Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droids of KOTOR ... woo!
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DarthBukai
Wed Mar 03, 2004 6:12 pm
#1
I finally got around to playing Knights of the Old Republic and found it to be an excellent Adventure/RPG. As with many of my coleagues, my ears perked up at the first mention of droids in the game. Best thing I've noticed so far: Droids everywhere doing droidy things, NO creature pets unless you count the wookiee. As soon as I walked up to a door that read "Droid Shop" my heart leapt! Inside was Twi'lek DE speaking in joyous tones about how wonderful her droids were. I felt very much at home. I found that when the time came to buy the droid (a price that was pretty high for so early in the game) I could not bring myself to try to talk down the price! That little fellah ruled! As I hacked and slashed my way through Sith troopers he hacked and sliced his way through security measures and computer systems.
Sadly, back in SWG we have recycles from Holocron's unhealthy creature fixation. An afterthought of a system for animals is what governs our droids which should have had a completely different set of rules governing how they function, act and upgrade. KOTOR did droids right, and it's depth as a roleplaying game doesn't even approach SWG's!
I'm not demanding that droids of SWG be as complex as those of KOTOR but there are a few things the SWG Devs could learn from playing that game:
1) Different classes of modules and module sockets. Just slightly more complicated than the current "general or defensive" system. Medical, storage, utility etc. would have their own classes.
2) Chasis that determine what number, class and level of modules you could mount on the droid. A L1 Med would fit nicely in an MSE but not a L2 or higher. A Probot wouldn't have Med slots but a Surgical could have two. A Probot would have multiple combat and defensive slots but the Surgical would have none....and so on. Food crafting station on a MSE? Sure! But for a Structure crafting station you'll need a BLL!
3) Parts would be upgradeable to the best your chasis could hold and would eventually wear out/break. You could replace with inferior parts if need be and replace them with top of the line again once those became available to you.
The main problem with these ideas is that they simply won't work with the current pet system that governs droids. Droids aren't as simple as mere animals and need a more complex separate engine. It's time the Devs stopped looking at droids from the perspective of Raph Koster's Wild Kingdom and build a new system for them from the ground up. No longer should droids be an afterthought but a true feature of the game.
Sodan-droiddreamer
Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:25 pm
#2
Yep, its awesome. I love repair droids in KOTOR and gettign them to do my bidding.
JediKnightMark
Wed Mar 03, 2004 11:27 pm
#3
KotOR = NWN lite
If you want depth, go pick up Bioware's crown jewel instead of its watered-down console friendly star wars mod.
The single saving grace of KotOR was the crimson assasain droid (sorry, can't remember his name) with the incredibly evil sense of humor. Whoever came up with his dialogue has a gift that few others share. "Meatbags" lol
Message Edited by JediKnightMark on 03-04-2004 01:34 AM
DarthBukai
Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:20 am
#4
Mark, I didn't write several paragraphs about the merits of KOTOR's RPG depth, in fact I mention that despite it's lack of depth relative to SWG, it got droids right. We were talking about droids. Last I looked this wasn't the "NWN>all" board.
JediKnightMark
Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:42 pm
#6
DarthBukai wrote:
Mark, I didn't write several paragraphs about the merits of KOTOR's RPG depth, in fact I mention that despite it's lack of depth relative to SWG, it got droids right. We were talking about droids. Last I looked this wasn't the "NWN>all" board.
Last time I checked, I didn't really care, Darth.
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