Star Wars KotOR series

[DrkAegis702]

I think that the KotOR MMORPG will be great, but I probably won't play due to the subscription fees. Subscriptions are the reason why I don't have Xbox LIVE, WoW, or SWG... I despise subscriptions, that's why I played Guild Wars... That was a decent game... actually it was better than decent... I stopped playing after I finished the story quests, but I might replay it...

Anywho, if I don't the MMORPG, I'll definitely play KotOR III. I just know that there'll be a sequel. Not only is the story unfinished, but both Obsidian and Lucas Arts want one, so there's gonna be one.

Oh, one last thing anyone heard about the TSLRP? Well it's the abbreviated for of The Sith Lords Restoration Project. It's a modding project being developed my a Team Gizka. They're going to restore some, not all, of the cut-content from KotOR II. The site for it on wookiepedia is right here:

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sith_Lords_Restoration_Project

Here's the kicker though, it's for the PC version though... so if you played it via Xbox, then you'll have to buy the PC version...

[Halmtier]

What's KotOR?

[Lucilius Solo]

Knights Of The Old Republic.

[Jeff40K, Tool of the Universe]

KotOR is a biological illness that attracts the infected to a display of colour changing crystals. An input typing device and optical laser position detector are used to control various aspects of content in the display. From there the doomed participant spends hours droning over textual and 3-dimensional information. The drone soon loses is ability for self preservation and becomes malnourished and loses touch of reality. Many hours later (between 10-20) the drone completes its task and removes its weakened body from its chair. It begins to feel pain again and hunger, it then quickly deposits waste and seeks out sustenance. After a quick nap the drone is ready to begin the process again, this time however the drone has purchased an MMORPG, thus we can expect to never see the drone again, alive. Thank you for your understanding.

[Halmtier]

You get Karma for that.

And I know what KotOR is, I was just being stupid and wanted to see what reactions that would get.

[Fellheart]

Of course you where <_<

[Iota]

the life of a telepath..hilarious to watch.. has alot of swearing and rude stuff..so pls don't watch if you are easily offended

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLb5BQzCmMI

follow the different parts from there on end..i cba to copy n paste lol

unfortunatley he never seemed to complete it..which is sad

[Mara]

So I'm gonna pick up the first KOTOR from the library tomorrow, yay!

I hope I can beat it in three weeks.

[Hotel]

your library rents video games? AWESOME! I wish mine did, it only rents VHS

[Mara]

Yup... mainly PC games, though. Plus DVDs, VHS, CDs, books on tape/CD... lots of stuff.
And it's all free.


I have yet to install KOTOR, though. Hopefully tomorrow.

[Falar]

Okay, heres something, I have both KoToR games, but I have yet to beat either one. o.O;

Both for the xbox. (Do not I reapeat DO NOT try to play them on a 360. You will never see the end of the glitchiness that it is!!!)

Any how, the furthest I have gotten on the first one is to Karath's ship to face who else but the bald stiffy. I couldn't be him, my level wasn't all that high, some where around 15 or 13 I think o.O;

Oh, and that was my first time playing through the game. After I lost I restarted, I wanted to wipe ole' shiny up. Any helpful hints?

[somedude]

Kotor 1 is much harder, in my opinion. There are freuqntly bosses that give you a lot of trouble, significantly more than in 2.

I can't really give you a lot of suggestions for any boss, Karath included, other than stock up on medpacks (life support packs are ftw) and wail away on him. You're kind of stuck with Bastila and Carth as your party, which sucks hard.

I would advise hucking a few plasma grenades at him before you go in and wail on him. That pretty well works for all bosses.

Or you could just play Kotor 2; it's easier, a better story and character development, and almost as fun

[Jenno]

One thing I would argue there. KotOR 2 with a better story? I found that far from the truth and I thought the first KotOR had a great deal more to offer in terms of the story. KotOR seemed a bit repetitive and there were plot holes all over the place, but it was certainly easier and the combat moved, at least visually, better.

I just frequently go about trying to save before I find myself stuck in a dead end. Which means a fair few saves for the one character. But yea, just inject as many stims and healthpacks as you can into your body and the grenades can be a great help, as somedude said.

I found the first KotOR to be much more amusing than the second, if only for the story.

[Falar]

Thanks for the effort guys, though sadly, it isn't new to me. I frequently save in multiple slots, and I use what 'nades and stims I have, and I generally have a large stock of meds on me.

[somedude]

@ Jenno: I liked kotor 1 better, but I think kotor 2 had a more interesting storyline. Kotor 1 had a pretty standard Star Wars storyline, with one big bad guy, a couple of lesser bad guys, and a whole bunch of good guys (assuming you played canon and had a good Revan). You didn't really have any evil within the Ebon Hawk group, unless it came from an evil Revan.

Kotor 2, on the other hand, had three big bad guys, one of whom you didn't find out about until the last two levels, and not a lot of lesser bad guys. Nobody on your entire crew was wholly good or evil, (except for Handmaiden/Disciple, I suppose), but they were all varying shades of grey and you could influence them however you liked. It was a lot less straightforward why everything was happening, and I liked that better.

Although I agree that Kotor 1 was more amusing, mostly because of HK-47 AND Jolee. Although 47 had some awesome lines in kotor 2

@ Falar: There's another method I found for the xbox. After you hit him once (and only once, don't forget), save your game and reload it. It doesn't work perfectly every time, but if it does then the combat round wil start over again and you'll have a chance to hit him without him touching you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't like it, personally, because it takes the fun out of it for me and it takes a long time, but it's a good last resort

[Falar]

I heard of that trick too, but I don't really enjoy doing that sort of thing. Takes the fun out of it.

Actually, what I'm hung up on right now is which planets should I visit first? I suppose I should go to Dantooine first, but where to after that?

[somedude]

Personally, I like doing Tatooine first so you can get HK-47 =)

[Apillis]

To revive an old topic. I liked KotOR, it was a fun game to play, and it had the more "classic" Star Wars epic tone, but in my eyes it winds up lacking story-wise, game-wise it's near perfect. But, the literary nerd (minored in Literature in college) in me leads me to break down the two games for what they are supposed to be at their core: a hero's epic. I'll show you what I mean, the frame work in which George Lucas designed Star Wars he actually utilized Joseph Campbell's book "Hero of a Thousand Faces" (which I suggest to everyone to pick and read, because in my mind you can never truly understand the core of Star Wars without having read it), which basically breaks down the Hero mythology across numerous cultures and showing how they all are inherently the same with the same resounding themes that call to us all. This is actually best exclaimed within A New Hope, observe:

A New Hope is about a young farm boy who becomes a man, after a series of tragic events and befriending an old sage and wizard along the way, he seeks to learn how to be a Knight like he his father before him. This is a classic basis for the "Father Quest" heroic epic of the hero seeking to discover their origins by emulating the legend of their roots. Now, along the way they meet a mercenary, and the mercenary proves he is not quite as mercenary as he portrays himself to be. But the set out to do what? Save a princess from an evil empire. After rescuing the princess from the empire's great fortress, they set out to bring it down and rebel against the tyranny of the evil empire. That's a classic epic.

With KotOR it's a bit different, it's Beowulf with amnesia. While that sounds great at first, think about that for a moment. While the grand plot twist makes for a great plot device game-wise, because it makes your character the Dark Lord, as a hero's epic it makes it sort of fall flat on its face. Here's what I mean, a man finds himself thrust into a warzone (a fairly common, yet simplistic beginning for many hero tales), along the way he meets a War Hero and a Knight who set out to find clues to the strength behind the grand armada threatening their kingdom's strength. The man along the way ascends to being a Knight. After finding many clues they are captured by the head of the evil armada.

During their capture the Knight learns that he was the original Grand Marshal of the armada, but he has no memory of his past atrocities, when confronted by his Knight-Squire (Knight-Squire, because he was a Knight but also a squire to the Grand Marshal) who betrayed him to usurp his position as the Grand Marshal. With no tangible memory of his past crimes he sets out to redeem himself (still with little to no memory of his past deeds) by felling his once Knight-Squire's evil grand armada to save the kingdom. While as a game it is fun to play, as a story and hero's epic, the amnesia plot device causes it to implode, and in a way cheapens the seeking redemption of the Knight as he has no memory of those crimes as himself doing them, for the entire journey in his mind they were done by someone else, and continued to view it that way even after the revelation, "It was Revan, not me."

KotOR2 on the other hand as all the major themes of hero's epic. A broken Knight haunted by the atrocities she carried out during a great war finds herself forced to take up arms to save the kingdom she swore to protect and preserve the Order she once served. That is a major common theme in many heroic epics. She meets an old crone and sorceress who teaches her how to become a better Knight than she once was, and shows her there is a much deeper meaning behind being a Knight. Along the way the Knight she meets friends old and new, and teaches them to be Knights themselves to protect their kingdom and revitalize her dying Order; even the servant of the dark dragon that rose from the ashes of the Knight's greatest atrocity in her past war, the atrocity that truly broke her as a Knight. A dark dragon known to devour entire lands with those lands people as a whole.

In the end, though, the events of the dark shadowy war the Knight found herself in that lead her to take up arms again, was discovered to have been manipulated by the very old crone whom mentored her. The old sorceress had manipulated events for her to corner and trap the dark dragon of the Knight's past that the old sorceress once had control of until it turned on her. Along side the dark dragon's servant and the general of a rebel army that the Knight in days past fought against, they slew the dark dragon within its lair.

Seeking to confront the old sorceress who betrayed her, even mentored her, she found herself once again confronted by the necrolord that the old sorceress once used as her Dark Knight, who hounded the Knight continuously during her journey. No matter how many times she struck him down, he always rose again. In the end defeating by her own cunning, learning that martial might is not the key to win all battles; and thus, essentially defeated death.

Faced with fighting her mentor and someone she had learned to care for along her journey, the Knight learned that the old sorceress' true goal was to use the broken Knight as a sacrifice to kill God. The Knight fought and defeated the old sorceress with all that she had learned from the old crone during her journey within the old sorceress' dark castle. She had learned from the old sorceress that the old dark castle belonged to a far more ancient and evil empire of Lords, who seek to strike at the kingdom one day during its weakest moment. The Knight then set off to follow the Grand Marshal she once followed after learning her sought the same, while entrusting those she trained to be Knights to continue protecting the kingdom and rebuild their Order of Knights.

Now that's a hero's epic.

If I were forced into choosing on a literary level, which one I would want to read. I'd be reaching for KotOR2 in a blink.

[Jenno]

If it was about reading then sure, I can see the appeal in going for KotOR 2 and it would probably be much better as a book than a game.

But the original KotOR just outweighs number two in story because it is written and put through for a gamer, not a reader. In a game, especially one where you essentially make the character do/act/respond how you want there is far more proximity between the gamer and the main character so whilst a plot-twist such as the one in KotOR wouldn't perhaps be too great in a book, in a game it is a fantastic addition.

I mean, I've played a number of games by Bioware now, the ones I got most into are KotOR I & II and Jade Empire. I've played others like Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age but I wasn't overly impressed by them, it was perhaps due to my previous experience with Bioware and how I stumbled upon the fact that they seem to use a very similar template when coming up with these new and wondrous games/worlds. Jade Empire in particular has a great twist in it, on the level of the first KotOR, which again because of the time and effort put into the main character, just makes it far more effective than it likely would have been in a book.

For story in gaming, much like the story in tv shows and films, it's different from literature (which is likely why most book-based and comic-based films are rubbish). There are more layers to bring into consideration and some that are not so important. I've made it no secret that I enjoyed KotOR I more than I did KotOR II and that comes down to plot for me. That and the proximity between gamer and character. Take KotOR I, your character discovers that he has a grand past he can not remember, but the gamer also does not know about this much either, meaning that even after the plot-twist character and gamer are always in the same boat. In KotOR you play a character with a past, one of war and death, yet the gamer knows nothing of this, small flashbacks or talks about what was and what happened but it just doesn't help the connection as well (for me at the very least). It also doesn't help that they bring characters into it who worked with the main character in the war, once again we know nothing of it and so can't really connect to things as well as we could.

So yes, I think I've rambled enough. I agree that KotOR II would be the better of the two for literature reading, but perhaps that's why I found it to be a less enjoyable game. It wasn't suited for the gaming format.

That'd be my speculation anywho.

[Apillis]

I definitely agree with that. It's what makes KotOR in a sense a near-perfect game to me. Because you are being taken a long for the ride, you know only as much as your character does, which is perfect for a sandbox play style RPG game, which its story caters exceedingly well to.

But, KotOR2 shifted the dynamic to what I really look for in a Star Wars tale, a hero's epic. What I really liked about it is there's several varying layers that can be realized when playing through the game and analyzed, while playing out as a much darker story. And when following along with the canonical story of KotOR2 I really get the sense I'm playing an interactive Star Wars visual novel story-wise with expanded upon KotOR gameplay elements.

Unsurprisingly it reminded me a lot of Planetscape: Torment (more so given they were both written by the same writer and by the way is a brilliant game, there are literally people out there trying to get it to be considered as a work of art (Torment, that is)), like for example, where in Torment you can talk a person out of existence by convincing them they don't actually exist and then poof - they don't; whereas in KotOR2 you convince an immortal they don't need the power that is keeping them immortal and can give it up to which he does and essentially committs suicide in doing so. In some ways it reminded me of the old Greek mythological hero epics, which I really enjoyed. Because what it essentially did was much like those old tales where they ask, "What constitutes a hero?" and like how in Torment asked at its core, "What does it mean to be a man?", KotOR2 asked two questions, "What does it mean to be a Jedi?" and "Could a Jedi or a Sith rebel against the predestination of the Force?"

To me, when it comes to a very powerfully classic Star Wars themed game, KotOR takes the cake by a long shot. But, when it comes to a deeper and more philosophical hero's epic, KotOR2 then takes the cake by a landslide.