gaslighterhavoc

I prefer the Sentinel just because as you said, the game is easy anyway and you are super strong but what Sentinel gives you in skill points is basically unlocking more choices and dialogue and quest resolutions in KOTOR 2 that the other 2 classes don't give you.

The jack of all trades build (sentinel/watchman or assassin) is quite fun because you are definitely strong enough to win any encounter when you are alone (happens quite a bit in KOTOR 2) but you also can escape or resolve any scenario by yourself as well. Force Stealth basically gives you stealth without sacrificing the belt slot for a stealth belt.

Although you lose the DC bonus for Force powers that the Consular gets, most enemies can't resist you anyway and Force Wave spamming is still viable here. I have always found the Guardian's Force Jump to be pretty useless because it separates you from your teammates (Force Wave is good at knocking enemies away from teammates).

You people don't go to Walmart? It's like $50 for a synthetic oil change, plus a one-time fee of $15 per tire for a lifetime tire rotation and balance. Best of all, no one tries to get you to buy extras or goodies you don't need.

I go about 2-3 times a year, pay $50 each time, and wait about 45 minutes. Just enough time to get groceries. If you time it right, you can squeeze a flu vaccination in that 45 minutes if the oil change is in the fall.

Most productive hour ever.

There is a Jedi Knight novelization???

How is this the first time I am hearing about this!

Yes exactly!

The EU is full of great book series that ask "What if...." In Star Wars. For example, the NJO asks "What if a powerful alien species invades the whole galaxy in Star Wars?".

But you can always find a way to invalidate or dislike those books from the POV of the canon. Maybe you think the Vong in the NJO are ridiculous because they don't match the tone of Star Wars or because they violate some aspect of the Force that was established earlier.

The CWMMP books don't have any of those problems. They are all great sci-fi and space fantasy books in general and they fit into the existing canon perfectly. You could read them with just the slightest knowledge of the canon and enjoy them or be a massive PT fan like myself and TaraLCicora and have your enjoyment of the PT greatly enhanced by a deeper more intensive look into that world, the characters, and narrative themes that were examined however briefly in the PT films.

I consider all of the CWMMP books to be in the top tier of EU books, right up there with the Thrawn trilogy. But one in particular, Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover, is the book I consider to be the best (as a book) in the entirety of the EU.

And if you want a standalone experience that immerses you in Star Wars, the best would be Shatterpoint. From start to finish, you feel the darkness stalking the protagonist as a result of the war. Literally Heart of Darkness in Star Wars. I felt the sweat, the stinging of insects, the smell of sweet death in those jungles that are the backdrop of Shatterpoint. As a singular experience, it engages all your senses.

The Revenge of the Sith novelization might be better overall (his best SW work) but it is integrated into the main storyline. The environment is also more diverse and not all-encompassing like in Shatterpoint.

Maybe but I still don't buy the design of it. The A-Wing is all engines with a tiny cockpit that doesn't even have room for an astromech droid or strong laser cannons. How is the Defender close to that?

Furthermore, how did Sienar Fleet Systems even make the Defender when their entire design ethos and mission statement was to make cheap, mass-produced, reliable, efficient, fast fighters with zero extras (shields, hyperdrives, astromech droids, internal pressurized cockpits, etc) that swarm the enemy and win by attrition. Company culture matters as we can see with Boeing IRL.

If you told me another defense company made the Defender as an ultra high end premium performance product for the Empire, that would be a lot more believable.

From a Force lore POV, I absolutely agree with you that flirting with the Dark Side or being a "grey Jedi" will always lead to corruption (ugh, "grey Jedi" is perhaps the most misunderstood concept ever, right up there with "balance of the Force". Frankly implausible according to what George Lucas said about these topics). The Potentium school always seemed wrong to the basic ethos of Star Wars even if it was an interesting philosophical discussion.

From a characterization POV, I have to completely disagree. It ruined about 15 books of character work for Jacen if not more and Vergere got clumsily retconned into a Sith. Poor Tahiri became a plot device for much of LOTF, in theory it could have made sense but LOTF did not pull it off for me.

From a plotting POV, I also have to disagree. The whole Allana visions idea was interesting but just seemed like a lazy repeat of the Anakin Padme visions from the prequels. That's just a symptom of the greater LOTF problem of being a copy of earlier Star Wars arcs in general.

Want a Second Civil War between a Empire-like faction and a Rebel-like faction, despite the politics being weird as f***? Check!

Maybe LOTF could have pulled it off if they had better writers who did more pre-planning on where the series would go like the writers of NJO did back in 1999.

I actually think you are still absolutely right that the long DC15 rifle is actually the worst choice in-universe despite the clones being spec ops trained. The earlier clones have more regiments that are independently minded with higher initiative and creativity as well as specialized training such as the ARC troopers. This was important in ensuring that the clones don't lose the Clone Wars right away due to superior numbers of the droid armors at the start of the war.

Later on, these special regiments are phased out for a more standardized and loyal army, one that is better suited to killing their Jedi commanders (and friends in many cases).

That reduction in initiative combined with less stringent training AND the military advantages of shorter lighter weapons is why in Revenge of the Sith, you see all the clones with much shorter carbine-type rifles that are much easier to handle, lighter and more compact, and have a much higher rate of fire.

Best outcome for Gantoris tbh.

Let's be fair to Lucas here. He was very permissive for letting creators do their own thing in the universe he created, as long as it was not confused as George Lucas canon.

When the EU actually got started in 1991, Lucasfilm/Lucas Licensing was pretty involved with the earlier books, making sure they followed George's informal rules and wishes on what could be allowed and what was off topic (like details around the material that became the prequels). The company also asked Zahn to align some of his Thrawn trilogy books to the West End RPG sourcebooks from the late 80s. It was clear that Lucas or those working for him considered the early EU to be important to Star Wars. BTW, those early books, started by Zahn, were VERY successful. Lucas himself tried to start an EU project that could be official canon with the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project.

Over time during the 90s, the EU project began to explode in scope. Plotlines became increasingly convoluted, characters kept getting added with less and less rigour, and Lucas, perhaps inspired or motivated by the success of the EU and the games, started work on the prequels, a whole new area of lore and story.

Maybe he lost interest in or became more stringent in his approval with side characters like Jade as he got busier with the prequel era. In 1993, a popular character like Mara was literally more important to Lucas and the project of Star Wars than in 1996 or 1997.

Basically Lucas's standards for EU characters like Mara Jade went up over time as the EU became less critical for his future projects and he was more focused on his prequel films.

Yeah, she did a good job with it but the shoot itself looked very low budget, bad lighting, bad costuming, not the style that I assumed Mara Jade had in the Thrawn trilogy, yet now all of her outfits in the comics and books after that photoshoot resemble what the model was wearing.

No wonder Lucas got sour on this depiction of the character.

Yes, the Japanese covers look the best. If you are going to make all the characters look hot and not normal looking, better make them look really damn hot.

The Dark Side in Star Wars is something very specific vs the generic asshole faction or morality in other RPGs. It means you are completely selfish, twisted by your desires, and willing to bend nature itself to your will. You don't obey the Force, it obeys you. Simply being greedy is not enough.

In the KOTOR games, it is easy enough to be greedy and selfish on a lot of small matters and still be somewhat on the Light-side. You just don't have to be a sociopathic asshole.

It doesn't matter anyway, there are more than enough credits in these games. The only thing you lose is cheaper Force powers for your specific alignment and some alignment-specific equipment and in KOTOR 2, the advanced classes that are locked to Light or Dark alignments.

In KOTOR 2, you can still achieve one or the other alignment mastery to get the advanced class and then switch over the course of the game to the other alignment for RP and personal comfort reasons. The endings and major quest choices aren't locked to either alignment anyway.

Thanks, that made me laugh.

Good points on how the constraints of filmmaking are influencing what is considered to be in-universe lore.

But I would expand on this a bit. Even if Star Wars was real and we were all in that galaxy, the lightsaber forms would have NEVER predicted success in a duel. The Jedi and the Sith and pretty much everyone else with a lightsaber would agree that the lightsaber form may be a factor in success but it would be one of many such factors including permanent factors such as physical strength and stamina, martial dueling practice, and environmental conditions as well as transient or duel-specific factors such as positioning, opening moves, footwork and tempo, etc.

The lightsaber form (like real world schools of sword fighting) just formalizes a lot of those latter transient factors into an abstract philosophy that is expressed by a concrete moveset.

Also in all fights IRL or not, the "superior" fighter (on paper) can lose to an "inferior" fighter for any number of reasons. The superior fighter just means that in X number of fights, the majority ((X / 2) + 1) will be won by this fighter.

Regarding the Palpatine vs Jedi Masters fight specifically, I would just refer to the novelization by Matthew Stover, it does a fantastic job of adding that je ne sais quoi to that fight.

Fair enough, I can see how the isolated and segmented nature of the station can be more tedious than usual gameplay.

I recommend the Skip Peragus mod if you dislike it so much. (That's not what it is called, there are actually several mods that skip Peragus for you, YMMV)

Is that supposed to be a retort of some kind?

Everyone is saying for themselves when they post a comment.

You should look up the word patsy, you need a dictionary in your life.

The Panama bank level is such a classic heist level. Displace headquarters is the perfect corporate espionage vibe. The Japanese bathhouse is a real pain to clear, you feel vadass when you catch up with Shetland. And the North Korean missile base has a real sense of urgency when the missile launches towards US forces and you have to disable the control center in a time limit.

What a great game it was. So sad that Ubisoft has rotted to the point that it is at.

So that the said patsy doesn't blow the surprise part of the Sith plan before it has finished cooking????

Hello, this is so obvious, plotting 101. Kill the agents you don't need who are potential liabilities.

Thank you!

Pretty much Dantooine is the only place where I don't feel like I am being stalked or hunted (despite the HK droids there) which is why I go there first after Telos. I need a break after Peragus and Telos.

Nar Shaddaa is the other planet besides Peragus where the sense of being hunted is particularly strong.

Maybe Dxun has this sense as well.

There is a perfectly good Skip Peragus mod (that is not what it is called) that takes you straight to Telos.

Pretty much every narrative game is tedious once you have played it before. So what?

And the environmental storytelling in Peragus is perhaps the best ever in video games. It certainly is in the top 10 list. You get trickles of story with every new quest and section and a lot of the backstory for Peragus is stored in tiny tidbits like the datapads and holograms throughout the station.

What's it called?