Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic Good/Evil? Or just overly nice idiot/D-bag with a chip on his shoulder...

[ProjectSeph]

So, after watching a few "let's plays" of KOTOR, I seem to find that MOST choices you can make seem to be VERY heavily weighted towards either the utterly evil, or stupidly good.

Let's say a gambler can't pay his debts:

-You can be an absolute goody-two-shoes and say "Here fella, take all your debt money from me...learn absolutely nothing. Oh, and while you are at it, take this extra 200 because you will probably p!ss it away."

-You can pretty much say "Hey f**k you and your problems. Also, give me all your cash you currently have. Wait, I'd rather just loot everything from your corpse."

-Or you can walk away.


There doesn't seem to be any 'middle ground options where you gain a minor light/dark side point/s.

Such as possibly saying:
"You are a fool for gambling in the first place. Own up to your mistakes."
Or, maybe:
"Show me to this "kingpin" so I can meet and usurp him. Your debts will be erased, but if I hear of you f**king up again, I will end you."


There doesn't seem to be any sort of concept of "Lawful Evil/Good or Neutral Evil/Good."

..which sucks, because I truly would like to play/buy this game, however, I can't role play an absolute Self-reightous d!ckhead who doesn't understand that giving a man a fish instead of a fishing rod teaches him nothing.
And I cant play a guy who literally just wants to threaten to kill anyone/everyone for barely stepping on his toes.


Do the game-choices get better? Or do they stay so heavily weighted to the utterly good, or truly evil?

[mohina2006]

The game-choices don't get any better. It's my main issue with this game: you're forced to be either a saint or a blackhearted villian who'd happily kill his own mother for a few bucks. It's a completely unrealistic black-and-white world with no middleground.

Another problem is KOTOR's concept of evil: Bioware seems to assume that evil=murderous psychopath. In KOTOR you're evil if you: a) kill everyone who steps on your toes or even looks at you the wrong way and/or b) insult everyone you don't kill, including your friends. That's not evil, that's being an idiot. Evil - REAL evil - is subtle and persuasive. Even Hitler was. Nothing like that in KOTOR.

[cerberusiv]

Kotor 1 is like that all the way through. What I find disappointing is the complete lack of subtlety in the dark side choices and that pursuing them isn't necessarily in the main characters best interest. What's more the game mechanic of light/dark alignment rewards one extreme or the other, nothing for balance. Near the end of the game there is a pivotal point where you make an irrevocable light/dark choice and are able to go completely opposite to what you have done up to that point.

I still like and enjoy the game though, just it could have been better.

Kotor 2 is a different animal and the choices there can be more subtle. There is still benefit to getting a pronounced light or dark alignment but (especially with the restored content mod) there is also time and opportunity to reverse your alignment. There is also a twisted humour in some of the dark choices (HK47 is interesting in 1, in 2 he is priceless).

[BotZero]

you can be just as barbarous in Kotor 2.

Yes its an unfortunate fact that the choices in Kotor 1 are either grade A philanthropist or Crazed Evil Person.

Revan even when under the influence of the dark side wasn't evil he was just willing to make sacrifices to advance goals and as he began his conquest of the republic he never destroyed important worlds that held strategic value or had alot of industry.

Evil is a point of view and real evil is seductive and subtle.

Even Hitler as someone stated does not act like the dark side PC in kotor he was usually regarded as polite, intelligent, charismatic.

[SievertChaser]

I believe Bioware is not at fault - the basic Star Wars universe suffers from this kind of dichtomy. Although Renegade Shepard is still mostly an ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy-eRfupYbA

[ProjectSeph]

Thanks for all the responses.
And I agree.

Evil doesn't need to be a kitty-murdering psycho who acts more like a common street-thug than an evil genius.

Good doesn't need to be a guy who will give you everything he owns and solve all your issues.

Even good people sometimes understand that a painful lesson learned now can hurt, but be beneficial for your future.
And sometimes good people realise they need to make a sacrifice for the GREATER good.

I see that KOTOR 2 was made my Obsidian Entertainment.
Now, despite a lot of their games being buggy, they generally have a good history of great games with nice levels of moral ambiguity/grey areas.

Perhaps that is more of a path I will look into.

...I just hate that I am one of 'them' people who have to play the prequels ..as sh!t as they might be, before I play the latter games.


Again, thanks for the input!

Now...come on steam sale! Give me that discount ;)

[SievertChaser]

I think a lot of people are just terrified of realising that almost all evil comes from either sociopaths (who really don't care about the results of their actions anyway) or people with good intentions.

[BotZero]

The game was intended for a large audience. Its not very hard, its story driven. They just wanted to fulfill the fantasy of being Mr Nice guy or being Mr Abomination.

The only way it could of been any wider is if the gameplay was more action oriented.