Maybe KOTOR III should NOT happen...

[Darth Windu]

Yes, in canon Revan is LSM and the Exile is LSF. However, that is irrelevant for the games themselves because you get to choose.

[RedHawke]

Like I said, in KotOR III the Exiles gender and force allignment will have been canonised like Revans was in KotOR II.

Have you even played the game MC?

 

You are able to tell the game Revan's gender and alignment.

[Henz]

I'll never understand all this confusion. The story arc can continue WITHOUT ever seeing Revan or Exile, or even establishing gender or force alignment. It WILL start with a new PC. It HAS to, it's an RPG. Revan and Exile CAN be mentioned in KOTOR's tipical vague way. Revan could appear in ROBES.

 

Without detailing an extensive back story for both previous games, [which can't happen because of of new fans]...

 

- Neither Exile or Revan can talk.

- You can't see either's face.

- You can't explain what happen to their companions [most could be dead].

- You can't talk about pretty much any choice the player made during subquests.

 

If the four reasons above aren't enough to justify not seeing them I don't know what is.

[TKA-001]

Darth Windu's idea near this thread's beginning sounds best to me.

[Davinq]

Don't know if this has been suggested yet, but so we can keep story continuity, why doesn't LA make an EXPANSION PACK? That way we won't have any new players, it could require K1 or K2 or both, and judging by the Savegames... voila!

 

But other than that, Darth Windu's suggestion was the best.

 

Edit: I think the Exile was canonically female.

[The Source]

I personally don't want to load a TSL savegame into KotOR III. I rather not play the Exile again. The Exile's actions, to the main Revan and Unknown Threat issue, are not really important. KotOR III wil probally focus soley on Revan and the threat. I think we will learn that the Exile died for some reason.

 

I just hope the Revan legacy doesn't devour all the dialouge in KotOR III.

[Emperor Devon]

- Neither Exile or Revan can talk.

 

They don't have to, or voices can be included.

 

- You can't see either's face.

 

Why? You could choose them at the main menu.

 

- You can't explain what happen to their companions [most could be dead].

 

It will probably depend on their gender and alignment. There aren't many ways Hanharr could turn out for a DSF Exile, or Mission for a DSM Revan, etc.

 

- You can't talk about pretty much any choice the player made during subquests.

 

That would have no relevance to the current plot.

[Mosier]

Here is the problem with making people go through yet another quiz to fill in the backstory:

 

For returning players, it is a hassle to have to retread and "discover" stuff they already know. If you were to play a game set after Return of the Jedi, would you want to sit through endless cutscenes of people explaining the course of events for the whole trilogy that you already know?

 

For new players, they won't give a crap. "Who the hell is Revan and why should I care?"

 

Old characters can't really be integrated well. If one particular character was either good, bad, a Jedi, non-Jedi, or dead depending on the outcome of your game, how can they be included and still maintain the open-ended gameplay? Notice how the only K1 characters to make it back into your party were droids with convenient memory wipes? (Ordo is the exception but he is the one human who ends the same in K1 no matter what you do) Some characters can maybe make cameos like Carth and Bastilla did, but not much more. And it would have to be characters that don't change too much over the course of the game or it would create too many variables.

 

Now that whole last paragraph would be moot if the devs just canonized certain aspects of the story and characters. I don't think they can again pull off the vague beginning that they did with TSL. Too many variables after two games.

[RedHawke]

if the devs just canonized certain aspects of the story and characters.

That is unlikely as it would alienate some of the players...

[Char Ell]

Here is the problem with making people go through yet another quiz to fill in the backstory:

 

For returning players, it is a hassle to have to retread and "discover" stuff they already know. If you were to play a game set after Return of the Jedi, would you want to sit through endless cutscenes of people explaining the course of events for the whole trilogy that you already know?

True that I wouldn't want to play an RPG set after ROTJ that went on a long history droll. However you're comparing a game that would be developed off a movie, where gender and alignment of important characters are already established, to an RPG that allows the player to choose the gender and alignment of the main character. Apples vs. oranges.

Now that whole last paragraph would be moot if the devs just canonized certain aspects of the story and characters. I don't think they can again pull off the vague beginning that they did with TSL. Too many variables after two games.

I agree that it's much more of a challenge for the devs to write KotOR 3 if they maintain the current storyline. It will be interesting to see if they take the easy way out (e.g. establish Revan and/or Exile's gender/alignment without input from the player) or rise to the challenge and find a creative solution to the problem. Of course if K3's storyline is such that Revan and/or the Exile don't play significant roles then it's a moot point.

[jonathan7]

right lets dispel a rumour here... it isnt a hassle for newcomers to have to answer a questionaire... i played TSL before KOTOR, and having to answer questions on revan to atton meant very little to me, i just went with what i thought... what it infact did do, was make me want to go back an play the previous game so i could be/find out what happened to revan! and a questionaire doesnt cover old ground, it helps the player establish what the old ground was so they can play the game in their own starwars universe the way it happened to them!

[Henz]

They don't have to, or voices can be included.

 

A non-speaking side character would be odd. Are they mute? Hiring a voice actor ruins the effect of characters that were created by the player. It undermines the point of customsiing them in the first place.

 

Why? You could choose them at the main menu.

 

Time consuming. And a great deal of new players would be confused and alienated by having to create characters they've never heard of.

 

It will probably depend on their gender and alignment. There aren't many ways Hanharr could turn out for a DSF Exile, or Mission for a DSM Revan, etc.

 

WAAY too many variables to be a sensible idea.

 

 

That would have no relevance to the current plot

 

I meant more major sub-plots like who you chose to take over Dantooine in TSL. But mainly I was just saying that there's little you could talk about that wouldn't contradict the previous games.

 

My point remains. TOO MUCH hassle for characters you don't have to see in KOTOR3

[Terran I]

As long as complete game is made, unlike KotOR 2, I'll buy it. Continuing the story about Revan would be good.

[Manny C]

Ok, well I've thought about this a fair bit, and I think that trying to continue a branched-ending game isn't a perticularly good idea, and I would go so far as to say that making a sequel to TWO branched ending games is a perticularly BAD idea.

 

Why, you might ask, do I say that? Well, something that people never seem to take into account in this perticular topic of conversation is that it makes the writer's job VERY hard to have a compelling story that is cohesive, and personally I think this had a large part in why the second game's story felt disjointed and incomplete, I can't place all the blame on the earlier release date, because i feel the story had problems in quite fundamental areas that couldn't possibly have surfaced from "running out of time".

 

If people insist that they want a traditional "sequel", then they're going to want returning characters, continued story and essentially a new chapter in a story that's already been started, and it's perticularly hard to do that when the writer essentially isnt allowed to have a concrete basis of past events to work with. Carth, visas, mission, zaalbar, and bastila, for example COULD die in the last two games, so for all intents and purposes, they are now dead to the series because fans who killed those characters will have a great big cry about continuity should they return. And I know someone's going to say "oh but they brought carth back in kotor 2 well", but when i say they're unusable, I mean they essentially cant return as anything more than cameos, and for *some* fans, that's unacceptable.

 

Kotor 2's way of covering the period between 1 and 2 was shaky at best, it was extremely vague and incomplete, and was essentially a collage of half-assed excuses (like revan's "sudden need to disappear to fight some unseen force far far away") glossed over by the guise of "mysteriousness".

Poor excuses like "the unseen threat" just leave open questions that at some point WILL need to be answered in order to reach a structured conclusion, and they simply can't do that unless they actually make a decision as to what happened in the previous games, and if all fans are like the majority of fans that post in this forum (ie, hold continuity to their own personal experience of the previous games as a do or die issue), then it's not going to happen without making almost completely different stories for the different possibilities, which would be far too arduous and, more importantly, too expensive to be given the green light by lucasarts. And even then, there will still be continuity issues that people will complain about, like in kotor 2, how bastila is assumed to have been kept alive if revan is a DS male.

 

Personally, I think kotor's winning strength is the way it places the player in the midst of an immersive, engaging and COMPREHENSIVE story, it allowed the gamer to essentially to escape to the world of star wars, and it did it well. I know other people may have liked it for it's combat gameplay or it's RPG structure or whatever, but personally, I think that without the great story, kotor is nothing, and I think it's unrealistic to create a quality storyline while having to overcome this perticular obstacle. I say if the only way you can make a "traditional" sequel is to make the story disjointed (which realistically is, the only way you can continue the story and maintain completely open continuity), then i say make a completely different game, and if you MUST have some connection to the last games, make them few, far between, and essentially irrelevant to the main story.

[Terran I]

Point taken!

[Vaelastraz]

@ Manny C

 

This is exactly what i was trying to say in several topics all similar to this one. But i couldn't express it the way you did cuz of my bad vocabulary

 

Anyway, this is exactly what i think, in my opinion this is the only way there can be another Kotor game.

[darth_traya]

There are a couple of fairly simple solutions.

 

Firstly as was mentioned before you could have a Jedi history test in which you set everything.

 

Secondly you could have the exile die and the only have to set Revan.

 

Thirdly it could be random to create even more playback.

 

And finally you could have Revan and the Exile fall to the darkside and you can either redeem them and bring peace to the galaxy or kill the and become lord of the sith.

[T.Nova]

Here is the problem with making people go through yet another quiz to fill in the backstory:

 

For returning players, it is a hassle to have to retread and "discover" stuff they already know. If you were to play a game set after Return of the Jedi, would you want to sit through endless cutscenes of people explaining the course of events for the whole trilogy that you already know?

 

For new players, they won't give a crap. "Who the hell is Revan and why should I care?"

 

Old characters can't really be integrated well. If one particular character was either good, bad, a Jedi, non-Jedi, or dead depending on the outcome of your game, how can they be included and still maintain the open-ended gameplay? Notice how the only K1 characters to make it back into your party were droids with convenient memory wipes? (Ordo is the exception but he is the one human who ends the same in K1 no matter what you do) Some characters can maybe make cameos like Carth and Bastilla did, but not much more. And it would have to be characters that don't change too much over the course of the game or it would create too many variables.

 

Now that whole last paragraph would be moot if the devs just canonized certain aspects of the story and characters. I don't think they can again pull off the vague beginning that they did with TSL. Too many variables after two games.

 

Those issues are the exact reason why neither should be considered brought back.

 

See... the thing is why are we having this debate. There is no logical reason to bring either character back. Every method I've heard about bringing either back is flawed.

 

The test thing is flawed. New players aren't going to give a damn, and they'll sit there like WTF is this? If bringing either back has major plot implications then KotOR veterans are already going to get the idea that one of them is coming back.

 

Canonizing is flawed. Since there would have been no point in customizing Revan or the Exile in the first place if they were going to be given an official appereance in the end.

 

And finally... they're not needed. At least not alive for the most part. You could easily have them communicate with you through the force without revealing their appearence, or you could find leftover items and data they may have collected and find a weakness to the enemy.

[Henz]

Why is Revan so god damn important?

 

The Exile knew him, the new PC probably won't. Revan was only important in TSL because he was important to the Exile, and few people are left alive who know anything about him. It's not so hard to think that characters could exist in this universe and not meet him?

[*bAsTiLaJeEdAi*]

Mosier has some good points but I agree with D Windu.About the whole history test thing.

Because I mean come on. KOTOR3 was soooooooo inconclusive! Without a third I will probably go insane trying to figure out where the exile went after malachor! And where Revan went and what he/she did? Why revan felt the need to go?

[Terran I]

KotOR III should take place 40 or more years after TSL, new story, new threats, NO MEMORY LOSS, no Revan, Exile, or anyone conected with them! If these conditions are not followed, than they could make another 50 games with name KotOR and they will ruin even more the memory of the first game, and will bore the people to death! The reason to mention Revan and Exile would be to make new players to buy KotOR I and II. But that is not a good Idea. If that is their plan than it is better that there is no KotOR III. I want new things, not recollections of Revan and Exile!

 

World won't end if you don't hear about Revan, time goes on, new heroes should emerge and save the galaxy!

[Vaelastraz]

Why is Revan so god damn important?

 

The Exile knew him, the new PC probably won't. Revan was only important in TSL because he was important to the Exile, and few people are left alive who know anything about him. It's not so hard to think that characters could exist in this universe and not meet him?

 

Are you seriously asking why Revan is so god damn important? In the world of Kotor?

 

Well, he is the one man who is responsible for almost everything that happened and happens in the Kotor story.

That doesn't mean, everyone has to know him, but he is one of the most if not the most important character in the Kotor story.

[90SK]

But those heroes should emerge in a different game series. KotOR has always been centered around Revan. The third game will conclude Revan's chapter in Star Wars history. Why would it by KotOR III if it had nothing to do with the first two games anyway? Why not name it something totally different, if it is totally different.

[Terran I]

TSL didn't conclude the story about Revan and a doubt that KotOR III will!!!

The game is called Knights of the Old Republic, not Revan Knight of the Old Republic !!!

[90SK]

Of course TSL didn't conclude Revan's story. That's what I'm talking about: they only perpetuated it, to be finished presumably in KotOR III.

 

 

The game is called Knights of the Old Republic, not Revan Knight of the Old Republic !!!

 

And I don't recall the name "Skywalker" turning up anywhere in any of the movie titles, and yet Anakin is the central character in all six movies. It's his story, yet he isn't the main character every time. His story is still being told, however, and the final movie concludes it. The last two games would indicate that a similar pattern is being formed in regards to Revan.