Attack of the KotoR ads.

[Voss]

4 TV commercials in two hours. It seems a bit excessive.

Comercial is as follows:
Man with lightsaber.
Nattering about lightside/darkside (color of lightsaber shifts to red as camera pans around man)
gameplay scenes. Lightsabers!
dual wielded lightsabers!
lightsaber duels!
A double lightsaber!
original trilogy music!
more lightsabers!
space battle cutscene!
more lightsabers!
end on yet more lightsabers!


on a sidenote, I took a look at a net trailer as well.
villain blathering on about converting main NPC to the darkside!
a pseudo-yoda!
fast paced space battle cutscene!
more originial trilogy music!
and yes, more lightsabers!

I think they're overdoing it a bit...

On a positive note, from the way at looks at least the various settings and environments aren't all that dark and gloomy crap that seems to be an obsession lately. Bright lights and colors! The shock, the awe.

But are there real choices in the gameplay? Tis the real question. And can I tell both the Jedi and the Sith to frag off? I doubt this last one, but that would move the game up a notch in my opinion.

 

[Spazmo]

I saw an ad for KOTOR when I went to the movies a while ago. It was the same one you describe above.

Also, KOTOR on Xbox just went gold, so expect a serious media blitz.

 

[Voss]

Yes, but still.
2/hour is a bit much.
Of course, with 5 trailers and 5 preview movies, they already hit excessive.

And the sad thing is, I honestly still can't tell if the game is good or not.

Because, frankly- 'Lightsabers RoXoRs' doesn't tell me much.

After all, the really cool stuff involves force lightning random people and force pushing wookies off those goofy tree cities.

Or possibly skill development, exploration, multiple options for dealing with situations, in-depth exploration of philosophical issues (such as why the jedi philosophy is ultimately foolish and self destructive), and of course occasionally chopping people into little tiny bits with the +5 vorpal lighsaber of thundering.

 

[Psilon]

Ah, yes, magic lightsabers, because Darth Vader endorses the +3 Lightsaber, Vorpal +5 against Undead. And then he lost on a critical hit.

That alone convinced me not to bother with this game. Lucas has the right to fuck with the franchise, just like I'd let Tim Cain, Chris Taylor, and Leon Boyarsky do what they wanted with Fallout. I wouldn't like it (in either case--I hate the new SW movies), but it's their right. KOTOR, by contrast, is in my view somewhere between Van Buren (complete with Sawyer's dubious modifications) and Fallout Enforcer.

If all they can offer is dual wielding of +1 lightsabers and gameplay like the NWN OC, I'll stick to UT2003.

 

[Visionary]

Because, frankly- 'Lightsabers RoXoRs' doesn't tell me much.

After all, the really cool stuff involves force lightning random people and force pushing wookies off those goofy tree cities.

Or possibly skill development, exploration, multiple options for dealing with situations, in-depth exploration of philosophical issues (such as why the jedi philosophy is ultimately foolish and self destructive), and of course occasionally chopping people into little tiny bits with the +5 vorpal lighsaber of thundering.

How would you propose they work that into a TV ad? Show a PC standing next to an NPC with their dialogue boxes open? TV advertising is a medium with its own contraints. The information you want to convey is more suited to a product description found on the back of the box or on a retail website catalogue entry.

TV adverts are not a great information source for determining whether a product is good or not, for obvious reasons (eg. length, audience, medium and the fact they are hardly going to be unbiased are they?)

 

[Volourn]

What channels are these advertisements are on as I have yet to see on?

 

[Voss]

I saw three on FX (during, of all things, Rising Sun), and the fourth on comedy central.
All last night (July ninth)


Visionary-
Well, granted they can't work that stuff into a TV ad (fast paced is to be expected)
but if its in their at all, they seem to be going out of their way not to mention it anywhere (at least, not that I've found)

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

How would you propose they work that into a TV ad? Show a PC standing next to an NPC with their dialogue boxes open? TV advertising is a medium with its own contraints. The information you want to convey is more suited to a product description found on the back of the box or on a retail website catalogue entry.

TV adverts are not a great information source for determining whether a product is good or not, for obvious reasons (eg. length, audience, medium and the fact they are hardly going to be unbiased are they?)

Why not show dialogue? I thought all the voice work was recorded anyway and they've been talking about how well their models can sync up with speech and actually act on par with what they're saying, so... Why can't they show that if it's so good?

 

[Visionary]

I don't think it would work as a TV ad. You have 30 secs in which to wake someone up and create a big impression. Is that what you think showing a little dialogue would do?

 

[Volourn]

Yeah... Like Troika has shown thd eep role-palying options of TOEE. Ooops. I forgot, that is a dunegon crawl first, and foremost.


Seriously, I have never seen any advertisement that's brief including videos on the net show anything resmembling role-playing. It's just not done.

 

[Voss]

No, I meant I haven't seen much about the RP aspects of KoToR even in text interviews and previews. I understand not seeing it in TV ads, but the print/internet media should have more than vague muttering about a possiblelightside/darkside choice, followed by Look! Lightsabers! feel to them. Which is all I've gotten so far.

And Bioware has never given me the impression that they can do different good and evil choices well. They always railroad you back onto the main plot path.

St.P. not sure about the syncing, but the cutscene dialogue was fairly standard and its seems the players will be punished by infinitely repeating battle-cries yet again (there was a clip of lead NPC girl yelling something about 'the force punishing or guiding or something' it had the sound of the IE/NWN battlecries... something to grow to hate as you hear it over and over and over again.

 

[triCritical]

Yeah... Like Troika has shown thd eep role-palying options of TOEE. Ooops. I forgot, that is a dunegon crawl first, and foremost.

You butthead, infogrames controls the marketing for ToEE.

edit: Atari does.

 

[Volourn]

And? Yoru pioint is what? Troika has to give them the screens in which to show things yet all they have ae action oriented ones. No coincidence there. Then again, you are aTroika fanboy, so i don't expect reasonable dialogue with you. Did you know its Lucas Arts who controls the Sw ads; or at least I presume so. I presume both BIO and Troika have the same ammount of power when giving things to their respective publishers to market with. Bottom line is they BOTH chose combat scenes, and special effects like ALL crpgs ever created.

The point I'm making just because KOTR, or TOEE has shown any video of "role-playing situations" doens't mean anything. Then again, I feel both are gonna edge towards action that role-playing. I have yet to see anything to show otherwise. There will be role-playing; but definitely not FO style.

 

[triCritical]

And? Yoru pioint is what? Troika has to give them the screens in which to show things yet all they have ae action oriented ones.

About two months ago sean from Troika said that they had given Infogrames about 40 screenshots a month for the last couple of months. Once it reaches Infogrames desk, they decide which ones to publicize.

Did you know its Lucas Arts who controls the Sw ads; or at least I presume so.

Has anyone said otherwise?

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Atari is Infogrames new name.

Now a simple question to anybody that lives in US.

Did that kind of advertising happen for Arcanum of Fallout ?

 

[Spazmo]

Nope. But it's not LucasArts that's relevant here. If it was, we'd have seen TV ads for Jedi Knight II last May. What's important is that the version of KOTOR being advertised is the Xbox one. Now first off, console games getting TV ads is way more common than PC games. Second, Microsoft is probably paying to put these ads on the air, considering they have they big ass Xbox logo at the end. Microsoft does a lot of TV publicity for its games: I've seen ads for Age of Mythology and Zoo Tycoon on TV. We'll probably have another round of ads for KOTOR PC later this year.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Did that kind of advertising happen for Arcanum of Fallout ?

Did Arcanum or Fallout have lightsabers? Duh!

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Did that kind of advertising happen for Arcanum of Fallout ?

Did Arcanum or Fallout have lightsabers? Duh!

No Arcanum does not . But Hard Arcanum has one.

CB Runs like Hell TM to avoid projectiles.

 

[Volourn]

I just saw it myself; and I noticed that too. First thing. It's probably more to do with the fact that it's x-box; not PC. Did MW have a tv ad? Hmmm...

They did mention the choice between the light and dark side in the game so that's a hint of role-playing. Other than that, it was all about the action. raphics look good. That's about it.

I DO wish they had added two more huge choices; but oh well.

 

[bossjimbob]

Advertising is a tricky game. How often do you remember a commercial for a product years down the line? Not often, especially for such an industry as gaming. To make any impact in thirty seconds, there has to be flash, a montage of attractive and memorable images, and one lasting thought that makes you want to buy said product. I haven't seen any of these ads yet, but honestly feel that the choice to appeal to the widest audience (hence the use of shiny objects and light sabres) was likely the most appropriate. I doubt the general public cares much for conversation trees, resource management, or depth of gameplay. At least, not initially. Hook them first. They can find out about the particulars later. Advertising is merely an "attention getter."

 

[Psilon]

They did mention the choice between the light and dark side in the game so that's a hint of role-playing.

Jedi Knight let you choose a Force side, but I don't think it had any role-playing whatsoever.

 

[bossjimbob]

They did mention the choice between the light and dark side in the game so that's a hint of role-playing.

Jedi Knight let you choose a Force side, but I don't think it had any role-playing whatsoever.

You can choose certain Force powers, etc. Not sure what else, though.

 

[Psilon]

Based on which Force powers you picked and how many of those evil civilians deliberately threw themselves at your homing rockets, it would change the story. You could go Dark Side and try to usurp Jerec's power.

So yeah, the plot changed (a bit, mainly the ending), the gameplay changed (you got to skip the irritating free-fall level and two bosses swapped), but there was still no bloody role-playing. The mere ability to go evil and wield a lightsaber does not an RPG make. Given that it'll be BioWare evil (e.g., no personal Death Stars but you can ask for payment up front), I'm not enthusiastic. I will, however, not say "It sucks!" until I've read the reviews and/or rented the game.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah... Like Troika has shown thd eep role-palying options of TOEE. Ooops. I forgot, that is a dunegon crawl first, and foremost.


Seriously, I have never seen any advertisement that's brief including videos on the net show anything resmembling role-playing. It's just not done.

I think the main difference is you can't see facial expressions denoting mood as well as lip syncing in 3/4 view isometric - you supposedly can see this in KotOR. So, if it's as good as they like to brag about, I think they could at least devote five seconds of a thirty second spot to a little NPC interaction with this acting tech they like to talk about.