A thought about Knights of the Old Republic

Dusk said:

As you can see my description above, I don't think it's a bad game but, at the same time, I don't think it's so flawless as some people here seem to be claiming.

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Uh... who's claiming it's "flawless?" Here are a few quotes from this thread:

"In the history of RPG's I hold KOTOR1/2 to be among the better games out there in just that. It doesn't have any glaring problems that ruin the game and it's pretty solid and balanced."

"I dunno, I liked it. I don't think it was TEH BEST GAME EVARSSSS but I highly enjoyed it. I always wondered about that technology bit, too, though. Is the "universe logic" that technology basically stopped developing?"

"IMO KOTOR is BioWare's best game overall so far. It has no glaring flaws, is well balanced, well written, has plenty of scope for choice, consequence, character development, and intra-party fun, and the gameplay is solid Star Wars d20. ... That said, IMO BioWare is to cRPG's what Agatha Christie is to detective stories. As Raymond Chandler put it, she may not be the best writer of detective stories in the world, but she's probably the best writer of BORING detective stories."

That's hardly *flawless,* from where I'm at.

Prime Junta said:

Uh... who's claiming it's "flawless?"

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Then, I guess it's my wording...or more precisely, my grammar mistake: While the word "flawless" is non-gradable adjective, I used it as gradable.

The suffix "-less" means without; totally and utterly, no shades of gray,

Thus flawless means without flaw or in other words "perfect".

Thrasher said:

The suffix "-less" means without; totally and utterly, no shades of gray,

Thus flawless means without flaw or in other words "perfect".

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Exactly ... and since there are *no* flawless games, it really is meaningless. Heck, I like Gothic 2 better, but there are *definitely* more glaring flaws in that game.

txa1265 said:

Heck, I like Gothic 2 better, but there are *definitely* more glaring flaws in that game.

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And that is *definitely* opinion.... not fact.

Thrasher said:

The suffix "-less" means without; totally and utterly, no shades of gray,

Thus flawless means without flaw or in other words "perfect".

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Yes, that's what I meant in my previous post with a different expression and I know it's a stupid mistake.

JDR13 said:

And that is *definitely* opinion.... not fact.

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That nails it down. After all, taste differs.

JDR13 said:

And that is *definitely* opinion.... not fact.

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I disagree - we are not talking about things like whether or not you like it, but things like poor translation, missing dialog, holes in the world, and other things that could *objectively* be called flaws.

txa1265 said:

I disagree - we are not talking about things like whether or not you like it, but things like poor translation, missing dialog, holes in the world, and other things that could *objectively* be called flaws.

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In that case, you are right. If you like such more polished games with fewer experimental factors, big companies with reliable financial backgrounds would be your choice. However, I think this site was mainly treating niche role-playing games since information on games like KotOR is plenty in bigger game sites. If you judge the game's quality by reducing scores from flaws without considering what the designs are intended to, there is no wonder game companies keep their winning formula, which is, I think recent tendency in the game industry. Companies like Bioware indeed polished their own style with some effort but I cannot but think of other possibilities/directions which role-playing games might have developed. Considering current surroundings, it must be difficult to make innovative role-playing games but I thought this site was supporting such developers.

However, about Risen, I don't see many innovative factors compared with old Gothic series at the moment. Guess I'd better wait. Also, I support Bioware in their attempt in introducing their RTS style combat into the major game players without reducing its complexity with Dragon Age. It is true that KotOR has some tactical elements and freedom in character builds but I don't think they kept the complexity of Baldur's Gate series as some people here seem to be insisting (although I agree that dumbing down is not a proper description considering there are some tactical choices even in its simplicity). Of course, the complexity of Baldur's Gate series has many issues and they are inexcusable even if some of they are came from AD&D rule sets. Then again, judging from what I've seen so far, I think Bioware is making efforts in optimizing it without reducing the complexity. These efforts can make people who were not happy with combat gameplay of KotOR interested in DA. A sad thing to me is that, even when taking the fact into account that I'm not a SW fan, I was not happy with the content of KotOR (and other Bioware games). Considering that Bioware don't seem to think they need to enhance their writing team, I don't think this aspect is going to be improved in DA.

PS I think English is not so complex language but I still seem to have tons of problems in dealing with its nuances.

txa1265 said:

I disagree - we are not talking about things like whether or not you like it, but things like poor translation, missing dialog, holes in the world, and other things that could *objectively* be called flaws.

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Well of course you have every right to disagree if you like, after all, it's part of having an opinion. It's definitely *objective* what you consider "glaring" flaws.

JDR13 said:

Well of course you have every right to disagree if you like, after all, it's part of having an opinion. It's definitely *objective* what you consider "glaring" flaws.

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Well, having characters that some consider charming and others consider tired cardboard cliches is clearly subjective ... but I cannot imagine that we wouldn't agree that having a certain point when you are given a choice of A or B and choosing B means the game becomes un-winnable, or having a trigger that always CTD's, or having a game that is unplayable on a large set of supposedly supported graphics cards are not examples of 'objective' flaws.

txa1265 said:

Well, having characters that some consider charming and others consider tired cardboard cliches is clearly subjective

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These elements are indeed subjective. However, if they are dismissed only because of that, it makes a good reason why computer games are hard to be taken as nothing more than light entertainment since these elements are not dismissed like that in reviews of novels and films. If "journalism" in game industry is like that, now wonder there are almost no signs for the content of the games to be matured despite of the huge investment on technological aspect of them. Coming to think about that, Star Wars is a product marked a period where Hollywood movies began to invest on special effects rather than on actors, isn't it?

txa1265 said:

Well, having characters that some consider charming and others consider tired cardboard cliches is clearly subjective ... but I cannot imagine that we wouldn't agree that having a certain point when you are given a choice of A or B and choosing B means the game becomes un-winnable, or having a trigger that always CTD's, or having a game that is unplayable on a large set of supposedly supported graphics cards are not examples of 'objective' flaws.

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Except that doesn't describe Gothic 2 at all for most people. I've played through the entire game twice and never experienced anything like what you're describing. The part about troubles with graphics cards is also an exaggeration, G2 had very few problems with different graphcs cards, mostly just some minor issues with older ATI cards.

Those things sound like they would fall under the category of "bugs" anyways, I thought we were discussing gameplay "flaws".

Moriendor said:

It's "only" ~4,000 years not 40,000 .

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Oops, embarrassing

Krzychu said:

@Bateman: Give KotOR a chance. Maybe you started on the wrong planet or something. Unless it's just really not your thing...

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Yeah right now it's entertaining, so I forget that huge continuity-gap most of the time playing. I swallowed it, yet it makes the whole game rather unconvincing and takes some atmosphere and mystery... It's just not explainable that the game world's tech evolves much faster during the movie period (so there is actually progress in this universe).

JDR13 said:

Those things sound like they would fall under the category of "bugs" anyways, I thought we were discussing gameplay "flaws".

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I actually wasn't describing G2 either ... for me the only issues were translation / missing dialogue stuff.

OK, I mixed up bugs and flaws ...

JDR13 said:

Don't forget "overrated".
I have to agree with all of the above, although the story twist with the main character certainly wasn't predictable.

The fanboys will be storming this thread any minute now.....

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I'm a huge Star Wars fan and if not for that the game wouldn't have been enjoyable at all. Story was decent, voice acting was good and the twist was great.

But overrated is right.

Combat was way too easy, skills didn't matter much (you could win most fights using the basic attacks), the game was too linear (on-rails most of the time) and there were way too many footlockers/containers with loot lying around. I must have spent 1/4 of my game opening them.

And I agree with OP about the 4000 year gap, seems like technology, fashion, architecture and language don't evolve one bit in this universe. It would have made more sense had it been say 400 years.

And what's with vibroblades? Lightsabers should go through ANYTHING.

That being said, I actually enjoyed KoToR II. It had the same fundamental flaws but the writing was richer, the characters seemed more interesting, and quests were a bit better designed (more dialogue checks too).

I wish Obsidian could get a crack at KOTOR III given what they accomplished with MoTB as long as they were given a better engine to work with. Otherwise I would almost rather have Bethesda get a crack at it and I hate Bethesda. Why? Because at least it wouldn't be on rails. Oh who am I kidding, they'd screw it up too, lol.

It just goes to show- I'd rather play a good hardcore crpg anytime, regardless of bugs, than a highly polished "mainstream" RPG.

Relayer said:

That being said, I actually enjoyed KoToR II. It had the same fundamental flaws but the writing was richer, the characters seemed more interesting, and quests were a bit better designed (more dialogue checks too).

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I was so turned off by KotOR that I never even tried the sequel. I should probably consider picking it up just for the heck of it.

I too preferred KoTOR II, since it was darker, less cliched, had better writing, and more variety.

But it was definitely more buggy and unpolished.

And the combat succeeded in being even duller than in the first game...

Übereil

The boring threshold had already been crossed there...

But not as boring as letting a NWN fighter play itself to finish combat while you take the dog for walk...

Ubereil said:

And the combat succeeded in being even duller than in the first game...

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Seriously? Maybe I won't be picking it up after all.....

Does anyone know if that restoration patch is still being worked on?