[Jason Vines]

Given the success of the Knights of the Old Republic series, a sequel sometime down the road seems assured. What do the KOTOR fans here want for this game? Here's my wish list:

• Implement a new graphics engine. The engine for Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, The Sith Lords, is beginning to look old. Give us graphics and environments that wow us as a Star Wars game should.
  
• Don't start the game with a beginning character. Fighting our way up from a weak, unskilled newbie is starting to get boring. Let us play as Revan again, and do what Boulder's Gate 2 did: Start us at level 30, with awesome skill sets and Force powers already. We should be able to pick dark or light alignment at the outset, although that shouldn't determine our alignment for the whole game.
  
• Bring back Mandalore/Canderous, Bastila, HK-47, and T3, with Bastila as a member of your party again.
  
• Don't rehash planets! Dantooine and Korriban were the most boring segments of KOTOR II because we'd already seen those planets in the first game. Show us planets that haven't appeared in the KOTOR series before, at least for the major quests. I'm hoping Coruscant will be one of the new planets.
  
• Finish the game! Don't rush to meet an arbitrary deadline. Take time to give people a game they'll love.

[Bondo]

Perfect the bane of all RPGs: make it open ended yet story driven .

Increased character interaction, both with the team and among NPCs. And technical wise, much bigger (and yet more cohesive) environments. Expansive planets with larger, epic quests would be ideal. And differentiate the storyline more with branching paths. You could even reduce the number of planets, but make them GTA style with backtracking from planet to planet and I'd be happy.

And make an Ithorian Jedi. We need those.

[iamspen]

I'd like to be able to fly my ship or a fighter or something. Include a full-blown flight sim mode for space battles. After all, if you're going to assume the role of a space warrior, space battle is to be expected.

And find a way to create levels that don't need to load every three to five minutes.

[Joshua]

More with Revan! I was really irritated when I found out KOTOR 2 wasn't following him and bastila... They had an excellent story line at first, and I found that while it rushed through things in the end, it still maintained a solid, flowing plot line. I also wanted to see more happen between Revan and Bastila. Yeah, I know romace in video games is kind of sad, but at the same time it was a welcome break from the typical RPG that completely ignores such things. Having the main character get involved with one of the NPC's just made the plot more complex and intruiging.

I'd also like to see more types of weaponry, and more attack anims. I got a little bored watching it just cycle through 3 or 4 animations in the first one. Sure, the blocking and parrying spiced it up a bit, but really you were seeing the exact same thing every sword/lightsaber battle.

[Jason Vines]

Joshua said:

I'd also like to see more types of weaponry, and more attack anims. I got a little bored watching it just cycle through 3 or 4 animations in the first one. Sure, the blocking and parrying spiced it up a bit, but really you were seeing the exact same thing every sword/lightsaber battle.

While they're at it, they could increase the variation in the NPC's as well. Seeing a bunch of people on different planets who look alike saps realism from the game. In an FPS, this wouldn't be as big an issue, since you're too busy fighting to get a good look at the life-forms. But that's not the case in an RPG, where you spend a lot of time looking at characters' faces.

iamspen said:

I'd like to be able to fly my ship or a fighter or something. Include a full-blown flight sim mode for space battles. After all, if you're going to assume the role of a space warrior, space battle is to be expected.

I could live without that; I'd rather whoever makes KOTOR 3 focus on improving the RPG experience.

iamspen said:

And find a way to create levels that don't need to load every three to five minutes.

I suspect that would tax RAM more, which would be a big issue even on the XBox 360, where KOTOR 3 will probably make its debut appearance.

Bondo said:

And technical wise, much bigger (and yet more cohesive) environments. Expansive planets with larger, epic quests would be ideal.

Hear, hear.

[Joshua]

That reminds me of something from the first one that bothered me... I don't know if it's in the second one, but they reused a lot of alien sounds for completely different sentences at different points in the game. You'd have a twiilek saying something about a quest, then later in the game you'd have another twiilek saying something completely different, but you'd be hearing the same sound file.

[Bondo]

Alright, after careful thought, more stuff to add:

More customization where it counts: multiple pieces of armor: At least two per character, perhaps a skinsuit and armor for soldiers and two piece Jedi Robes. Each has upgrade slots and different abilities. Also you get a bonus upgrade for each combination of armor. Upgrades are more than one size fits all: instead of one mesh overlay, etc... make several with different effects.

Make goggles less hideous looking. Make helmets for soldiers, and unobrusive things for Jedi and others. Alternatively, make jedi robes with hoods on them.

Make multiple crystal combinations: have defensive, offensive, force power, and special ability crystals. Make them gain in strength with your character.

Destructible envrionments: rip parts of the wall out with the force, or shove enemies through the walls.

Larger planets: instead of giant planets, have several small environments linked with Ronto/dewback/tauntaun/bantha/speeder travel minigames or random battles. So you can have a largish port city, and then travel to several distant outlying areas: chasms, waterfalls, deserts, cavens, forests, trading posts, hideouts, swamps, mining facilities, farms, huts, tundra, temples, ruins, front line defenses, lakes, rivers, bridges, exotic farms, mountains, hills, creeks, cricks, grottos, plateus, steeps, spires, causeways, junkyards, nomadic camps, treasure coves, fortresses, etc... where action takes place and where quests are resolved. Also, meet brokendown travellers, bandits, and ambushes on your journeys.

If you have ordinary swords, make them interesting looking. Make your party members more maleable, so you can make them what you want: For example, let the wookie have his Crossbow without having to break the character. Sacrifice party members along the way.

Experiment with a system that makes violence lead to the dark side, or make this a quirk of the counsellor class.

[Jason Vines]

Bondo, on Feb 25 2006, 09:14 PM, said:

Upgrades are more than one size fits all: instead of one mesh overlay, etc... make several with different effects.

Make multiple crystal combinations: have defensive, offensive, force power, and special ability crystals. Make them gain in strength with your character.

KOTOR 2 already has those elements. As for the latter, the original KOTOR has such upgrade crystals, though KOTOR 2 expands on them. In the second game, you can even get a lightsaber crystal tied through the Force to your character; its effects change and expand based on your character development.

Bondo said:

Destructible envrionments: rip parts of the wall out with the force, or shove enemies through the walls.

That would be awesome. On later character levels, they could even give you the ability to tear down a small building with the Force, if you pool together your Force potential with that of two other Jedi party members. Of course, if they implement that, then they should pare down the number of team members who start as Jedi. Players would have to use a KOTOR II-esque influence system to convert team members into Jedi.

[-Oz-]

I want character-specific quick saves. So that when I start a second character to play on, and I quicksave on it, I don't get thrust back to my first time on Telos with my main character!