Thinking about replaying Kotor, quick questions to those who played it? And mods?

[Tohuvabohu]

Just finished playing DA2 on Hard, and felt the game was a big disappointment throughout the entire game. I'd play through it on Nightmare a second time, but the disappointment kinda burned me out on it. And it put me in the mood to play an older Bioware title.

I really wanted to play Baldur's Gate 2 cooperatively with a friend, but we just can't get the online mode to work, as awesome as the game is I just don't want to play it by myself right now, and I never did try it in coop. (Anyone know any tricks for getting it to work? I have the version from GoG if that makes any difference...)

So after browsing through my Steam game's list to reinstall DA:O, I spotted Knights of the Old Republic and I figured I'd be down to play through it again.

I loved playing through it back when I had it on xbox, but I played it very casually at the time (On the easy difficulty, if I remember) And of course, the game was just easy. It didn't help that I played as a consular and every fight about halfway through the game boiled down to using force wave and force storm to kill everything in the room at once.

I was going to try it on HARD to see if that would bring out the game's tactical side and would actually require me to think and invest in a more versatile arsenal of powers instead of using 1 power a bunch of times to kill doods. But I've heard that even on hard, the game is still not much of a challenge? :\

My question to anyone who played Kotor on Hard, was it still stupidly balanced and force powers still rolled over every enemy you saw, and ultimately not very challenging? I'd really love to challenge myself this time around (without doing unreasonable self handicaps like going through the entire game unarmed without a party).

Oh, and are there any mods out there that anyone could recommend? This will be my first time playing through it on PC so I'm really clueless about any extra content beyond the vanilla stuff.

 

[kelevra]

In terms of mods, nah, there's not much which really adds to gameplay out there. This Bioware game engine was hard to mod, so there's really not much out there apart from appearance mods and god items- check out filefront's KOTOR section.

As for the difficulty, I cant really remember tbh: my KOTOR glory days are behind me. I do remember that the dark jedi become much more resistant to your force powers in higher difficulty levels- I played a lightning wielding dark side PC in my first playthrough and a light side buff tank in my second- and things were easier with my lightside character, especially on the star forge.

Force speed + force absorb + energy/force resistance + double saber = win.

*Edit: I played through it four times- both of the above characters on hard

 

[The Hot Sauce Thief]

For me personally, KOTOR on hard difficulty isn't hard, but ive completed the game over 150times in the random-est and hardest of ways. It can pose a challenge to you, since you haven't played it for years and if you don't put points into good skills or anything like that

The game is balanced but not stupidly. If you don't organize your party and items (obviously) then it can get hard especially later on.
No, I don't think force powers can clear out rooms of people by themselves (well without the right combo's)

As for mods, I really can't help you there because so far ive only played it vanilla.
If its KOTOR2 then you definitely need the restoration mod for it, if its the 1St, then sorry.

Try hunting around on the KOTOR section of file-planet for some, that has the largest collection of mods, hints, tips and walkthroughs for most games.

In the end, it doesn't have a challenge for me anymore, but only because of the stupidly large amount of time I've spend playing and mastering it.

 

[DustyDrB]

It's not hard.
Some party members are specced out all wrong for the type of weapons the game wants you to think they should use (especially Canderous. Ditch that heavy blaster rifle of his in favor of a melee weapon as soon as you get him). KotOR II was better in this regard because of the Finesse feat, which allows either strength or dexterity to be the determining stat for your effectiveness with a weapon (except for blaster rifles. They didn't give blaster rifles a finesse option, which makes them far less appealing).

You should make a blaster-focused Jedi. Dual blasters + Master Speed is so fun.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

In terms of mods, nah, there's not much which really adds to gameplay out there. This Bioware game engine was hard to mod, so there's really not much out there apart from appearance mods and god items- check out filefront's KOTOR section.

Ah. I tried doing a quick search for some mods last night and only saw appearance mods, which were indeed pretty cool. But I guess that's the reason why I couldn't find much else.

For me personally, KOTOR on hard difficulty isn't hard, but ive completed the game over 150times in the random-est and hardest of ways. It can pose a challenge to you, since you haven't played it for years and if you don't put points into good skills or anything like that

The game is balanced but not stupidly. If you don't organize your party and items (obviously) then it can get hard especially later on.
No, I don't think force powers can clear out rooms of people by themselves (well without the right combo's)

As for mods, I really can't help you there because so far ive only played it vanilla.
If its KOTOR2 then you definitely need the restoration mod for it, if its the 1St, then sorry.

Try hunting around on the KOTOR section of file-planet for some, that has the largest collection of mods, hints, tips and walkthroughs for most games.

In the end, it doesn't have a challenge for me anymore, but only because of the stupidly large amount of time I've spend playing and mastering it.

lol well that understandable considering how much you played it. It reminds me of Oddworld, and how frustratingly difficult some areas were. Some areas had me stumped for hours trying to figure them out, constantly dying as soon as I make any progress, but since I've played the hell out of those games, I can breeze through a lot of the difficult puzzles. Although some areas still piss me the fuck off (Possessing Director Phleg. FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU)

Still, it seems like you've had to put a hell of a lot more thought into accomplishing all that than I ever did in my time playing Kotor.

It's not hard.
Some party members are specced out all wrong for the type of weapons the game wants you to think they should use (especially Canderous. Ditch that heavy blaster rifle of his in favor of a melee weapon as soon as you get him). KotOR II was better in this regard because of the Finesse feat, which allows either strength or dexterity to be the determining stat for your effectiveness with a weapon (except for blaster rifles. They didn't give blaster rifles a finesse option, which makes them far less appealing).

You should make a blaster-focused Jedi. Dual blasters + Master Speed is so fun.

When I played, I almost always rolled out with an all-Jedi party. I never put much thought into their skills either, just made them all get whatever power was good for nuking everything on screen. I never really had the chance to use party members like Zaalbar, Mission, Carth, and pretty much anything that didn't have force storm.

I was hoping a harder playthrough would offer a much more "fresh" experience on that regard and require me to mix my party up a bit more.

I wish KOTOR 2 was available on some digital download site. I looked everywhere and can't find it. Looks like I'll need to buy the actual physical copy itself (It's funny I complain about that, because I always think having the actual copy of a game is much better than having a digital download copy. BUT I WANT THAT GAME NOW!)

 

[Akihiko]

If you've got a widescreen monitor, grab yourself the widescreen hack, makes the experience so much better.

 

[Pr0]

I was considering replaying KoTOR recently too but I loaded it up and realized without a total graphics overhaul I'd never be able to wretch my way through it again.

Was a great game in its time but good gods she didn't age well at all. And surprisingly enough even with the override mods available for it theres no real total graphical overhauls for it to bring its visuals up to semi-modern standard.

I'm a graphics snob, KoTOR is probably one of the greatest SW games of all time, but I can't get off the Republic ship without vomiting at how bad everything looks now.

I'd go through and increase texture resolution on everything myself but thats not going to really do much for the low poly meshes and if I had the time to increase polys/render quality on every mesh in KoTOR and increase the total texture quality as well, well I'd probably have way too much time on my hands.

Overall its doable but would require someone with a lot of time on their hands to overhaul it and make it look better before I could actually hack my way through playing it again. I'm just that spoiled when it comes to visuals.

 

[DustyDrB]

I was considering replaying KoTOR recently too but I loaded it up and realized without a total graphics overhaul I'd never be able to wretch my way through it again.

Was a great game in its time but good gods she didn't age well at all. And surprisingly enough even with the override mods available for it theres no real total graphical overhauls for it to bring its visuals up to semi-modern standard.

I'm a graphics snob, KoTOR is probably one of the greatest SW games of all time, but I can't get off the Republic ship without vomiting at how bad everything looks now.

I'd go through and increase texture resolution on everything myself but thats not going to really do much for the low poly meshes and if I had the time to increase polys/render quality on every mesh in KoTOR and increase the total texture quality as well, well I'd probably have way too much time on my hands.

Overall its doable but would require someone with a lot of time on their hands to overhaul it and make it look better before I could actually hack my way through playing it again. I'm just that spoiled when it comes to visuals.

Wow. really? I still think it looks good (at least the environments). The NPCs are fine, but there are just way too few character models (I laugh every time I get to the end, when every single Jedi has the same mullet-hair character model).

 

[ms_sunlight]

Firstly, please be aware that this game is problematic under Windows Vista or Windows 7; you may be able to get it to run (there are extensive instructions available online, just go here [http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=194296]) but many users have had to give up. I was ultimately unable to run either KotOR or KotOR2 on my PC under Windows 7.

I would suggest picking up a copy on CD - it's widely available used for less than the Steam price - and the good news is, it runs beautifully under linux using WINE and PlayOnLinux has an installer for it. I dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu so that's how I managed to replay KotOR recently. I had to turn off the framebuffer effects but it still looked beautiful.

As a final aside, if you have a widescreen monitor, you will want to download the widescreen hack [http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WSGF_Hacks_for_SW:KOTOR] no matter how you run it.

As for playing it on the hardest difficulty setting, it's definitely worth it; the balance is much better. On Normal it really is a bit of a stroll in the park.

 

[putowtin]

playing on hard is cool, but not really that difficult (in my opinion)
and as most people have said it's only KotOR II you need mods for... oh how you need them!

 

[ms_sunlight]

playing on hard is cool, but not really that difficult (in my opinion)
and as most people have said it's only KotOR II you need mods for... oh how you need them!

You don't just need mods; you need the mod of mods; The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod. [http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/13-tslrcm/]

Seriously. If you play KotOr2, especially if you're a Black Isle / Obsidian fan (I am) then you need this.

 

[octafish]

May I suggest trying some multiplayer Neverwinter Nights, there are heaps of player generated campaigns and I remember the multiplayer being very easy to setup.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Firstly, please be aware that this game is problematic under Windows Vista or Windows 7; you may be able to get it to run (there are extensive instructions available online, just go here [http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=194296]) but many users have had to give up. I was ultimately unable to run either KotOR or KotOR2 on my PC under Windows 7.

I would suggest picking up a copy on CD - it's widely available used for less than the Steam price - and the good news is, it runs beautifully under linux using WINE and PlayOnLinux has an installer for it. I dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu so that's how I managed to replay KotOR recently. I had to turn off the framebuffer effects but it still looked beautiful.

As a final aside, if you have a widescreen monitor, you will want to download the widescreen hack [http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WSGF_Hacks_for_SW:KOTOR] no matter how you run it.

As for playing it on the hardest difficulty setting, it's definitely worth it; the balance is much better. On Normal it really is a bit of a stroll in the park.

I've owned KOTOR1 on Steam for quite awhile, just never played it! Picked it up for like, less than 4$ on a steam sale. I've got it installed and played it a few times, i have some trouble with it but it's mostly functional. That widescreen hack looks sweet though, thanks for providing it!

playing on hard is cool, but not really that difficult (in my opinion)
and as most people have said it's only KotOR II you need mods for... oh how you need them!

You don't just need mods; you need the mod of mods; The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod. [http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/13-tslrcm/]

Seriously. If you play KotOr2, especially if you're a Black Isle / Obsidian fan (I am) then you need this.

I've seen tons of mods of KOTOR2, honestly I wish to be playing that instead. But I sadly can't find it on some kind of digital distribution. I'll order a physical copy of it soon though.

May I suggest trying some multiplayer Neverwinter Nights, there are heaps of player generated campaigns and I remember the multiplayer being very easy to setup.

^Actually, I do own Neverwinter Nights 2 on steam and tried it out. Seems like it could be pretty fun in multiplayer especially. But my cheap bastard friend doesn't want to buy it, I may just force him to one day.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Just finished playing DA2 on Hard, and felt the game was a big disappointment throughout the entire game. I'd play through it on Nightmare a second time, but the disappointment kinda burned me out on it. And it put me in the mood to play an older Bioware title.

I really wanted to play Baldur's Gate 2 cooperatively with a friend, but we just can't get the online mode to work, as awesome as the game is I just don't want to play it by myself right now, and I never did try it in coop. (Anyone know any tricks for getting it to work? I have the version from GoG if that makes any difference...)

So after browsing through my Steam game's list to reinstall DA:O, I spotted Knights of the Old Republic and I figured I'd be down to play through it again.

I loved playing through it back when I had it on xbox, but I played it very casually at the time (On the easy difficulty, if I remember) And of course, the game was just easy. It didn't help that I played as a consular and every fight about halfway through the game boiled down to using force wave and force storm to kill everything in the room at once.

I was going to try it on HARD to see if that would bring out the game's tactical side and would actually require me to think and invest in a more versatile arsenal of powers instead of using 1 power a bunch of times to kill doods. But I've heard that even on hard, the game is still not much of a challenge? :\

My question to anyone who played Kotor on Hard, was it still stupidly balanced and force powers still rolled over every enemy you saw, and ultimately not very challenging? I'd really love to challenge myself this time around (without doing unreasonable self handicaps like going through the entire game unarmed without a party).

Oh, and are there any mods out there that anyone could recommend? This will be my first time playing through it on PC so I'm really clueless about any extra content beyond the vanilla stuff.

http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/A_Leveling_Fix;118078

that link specifically is for your "harder" mode, essentially, the same website has all the mods you will ever need for kotor..


for the first game, i can't recommend too much, just look around for what you like (when you open up categories i go for descending "downloads" to see whats the most popular but nearly every mod i have tried has been solid so i'm sure you'll find some great stuff no matter what)


I don't care for "hard" games so i can't be the one to recommend much more beyond that...but have fun!

edit:

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Knights-Old-Republic-Pc/dp/B00027CXEM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308708535&sr=8-1

kotor II physical copy, i bought one myself a year ago and its been happy times ever since =}

WARNING: heavy modding required for kotor II, for functionality and fun increase exponentially when you mod KOTOR II, especially if your looking for "hard" mods for gameplay changes

 

[octafish]

snip

^Actually, I do own Neverwinter Nights 2 on steam and tried it out. Seems like it could be pretty fun in multiplayer especially. But my cheap bastard friend doesn't want to buy it, I may just force him to one day.

I don't know about support for NWN2 but NWN1 had a huge mod/custom campaign scene. Available on GOG as well.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

snip

http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/A_Leveling_Fix;118078

that link specifically is for your "harder" mode, essentially, the same website has all the mods you will ever need for kotor..


for the first game, i can't recommend too much, just look around for what you like (when you open up categories i go for descending "downloads" to see whats the most popular but nearly every mod i have tried has been solid so i'm sure you'll find some great stuff no matter what)


I don't care for "hard" games so i can't be the one to recommend much more beyond that...but have fun!

edit:

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Knights-Old-Republic-Pc/dp/B00027CXEM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308708535&sr=8-1

kotor II physical copy, i bought one myself a year ago and its been happy times ever since =}

WARNING: heavy modding required for kotor II, for functionality and fun increase exponentially when you mod KOTOR II, especially if your looking for "hard" mods for gameplay changes

Amazing! I'll give that a try tonight, hopefully. I'm ordering a copy of KOTOR2 today as well.

snip

^Actually, I do own Neverwinter Nights 2 on steam and tried it out. Seems like it could be pretty fun in multiplayer especially. But my cheap bastard friend doesn't want to buy it, I may just force him to one day.

I don't know about support for NWN2 but NWN1 had a huge mod/custom campaign scene. Available on GOG as well.

Well damn, I didn't even know GoG had the first NWN. I just looked it up, 10$ too. My cheap bastard friend should have less qualms about purchasing this, I'll start looking into some of these extra campaigns too.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I dl this one myself because i found the combat way too easy in KOTOR.
http://download.cnet.com/Star-Wars-Knights-of-the-Old-Republic-1-0-Hardcore-Mod/3000-7536_4-10257020.html

Sweet! I'm definitely curious about this one. I've only just gotten to Taris last night so I don't really have a feel for the "Hard" combat yet, but if it's not what I expected then I'll give this a go for sure.

Thanks everyone for helping me out!