I'm ashamed to admit this, but...

[Yegolev]

I never finished KOTOR2.

That's OK, neither did Obsidian.

[Ironwood]

 

[Hayduke]

I only played light side in the KOTOR games.  The first game was incredibly easy after the first planet, but the last boss can be very tricky if you don't pick any offensive force powers (like I did on my first playthrough).

It was a good game though, nice story.  But I didn't like how weak and useless every other character was once you got Jedis in the first version.  The Yavin Space Station download sort of fixed this, but it only did so at the end of the game when you had enough money to gear out your non-Jedi.

The sequel was good, if buggy and unfinished.  Some of the systems were better designed, like gear crafting.  Non-jedis were much more useful.  You could bring non-Jedi and droids without crippling yourself.  The game was easier than the first version, especially if you went with a mage archetype.  I did a total lightsider using mostly darkside powers and I didn't really notice any penalties.  The lightning powers can pretty much clear a room with two blasts even with total lightside characters.

Playing a rogue archetype isn't bad really since you can melee, but also have the option to do more of the small quests (like upgrade the droids).  I didn't use stealth all that often, but sneak attack is very useful if you have some force powers like stasis field or have some weapons which can freeze the baddies.  Sneak attack triggers when the enemy is prone, not just on the first attack from stealth.  Makes them actually a better melee class than the pure melee archetypes I found.

[WindupAtheist]

I'll probably never get around to playing through on the light side.  Everyone else on the light side was just so douchey, especially the Jedi Council.  Maybe some people want to talk about their feelings with Carth, listen to endless lectures from Good Bastila, and suck up to that ignorant pseudo-Yoda and his cronies while they tell you that a true Jedi is supposed to never have sex.

Me, I'll be getting shitfaced with Canderous while HK rips the arms off the bartender and uses them to club the bouncers to death.  Then I'll kick a few puppies, murder a few peasants with force lightning, shed a silent little tear for Mission when nobody is looking, and finally head home to my Fortress of Doom to bang Evil Bastila in the ass.  Good girls gone bad are always the biggest freaks.

[Strazos]

You should definitely play through KotOR2 then.

[Megrim]

Oh i don't know... evil in KotOR 2 has a much more philosophical bend to it.  :-D

[HaemishM]

I played the first one through thinking I'd go dark side, but really straddling the line. It worked fine until that last deciding moment, the one where you have a choice to destroy an entire planet or not. My light/dark points were right in the middle on that one, and I just couldn't make myself kill an entire planet. The amount of force points that gives you will pretty much turn you the exact opposite of what you were if you need it. Before that choice, I couldn't use either side's specific gear. After that, no problems. I never did play it through dark, because the dark choices just seemed like "How Can I Be A Senseless Raging Douchebag Here?" options to me.

[Azazel]

I also played pretty much in the middle, I never specifically intended to be either a dick or a boy scout, I kind of played it through making choices as close to my own morals as possible, which resulted in a mix of not being a dick for dickness' sake and also a lot of "fuck me? fuck YOU! Blam!" instead of being a Carth.

Of course, when I finished the game, the closing cinema failed to work (on my legit copy of the game, on the PC) so I'm intending to reinstall it and watch the game's ending when I get my new gaming rig. As for KotOR2, I'll look into playing it once Team Gizka finish their work. Whenever that may turn out to be.

[Morat20]

I also played pretty much in the middle, I never specifically intended to be either a dick or a boy scout, I kind of played it through making choices as close to my own morals as possible, which resulted in a mix of not being a dick for dickness' sake and also a lot of "fuck me? fuck YOU! Blam!" instead of being a Carth.

Of course, when I finished the game, the closing cinema failed to work (on my legit copy of the game, on the PC) so I'm intending to reinstall it and watch the game's ending when I get my new gaming rig. As for KotOR2, I'll look into playing it once Team Gizka finish their work. Whenever that may turn out to be.

Should be fairly soon, judging by their website. It seems like they took a fairly professional approach to it as well.

[Alkiera]

But I didn't like how weak and useless every other character was once you got Jedis in the first version.  The Yavin Space Station download sort of fixed this, but it only did so at the end of the game when you had enough money to gear out your non-Jedi.

I was light-side Jedi, and used bastilla and the neutral jedi-guy most of them time.  For some areas, however, I pulled out the R2-looking droid.  I had him outfitted with the best in hacking gear, which made some of the quests very, very easy.  Why fight in person when you can have the base's defenses go berserk and kill the defenders for you?  Also, the R2-guy was weak as heck in combat, so you had to protect him, which was a pain.  He was a god when it came to computer security, though.

--
Alkiera

[Morat20]

I was light-side Jedi, and used bastilla and the neutral jedi-guy most of them time.  For some areas, however, I pulled out the R2-looking droid.  I had him outfitted with the best in hacking gear, which made some of the quests very, very easy.  Why fight in person when you can have the base's defenses go berserk and kill the defenders for you?  Also, the R2-guy was weak as heck in combat, so you had to protect him, which was a pain.  He was a god when it came to computer security, though.

--
Alkiera

You could get "infinite use" gear off the Yavin station for droids. That made a significant difference, we he could basically stay shielded the whole time. That was an awesome little droid. I was quite fond of using him to oblitrate enemies via power conduit. The only problem I had was occasionally -- and stupidly -- losing track of which system I was using and blowing myself up.

[Sky]

Should be fairly soon, judging by their website. It seems like they took a fairly professional approach to it as well.

I've been following TG for a while now, depending on how finished they'll get it before their first release (they may leave some of the text bugs in at first release, I've heard), I'm still not expecting it before christmas. They are steady...but sloooow. (and that's OK)

I found the astromech to be decent in combat. He's ranged-only and you have to keep him in the back, but I never had much of a problem with him unless we got ambushed from behind.

[Morat20]

Should be fairly soon, judging by their website. It seems like they took a fairly professional approach to it as well.

I've been following TG for a while now, depending on how finished they'll get it before their first release (they may leave some of the text bugs in at first release, I've heard), I'm still not expecting it before christmas. They are steady...but sloooow. (and that's OK)

I found the astromech to be decent in combat. He's ranged-only and you have to keep him in the back, but I never had much of a problem with him unless we got ambushed from behind.

When you get yanked in by the Leviathan, I used the astromech to get my guys out. I suppose HK-47 or Mission might have been better, but Star Wars without droids is kind of stupid.

Hell, that's why I had a totally useless droid following me around in SWG. Gotta have those droids.

[Strazos]

Whenever I used the little droid, I just made him sit back and toss nades.

[ajax34i]

When you get yanked in by the Leviathan, I used the astromech to get my guys out. I suppose HK-47 or Mission might have been better, but Star Wars without droids is kind of stupid.

Jolee is funny if you use him at that particular point in time.

[Morat20]

When you get yanked in by the Leviathan, I used the astromech to get my guys out. I suppose HK-47 or Mission might have been better, but Star Wars without droids is kind of stupid.

Jolee is funny if you use him at that particular point in time.

I liked Jolee. Between him and HK-47, they made the game for me. I'm particularly found of his story about the Jedi he knew that obviously had a destiny, and how that turned out.

[WindupAtheist]

I never did play it through dark, because the dark choices just seemed like "How Can I Be A Senseless Raging Douchebag Here?" options to me.

Flipside:  You could puppykick your way through all the one-shot encounters if you felt like it, but the game was way too reluctant to let you cut to the chase on longer quest-chains by just beating ass.  Case in point, the feuding farmers on Dantooine, namely the one who had kidnapped the son of the other.

You ask him about the kidnapping, and he says something to the effect of "Pshaw, go away lest I sic my droids on you!"  After that he walks out of the room, and the guy's daughter helps free the prisoner, because she's in love with him, blah blah blah.  Light or dark, it all runs basically the same, right up until almost the very end where you finally get the chance to puppykick everyone to death for no reason.

But where was my option to skip all that star-crossed lovers bullshit in the first place, and just be like "Fuck your droids, do you see this lightsaber?  Bring me the prisoner and a polite apology or I'll wade through this dump and shove it up your ass!"

Darth Vader wouldn't demean himself by committing 90% of the petty dark side acts in the game, but he sure as hell WOULD come down on that lippy farmer like a ton of bricks without waiting to hear about the romantic subplot.

[Velorath]

Darth Vader wouldn't demean himself by committing 90% of the petty dark side acts in the game, but he sure as hell WOULD come down on that lippy farmer like a ton of bricks without waiting to hear about the romantic subplot.

Darth Vader's whole backstory is crappy romantic subplot.  He'd probably empathize.

[Sky]

Darth Vader wouldn't demean himself by committing 90% of the petty dark side acts in the game, but he sure as hell WOULD come down on that lippy farmer like a ton of bricks without waiting to hear about the romantic subplot.

That is the major flaw in the KotOR games.

Velorath: we just pretend ep1-3 didn't happen. It's better that way. I saw Jedi the other day and goddamn if I don't think it's a decent movie now. I used to hate that movie. But in comparison...

[HaemishM]

Darth Vader wouldn't demean himself by committing 90% of the petty dark side acts in the game, but he sure as hell WOULD come down on that lippy farmer like a ton of bricks without waiting to hear about the romantic subplot.

Darth Vader's whole backstory is crappy romantic subplot.  He'd probably empathize.

"Get on back here before I tell everybody what a whiny little bitch you were about Padamanmay or Panda Bear or whatever the hell her name was. OH, he's crying!"

[Ironwood]

Velorath: we just pretend ep1-3 didn't happen. It's better that way. I saw Jedi the other day and goddamn if I don't think it's a decent movie now. I used to hate that movie. But in comparison...

Best advice on the Net Today.

[WindupAtheist]

You know how if you had taken the appropriate powers, in conversation you would get the option to use Force Persuasion?

"But I don't want to give you all my money!"
Okay, sorry.
Well then die.
[Persuade] Yes you do.

They needed to do the same thing with Force Choke.

"Your ancient religion sucks, Vader!"
You hurt my feelings.
I'll chop you right here bitch!
[Persuade]  No, you think it rules.
[Choke]  I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Dark side would be a million times better with that.

[HaemishM]

[Choke]  I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Dark side would be a million times better with that.

QFT. That would rule.

[Ironwood]

Er, I distinctly remember such an option.  Am I on crack ?

[ajax34i]

Truly innovative will be the game that allows the player to have freedom of choice, provided they choose to be evil.  I mean, you're evil, so you can do whatever you want, and not follow the pre-scripted events that the devs put in.

Of course, they still have to put in code for all your possible choices, and supposedly the majority of people will never see that content (which I think is false)...

[Furiously]

Of course, they still have to put in code for all your possible choices, and supposedly the majority of people will never see that content (which I think is false)...

I think you might want to re-evaluate this statement or explain how you are actually an infinite amount of monkeys.

[Koyasha]

There's exactly one time in the game that I can recall that you're allowed to use Force Choke as a conversation option.  It's on Tattoine, when one of the Czerka employees is rude to you, you get the option to Force Choke him if you have Force Choke.

Personally, I barely managed to play that game Light side.  Had to force myself to do it just because I wanted to see the Light Side ending - and then I decided the ending was NOT worth it.  C'mon, a crappy ceremony and a medal?  No matter how I envision my character, I can't quite go through the whole game without getting pissed at the Jedi Council for being lying asses, and trying to manipulate me, the rightful Dark Lord of the Sith, with their damnable lies and crap.  Nothing pleases me more in that game than watching my fleet obliterate the Republic fleet and Master Vandar.  Even if I'm trying to play a nice guy, being manipulated sits so poorly with me that I'd rather turn evil than side with the Jedi Council.

[Jayce]

I played Light first, then Dark.  I could buy in to the ULTIMATE POWER ending as dark, but I also hated the puppykicking.  I think they really had a narrative problem there, trying to portray evil in everyday life.  I specifically remember having difficulty ripping off an old man on Coruscant.  It felt like I was a thug, not a galactic mastermind.

I played both sides on Xbox, never got the PC version. However, third time through, I hit a bug that didn't occur on any other times where if I equipped armor of any kind, the game locked solid.  It started happening on all my new games as well as saves. It was a real downer because I could play that game through over and over.  As far as I know, none of my other Xbox games had the problem, and I tried someone else's copy of the game and it still happened.

[Daeven]

It's simple really. They confused 'sadistic dork' for 'amoral, power-mad bastard'. Hence all the puppykicking options instead of 'why would I be bothered with you worms?' options.

IMO anyway.

[ajax34i]

I think you might want to re-evaluate this statement or explain how you are actually an infinite amount of monkeys.

It's not an infinite number of choices, despite the theoretical.  The game mechanics already limit choices about what you can do at any given moment, and like others have said, the dark side only needed a few "skip" dialogue options, because an evil character doesn't really want to do all the stupid stuff that people ask for.

[Koyasha]

The problem with that is that all the stupid stuff that people ask for is a considerable part of the game.  If the evil path through the game essentially was composed of a lot of dialogue options that say 'go away and don't ever bother me again you insolent worm!' I'm not sure people would be happy with the evil path in the game, considering it would be anywhere from 30 to 60% or more shorter than the good path.

On further consideration, I suspect that's why we see all these 'greed = evil' and puppykicking options in games as the evil path.  It's rather hard to motivate an evil character to do quests, especially sidequests.  Main quests are easily motivated by threatening the character's life (as in the Baldur's Gate series) or something of the sort, but sidequests generally depend on greed or desire to help others, and greed winds up being 'evil'.  When I really think about it, it's pretty difficult to come up with good motivations or sidequests to present to an evil character that's not directly motivated by greed.

The only good 'evil' options I can think of are resolutions to quests...the main Manaan quest in KOTOR is a good example - try to find a 'good' resolution that's more difficult and may not work, but saves the life of the fish, or do the expedient thing, poison and kill it.  So, it seems to me that most of the time, an evil character must be of a type that still has motivation to do these quests in the first place, for whatever reason, but the resolutions should be available to be evil.  KOTOR does a decent job at this.  I mean, there's some puppykicking involved in some of the quests, but a lot of them are somewhat appropriate evil responses.  Another good example is several quests on Tatooine.  The guy caught between the exploding droids, the Sand People and whether to try to make peace with them or simply kill them all, and the Krayt Dragon and betraying the guy at whatever moment you choose to be most convenient (before or after it's dead). 

In my opinion, most of these work in KOTOR because the game gives you good reason to keep up the appearrance of a good guy throughout most of the game.  You're not trying to be the most evil bastard in the galaxy, you still need the help of the Republic and the Jedi Council, and in the beginning, you aren't really planning to become Dark Lord of the Sith.  The trick is to make similar situations work in other games with other stories, as well.  There has to initially be a good reason for the character to interact and perform the quests, and let the evil work itself out in how the character handles the situations, rather than whether or not she initially gets into the situations in the first place.

[Paelos]

Fine, but it's too obvious to game the game. There's no real choice between: 1) Help the innocent old man being accosted by thugs, 2) Stand by and cackle, 3) Kill the thugs, threaten the old man yourself, kill old man and take his wallet.

Yeah, really hard to figure out where they were going with this. I'm looking for a game where you make the decisions because it's what you would actually do, and you're not entirely sure how the moral implications would always balance out. Sure you know some are good and some are bad, but they don't really bother greying the lines like what happens in the real world.

I'd like a quest where you encounter a doctor who horribly kills his captured aliens for research, but he also has created a vaccine to one of the deadliest diseases to humankind. Then you get to decide what to do with him. I mean, at least make people think about the choices. Ask some Utilitarian questions, pose a few dilemmas, don't just make me choose between: randomly beat this dude on the street to death, or give him some cash and shine his shoes.

The only real questions they asked were: Help mankind or make some money.

[Azazel]

I have to agree with Paelos on this, that's a really excellently-written post and shows a much more interesting take on gameplay decisions.


 

[Koyasha]

Agreed, there should be more difficult questions available beyond the simple.  Still, things are getting to some degree better, in my opinion...evil paths are including more true evil motivation, rather than just assigning 'wanting to get paid' as evil.

One issue with the 'tough moral question' line though, is the question of who decides what decision counts as 'good' or 'evil'?  The designers would have to decide, but obviously their moral judgement isn't going to be the same as that of everyone else playing the game.  This may be another reason why such questions haven't been added to these games, and have instead stuck to decisions that are easily determined as good or evil.

[WindupAtheist]

I'd like to see a game with a story this deep, but with a little more potential for consequences ala Baldur's Gate.  Each individual sidequest asshole you puppykicked in BG was irrelevant on his own, but being a dick consistently enough would make your good-aligned party members quit, and get the local law hunting you down.