[Trouble]

Before I get too far into this, there are spoilers.

I did not like Knights of the Old Republic.

{In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't actually play the game. I watched someone else play it.}

I really felt the whole thing was just a retelling of the original trilogy with different pretties on it. Yeah, the outer packaging was different, but the over all story was the same. If you play on the "Light Side", you have to redeam someone who falls to the Darkside. You have to destroy a big mega-weapon. IIRC, there's the whole "too old" argument, much like the one Yoda argued in Empire.

On top of that, why has technology not advanced any significant degree by the time the movies began? I seem to recall most of the technology being very similiar to that in the original triology.

I just got frustrated with the whole thing. I know my friend is playing it through again going evil and making different choices, but I just didn't care enough to watch it a second time.

I know a lot of people loved KotOR, and I'm actually very curious as to why that was.

[Chefelf]

Well I really loved KOTOR. I can understand your point. I'm not saying that the plot was the best plot ever but for a video game I thought it was pretty great. It was fun to talk to all of your teammates and learn about their pasts and also I enjoyed building up my Force powers.

I'm not really a fan of RPGs so I was leery at first but it really won me over. Plus (to avoid giving a spoiler) the plot twist well into the game caught me by surprise. Didn't see that coming at all.

I rather enjoyed it. It is my favorite Star Wars game so far.

[Vwing]

Well I really like it, I think I've already spent like 30 hours on it and I'm not even trying to beat it, I just love all the little side missions . I'm not a big fan of RPG's either, but the addition of Star Wars and what I think is a very intriguing storyline and entertaining presentation sucked me in too, really fun and addictive game.

[Chefelf]

Yeah. You can spend so many hours doing all the side missions. All in all I spent about 50 hours on the game my first time through and I didn't do all of the misisons (but probably about 90%). Who knows how many other little missions I missed.

[njamilla]

Not into SW games much because they basically rehash old stuff. And I'm not very good at the 1st person games. But I think one of the most boring things about franchise games is that they're very limited in how much the game designers can go. They are required to remain within limits, not to expand in a completely new direction. Contracts and money make it so.

LFL won't let contractors go wild with SW for fear it won't be SW enough. On the reverse, what would happen if one game that deviated from the films caught on so much that LFL couldn't take credit for it? That might actually be the case for the new Clone Wars cartoon.

In the fan film business, LFL won't allow alternate SW stories to compete in fan film competitions because it threatens their copyright control. Fair enough. Another possibility is that a good fan film might actually be better than the new movies and get a following of its own. Imagine if Quentin Tarrantino (who I like and hate) made his own SW film. It would get so much notoriety and publicity that it might actually compete with EP 3 for attention.

I've asked myself why Doug Chiang left LFL at the end of EP 2. I don't know if there were politics involved (prob there were since people generally don't leave cushy positions in which they're happy) but it's now clear that he gets complete freedom to develop his own ideas in his new book which will have computer game to accompany it.

Fear of losing control. In the end, it all comes down to maintaining the bureaucracy. I don't beat GL up over things like the refusal to include the original version of SW in a film festival because there are so many legal advisors who are protecting LFL under recognized, standard, and accepted legal schemes.

Play in someone else’s universe, you follow their rules. Create your own, the sky’s the limit.

[Chefelf]

That is very, very true. However creating your own universe is a lot harder and doesn't pay as well. That's the main problem with it. That's why 3/4 of every Sci-Fi section in every book store is made up of Star Wars, Star Trek and even Babylon 5 books.

[njamilla]

Let’s face it, marketing to a known and predictable audience is the surest bet for making money. But it probably won’t win you a prize for great literature, even within the much maligned genre of sci-fi/fantasy.

If you want to be a cover band all your life, you’ll keep tapping an audience which expects a certain sound. If you want to rock the world, you have to challenge your art which in turn will challenge the audience and perhaps make you famous (or at least earn enough to make a living doing what you like most).