I had a dream...

[MrHoatzin]

Disclaimer: If any meatbag, in the name of law, order and meaningful titling, changes the title of this thread he, she and/or it will suffer my dreadful wrath.

I dreamed of nail clippers and jumping in the Knights of the Old Republic. I dreamed of these things because I missed them. I lost my nail clipper while moving from Galveston back to San Antonio and there is no jumping in KotOR. The whole level design in this game is swimming in the annoying waters since it feels like one of those Diablo or Baladur's Gate isometric RPGs, only in this one the camera is locked on your avatar's ass.

Discuss.

[Erkki]

I haven't played much of it, but yeah, navigating the world gave me similar feelings.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

...there is no jumping in KotOR. The whole level design in this game is swimming in the annoying waters since it feels like one of those Diablo or Baladur's Gate isometric RPGs, only in this one the camera is locked on your avatar's ass.

Are you serious?! Is there not any freelook option, either, where you can pan up and down and around you?

[OftenK]

Are you serious?! Is there not any freelook option, either, where you can pan up and down and around you?

Naw, you can do that whenever you want. You can also switch to the character's eye view and look around that way. But there are so many times, especially on Manaan (or however the hell it's spelled), when you just want to jump and splash around in the fountains.

[jp-30]

Did a Hello Kitty Keyring also feature in this dream? If so, I may be on to you...

[Nick]

You're right, I mean I honestly wonder if people even bother to think now days. Pure carelessness led to this outragous loss of nail clippers

[vimes]

there is no jumping in KotOR.

What would be the point? It isn't an action-adventure game, is it ? Anyway, what has the act of jumping brought to our societies ? Oh, yeah, of course, you could jump on a mine and look cool, you could, also, jump and try to catch the sky and you'd look pathetic , you could even jump just for he joy of jumping. But that, Mister, that, would be childish. And what has children brought to our societies ? Let's be honest : children aren't people like us. First, they don't like to work; they also laught for nothing and they never , ever talk about the Dow Jones. Let's face it, children are a little bit childish.

So, where was I before I got stopped by the most extraodinary person I've ever met, me.

Ah, yes, jumps. I kind of laught when I first read your post as I imagined Jedis' Battles in which each protagonist would jump to avoid thrown lightsaber then press 'space' to stop the action and trigger a Dark Side power. I guess that would be awesome for 5 minutes, before you realize that you ain't a cool jedi nomore but a grotesque dressed frog which has mistaken KotoR for Daggerfall in which, for the record, you could increase your 'jump' stat by jumping through town instead of walking.

And for your nail clippers, that's a real shame.

[MrHoatzin]

The levels are too flat. So much could've been done level-wise if only jumping, even fake jumping à la Beyond Good and Evil were instituted. The barriers that constitute the boundaries of levels are really superficial as far as boundaries go.

Also, for an expansive universe the game promises to be, it sure feels claustrophobic.

[Ryam BaCo]

kotor is just too awesome to criticize the lack of jumping. just like in baldur's gate or neverwinter nights or all the other bioware rpgs.

but sometimes your kotor-character jumps. i remember this funny scene where my character jumped from the one end of the corridor to the other end, took out his laser sword and halved an evil, evil robot with just one hit. this was pretty cool.

[vimes]

The levels are too flat.

Ah... you meant that... then, I must getback on my words and agree with you here.... a bit.

I sure did have the feeling of being always "trapped", limited inhte environments... you know, even in the desert on Tattoine, they put visual boundaries that said "This is the end of the zone, be prepared for a loading session". I think that the game would have gained a lot if they had put seamless level[ I don't know if this means what I intended to]

And also, even if there were hills, there wasn't any environment that was physically demanding for the characters...

Fake climbing or jumping ala BGE would have dynamise the game.. if it needed such thing.

[MrHoatzin]

Also, is there a way to play a good guy and not be totally broke all the fucking time?! Between all the computer slices I need and giving money away to the destitute, nothing remains for splurging on beer and hookers.

Oh, and how in the hell's name am I to win the last Tattooine race? The closest to beating the record I have gotten is like five hundredths of a second -- after spending three thousand dollars on repeated entering the fucking race -- and Motta the Hutt treats me like I was a day late. Can I somewhere fix my bike up a little or something? All the shopkeepers that claim they sell racer parts never have anything but robot gear in their inventories. Help...

[vimes]

Also, is there a way to play a good guy and not be totally broke all the fucking time?!

You can't be good and rich... you have to know that : KotOR is right now teaching you one of the most important rule of life.

All the shopkeepers that claim they sell racer parts never have anything but robot gear in their inventories. Help...

It's a reminiscence of former gameplay design(before the Xbos Dev) that was never implemented, so... no, you can't by parts... the thing is to have a perfect timing... it has happened to me once. This was enough.

[Kode]

I thought it was a fine departure from Jump-fests such as The Phantom Menace where not only jumping, but double-jumping and vine-catching were a part of every day life. Of course, they're two completely different types of games. But honestly, I didn't mind. I was too involved with other things in the game.

Sorry to hear about the nail clippers. I hear Walgreens has some of those.

[MrHoatzin]

Capitalism is evil.

Yay.

It is interesting how the whole Star Wars universe is divided where hedonism is EVIL, while spirituality is GOOD. Hemingway will be with the Sith, Tolstoy will be a Jedi. Katherine Hepburn is with the Sith, Audrey Hepburn is a Jedi. George W. Bush is a bantha, and Buckminster Fuller is a Hutt (as personalities go, these two are not represented).

If we called upon this thing, Artisans would be the true Sith, Idealists would be the true Jedi. While Rationals and Guardians would figure in in both; Rationals would feel more at home with the Sith (even though gratuitous torture is not their thing) as Guardians would feel more at home with the Jedi (even though abstract thought pains them).

Erm...

Is there a cheat code that could stop the time or something so that I may glide through the finish line at like 1.23 seconds?

Edit in red.

[vimes]

If you can't integrate a feature seamlessly or near seamlessly except at great cost, that counts as a reason not to include it. If it's not integral to game in general, that's also a reason not to include it. If it can't be integrated well AND isn't integral, that's a very big reason not to include it.

Soul Reaver does it, Ultima IX does it... why not KotoR ?

[Chris]

If Soul Reaver jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

EDIT: also, Soul Reaver is a much more actiony title than KOTOR isn't it?

[Jake]

If Soul Reaver jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

I hope that was intentional on your part.

[jokemaster]

which reminds me: How come in games where you go to towns and can jump you can jump around everywhere like a moron and no one will comment on it.

I too once lost my nail clippers. Twas a sad sad day.

[Chris]

I hope that was intentional on your part.

Yes, yes it was.

[vimes]

If Soul Reaver jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

EDIT: also, Soul Reaver is a much more actiony title than KOTOR isn't it?

Okay, there, my argumentation got screwed.

My point is that KotoR is an excellent game, but to be an indeniable masterpiece, I think that it should have given a better a feeling of being in a huge universe.

As it is now, I've got the slight impression to go from level to level.. damn, the plot, as good as it is, is linear to the core, so could it have been impossible to present a seamless environment for each planet?

And, no the first Soul Reaver is not "much more actiony than KOTOR"... you'll admit that playing KotOR you fight a lot...but if I remember well, the first Soul Reaver wasn't as actiony as that, was it ? There were a lot of puzzles but only a few combat.

[Chris]

I don't actually remember very clearly what the first Soul Reaver was like, I guess I was pretty much just basing my statement off of the more recent games of which I have a clearer recollection.

[Simon]

I'm probably well over halfway through the game, and I find that KOTOR's environments do feel quite boxed-in. Being constructed in levels it has to suffer at points from that. Areas that should probably feel sprawling and vast like Kasshyyk's shadowlands or Tatooine's desert feel closer to Doom maps than a rich RPG landscape.

As for the story's linearity, that's something that rarely bothers me in RPGs. Being a fan of adventure games I don't mind an RPG focusing in on one basic tight storyline that everything branches off. It's ultimately less true to what an RPG should be, but it never detracts from my enjoyment of a game. KOTOR so far comes close to the kind of Star Wars game I've always wanted to play, with a few cons.

One is that, whilst there's a lot of freedom to roam around in KOTOR, the quest management kind of encourages you to focus on one planet at a time, and also a bunch of load-times (at least on the Xbox) make going back and forth between places less appealing. Ideally I'd have more inter-planetary side-quests, and more ease of/encouragement to travel.

Also, there are some repetitive story elements, I've had to break into a Sith base twice to get someone to help me now, which frankly feels like once too many. Whilst you can say the Star Wars franchise itself is repetitive in the extreme, I think the epicness would be helped by slightly more varied questing. Bioware did do a great job, though. I think it's the only game that has succesfully captured the Star Wars feel - perhaps one of the few of recent years that has even tried, rather than just dropping the galaxy wholesale into a tried-and-tested genre.

[jokemaster]

Yeah, that's something I've been harping about for a bit. I tend to use an example from Deus Ex: jumping around like an idiot in Manderley's (your initial boss') office, knocking shit around, etc., has hardly any effect on Manderley. Very little progress has been made in terms of establishing social conventions in video games.

Actually, it'd be funny if you're with your partner and start jumping around and she looks at you with a strange face and asks either 'what the hell are you doing?' or 'what the f*** are you doing?'

EDIT: And the thing about stealing anything that isn't nailed down is also true, I mean I think Fable will be the frist RPG with actual consequences if you do go into houses and steal everything.

[Ninja Dodo]

It's interesting when you find games where you can travel faster jumping than you can running. Gothic 1 did that, when you learnt athletics.

Hm...

And what has children brought to our societies?

Don't take this the wrong way... but that sounds like something Bush would say.

[Farbror]

I recently found out that Chrono Trigger (my first time playing it) has very cool consequences for stealing stuff. Or just taking stuff that isn't yours. I was pretty blown away when that happened.

He, I remember Super Mario Rpg. There was a house in that game, and inside it were some items. "Well, alright" I think, beacuse this IS an RPG, but when you leave the house, a man comes up and asks you if those are his stuff you've got there. I was shocked, this wasn't supposed to happen! It's against the law of RPGs! NPC's are supposed to be static and repeat everything you say as many times as you need it.

Speaking of that, while it hasn't got anything to do with the topic to do, the LoZ: the Wind Waker tried to somehow explain why NPC's repeated themselves all the time...

"And remember, if you get stuck and don't know what to do, just ask someone. And if you don't understand what they say the first time, just ask again, and they will repeat what they said the first time to you, until the meaning is clear."

So, the NPC's aren't stupid or something, they're just nice. "Oh, he didn't get it the first time, I'd better say it again."

EDIT: Okay then! I'll change it! Loz instead of LOZ! Happy now?

(Or would you prefer L0Z? l0z?)