight game begins as Order 66 is transmitted. The player’s goal becomes surviving the Empires Jedi hunt. It is a better excuse to kill lots of things than the stupid plots the writers of Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy wrote.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-04-16 12:07pm

Sarevok wrote:What would really be awesome is if a new Jedi Knight game begins as Order 66 is transmitted. The player’s goal becomes surviving the Empires Jedi hunt. It is a better excuse to kill lots of things than the stupid plots the writers of Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy wrote.

How are you supposed to end that game, though? Because getting killed by Vader would be a crappy finale.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2006-04-16 12:41pm

Trogdor wrote:
Sarevok wrote:What would really be awesome is if a new Jedi Knight game begins as Order 66 is transmitted. The player’s goal becomes surviving the Empires Jedi hunt. It is a better excuse to kill lots of things than the stupid plots the writers of Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy wrote.
How are you supposed to end that game, though? Because getting killed by Vader would be a crappy finale.

That or you run and hide....for the next 25 years.

Either way, it sucks because your greatest accomplishment is that you survived; only to watch everything you cherished get blown to the winds and the Sith rule the galaxy.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-04-16 01:02pm

Mr CorSec wrote:Thats what happens when you hand something as important as KOTOR2 to Obsidian, they fuck it up. Force only knows who's gonna get to design KOTOR3.

Hopefully it's still Obsidian - because KOTOR 2 was and is a great game up until the last five minutes. Even then it didn't turn to shit it just ended.

KOTOR 1 may have been 'complete' but it still had Carth, Mission and Jumanji, who win the 'three most annoying characters in an RPG ever' award, permanently. KOTOR 2 has a darker 'Han Solo' type in Atton, puts a spin on the cliche of 'old wizard who schools the younger student' motif, and has more than one romantic interests for the PC (better; the Handmaiden spars with you in her underwear); Hanharr is also the first time I've seen a psychotic Wookiee, another break from tradition; and the cutscenes between the NPCs occur in the ship rather than when you're walking around the place (which I always found annoying in KOTOR 1; you're off to some part of the map when you come to a halt because Carth looks like he wants to whine some more)

KOTOR 2 took everything that was good from KOTOR 1, but then took everything that was bad or annoying, rethought them and reworked them, to the point where things were improved. Random items? Yes please. Jedi robes that actually look like robes? Thank you. Level cap? The game doesn't stop as soon as you hit level 20. They even get points for not making an 'official' KOTOR 1 ending, giving you the chance to decide Revan's gender and alignment in dialogue options rather than saying "Revan was bad but then he got redeemed, and yes he was a man."

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-04-16 01:05pm

Ghost Rider wrote:
Trogdor wrote:
Sarevok wrote:What would really be awesome is if a new Jedi Knight game begins as Order 66 is transmitted. The player’s goal becomes surviving the Empires Jedi hunt. It is a better excuse to kill lots of things than the stupid plots the writers of Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy wrote.
How are you supposed to end that game, though? Because getting killed by Vader would be a crappy finale.
That or you run and hide....for the next 25 years.

Either way, it sucks because your greatest accomplishment is that you survived; only to watch everything you cherished get blown to the winds and the Sith rule the galaxy.

It reminds me of the PA comic about Battlefield Vietnam.

"What's the button to do that neat lightsaber trick?" G.

"What's the button to see my love interest get slaughtered by the clones she was leading, I escape the goons and develop a crippling addiction to Spice while constantly on the run in a galaxy that loathes me and wants to murder me?" That would be... Q.

Eleas · Post by **Eleas** » 2006-04-16 03:08pm

Stofsk wrote: KOTOR 2 took everything that was good from KOTOR 1, but then took everything that was bad or annoying, rethought them and reworked them, to the point where things were improved. Random items? Yes please. Jedi robes that actually look like robes? Thank you. Level cap? The game doesn't stop as soon as you hit level 20. They even get points for not making an 'official' KOTOR 1 ending, giving you the chance to decide Revan's gender and alignment in dialogue options rather than saying "Revan was bad but then he got redeemed, and yes he was a man."

I partially have to disagree.

Even at midpoint in KotOR2, there were things that didn't quite fit. You waited for them anyway because of faith in the creators that the threads would be tied together at the end. After all, that's how suspension of disbelief works. Then they started wasting this potential. Consider Darth Nihilus, for instance. A great buildup, a truly creepy threat... and then you walk up to him and, in a thoroughly lame sequence without a smidgen of character, easily take him apart. In the end, he was a paper tiger; might as well have been a generic Dark Jedi for all the interest he generated.

It was from that point that the game turned disappointing for me. There were signs earlier on, of course; Disciple being completely useless as a character, and the purely mechanistic troubles with looping dialogue and what have you. But basically, Nihilus starship was where it began to truly suck, and after that Kreia's descent from being one of the coolest characters in Star Wars history to an icon of incomprehensibility.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-04-16 03:50pm

I don't deny that there aren't some clumsy things in KOTOR 2. Why is there a workbench on the Ebon Hawk but not a lab station? Even though putting it in the medbay would make sense and they in fact have a lab station on the Ebon Hawk everytime you have to fight boarders in it? For me though it felt like there was more depth.

Darth Nihilius seemed to me to be more of a Force of nature than some malicious moustache twirling villain anyway. That was Darth Sion. Only he didn't have a moustache. You know what I mean. I still liked Darth Nihilius and the Ravager. It didn't feel like a normal 'storm the ship and kill the admiral' mission, like we got in KOTOR 1. The Ravager comes across as a ghost ship and Nihilius lives up to that. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

With Kreia, I got the impression that they wanted to do more with her but simply ran out of time. The whole lack of an ending gives that impression too and the fact they actually have a lot of the stuff for a proper ending on the discs points to this.

Perseid · Post by **Perseid** » 2006-04-16 04:04pm

One thing that spoilt the final part of KOTOR2 for me was if you go for Jedi Weapons master or Sith Marauder then no one is a threat too you since you can 1hit kill anyone. Way too easy in my mind.
The main story itself need more work done on it anyway, so kotor3 needs to be totally fucking briliant to ensure people buy it.

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-04-16 04:46pm

Mr CorSec wrote:One thing that spoilt the final part of KOTOR2 for me was if you go for Jedi Weapons master or Sith Marauder then no one is a threat too you since you can 1hit kill anyone. Way too easy in my mind.
The main story itself need more work done on it anyway, so kotor3 needs to be totally fucking briliant to ensure people buy it.

Not to mention Force Crush.

Hey look, a move that lets you lift up anyone and I mean ANYONE, even bosses, choke them for massive damage and let their body flop to the floor.
Spamming that on everyone from Darth Nihilous to Sion to Kriea to Kreia's floating lightsabers of doom was entirely game breaking and quite fun. Almost made up for that abortion of a final act. Almost.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-04-16 04:55pm

If difficulty is a problem for you people then you can simply turn the difficulty up to hard, don't upgrade your lightsaber, don't select the powerful force powers, choose feats for their roleplaying use rather than their combat use etc.

And I spammed Force Wave because that affected multiple enemies.