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Star Wars KOTOR - PC Version, Sequel Rumors
Thanks to IGN PC for their hands-on preview of the PC version of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, which is currently due to ship on the 18th November. Apart from increased game resolution (up to 1600x1200) and texture detail, "about thirty new items will be added to the game, including two new lightsaber types", and "the space station around Yavin (from the first film) is a new locale" for this conversion of BioWare's immensely popular Xbox RPG. GameSpot also has a brief preview of the PC version, and elsewhere, IGN Xbox has an interesting, but very unconfirmed rumor that a sequel to KOTOR "...is not being developed internally at BioWare, but in Orange County at Obsidian Entertainment", the Black Isle-rich company who recently announced a co-development deal with the KOTOR creators.
Bioware has always been a purveyor of quality games (unlike Black Isle, which broke its trend with Lionheart), and I can't wait for KOTOR/PC to come out. Most Star wars games I've played have been dreck.This also raises the question: why did the Halo PC port take two years to complete? And it's (from most accounts) poorly optimized for the PC, with a two year old engine dropping frames on today's high end PCs. Hopefully this will play smoothly, given that the xbox sports a 700 Mhz celeron and a mid-range nvidia card (as I recall)..
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
Any successful game with a strong franchise behind it (in this case Star Wars) will spawn sequels. Its the nature of the gaming/franchise relationship. The LOTR movies were successful, that caused a LOTR game that was successful, and that caused a LOTR sequel game.
*scratches KOTOR off his Reasons To Get An Xbox list*
I really would want to continue playing my character in an eventual sequel. Naturally this would mean changing the tone quite a bit, since you are rather powerful at the end. I also wonder if all or at least some of the additions to the PC version will make it onto the list of download-able items for XBOX live once they get around offering any.
Hank! White!
From what I've noticed, they seem to develop the core game, its mechanics and initial contents, and then often let other studios develop sequels and add-ons. For example, with neverwinter nights, the expansion pack "Shadows of Undrentide" was developed by Floodgate entertainment (and while I haven't really played it, the reviews make it out to be more interesting than the initial single player campaign, which was repetitive and linear), and now it's rumored that Obsidian is doing the KOTOR sequel. I wonder if this strategy lets them focus more on all-new titles, which are presumably more profitable, although I would've thought that the return-on-investment for an expansion would be higher.
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
There was a huge bug that pissed me off. Perhaps some other people ran into it. After facing Malak the first time and returning to the Ebon Hawk, you have to talk to Mission. The only problem is she was invisible from a mission before and your character can't necessarily recognize her. So the game just hangs there on another member, Carth, waiting for Mission to say something. But she never does because your character can't see her! It really pissed me off.
I had to call the technical support for help! I'm not sure but I think they had some specific bugs listed in their automated system so they were definitely getting a lot of phone calls about them. The guy I talked to sounded like he had encountered thousands of the same problems for other customers. These companies should make the programmers who are the cause of the bugs answer the technical support lines because that ain't right to have that kind of bugs in a console game.
But anyways KOTOR is a great game and definitely worth purchase. Anyone else encounter the bug I did or any others that pissed them off?
And when are they gonna have downloads? Anyone have any ideas on what they would be?
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Bugs, my friend, are the reason why patches exist. Any errors the PC version ships with will (hopefully) be taken out soon after launch.
Goo goo g'joob.
That being said, I still played the game all the way through three times and many others enjoyed the game so much that even talking about bugs pisses them off. Overall, the game is good enough that the bugs can be overlooked, but some of them, even in a game as huge as this one, are inexcusable (again, see Mission/Carth bug).
Oh yeah, and I doubt they'll release a bug-fixed Xbox version until it gets a "Platinum" or "Game of the Year" release - even then, it's probably doubtful.
I seem to have hit a bug when playing that basically is forcing me into the final showdown with the big bad before my character is really even ready.
As a result, I kinda got annoyed and stopped playing. I suspect I'll just buy the PC version when the need to play again hits.
I did enjoy the game (though the choices that make you "good" or "evil" are way too straightforward).
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
According to Assistant Producer Derek French, these articles are BS. You can see in a post he made on the BioWare forums last week (his post is at the bottom), that there are no plans to expand the content. Specifically, he states, "Sorry, but there are no new side quests in the PC version of KotOR." He also claims there is no new dialogue. I don't know how they can add a space station in (with "new story lines") and have no new characters, no new quests, and no new dialogue at all. So, who to believe?
Personally, I think Derek has no idea what he's talking about, as there are now many articles in the press talking about new content and features for KotOR PC. But he could be The One Who Knows Things. If he's right, that sucks.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Man, this game looked so good that I was worried I'd have to eventually buy an X-Box, even though nothing else on the system really interests me.
Of course, my computer is so old that there's no way I can play this, but still...
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
The smartest thing to do, of course, is to push the patch via Xbox Live. But then again, smart != easy, and smart != what actually happens.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Well probably find out in a month or two. Bioware has said that they would work on Xbox downloadable content once the PC version was released.
I'd like to see Bioware putting out a bugfixed Xbox version, but I figure that's never going to happen.
Actually, it seems like they already did just that.
I own the PAL version of the game (released in europe a few months after the NTSC US-version) and a lot of the bugs (but not all) seems to be fixed.
Bugs or no bugs, it is a great RPG, and you should definitly get it, it's one of the few games wort buying an XBOX for.
(The others, IMHO being HALO, Jet Set/Grind Radio and Deathrow)
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."