Thoughts on the KOTOR Remake Announcement

Yesterday I woke up to my Twitter timeline going wild - a remaster of the original Knights of the Old Republic had been announced! I have to admit it was great fun to see people get super excited about this, even if it didn't mean much to me personally.

Long-time readers might remember that I never played the original KOTOR back in the day - I just worked my way through the mobile port a few years ago and documented my experiences with it here on the blog. I did like it well enough then - issues with bugs and opaque mechanics not withstanding - but it wasn't the same sort of foundational RPG experience that it seems to have been for many people nearly twenty years ago.

I can see why the idea of a remake would be appealing to Disney - it's both an opportunity to cash in on the nostalgia from older fans while also introducing the game to a whole new generation of gamers. While the original is technically still playable and I found it decent fun, it definitely doesn't have mass market appeal in its current, dated form - but a remake would change that.

It's worth noting though that this is a remake, not a remaster - so it's likely that we'll see more than an update to the graphics and the addition of some quality of life changes. Aside from that we don't really know what exactly to expect though, as the trailer was basically just a shot of a photorealistic Revan and there is no release date yet.

I can certainly think of a lot of ways in which they could improve on the original without changing the core of the game too much: making the combat less rubbish, giving the player character a voice, fixing the bugs that persisted even in the mobile port (such as being unable to negotiate with the sand people on Tatooine), allowing the player to respec their character, adding a greater variety of NPC models, and so on and so forth.

Yet there's also risk in all of those things: First off, there are probably people who liked the original combat, but even if everyone were to agree that it sucked, I'm sure we've all got different ideas about what would constitute "better" combat. Heck, I could even see simple graphical updates be controversial in some way - the original KOTOR was very limited by the 3D of its time, but does that mean that photorealism is the only logical option for a more modern version? I can already hear the complaints that Bastila isn't attractive enough, or that a realistic rendition of Juhani looks kind of uncanny.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade by saying these things - I'm sure the devs will give it their all and hopefully it will turn out to be a good game. Just... if you're one of those people for whom the original KOTOR was an important part of their formative years, maybe don't get too hyped up? Even if it turns out to be a good remake, playing it probably won't feel quite the same as it did back in the day.

Oh, and for some reason this has once again brought up the question of whether KOTOR will become canon instead of Legends material now. Personally, I don't really see why it would? The remake will be a new product, yes, but not a new story (or at least I wouldn't expect them to change the story in any major ways, considering that it's always been the game's major selling point). It strikes me as similar to the release of a new audiobook for an existing Legends novel.

I suppose you could theorise that going for a remake over a remaster would be the perfect opportunity to "canonise" KOTOR if Disney wanted to, though considering how far the story is set in the past compared to the movies, I don't think it would have had any clashes with any of the new canon material to begin with? Some people just obsess way too much over canon vs. Legends either way. Most major science fiction or comic book franchises like to spin off into alternate timelines and the like at some point or another, but I've never heard of people getting too upset about that. Maybe they are and I just don't know about it.

Anyway, will I play this when it comes out? Maybe. I liked the original and the ability to make different choices should make it quite attractive to replay even without any major changes to the story. However, my ever-present inability to muster up the enthusiasm for a single-player game when I could be playing an MMO remains...

Let's Talk About... Secrets of the Enclave

This post has been sitting in my drafts for literal months, mostly thanks to Galactic Seasons sucking all the air out of the room when it came to my writing energy, but I knew that I'd come back to it eventually. SWTOR's story updates are just way too much fun not to write about them!

I had to think a bit about how to structure this post, because technically the 6.3 story update is extremely easy to sum up (spoilers incoming by the way, if you don't want to read any of those, get out while you can): Your faction finds out that Darth Malgus is doing something in the old Jedi enclave on Dantooine, so you follow him there with two companions, but as it turns out he's already gone. The end.

However, while reducing it to that single sentence is truthful, it's also kind of unfair. It's truthful because, well... it's strictly true, and you could argue that this update's biggest major weakness is that it doesn't really move the plot along very much, if at all. But it's also unfair because not every piece of story needs to advance the plot in leaps and bounds - it's okay to focus on other things sometimes - and what Secrets of the Enclave does do is provide major insight into at least four secondary characters, feature lots of KOTOR fan service, the return of two known (if minor) SWTOR characters that we hadn't seen in ages, more information about Malgus' current status, and a bit of an update on how our faction and the Alliance's relationship with it is coming along. So I guess these can be my sub-headers for this post or something.

First I'd like to note though that Secrets of the Enclave sits in a funny place in terms of faction split, in the sense that it's kind of the same story but at the same time it isn't. Strictly speaking you hit all the same notes along the way both as a Republic and as an Imperial player, but since you're coming at things from a different background and with completely different companions, it actually feels quite different as well. The closest existing piece of content that I can compare it to is probably Korriban Incursion/Assault on Tython, where the gameplay is identical for both factions but it obviously evokes quite a different feeling depending on whether you're attacking or defending. Secrets of the Enclave has a lot more dialogue that either of those did though.

Your guides along the way

Let's start with the friendly faces that assist you throughout your journey to and inside the Dantooine enclave. There's an interesting behind the scenes interview with writer Caitlin Sullivan Kelly on the official SWTOR website in which she explains why she chose the characters she did to accompany the player in this flashpoint, but in short each side needed someone with a connection to Darth Malgus and someone who could provide a bit of exposition/history about the enclave.

On Republic side, the former position is held by Aryn Leneer, who actually kicks off the mission to the enclave for both factions (Imperials are inspired by having captured some footage of her testimony to the Republic). Her connection to Malgus is that he killed her master during the sacking of Coruscant (he's the poor chap that Malgus offs at the end of the "Deceived" trailer). Back then she tracked him down to get revenge and they duelled - a fight that she lost, though she was spared for reasons. Not gonna say any more; if you want all the details, go read Deceived, the book! In SWTOR we first encountered her in The Task at Hand last year, where we saw her sensing Malgus coming to Dantooine (where she'd settled with her family) and freaking out about it. Apparently this cumulated in her finding him at the enclave and alerting the Jedi about his presence, which is why you're being approached to hunt him down. Aryn comes along as your guide and struggles with her emotional connection to Malgus along the way.

Your other companion on Republic side is Arn Peralun, who was introduced at the start of Onslaught as Tau's new padawan. He has previous experience fighting Malgus by your side in the Objective Meridian flashpoint and he also seems to enjoy reading up on things as demonstrated by his intro on Onderon. Here he shows that he's also read up on Jedi enclave on Dantooine and provides historical context for what happened there. Honestly, I quite liked him in that role. I felt kind of "meh" about him on Onderon and Mek-sha as he seemed a bit too defined by his trauma and insecurities, but it's fun to see him come into his own, clearly emboldened by his time with Tau.

On Imperial side, his role is filled by Darth Rivix (also first introduced in The Task at Hand), for whom I guess it makes sense to gather a lot of knowledge considering his ambassadorial role, though your other companion keeps expressing a mix of bemusement and suspicion about just how knowledgeable he appears to be about Jedi business. As I mentioned in my first post about Secrets of the Enclave, the animators also did a great job with his facial expressions, from subtle eyebrow raises to slight smirks. He's not all smooth talking though... if you make the light side choice after defeating the second boss, asking Rivix to let him go, he goes ahead and kills the guy anyway, something that will make my Sorc very suspicious of him going forward!

Your connection to Darth Malgus on Imperial side comes in the unexpected form of Darth Krovos, whom we first met during the intro to Kuat Drive Yards more than seven years ago (gosh, I hadn't realised she's been around such a long time) and who's been making small reoccurring reappearances since then but hasn't exactly been fleshed out a lot. In this story update we learn that she's known and respected Malgus for a long time, and she does in fact plead his case with you, expressing the belief that regardless of what it may look like, Malgus is sure to still have the Empire's best interests at heart and to keep that in mind when it comes to dealing with him.

I really enjoyed what Bioware did with all four of these characters. The studio's always been good at writing believable and amusing party banter, and I found it particularly fun to listen to the exchanges between Rivix and Krovos - you don't get to hear Sith interact in what you could call an amicable manner very often! On Republic side, I already mentioned that I liked seeing a different side of Arn.

Aryn's dialogue had the heaviest lifting to do since this was the first time we interacted with her in game, and you can't expect people to instantly care about her just because she was in a novel, but I felt that it was done well. The grizzled veteran coming out of retirement to protect their loved ones is a common stereotype for male heroes, but seeing a female fighter in that role is more unusual, plus here it was also coupled with a certain vulnerability as Aryn admits at the start that she realised while following Malgus that she's in no shape to stand up to him on her own the way she did when she was younger.

KOTOR fan service

The flashpoint takes place in the abandoned Jedi enclave on Dantooine, a location that features in both KOTOR games... need I say more? I can't actually comment on the KOTOR II stuff too much as I haven't played it but would still like to at some point, so I didn't want to dig through spoilers too much if that makes sense. The dialogue makes reference to the events of the first KOTOR as well though, which I did get!

This is all pretty cool but has limited relevance to the story we're being told in the flashpoint. I'm kind of hoping it's not just gratuitous fan service and it will turn out that Malgus's plan has at least a vague connection to something that was brought up in this context.

Surprise cameos

There's not just fan service for KOTOR fans, but also for long-time SWTOR players in the form of cameos from two minor characters that we haven't seen in a long time. Personally I always enjoy these, because if you don't remember them it's not a big deal and the story still works, but if you do it just adds that little bit of extra flavour.

On Republic side the final boss fight is against none other than Captain Colonel Golah of the Imperial Reclamation Service, whom Imperial players will remember as one of the quest givers for The Thing Czerka Found on Tatooine. There's a nice callback to his cordial relationship with the late Darth Silthar as he basically complains about how the Sith nowadays aren't what they used to be. In general he sounds a lot more bitter than he was back then, and you get the impression that he's definitely seen a lot of nasty things in the meantime (even beyond the events of that mission on Tatooine I mean).

Meanwhile Imperials face off against none other than Leeha Naarezz from the Jedi knight class story, and here too it's obvious that the events of the past have left a mark on her, though she still employs her personal pet droids.

What's Malgus up to?

As mentioned in the introduction, Malgus is actually already gone when you arrive, though you learn that he managed to steal some kind of artefact. He also claims during a sort of echo/vision to have broken his chains unlike any Sith before him, and... he makes it very clear that he wants you dead, as he apparently counted on you (as in, the Alliance Commander) to come looking for him and laid a trap for you. You escape of course, but the intention is quite clear.

As a Republic player this isn't exactly surprising, though I was a little disappointed to find out that he feels no differently about you if you're a (former) Imperial. Why do you hate an Imperial-aligned Alliance Commander so much, Malgus? I get that you'd hate the Emperor or Empress, but don't you care about the Empire itself? And we got along so well on Ossus... I feel that my dreams of a renewed Malgus team-up for Imperial players are pretty much dashed at this point. And it's also a shame in-character, because it feels like age hasn't made Malgus any wiser and he's pretty much repeating the mistakes he made on Ilum by discarding even the possibility of certain people (aka the player character) coming around to his side and actively forcing them into opposition against him, which will likely end up becoming his undoing this time around as well.

Still, Krovos sends you a letter afterwards in which she basically says that she still has faith in Malgus, even after he tried to kill you all, so make of that what you will. She may just be wrong, but it would be cool if that turned out to be an angle that players could pursue further.

The thing is, we still don't know what exactly Malgus is up to beyond freeing himself from Vowrawn/Acina's control. Being a lone wolf with no help (as we learn during the flashpoint, he even ditched the medical droid), what can he really hope to achieve? And how does he feel about the Empire and its citizens at this point? I look forward to finding out.

The Alliance and the Republic/Empire

The mission debrief for Republic characters involves a holocall with important people in the newly rebuilt Jedi order, one of whom is Tau and another Master Sal-Deron, someone who Imperial defectors would already be familiar with. A new Nautolan called Master Vinyor Tesh is also introduced and shown to be very suspicious of outsiders. The Jedi are definitely presented as being more cautious in their rebuilding efforts, and quite a far cry from the proud and public role they took during the game's base storylines.

Imperials catch Rivix chatting with Acina and revealing some more details about Malgus stealing a book on Ossus. I actually thought it was pretty hilarious how scared Rivix looks when you walk in on him. I hadn't even thought he was doing anything suspicious talking to the Empress without me in the room, but he looks like you just caught him doing something really naughty. He reassures you that there'll be no more secrets between the Empire and the Alliance, but if he also disobeyed your order during the flashpoint there's definitely a bit of suspicion there, just in case previous chats with Rivix left you feeling a bit too trusting of him.

In summary

I think all of that should give you a pretty good idea of why I loved this story update even if it didn't advance the plot very much. It's packed full of character development and lore, and that's just something that SWTOR does really well. I'm looking forward to seeing where this story goes next, though we might not find out yet in the next update, considering that there's also the plot thread with the Mandalorians still going on. Then again, the expansion has Sith in the name, so who knows? Either way it's good times for SWTOR story fans.

I Read The KOTOR Comics

Back in September I had the opportunity to attend Stockholm Comic Con, and while browsing one of the booths there I found Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Old Republic Volume 1 on a shelf. (And you thought that SWTOR written out in full was a mouthful!) "Neat," I thought, "that must be that SWTOR comic series I remember hearing about" and bought it.

I was wrong and apparently the SWTOR comics are a different thing, as the series collected in this volume actually takes place in the KOTOR era, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment. Also, it still has some relevance to the game as several Cartel Market outfits were inspired by ones worn by characters in the comic for example. So I'd look at certain images and go...

Hey, that's the chest piece my Sentinel is wearing!

Or: Hey, that's the set Cal's Sage used to wear!

That was kind of amusing.

The comic itself was also entertaining enough, and I liked it enough to buy the other two volumes from Amazon.

The story is set during the Revan era, and s/he even makes several appearances as a shadowy figure, with the comic leaving his/her identity unclear as it was still respecting the fact that every KOTOR player had their own unique Revan. We get the backstory of the mysterious mask of Revan too.

The main story was interesting enough on its own as well, though it had its ups and downs. There were parts that were very good, but others were fairly mediocre.

I quite liked the main character Zayne Carrick, a Jedi who has a slightly awkward and uncomfortable relationship with the Force and who slowly learns how to deal with it over the course of the series (while pursuing other objectives).

The secondary protagonist and main female character Jarael left me feeling a bit disappointed: While she started out strong, she quickly became way too passive, mainly serving as an object for other characters to obsess over, which struck me as quite a shame.

The art was a bit of a mixed bag - I'm neither an art critic nor a comics connoisseur but I honestly wasn't that impressed by a lot of it. The worst thing was that the artists and style often changed quite drastically from one arc to the next, from pretty realistic to highly cartoonish. The former sometimes struggled to deliver the more humorous moments appropriately, and the latter was mainly used in an arc that was clearly meant to be quite dark and serious, leading to a horrible clash between tone and imagery.

Still, overall I can recommend this series. The writing is about on par with some of the better Star Wars tie-in novels (of which the author has also written several), so definitely worthwhile if you're into that sort of thing.

The REAL Differences Between KOTOR and SWTOR

... as perceived by a long-time SWTOR fan who had never played KOTOR until recently. Does that title still sound click-baity enough?

To get the obvious out of the way first: KOTOR and SWTOR belong to two different genres: single-player RPG vs. MMO, so of course they are going to be different in that respect. However, the single-player part of SWTOR has been labelled as basically being KOTOR 3 by both players and devs (I think Bioware even called it "KOTOR 3-10" once, because of the eight different class stories), so it only seems fair to take a closer look at that comparison.

1. Combat / Controls

My very first post about playing KOTOR on my tablet contained a lot of whinging about the controls. Just moving around was a pain, inventory management was a nightmare and so on and so forth, though I'm not always sure how much of that was the fault of the mobile port and how much can be traced back to the base game. I do feel confident in saying that the combat plays out very differently than in SWTOR though.

SWTOR is based on "classic" MMO tab-targeting combat and while that's not everyone's cup of tea (it does seem to be going out of fashion as of late), it's tried and true for a reason. While I think that the massive, game-wide nerfs applied in 4.0 have diminished the fun of combat somewhat because things die too quickly now, the general concept of having lots of different buttons to press in different situations is fun.

KOTOR on the other hand works with a sort of hybrid turn-based, real-time combat system, which is to say that you can just let it run or pause at any time to give new instructions to your character and your companions. I suppose your mileage may vary in terms of which combat style you prefer, but personally I thought that the combat was definitely KOTOR's weak point, mainly because it's just strategic enough that you can't simply let it proceed in real-time, but way too simplistic to make planning your turns any fun. For example there is no restricting factor like "energy" for non-Force special attacks, so there is basically no reason to ever use an auto-attack... but for some reason all your characters will want to perform them by default all the time, so most of your combat management is spent cancelling auto-attacks and forcing your party to perform specials instead, which is just tedious.

2. Different Freedoms

In general, whenever I see people complain that SWTOR isn't enough like KOTOR, their main issue seems to be that SWTOR is too restrictive and they feel like their choices don't really matter. Based on that, I half-expected KOTOR to be a wildly open game... but it wasn't. In fact, there was still a very strong plot thread that you have to follow and which I'm confident you can't deviate from, even after only having experienced one playthrough. You always start off by having to rescue Bastila Shan (which you can only do by winning that swoop race), Taris always gets destroyed, then you have to train to be a Jedi, then you have to hunt down the different pieces of the star map and so on and so forth.

What KOTOR does do better is granularity of choice when it comes to how you want to achieve certain things. I thought the Sith Academy on Korriban was a great example. You have to impress the head of the academy to get to the tomb with the star map, but there are a multitude of options to gain favour with him and you can pick and choose the ones that would suit your character best. Inside a single conversation there are often also several different options for what to say: do you want to try to be persuasive, intimidating, reasonable? SWTOR limited itself in that regard from the start by adopting a conversation UI that doesn't allow for more than three conversation choices at a time. When SWTOR gives you a choice of how to tackle a certain situation, it simply comes down to doing the nice thing or the evil thing most of the time, with no in-between.

From a mechanics point of view, KOTOR also allows for greater character customisation as you go along, what with the different skills, feats and powers you can invest into opening up a huge amount of possible permutations.

However, I dare say that KOTOR doesn't give you more freedom across the board. For example, it doesn't really matter what class you pick at the beginning, the story quickly turns you into a Force user. I suspect that for many this doesn't really matter because a Jedi/Sith is all they really want to be, but for me, one of the big appeals of SWTOR was that it wasn't "just another Jedi game". While the recent expansions have somewhat gone back on that promise of an experience tailored to different roles, at least the base game genuinely lets you experience life in the Star Wars universe as a trooper, smuggler, agent or bounty hunter. Or a Jedi/Sith, if that's what you want - but it's not the only option.

Also, in terms of geography, SWTOR offers so much more real estate to uncover and play around in. All the planets in KOTOR are pretty tiny and I don't remember a single area that wasn't obviously just placed there for quest purposes. I found this particularly striking on Tatooine, which is absolutely vast in SWTOR, but encompasses only a tiny couple of areas in KOTOR.

3. Streamlining

I've almost always been against the kind of thing that certain critics describe as the "dumbing down" of MMOs, but playing KOTOR really gave me a new perspective on this because parts of it are just too damn opaque for my liking.

I suppose you could say that KOTOR is more true to the roleplaying roots of the genre in the sense that it's less gamified and there's more "real world logic" going on. As an example, there are no "trash drops" from mobs like rakghouls or kath hounds, because realistically, nobody would want to buy stuff like broken rakghoul teeth. On the other hand, if you kill a Dark Jedi, you generally get to loot his lightsaber and gear. SWTOR leans much more strongly on modern MMO conventions here, where you can farm anything for money but you can't usually count on getting anything exciting from it.

Now, the above didn't actually bother me, but there were other things in this category that did. When SWTOR launched for example, I remember them making a big deal out of the fact that you would not be at a disadvantage based on whether you made light or dark side decisions. I didn't quite understand why that was even a concern, but KOTOR quickly made me see why: If you go down the light side path in KOTOR, you get royally screwed over in terms of money, which can turn certain points in the story where you are supposed to pay x amount of credits to proceed into real roadblocks. Meanwhile, dark side characters are free to rob, steal and extort every step of the way and it pays off. I even found guides that recommended that you always go dark side at the start of the game, regardless of your plans for your later alignment, just because it's too much of a pain to progress during those early levels otherwise. Now, that may well be "realistic" but doesn't make for a fun experience when I'm playing the game to live out my fantasy of being a goodie two-shoes Jedi.

Likewise, while I found the combat itself pretty tedious, the underlying stat system is reasonably complex. There are several different types of damage types and resistances for example, based on the Star Wars d20 tabletop game as far as I'm aware. The problem is, without having read the rulebook for that, how it all works is frustratingly opaque. I remember getting a piece of armour that said it had x amount of resistance against frost. But what exactly does that mean? That I have an x% chance of resisting a frost attack? That I always resist x frost damage each round? How many opponents even do frost damage? How do I know how useful this is? To this day I'm not sure why certain pieces of gear suddenly made my Force powers unavailable. "Restricted by armour" is a frustratingly vague explanation. Was there a manual supposed to come with the game that explained all of this?

This is all taken to eleven by the character builder. As mentioned above, the fact that it gives you lots of choices can well be seen as a positive, but you can also make a lot of "bad" choices here, and you won't necessarily know how bad they are until it is too late. The prime example of this was my frustration with the final boss fight - I had built my character largely around stunning, healing and support, which worked just fine as long as I had my two companions with me, and even when I went up against that duo of terentateks on Korriban while on my own. But then I was thrown into the final fight where I suddenly would have needed a Force attack power - which I didn't have, with the result that the final fight was, while not completely impossible, incredibly hard, long and tedious. It was bad enough that I honestly considered quitting the game there, even though I had come that far already. Putting the player into that kind of position - a situation which is completely different from anything that came before and where all their choices up to that point can suddenly turn around and bite them in the butt - is very bad design in my opinion.

TL;DR: While SWTOR may well have taken streamlining a bit too far for my liking in some areas, personally I appreciate that it makes it impossible to ever end up with a character that is too seriously disadvantaged to progress. The biggest thing that you can do wrong in SWTOR is press the wrong buttons for the situation - but that is something that is easy to correct at any time. Also, while some might be annoyed by the fact that you can't reject or kill companions early on, you also can't lock yourself out of a companion story by accident - I didn't complete a single companion's arc in KOTOR largely because that is possible in that game.

4. Style

While both KOTOR and SWTOR are set in "the Old Republic era", SWTOR takes place about three hundred years later and has a somewhat different feel to it in some respects. For example I explained in this post how the Sith Empire comes across both as a bit more reasonable but also somewhat less interesting in KOTOR than in SWTOR - I would say it's a matter of taste which portrayal you prefer, as both have their pros and cons. The Republic doesn't really get much screen time in KOTOR other than to show up for space battles - if you are interested in how things were run during that area, SWTOR offers a great opportunity to explore important Republic planets like Coruscant and Corellia to get a feel for what things were like there.

Side missions in both games also follow slightly different formats. I've seen SWTOR get accused of "having too many boring fetch quests" compared to KOTOR, but this comparison strikes me as unfair as none of the side missions in KOTOR are really very deep either. The main difference to me seemed to be that the KOTOR side quests almost always relied on some mystery: "Where is X?" However, this wouldn't have worked for SWTOR since people are used to modern MMOs telling them exactly where to go. The Search for Shasa would have been a lot less intriguing if the moment you picked it up a map marker had told you exactly where to look. Instead SWTOR mostly opts for missions where the quest giver knows at least roughly where to go but can't do the job themselves because the environment is too hostile or whatever. Ultimately however I didn't feel that this made the two types of side quests feel all that different - they still have little to no connection to the main plot and mostly serve to give you an idea of what else is going on on any given planet.

Story?

In terms of overall writing, it seems to me that SWTOR is a worthy successor to KOTOR. I enjoyed playing through the latter even more than a decade after its release and with the main plot twist having been spoiled for me. It hits many notes that are "typically Star Wars" while occasionally veering into slightly clichéd territory, though that doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment too much. If you want a similar experience in SWTOR, you can get this either via the Jedi knight or the Sith warrior story - depending on whether you want to be a good or a bad guy. You just have to make up your mind about which side of the fence you want to be on from the beginning - while you can be an evil Jedi, you'll still remain a Jedi regardless and can't suddenly go join the Sith. KOTOR could (presumably) afford to let you go off to rule the Sith at the end if you wanted to, but only because that was the end of the game and they didn't have to worry about showing you what comes after. SWTOR is a continuously ongoing story, so there are certain limitations to how far they can let you veer off the main story rails. But as long as you go into that with eyes wide open, there is no reason you can't enjoy SWTOR's story as much as the original KOTOR (assuming that none of the gameplay differences mentioned above are absolute deal-breakers for you).

KOTOR: The End

At long last, after more than three months of real time and about 45 hours of game time (that's a lot of commutes!), I finished the original Knights of the Old Republic on my tablet! I think I'll probably still have a couple of posts about it in me, to talk about what I liked, what I didn't like, and how it holds up in comparison to SWTOR the MMO, but for now I simply wanted to wrap up with the details of how my Revan's journey ended.

After finally getting that last piece of the star map, I was off to the super secret star system that houses the Star Forge. As soon as you go there, you're treated to a little cut scene of Bastila being tortured by Darth Malak in an attempt to turn her to the dark side - even if I hadn't already known what was coming up, I think that would have been a sure sign that this wasn't going to end well for her!

The Star Forge system is full of Imps and the cut scenes that take place there actually look pretty cool even thirteen years later... space ships were comparatively easy to animate well with early 3D technology. Carth calls in the Republic fleet and you get pulled into another Sith fighter chase, which I once again survived with only a sliver of health left. Then your ship is forced into an emergency landing on the nearest planet because something is disrupting its systems.

While the planet isn't given a name in game, a veteran SWTOR player obviously recognises it as Rakata Prime. A funny touch: Remember that Gizka infestation that I picked up on Tatooine and that I refused to poison for XP? Well, on Rakata Prime they finally decided to disembark and started a new life hopping around the beaches. That amused me.

The Rakata you encounter in this period are split into two tribes. The descendants of the ancient warrior caste are primitive, aggressive and breed rancors as their pets. The so-called Elders, descendants of the priest caste, are holed up in an ancient structure and are a bit more reasonable, though not really by that much. Both of them have met Revan before and basically go: "Yo, you promised to help us last time you were here but then just ran off, you'll do better this time, right?" However, since the two tribes absolutely loathe each other, it's impossible to get along with more than one of them. I was quite disappointed by how the game wouldn't even let me attempt to engage in peace talks. The first time you knock on the door of the Elder compound, if you introduce yourself as being sent by the other Rakata tribe, they literally vaporise your entire party instantly. And once you return to the warrior tribe after having talked to the Elders, they instantly attack you because they saw you talking to their deadly enemies. Seriously, guys! As I was beating up the guy at the entrance I wanted to yell at him to stop because all I had wanted to do was give him the damn quest item he had asked for. People are so unreasonable. I do wonder what the "canonical" outcome of this conflict is supposed to be, as the Rakata you meet on Rakata Prime in SWTOR are also primitive, however they do have some Force users again, whose reintroduction was a pet project of the Elders.

Anyway... the whole reason you bother with these guys at all is that you need their help to enter the local temple to deactivate the disruptor field that's messing with the Ebon Hawk. Said temple is mostly a mini dungeon crawl, until the very end, when you're suddenly forced to do a sort of lights out puzzle with floor tiles. The moment I saw that I literally went "nope" and shut down my game for the day because there was no way I was going to figure that out on my own while on the train. I was completely rubbish at that quest in SWTOR too. Even after googling the solution, it still took me several tries to get it right because of how fiddly the movement controls are. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of the temple I picked up a few dark side points when I ran into a couple of Dark Jedi and greeted them with something along the lines of: "I am Darth Revan, bow to me!" I just wanted to see how they'd react! Why can't you see that I was only kidding, game?

Anyway, at the top of the temple you run into Bastila, who - surprise, surprise - has turned to the dark side. You fight and argue, but soon she runs off to escape back to the Star Forge. You have to give chase, especially as her using her special Force powers is totally wrecking the newly arrived Republic fleet's offensive. Some other Jedi are sent along with you to help you get to Bastila, but in good "nameless friendly NPC" manner they die quickly, so it's up to you and your gang to save the day.

Malak orders his men to throw everything they have at you... which leads to an interesting sequence of you fighting your way deeper into the Star Forge, with enemies streaming at you from all directions almost continuously, which I strongly suspect may be what gave Bioware the idea for all those skytroopers showing up out of nowhere in KotFE. The difference here is that a) while you're pretty powerful by this point, the hordes of enemies aren't complete pushovers and can still kill you if you don't pay attention, and b) it's obvious that you're on your way to the game's climax, so having to fight against what feels like overwhelming numbers seems somewhat justified in this context. The KotFE version just throws totally worthless enemies at you forever, even in the middle of chapter ten of sixteen, which is why it doesn't work the same way. Though in all honesty, I even found the KOTOR version kind of tiring after a few rooms.

Finally you find Bastila, who conveniently locks your two companions outside the room, never to be heard of again because that door remains locked even after the fight, for no reason. Once again you argue and fight, and since I was very much light side I kept trying to convince her to come back to the light too. It's kind of funny how she heals back to full after every "conversation break" - reminded me a bit of the end boss of Sith warrior chapter one and how you have to kill him three times over. However, my persuasion attempts seemed to go really well, as Bastila was acknowledging that there was still light within her and so on... just for her to do a complete 180 at the very end, insisting that we fight to the death. I'm not usually someone to reload an earlier save when things don't go my way, but that was just too annoying and befuddling. I tried again, choosing slightly different conversation options this time, but they only led to the same outcome: everything going well until the very end, when she suddenly raised her saber against me again and forced me to strike a killing blow. Somewhat annoyed, I took to the internet to look up a guide and followed the conversation options mapped out there to the letter... and voilà, suddenly Bastila was willing to convert. And to think that there was barely even any difference between that last attempt and my first one, except for one or two lines in the middle.

Since Bastila is a) hurt and b) needed to help turn the tide of the space battle with her powers, it's up to you to face Malak down on your own. Nope, forget about your companions behind that door. You do find Malak in the next room down the hall, and in one more chickenshit Sith move, he tries to get rid of you by programming the Star Forge to throw an endless amount of Rakata droids at you. This was actually an interesting segment because they spawn just slowly enough that I initially thought that maybe I could simply kill them all off, but after several rounds of droid killing and watching them respawn yet again, I realised that I had to manipulate some nearby consoles mid-combat to shut down the production line.

And then... finally, no more escape for Malak! The game's final boss battle is certainly interesting. He is a genuinely hard hitter, but more importantly he's got some half-dead Jedi stored in tubes around the room that he can drain for extra power, meaning that he takes the whole "heal to full" routine that Bastila demonstrated earlier up to eleven. Since I was struggling with that, I once again took to the internet and was highly dismayed to find that the most common advice seemed to be to destroy the pods with the Jedi in them to deprive Malak of his heals - except that they can only be killed with offensive Force powers, of which I had none except my stun, against which they were immune! What nonsense is this? Why won't my good old lightsaber do the trick? After dying repeatedly and running out of medpacks because the fight dragged on for so long I was close to despairing, but I took heart when I found accounts of other players in my situation having beaten the fight, and with a lot of running around and quick-saving I eventually prevailed. Malak died, the Star Forge was destroyed, and Revan and her companions returned to the Republic as heroes. What more can you ask for?

Too bad the odds for KOTOR 2 coming to mobile don't look too good right now. Early last year some news outlets speculated that it would be coming out "soon" after it was leaked that the game had received an ESRB rating which also listed it as available on various mobile platforms. However, since it's been one and a half years now and we haven't heard anything else about it, I wouldn't hold my breath for it for now.

KOTOR Adventures: Korriban Confusion

So: One planet left to go in my quest for the Star Forge, and it's Korriban. I intentionally left that one for last because the home of the Sith didn't strike me as the most welcoming place to visit as a freshly minted Jedi Padawan. Plus there was also that guy who warned me about Terantateks on Korriban and that they were very deadly.

Korriban was immediately both fascinating and confusing to me because it just felt so different. I get that KOTOR is meant to take place about three hundred years before the events of SWTOR, but in the Star Wars universe changes generally seem to happen at a glacial pace, and at least the Jedi seemed largely the same in their ways, except for the rank of Padawan being a bit more prestigious than I'm used to.

But the Sith were confusing to me from the start, because the first "Sith soldiers" you run into on the Endar Spire are clad in full metal body suits with faceless masks that make them look like metallic ninjas - quite scary to behold to be honest, but apparently none of them were actual Sith - they were simply regular ground troops. The Sith at the Academy on the other hand all appeared to be wearing what looked to me like ordinary Imperial uniforms, which is a complete inversion of what I'm used to from SWTOR.

The whole atmosphere is different as well - while the Sith code gets recited, there are actually people crowding the Academy, trying to get in as if it was some kind of elite university, and it's stated repeatedly that people are free to leave if they don't like it. Everything's almost... normal, which is what makes it so strange. The Sith Academy in SWTOR is a place where everyone wears dark robes, and an elderly overseer casually asks you to slay some monster around the corner, extract its skull and bathe it in blood to have your future divined (yes, this is an actual quest). In the Sith Academy in KOTOR, a tatooed purple Twi'lek calmly lectures you about the ways in which the Sith are superior to the Jedi, and your fellow trainees come across as spoilt frat boys more often than not, which is a stark contrast to the desperate souls fighting for their very lives every step of the way on SWTOR's Korriban.

Either way I was off to a great start when I ran into a young Sith tormenting failed applicants in public, asking me to choose one nasty "punishment" for them over the other. I asked him to let them go, and explained that he should listen to me because I'm Darth Revan. This resulted in him having a laughing fit and letting me have my way because I was so hilarious. Hmm.

On this planet, getting to the star map fragment involves passing through the Sith Academy, so you have to sign yourself up as a fallen Jedi. (There is, again, the option to just say that you're Revan and they should let you get on with it, but I'm not sure if that ever works - maybe if you're sufficiently dark side.) Inside, the Academy does evoke the same familiar feelings of an uncomfortable environment that I'm used to - a training room is dedicated to killing slaves and in an interrogation room you can torment a captured Mandalorian. I decided to pass on both. While there was also an option to try to help/free them, that didn't strike me as the best idea when I'd only just started trying to pass as a Sith.

Fortunately there were some more inoffensive options to gain some respect and XP: I killed a beastie in some nearby caves and helped a group of runaway students escape, then went on to plunder several Sith tombs. I'm surprised they had anything left in there to plunder by the time the events of SWTOR take place! I loved running into the crazed former head of the Academy there, who apparently decided to set up shop in one of the tombs and captured students for his insane amusement. Now that's what I consider proper Sith behaviour. Meeting the ghost of Ajunta Pall was interesting as well - I'd only ever read his name in context of all the evil he did, but his spirit was - unlike any of the spirits I met in SWTOR - very sad and full of regret.

Once you've gained enough prestige to have earned the head of the Academy's respect, he will get you ready for your final trial, which lies in the tomb of Naga Sadow. That place was no joke! It even made me play a round of Towers of Hanoi, and the system there was so unforgiving that two mistakes in a row would cause the ceiling to collapse and kill you. There was also a room with not one but two Terentateks in it, and I was super proud that I managed to best them on my first try, though it was touch and go and I was certainly on the edge of my seat throughout.

Once you've passed your trial and found the star map hidden in the tomb, the head and your overseer both show up to congratulate you, just to immediately get into an amusing game of trying to betray each other at the same time. You get to choose who you want to side with (if at all), and I chose to help the purple Twi'lek lady who had been training me, though as soon as we were done she wanted to kill me too. This is the Sith Empire's biggest problem: Survival of the fittest sounds nice in theory, but they just never know when to stop. I decided to be merciful, let her go, and then got the hell out of there.

All in all, Korriban was another planet that I really enjoyed. My only major disappointment with it was that I had stumbled across a mention of Carth having a companion quest there, in which it turns out that his son isn't really dead but has joined the Sith. Since I quite like Carth I wanted to do that of course, so I explored every nook and cranny of the area but found neither hide nor hair of the boy. So I checked a guide... and unfortunately, this quest only becomes available if you previously had Carth out at a certain time and in the right location back on Kashyyyk, which of course I hadn't, and you can't go back to unlock it later either. Siiigh. Either way, it should be time for the big showdown soon.

Playing KOTOR: The Big Reveal

So I thought that I had two pieces of the star map left to find but apparently there's nothing on Yavin IV except an almost empty space station... at least for the moment.

What's more important is that the next time I came out of hyperspace after Kashyyyk, I was captured by a Sith ship! I was quite engrossed by my companions' frantic discussion of an escape plan while the Ebon Hawk was slowly being pulled in by the tractor beam. You get to choose which of your companions you want to be the "dedicated rescuer" - and I'm really curious how that part goes differently based on your choices.

Personally I opted for Mission because she has a history of surviving on her own in tight spots. So instructed, she bit and kicked the Sith upon her capture, causing her to get put into solitary confinement while my character, Bastila and Carth were off to the torture chambers - oh yeah, did I forget to mention that our captor was Carth's old mentor, the one who betrayed both him and the Republic? You undergo some pretty harsh treatment at his hands and are told that Malak has found out about the Jedi enclave on Dantooine and wiped it out. Ouch.

Anyway, I thought it was very neat how you then get to play your rescuer - Mission in my case - as they put their plan in action. She steals a guard's key card early on and can therefore free herself easily but only has her undies on her. In a nearby crate I then found a stealth field generator, which was handy as Mission has the stealth ability. I never used it beforehand because it wasn't obvious to me how it worked, but a lack of any other abilities to distract me helped me find the right option quite quickly. Then stealthy Mission got to sneak around the ship, looted everything and freed her friends!

After a quick detour to the bridge where you deactivate the tractor beam and kill the traitor (involving a somewhat annoying and in my opinion unnecessary mini space walk), you are about to escape... when Darth Malak appears! And this is where the big spoiler happens. If you don't want any spoilers, why are you even reading this? Either way, you have been warned one last time!

As it turns out... you are Revan. Dun dun DUNNN. Yes, the big, bad fallen Jedi that everyone's been talking about with awe in their voices throughout the entire game... is you. I had been spoiled for this plot twist some time ago but still enjoyed seeing how it all played out. For example it was fascinating to see how the dialogue had been written in such a way to sound natural but at the same time avoid the use of any gendered pronouns when talking about Revan (though I caught Canderous' voice actor at least taking liberties with the script a couple of times and saying "he" when the text said Revan, which was obviously inaccurate in my case since I'm playing a female character).

Likewise, when the game allows you to ask questions about Revan on Dantooine, you are never allowed to bring up the question of his/her ultimate fate: Captured? Killed? But at the time that didn't seem too important.

Anyway, the story goes that Bastila and her strike team were sent to confront Revan, but before they could even get her (in my case), Malak decided to betray his former master and fired on the ship, causing Revan to get severely injured. The Jedi manage to save her but her memory is wiped. Placed under a new identity as a soldier under Bastila's command, the hope was that just enough of your old identity would remain that you would eventually remember something about the star forge, leading the Republic there and thereby providing it with the edge it needed to overcome the threat of the Sith Empire.

Malak stuns your two companions and duels you one on one, until Bastila manages to break out of her trance and distracts Malak so you and Carth can escape with the rest. There is another one of those space battles like the one that gave me so much trouble after Taris, but through frantic tablet tapping and what I can only assume was a minor miracle I managed to scrape by with a sliver of health left on the very first attempt.

All your companions are (understandably) quite stunned by the revelation that you are Revan and it's interesting to see their different reactions. Carth for example is immediately suspicious again, while Mission and Zaalbar stand staunchly by your side. HK even has the droid equivalent of a sudden epiphany, with his memory suddenly fully restored as he realises that Revan was the one who built him and that he couldn't be happier to be back with his original master. It's kind of interesting because while you might want to distance yourself from your past as Revan if you are playing light side like I am, people like Canderous and Juhani revere you precisely because you were Revan, making you toe a somewhat awkward line.

Either way, there's one star map fragment to left to find, and then Bastila will need rescuing again I guess. Onwards!

Playing KOTOR: Companion Interlude

After my last post about Kashyyyk it occurred to me that I should probably talk about the game's companions a bit more, as the companion system is one of the staples of any Bioware RPG and this is certainly true for KOTOR as well.

Carth Onasi: I did talk about him a little bit at the start and mentioned that he reminds me a bit of other slightly hapless-seeming Bioware characters, such as Alistair from Dragon Age, which is to say that he oscillates between being kind of cute and being annoying. He is super hung up on possibly being betrayed because his old mentor turned on him and now serves Darth Malak. If you get him to open up to you a bit more, it turns out that he had a wife and a son who died in the war too... well, the wife did, we don't know for sure about the son and I expect this will turn out to be a plot point later on. I'm kind of thinking that I would like to romance him if that's possible, but considering my luck with these things I probably already messed up my chances back on Taris when I told him off for calling me some stupid nickname.

Mission Vao: She's the other one I already talked about a bit, mostly to point out the similarities between her and SWTOR's Vette. She's just as adorable and often makes me think that merely being able to take along two companions with you when out in the world isn't nearly enough.

Zaalbar: Initially he was too quiet for my liking, but events on Kashyyyk have certainly endeared him to me somewhat.

T3-M4: I thought this little droid would be like T7 in SWTOR, but I haven't got him to say anything but "beep" to me. I guess that's more realistic than those beeps and whistles conveying half a novel every time (and my character actually being able to understand it), but it's also boring. The only time I remember him expressing an opinion was when I took him to the droid shop on Tatooine and HK suggested threatening the owner, which got a disapproving whistle (one droid telling another one off I guess).

Bastila Shan: I really liked Bastila's introduction, when she turned the damsel-in-distress trope so thoroughly on its head. After that she quickly became kind of annoying though, due to how preachy she is about what it means to be a Jedi and the dangers of the dark side. I think that in general people who like to play evil are way too quick to dismiss good characters as boring, stiff etc. but Bastila represents this cliché perfectly. Maybe she opens up a bit more if you play a male character. Either way I suspect that there will be some sort of reveal or change involving her nearer to the end to shake up that impression of the unshakable goodie-two-shoes a bit. She's probably like those religious people who are super judgemental of everyone around them to distract themselves from their own problems...

Canderous Ordo: He's a Mandalorian and I've stated repeatedly that I'm not a huge fan of them. Nonetheless I decided to take him out for a bit of questing after he joined me, just to see what he was like, but I quickly had to send him back to the Ebon Hawk because he was just such a jerk to everyone we met! Every conversation went something like this: "I'm so sad, I lost my daughter, sob..." "Well, should have taken better care of her then! Loser." His stories of the Mandalorian wars are interesting though, and I find it fascinating that Canderous paints a picture of the Mandalorians as a lot less concerned with honour and glory than I'm used to seeing in SWTOR. After all he betrayed his previous employer once he got bored of the job, and in his war stories he repeatedly mentions not feeling bad about the deaths of innocents - they just happened to be in the way and who cares. He's really kind of a despicable person but gets a pass from me for still being an interesting character.

Juhani: If I hadn't known that Juhani could become a companion, I would have killed her because by god is it the natural thing to do. She is a Jedi padawan who temporarily falls to the dark side after striking her Master in anger and it's your job to stop her or guide her back to the light. I really wanted to keep her alive because of my light-sided nature but it was hard because I had no persuade skill at that point in the game, causing all my persuasion attempts to fail, which in turn results in her going back to howling and pulling her hair (figuratively) every time. After about ten failed tries or so I found the correct conversation path to persuade her to go back to the Jedi enclave without actually using the persuasion skill but I was already tired of her by then. Her accent is kind of grating, and even after turning back to the path of the light side she keeps getting angry about all kinds of things, which I find super annoying. I imagine she might be fun to have around if you're playing dark side and actively feed her anger issues, but then you probably wouldn't have got her as a companion in the first place?

HK-47: I already talked about him as well, and every word that comes out of his mouth speaker grille is fun.

Jolee Bindo: I haven't had as much of a chance to get to know him yet since he was the last companion to join my party, and couldn't decide initially whether I found him funny or annoying. He represents the grey Jedi idea very well, never showing much affection or ill will towards anyone or anything, but he has a wicked sense of humour and clearly enjoys winding you up. I'm starting to lean towards liking him.

If I had to rank them in order from favourite to least favourite, I would currently do it like this:

1. Mission

2. HK-47

3. Carth

4. Jolee

5. Bastila

6. Zaalbar

7. Canderous

8. Juhani

9. T3-M4

KOTOR Adventures: Leave My Wookiee Alone!

This series of posts hasn't really been a full description of my KOTOR playthrough in so far as I've skipped a lot of stuff and focused only on the things that have stood out to me, specifically as a SWTOR player. One of the things that I haven't mentioned for example is that one of the companions that I picked up back on Taris is a wookiee called Zaalbar. I pretty much never used him for anything because unlike the other companions, who all got pretty chatty about their backgrounds after a while, he never had anything to say to me. I didn't know it was possible to swear a life debt to someone and still keep them at arm's length like this!

Nonetheless, I wasn't going to visit the home planet of the wookiees without my very own wookiee in tow, so Zaalbar finally got the opportunity to grab some fresh air. I immediately had cause to wonder how things go differently if you don't take him along, because as it turns out he's the exiled brother of the local wookiee leader, appropriately named Chunder Chuundar, who willingly allows his people to get enslaved by the Czerka Corporation. Oh right, they are on Kashyyyk too and have gone from merely being annoyingly corporate to being literal slave drivers. Unsurprisingly, showing up with Zaalbar in tow immediately causes trouble. As I said, it really makes you wonder how things go down if you don't bring him along, unless the game enforces his presence somehow.

Anyway, next thing you know, Zaalbar is being held prisoner and you are being told to hunt down a crazed wookiee in the "Shadowlands" a.k.a. on the ground (wookiees live in trees, remember). As soon as you arrive there, you get ambushed by Darth Malak's apprentice with two flunkies in tow, and I'm super proud to say that I defeated them on the first try! Slowly but surely I am getting better at this.

Next you run into a grey-bearded Jedi called Jolee Bindo, whose name I immediately recognised as someone whom you can recruit as your companion (the last one I was missing). He turns out to be another grey Jedi - of which there seem to be a lot more than you would think - which mostly makes him a slightly grumpy old git. He tells you that he wants to join your crew to get off the planet and that he can help you find the local star map, but not before you get rid of some poachers for him first, and in a non-violent manner please. I failed at the latter by accident more than anything else, since I said one too many rude things to their leader, causing him to attack me and forcing me to kill them all in self-defense. Fortunately Jolee wasn't too hung up on it. Karma punished me in a way anyway as I realised afterwards that the poachers had apparently been the only way to get the quest items for Mission's brother, so that's that side quest closed off to me now.

Jolee leads you to some sort of Rakata doodad that wants to test your character by providing you with moral dilemmas. I can only guess that you are meant to answer as dark-side Revan would have, while I went down the path of the goodie-two-shoes light-side Jedi instead, which caused the device to sic two battle droids on me. I had a brief and panicky flashback to my encounters with similar droids on Dantooine and Manaan, which had been slow and painful, but lo and behold: Jolee has the ability to stun droids, so they both went down like a sack of bricks, causing the Rakata thingamajig to change its mind and hand over the star map to me anyway. Easiest map fragment so far! 

This also meant that I hadn't even finished any of the other quests yet and got to do so afterwards. There was one super annoying side mission where you're supposed to kill Mandalorians that only attack unarmed targets - which sounds fine in theory but in practice results in nothing but stupid busywork as you have to repeatedly unequip your entire party's weapons to lure them out, just to immediately re-equip them in the first combat round. The wookiee stuff was mostly fine and fun (I freed Zaalbar and disposed of Chunder of course), but the biggest disappointment was a quest to deal with a merchant who had betrayed a group of spacers... I was really looking forward to unmasking him, but when I returned to the spaceport the wookiees had stormed it and killed everyone! Talk about an overreaction! I mean, sure, don't let them enslave you anymore, but did you have to go and murder my quest NPCs? Sheesh.

Anyway, that was Kashyyyk, and I'm noticing that fights are getting dramatically easier. Malak's apprentice was the only one who gave me a brief fright and even he went down on the first attempt. I suspect it has something to do with levelling up, because even though the game lets you do the planets with the map fragments in any order and doesn't display any levels on your opponents, I suspect that there was no advanced scaling technology or anything involved and it's simply that they are all, say, level ten or something while you are supposed to go from eight to fifteen over the course of that part of the story. Two map fragments left I think...

KOTOR Adventures: Hunting on Tatooine

Glad to get off Manaan and with enough credits in my pocket to afford any future docking fees, I decided to return to Tatooine, originally meant to be my first destination. I just love that planet in SWTOR, and I'd also read somewhere that this was where you acquire HK-47.

Of course I hadn't even left the spaceport before something went wrong and a confused Czerka employee let a load of Gizka loose inside the Ebon Hawk. But... they are those cute things you can have as mini pets in SWTOR! Who'd have thought that they are apparently vermin? The option to poison them to get rid of them was made quite obvious, but they are too cute! I decided to leave them be for now, even if I hate the thought of how much poop they must be dropping on the ship's floors. I doubt that Bioware would stoop to such an amount of realism anyway.

Anchorhead's two most important buildings (to you) are pretty obvious as soon as you leave the spaceport: the Hunting Lodge and the Czerka office. As for the former, it's quite odd that Tatooine of all places would attract a lot of hunters, but it is what it is. Outside, a poor woman begs you to sell a wraid plate for her that used to belong to her deceased husband and for which she doesn't have a license. Of course I did that for her, being the nice person that I am.

The Czerka office is a funny place because the woman in charge answers most questions about the company by telling you that you should go to their kiosk on Coruscant, business hours only please. However, she does have a job for you too: to kill sand people. Can't go wrong with that. Except that outside, a man accosts you to say that surely there must be some way to come to a peaceful solution with the sand people, if only you bought a protocol droid from the local droid shop that can speak their language.

As you turn a corner, you get ambushed by some Dark Jedi, and one thing I've learned in this game is that I'm very bad at dealing with surprises, turn-based combat or not. I did learn a valuable lesson from this fight however: that it's OK to run away. I'd previously fought to the death almost every time, but this time I thought of all the conversations I'd gone through since the last time I saved and hated the thought of having to redo them all enough that I took my last remaining party member and ran. Turns out that while mobs don't exactly reset in this game, they do stop giving chase quite quickly and aren't necessarily linked to each other either - so with some application of hit-and-run tactics I managed to split the ambushers up and then took them down one by one until it was safe to revive the rest of the party. Success! I would soon get more chances to practice this maneuver when I went out into the Dune Sea, where sand people ambushers loved to jump at me from every corner.

Anyway, I found the droid shop and there he was: HK-47! Sadly he was way too expensive for me, and I didn't want to take the option to intimidate the shop owner by threatening to kill him (though even HK himself suggested to do so), which is why I continued out into the desert to see if there was anything out there that could make me some money.

I quickly ran into some wraids, which had the silliest run animation ever and dropped more wraid plates. Excellent, I thought - the one I had sold for the poor woman had fetched 500 credits - with these I should be able to afford HK in no time! Of course then it turned out that the vendor only paid 24 credits for each plate I brought in - what a bastard.

Still, fortunately I wasn't far off either way, so I was soon able to purchase my very own HK "protocol" droid, and I can already see why he quickly became a fan favourite. His lines are pretty damn funny even now. I've unlocked the back stories of two of his previous owners so far and both were hilarious.

Further out into the desert I ran into a hunter waiting to lure a krayt dragon out of his cave onto some mines, but he needed banthas as a lure and those would only be attracted by bantha fodder, which I could get from the sand people.

It seemed that all roads led to the sand people enclave. Sadly I was never able to figure out a peaceful solution with them and had to kill them all. I'm curious what I missed though. I put on disguises as instructed, but those broke instantly the moment I entered the actual enclave. Also, while it was repeatedly stated that HK should be able to speak the sand people's language, there never seemed to be an option to try to talk them or to bring up the subject with HK himself. I never saw those Jawas that were supposedly kidnapped and enslaved by the sand people either... probably missed a map again somewhere...

Anyway, with gaffi sticks and bantha fodder in my bags I returned to the krayt dragon cave and got that done too. The dragon looked pretty cool, that's definitely one monster they could have used in SWOTR as well! Would have made for a great world boss or something. Oh, and as it happens, the krayt dragon was sleeping on another star map. Mission successful!

After the pains of Manaan I found Tatooine a lot more straightforward and enjoyable to explore, even if I couldn't figure out how to talk to the sand people. I also had fewer issues with the combat encounters here, only suffering a single full party wipe when I unexpectedly walked right into the sand people chieftain's room without realising what I was going up against.

I'll probably go to Kashyyyk next, if for no other reason than that I already have a side quest to fetch something from there for Mission's brother.

KOTOR Adventures: Manaan Manaan

Last time on Knights of the Old Republic, I had finished my Jedi trials on Dantooine and was being set loose upon the galaxy to find the pieces of an ancient star map, which supposedly hides a very important secret.

I had literally bankrupted myself buying enough medpacks for the last fight on Dantooine and was looking forward to now being able to explore the galaxy and extract money from it. I flew to Tatooine first because to me that one sounded like the most appealing out of all the available planets, however on exiting my ship I was immediately accosted by some Czerka officials who demanded a one hundred credit docking fee to even let me out of the spaceport. Since I didn't have that of course, I thought "screw you, guys" and took off again, intending to find a planet first that wasn't ruled by greedy Czerka scum.

I picked Manaan next, and did indeed manage to get off my ship and talk to a couple of NPCs there. However, as soon as I wanted to access Ahto City proper, there was the hundred credit docking fee again. It dawned on me that this was probably a requirement on every planet and that you're basically screwed if you're out of money at this point. Since on Manaan there was at least a vendor nearby, I grudgingly sold him a couple of bits and pieces that I had been hoping to keep, in order to be able to cover the fee. The Selkath gatekeeper told me that a map of the city was included in the fee, but apparently it wasn't, because unlike on previous occasions when I was given a map, the area was not revealed to me.

When Manaan was added in SWTOR, even without offering anything but the staging point for the Depths of Manaan flashpoint, a lot of KOTOR fans seemed very pleased, so I figured that they had fond memories of the place Sadly my own experiences did not reflect this at all. While the "flying in" cut scene looked gorgeous despite its age (taking screenshots of specific things is really hard on the tablet by the way, as tapping it to bring up the screenshot button also registers as "skip this please"), actually walking around Ahto City just felt kind of... boring. There was no "outside" to explore, and relatively few NPCs wanted to talk to me. The peaceful music actually managed to make me doze off once while I was trying to sort out my inventory...

Eventually it became apparent that my only avenue for progress was to do a job for the local Republic representative which involved breaking into a nearby Sith base to retrieve some stolen data. Funnily enough, they made a big deal out of how I had several different options to break in there, a problem that was solved easily enough, but I didn't even know where the damn base was and nobody deigned to tell me that. Eventually I googled it and realised that I had missed the exit to an entire part of the city that I hadn't even discovered yet... if only they'd given me that map...

So I broke into the Sith base and had a horrible time. I cleared the first two or three rooms, but soon ran into problems. One way was blocked by some sort of door puzzle, which - even though I had found a datapad with instructions - made zero sense to me. I decided to go another way instead, and found a room with a couple of uber powerful droids that I once again couldn't even scratch. After reloading (they killed me of course), I tried a different door and ended up being massacred by a bunch of Dark Jedi for a change. "I hate this place, I'm going home," I thought, and exited through the front door... just to be arrested by the Selkath for trespassing in the Sith base for no good reason and getting sentenced to death.

After moping for a bit about having got myself stuck in situation with no pleasant way out of it, I gave in and googled a guide. Fortunately the killer droids didn't really matter, and the Dark Jedi weren't as bad as they had seemed at first, going down relatively easily on my second attempt. The guide explained to me how to get past the door puzzle, and revealed that at the very end, I would be able to find proof there that the Sith were up to no good which I would then be able to use to exonerate myself when the Selkath came to arrest me on my exit.

But first I ran into Shasa, a young Selkath whose father had asked me to look for her as she had gone missing. Turns out that she and her friends had been lured in by the Sith with false promises. I was easily able to prove the Sith's duplicity to them though - apparently a friend of theirs had been tortured to death literally in the room next to them and they never noticed. Suckers. They all went home after that, but clearly nothing good came of Shasa, considering that she later went on to found her own flavour of the Revanite cult on Manaan.

Then came the final room with the datapad I would need for my trial later. It was guarded by another Dark Jedi and his two Selkath apprentices. They killed me, but this time I wasn't going to give up so easily, so I tried again, and again. I pumped my party full of stims, had them all activate personal shields, saved and tried again. Following simple logic, I had them burn down the apprentices first before focusing on the big guy, but once I finally got that far, I once again ran into the problem of none of my characters being able to actually hurt him, and eventually he whittled down my party to nothing yet again. This was weird because a chunk of his health was already missing, and when I paid closer attention on the next try I realised that my group was able to hit him pretty hard whenever he was stunned - so I switched my strategy to focusing on the big guy first, with all three party members rotating through their stuns while they still had Force, which finally resulted in a hard-earned victory.

The whole encounter made me realise that clearly my biggest problem with some of the fights so far has been me "doing it wrong" in some way, whether by using the wrong abilities or the wrong weapons. The problem is that I'm pretty lazy when it comes to the numbers part of roleplaying. This was actually what led me to eventually quit my pen and paper roleplaying group, because the other players were all the exact opposite. The GM would frequently kill off characters, but everyone else was almost happy about that since it allowed them to whip out their rulebooks and try to build a new combination of feats and abilities that would hopefully turn out to be OP. Meanwhile I was always crushed when yet another budding character arc came to an abrupt end and I had to deal with the tedium of distributing stats again.

Because of this I had been happy to let KOTOR's "auto level up" feature do all the work for me and hadn't bothered too much with reading gear tooltips and the like. Only after this did I finally sit down and take a slightly closer look at my character's numbers, only to realise that whatever the auto-level had been doing, it was the exact opposite of what I wanted. Why did I have so many points in demolitions, which I never used? And no wonder my persuasion attempts always failed, considering I had almost no points in it! I immediately switched to adding any newly earned points manually, but for the moment the damage was done. I've also been told that lightsabers are kind of weak against certain droids... but of course I vendored all my vibroblades once I'd got my saber, thinking that surely lightsabers would be superior against everything. (Maybe that vendor at the spaceport still has them...)

Anyway, I successfully escaped the Sith base at last, proved to the Selkath that they were evil and retrieved the stolen Republic data. Because nothing is ever easy, the Republic now wanted me to investigate a secret underwater base they were building and where something had apparently gone horribly wrong as everyone who was sent down to check on it had just disappeared.

After the struggle in the Sith base I decided to try a different party composition and took my little astromech droid T3-M4 (like the German SWTOR server!) down to the underwater base with me. I was delighted by his slicing ability, but when it came to fighting a giant battle droid things were once again touch and go, making me swap companions once again. I think it was only around then that I realised how easy that actually was... for some reason I thought that I'd have to walk back to the Ebon Hawk every time.

As it turned out, the Selkath in the underwater base had all gone mad and torn everything to bits, leaving only a couple of panicked survivors behind. Apparently this madness was induced by a giant sea beast that got woken up by the base's pumps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, turns out to be to either poison said beast or to try to calm it down by getting rid of the noisy machinery. This has you walking around on the ocean floor in a special environmental suit for a bit, which clearly served as inspiration for the underwater part of the HK bonus chapter. It was a neat change of pace I suppose... except for the part where I was forced to take down several groups of mad Selkath without any companions (since you only have one suit to cross over to that part of the base). Seeing how I had trouble with certain fights with a full group before, this bit was just painful. I died sooo many times... eventually I even turned the option to pause after every combat round back on because I simply couldn't afford a single round to go to waste with an accidental auto attack or anything like that. Somehow I managed to muddle through in the end. (It involved a lot of grenades and a breath mask that made me immune to the Selkath's poison.)

As for the big beastie, I decided to go with destroying the machinery since that sounded more light side, though I temporarily regretted my choice when I was then faced with a small puzzle to actually get things blown up, which took me way longer to figure out than it should have. It wasn't actually hard at all, I'm just getting dumber with age I think. With the machinery gone, the giant fish withdrew and conveniently revealed some ruins with the next piece of my star map. Wahey.

Of course, as soon as I was back on the surface, the Selkath insisted on arresting me yet again. They spoke with awe of the giant sea monster, referring to it as the Progenitor (another server!) - I can only guess that if they really think of it as their ancestor, taking the option to poison it can't go over well. As it was, I was absolved of everything and finally allowed to leave the planet of the fish people behind. I still don't know why people talk so fondly of this place. Onwards to nicer planets (I hope)!