Let's twist MCA's words until they don't sound retarded

[The Feral Kid]

By cinematic I didn't mean the non-stop actionry-clickfests-interactive-movies Bio has been producing lately but a game where the subquests are deep and rewarding, lots to do and plenty places to go, and the story is coherent and fluent, rich and expansive but without ever being overwhelming or losing focus.

And sure the IE had to be abandoned, I meant continuing and enriching their games with similar gameplay elements much like what DA looked to be initially.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

DA looks like a damn doppelganger at this point.

Obsidian can be looked at the same way as Guillermo Del Toro: Hellboy every once in a while, but then again also stuff like Pan's Labyrinth.

 

[-Pavlos-]

Stop talking shit. Unlike, say Valve, they gave full explanations and backstories to all of the characters instead of pretend creativity by leaving everything unanswered. Nor did you just kill them and went off to your merry way. If you would remember correctly, both Sion and Nihilus had amazing, unsurpassed dialog both before and after their death.

Is that so? So if the characters where so well-explained and complete why did you say "Tell me you didn't want to find out more about Nihilus or Sion or that you didn't want to meet other jedi for their answers." Is it me or you sound a bit unfulfilled? And sure you went on your merry way after encountering them. As much as you would after killing any random enemy.

European sense of paradox vs. American sense of explaining everything.

Regardless of your nationality, you'll fall into one of the traditional categories. I enjoyed Mr. Nihilus' ambiguity. The fact that he has very little screen time and very little personality makes him seem like an unstoppable force rather than a human and I gather that this was the intent.

Naturally, it could have been done better than a few dialogues with Kreia, Visas, and the Jedi Masters (all of whom ramble about "What happened at Katarr" or "He is uber-powerful!!!111") but it worked reasonably well without further expansion.

 

[Azarkon]

Say what you want of Sion, Nihilus, and Kreia, but compared to Malak, they're literary masterpieces.

 

[Volourn]

No.

 

[OccupatedVoid]

Yes.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yes.

 

[Lesifoere]

Yes.

This.

 

[Bucknasty]

TSL>KotOR 1 IMO for this reason. The characters were more Tragic and I enjoy that in a story.

 

[Volourn]

"The characters were more Tragic"

No. they were more fake, though.

 

[Bucknasty]

Not really... there was much more feeling behind them. Canderous took a turn for the worse, I'll give you that, but aside from that many of the heroes were the "Tragic Hero that we see in Mythology" types. KotOR 1? Mission bitched like a stereotypical brat, Zaalbar wasn't developed outside of Kashyyyk, Carth whined all the time, Bastila was stereotypical "I am holier than thou" and a very weak character. Malak was a shitty villian because his only motive was "I want to destroy". I would rather have what you call "fake" than what was barely served up in the first game. Jolee was a good character, though. He made me giggle.

 

[Gnidrologist]

"The characters were more Tragic"

No. they were more fake, though.

What's the difference, really? They were fake as in they were faking they're tragic state. It's not like they didn't believe in their own fake tragicness.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Not the Chris Avellone needs me or anyone else to defend him or his work, but there is a difference between writing dialog for a companion or NPC, and creating and designing the companion or NPC.

In the case of NWN2, many designers created and concepted the companions and NPCs.

For example, a minor (though AWESOME) NPC in NWN2:OC was Ribsmasher. J.E. Sawyer created the concept for him based off of a character from Pool of Radiance, yet is was Jeff Husges that wrote the dialog for Ribsmasher.

It really is a team process, as cliche as that sounds.

 

[Volourn]

Fake in ther sense that they weren't believeavle. You say Mission (not my favorite character) was your steroeypical 'brat'; but in fact that's what makes her believeable. A young girl who went through what she has should be somewhat 'bratty'. Though, I don't think she was as bratty as some think she was.

Malak wasa good villain because BIo didn't pretend he was soemthing he wasn't unlike Kreai who Obsidian pushed a sbeing deep and complicated when she was just as simple as Malak. And, no, Malak wasn't just about destorying. He was about power. Destruction was his tool to gaining that power.

Kreia: "The Force is evil. It must be destroyed."

*yawn* Not deep. Not tragic. Not real.

Not saying most of the KOTOR characters were deep. Mission, and Malak were shallow. But they were infinittely more real and believeable than the majority of KOTOR2 - most of which are so unmemorable I cna't even remember. Even the ones I actually liked. Kreia is the only memroable character from KOTOR2. I make fun of her a lot; but she's a pretty good character in her world. The sad thing is, after her, the quality of the npcs drop fast. Just look at the two bounty hunters espicially the female one who reminds me of Annah with her "I had sex with my dad and now have issues with i"' storyline. L0LLIGAGZ!

 

[Lumpy]

Kreia: "The Force is evil. It must be destroyed."

*yawn* Not deep. Not tragic. Not real.

Yeah, but it was pretty cool at the end when you fight through Kreia's evil minions, then destroy her evil force-destroying machine, ending her life as well and crumbling her evil plans.
Oh wait, that's not what happens.

Just look at the two bounty hunters espicially the female one who reminds me of Annah with her "I had sex with my dad and now have issues with i"' storyline. L0LLIGAGZ!

Oh for God's sake Volourn. Is this a running joke or something? Where the fuck is it stated that Annah fucked Pharod? It's not said, it's not even hinted at. What the hell?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Just look at the two bounty hunters espicially the female one who reminds me of Annah with her "I had sex with my dad and now have issues with i"' storyline. L0LLIGAGZ!

Oh for God's sake Volourn. Is this a running joke or something? Where the fuck is it stated that Annah fucked Pharod? It's not said, it's not even hinted at. What the hell?

Secret fantasy?

 

[spiwak]

I like how now that MoTB has come out, people are attempting to justify KOTOR2 and the NWN2 OC. Admittedly, I've never played KOTOR2, but even when it was Obsidian's only game, people were bashing them as being Bio part 2. Now that they've released one good game, everyone is revising their opinion, in order to keep the hope up and make it look like Obsidian is anything other than a mediocre company that got lucky once.

I can't speak for everyone on this forum, but I've personally thought ever since playing it that KotOR2 was better than KotOR1. Once I heard about the restoration project, I realized the game probably would have been really special, had they finished it.

EDIT: I actually just finished a KotOR playthrough a few minutes ago, and while it's fun and able to engage for the whole game, some of the writing is just plain bad. Bastila's constant flip-floppery towards the end makes the whole dark side-light side thing seem really disingenuous. Not to mention that you could suddenly turn evil in one conversation despite everything you had done to that point. It's a cheap way of implementing an over-all cool feature (being able to choose your alignment through actions). I plan on replaying KotOR2 now, and I guess we'll see if it's any better... if my memory of it holds, it probably will be.

 

[Bucknasty]

Fake in ther sense that they weren't believeavle. You say Mission (not my favorite character) was your steroeypical 'brat'; but in fact that's what makes her believeable. A young girl who went through what she has should be somewhat 'bratty'. Though, I don't think she was as bratty as some think she was.

Malak wasa good villain because BIo didn't pretend he was soemthing he wasn't unlike Kreai who Obsidian pushed a sbeing deep and complicated when she was just as simple as Malak. And, no, Malak wasn't just about destorying. He was about power. Destruction was his tool to gaining that power.

Kreia: "The Force is evil. It must be destroyed."

*yawn* Not deep. Not tragic. Not real.

Not saying most of the KOTOR characters were deep. Mission, and Malak were shallow. But they were infinittely more real and believeable than the majority of KOTOR2 - most of which are so unmemorable I cna't even remember. Even the ones I actually liked. Kreia is the only memroable character from KOTOR2. I make fun of her a lot; but she's a pretty good character in her world. The sad thing is, after her, the quality of the npcs drop fast. Just look at the two bounty hunters espicially the female one who reminds me of Annah with her "I had sex with my dad and now have issues with i"' storyline. L0LLIGAGZ!

Stereotypes don't make characters believable. They make you go "I've seen this so many times that I would really care to have this character around" and that leads to Mission, Juhani(very forgetable), ect. getting left in the Ebon Hawk in favor for characters like HK-47(hilarious), Canderous(he was relatively unique), and Jolee. T3-M4 wasn't even developed period until TSL.

Kreia, if you took the time to gain influence with her, actually had reasons for hating the force. She argued that most that used it were ignorant bastards that had shunned her for not following them blindly and making some think differently then them. The only character that could be deemed somewhat forgetable in TSL was Bao-Dur(who was one of my favorite characters), mainly because of the big mystery surrounding his fate at the end. Atton was done farely well, I won't argue if you say that his story was too fake or complicated. I don't feel that way, but I could see if someone else did. The Disciple(if you were female) was an extremely rushed character and was only good for some plot points on Revan. Handmaiden(for guys) was done very well in my opinion and I enjoyed dueling her. Canderous was a bit butchered from the last game and they made him look like a bitch, which I didn't appreciate. G0-T0 is forgetable unless you're able to find all the clues that lead to the revelation that he is really the driod that went missing on Telos.(But I'm rambling, so I'll stop going on about the characters).

Onto Malak... Destroying in the way he presented it is virtually the same as power. He was thoughtless and just cared about staying on top. That has been done by almost every bad guy ever and there is absolutely no depth to it. Especially when you factor in the fact that he was a bitch who fired on his master's ship to become the Sith Lord.

 

[DraQ]

I propose that Volourn's title should be changed to "Font of Wisdom" (can also be "Wisdum" or "Wisdumb", I'm not sure).

 

[Azarkon]

Malak was shallow.

Yes, but more importantly, he was cliche and generic. You could have a memorable yet shallow villain if you present him well (ie Kefka in FFVI), but Malak wasn't presented well. He did nothing that a thousand Big Bads before him didn't already do. Nothing set him apart.

By comparison, Nihilus was an even shallower character. There's nothing remotely "deep" about his personality - all he does is "consume worlds." But the way he's presented - traveling in a ruined Star Destroyer, a wound in the Force, a shadow of the Exile's own emptiness, a mysterious, monstrous force, and yet "just a man" in the end - that made him memorable.

I look back and genuinely want to know more about Nihilus. I already know all there is to know about Malak and in retrospect did the moment I saw him, since he never got beyond the "LOLZ IM AN EVIL BASTARD" part. That's the difference between a good character and a generic one.

 

[kingcomrade]

Did they seriously create a villain named Nihilus who is all-consuming?

 

[Bucknasty]

I agree with what you're saying about Nihilus. I think I prefered Sion to Nihilus, just for his story(in the end). His end dialouge was one of the most memorable things about the game for me. Seeing the shell of a man finally give into letting himself go after all that time was a nice end for him.

 

[Gragt]

Why not writing a fanfic love story between Sion and Nihilus? It'll be Codex approved.

 

[-Pavlos-]

Kreia: "The Force is evil. It must be destroyed."

*yawn* Not deep. Not tragic. Not real.

Define what you mean by 'tragic'.

Onto Malak... Destroying in the way he presented it is virtually the same as power. He was thoughtless and just cared about staying on top. That has been done by almost every bad guy ever and there is absolutely no depth to it. Especially when you factor in the fact that he was a bitch who fired on his master's ship to become the Sith Lord.

"You were the one who found the first Star Map on Dantooine, Revan. [cough] It was you who lead us on our quest for the Star Forge. I only followed in your wake. I tried to usurp your rule, to steal the title of Sith Master from you. But now I understand... The destiny is yours, Revan. Not mine. You... you are Darth Revan, Lord ... [cough] Lord of the Sith. And I... I am nothing. And so it ends as I somehow always knew it must: in darkness."

OR

"I... I cannot help but wonder, Revan. What would have happened had our positions been reversed? What if fate had decreed I would be captured by the Jedi? Could I have returned to the light, as you did? [cough] If you had not led me down the dark path in the first place, what destiny would I have found?"

The idea is that the player is personally responsible for Malak's fall. Malak is brainless, a mindless follower and I guess you could call that his Aristotelian fatal flaw if you wanted to pin classical definitions of tragedy on KotOR. He's supposed to be a megalomaniac who wears spandex and has no personality. His choices and persona are all driven by Revan; the player. He is a drone and a minion who gets greedy and decides that he wants more. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the IQ points to do so. Which leads to his eventual defeat...

You have to consider intent when dealing with plot, rather than just dealing in 'What I would have done'. BioWare obviously intended to and succeeded in creating a brain-dead villain. Whether you like brain-dead villains or not is beside the point.

 

[Azarkon]

Which is why Revan, and not Malak, is the memorable one among KOTOR players. But like I said, it's a matter of presentation: the purpose of Malak was to instill a sense of responsibility in the player for having created him, much as the TNO was supposed to regret the suffering his previous incarnations wrought. However, in the case of KOTOR I could not really conjure any sort of sympathy for Malak (because of his utterly cliche presentation) or for Revan's previous crimes partly because of that. In this case, Malak is one of those characters who really could've used a deeper, more nuanced portrayal, but didn't get one because Bioware was keen on making the game "just like the original movies." Perfectly understandable, but not really conducive to memorable villains given that we've seen it all before, and done better (ie Vader).

So all in all, I agree with your points (ie that Malak needs to be seen in the context of the story). One might argue that KOTOR was ultimately a man vs. self story disguised as a heroic epic, but leaving the flaws of the game vis-a-vis that purpose aside, it still does not speak highly of Malak as a villain - except in this case, as you argued, his deficiencies might have been on purpose.