Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake announced

[Rynjin]

I don't necessarily dislike the Force, just the Jedi, really. I've always found their philosophy kind of dumb.

There's a bunch of Force users in the SW expanded universe stuff I've read about that don't even interact with the Jedi/Sith dichotomy and most of those are infinitely more interesting to me.

[Lord Raziere]

I don't necessarily dislike the Force, just the Jedi, really. I've always found their philosophy kind of dumb.

There's a bunch of Force users in the SW expanded universe stuff I've read about that don't even interact with the Jedi/Sith dichotomy and most of those are infinitely more interesting to me.

Ironically, Kotor 2 delves into some of the reasons why the Jedi Code is dumb (Sith Code is just as stupid). though you don't even get to be normal, your a Force-User from the get go just one who is relearning, though it is set in a time where all the jedi and sith are in hiding, so while technically being more jedi-focused its also kind of less in other ways.

though really, Kotor has it fair share of criticism about the Jedi, its just not as explicit about it and more softer and light-hearted. though most of it comes from Jolee Bindo.

[tyckspoon]

Ironically, Kotor 2 delves into some of the reasons why the Jedi Code is dumb (Sith Code is just as stupid). though you don't even get to be normal, your a Force-User from the get go just one who is relearning, though it is set in a time where all the jedi and sith are in hiding, so while technically being more jedi-focused its also kind of less in other ways.

KOTOR 2 is kind of.. entirely Jedi-focused. The main story is all about how being a Jedi effed up the main character and how you deal with that (although with the usual lack of nuance of binary morality meters where the only real options are Pure Good or Pure Evil) and while there are officially fewer Force users around, the story still has you constantly interacting with them. Doesn't stop it from throwing entire planets full of Sith enemies at you either.

.. Still a good game, but if the complaint is that Star Wars stories are too Jedi-centric, well, it's not gonna change any minds. (It does not, however, start from a position that being a Jedi is by default Right And Good, which may make it more interesting than the standard Star Wars media formula.)

[GloatingSwine]

*I mean, sure, there are some nitpicks I could make, like how the game gives you a lot of trap options when you don't know that your character will become a melee-fighting Jedi a third of the way in, but the basic bones of the system are perfectly functional.

Counterpoint: The system is nothing but basic bones. There are very limited effects available via force powers (mostly just different flavours of stuns, a few buffs and debuffs but the debuffs take too long to have a noticable effect given how much damage you can put out in melee), and the balance between ranged weapons and melee is completely off to the point that ranged is essentially irrelevant.

Perfectly functional build tho >.> Memory says the preferred Jedi class for that is actually Consular, not the Skilled Jedi one, so you can reliably stun things with Force powers in order to trigger your Sneak Attack. Combatwise at least. It's obviously less good at keeping up skills.

Guardian's leap into combat also procs Sneak Attack but for even more damage because its own bonus stacks on top, and you got enough force powers that you could still pick up stun (if you switch over at 7 you would get 14 power picks). AFAIK Stun/Stun Droid also isn't restricted by armour, so you could still wear the Advanced Exoskeleton for that +3 Str/+3 Con (though if you started scoundrel that would cost you a feat pick because it's medium armour) which was more practical than spending a round setting up Force Valour given how much damage you could be putting out anyway.

A strength stacked, armoured Jedi Guardian was the way to go for me, starting on a base of either Scout 7 or Scoundrel 7. (Scout 7 would give you free Implant II, bonus saves vs grenades (which enemies love into the endgame so it's nice to no-sell those freeze grenades), and every save was good instead of only one, Scoundrel 7 would give Sneak Attack 4 and +4 defence). (Soldier 7 would give you two more feat picks than Scout 7 but what are you going to do, not take Implant? Lock an entire equipment slot that has some of the best stat boosts in the game? No. Power Attack was theoretically better than Flurry for DPR but not by that much.)

Force powers were never interesting enough for me to pick Consular. They were mostly just ways to do less damage than you did by whacking things with a lightsabre.

Sentinel was a garbage class. You get 1 whole more skill point per level than the other Jedi classes, and some immunities but who cares your saves were probably good enough anyway, you didn't get more force power picks than a Guardian but you did get worse AB and hitpoints. Pretty much a classic example of falling between two stools in class design (and not in the base SWD20 rules IIRC).

(In KotOR2 despite starting out as a Jedi there are enough feats and powers to make a cromulent gunslinger jedi)

[danzibr]

Guess I’m getting a PS5.

[Anteros]

Maybe, but I'm probably in the minority of people who played that game. I'm not actually a big Star Wars fan, and I don't really have a hard-on for Jedi so I was pretty excited to play a game that kept all the cool space stuff and really interesting alien races etc. without all the Jedi stuff...and then you're kinda forced to interact with the Jedi stuff.

I mean. The game is called Star Wars knights of the old republic. You didn't expect it to be about a jedi knight?

[halfeye]

I don't necessarily dislike the Force, just the Jedi, really. I've always found their philosophy kind of dumb.

According to KotoR the Sith are much dumber.

[GloatingSwine]

According to KotoR the Sith are much dumber.

TBH any organisation that can only progress itself via chronic backstabbing has no business being as successful as the Sith have allegedly been throughout Star Wars history.

That's pretty much a recipe for loss of institutional knowledge right there.

In happy news: looks like EA are nothing to do with this remake, which means I might even buy it.

[Anonymouswizard]

According to KotoR the Sith are much dumber.

To be fair Revan's Sih Empire was much more successful. Although it's also questionable as to how much Rescan actually followed the Sith philosophy.

[Morty]

TBH any organisation that can only progress itself via chronic backstabbing has no business being as successful as the Sith have allegedly been throughout Star Wars history.

That's pretty much a recipe for loss of institutional knowledge right there.

Also, no tech support, because any student who can't solve problems themselves is too weak to make it as a Sith. That's legit what a console in the ruins of Korriban says in KOTOR 2.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, if you thought KotOR1 thinks the Jedi and Sith both have a case of the dumb, it's pretty flattering compared to what KotOR2 has to say on the matter.

[tyckspoon]

To be fair Revan's Sih Empire was much more successful. Although it's also questionable as to how much Rescan actually followed the Sith philosophy.

Like half of Revan's legend is personal power. The other half is looking at the predominant Jedi and Sith philosophies and going 'What? No, that's dumb, we're not gonna do that' and getting a bunch of other people to follow them.

[Fyraltari]

According to KotoR the Sith are much dumber.

I mean, according to every single piece of Star Wars media, the Sith are, as an institution, extremely dumb.

Their "philosophy" is an entirely vacuous attempt at justying indulging their worst uses and it explicitly decries cooperation. That these bozos actually manage to rise to the level of galactic threat is really impressive.

[Anonymouswizard]

Like half of Revan's legend is personal power. The other half is looking at the predominant Jedi and Sith philosophies and going 'What? No, that's dumb, we're not gonna do that' and getting a bunch of other people to follow them.

Yeah, while Malak is a pretty normal Sith at the end of the day Revan, at least early on, send to have been a girl who looked at the situation, decided that neither group actually had it right, and went off to actually save people even if it brought her to the dark side. Her actual talents also seen to have been in inspiration and strategy instead of personal power, while certainly a very strong woman the fact that the Sith don't act as competently without her is made clear.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, while Malak is a pretty normal Sith at the end of the day Revan, at least early on, send to have been a girl who looked at the situation, decided that neither group actually had it right, and went off to actually save people even if it brought her to the dark side. Her actual talents also seen to have been in inspiration and strategy instead of personal power, while certainly a very strong woman the fact that the Sith don't act as competently without her is made clear.

That's certainly the angle KotOR II pushed. Though this might have been Kreia clingong to the idea that her favourite student wasn't an abject failure.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, while Malak is a pretty normal Sith at the end of the day Revan, at least early on, send to have been a girl who looked at the situation, decided that neither group actually had it right, and went off to actually save people even if it brought her to the dark side. Her actual talents also seen to have been in inspiration and strategy instead of personal power, while certainly a very strong woman the fact that the Sith don't act as competently without her is made clear.

Eh, from KotOR itself Revan was more frustrated at the inaction of the Jedi in the Mandalorian wars. They weren't trying to find some sort of "middle path" between the Jedi and Sith, they just needed power to fight an enemy the Republic couldn't and the Jedi wouldn't, and that led them to embrace the dark side out of expediency and the temptation that once one has power, one may as well use it.

To be honest one of the biggest mistakes the EU made was trying to make the Sith a Thing. Trying to tie all these disparate people who have fallen to the dark side to one overarching philosophy, rather than having them be different expressions of the dark side related to their character and the reasons for their fall.

[spectralphoenix]

I'm playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous right now, and I'm really liking the ability to play in turn-based or BG-style real-time. The big complicated fights you play in turns, so you can line up spells and keep track of everyone. The small fights you run in real time, so you can just have everyone run up and start hitting things without slowing the game down too much. I was a little dubious at first, but it actually seems like a nice compromise.

[MCerberus]

Looking over the whole story I get the feeling that Revan was driven to extremes through both the effectiveness of giving in to the dark side and sheer necessity of stopping the Sith emperor at any cost. Vitiate was layer upon layer upon layer of bad.

A well person does not... get ships that way, to say nothing about what he planned with Malachor 4 or what he turned the exile into.

[Peelee]

though really, Kotor has it fair share of criticism about the Jedi, its just not as explicit about it and more softer and light-hearted. though most of it comes from Jolee Bindo.

Also known as one of the greatest Star Wars characters ever.

To be honest one of the biggest mistakes the EU made was trying to make the Sith a Thing.

Seconded.

[VoxRationis]

To be honest one of the biggest mistakes the EU made was trying to make the Sith a Thing. Trying to tie all these disparate people who have fallen to the dark side to one overarching philosophy, rather than having them be different expressions of the dark side related to their character and the reasons for their fall.

I mean, the Sith were always a "thing." The title "Dark Lord of the Sith" goes back at least to the novelization of the original movie, and I think it was in various drafts of the movie script as well. I get your point, though, that forcing almost every foe through a millennia-long fictional history into being part of the same group seems unduly simplistic.

[Mechalich]

I mean, the Sith were always a "thing." The title "Dark Lord of the Sith" goes back at least to the novelization of the original movie, and I think it was in various drafts of the movie script as well. I get your point, though, that forcing almost every foe through a millennia-long fictional history into being part of the same group seems unduly simplistic.

Not all Dark Jedi are Sith - noted Kyle Katarn enemy Jerec, for example, was not a Sith. However, there has definitely been a tendency throughout the EU to make as many Dark Jedi as possible into 'Sith' rather than otherwise. Admittedly, there are strong in-universe reasons for every Dark Jedi with delusions of grandeur - ie. all of them - to claim that they are Sith even though they may not have any actual connection to either the Sith Species or the imperial Sith Culture. In the Legends timeline there were actual several different iterations of 'The Sith' all of which were only tangentially related to each other.

- There's the original Sith of the Sith Species and the original Sith Empire, who largely perished at the conclusion of the Great Hyperspace War due to defeat by the Republic and Darth Vitiate eating the souls of most of the survivors. A small offshoot of this group evolved into the Lost Tribe of the Sith after millennia of seclusion.

- There's the Vitiate Sith that followed, which were basically a different version of the Sith grafted according to his specific ambitions (and largely used as a distraction while he was messing about with Zakuul). These Sith formed several 'empires' and launched assaults of the Republic that ultimately failed and there were eventually, during the as yet unfinished conclusion of SWTOR, eliminated. Revan was a Vitiate Sith.

- There's the New Sith, of the New Sith Wars or Draggulch Period, which were founded by Darth Ruin and fought the Republic for 1000 years before finally being defeated/betrayed and destroyed at Ruusan. These Sith bore little resemblance to the Sith that had come before and simply stole the name for its prestige.

- There's the Bainite Sith that were founded after the destruction of the New Sith by Darth Bane, who drew on a combination of teachings including those of Darth Revan and a lot of his own philosophy and utilized the Rule of Two. The Bainite Sith ended with Palpatine on Onderon.

- The final Sith group to emerge was the One Sith, led by Darth Krayt, a fallen Clone Wars-era Jedi who adopted some Sith teachings from a variety of sources.

So the various 'Sith' who show up in the EU are by no means the same group, even though they all use the same title. This is admittedly confusing and probably bad design, but it makes a certain amount of sense given the shared mindset of the principals.

[GloatingSwine]

So the various 'Sith' who show up in the EU are by no means the same group, even though they all use the same title. This is admittedly confusing and probably bad design, but it makes a certain amount of sense given the shared mindset of the principals.

Yeah, but they shouldn't have a "shared mindest". They should all have different mindsets born out of the reasons they individually fell.

Like take Revan in KotOR before whatever bollocks TOR did to them (which we should all be ignoring because it is very stupid). In KotOR Revan is a Jedi who believes that they should stand against the Mandalorians, sought power for a noble cause which is well explained within the course of the story, and fell to the temptations that power represented. That's not something they share with Palpatine, who sought power for its own sake and his own satisfaction, or Anakin who sought power to overcome his fear of losing Padme.

Revan did not need to be linked to some nonsensical Sith heritage, they just hijacked the remnants of Exar Kun's cult because they were a convenient tool to be abandoned once a better one, the Star Forge, came along.

[Corey]

Wow. I loved Kotor, and replayed it once, and liked Kotor 2 (but was annoyed at the radical incompleteness toward the end). But I don't recall much about the combat system at all, nor care, because I recall combat as being basically easy.

My main criticism was of the tiny, tiny world, surely due in large part to the graphical limitations of the day, and how as a result you were physically on rails moving through it. This was all especially noticeable outdoors; the indoors state of the art was so primitive back then that Kotor's approach usually felt fine.

[Morty]

I have no idea how much of writing is going to change in the remake, but I do hope they follow KOTOR 2 in giving us more than one way to play a Light Side character. KOTOR 2 let us decide if the Exile regrets their choices or not, whether they feel they're still a Jedi or not, et cetera. KOTOR 1 is by and large a choice between a straight and narrow Jedi loyalist and a marauding Sith loony.

The point that Sith shouldn't be a thing is an interesting one. I don't know if I agree, but it does somewhat contribute to a recurring problem in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (before and after Disney nixed the old one) - that throughout millennia in this huge galaxy, it always comes down to these two groups of people in robes, slicing each other up with lightsabers. This has little bearing on KOTOR, though, which is going to involve those two one way or the other. And my way of enjoying Star Wars involves not thinking about it too hard in any event.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly when I played the game I assumed that it was more a case of 'Revan falls to the Dark Side->Revan gets called a Sith->Revan good "**** it, I'm a Sith-then"'. I always got the idea that Rwrvanite Sith were their own thing that lasted massive a generation or two, with no real core beliefs because Revan cared less about that than about winning her wars. But then again these games are really as far as I dipped into the EU.

Do you think they'll give all characters Dark Side Undergarments like Bastila? It was an amusing detail at least.

P.S. open worlds are overrated, rails are fine as long as they go to a decent ending.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm a big fan of KotOR and I'll probably play this when it comes out. A friend badgered me into playing FF XIV, and my biggest takeaway from it is that the difference between the base game and the DLC shows just how much the industry's understanding of good plot and level design has advanced over the years. KotOR is a fantastic game that holds up quite well, but there's a lot of changes that could be made.

Imagine if the maps were more like Skyrim. Imagine if the space combat sections involved dogfighting mechanics. Imagine the game not stopping you every five minute to let you know Carth is brooding in the corner. Imagine if Taris actually felt like a city, with huge crowds of people bustling along instead of small crowds of people endlessly standing on their marks waiting to trigger their one scene. Imagine if the force powers and item upgrades from KotOR 2 were available in the first game. Imagine dialogue trees with more varied and subtle options, and a timer to keep you thinking on your feet. Imagine next-gen graphics so visually descriptive that Bastila's disappointment in you reaches out of the screen and slaps you. Imagine if the "influencing allies through actions" system from the sequel was implemented in the original. Imagine if enemy positioning and tactics switched up as a the situation deteriorated. Imagine how the landscapes of alien worlds could come to life all over again. Imagine if the first Malak fight was hard enough that it doesn't ruin immersion when the story insists Bastila has to sacrifice herself to save the rest of you from him. Imagine if the combat allowed you to move while you attacked or used a force power, instead of making you wait two seconds because you scooched a couple feet to the left to attack that other guy. Imagine if you could seduce your allies to the dark side over the course of the game. Imagine if T3-M4 was viable for any part of the game other than the 30 seconds immediately after you purchased him. Imagine if you could date Juhani properly. Imagine if you could date HK-47.

But while there's a lot of great changes that could be made, the more that's changed, the more they run the risk of accidentally gutting it and tossing out the stuff that made the game so classic. It's a thin line to walk. >.<

[GloatingSwine]

The point that Sith shouldn't be a thing is an interesting one. I don't know if I agree, but it does somewhat contribute to a recurring problem in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (before and after Disney nixed the old one) - that throughout millennia in this huge galaxy, it always comes down to these two groups of people in robes, slicing each other up with lightsabers. This has little bearing on KOTOR, though, which is going to involve those two one way or the other. And my way of enjoying Star Wars involves not thinking about it too hard in any event.

Yeah. The obsession with interminable conflict between Jedi and Sith (and later on with the doings of the same half dozen people who are all related to each other) has forever been the problem with the Star Wars EU. Instead of a broad galaxy of adventure with all sorts of different things possible within it just gets smaller and smaller with each passing instalment confining the perspective to fewer relevant characters.

[MCerberus]

Yeah. The obsession with interminable conflict between Jedi and Sith (and later on with the doings of the same half dozen people who are all related to each other) has forever been the problem with the Star Wars EU. Instead of a broad galaxy of adventure with all sorts of different things possible within it just gets smaller and smaller with each passing instalment confining the perspective to fewer relevant characters.

Side note, this is why I don't like Mandalorian s2 as much as s1.
It wouldn't be so bad if civilization never learning its mistakes were tied into the important thematics of the setting (like Fallout), but honestly the reason these things keep sticking around is that people love the aesthetics of it so much. And I mean, yes, the original ILM prop makers were geniuses at their craft, and Revan's mask is totally sweet, but Star Wars writers have seem to be beholden to include all the cool stuff without asking why.

[Aeson]

rails are fine as long as they go to a decent ending.

I don't entirely agree. The trip has to be at least passable or it won't be worth it to force yourself to the end of the game, and if the trip's good enough then a bad ending can often be forgiven.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't entirely agree. The trip has to be at least passable or it won't be worth it to force yourself to the end of the game, and if the trip's good enough then a bad ending can often be forgiven.

Okay, sure, the journey has to be nice as well. But I'm more against this idea that an open worlds is the right way to do things. There's a lot to be said for a linear structure, I'm not even sure using the planets you visit in KotOR being in a set order would be an issue (I like tackling them in different orders, but don't think it's necessary).

Bare in mind that I think the worst part of Dragon Age Insisting was the move to Skyrim style Maria. Open Worlds just aren't my thing.

But yes, a good journey can make up for a mediocre ending. But I think that only holds up to a point (which seems to be three games).

It's like tabletop RPGs, a boring open worlds is less fun than a well crafted railroad but the ideal is probably somewhere in the middle.

But honestly, seeing calls for actionised Cindy and open world Maria disappoints me. It's calling for making KotOR into the Standard AAA Games, as flawed as the original gameplay was at least just doing a graphical update will stand out. And if it sells well it'll show that there's a decent market for more linear, closer to turn based CRPGs.

*Not that it hasn't been shown by PoE, Tyranny, Torment: ToN, and the Pathfinder games.