a few quick observations:
bg characters and dialogue were pretty damned terrible. the joinable npcs were a catchphrase and a character record sheet; no more. the story o' bg were just plain silly... and the mental gymnastics or innate stoopidity needed to makes the bg plot reasonable and rational is extreme.
bg2 fixed most o' the above issues... though they dropped ball with irenicus development. coulda' been a great UBG (ultimate bad guy,) but insistence 'pon keeping focus on protagonist story robbed irenicus needed development. good cast o' characters, and some nice-sidequest stuff, but ended up feeling like bg2 were far less than it coulda'/shoulda been.
never finished je, so can't comment... but complaints that kotor characters were lacking in originality is making it obvious to Gromnir that some o' you folks deserves a boot kick to the temple. the fact that kotor writers obviously and purposefully strove to recreate and reinvent the more well-loved characters from the original star wars films makes obvious that "original" weren't their goal. heck, the major plot points from the original trilogy o' sw movies were mirrored in kotor as much as were the characters. fact that some o' you clowns not "get it" makes Gromnir chuckle more than just a little. complain that kotor characters were unoriginal is a bit likes complain that magnificent 7 characters were unoriginal and ripped off from Kurosawa. duh.
ps:t IS overrated. some of the characters and dialogues were fantastic... and others were mind numbingly terrible. philosophy for dummies? got some o' the same crap with kotor 2. you all love when ps:t overt forces ridiculous navel gazing at you, but when kotor 2 does less... well, nostalgia gives a rosy hue to the often lugubrious excess o' chris A's craft. ravel (and her multiple incarnations) were a fantastic character (the best crpg character evar,) and some of the joinables were incredibly well written, but fall-from-grace were absolute terrible (you can only drag out the "mystery that is woman" shtick for so long w/o it becoming tedious,) and if me were too wordy, then ps:t were hardly an exercise in artistic brevity.
fo? don't get us started. writing were not the strength o' fallout. am not sure that such an observation would need any exposition or explanation anyplace other than here or at nma. however, is no use arguing with zealots.
as for me... am not sure "too wordy" is the problem. however, am mighty disappointed with the stoopid dialogue wheel. has a dialogue wheel with 5 choices... that meld and merge down into 2 genuine options? is as if me protagonist is simply one o' those elcor thingies... replaces any sorta artistry or craftsmanship with writing o' dialogues. dialogue wheel, as utilized in me, is simply a cheap way to reduce writer workload... any one dialogue response can be given multiple meanings by use o' elcor pre-exposition. me dialogue wheel, in practice, reduces dialogue tree bifurcation. result is a writer man-hour savings and lessening o' need for well-crafted writing.
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is not that me writing is bad... 'cause for the most part it ain't bad. most o' the characters were compelling, and bioware finally seems to grasp notion that heroism requires some proportional sacrifice. finally their games has grown up a bit and the biowarians seems to have gotten over their great fear that the Average Gamer couldn't endure bad things happening to beloved party members. they made baby steps in me, but am approving o' the direction they is headed. am a bit troubled by some o' the wacky anime-inspired plotting, but unless you is named tolkien, plot is always a secondary or tertiary consideration with sci-fi/fantasy writing... which is a good thing.
me story and characters is relative strong, 'specially compared to some other crpgs noted in this thread. am loathing the dialogue wheel cheat and the return o' mindless bg1 style "exploration" of uncharted planets... and the rule system seems very shallow, but much as kotor were better than the sum o' its parts, am also enjoying me to a similar degree.
HA! Good Fun!