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Just to sum up: Obsidian is a professional gaming company with a large staff of programmers working full time on games. The TSLRCM/M4-78 modders are a handful of hobby programmers working for no pay in the spare time, meaning that both time and resources are very limited. Oh, and naturally they have to deal with code they didn't write themselves, which doesn't help any. Also, Obsidian didn't rush anything. If anyone did, it was Lucasarts. TSL was given a 13 month development cycle, an almost ludicrously short time for the sequel to a major CRPG. Then Lucasarts decided to cut about two months off that already short time span more than halfway through the project, so they could push the game out in time for christmas. Feel free to complain about the unpolished state of the published game. In my book there is cause to do so, as long as people point the criticism in the right direction.

Not really as response to this per se so much as saying that it brings up the thought of new games. And in regard to games, Disney owning Star Wars is probably not a good thing. For years LA pursued the business principle of games that they would release only so many Star Wars games over the season, because they didn't want their published games to compete against themselves. To me this seems to have been one reason why we never got KotOR3, because while the KotOR3 project was cancelled before the release of TSL, it was a viable option for LA to pick the title up again later... Except that by then it would conflict with other Star Wars games planned for release, and I think that kept pushing KotOR3 back until its release would have conflicted with the planned release date for The Old Republic. With Disney owning Star Wars, this actually gets worse, because Disney presumably also doesn't want to release games that compete with each other for the same customers. Now, games with Mickey and/or Donald probably won't compete for the audience of, say, Force Unleased 3, so that probably won't be a problem. However, Star Wars games could very well be seen to compete with games based on Marvel superheroes, which suggests to me that Disney would probably want to coordinate the release of such games for the same target demographic to not happen simultaneously. If that is a correct assumption, we can almost certainly look forward to less Star Wars games being published in the future.

Those are adult movies?!? Not saying that the Star Wars movies are, though. Certainly the tone of the movies won't need to change much, but morally ambiguous stuff like KotOR2 seems totally out of the question to me now. Disney just doesn't do stuff like that. Apart from 'nuking the fridge', I still don't understand why people hated that movie so much. To each his own. However, I find the idea of ever seeing KotOR3 now to be completely wishful thinking. It's gone, killed off to make way for TOR. Disney obviously can't be blamed for that, but I don't seem them reviving KotOR. Sure there are terrible things in the EU universe, but it seems rather harsh to throw out all out because there was bad stuff. Remember, the Holiday Special was the early days of Star Wars... Ha. I might ask you the same question

Sure they can. They haven't yet announced that they will totally retcon any and all Expanded Universe material out of existence, so it won't conflict with these new movies, for example. Not to mention Mickey Mousewalker, Duck Solo, Goofbacca, and Scrooge McDarth... Certainly this is a coup de grace to Star Wars material about moral ambiguity such as KotOR2. I mean, who can seriously imagine a character like Kreia in a plot produced by Disney? Yeah, that'll happen... Nope, I fear the evil corporate empire has taken over: "The last rudiments of the old republic have been swept away!"

Right. But no time limit, and all the way up to level 50. Bioware seems to be still weighing the details, though, as the list of limitations keeps changing. I could have sworn a bunch of stuff was restricted only a week ago, but the FAQ was down for several days, and when it came back up, it seems about the only restriction is that free players can't do Operations. Ever. But most of the rest is either with a few restrictions or with limited access on a timely basis (only so many flashpoints per week, etc.). Restrictions: http://www.swtor.com/free/features From the FAQ: More info here: http://www.swtor.com/support/helpcenter/6449 Personally, even though I've been a hard critic of SWtOR, I fully intend to play at least once it becomes completely free to play. They still say it's during the fall, which might be as late as November 30. Until then I might consider the free trial to at least get started. For now I'm just contemplating the requirements of the free trial vs. free play. I'm wary of how much EA infringes on my privacy with regards to data-mining. Then again, even though the details of the free play option are unavailable, I doubt they'll be less infringing than the free trial...

To each his own. Personally I absolutely HATE the return of Darth Maul. Not because I dislike the character, but I hate how these shows just won't let anyone die. Ever. The guy was CUT IN HALF, for crying out loud! But surely that's not enough to kill him... I mean, where is the credibility? If he can survive that, then what can't supposedly dead characters in Star Wars survive? After all, how long can it be now before they do an episode where Jango Fett turns out to be alive despite having had his head chopped off?

Here's my theory: Darth Revan, after finding the Star Forge, knows the Jedi have a refuge built on Telos, and he wants it destroyed as a signal to the Jedi that there will be no place to hide in the Jedi Civil War (as per Kreia's cut line in TSL). He intends a strategic strike against against the hidden Jedi Academy to make his point. However, he tells this to Malak, who instead performs a full bombardment of Telos. The point of this theory is that it makes Kreia's cut line true, but still retains the point in K1 that Malak bombarded Telos, not Revan. Thus, Carth should not direct his anger at Revan. Which is what I feel is necessary in the plot. After the bombardment, but well before KotOR1, Revan then has the HK factory built in the ruins of Telos. As Kreia points out, much can be hidden in a graveyard, which was probably Revan's thinking (which Kreia would understand well as his former master). And bear in mind that Revan had the HK factory made and the HK-50 units produced, but never activated. That seems to have been G0T0, who probably discovered the factory while he was the chief admin droid at Citadel Station.

So we're not even allowed to express our opinion on the use of HK-51 in TOR?!? Well, I'll shut up then. I certainly would like being censored...

TOR really needs to stop trying to steal from KotOR. Why can't LA and Bioware get it through their skulls that they already alienated that crowd away to the point where anything TOR tries to do is hated as a matter of course? Honestly, it's not that difficult to grasp. So, I'm a kotorian and a great TOR skeptic. But from what I've seen and heard about TOR, it's actually a fairly playable game as MMORPGs go. But it seems the parts of the game that are absolutely the worst are when it tries to steal from, or "pay homage to", the KotOR games. Most of what I hear of the gamet isn't so bad, but Revan's role is plot is absolutely terrible. They messed up Revan, then the Exile, then HK-47, and now they're going to ruin HK-51, which wasn't even canon... Man, eight years ago I would have called Bioware fantastic storytellers. How the mighty have fallen... Now they're down to pimping out cut content written by Obsidian. It's just sad. Not that Avellone's cut stuff wasn't good. Only trouble is Bioware can't write it right, because guess what? They're not Obsidian

Nah, we also need at least a mod that resolves and brings closure to Bao-Dur's fate.

Very nice and a definite improvement over the earlier versions. If I were to split hairs, I'd say there are now too few close ups, so you cannot see the pain and fear on Tobin's face. But I assume that is because changing the angle more than is done is problematic, in which case this was the right choice.

Another obvious example would be Atris' lines on Malachor V, which are now impossible, since she can now never become Darth Traya. Not that I mind, as while she could be a Darth Traya, I don't see how or why she would have taken over Kreia's quest to destroy the Force, which is the primary incentive for the Exile to go to Malachcor V. But the lines are there and even has VO.

Well, who would have built it later given that it was known only to the Jedi? And with what resources? But otherwise I agree - Malak gave the order, but it was probably Revan's idea.

Who can tell who really ordered the attack on Telos. Canderous might have said what he did, because he simply didn't know any better. The same can be true for Kreia, since she apparently had no contact with Revan during the Jedi Civil War. More likely she assumes targeting Telos was Revan's choice, because it plays to her sense of strategy, which she would probably not associate with Malak. On the other hand, while Kreia's line that Revan attacked Telos did not appear in vanilla TSL, I would have interpreted it as a retcon or revelation (or both) if it had. Canderous may say everyone knew Malak ordered the attack on Telos, but how do we know Revan wasn't involved in that choice? Revan was Malak's master at the time, after all. I do think it's fair to say neither Revan nor Malak took part in the attack on Telos, though. It was carried out by Saul Karath. Because if it wasn't, then the plot of KotOR1 falls apart - the bombing of Telos is precisely the thing that Carth blames Karath for doing. If you mess with that, that plot thread begins to unravel. In fact, I could imagine the following scenario taking place: Revan is aware of the "back-up" academy on Telos, so he tells Malak that the jedi are cowardly building an academy on Telos to retreat to if things get rough. Revan then adds that they should probably attack this place some time to make the point to the jedi that there will be no place to hide from Revan's Sith Empire (this is the point Kreia makes in the cut VO). Malak remembers this, when he is uncertain of Saul Karath's loyalty to the Sith, so he orders him to take a fleet to Telos and bomb it as a demonstration of his dedication.

Remember that Nihilus obviously wasn't at Telos when Tobin told him about the alleged jedi academy there. So he could hardly have sensed it. And even at Telos, he might be doubtful, since Telos was only supposed to have an academy of presumably students with limited strength in the Force, whereas the gathering on Katarr was one of jedi masters as well as an entire planet full of force sensitive Miraluka.