Ideas of how to tackle storyline problem

[BanthaFodder01]

Ok, I wasnt sure how to word it. What I was trying to say was how they can your story into the game. (skip this paragraph if u want to see the idea [note: the idea isnt about the storyline/plot]) Hopefully, there will be a 3rd game. Some people are really curious on how theyll make the storyline. In KOTOR II they avoided this by leaving out all the past characters except Carth, HK, the little droid, and Bastilla, and only talked about what happened in KOTOR I that you couldnt change. Im guessing that KOTOR III will take place throughout the galaxy. Youll be some mysterious jedi finding all of Revan's old companions and the Exile's old companions why your doing it, and how you know where these people are and veen who they are is a mystery of course.Anyways, it would allow a KOTOR 4 which would take place in unkown space with revan and the exile, etc...

 

IDEA:

OK, so back to the topic. I was curious on how they were going to do this, if of course they do it. My idea was that you install or load KOTOR III. Then when you start the game they ask you if you want to load the game info/files from KOTOR I and II onto KOTOR III. You coudl choose which character, you want to put on. Now, for Xbox360 it would be a bit different, and Ive had some trouble of thinking of a way to do it. Maybe the game could come with some type of device which can load the storyline from your KOTOR I and II game and then you can put it into the 360. It would of course be memory card type of port.

 

Anyways thats the idea, whether or not it could work is unknown to me, im hoping you guys could pick at it..maybe tear it apart lol.

 

Now the question is what if you cant load the KOTOR I and II stuff, or u didnt play one of those games (maybe both). If you tell the KOTOR III game (when starting a new game) you have nothing to load, or you have nothing to load from KOTOR I, or nothing to load from KOTOR II, then throughout the game theyll have you engage in conversations that would let you make the broader past story. If your confused or have no idea what im talking about, try remembering Peragus (however its spelled) in KOTOR II, when you meet Atton, he asks a couple quick, simple questions. But they are used for the rest of the game. I cant really remember them, but one was that he said something about Revan. He said "she" and you had the option of correcting him to "he".

 

So, please discuss and try to remember im no expert on the xbox360/xbox technology lol. Oh and sorry if someone already came up with this idea.

[Cactus-Jack]

I think its entirley possible for them to do it without loading settings from old savegames. The savegame idea, though nice, would involve ALOT of testing for them, and really would require a large portion of time/energy to make it work, when an in-game dialouge similar to KOTOR II would work just as well with much less work.

 

However, the savegame idea would be perfect if they were to allow you to use revan/exile at some point in the game, as you could then load your exact revan/exile with correct armour, level, stats, etc.

 

I'm still sticking to the idea that it would not be worth the energy though.

 

Also, remember alot of the story can be filled in by them, they expect you to have done EVERYTHING in the game possible, and have done it according to the alignment you picked. For example: HK47 was a main storyline element in KOTOR II, however once in KOTOR I i didnt bother to buy him, making the storyline conflict between games. So for simplicitys sake they assume you did completed everything in the game fully.

 

This isnt trying to poo-poo on your idea, just chipping in my thoughts.

[BanthaFodder01]

no problem.

 

Sometimes I think the thing from KOTOR II would work better energy wise. However the reason I came up with the other idea is because there were so many little things you could have done that would effect the future. For instance if you killed one of the characters, that character may appear as a spirit or injured in KOTOR III. Thats kinda far-fetched lol, but anyways, I think the KOTOR II element can only work for a portion of the past story.

[Davinq]

I was thinking of the savegame-to-storyline idea before, but as Cactus said, too much testing. And as to a KotOR 4, GL is sick of KotOR. IMO it's highly unlikely to occur.

[BanthaFodder01]

Why is he sick of KOTOR? Im not trying to say your wrong or anything, just curious if hes given any indication of it. I mean he put KOTOR I in the starwars.com database, in a way making it "semi-cannon?" (cant fully be cannon cause its a rpg rite?)

 

About testing issues. What kinda of problems would they face? Couldnt they benefit from doing something like this? Again im not saying you guys are wrong, afterall I dont know a ton about console tech but I think its ok to ask what problems they would face.

[Cactus-Jack]

Well, i dont know too much about it, but going by the idea that the savegame loading system would read a save game of your choice and find specifc things, i do have this to say;

 

The way the game monitors choices you make is by was of "booleans", these are yes/no (1/0) markers attached to choices you can make in the game. For example; if revan was male/female, there would be a "gender: 0" note in the savegame if your revan was male. You need to understand that to make sense of the next part;

 

Now, this means to know every choice you have made, the save-game loader is going to need to read almost every single boolean from the file. Now, this means they are going to have to check that every single boolean is set correctly, and not changed because of a glitch (which does happen), and also that it reads them correctly without mistakes, etc (general bug testing) which would take an immense amount of time.

 

It would also take into account the differance between a boolean not set, and one that was set to its default setting by a choice you made. For example; "is_dude01_alive?" boolean, by default would be set to 0, to say yes, this dude is still alive. Now, dude01 is a guy you can kill when you meet, or allow to live, and if you speak to him he makes a large differance to the story, say he liberates kashyyyk or something. So if you never meet him, and complete the game, he will still be set to "0" to say he is still alive, when the savegame reader you speak of reads this file, it would see he was alive and well. But what if you meet him, and he liberates kashyyyk changing the story of the game DRASTICLY, he is still alive, so is boolean is set to "0" for alive. Now, how is the save-game reader supposed to know the differance between alive and un-spoken too, and alive and liberated kashyyyk?

 

The only way would be to either find another boolean that relies on kashyyks liberation and go by that in addition to the origional "is_dude01_alive?" boolean. Infact it would probly requires several boolean checs. Meaning that even for a simple part of the game as knowing if you spoke to someone or not could take an immense of time to program the boolean checking for, and the testing of such.

 

I apologise if i rambled on, but i'm just saying what i think could go wrong. I dont myself know how the save-game file is coded exactly, they may have other methods that would make it simpler. But my point is still the same, to do something like this would take such a large chunk of energy, it would certainly be a benifit if they could make it work though.

 

Another point, is that the way the game designers "round up" what you have done, which is as i said before, if you completed the game they expected you to have completed 110% every single part of the game, meaning they dont need to know if you killed some random dude or not, they assume you did/didnot depending on your alignment.

 

And what about choices you make at the very end of the game, that you cannot (if i recall) save after, because the game ends, how would it know what to do there?

 

I wouldknt know anything about GL being sick of the kotor games, but i wouldnt expect a kotor4. I think a kotor3 would round off the story nicley, finishing it off so that its story could be used in other projects as cannon. K4 however would be be a new story i would imagine, if it was ever made at all. It depends i guess if Lucas Arts decide to make more star wars RPG's, and if they wanted to give them the KOTOR brand/timeline.

 

But anyways, enough of that. The short answer: Too much bug testing for it to be done.

[khawk]

Basically, there is (1) the absolute necessity to include both Revan and the Exile into the next game and (2) the necessity to make it possible to set their genders and alignments. (3) If you could also select their faces, then that's gold!

 

Then there is the problem that they should have a very limited amount of speech since together they would need 4 different voice actors, not to mention that LS Revan should off course have a different set of lines then DS Revan. For the Exile, it's exactly the same. Off course, the storywriter could think of ways to let them fall to the DS or let them return to the LS, the latter being not completely realistic if you set them as DS but it is something which need good thinking. This may look difficult, but I can assure you for a professional storywriter it isn't. Even amateur writers on these boards can handle it so it should be a piece of cake for a professional. The main problem would be developing costs which can be reduced by limited amounts of speech. Certainly don't plan to include them as party members. Lucasarts will not go for it because they wouldn't finance that project.

 

After that comes the party members of the Exile and Bastila who can be LS or DS. Again, not much speech, better don't make them party members again allthough if it's required for a good solid storyline it can be done.

 

For the things about what you have done? Well, you can just consider canon Revan LS / DS story and canon Exile LS / DS story. You cannot choose every variable.

 

LS Revan would:

Free the Wookies from the Czerka slavers

Give Moisture vaporators to the Sandpeople on Tatooine

Not poison the shark on Manaan

Turn Yuthura Ban to the LS

Help the Elders on Rakata Prime

 

While DS Revan would:

Side with Chuundar

Kill the Sandpeople

Poison the Shark

Kill both Uthar Wynn and Yuthura Ban because (s)he is the more powerful Sith.

Kill the Elders on Rakata Prime, enter the temple and then kill the One with his Black Rakata tribe as well.

 

I don't have to fill in all the variables for the LS and DS Exile, should I?

[Vaelastraz]

I don't like those Light side dark side stereotypes.

 

Why would a Darkside Revan do everything absolutely evil and often unnecessary in the game? Like actually helping those wookies with their problems? He would go and find the starmaps, doing all that is necessary to achieve that.

 

 

Anyway, in a way, both Revan's and the Exile's story is finished. Actually Revan's story was pretty finished in Kotor I, but Kotor II gave us an open ending. The Exile's story has an open ending too, but the story itself is finished.

 

Time to move on! There's no need for those 2 characters to return. At least for me.