New KOTOR2 Trailer Released

xCepheus writes "IGN has posted a new trailer for Xbox/PC RPG Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. An interesting tidbit from the trailer notes that, as your character sways towards the light or dark side, so do the rest of the characters in your party." The original was my fav non Final Fantasy RPG in recent memory, so I can't wait for this one.

Comments

I know I'm being negative...

[rsilvergun]

but maybe this time they'll make the dark side/light side choices something other than a) Kill innocent woman in cold blood or b) don't.

Re:I know I'm being negative...

[Shihar]

I actually found light side to be sickenly over powered if you went the guardian rout. My guardian smuggler could have easily beaten the entire game by himself without breaking a sweat, but I know that my dark side guy was in pain for that last level. Few things are more badass then a speed/forcejump with full buffs. Most things died first round.

As to your point about dark/light, I agree completely. Often times in KOTOR I would have to make a decision. Then sensible thing to do is the light side option. The stupid things to do is the dark side option. The light side offers the greatest reward, while the dark side offers and equal or lesser reward. I found it more then a little annoying that I would have to be a jack ass to be on the dark side.

So, let's consider one of the earliest situations you run into in KOTOR. You find an alien getting kicked around by some Sith troopers. The Sith troopers see you, attack, and of course die. You talk to the alien. You can either rough up and kill the alien for no reason, mug him, or be nice. The two jack ass things to do would be to kill or mug the guy. Killing or mugging the guy nets you a few credits and is all around a worthless action. Why draw attention to yourself by killing or mugging a some poor bastard? That isn't the dark side thing to do; that is the stupid thing to do. The smart thing to do is to be friendly to the guy you saved and pump him for information that might help you in your mission to get off the alien world you know nothing about. What I would propose is that you keep the option to kill/mug him for the truly insane people out there, but also include the ability be friendly in a 'dark side' way. Namely, be friendly not because you are a nice guy, but because you know he is in debt to you and you can probably get some quality information if you just crack a little smile for thirty seconds.

This same sort of dilemma presents itself all over the game. The sensible thing to do is the light side option, while the stupid thing to do is the dark side option. The game ignores that you might do something 'nice' for purely selfish reasons.

Another thing that would improve dark/light decisions would be to make it so that the light side choice doesn't always resolve itself nicely, and have the dark side choice some times resolve better then the light side choice. So, a hypothetical example might be that you are tasked with stopping a terrorist from blowing up the shipping yard (for whatever reasons). The dark side option is to simply confront the terrorist before he attacks and kill him, thus completing the mission and saving the shipping yard. The light side option is to talk the terrorist out of it, believe that you have succeeded, but have the shipyard blow up anyways because the terrorist was just bluffing because he knew he couldn't beat you in a fight. The dark side decision in this case is the one that has the fewest consequences, while the light side decision makes you feel like a jack ass for letting the guy go. In this case the dark side decision saves the ship yard, gets revered by whoever sent them to do the task, and saves a pile of lives. The light side decision results in the deaths of innocent lives, no reward, and some people pissed that you didn't stop the terrorist when you had the chance.

Basically, I am saying that you should be able to play the dark side without playing like you are some stupid and crazy maniac who would rather burn an orphanage and rape the charred bodies rather then complete a vital mission.

Re:could Obsidian = Bioware?

[Pausanias]

You can expect a darker tone in KoTOR II compared to the original. The guys at Obsidian have experience designing morbid games such as Planescape: Torment. They are very good at what they do, and we can expect an outstanding storyline, but I wonder if it'll be too dark for my taste.

They are hard workers. One of the developers read a ton of star wars novelizations (yuck), just so he wouldn't duplicate a story that was done before.

Still, I am suspicious. These are also the people who put out the Icewind Dale series of bland dungeon crawls. I think, though, that it was due to pressure by their former employer, and not their own volition.

Re:Delicious evil side antics

[Babbster]

In terms of his words (and his actions in fighting for the newly goody two-shoes Reven), Canderous does make a start toward the light side if you talk through his entire subquest and followup (lots of regretful words about being out only for war and glory). Of course, it's not reflected on his character sheet - then again, it would have no effect if it was since he's not Force-sensitive.

To me, the biggest problem of the light/dark choice in KOTOR is that the story path remains essentially the same, with differences only becoming evident towards the end. What would be interesting is if different planets/quests were encountered according to one's alignment. Even more entertaining (for replay value) would be if a THIRD path was encountered by those going neutral (presumably this would be the more difficult to achieve). It would take a lot of extra work but the fans would eat it up.

Re:Nice one!

[Reapy]

I don't get what makes it an adventure game. An adventure game to me is sam and max or monkey island. As far as I know, rpg games are roll playing games, meaning, you play a roll, with some stats.

KOTOR has a shallow feature to let you help or kill everything. I fail to see how this somehow makes it a better rpg game? The combat system in kotor is baldurs gate ad&d translated to star wars. Nothing creative. Final fantasy comes out with a new scheme with every game. Usually with a bit more depth. In KOTOR I just use speed, jump, and destroy everything, then get free force heals. At liest it looked cool.

They are different types of rpg games. Final fantasy is the product of consol rpg games, and sticks to the consol style rpg. KOTOR is the product of computer rpg games, and reflects those styles. Both are great games, but both are RPG games. Role playing... you play a role, get it? RPG doesn't mean flexability to kill everything on the map, that's a feature.

I think people need to just love games, and not get all pissed off when a game they don't like is popular and has the audacity to get classified in MY GENERA!!

Games are good, varying features are good. Don't get all mad that both games are RPGs.

Re:Nice one!

[king-manic]

FF is more along the lines of "roleplaying" then wizadry 8 or ultima. FF is a role playing game, morrowind is more of a "exploit finding" game, or "how many ways I can mess with NPX's" game.

Don't act so snotty. A RPG is a role playing game, and it also involves stats and choices. FF measures up. Your choices are just nto signigifcant tot he story, but arguably in Morrowind your choices are meaningless too.

In essence, they all derive from the D&D idea, just think of FF as a DM thats a good story teller but makes you stict to the script, Morrowind is a DM that can't tell stories but is great at letting you customize your character and fallout is a DM with too much time on his hands.