Belated KOTOR 2 run

[Domi]

I dunno, just gotta post about it & don't want to keep on and on in ME thread.

 

Heh, the Nar-Shadaa is a mix of the best and the worst of the Obsidian. Atton's entire back-story and conversion in one massive dialogue, rendering it messy and un-frigging believable. And an actually well-made transition of focus from the PC to the NPCs and couple of very effective short dialogues with the same blimey Atton. Endless crawls through empty spaces, a couple of broken quests (even modded), but also a couple of very nice NPCs.

 

I am also starting to take issues with most of the major char development not only for Revan but for my current PC taking off screen. Again, not a fan of the 'discover ye terrible backstory' through the memory loss plotting.

 

Romances: Duh. Atton's interesting in his way, but his back story is too grand for the boy. Disciple could have been done better, the puppy-dog student admiration is an Okay take and he is pweetty, but dull so far. Still voting Bao-Dur as the most interesting male in the set & the best romanceable for the Femme PC. Just one more indication how important a VA is in creating an RPG character, props to the VA for sure, manages to channel the friendly attitude. My 7 yo qualified the males as: BaoDur - horny (not *that way*, what you see is what you get), Atton - handsome and Disciple - sexy (I am not sure where she picked that one and how she interprets it, I think it has something to do with him being blond.). Altogether I am impressed with the set of the joinables.

 

I am guessing I am half-way through.

[Twani]

This is one time when the guy player character wins out, because the gal they get join them is far more interesting then Disciple over all, I think- even if you're not inclined to romance her, I'd still like her on my ship playing female because she's overall pretty cool and would be a badass friend. Disciple... his puppy-love is sweet, but that's all I can really think of to describe him. 'He's a sweet kid', and I mean the kid part. Not really my kind of romance: I don't think he's ever going to look at the Exile and see her for who she is rather then his idealized perception of her.

 

(So why am I writing something like that? Hm.)

 

I hope the unofficial restoration patch made it so you can get to full influence with all your shipboard comrades. In the original KOTOR, unless you went dark side, you couldn't get all their story out of them, which terribly annoyed me, because they had interesting stories to tell (which occasionally lead to me acting like a complete dark side crazy person to two people on my ship while being perfectly light-side la de da with everyone else). I tended to like pretty much everyone who joined me- well, like might not be the right word. I tended to find all of them 'interesting' might be a better way of putting it. Much different from the cast of NWN2, which, I know goes against popular opinion, I basically had no interest in any of them (liked the MotB companions well enough, though, and some of the Storm companions could have been good given more focus and full dialog... I always dreamed of doing an expansion project for them).

 

I think the memory loss thing is a bit... old, too. I think people saw what a success PS:T (at least, in ratings if not in sales) was for that particular plot (though IIRC, you're not too fond of that game, especially the lack of female main character?), and decided they needed to do the same thing... again and again and again, and by the time I got to NWN2, I was sort of sick of it and just wanted to make up who my character was rather then finding it dolled out in tiny little pieces after long combat scene after long combat scene.

 

...I loved Bao-Dur. Definitely more interesting then Atton or Disciple. Funny, a lot of people also thought Mira was more interesting the Visas or (the male pickup), though she turns down the male PC immediately if he even tries. Obsidian still had work to do with writing romance interests at this point, IMO.

[Domi]

Yeah, I definitely prefer the build your own story plots, at least as far as the game events go.

 

Obsidian did good on romance conflicts from what I have seen so far. Good but weird in the absence of everything else. I hear more from Kreia than from my fan club. Atton, who was happy as a clam to see my PC's swimsuit edition had absolutely nothing to say about the Dancing Girl performance. Not a blush from Disciple. No reaction to *that* is just laughable.

 

With the PC loaded with the baggage of a genocidal maniac of some sort (or so Atton have told me, grr) and her immediately commanding position to all three males a romance is a hard sell. Atton is no Sarevok, and tangled with two more women. He is frankly overloaded with drama - that's coming from me is rich, I know - which just doesn't work with the lighter side. I don't think the game can manage the whole lovable rogue draped over a tortured soul thing. Will keep watching it though.

 

Disciple is a beloved student & could have been pretty good at that, if he was given more than the generic 'Wow, you're so cool when you do this whole Jedi goodness!" and a couple of research projects. Maybe Handmaiden is better, but I don't think he is hopeless, just no dialogue.

 

Bao Dur is a soldier to your general. Still see him as the most viable RO. I won't put it past him to unload a back-story in the most inopportune moment, so my opinion could change.

 

That's on top of the whole monasticism of Jedi Order. I dunno if I would chose to have actual consummated romance path, but a few PC talks just plain missing.

 

Anyway, hope to play a bit more in the next few days.

[Domi]

Hats off to KOTOR2 modding group. NarShaada is an absolute blast with those lightening switches between the characters and re-equipping puzzles, but from a quick browse it's all restored content. Obsidian was tossing gold bars overboard to keep the ship from sinking.

 

On the other hand, heh, I am thinking of upping the game play to difficult, lol. The only time I had to switch to easy was for Atton vs Suns. I dunno how male characters do it, with Handmaiden and Visas, they probably don't ever have to sweat.

[Senka]

Try this one http://deadlystream.com/forum/forum/4-tslrcm/

[Twani]

That Atton versus Suns fight was very hard for me, too, I remember. There's fight similar (in someways) to that near the end-game that I had difficulty with, too, but I found the rest of the game easy enough to bump the difficulty up a bit.

 

At least Disciple has the research projects with the restoration mod! In regular KOTORII, he didn't have that, meaning he was just there to compliment you and sit around not really doing anything else. Agh, now I really want to play KOTORII with the restoration project... must finish at least one game first. I have too many games I'm in the middle of.

 

I think I decided in the end with my PC for all the romance conflicts, I was okay with her remaining single. Bao-Dur sadly isn't biting, Disciple clearly is your student, and Atton you play teacher/therapist to a bit too much for me to see it being healthy for him outside of some flirting. The Exile *is* their Commander, in the end, so I was sort of bothered with the idea of romance to people directly beneath you in hierarchy even if Atton would probably protest until his eyes bled about being an actual part of that hierarchy. (Oddly, not to get to spoilery, but I didn't find this to be the same problem in ME.) I had the same issue in KOTOR with Juhani- I liked her character very much, and i was thrilled that they offered a lesbian romance interest, but to Juhani my character was basically Her Savior and mentor, and I couldn't see a romance down that track ending up well. (And then apparently my character would have broken her heart anyway by disappearing, going by KOTORII, so...)

[Jarno Mikkola]

Try this one http://deadlystream....forum/4-tslrcm/

Hih, it's already in Domi's game, if you look at the ME thread, you see me suggesting the very same mod.

 

The only thing I really hated about the mods added stuff was that it made the NarShaada base extremely annoying for my Light side play style.... where I wait until the forever to level up the NPCs that can be turned to <spoilers> ... I had to use the savegame editor to boost the Mira's Strength to ~50 or something so I could practically kill the mod added opponents with a few hits... ... other than that, the game is actually really easy.

 

To me the Atton vs. Suns fight was easy, as I knew it was coming, I had already dropped every item I had and turned him to a <spoilers> and so forth from level 2 Squandler(sp?)... ... and the fast item re-equipping before attacking with pause on.

[Senka]

That Atton versus Suns fight was very hard for me

It's simple. Just stand behind the bar and fire. Suns are helpless in this position.

[Twani]

It's simple. Just stand behind the bar and fire. Suns are helpless in this position.

 

That seems like cheese to me, though. Hiding behind the bar wouldn't actually work if the AI was more intelligent, so I refuse to do that. >.>

[Senka]

if you look at the ME thread,

No-no, hate this series )))

And you can add M4-78 Enhancement Project too

 

That seems like cheese to me, though. Hiding behind the bar wouldn't actually work if the AI was more intelligent, so I refuse to do that. >.>

Then shields, fast fire and run through )))

[Domi]

Well, I've just dropped the difficulty and Atton's hip probably still hurts from all the needles. Atton in my game is a fledgling, you know, the spoiler stacked over 12 lvls of the OC (LOL!) with one of those shiny spoilers and a fancy emerald dressing gown (green is actually good on him, go figure). Now, I have the opposite problem brewing, 'cause last time I had a flash to Atton, the boy lost Visa (who's sweet talked him out of that dress) and Bao Dur and is now paired up with Mira in some semi-decent armor, with a shiny thing and very few medpacks (courtesy of Mira soloing). If I have to roll with this dynamic duo.... yeah. I *hope* I will have a window to go shopping for more dresses. Knee-high in those newly baked spoilers, which is great when my girl casts non-stop to support their sword-play....

 

But that's why I kindda like the Nar-Shaada section, makes you re-think strategies instead of rolling with the same formation.

[Senka]

I always abandon Nar-Shaada to the end of game for better armors, weapons and more experience. There are are a lot of solo and all party members need for good equipment.

[Domi]

Nar-Shaada is brilliant, the events and dialogues are hilarious. Real brain-teaser. I kindda feel proud of managing the Atton-Mira-T3-M4 combo on normal, lol.

 

I was all set to send Disciple and Atton on the rescue mission in hopes for a comic-pheromonal factor, but the kiddo did the 'inni-mini-moe' and we ended up with Disciple and BaoDur. We'll see how this dynamic duo will do. I need to figure out Disciple before taking him to Korriban. I figured, Atton gets Nad-Shaada, it's his backstory after all, and Disciple goes in for the next planet. Then I can decide (if I am allowed, LOLZ!) who is staying in for the rest of the game.

[Domi]

Lol, my daughter calls the ship Ebon Talk.

 

Interestingly, I accidentally made the game very focused on Atton this weekend. I didn't know where the PC was (duh), so Atton and Bao Dur cleared out the GOTO yacht by themselves, and then I sent Atton on the Dxun mission with the other two boys as a back up. It worked great with his back-story, but disappointingly no in-game acknowledgments of the trust/issues etc. Sith dialogue with him was to the point, again, fit well, but could have been a bit more character-specific, gods see the Jedi I meet are not shy about the walls of dialogue. Could have wasted a few lines on the NPCs enrichment. PC responses badly need a bit of humor as well, let alone romance. Atton jokingly asks my PC about the vacation on Onderon (while he was at Dxun), and all I could do is humorously report on the political situation....

 

The Disciple's Kreia sequence is second to none. I assume that Handmaiden gets that same dialogues in a male run? It is very good. Kreia better not be Revan, darn it, I'll be very annoyed.

 

After Atton poured his little heart out to Mira he's just met (incidentally, I really doubt Mira can knock out a man even when he is distracted, my advice to her would be hit in the nuts, not go for the chin with the right hook), I got seriously concerned with Obsidian's fixation on presenting FPC Romantic Interest as having personal hygiene issues. It works with Bishop's backstory, I grant you that, a homeless orphan who survived in the wilderness, but what's with Atton? Clinical depression signs? But if it was a conscious strategy to make a player to feel for the guy, because everybody and their dog keeps picking on him, well, it's working. I am missing the: "Listen up. Today, no-one calls Atton a fool. Or an idiot. Okay?"

[Senka]

I assume that Handmaiden gets that same dialogues in a male run?

No.