Junior Adventurer's Guild - May: Knights of the Old Republic

[rusty_shackleford]

Ded project

He responded in the deadlystream thread as recently as last week
https://deadlystream.com/topic/6851-wip ... /#comments

[gerey]

It's nice that you're able to visit KOTOR 1 planets in KOTOR 2, but intensive modding for both projects is pretty much dead.

[rusty_shackleford]

Kashyyk seems to be lower level than Manaan

[gerey]

Kashyyk seems to be lower level than Manaan

Doesn't the game scale enemies with your level though?

But yes, there's an "intended" order that you should visit the planets (Bastila tells you the order in a cutscene) - Datooine > Kashykk > Tatooine > Manaan > Korriban.

[rusty_shackleford]

But yes, there's an "intended" order that you should visit the planets (Bastila tells you the order in a cutscene) - Datooine > Kashykk > Tatooine > Manaan > Korriban.

I don't take advice from women

[Oyster Sauce]

How ******* hard is it to make companions follow you? Not surprised that Bioware has officially given up on them.

[Vergil]

You can only post in this thread in the month of may something something you're really gay!

[Oyster Sauce]

Sand "people" genocide best day of my life

[Oyster Sauce]

[Vergil]

This is a *** load of ****!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Late to the party but I saw people in HQ chat talking about Kotor and decided to give it a second shot.

I am a little more into it than I was last time, but it's still not a very engaging game. I find myself alt+tabbing out a lot to browse internet forums rather than having uninterrupted play sessions. It's hard to put my finger on why. I don't find running around Taris talking to NPCs to be very fun. Combat and character building feels boring. I am interested in the plot, but the moment to moment gameplay is disinteresting. I am running through boring copy-pasted corridors trying to find a pass key so I can get a hover bike part so I can do a race so I can get the hostage so I can finally progress the plot and find out what's going on. I am shooting hordes of enemies and healing and then looting their bodies for medkits. Or I kill a pack of mobs and open a menu to teleport to my base to heal and then teleport right back. I feel like I have already done this in Star Trek Online but at least combat there is a little more fun out of the gate with the abilities and actually relevant positioning.

I am playing a Scoundrel/Consular as being able to play as a good wizard seems to be what is unique about Kotor. Most Star Wars games either focus on the martial swordsmanship of Jedi, or the cool lightning powers of the bad guys. Unfortunately that means my character is not built to withstand being attacked by all of the mobs, and Carth has twice as much HP. Aggro appears to be proximity based. So the game is weird in that I am not spending most of my playtime as the protagonist I created, but instead controlling this side party member so I can drive him into combat first and draw aggro away from the MC and Mission. It is also strange walking up to an NPC and talking to them as Carth, and then getting a cutscene of my MC talking to the NPC.

Music is forgettable.

[Oyster Sauce]

Late to the party but I saw people in HQ chat talking about Kotor and decided to give it a second shot.

I am a little more into it than I was last time, but it's still not a very engaging game. I find myself alt+tabbing out a lot to browse internet forums rather than having uninterrupted play sessions. It's hard to put my finger on why. I don't find running around Taris talking to NPCs to be very fun. Combat and character building feels boring. I am interested in the plot, but the moment to moment gameplay is disinteresting. I am running through boring copy-pasted corridors trying to find a pass key so I can get a hover bike part so I can do a race so I can get the hostage so I can finally progress the plot and find out what's going on. I am shooting hordes of enemies and healing and then looting their bodies for medkits. Or I kill a pack of mobs and open a menu to teleport to my base to heal and then teleport right back. I feel like I have already done this in Star Trek Online but at least combat there is a little more fun out of the gate with the abilities and actually relevant positioning.

I am playing a Scoundrel/Consular as being able to play as a good wizard seems to be what is unique about Kotor. Most Star Wars games either focus on the martial swordsmanship of Jedi, or the cool lightning powers of the bad guys. Unfortunately that means my character is not built to withstand being attacked by all of the mobs, and Carth has twice as much HP. Aggro appears to be proximity based. So the game is weird in that I am not spending most of my playtime as the protagonist I created, but instead controlling this side party member so I can drive him into combat first and draw aggro away from the MC and Mission. It is also strange walking up to an NPC and talking to them as Carth, and then getting a cutscene of my MC talking to the NPC.

Music is forgettable.

For better or worse most of your combat issues will disappear right after the intro planet

[Oyster Sauce]

@rusty_shackleford cough up that badge

[Vergil]

Kind of a cool non canon doesn't count alternative history what if scenario (what if Revan was ugly)

[Oyster Sauce]

Kind of a cool non canon doesn't count alternative history what if scenario (what if Revan was ugly)

Bow to Darth Thorton

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have finished Dantooine. About to fly off to the next planet.




Overall an improvement from Taris. Pleasant setting of the peaceful Jedi enclave and the outdoors with grass and trees and flocks of birds and wolves to fight. Not like the ugly steel and concrete of Taris and blocky rooms and people living in panopticon prison blocks. There is a stable community of people here, unlike that dense urban megapolis where everyone is trying to swindle or assasinate each other.

I find it strange how the Jedi Enclave is supposed to be "secret" and hidden from the Sith, but they openly do adventurer's guild jobs for the locals. Sounds like it would be pretty easy for Mandalorian raiders to hear "the Jedi will come for you" from the farmers they're robbing and then pass word along to the Sith, or for general word of mouth about a Jedi base on Dantooine that helps the locals reaching the Sith. Seems like it would be pretty easy for a Sith battleship to hyperspace into orbit, bombard the area around the Enclave for 10 minutes, and then jump away.




When I heard that Dantooine was a world of open plains, I was expecting to walk out of the Jedi Enclave and traverse across large open plains like in Star Wars Galaxies, which came out one week after KotoR did. But instead it's small areas enclosed by hills and walls. Feels like a reskinned Taris. Maybe the KotoR engine isn't capable of larger areas?




It is weird that I killed two or three groups of bandits who had speeders but then I couldn't hop in their speeders and use it to drive around and bring it back to the enclave and sell it or give it someone. Had to just leave them there in the middle of nowhere. (EDIT: just remembered that there is a speeder inside my ship. I can't bring that out and drive it around on planets either?). Also, lmao at Mandalorians talking about "the honor and glory of fighting against strong enemies like the Republic!" and then here they are butchering little farmers.




It was a bit strange when I went into the crystal cave infested with spiders and clicked on the spider eggs and got a pop-up talking about the "innocent life within". Hm? Anyway, I smashed as many as I could to save the local farmers from being menaced by these giant spiders. Didn't let me smash them all. I guess I was forced to leave some alive for the food chain/ecology or something.

Gameplay is a lot better now that I have access to force powers, namely heal and whirlwind. I am playing a Scoundrel/Consular who started with 16 wisdom and 16 charisma. I can now start combat by using whirlwind to stun/CC enemies one by one while Zaalbar and Carth attack, and then use heal as needed. No more having to constantly open the menu and use medkits during combat or constantly transiting back to base to heal to full.




I wonder if Juhani's character was made a woman so she would be more sympathetic when you stumble upon her after having murdered her master (you forgive her before you find out that the master actually lived).




This was a sad quest. At least she found a real man though.

QUESTION: is there a crime mechanic in KotoR? I haven't been looting any chests in Taris apartments that were occupied by people and didn't rob Rahasia's house, but I was wondering what would happen if you did do that. Will they attack you or call the guards on you?

[Vergil]

QUESTION: is there a crime mechanic in KotoR? I haven't been looting any chests in Taris apartments that were occupied by people and didn't rob Rahasia's house, but I was wondering what would happen if you did do that. Will they attack you or call the guards on you?

There is no crime mechanic. There's a very small rare handful of NPCs who react to it most of which I'm pretty sure were on Taris and the consequences are basically just telling them to shut up or killing them.

[Oyster Sauce]

There is a stable community of people here, unlike that dense urban megapolis where everyone is trying to swindle or assasinate each other.

I think literally every single NPC you encounter outside of the Jedi academy is trying to swindle and/or assassinate someone else.
Where are you flying to first next?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Where are you flying to first next?

Tatooine since I've heard that is where you get the robot party member everyone talks about.

[wndrbr]

QUESTION: is there a crime mechanic in KotoR? I haven't been looting any chests in Taris apartments that were occupied by people and didn't rob Rahasia's house, but I was wondering what would happen if you did do that. Will they attack you or call the guards on you?

There is no crime mechanic. There's a very small rare handful of NPCs who react to it most of which I'm pretty sure were on Taris and the consequences are basically just telling them to shut up or killing them.

sand people will start attacking you if you loot their stuff.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

QUESTION: is there a crime mechanic in KotoR? I haven't been looting any chests in Taris apartments that were occupied by people and didn't rob Rahasia's house, but I was wondering what would happen if you did do that. Will they attack you or call the guards on you?

There is no crime mechanic. There's a very small rare handful of NPCs who react to it most of which I'm pretty sure were on Taris and the consequences are basically just telling them to shut up or killing them.

sand people will start attacking you if you loot their stuff.

I got that warning pop up when I touched a chest in front of the chieftain, but then I went into one of the rooms with no sand people in them (next to the Jawa prisoners) and was able to loot everything in there without any NPCs becoming hostile. Though when I asked the storyteller to visually describe the Builders, he called me a blashemer and the whole base aggroed. I wiped those barbarians off the face of the earth killed them in self defense and took back my krayt dragon crystal, looted the place, cashed in my gaffi sticks and flew away.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have finished Kashyyk, Manaan, escaped Saul's ship, and am about to start Koribaan.



The first section of Kashyyk is the second most visually pleasing zone thus far, behind Dantooine. I like the fantasy of the treehouses up in forest with tree trunks extending into the bottomless depths. It is a rehash of the RotJ movie setting, but at least it's nicer to look at than Tatooine or Taris. Too bad that the second area set on the ground, the Shadowlands, look pretty boring, and the story was a snooze. Apparently I got locked out of completing the sidequest with the guy who was enslaved by a merchant who murdered his friends, as before I could return with the severed head of the droid that was witness to the betrayal, the wookies took back the spaceport and those two NPCs vanished.




Manaan is good. I like the aesthetics of the white port city with an ocean backdrop. It is the most original location in KotoR yet. I found the quests to be interesting. The Sunry quest was the only other quest besides the runaway droid on Dantooine that has made me pause for a few moments, thinking about whether or not to tell the wife and what to do at the trial. My only nitpick is that the Sith Base aesthetically looks like the third rehash of the grey interiors we've already seen with the starting level of the game on the spaceship and then the Sith Base on Taris.'

The yellow bounty hunter and the guy hiding in the closet had good voice acting.






The underwater level was pretty creative. I presume this inspired the Warframe devs when they remade their Uranus levels.




It is strange dealing with modern corporations in Star Wars. My impression was that stuff was made by master craftsmen or guilds of artisans like in the medieval period, rather than modern day corporations with bureaucracies and employees asking for raises. This feels more like Mass Effect than like Star Wars.




I was rather annoyed with the the Darth Malak fight. I casted Master Valor, used Force Wave to stun Malak, and then used Kill which took him down to 40% HP. His HP bar didn't go below 40% HP both times so I think it's locked there, without that I probably would have done even more damage. I was soundly trouncing him, but then the game locks me into a cutscene where suddenly Malak is uninjured and then CCs me with and then runs away, and then Bastilia jumps in talking about how she has to save me... when I was about to singlehandedly kill Malak? What?

[logincrash]

I was rather annoyed with the the Darth Malak fight. I casted Master Valor, used Force Wave to stun Malak, and then used Kill which took him down to 40% HP. His HP bar didn't go below 40% HP both times so I think it's locked there, without that I probably would have done even more damage. I was soundly trouncing him, but then the game locks me into a cutscene where suddenly Malak is uninjured and then CCs me with and then runs away, and then Bastilia jumps in talking about how she has to save me... when I was about to singlehandedly kill Malak? What?

Yeah, that always sucks in vidya. It's never done satisfyingly. And BioWare topped that with probably the most despised ****** character in ME3 (and that's saying a lot, considering how many of those are in the entire series).

► Show Spoiler

Good. You opened this message. This isn't actually Asari Military Command. They're busy tending to what's left of their planet.

Goes to show how nearly all writers working on video games don't know how to adapt to the interactive format. DMCV did stuff like that interestingly, where you're supposed to lose the first boss fight but, if you're good enough, you can beat it and end the game right there.

[Norfleet]

I have finished Dantooine. About to fly off to the next planet.

Fat people always lie.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have finished the game.

(Arriving on Korriban) There haven't been any conversations between party members since Taris. There were a couple joke skits between Zaalbar and Mission on Kashyyk, and that's it. No Carth being idealogically against an assasin droid like HK-47, or Mission and Jolee talking to each other about Zaalbar's homeworld, etc. Very disappointing, especially when we have JRPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles or Trails that are able to have voiced conversations between every party member combo. In the case of Xenoblade, not just between two party members but three. In the case of Trails, they are able to come up with a new conversation per game. And so on.




It is disappointing that the game gave me the option to tell the Sith instructor "no, I do not want to join the Sith", and then I go get a Sith Medallion but can't use it at the Sith guard as an alternative way to enter the academy, and instead have to go back to the instructor and say yes, even if it's a lie.




The game is inconvenient at times. I have found out that I cannot finish repairing HK-47, as I can no longer go back to Dantooine and buy the Calrissian Repair Belt from the Twilek merchant. We find out that the Yoda clone survived, so why couldn't have the merchant shown up elsewhere? In the Sith Academy, I found Carth's son, but then got locked out of his progressing his quest because I had already attained enough Prestige and the dialogue option I needed with the headmaster to advance the son's quest didn't appear, so I had to reload an earlier save.




The puzzles were neat, though for the power transfer puzzle I had to screenshot the instructions and alt+tab out of the game and look at the screenshots, since the game does not present the instructions very well and it is a chore to have to constantly click the instructions dialog and then click through to the line I'm looking for.




When I went to the last planet, I started skipping through the dialogue in The One's base because the story was climaxing and I just wanted to finish rather than do more sidequesting, but I got more invested when I reached the Elder village. Their desire to be great again and rehabilitate their image was pretty sympathetic. Reminds me of the Gondorians who remember Numenor.






I was pleasantly surprised by the Bastila twist. The Revan twist and "you can become evil and kill your party members at the end" choice are pretty well known, but I didn't know about this. I bought the two powerful lightsaber crystals from Yavin and built a powerful Heart of the Guardian + Upari + Solari 42 damage doublebladed lightsaber, intending to hand it to Bastilia once I had recovered her just in time to fight the final boss with Carth, but then she doesn't come with you and you fight Malak by yourself, which was a little disappointing.





I got an option to tell Bastila "I love you". I didn't know there was romance in this game, not that any of the characters are particularly appealing. There were a couple dialog options earlier in the game that I pressed that I thought was something else, but then when voiced turned out to be flirty. For example, I thought "You know what I mean" was referring to the Jedi assigning Bastilia as my handler, not "you like me" or something.




The actual final fight was pretty disappointing. He seems to keep stunning me in melee range so I can't have a classic duel with him, and instead had to use Knight Speed to outrun him and heal and buff up and then spammed Force Wave over and over to beat him. Not very cathartic.




During the final fight, Malak claims I should recgnoize the jedi captives from the academy. Who is he talking about? I freed the prisoners at the Sith Academy. Are these years old jedi from when Revan first went to Korriban, before the events of the game? EDIT: Ah, they're from Dantooine? I didn't recognize anyone of the masters there, and there were only two background NPC Jedi at the enclave.





It is strange that I get a medal and a standing ovation for ending a war I started/fixing a problem I created. Also, did he say that I am Revan out loud for everyone to hear? Now I have to worry about people trying to assasinate me to avenge their dad who got drafted and died fighting the Sith or their village that got bombed for the rest of my life. Given that this was a galactic war involving untold numbers of people, the odds of several attempts on my life are guarenteed, and odds are one of them will succeed. Thanks Yoda!



Final thoughts

This game has a forgettable soundtrack.

I am disappointed that the dialogue options were a binary "I am a Sith who embraces passion and is an evil mass murderer!" or "I am an emotionless robot who doesn't commit mass murder!". Why can't I say "I disagree with the Jedi Order's buddhist spiel and retain my emotions thank you very much, but you Sith are evil mass murderers and I will oppose you to my dying breath! For the Republic!"? Qui-gon Jin in The Phantom Menace was able to disagree with the Jedi Council and still fought against the Sith and was depicted as a hero and a role model, so why can't I be like him? And I am not talking about that "Grey Jedi" fanfiction or whatever nonsense that is. Luke thrashing Vader in RotJ wasn't him "giving in to anger and teetering on the brinkg of becoming evil!". That was absolutely righteous anger of a hero. I guess I don't buy into this "you have to be an emotionless buddhist to be a good guy" thing.

Anyway, so Revan and Bastila confessed their love for each other. So... what happens now? Do we have to quit the Order then? Just weird.

[1998]

Alright, let's try this one. That's actually one of the few games from the list I have never played. Never liked Star Wars even before it turned to utter ****.

[1998]

Enjoyed it more than I thought I would. And even though I was not really very focused the past days playing it. Still great game

[Luckmann]

After the travesty that was Redemption, I need a palate cleanser, so I'm going to go for the KotOR badge.

Just in case someone gives a ****, I'm going to be using the following mods installed in order:

► Modlist

KotOR 1 Restoration 1.2
New Grass
OpenGL Fix
High Quality Stars & Nebulas
Robes for Korriban Sith Students
Consistent Conditioning Symbols
Old Republic Skin Overhaul
Star Forge Plus CM Effects Pack
High Resolution Lightsaber Beams
Ultimate Character Overhaul Redux
High Quality Skyboxes II 2.2
Ultimate Endar Spire+ High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Korriban High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Dantooine High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Tatooine High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Taris High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Kashyyyk High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Manaan High Resolution Upscale
Ultimate Unknown World High Resolution Upscale
Widescreen Fixes for 1920x1080p
KotOR 1 Remastered (AI Upscaled) Cutscenes

Edit: Just another 4 hours for some of those high-res mods to download.

[Trickster]

Enjoyed it more than I thought I would. And even though I was not really very focused the past days playing it. Still great game

Malak is a funny dude.

[Luckmann]

I didn't make it far. I ended up using a mod list as an outline (skipping the community patch in favor of some of the aforementioned mods, like the restored content). Now, everything ran great, but I ran into a problem wherein shiny surfaces on models ended up being transparent (the shinier, the more transparent). I thought this was due to missing textures, so I tried to band-aid it.

Turns out that it's a laptop issue, and it was easily fixed by forcing the game to use my laptop's extra graphic's card instead of the integrated "graphics card", because yeah, for some reason the laptop I'm on works in such a way as to count as having one AMD graphics card and one nVidia one, and sometimes Windows and/or games are **** at automatically picking between them.

But anyway, in doing so, I ****** the mods I'd been installing over the last two days, permanent-like.

On the flipside, all the upscaling stuff and all the graphics enhancements and widescreen fixes and such seems to work like a charm, for the small section I tried it on. The only annoyance is the very small text, which supposedly isn't fixable, but I may try another mod for that too. I don't think anyone gives a ****, but I just wanted to say that if anyone runs into the same problem with transparent/translucent swords and sith troopers (that's how I noticed) it is fixable, and also say that it may take a few days to reinstall everything, but I'm still playing this.

► The Adventures of Raven Sunstrider

This is to all that has been lost.


Meet Raven Sunstrider, a down-on-his-luck scoundrel that will under no circumstances whatsoever rise over level 4 Scoundrel.