Hi,
sorry for hijacking this thread, but...
<rant>
What exactly was good about part 1? I finally got a new computer and decided to catch up on some "must-have" games, and SW:KOTOR seemed to be one of them. "Best CRPG of the year", "Nearly as good as PS: Torment and Fallout" (which I loved), "Fantastic story and character development" etc...
Maybe it's because I'm no Star Wars fan (liked it as a colorful fairy-tale, hated it as an SF movie...) and thus lacked the "Coooool! I can be a Jedi, and can have a Wookie in my party!" feeling, but the game was horrible! Admittedly, I only played until I had left Taris and had become a Jedi, but I had enough by then.
* Horrible combat system. It looks like it doesn't matter where your characters are positioned, and the only tactical options for movement were that the melee chars could try to block the path to your blaster chars. Apart from that, all PCs and NPCs keep standing on the spot where they had been when combat started, and fire away - and I don't think they've implemented the partial cover rules, so firing at an enemy standing behind one of you party members is fine. Never saw an CRPG with more boring combats!
* Silly sidequests. You enter a bar, meet a completely unknown girl who wants a job as a dancer but needs a partner. With no more conversation happening than "Hi! I have no dancing partner.", you can try to persuade her that she should take you (why?!?), and that you're good enough. If you fail your die roll - no problem, just repeat saying the same phrase over and over again until you succeed your roll. Then you dance, collect some XP, and never see her again. Yeah, a really realistic scenario with really realistic character behavior. Quests only for the sake of increasing the quest-count ("60+ hours of fun!") - completely kills immersion into the storyline and identification with you character for me.
* You meet Canderous what, three times?, and learn on every occasion that he works for Davik. Then you meet him again in the slums, and *again* he tells you (in case you're too stupid to remember) that, surprise!, he works for Davik - and your character is really surprised again, judging from the things you're offered to say! Sorry, but I would prefer fewer sidequests but more variable conversations instead. Is it so hard to implement a flag saying "Has Met Canderous Already", so that when you meet him again, a more intelligent conversation could be possible?!?
* NPCs with a mysterious background - by now, I HATE them. I loved it in PS:Torment that Dak'kon had a secret you could slowly unveil by repeatedly talking to him and persuading him to tell you more. Now Bioware seemed to like their idea so much that they did it again. Okay, so Carth has a secret (a much more cliché one, as it seems) which you can repeatedly ask him about - fine, I'll do it even if his story looks a lot less interesting than Dak'kon's. Then you meet Mission, and you know what? Hey, she has a secret you can repeatedly ask her about! Wohooo! :angry:
* You enter the slums for the first time, and meet a merchant. You don't know him, he doesn't know you, and one of the first things he tells you about is his plan to get rid of the current leader and take control of the slums by controlling all food. WTF? How realistic is that? No wonder he hadn't succeeded by then if he reveals his evil plot to every stranger he meets! :wacko:
I would have no problems to immerse myself into a Star Wars universe if the underlying story and characters were well-made. But if you take away all the Star Wars merchandise from KOTOR, only a standard, cliché, below average CRPG remains - or what am I missing here?
Brian Fargo, the creator of the Bard's Tale series from the 1980's, has recently said something along the lines of, "The average computer gamer is about 25 years old. The average CRPG player is about 30 years old. The average age CRPGs are made for is 14.", and I fully agree with him - I hope he manages to change that with his upcoming "Bard's Tale" for the PC.
</rant>
Next up on my list is Morrowind, and at least the beginning looks more promising.
-Kylearan
sorry for hijacking this thread, but...
Armin,Feb 22 2005, 09:41 AM Wrote:Still good, but not level with part 1...
<rant>
What exactly was good about part 1? I finally got a new computer and decided to catch up on some "must-have" games, and SW:KOTOR seemed to be one of them. "Best CRPG of the year", "Nearly as good as PS: Torment and Fallout" (which I loved), "Fantastic story and character development" etc...
Maybe it's because I'm no Star Wars fan (liked it as a colorful fairy-tale, hated it as an SF movie...) and thus lacked the "Coooool! I can be a Jedi, and can have a Wookie in my party!" feeling, but the game was horrible! Admittedly, I only played until I had left Taris and had become a Jedi, but I had enough by then.
* Horrible combat system. It looks like it doesn't matter where your characters are positioned, and the only tactical options for movement were that the melee chars could try to block the path to your blaster chars. Apart from that, all PCs and NPCs keep standing on the spot where they had been when combat started, and fire away - and I don't think they've implemented the partial cover rules, so firing at an enemy standing behind one of you party members is fine. Never saw an CRPG with more boring combats!
* Silly sidequests. You enter a bar, meet a completely unknown girl who wants a job as a dancer but needs a partner. With no more conversation happening than "Hi! I have no dancing partner.", you can try to persuade her that she should take you (why?!?), and that you're good enough. If you fail your die roll - no problem, just repeat saying the same phrase over and over again until you succeed your roll. Then you dance, collect some XP, and never see her again. Yeah, a really realistic scenario with really realistic character behavior. Quests only for the sake of increasing the quest-count ("60+ hours of fun!") - completely kills immersion into the storyline and identification with you character for me.
* You meet Canderous what, three times?, and learn on every occasion that he works for Davik. Then you meet him again in the slums, and *again* he tells you (in case you're too stupid to remember) that, surprise!, he works for Davik - and your character is really surprised again, judging from the things you're offered to say! Sorry, but I would prefer fewer sidequests but more variable conversations instead. Is it so hard to implement a flag saying "Has Met Canderous Already", so that when you meet him again, a more intelligent conversation could be possible?!?
* NPCs with a mysterious background - by now, I HATE them. I loved it in PS:Torment that Dak'kon had a secret you could slowly unveil by repeatedly talking to him and persuading him to tell you more. Now Bioware seemed to like their idea so much that they did it again. Okay, so Carth has a secret (a much more cliché one, as it seems) which you can repeatedly ask him about - fine, I'll do it even if his story looks a lot less interesting than Dak'kon's. Then you meet Mission, and you know what? Hey, she has a secret you can repeatedly ask her about! Wohooo! :angry:
* You enter the slums for the first time, and meet a merchant. You don't know him, he doesn't know you, and one of the first things he tells you about is his plan to get rid of the current leader and take control of the slums by controlling all food. WTF? How realistic is that? No wonder he hadn't succeeded by then if he reveals his evil plot to every stranger he meets! :wacko:
I would have no problems to immerse myself into a Star Wars universe if the underlying story and characters were well-made. But if you take away all the Star Wars merchandise from KOTOR, only a standard, cliché, below average CRPG remains - or what am I missing here?
Brian Fargo, the creator of the Bard's Tale series from the 1980's, has recently said something along the lines of, "The average computer gamer is about 25 years old. The average CRPG player is about 30 years old. The average age CRPGs are made for is 14.", and I fully agree with him - I hope he manages to change that with his upcoming "Bard's Tale" for the PC.
</rant>
Next up on my list is Morrowind, and at least the beginning looks more promising.
-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider