Knights of the old republic

[AD Polanski]

Have just started playing this, i think its cool how Malak's ship shows some ideas of the SDs, and how the Ebon Hawk bears an uncanny resemnblence to the Coreilian Corvette...

I think its a great game! KoTOR 2 should hopefully be good too...

[Russell]

Out of all of the Star Wars games I have played, I have to say that this one is was my personal favorite. Even though I generally prefer standard action games over RPGs, it still provided an unbeatable Star Wars feel, many nice little additions that made it more interesting such as having your own vessel to travel end, and an excellent and original storyline that always made me want to keep playing and find out what was to happen next. You don't need a bunch of direct tie ins from the actual movies to make an outstanding story.

As for the sequel, I hope that it is at least as good as the orginal, and preferably better. However, I do seem to be having my doubts due to changes in the development teams, although it is much too early to be making any judgements yet. We can only wish for the best on that one, though.

[Jacob Jansen]

I have it as well. I do like it, but it dose not seem like starwars to me. I don't know. I have yet to finish the game.

[Splatter]

i've played it and it was great. i'm just playing it again as an evil jedi

@pol: later in the game there will be ships from the republic that look very similar to a corellian corvette, just the front part is turned 90°
but look for yourself

[Starbug]

It's a brilliant game, with an excellent story line. The creators deserve full credit for their hard work. It's little wonder that a galaxy plagued by so much war hardly advanced in technology, especially when so much was dedicated simply to annihilating the enemy.

Centuries of warfare would have the effect of disrupting the infrastructure to a point where technological advancement is negiliable, thus why things have changed so little over the thousand years.

[Syrtaras]

One of the best games I've ever played, if not the best. It has everything you want a game to have: An awesome storyline with tons of side trips and a few minor and one major plot twist; cool places to go to (don't you just love Kashyyyk?), interesting characters, very good character and RPG stat development, an intuitive interface, humor, romance, action - you name it, it's got it. Rated A++ in Syr's book of excellent computer games.

Starbug: To me, it does not make any sense at all - the most significant scientific progresses on Earth *always* took place during major wars. Just think of World War II and everything that was invented because of it. And that technology later proved to be useful in civilian areas, as well. And even though there was hardly ever a war that was more destructive, look at how quickly everything was rebuilt. Even in the beginning of the 1950s, Germany was already doing quite well again. And in the Star Wars galaxy, it's not like there's war all the time, everywhere and at once. There are little periods of peace in between - enough time to rebuild a lot and find a use for the new inventions that had to be made during the time of war.

Ah, but I am ranting again. I'll just leave these two cents of mine the way they are and go back to IRC. Or SWG. Or... somewhere. I dunno. Anyway - off. *zip*

[V2000]

I finished it (with both sides of the force , but with the dark side first )
It's a really cool game.

[drazhar]

Played it and passed it as light side. Will do the dark side soon. Also got Far Cry, and UT2004. plus still plugging away at Operation Flashpoint (best game in world, bar none)

[Legume]

I'd like to elaborate on what Lord Starbug said about technological stagnation:

Firstly and foremost, I'd like to clash with his point that warfare slows advancement to a halt. Say that to world war 2: RADIO. That was a HUGE breakthrough, which altered millenia of warfare. Also, the Cold War made some of the most profound tech breakthroughs in human history. Yes, we had the atomic bomb, but the hydrogen bomb is hundreds, or even thousands times more powerful. Not only that, but the invent of the ICBM gave nations the ability to throw these bombs across the earth without waiting hours for bombers to fly over the target. EMP is another example, even if it isn't used very much today. Yet these inventions were created in some of huanity's most dangerous moments. How is this possible, if warfare slows breakthrough?

It doesn't.

Warfare only retards science IF the war is so brutal that the nations no longer have the ability to research or devellop. Very few wars qualify, since most sane human beings never let war drag on that long. The Sith War, I believe, does not. Yes, planets were taken and Jedi slaughtered, but nowhere was there evidence of resource shortfall on a catastrophic scale, or total warfare (ie, civilians targeted).

I offer alternatives to the obvious SW technological stagnation (and yes we know its stagnant, since even in the Old Rep, they had Interdictor technology, a rare sight even in the New Order)

Firstly, and least plausible, is that humanity has discovered all there is to discover, in the time of the Old Republic. All they can do is build ships a little bigger, a little faster. Nothing revolutionary. (Which we *probably* know is false, since we've seen cloaking technology in the Thrawn Trilogy, for which there has been no mention in the Old Republic)

Secondly, that the Old Republic has been in total warfare, to the point where they do not have the ability to research or devellop new tech. I've addressed this earlier, and besides, in Episode 2 they talk of how the REpublic HAS no army or navy, since they don't need it. Obviously, no devastating wars.

Thirdly, and most probable (in my humblest opinion) is that Lucas really can't make better tech for SW in the future, since anything more (like the ability to destroy solar systems light-years away by farting) makes the Galaxy so different from us, today, that we can't feel for the characters or the situations, that it just becomes weird... too much (Can you say, Dragonball Z?)

Oh yes, and KotOR rules. I love my purple twin-bladed Dark Jedi.

[Starbug]

We're not talking about short periods of war though. By all accounts in the time of Knights of the Old Republic, there has already been one massive war prior to this current one. Given the greater destructive capacity of these wars (one only has to recall the orbital bombardment by Malek's fleet), and factor in one war after another, it's not difficult to see a "dark age" of sorts covering the Galaxy.

I agree that in recent times, war hasn't stunted technological growth, and has often helped it along. But one only need imagine Hiroshima's on a greater scale and the longer term damage this could cause.

This is the only reason I can think of for the seemingly little technological advancement in the 1000 years between Knights and Phantom Menace.

[Syrtaras]

4000 years. And while the destructive powers of the weapons systems may be greater, the effect on "a thousand thousand worlds" would be even less than that of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki, never forget Nagasaki) on our little planet.

As for the periods of war - we do not really know how long they are. If you read books on Earth's history, it seems as if our ancestors went to war constantly. The 20 years of peace in between are merely footnotes. I suppose the same could be assumed for the Star Wars galaxy.

[Starbug]

4000 years, much longer than I thought. Aw well, scrap my theory then.

So what does explain the lack in progress?

[Broliv]

By lack of progress what do you mean? Lack of progress scientifically? economically? or socialally (ie art (literature is an art) ect.). Its probably because the learning curve for new things to discover had petered off especially compared with our own civilisation. At the moment we are an aspiring civilisation. When comparing ourself to anything near the starwars universe. Just look, we've only just begun space travel to a limited extent in the last 40 years. Yet we're still using combustion engines to generate all of our power. We still use turbines in power stations. We've only just discovered fission in the last 10 years and only now are we perfecting it. Progress is slow. Yes during wars emphisis is put on new technology. But what if the technology that they have has been taken as far as its posssibly capable of being taken. Just imadgine 4000 years to progress one something that works perfectly well anyway becuase of the previous 4000 years spent developing it. Your trying to compare our feldgeling civilisation to a civilisation that sprawls across an entire galaxy. Which isn't even real, but that don't really matter

[Starbug]

Fission... I thought we had been doing that for longer than 10 years.

Purchance do you mean Fusion? And I hadn't heard we'd gotten that working in practice at the moment.

Gwynn

[Vortagh]

If you people want to know why techonolgical achivements stagnate, read Dyson's "Imagined Worlds".

Technology stagnates, because of government control for one thing.
A Government declares "X" as new standard and everybody works on it.
That is bad - why? Because you need "evolution" in research, to make sure that the best solution is found.
Who says in this case, that "X" *is* the best thing to do? Correct, politicians. How much does the average politician know about technology? Correct, pretty much nothing.

History has proven this theory over and over again.
Look at the R101 airship. A politician decided that this airship is the best thing and ordered it built. The result? Lots of dead people and airship usage went down.
Look at first british jetliner. The government decided that this one design would be best and, despite protests of engineers, orderd it to be built because THEY wanted to have the first jetliner. Result: hundreds of dead people and Boeing ruling the skies for a long time.
Look at nuclear power. Government decided that a few selected types of reactors are to be Standard (TM). Result? People hate nuclear tech, allthough it is one of our greatest achievements.
And while you are at it:
Look at fusion. Somebody decided that the Tokamak fusion reactor is to be standard. There are other concepts that are supposed to be better, but why change? It would cost money and governments have been promising cheap energy for decades!


Back before the end of World War II, the german airforce sent out a little book with "have to's" to all aircraft designers in Germay, asking them to develope a plane (fighter, bomber, etc) with everything that is written down in these "have to" booklets. Then the best design was chosen and that company got the contract.
Today, the government, not the air force, decides on a company, tells them "we want a fighter, do it!" and they get to work on it. Then the government pays their contract and gets the plane, regardless if it is good (F18 for example) or sucks heavy ass and is a desaster (F101 Starfighter for example).

If you really want to read into this, get the book I mentioned earlier.