What annoyed you most? *SPOILERSS*

[Speedy_Lube]

***SPOILERS***

 

Okay, well I just finished the game. DONT GET ME WRONG! This really is the best Star Wars game ever made so far, although Jedi Knight is a close second (just because it was so revolutionary).

 

But I was annoyed by several things in the game, and since there is going to be a sequel (there had better be), I think it is worth talking about the few things that should be improved upon.

 

1) Many of the responses to the player's dialogue choices were generic, vague, and obviously suited to several of the player's choices. I would like for each dialogue choice I make to generate specific, unique responses from NPCs. Or even have several responses and let the computer randomly generate one. Also, it was pretty obvious that many of the aliens were there for the sake of not having to record real dialogue. It only took me about 3 minutes to realize they were looping the same 20 seconds of dialogue for each alien species. We're not idiots, BioWare.

 

2) I would like the NPCs to stop calling me Revan at this point. You'd think with as much technology as we have today, we could have characters say names that are typed in. How about you record each character pronouncing every syllable, then the computer (or the player) can select the way that the characters will pronounce your name. I know this is picky, but I would feel much more involved this way.

 

3) Design the game for the PC either first or at the same time. I know we can't all be Blizzard Entertainment, but we can all try.

 

4) Get rid of the loading between "areas". Seriously, that little trick where you make winding passages to hide the load areas is gettin old. We have been past that for a while. Morrowind managed to get past it quite well, I see no reason why KOTOR 2 couldn't.

 

5) And most importantly, if you're not going to take the time to design ceilings and skies, that's fine. But I still want to be able to look above me! This isn't Wolfenstien or Doom. This is the 21st century. Games are in THREE dimensions now.

 

Well I think those are attainable goals. What do you think?

[Burrie]

If you don't mind, I'd like to respond to various of your critiques(and remember, to each his own )

 

1) Many of the responses to the player's dialogue choices were generic, vague, and obviously suited to several of the player's choices. I would like for each dialogue choice I make to generate specific, unique responses from NPCs. Or even have several responses and let the computer randomly generate one. Also, it was pretty obvious that many of the aliens were there for the sake of not having to record real dialogue. It only took me about 3 minutes to realize they were looping the same 20 seconds of dialogue for each alien species. We're not idiots, BioWare.

I really don't think that they did the '20-second-of-dialogue' thing just because they think we're idiots... it prolly was a money-thing As for each of the dialogue choices giving a unique response, I believe that most questions did generate a different reponse... but to be honest, I rather liked that sometimes you had various responses which led to the same answer. It feels to me as if it allows me to customise the character some more. In fact, I was more irked when I only had one response to choose from a dialogue box.

 

2) I would like the NPCs to stop calling me Revan at this point. You'd think with as much technology as we have today, we could have characters say names that are typed in. How about you record each character pronouncing every syllable, then the computer (or the player) can select the way that the characters will pronounce your name. I know this is picky, but I would feel much more involved this way.

To be honest, I really think that this would've been too much work to place in a game... and it would sound awfully artificial with our current technology, I think. Sure, there are tools these days that can read text for us, but it simply sounds artificial. Plus, I doubt that this method could generate an emotion. You'll need actors for that.

 

 

3) Design the game for the PC either first or at the same time. I know we can't all be Blizzard Entertainment, but we can all try.

As far as I know, Knights of the Old Republic was always designed with both a PC version and a X-Box version in mind.

 

4) Get rid of the loading between "areas". Seriously, that little trick where you make winding passages to hide the load areas is gettin old. We have been past that for a while. Morrowind managed to get past it quite well, I see no reason why KOTOR 2 couldn't.

You know, this reminds me of a rant I had a long time ago(maybe even on these boards), which summarised was pretty much "Gamers have become incredibly spoiled". Once one game has a feature, every game is supposed to have that feature. Knights of the Old Republic was actually a good example of it... I lost track of the many times I've seen a post where people complained that the game doesn't have multiplayer or that the game doesn't have a toolset, the game would suck without these features, and Neverwinter Nights had these features, hence KotOR must have it as well and blablabla...

 

Well, that doesn't really go into your critique, I suppose. I personally wasn't really bothered that much with the loading screens, they were often over before I noticed them. It might also have to do with the fact that KotOR's engine was based off Neverwinter Night's engine which employed the 'loading screen' method. To remove something like that would've been too much of an overhaul of something that can easily be solved.

 

Also, having never played Morrowind, I can't really comment much on how it's handled there. Still, you said that "We have been past that for a while."... from the top of my head, I cannot remember any other game that employed a 'no-loading' screen method. Can you perhaps give me an example?

 

5) And most importantly, if you're not going to take the time to design ceilings and skies, that's fine. But I still want to be able to look above me! This isn't Wolfenstien or Doom. This is the 21st century. Games are in THREE dimensions now.

I dunno, from what I saw, the skies looked rather gorgeous to me But really, is looking above you such an important feature? Now, if you had to aim at something above you, I'd certainly understand it, but this isn't that much of an important feature, is it?

 

 

But to be fair, allow me to give a few of my critiques as well... since these will feature MAYOR SPOILERS FOR THE KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC STORYLINE, I'll use the spoiler tag.

 

 

1) The final bit at the Starforge... to be honest, it got a bit tiring how I got apprentice after apprentice and soldier after soldier sent at me and my party. Sure, I understand that they don't want my party to reach Malak, hence they're sending everything after me, but around Deck 2, it just got annoying at some point.

 

(on the other hand, it was rather cool when my Jedi Character was able to dispose of four Dark Jedi and about six Sith troopers on his own)

 

2) The final fight with Malak. I am very glad that they chose to go with a personal one-on-one saberfight instead of a 'three party members are needed to defeat 'an awfully transformed more powerful than ever' version of Malak that I was dreading, but unfortunately, they also went with a 'boss is able to fully restore his health and you have to destroy his sources before you can kill him' route. I suppose that is a pet peeve of mine, I never like these types of boss. I had rather hoped that it was going to be a big saberfight, one-on-one, with Force Powers thrown around with various breaks in combat where the two combatants would share a few threats/words with each other.

 

 

Other than that, I really cannot think up any other problem that I have with Knights of the Old Republic at the moment. I'm sure that I might have a few more critiques on the game, but these stood out at the moment.

[eidospsogos]

yeah some pretty good points. what annoyed me most, (other than the level 20 cap ) was the AI for your party members. if you ever find yourself going into the corner to retrive an item from a footlocker, or for whatever purpose, you turned around to find yourself trapped by your party members, who pretty much refused to move and get the hell out of your way. you'd then have to switch to whichever party member was nearest the outside to escape being permanently trapped in the corner the scripted actions were even worse in combat. i had jolee set to default most of the game, the decided to switch him to jedi support, so that he would use his powers before attacking. he had been using force powers some while set to deafult, but as soon as i switched him to jedi support he would just stand there the entire battle and not do anything. so all in all the AI and scripts for your supporting party members stunk.

[Speedy_Lube]

Burrie you make good points, but I would say:

 

1) I know they don't literally think we are idiots. That was funny.

 

2) It better not be a money thing next time, they have sold plenty of copies of KOTOR.

 

3) Allows you to customize your character more? As far as I know, unless you chose dialogue that led to dark side or light side your character didn't change based on dialogue.

 

4) I'm not sure what you meant when you said you were more irked by having only one choice. I think you have what I am saying backwards. Here's an example that I made up, not actually in the game:

 

Player Choices:

"Who are you?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I think I will kill you!"

 

NPC Responses:

"I am Joe Bob, I have been looking for the sword."

"No don't kill me!"

 

See how that first response can be used to reply to either of the first two player choices? Instances of this are everywhere in KOTOR. Now I think what you were getting at is that it is nice not to have to worry about subtle differences in outcome based on which one you ask. All I am asking for is that they record two different sound files. For example:

 

Player Choices:

"Who are you?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I think I will kill you!"

 

NPC Responses:

"I like to keep my identity a secret!"

"Why, I'm looking for your mom!"

"Please dont kill me!"

 

Granted, "None of your business!" would have worked just fine, but having two different ones would be even better, plus many of the cases where they did this I think they pushed the vaguness a little far.

 

5) True, maybe having them pronounce your name would be a lot of work. But seriously, how many times in the game can you tell people to stop calling you that and they still do! It made 0 sense.

 

6) "As far as I know, Knights of the Old Republic was always designed with both a PC version and a X-Box version in mind."

 

Well you can't tell.

 

7) I do feel ya on the argument that we get spoiled. But then again, we all got tired of tetris at some point, or we wouldn't be playing KOTOR. And I'm not asking for multiplayer or anything, that would be getting into a different genre.

 

Morrowind, for example, creates a HUGE world, no winding curves. Yes it has load times, but they were way faster than KOTORs. True, on the XBOX the load times were fast, but the winding passages were very cliche and fake (seriously, if I am a Jedi, I want to be able to walk up hill). Plus if you had the PC version, you might not have been so forgiving of the load times.

 

8) I wouldn't mind having to aim at something above me for a change! The game world felt flat because it was. How about a 3-Dimensional environment?

 

Your critiques are good ones too though. And since I am nitpicking bad things, let me nitpick some good things in the game:

 

Perfect soundtrack. Hearing the same Star Wars music in every game does get a little old. After the final battle, I was glad to see they didn't make me actually unslouch in my chair and move the characters back to the ship myself! I was half expecting to have to do that. Also, HK-47 was one of the best characters I've seen in a while.

[eidospsogos]

oh and by the way Speedy-Lube, my comment was meant to say that i agreed that you made some good points. Burrie's post must have been made while i was typing mine.

 

and let us not forget people, yes the game was great, but if we don't mention the things we don't like, regardless of how much we love the game, no one will ever know to make these changes or improvements. so don't just sit back and not say anything about what you didn't like just because you were happy with the game. i absolutely loved the game. but it had it's flaws and there's nothing wrong with pointing those out.

[DeViNaR]

i agree with burrie...

I think some gamers think that a game is easy to make...

you dont now if its hard or easy to to this or that improvement...

you're just guessing...

[eidospsogos]

well, i personally have a degree in graphic arts, while a personal friend of mine is currently majoring in computer science. any idea where i'm(or we're) planning on taking this?

 

from the programming aspect, you're right. i can't tell you. but if it's hard to make improvements, so what? do you want to put down 50 dollars for a game no one exerted themselves over. "ah, well, you know we could improve this, but it would take slightly more effort, so we'll leave it like this."

 

and i'm not saying go complain about the game itself. i'm saying be open about what you do not like, so that in the future, when those improvements may not be so difficult to achieve, these flaws/issues are at least known. otherwise, nothing ever improves.

[eidospsogos]

and i think both people have decent points to make on their stance and i can see where either are coming from. but i don't think everyone should just sit back and shutup about issues with a game, just because improving it might be a bit hard. the people developing these things are getting paid to make a really good game.

 

let's say you work at a digital print shop. you're programming a book for a client. you work your way through it not doing a bad job, but not trying too hard. then you go ahead and print it and ship it out. the client of course contacts the company and says i think this can bedone better can you make these changes. do you think your boss would say, well those changes are too hard to make, i'm sorry take it the way it is. or say your boss asks you to make these changes, would you dare say "that would be just too hard."

 

what's wrong with expecting alot from a decent sized software company that from what i can tell is doing very well. should we expect anything less than the best? (if you say yes, i am glad the founding of america did not depend on you're leaving england)

 

there is nothing wrong in the consumer, since we are the clients, demanding our money's worth in regards to a company's product.

and though i am sure we got it with this game, if no one brings up issues they have with the game, then in 5 years when nothing has improved and prices have continued to increase(as that is the history of our economy) will we be getting our money's worth then? i think not.

[Burrie]

There's nothing wrong at all with expecting the best from a client or whatever... nodding and smiling won't do any company anygood, but I personally also believe that at some point, you have to say "Okay, this is it.". You have to be realistic sometimes and know that there are some things that they simply could not do.

 

For example, the loading screens and ceilings critique... these are purely there because they were using the Neverwinter Nights engine. Although it already is heavily modified(I didn't even believe it was the same engine when I first saw it, until I did a bit , especially when it comes to the graphics, there are various 'drawbacks', as you might call them, and loading screens is one of them. Making the game fully 3D would've also been too big of a change of the engine. With the Aurora Toolset that comes with Neverwinter Nights, it is very clear that the areas you create ARE flat. Those are the limitiations of how the engine works, and if they had to remove something like that... well, those are already such humongous changes that the game would've already been released one and a half years later at least(what, with the actual programming, bugs to fix, training the artists with this development, actually utilising the features and such it would've brought with it). Hell, they might as well have used a different engine.

 

"So you use or create a different engine..." you might say. To be honest, if they had done that, then we we would now still speculating about what part Jolee Bindo would be playing in the Knights of the Old Republic game. Hell, maybe, just maybe the official site would've launched a few weeks ago and KotOR might've been released a few weeks before Episode 3.

 

It is one thing to make a few changes to a book for a client. It is a totally different thing to rewrite a huge segment of the book, change the format of the files, and add internet support.

[eidospsogos]

well, i was actually referring more to my problems with the game i see no reason to be able to look up in this game as any enemy that appears above you will be targeted once in range anyway. (there was one instance when using rapid transit on dantooine that two members of my party came back and it took me forever to figure out where carth had gone. somehow he ended up on top of one of those land masses that make up the canyon walls there. and i couldn't get him down even by switching to him. so it might have been nice to look up then because maybe i might have seen him up there )and if you notice in the action/arcade oriented parts of the game, such as the blaster turret on the ebon hawk sidequest, looking up is an option because it's necessary. the loading screens really don't bother me all that much. i like that they at least put little facts on them to make them easier to bear. i was mainly referring to the AI and script bugs in this game. the way bg2 worked in this aspect was alot better in my opinion.

 

also, has anyone run into weird party teleport bugs on tatooine. i would be running into a battle and all my party would be behind me, but as soon as i would give my main charcater his commands and switch to another party member to give them theirs, that party member would be half a mile away on the other side of the map. what exactly is going on with that?

[Toa Tahu]

Well,overall the game was ok for me,although I have yet to finish it but I know,it will be better.

 

As for the loading,I applaud KotOR!It is a billion times better than Morrowind's.In TES3,if you walk into another area,suddenly my comp will freeze as I prepare to load.Or,the movement and loading is jerky.KotOR,on the other hand,prepares well before loading and there is no such thing occuring in KotOR.

 

And the other thing.I HATE(absolutely) hate the underwater walk.The space walk was nothing,at least there were no enemies to usurp me!Underwater,there are the damn firaxa sharks,waiting to eat my flesh.And the sonic emitter is at hotkey 6,which is a million miles from 'W'.Damn,I hate that walk.Glad it's finally over.

[Burrie]

And the other thing.I HATE(absolutely) hate the underwater walk.The space walk was nothing,at least there were no enemies to usurp me!Underwater,there are the damn firaxa sharks,waiting to eat my flesh.And the sonic emitter is at hotkey 6,which is a million miles from 'W'.Damn,I hate that walk.Glad it's finally over.

Now there's a good one, I totally forgot about it. Although I didn't found the sonic emitter to be too much of a problem(my mouse was hovering over the emitter during the walk, and a shark was coming too close, a quick tab on the 'pause' button and you have all the time in the world to activate it), my biggest problem was that you walked so S-L-O-W. I know, I know, you can't exactly run underwater, but it was tedious to get from one spot to the other. I'm glad that the area wasn't as big as I originally was afraid of.

[Speedy_Lube]

Another thing that annoyed me, I notice that cutscenes where the game models were movie or performing some action could not be skipped, only the ones where the character were standing still and talking.

 

I assume this was done so that if you skipped it there might be problems with where the character are supposed to be after the cutscene. As a result you can't skip them, problem solved. But this is quite annoying and going to have to be fixed I'm afraid.

[Toa Tahu]

Originally posted by Speedy_Lube

Another thing that annoyed me, I notice that cutscenes where the game models were movie or performing some action could not be skipped, only the ones where the character were standing still and talking.

 

I assume this was done so that if you skipped it there might be problems with where the character are supposed to be after the cutscene. As a result you can't skip them, problem solved. But this is quite annoying and going to have to be fixed I'm afraid.

 

Yeah,another thing.Since I have sound disabled,I would want to skip the cutscenes as soon as possible.But that is impossible at times,especially those scenes with Malak in them.They just seem annoying.

 

 

Also,at the Star Forge,at least the hidden triggers should be a bit more reasonable...how can a Dark Jedi run out of a locked door(spawn in front of a locked door),to face me?That seems a bit unreasonable and annyoing at times,considering that the door's locked,and I have my back to the door,only to find that there are some more behind my (sealed) back.Irritating.

 

[Jaden X]

Hearing Twi'leks saying the same thing 3 times in a row is really annoying. At least for me.

[HertogJan]

Yeah the alien speech is repetitive and boring. They use the same samples for lots of different conversations and when an alien speeks a line, it takes waaaay to much time. I think they should equal the time that it takes for an alien to speak a sentance in his alien language, with the time it takes for a human to speak the (normal, english) sentence...

[snowman21]

I just got the game yesterday and I love it!!!! I'm only 4 hours in the game and there is one thing that annoyed me the most so far:

 

When I had to give up my sith clothes for those retarded sith papers! I loved the sith costume, just because it looked awesome on me and because I liked to hear the people's reactions.

 

[eidospsogos]

you can keep it somehow. i think by equipping it to someone else before the point where it's supposed to be taken from you.

[snowman21]

Originally posted by eidospsogos

you can keep it somehow. i think by equipping it to someone else before the point where it's supposed to be taken from you.

 

I should have done something like that...but also I shouldn't have

 

told the leader of the hidden beks (I forget all these names ) that I had the sith costume in the first place.

 

[eidospsogos]

i think you have to do that to progress the plot. i may be wrong, but i'm not sure you could go through without mentioning it.