Behind the times (KOTOR)

[Ted C]

Well, I just finished playing Knights of the Old Republic for the first time recently.

First time through, I played a Jedi Guardian and went light side. Pretty easy, actually. I maxed my lightside points before I found my third Star Map, I think. I went with a strength-based, armored Jedi and I was only in danger when I was really careless.

Second time through, I played a dark side Consular. That was somewhat harder, as it's easier to get killed. It was also much harder for me to gain dark side points. I tried to think in terms of being devious and manipulative, keeping my companions on my good side much like Palpatine. That doesn't work very well; you have to be a total dick to build up dark side points quickly.

[Mr Bean]

Yes, the only game Bioware has done where "evil" is workable except in a homicadal murder way was Jade Empire, and even then, the evil ending was so god damn stupid as moot the purpose of being "evil"

In short in Jade empire, being a Merc, taking money, prizing strength above all things, that was evil, but it was sensible evil. However at the end of the game you got an choice which was "be good, or destroy the world and FYI kill yourself in the process"

Reverse that in Kotor, where the "evil" ending is bad fucking ass cool, but 90% of the evil in the game was of the stupid moronic kind.

Odd that.

[Academia Nut]

It's so damned hard for games with these good/evil sliders to actually get it right. There should be devious ways of being evil. Like saving the poor, helpless villagers from the rampaging monsters, but then you expect more than just gold and XP at the end, you expect favours. Mafia style. So that by the end you've got a rampaging army that loves you despite the fact that you're a mass murdering psycho with plans of world/galactic domination. Because you're their mass murdering psycho with plans of world/galactic domination.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I think the problem with the evil choice in games that offer it is that the developers aren't prepared to devote that much time to long-term planning and consequences. This works well for good characters, because saintly people really can and sometimes do go around engaging in random acts of kindness. But conversely, even a raging sociopath doesn't indulge his darkest impulses at every single opportunity.

So in the KOTOR games, your light-side dark-side affiliation is mostly determined by a lot of set-piece encounters where you can be good (help these people with no expectation of reward) or evil (kill and/or these people for no reason). The only example of an evil choice which I actually found compelling and interesting was in KOTOR2, where a couple of guys try to mug you on Nar Shadaa, and you can use force persuasion to make them give up all their cash and jump in a bottomless pit. That is actually something that a dark Jedi would do.

The better way to decide alignment would be to have it rely mostly on the major quests. An example would be on Kashyyyk, where you can try to stop the Czerka slaving operation, or you can support and profit from it. It would be smart to take the dark-side vs. light-side choices out of random encounters on the street and into serious plot points like that, which offer more room for scheming and realistic evil behavior.

One RPG that did this scheme rather well was the Fallout series. You could be a mad-dog killer, sure, but you could also be an evil fucking bastard without leading any massacres.

[Civil War Man]

I think the problem with the evil choice in games that offer it is that the developers aren't prepared to devote that much time to long-term planning and consequences.

Well, if The Witcher is all it's advertised to be, that may have changed in one instance.

As for KOTOR, very heavily favors Light Side. Not only is it easier, it gets you more rewards in the end, plus IMHO the LS Mastery bonuses are better.

[Zixinus]

Well, if The Witcher is all it's advertised to be, that may have changed in one instance.

I'm not there yet, but The Witcher doesn't have good/evil but different ideologies and good/evil is defined on what you consider righteous and how willing you are to act upon them.

If you want to know more, PM me, otherwise I don't want to spoil anything.

[Civil War Man]

Well, if The Witcher is all it's advertised to be, that may have changed in one instance.

I'm not there yet, but The Witcher doesn't have good/evil but different ideologies and good/evil is defined on what you consider righteous and how willing you are to act upon them.

If you want to know more, PM me, otherwise I don't want to spoil anything.

Nah, I'm considering getting the game, so I'll avoid getting spoiled. What I was referring to is that, according to what I've heard, the game actually has stuff like long-term ramifications. In the simplest form it might be so some "good" act you perform (such as, say, not killing someone) might lead to bad things happening to you down the road simply due to the fact that the person you didn't kill is, as a consequence, alive.

[Ghost Rider]

Yeah, for both KoTOR games the alignment system was either you were pure white clean or a fucking dick. Take for instance the the woman begging for money in Tatooine. You give her money, not take the object and have her fawn over you and you get a shiny light point. If you do any less...you might get a light point(regardless of how decent your action...you weren't a fucking saint no light point for you!). Versus say you wanted to be a bit nastier. No, you had to all but kill her to be evil. But in context of the universe could you even begin to see either a Sith or Jedi even really caring?

You were either Halo on Head Jedi or someone who made Darth Maul look like a saint on everything.

I agree with Pablo, what they needed to do was make the quest stuff determine. On Korriban, not only sparing but converting that Sith Twilieck is a good start for being a good Jedi, and having you betray the dork AND Sith hottie was a good sign of being a nasty Sith Lord. They needed more smart evil rather then kicking puppy dog evil.

[Academia Nut]

It would be neat if they had six paths of good/evil in these sorts of games. There would be the standard superficial good/evil/neutral ways of doing things, but there would also be more complex and deeper good/evil/neutral sorts of things. Like say you find a guy being mugged on by a street gang, there would be the standard drive off thugs and ask for no reward (good), ask for a reward (neutral), and beat up the victim (evil) paths. But there could also be more complex paths. Like say for the good path you talk down the muggers and explore the reasons as to why they're doing this, perhaps gaining clues for a larger quest (this type seems to be a bit more popular even today). But for the neutral path, you could lean up against a wall and tell the victim that he's strong enough to beat these punks and make him realize that he doesn't need your help to be strong. The complex evil path could have you goading the victim into killing one of the punks and then saying, "I'll keep this between the two of us my friend." That last one is so Palpatine-style Sith evil it needs to be in more Star Wars games.

[Ted C]

The complex evil path could have you goading the victim into killing one of the punks and then saying, "I'll keep this between the two of us my friend." That last one is so Palpatine-style Sith evil it needs to be in more Star Wars games.

I agree with that. It would be nice to be able to encourage other characters to be evil, possibly even using Force Persuade to alter their behavior.

In KOTOR, as I recall, there's only one opportunity to do that, when you can make Zalbar kill Mission for you. While I gather some people get great satisfaction from murdering Mission, I would personally have preferred to subvert her.

[consequences]

The complex evil path could have you goading the victim into killing one of the punks and then saying, "I'll keep this between the two of us my friend." That last one is so Palpatine-style Sith evil it needs to be in more Star Wars games.

I agree with that. It would be nice to be able to encourage other characters to be evil, possibly even using Force Persuade to alter their behavior.

In KOTOR, as I recall, there's only one opportunity to do that, when you can make Zalbar kill Mission for you. While I gather some people get great satisfaction from murdering Mission, I would personally have preferred to subvert her.

Well, now I have to recommend that you play KOTOR 2. The ability to twist people around to your viewpoint is drastically enhanced, even if there's still a massive load of kicking puppies into turbines, and some serious weaknesses to the game.

Personally, I tended to use Mission to clear mines with her body becase she annoyed me so greatly. The only way I'd want to subvert her is into commiting a suicide mission on my behalf.

[Anarchist Bunny]

My problem my first play through of KotoR2, which I went dark side, was that I wasn't able to get the Prestige class because although I took a lot of the stealing candy from babies World side evil acts, I wasn't a complete unabashed and utter dick to every single person on my team. So that kept me from getting full darkside.

[Covenant]

Inspired by this I'm actually looking into giving KotOR II a try using some old discs, as I had passed it up the first time around. And while the big fancy refurbishment mod isn't done yet, I did get as many of the doodads for it as I could (I'm using the PC version) and honestly I'm still not feeling it. I liked the original KotOR when I played it a little but then I got bored, as the combat is just dreary--and it's really pretty awful in II as well.

I decided to spoil myself a little--I had really hoped to bust out some Qui-Gon style action on people using a bearded Jedi Master character, but liek i heer that mastrs suck. Honestly, what is an infinite supply of Force good for if all I can do with it is buffs and healing? While I get what a Sith Lord is all about (lightning *I'm a smarmy asshole*) I don't really understand the point of the Master prestige class. After suffering through non-pwnage mode for so long, you get a mode with less pwnage?

Also, I'm pretty disgusted by the darkside options. I'm not even mad because they make you sound like a whiny little bitch, I'm mad because they're so frustrating to comply with. Going Lightside may not be rewarding, but it's certainly less problematic, and a bit more rewarding. You don't even get much for your trouble, just some lightning spells.

So basically I hate both the Lightside and the Darkside, sadly. I may end up making a Mehside of the Force guy who uses a big two handed gun and grenades. I'm not sure how viable that is, but I'm somewhat confused by the lameness on both ends.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I'm not touching KoTOR II again until Team Gizka finishes their thing... then I might play through it again, simply hoping for an actual fucking ending.

KoTOR I is awesome, despite the lack of decent dark-side decisions. Although I do love using Force Persuade to make Zalbaar kill Mission, near the end of the game. I fucking hate that little blue bitch...

[Civil War Man]

Problems with going Dark Side in KOTOR 2:
- Of the NPCs that give you influence with a side of Dark Side points, one of them (Mandalore) gives you precisely jack and shit for gaining influence with him. One of them (Kreia) can also give you influence while not being evil. One of them (Visas) prefers it if you are good, and only has a couple Dark Side influence points. One of them (G0-T0) can give influence from a lot of neutral actions (though it's easiest if you demand a reward for saving the Galaxy, which is apparently Dark Side). One of them (Hanharr) is an optional character. That leaves HK-47, who can be balanced out by a fair dose of do-gooder meddling.
- Conversely, NPCs that like you being good (Handmaiden, Mira, Bao-Dur, Atton, Visas, Disciple, and T3) don't like it when you act like a dick. All of them either become a Jedi, give you a stat bonus (or new power), or both. So you almost have to make the choice between either going Light side or getting absolutely nothing from them.
- Regarding Hanharr, I almost never get him because you get rewarded so much more for working against the Exchange. You want to get Hanharr? Convince the refugees to be meek. You want to get Mira? No problem. By the way, here's all the XP and money for completing the quests that help the refugees, plus killing all the mooks in the Serrocco Gang and the Exchange. Only way around this is to shell out 2000 credits to the rat thing at the cantina. Small beans with the cash you can rake in, but still irritating.
- When playing Light Side, you can have the occasional "no, I'm going to be a dick" moment and still get Light Side Mastery. Dark Side, you pretty much have to be evil 24/7 to get Dark Side Mastery, and doing that will piss off a lot of NPCs that give you good rewards if you are nice (see second point)
- Cheap Force Storm is not enough of an incentive when Force Wave, which also hits every enemy in a certain radius with automatic damage, and stun most of them (all of them if you have high enough WIS+CHA) on top of that, is a neutral power.

[Covenant]

I was just trying to figure out what I would have replaced the Lightside powers with, or supplimented, and I really can't come up with one. I'm a bit of a heretic when it comes to the Jedi anyway, as their whole philosophy (besides the LS/DS duality) seems to be just made-up religiously reinforced pragramtism to keep the number of Sith down.

I really can't come up with too many lightside exclusives. What I probably would have done is removed the Force Choke ability and made it more like the Mind Compel power. You get a Force Crunch power, and you can either use it to crunch droids for no penalty, or crunch people for Darkside.

Sadly, this game is a lot less retarded now that RotS came out--afterall, Vader needed to get a bunch of Darkside Points in the movie. So Sidious gave him a literal quest. "Go to the Jedi Temple and kick some puppies, I mean Younglings. And stab them all too. Cuz that's totally more useful than a legion of corrupted Jedi. And then I'll reward you with 200 credits and a red crystal for your saber."

And you know, it worked. Stabbing babies made Vader go from whiny angsty teen to whiny angsty teen who was powerful in the Darkside, apparently. While it seems like the Darkside are often manipulative and strong, it seems like there's nothing keeping them from getting powerful just by going around stabbing hobos. I suppose it could be the whole betrayl and anguish thing too, but still, kinda depressingly similar.

Still though... beyond lightning, there aren't many Sith abilities worth noting. And I can't really think of any movie-referenced uses of Lightside abilities besides Force Ghosts. Yoda and Mace both seemed to restrict themselves mostly to physical manifestations rather than wizard-like spell effects. They probably should have removed Force Storm and made the Sentinels a little more defensive-minded, and then removed Counsulars completely. If you must have a third class, make it something pertinent, like someone who uses more technical doodads.

[Civil War Man]

But, you know, for a game where evil people gain their power by stabbing hobos, you were really limited on who you could randomly kill. At least in Baldur's Gate, if you wanted to stab random people on the street, you just walk out of the tavern, draw Lilarcor, and then start hacking people to pieces while your sword cackles madly. Of course, the problem is is that everyone instantly finds out how evil you are. Even if you sneak into someone's house late at night, kill an entire family, and then make it look like the husband committed a murder/suicide, everyone still knows that you are the guy that did it.

[Covenant]

What the game really needed, honestly, was just a choice somewhere to go light or dark, and not this sort of bizzare system of punishment and reward for character choices in terms of alignment.

Afterall, it's a fairly arbitrary scoring procedure. Was it wrong for Qui-Gon to cheat at dice? Would it have been wrong for him to have messed with the reaction-time of the other Pod Racers?

What about killing droids? Do droids not have some degree of feeling that you need to be aware of? Is it okay to rip a droid apart whereas it is not okay to rip apart humans? It's okay for Obi-Wan to shoot Grevious in the chest to make him die a horrific death, or for him to lop off that dude's arm in a bar, but would it be wrong for him to do the same thing with the Force?

And on Evil's side... is it Good for Sidious to help Anakin and Obi-Wan escape after they rescue him? Is it Good for him to help the Republic, even if he's also hurting it? And since it seems like a Darksider can go "I'm light now!" and get all the benefits (force ghost) how hard can it really be to turn your act around, given the proper motivation? Going to the Dark Side is seductive, but it seems often as much an intellectual decision as it is the Call of the Warp.

So why not just let me say "I'm evil" and let me assume that even doing good things in the service of an evil objective is still evil? Eh. Confusing. Star Wars morality is bizzare.

[Isil`Zha]

I thought Jade Empire was done rather well with the Good and Evil thing - for one they didn't screw you out of XP, gold, ect for being Good.

And yeah, a lot of the Evil stuff in Jade Empire was brutal - like at the beginning when you really fuck over that one student by selling her fake remedies for inflated prices and then laughing as she becomes crippled and eventually killed because of it.

[Covenant]

Thing is, I don't really wanna be evil, I'd like to be good--but I wish I didn't shit rainbows and happiness. Being good should be hard, and there's no reason for someone who is good not to struggle with it and be tormented by what you leave behind in the process. The resolute Jedi is one of the least fun characters ever to be, but if I willfully choose less-pleasent options just to build depth into my character, all I do is make him sound a bit angsty or short-tempered and hurt myself by increasing my Force costs. Kinda silly. Given the choice between passion and pacifism I'd choose the Sith path, but I really don't want to get there by being such a dickwad that nobody likes me besides HK. Not that I need anybody but HK, really, but c'mon. Force Storm? That's the payoff? ;(

[Stark]

As far as I know Witcher avoids this kind of gaming simply by NOT HAVING a 'reputation' bar, and having consequences for actions be separated by hours of gametime, so you can't make a decision and go 'oh, only 100 gold, not worth it' and reload. Ambiguity + having to live with consequences (actual consequences, not 'ur rep is under 25 thus you cannot do this quest lol' stuff) sounds pretty good, but the damn game isn't out here yet.

[Covenant]

That sounds pretty good compared to this. I've modded it so the game is a bit harder, and set it to hard, just so that I'll have a REASON to feel justified in being Good or Evil... but man, I dunno, I might go Sith just in spite of the game, to spite the game, but I'm not sure that's proper motivation.

Witcher seems to make more sense. Your alignment shouldn't be a button. If I go for a Job interview, it's not like calling everyone a dick is smart OR evil. It's just stupid. Ugh, but that's certainly been said before. The only reason I'd want to go Sith is to have party members who are less self-righteous. I really find that aggrivating, since that attitude is really out of step with a so-called enlightened group. While being a Jedi means taking orders, stupid orders, being a Sith at the end of the day allows for more nuance even if the pre-req is kicking puppies and stabbing babies.

[Sarevok]

KoToR's gameplay is more dull than counting leaves on a tree...

It's a visualy spectacular and wonderfully written storybook. But it is not a good game. The D20 based combat system leaves no room for interesting and fun combat. The quests, dialogue and everything gets so repetitive playing 2nd time to see the dark side ending is painful. It is sad the Star Wars games with best combat like Jedi Knight II were written by 10 year olds doing a class assignment while a masterpiece like Kotor has gameplay intended for creatures who lack ability to use a keyboard and mouse in intense combat.

[Covenant]

KoToR's gameplay is more dull than counting leaves on a tree...

It's a visualy spectacular and wonderfully written storybook. But it is not a good game. The D20 based combat system leaves no room for interesting and fun combat. The quests, dialogue and everything gets so repetitive playing 2nd time to see the dark side ending is painful. It is sad the Star Wars games with best combat like Jedi Knight II were written by 10 year olds doing a class assignment while a masterpiece like Kotor has gameplay intended for creatures who lack ability to use a keyboard and mouse in intense combat.

I was hoping to shake that up some with the use of all my magical force powers, but that seems to just make it worse--to the point that you just run into rooms spamming storms and killing everyone around you. Honestly, is there no way to make the game a bit more interesting? I'm probably going to turn off all of the turnbased stuff, and make it completely realtime, and see what happens then. Sadly, it'll still be "sit and wait" style gameplay, but you never know, might be a lot more tense.

One of the issues is Lightsabers. It's so hard to do anything interesting with blades that doesn't require a variety of key-combo fighting like Jedi Knight, which I honestly didn't care for at all. It's hard to get Jedi to actually fight like Jedi. The saddest idea I have for making fights look nice is having you run through forms like a form of DDR. Your character would automatically walk and you'd either need to match your opponent's moves to defend, or try to throw in your own moves to attempt to shift the rhythm his way.

Not sure how well this works in an RPG, but it'd make for cinematic battles. It'd probably be fine for a Clone War movie, where most of your enemies are worthless droids who you just walk up to and bisect.

[Sarevok]

I was hoping to shake that up some with the use of all my magical force powers, but that seems to just make it worse--to the point that you just run into rooms spamming storms and killing everyone around you. Honestly, is there no way to make the game a bit more interesting? I'm probably going to turn off all of the turnbased stuff, and make it completely realtime, and see what happens then. Sadly, it'll still be "sit and wait" style gameplay, but you never know, might be a lot more tense.

In a good game every weapon, tactic, physics etc is balanced to ensure there is no easy repetive tactic. Halo 1 for example has diverse weapons, enemies and tactics perfectly balanced togather. In KoToR first time you go ULTIMATE POWAHHH with force storm is great but then you realise the game becomes clicking force storm for 1000 times untill every enemy in the game is dead. 3 years later I still find new ways to fight in Halo and the Covenant (not you the aliens :d) too keep on surprising me by doing something I haven't seen before. This is a 7 year old game's single player campaign yet it offers more replayability than a rpg !

A good game is about repeating 15 seconds of fun over and over again. Tetris, Mario, Halo etc game's developers understood this. Bioware did not; they made a movie in computer game form. Naturaly watching the same movie for 10th time is not usually enjoyable. KoToR is so fundermentaly broken in this respect it can not be fixed by any mods.

One of the issues is Lightsabers. It's so hard to do anything interesting with blades that doesn't require a variety of key-combo fighting like Jedi Knight, which I honestly didn't care for at all. It's hard to get Jedi to actually fight like Jedi. The saddest idea I have for making fights look nice is having you run through forms like a form of DDR. Your character would automatically walk and you'd either need to match your opponent's moves to defend, or try to throw in your own moves to attempt to shift the rhythm his way.

Jedi Knight saber duels is puppet dancing. A lan game of JK II can't help but induce laughter in the participants. Still JK was a step in the right direction. My main problem was with the telekinesis aspect. I wanted true to movie Jedi tk not casting choke, push, pull in a lame DnD spellbook imitation that has become staple of retarded fanboys when they think of jedi powers.

Not sure how well this works in an RPG, but it'd make for cinematic battles. It'd probably be fine for a Clone War movie, where most of your enemies are worthless droids who you just walk up to and bisect.

Republic Commando is just that. Barring frequent moments of scripted bullshit that kills replayability of most games it is a fantastic FPS.