Development Info KOTOR 2 - suffering from amnesia according to IGN

[Spazmo]

There are other factors affecting game developments like marketing, publishers, license owners, etc.

You forgot Feargus.

 

[Volourn]

"And you people are really underestimating MCA"


Hahaha. How can we underestimate a guy who is partly responsible for the horrid IWD2 twin storyline? Or the guy responsible for an actual amnesia plot that was basically the entire game of PST? Hahaha.

 

[FrankHorrigan]

Yet another reason why people need to understand that novel writing is not the same as game writing.
A character in a book isn't supposed to be the player, or a stand in for the player, or a local representation for the player. The character in a computer game is. Particularly in an RPG.

*Exactly* This AnthonyD's explanation is so plainly wrong its hard to believe he thought about it before he posted it and its pretty lame they've gone down this route again, again and again. I think its 4 games now invloving from black isle/obsidian featuring amnesia/secret uknown past's?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

So, its safe to assume IGN screwed up? Again?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

You know, I just have to say it.

LIEK zoMG U CANT SPELL IGNORANT WITHOUT IGN OMG PWN KTHXDI

 

[The Situationist]

"And you people are really underestimating MCA"


Hahaha. How can we underestimate a guy who is partly responsible for the horrid IWD2 twin storyline? Or the guy responsible for an actual amnesia plot that was basically the entire game of PST? Hahaha.

An amnesia plot isn't bad by itself (it's certainly no worse than BG2's Prophecy of the Chosen One/Highlander/Revengo the Clown storyline, which you thought was 'second to none' - LOL), it's just a bad thing when it's overused.

And J.E. Sawyer wrote the IWD2 storyline all by his lonesome. I don't recall anything in the way of 'plot' in the Prologue and Chapter 1, which was, IIRC, the extent of MCA's involvement in the game.

 

[Sol Invictus]

What's wrong with the amnesiac hero story of PST, again? Can someone care to elaborate?

It's not as if they threw in amnesia for good measure because they couldn't think of anything else to write (e.g. the tv series 24, first season).

 

[Section8]

Amnesia isn't always horribly trite, just most of the time. It can be an elegant way to start out your character as a blank slate, and allow the player to dictate their own "memories" of what type of character they are. But it is terribly overused, which is a shame.

More importantly to me in this discussion, is that they've come out and said "Here is the deal, the 'character' knows who they are, it is *YOU* the player that doesn't know who the 'character' is."

Does anyone else have serious issues with this statement in a RPing context? It really should be the other way around. The player should know who their character is, but the gameworld doesn't know anything about who they are, and that's kind of the whole point.

 

[Volourn]

"What's wrong with the amnesiac hero story of PST, again?"

How about, for starters, that it's done on Soaps much more foten and 90% of the time done much better and much more convincingly.

Yeah, yeah. Volourn is an idiot/moron/xxx insult for watching soaps; but blah, blah, blah.

The truth hurts soemtimes when PST's amensia storyline isn't as good as people think. Thankfully, PST's story also involves some kickass characters like FFG and Ravel so the story is saved through that.

 

[4too]

Selective / Elective Amnesia

Selective / Elective Amnesia


Every gamer that pays to play, elects to forget the directed maze or dictated haze of an unraveling plot, and accepts the selected memories of the narrator.
After this "rebirth" trauma in a hospital, one catches up on the past episodes through one story telling device or another.

If this game sequel is more of the same, the 'character' did not learn the karmic lesson of their past starring role and has to repeat the cycle. One anticipates a boring train ride to a predestined terminus. Unless the player craves being a spectator in the drama, being dropped to DOS, confronting the here and now, or a clue that the game is just another waking dream, would have been a more compassionate fate.

"Here is the deal, the 'character' knows who they are, it is *YOU* the player that doesn't know who the 'character' is."

Seems a rather smug way of introducing the role player (game player) to the ready made character they are selected to play.

Imagine. You are driving this light pick up truck , and as yet you don't know the engine displacement nor the true nature of the transmission, much less life essentials like how many cup holders one is endowed with. I guess the discovery of the shifter for 4 wheel drive could constitute 'entetainment', but is no rival to the 'kewl' layout of the dash and the radio presets. And god knows we all NEED global positioning. Do we have a destination? Are we there yet?

So begins the psycho drama of ""finding self"', what color is your belly button lint? Even if this 'character' is as predestined as a railroad. The comfort of folowing fashion's "like" and "as", the comfort of sameness, and the warm and fuzzy self medication of any bubble's boredom or any frenized twitching, are the switches and shunts where the eventual destination is always the same.

The true perpetual motion, the repetition of one sequel after another.

Another self congratualtory treadmill.


4too

 

[Stark]

wow, I totally don't get what you're saying.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

More importantly to me in this discussion, is that they've come out and said "Here is the deal, the 'character' knows who they are, it is *YOU* the player that doesn't know who the 'character' is."

Does anyone else have serious issues with this statement in a RPing context? It really should be the other way around. The player should know who their character is, but the gameworld doesn't know anything about who they are, and that's kind of the whole point.

The first thing that statement reminded me of was the damned console "RPGs" where they have gobs of characters who get to give you monologues about who you are, who your girlfriend is(bleh), why you're where you are, and so on. If you have to tell me who my character is, then what do I get to decide? Either you're "Turn over a new leaf guy" or you're "Status Quo Guy" at that point.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Nah. And you people are really underestimating MCA.

Right. Last known Jedi... Where did I hear that before? Wasn't there some movie where there was the last known Jed?. How many "last known Jedi's" are there in Star Wars now?

 

[Neverwhere]

Hold on now. Whether a game is immersive or not does not prima facie depend on how much freedom you, the player, are granted. There are very good games (PST comes to mind) which simply tell you a story, without giving you great leverage over the way the plot unfolds. Just as in the case of books, much will depend on the narrator's ability to tell a story. And that was what made PST an excellent game.

Sure, the "I don't know who I am, but someone else does"-method has been used before. But most of the RPG implementations of "freedom" are equally lame. Just think of those trite good/evil choices which seem to be quite popular among devs... not to mention Bethsoft's guilds.

 

[EEVIAC]

Re: Selective / Elective Amnesia

Every gamer that pays to play, elects to forget the directed maze or dictated haze of an unraveling plot, and accepts the selected memories of the narrator. After this "rebirth" trauma in a hospital, one catches up on the past episodes through one story telling device or another.

I don't know why more games don't use "life-paths" to give player characters more history before they enter the gameworld. Simple questions like "what is your relationship with your parents" or "are you a chronic masturbater" don't even necessarilly need to impact directly on mechanics. They change the way you think about the character and the way you play the game.

The definition of personality and motive solely through story seems to be the most inelegant way of solving the problem. Invariably you'll run into set scripted story events that don't fit into your character ideas.

 

[suibhne]

It's not MCA that we are concerned about. There are other factors affecting game developments like marketing, publishers, license owners, etc. Temple of Trials otherwise known as "gotta have a starting dungeon tutorial thingy" is one of the examples.

It would be cool if they implemented a separate tutorial along the lines of ToEE's, maybe taking a fledgling Jedi with beginning Force Powers through some mini-quest right before the events of KotOR 1. It would be even cooler if they positioned the tutorial right after the events of KotOR 1, made the Tutorial character kinda cool, and then killed him or her off at the end of the Tutorial - graphically illustrating the Sith vendetta which apparently massacres the Jedi prior to KotOR 2.

The last thing I want to deal with is another ridiculous starting dungeon like the Endar Spire, particularly if MCA succeeds in making this game more replayable than the first one.

 

[Snuffles]

More importantly to me in this discussion, is that they've come out and said "Here is the deal, the 'character' knows who they are, it is *YOU* the player that doesn't know who the 'character' is."

Does anyone else have serious issues with this statement in a RPing context? It really should be the other way around. The player should know who their character is, but the gameworld doesn't know anything about who they are, and that's kind of the whole point.

The first thing that statement reminded me of was the damned console "RPGs" where they have gobs of characters who get to give you monologues about who you are, who your girlfriend is(bleh), why you're where you are, and so on. If you have to tell me who my character is, then what do I get to decide? Either you're "Turn over a new leaf guy" or you're "Status Quo Guy" at that point.

KotOR was doubly annoying for me in that regard, I thought I was deciding who I was, only to find out halfway through, they had decided who my character was.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think that a lot of us have got off on the wrong foot about KOTOR II's character development. We're interpreting what MCA is saying and arriving at the interpretation that it's going to be a JRPG where your character is essentially predeveloped and you only get to find out about him or her through other characters and through the story.

I don't think that it's what MCA is saying.

I think he's saying the following, based on what he's mentioned on the forums as well as interviews:
1) Your character does not suffer from amnesia.
2) You don't know anything about your character.
3) You decide what your character remembers about himself at the beginning of the game.

Of course, this contradicts the following: "Here is the deal, the 'character' knows who they are, it is *YOU* the player that doesn't know who the 'character' is." which more or less translates into "You only learn about your character through other characters, just like KOTOR 1" but I don't fucking know.

MCA really needs to elaborate.

 

[Jaesun]

Site Updated:

You start the game in a medical facility on Peragus Station, a remote asteroid mining operation. Your character was left for dead after a Sith ambush, and you're alive, thankfully, but unsure of exactly how you landed there. Even worse, you've lost your connection with the Force. As you progress through KOTOR 2, you start the discovery process as to why the connection's been severed, and you learn how to gain it as you delve deeper and deeper into the game.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Based on MCA's comments on the forum I'd say that it's likely that you decide on what to remember about yourself rather than the game telling you what happened.

Just do a search for Amnesia on the Obsidian forum.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Hold on now. Whether a game is immersive or not does not prima facie depend on how much freedom you, the player, are granted. There are very good games (PST comes to mind) which simply tell you a story, without giving you great leverage over the way the plot unfolds. Just as in the case of books, much will depend on the narrator's ability to tell a story. And that was what made PST an excellent game.

Sure, the "I don't know who I am, but someone else does"-method has been used before. But most of the RPG implementations of "freedom" are equally lame. Just think of those trite good/evil choices which seem to be quite popular among devs... not to mention Bethsoft's guilds.

I think I'd rather them at least TRY for the good/evil thing instead so long as it's not how a lot of the BioWare games have done it where EVIL = GOOD GUY ACTS + MONEY. Of course, much of the time the problem is that the plot of the game is a GOOD GUY PLOT, you're out to fight some great evil and there's not a hell of a lot of evil justification for such a thing - so it just feels trite.

Even the original KotOR was a little odd about starting off and deciding to play a bad guy because you're shipwrecked on that planet and you really don't have much motivation to save Bastilla and get off the planet. You don't know that the Sith are planning to wipe out that world while you're doing all this and you don't know that you're Revan, so there's no reason why there shouldn't have been a Join up with the Sith motivation there.

 

[Sol Invictus]

That's what always peeved me about Bioware's games. They were good in their own right, but the 'evil' path was never actually fully developed. The games, as you said, only felt right if you played on the side of good, because playing on the evil side was always very trite and seemed tacked on at the last moment.

For once, I'd like to see an RPG that isn't 'good-oriented', but rather 'evil-oriented'. In fact, whoever makes it should make it so that playing on the side of good even harder to try to pull off than playing on the side of evil and feels somewhat 'wrong', by rewarding you with a piss poor undesirable ending (e.g. your anti-hero dies in vain) and supporting characters which are less 'fleshed out' so to speak in that path because you end up killing a lot of them on the way, as they are evil to you.

Of course, this hypothetical game should be more gray-area in terms of morality rather than flat out 'evil' or it'd be rather difficult to relate to the characters. Each of the evil characters should have redeeming qualities about them. It would be loathsome to have a supporting cast you can't even sympathize with.

 

[Section8]

The first thing that statement reminded me of was the damned console "RPGs" where they have gobs of characters who get to give you monologues about who you are, who your girlfriend is(bleh), why you're where you are, and so on.

Golden Sun is hilarious in this respect. You're constantly posed YES/NO questions, and for many, if you answer contrarily, your party will pipe up and say things like "Surely you're only joking. What you meant to say is YES!"

It's a really biting, tongue-in-cheek satire of console RPG "choice" but I don't think it was intended to be.

Although I haven't actually progressed very far with a Chaotic Evil party in ToEE, it show a lot of promise, with plenty of "Fuck this conversation, I'm just going to kill you now" dialogue. I thought that was kind of nifty after being served up Bioware's usual excuse for evil plotlines in D&D games.

Even worse, you've lost your connection with the Force. As you progress through KOTOR 2, you start the discovery process as to why the connection's been severed, and you learn how to gain it as you delve deeper and deeper into the game.

And here I was thinking that using the force was like riding a bike. That little summary just sounds a little too convenient to me. No doubt "learning how to gain it" involves repeatedly breaking the fourth wall as NPCs explain how to use the mouse and keyboard. And I'm sure it will turn out that you've lost your mojo because some idiot is using relics of a long dead sith lord to siphon force power out of stuff. Then it can be like the plotline of all of the Jedi Knight games rolled into one.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Golden Sun is hilarious in this respect. You're constantly posed YES/NO questions, and for many, if you answer contrarily, your party will pipe up and say things like "Surely you're only joking. What you meant to say is YES!"

It's a really biting, tongue-in-cheek satire of console RPG "choice" but I don't think it was intended to be.

I still remember playing Golden Sun and eventually giving up on it, but one thing I remember were those questions. Jeebus.

Although I haven't actually progressed very far with a Chaotic Evil party in ToEE, it show a lot of promise, with plenty of "Fuck this conversation, I'm just going to kill you now" dialogue. I thought that was kind of nifty after being served up Bioware's usual excuse for evil plotlines in D&D games.

...Er, wasn't that type of dialogue choice one of the reasons why Bioware gets the shaft when it comes to dialogue choices and roleplaying? Why is it being celebrated in ToEE, style and presentation, or something else?

Then it can be like the plotline of all of the Jedi Knight games rolled into one.

Use the Force!
*zwoooosh*
*cling*
*zaaap!*
I'm your father.
*uaaaaarrr*
Not now, Chewie!
And with this relic....
*crash*
You're awfully short for a stormtrooper.
Here's your saber.
Wha-ha-ha!
It's a trap!
*dingdingding*
Press X, you must. And save often, you should.

 

[Anonymous]

It's funny, Baldur's Gate had a plot from Star Wars and now their Star Wars game has a plot from Baldur's Gate.