Interview Ask LucasArts on KotOR's Dark Side/Light Side stuff

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

In the most recent <A href="http://www.lucasarts.com/askteam/">Ask LucasArts</a> thingy, someone apparently asked what the gameplay differences were for the light side and dark side in <A href="http://www.swkotor.com">Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic</a>. Here's roughly half of the thing:
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<blockquote><b>How will gameplay be affected by the character's light or dark side alignment in Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic?</b>
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As your character moves towards the light or the dark side it will have an affect on certain Force powers that are more "good" or "evil". The Force powers in the game are weighted towards the light or dark side.
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For example, <i>Force Heal</i> is obviously a more light side power. If your character is leaning towards the dark side and chooses this power, it won't be as effective as it would be if the character were leaning towards the light side.</blockquote>
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Meanwhile, <i>Force Summon Greater Elemental</i> and <i>Force Bigby's Imposing Hand</i> are considered neutral, and <i>Force Power Word Kill</i> and <i>Force Cause Serious Wounds</i> are considered dark side.
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Spotted this at <a href="Http://rpgvault.ign.com">RPG Vault</a>.
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[Vault Dweller]

Meanwhile, <i>Force Summon Greater Elemental</i> and <i>Force Bigby's Imposing Hand</i> are considered neutral, and <i>Force Power Word Kill</i> and <i>Force Cause Serious Wounds</i> are considered dark side.

And this is precisely the reason why I chose these boards as my permanent residence. Saint, I love your comments on news items, this should be a separate highly marketable feature of RPG Codex. Very stylish, you'd better copyright it till everybody starts doing it

 

[MF]

Everything you write is automatically copyrighted. And not everybody finds it funny of course

I do, though.

This game is going to get Dragonscale Trenchcoats and Lightsabres of Doom, with increased fire resistance (including plasma bolts) and life stealing respectively.

I'm already imagining the incredible variety that's going to be put in the overall interaction of the game.
Dialogue :

"These are not the Jedi you're looking for"
"These are other Jedi"
"Goodbye"

"I would like passage to another planet"
"How much is passage to another planet"
"Goodbye"

I wonder if they'll fuck it up to the point of having every other merchant sell lightsabres. Probably they will.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, things like that just seem to say that KotOR is basically D&D that uses Star Wars style art work and names, but it's still just D&D. In the five movies, has anyone seen a Jedi heal someone using the Force? I know I haven't. Every time someone gets hurt in Star Wars, they seem to head back to a base or starship and get healed in the traditional manner with doctors, including medical droids, healing them. That's not stopping BioWare from slapping in a healing spell though, bleh.

 

[Spazmo]

KOTOR basically is D&D with a Star Wars theme. The game used Star Wars d20, the PnP game published by Wizards of the Coast that shares the core of it's system with D&D. It works just the same, but with different skills, feats, classes, etc.

 

[Azael]

Well, things like that just seem to say that KotOR is basically D&D that uses Star Wars style art work and names, but it's still just D&D. In the five movies, has anyone seen a Jedi heal someone using the Force? I know I haven't. Every time someone gets hurt in Star Wars, they seem to head back to a base or starship and get healed in the traditional manner with doctors, including medical droids, healing them. That's not stopping BioWare from slapping in a healing spell though, bleh.

As a Star Wars fan, this pisses me off almost as much as Jar-Jar and that annoying Anakin (both movies). Of course, Force-heal has been used in other Star Wars as well, such as Jedi Knight, so it's not without precedence.

It seems like they are missing a major point though, that the choice between light and dark should have a much bigger impact on the game that just your skills. Judging from the original trilogy and what Vader says there, the Dark Side really is a slippery slope akin to an addiction. Something like that would be a lot more interesting if explored in the context of a roleplaying game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Judging from the original trilogy and what Vader says there, the Dark Side really is a slippery slope akin to an addiction. Something like that would be a lot
more interesting if explored in the context of a roleplaying game.

That would be very interesting indeed. I am a Star Wars fan too, and I would love to experience the addictive influence of the Dark Side, to make but not to be forced to make the choices leading to it, etc. ( I never cared for Luke and the rebels anyway :twisted: )

Unfortunately all KotOR seems to offer are good spellz vs bad spellz, plus lightsaber's colour of your choice

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

KOTOR basically is D&D with a Star Wars theme. The game used Star Wars d20, the PnP game published by Wizards of the Coast that shares the core of it's system with D&D. It works just the same, but with different skills, feats, classes, etc.

You can use a character system for Star Wars without including magic items and turning The Force in to some generic fantasy spell system.

 

[Storn]

I know there is a PnP Star Wars RPG out there - a couple of my friends have mentioned it before. Does anyone know how 'Force Powers' handled in that? I'm wondering if LucasArts/Bioware are using that as a guide or if they're developing a whole new system? Anyone know?

S.

 

[Spazmo]

BioWare--invent their own rule system? And one that works at all? But... but... that would require a certain degree of creativity, talent, and intelligence, which is woefully lacking in the icebound hell of Edmonton, apparently. They definitely using d20 Star Wars, especially since Infogrames--who pwns BioWare and who I believe is somehow involved in the publishing of this thing--owns the whole d20 thing.

 

[Ibbz]

BioWare--invent their own rule system? And one that works at all? But... but... that would require a certain degree of creativity, talent, and intelligence, which is woefully lacking in the icebound hell of Edmonton, apparently. They definitely using d20 Star Wars, especially since Infogrames--who pwns BioWare and who I believe is somehow involved in the publishing of this thing--owns the whole d20 thing.

You do realise that one of their unannounced games is apparantly using a system created entirely by Bioware?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

BioWare--invent their own rule system? And one that works at all? But... but... that would require a certain degree of creativity, talent, and intelligence, which is woefully lacking in the icebound hell of Edmonton, apparently. They definitely using d20 Star Wars, especially since Infogrames--who pwns BioWare and who I believe is somehow involved in the publishing of this thing--owns the whole d20 thing.

I thought d20's core rules were public domain, so anyone could make a d20 system game.

 

[Spazmo]

d20 is open source, yes, but the games based on it are not. So anyone could take d20 and make a fantasy game, but you have to talk to Wizards and its parent companies to use d20 D&D and d20 Star Wars.