KoTOR Players: Light Side Or Dark Side?

[Scissorjack]

Which do you play? I've beaten the game on both, and the Dark Side is far more fun, as well as being much easier: you can backchat Carth when he starts whining about "betrayal", ignore that hypocritical pricktease Bastila's tedious sermonising about the perils of the Dark Side, you get all the fun "assassin" quests instead of the boring "reuniting estranged families" ones {the assassin ones pay better, too} and you get to dust innocents for pleasure and most importantly profit {take 50 credits from Largo for not turning him in, accept the bounty contract on him for an extra 300, plus another 50 for robbing his corpse.} Yep, the Dark Side pays cash, baby.

What would you get if you played nice? Take Dia, the chick who tells you to get out on Taris: you've got to pay off the guy who took out the contract, and you're 400 credits out of pocket with nothing more than her grateful thanks and a Light Side bonus. Being nice costs, and you're endlessly scrabbling to recoup the credits you give away to every Harry Hardluck and Sally Sobstory you bump into. Well, a couple of Echani duelling shields would be nice this Christmas, but good Jedi don't take money for helping hapless aliens. Maybe next Christmas...

Oh, sure, you get Light Side powers, but the Dark Side powers are far better, too: Malak is bloody hard if you're playing nice, since the strongest power you get is Force Push, but play dirty, and he's a stroll in the park. Waste the captive Jedi with a couple of Throw Lightsabres, toss a couple of Force Lightning and Drain Life hits at him, he's toast, and you rule the galaxy. And get to see Bastila modelling her Sith's Secrets new season underwear.

The only one I haven't tried is playing nasty right up to the alien temple to get all the villainous powers, and then

SPOILER:

virtuously rejecting Bastila's overtures to join her to overthrow Malak. Manipulating me by wiping my memory, brainwashing me into being "good", and all to use me as a strategic tool to find the Starforge? The Jedi Council obviously haven't seen A Clockwork Orange, and two can play at strategic manipulation. Anyway, she storms off, you keep your evil strengths, kill her later, fry Malak's arse, and take the credit for saving the galaxy.

You can chalk up all the innocents you took out along the way as strategic losses - regrettable but necessary sacrifices in a greater cause. Anyone played it this way? Which side{s} do you favour?

[HPL]

I just finished the game as light side and I rather enjoyed it. Next time, I'll probably play dark side, but I actually liked most of the characters on your team and I'd really hate to hurt them. Hell, I even felt bad when Juhani told me not to use the force to mess with people's minds to avoid paying the docking fee.

And I will say that it is expensive to be nice, but only on taris. The rest of the time, I had more then enough money for anything. Actually, I didn't need to buy much, since the Jedi code doesn't prevent looting every chest you come across.

Actually, the only thing that really got on my nerves was Darth Malak sermonizing about how strong he is and how weak I am and blah blah blah. What the hell is it with these villians that they have to rant so much before the final fight? I came for a fight, not a soliquy. I just wanted to tell him "Enough! Let's fight!"

I tolerated Mission and her loser brother, Bastilia and her constant need for reassurance, but Malak was just too much.

[wolf in second hand clothing]

Everyone always says it was easier to beat Malak dark side rather than light side, but I found that maxing out force valor and speed was enough that I was able to just straight up pound him into the dirt. I thought it was harder trying to zap him with force lightening (I was a sentinal both times)

But I will admit that dark side is pretty fun. But I had to fight the 'help everyone' mentality that I had picked up from years of other video game rpgs. Force choke is just so damn fun.

[Tarrsk]

Fighting Malak as a Dark Jedi is easier simply because you can pre-empt his moves: instead of Malak constantly returning to full health as he drains the captive Jedi, you can actually drain them yourself, first. With only one life bar's worth of vitality, Malak is a complete pushover.

That said, I only got through the Dark Side campaign with difficulty. Not at the game itself... I just felt so bad each time I did something evil. The only other game that's ever affected me that way was Planescape Torment (although I haven't played KOTOR 2 and Jade Empire as an evil character yet).

I will admit that...

SPOILER:

...tricking Zaalbar into killing Mission...

...was highly entertaining (in a horrible sort of way), simply because I've never played any game that allowed you to do something so utterly treacherous, Grand Theft Auto included.

[Tarrsk]

Incidentally, as if my post didn't make it clear, I always play Light Side to start with. If the game's storyline is intriguing enough, I'll run through it again as a Dark Sider, wincing internally all the way.

[QuizCustodet]

Originally Posted by Case Sensitive

Oh, sure, you get Light Side powers, but the Dark Side powers are far better, too: Malak is bloody hard if you're playing nice, since the strongest power you get is Force Push, but play dirty, and he's a stroll in the park. Waste the captive Jedi with a couple of Throw Lightsabres, toss a couple of Force Lightning and Drain Life hits at him, he's toast, and you rule the galaxy. And get to see Bastila modelling her Sith's Secrets new season underwear.

For the record, there's no dark-side points for killing the captive Jedi; if you examine them, it says something about how they're effectively already dead. At that point, I did exactly the same re: wasting them with throw lightsabres, then took out Malak. (Granted, by running like a scared little girl with Force Speed, pausing every so often to throw my lightsabre at him - but I thought that was a cheat. My character wasn't buffed for hand to hand combat, nor was there any reason she should have been in the game to that point.) It didn't even occur to me that this could be considered as a Dark Side action - rather the opposite, in fact. I think it's clearly light side to let them become "more powerful than you can possibly imagine" rather than become Malak Munchies.

[HPL]

I found the Malak Battle to be rather easy, particulary when I quickly figured out that you can kill the half-dead jedi with no force reprucussions, both stopping Malak from recharging and putting them out of their misery at the same time(And I was light side, but frankly, by the end of the game, I was cutting through pretty much everyone like they weren't there)

Maybe that's why Malak's speech disappointed me so. He's talks for so long, the fight is much shorter then his speech. A great dialouge option would have been to say to him "Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?"

[Ferret Herder]

Malak wasn't tough as a Light Side Guardian. I hit the run power, dashed around and used the robot-frying power to zap the machines holding the essentially-dead Jedi, then buffed up and hit Force Leap to nail Malak hard. Either withdraw, run, and leap in, or hit the inventory screen and use a health pack. Be sure you've got some kind of stamina-enhancing stim going.

After playing the game light, I'm too much of a softie to try to play it dark and betray the characters. Especially after finding out how much Carth warms up to a female Light Jedi.

[Scissorjack]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

After playing the game light, I'm too much of a softie to try to play it dark and betray the characters. Especially after finding out how much Carth warms up to a female Light Jedi.

You have to experience the evil joy of running amok in the Sith Academy, betraying and murdering sensitive doubting types, Sith wannabes, and teachers alike: if you leave Korriban as your last "quest" planet, your force powers are pretty much fully loaded then, and you get to have a lot of fun with the snot-nosed undergrads who pick fights in spaceports to show off their new Dark Side powers. And after you've picked the place clean, then kill the entire faculty, after double-double-crossing the Master and his Apprentice into poisoning each other, just to make the fight easier. Ah, was there ever such fun in being so truly wicked in a game?

[smiling bandit]

Yes, any ranged power (including droid-aaffecting ones and Breach Force) will hurt the caged Jedi.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Tarrsk

That said, I only got through the Dark Side campaign with difficulty. Not at the game itself... I just felt so bad each time I did something evil. The only other game that's ever affected me that way was Planescape Torment (although I haven't played KOTOR 2 and Jade Empire as an evil character yet).

Somebody else who playes this wonderful game! (Planescape Torment). I loved it.

Anyway, I'm with you. I am a good person at heart, and know it...I can't play a convincing evil character in D&D or any other RPG, and I'm not too good at it in computer games, either. Couldn't do it in Baldur's Gate. I just kept feeling bad about it..

[Silentgoldfish]

Originally Posted by Anaamika

Somebody else who playes this wonderful game! (Planescape Torment). I loved it.

The good news is that I read an interview with the lead designer who said that contrary to popular belief Torment was a modest hit, just not on a Baldur's gate scale.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Case Sensitive

You have to experience the evil joy of running amok in the Sith Academy, betraying and murdering sensitive doubting types, Sith wannabes, and teachers alike: if you leave Korriban as your last "quest" planet, your force powers are pretty much fully loaded then, And after you've picked the place clean, then kill the entire faculty, after double-double-crossing the Master and his Apprentice into poisoning each other, just to make the fight easier.

Sorry for the double post, but I inadvertently did this anyway. When I came back from the Academy quest, I either got a bug or something..I managed to reach there ahead of my guide, so maybe that was it. Maybe everybody thought I was evil.

Anyway, the whole damn place turned hostile. I hadn't left it for my last quest, so I wasn't tough, and my NPCs all died, so I couldn't just run through and leave. I had to fight it out. So you can do it anyway.

Also, I had no idea that there was any other way to kill Malak other than killing all the Jedi he was feeding off of. Actually, I brought him down the first time, and while he took one body, went around killing as many others as I could, then same thing.

And I agree...he talked too damn much!

[smiling bandit]

The good news is that I read an interview with the lead designer who said that contrary to popular belief Torment was a modest hit, just not on a Baldur's gate scale.

The bad news it's owned by Interplay (which is defeunct and will have a hard time selling anything to anyone). And a new one can't be done without the express permission of Wizards of the Coast, and it wouldn't be in the same game system anyway.

[bouv]

I played as both light and dark, and I liked light side so much better. As ogthers have said, all those years of always being the good guy in video games ingrained itself into me that a hero does NOT kill innocent people!

That being said, I also that it was standard operating procedure to kill all the lifeless Jedi in the tubes at the end of the game. Why would I do anything different? Oh, I see...do enough damage that he sucks all of them and THEN kill him? What am I, an idiot? I didn't even think to think of whether or not I would get dark side points. And besides, by that time, I had so much light going for me (as far as you could go,) that I';m sure even if it did grant dark side points, as long as it wasn't as severe a shift as the point in the game when you can either help or deny evil Bastilla, I would still get the lgiht ending.

One of these days, I want to paly trying to be neutral. Do some good, some bad, and try to even it out so that I can use both dark and lightr powers. You would have to be a sentinal (that's the one with them most powers/force points, yes?) because otherwise you will never get the nice benefit of your powers costing less, and you'll need more to make up for the lack of them worknig better.

Oh, and light side powers are better. My memory is fuzzy, but the dark side healing powerr isn't as good, always missed for me, and I don't think the first tier of it even healed you, it only hurt them. The light side one is a much better healer, overall, and it was probably my most used power. I was just glad throw lightsaber was a neutral power, cause it's so damn cool! Oh, and I only layed as a GUardian both times, because the force leap into battle is also really cool.

[Silentgoldfish]

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

The bad news it's owned by Interplay (which is defeunct and will have a hard time selling anything to anyone). And a new one can't be done without the express permission of Wizards of the Coast, and it wouldn't be in the same game system anyway.

I don't neccesarily view that as bad news. Torment is a great game that doesn't need or even leave room for a sequel. The fact that it did modestly well, at least enough to turn a profit anyway leaves hope that other developers can do equally mature games set in Sigil.

Ok, slim hope, but still!

To get slightly back on track the team that did Torment went on to do KOTOR 2 which AFAIK also was a modest success so I'm very interested to see what Obisidian can pull off without having a developer force a hasty resolution out of them.

[HPL]

Originally Posted by Anaamika

Sorry for the double post, but I inadvertently did this anyway. When I came back from the Academy quest, I either got a bug or something..I managed to reach there ahead of my guide, so maybe that was it. Maybe everybody thought I was evil.

Anyway, the whole damn place turned hostile. I hadn't left it for my last quest, so I wasn't tough, and my NPCs all died, so I couldn't just run through and leave. I had to fight it out. So you can do it anyway.

!

I had the same thing happen to me. I got rid of the guy running the acadmey, got Ban to go back to the Jedi(or at least ocnsider it) but when I returned, the other sith got suspicious and tried to kill me. So I ended up killing them all to get out.

I just thought it was wierd. I kill the head of the academy and they attack me. I thought "Survival of the fittest" was encouraged among the sith. So why the hell are they upset at me? I'm just doing exactly what they believe in. By all rights, they should be following my orders now.

Not only is the dark side quicker and easier, people who follow it are ****ing flakes who get their jollies taunting people in the halls and trying to pick fights with bystanders. Let's face it, the sith acadmey is a great advertistment why you don't want to join the dark side.

[rpinrd]

I'm playing KOTOR II right now and I'm so far into the light side that I've got white light streaming out of my @ss. I. Just. Can't. Do. The. Dark. Side. Things. Can't do it. I think I like the idea of being the hero. I also get a kick out of taking the dark side companions on missions so they are forced to convert to the light side.

KOTOR II has a nice feature that I don't remember being present in KOTOR:

SPOILER:

If you master the light side, you get a +3 bonus to strength. I'm playing as a Guardian (the warrior class right? Not the diplomat or force master class), but I suppose the bonus is probably different for each class. I have no idea what kind of bonus you get for mastering the dark side - probably never will either.

[smiling bandit]

There is indeed a different bonus for each class for Light Side and Dark Side.

The fact that it did modestly well, at least enough to turn a profit anyway leaves hope that other developers can do equally mature games set in Sigil.

Not really. For now, at least, WotC has basically said Frag All to every game line except Forgotten Realms (which is pretty good even in 3e) and Eberron (which isn't). Their sales on Dragonlance and Eberron has been so disappointing that they may effectively kill both lines by starving them of new books.

Planescape is pretty much dead, since they refuse to have anything to do with it. I guess someone could convince them otherwise. It's too bad, too. The WotC managers seem to think an awful lot of themselves, but they basically lucked into market dominance with very little real acumen.

[Scissorjack]

Originally Posted by HPL

I had the same thing happen to me. I got rid of the guy running the acadmey, got Ban to go back to the Jedi(or at least ocnsider it) but when I returned, the other sith got suspicious and tried to kill me. So I ended up killing them all to get out.

I think it depends what terms you leave your confrontation with them on, which probably depends on how you pick your responses with Ban: I was playing Light Side the first time so teamed up with her to double-cross Uthar, we killed him, I beat her up for a bit, and then tried to turn her to the Light. We left on reasonably amicable terms, she got to the Academy before me {maybe that's the key}, and I just walked on out of there. Kill 'em both and you've got a big fight on your hands: which is why you should save completing Korriban until later in the game - if you're tooled up, they're a doddle.

[HPL]

Originally Posted by Case Sensitive

I think it depends what terms you leave your confrontation with them on, which probably depends on how you pick your responses with Ban: I was playing Light Side the first time so teamed up with her to double-cross Uthar, we killed him, I beat her up for a bit, and then tried to turn her to the Light. We left on reasonably amicable terms, she got to the Academy before me {maybe that's the key}, and I just walked on out of there. Kill 'em both and you've got a big fight on your hands: which is why you should save completing Korriban until later in the game - if you're tooled up, they're a doddle.

That's pretty much what I did. Teamed up againest Uthar, saved ban, and they still attacked me.

One of my team members fell because he was seperated from me, but I killed them all. And It was good.

[Jinks]

My first play through was with a light side sentinel. He was definitely tough but eventually the novelty of swishing lightsabers wears off. I always, usually, play games as a 'good' aligned character first.

Then i played with a dark side counsellor, that was much more fun. Something inside me gets a kick out of using and abusing the dark side offensive powers. Jedi Knight 2 was boring up until you were tossing stormtroopers all over the place. I wasn't an 'over the top' evil character, more an 'how can this situation be manipulated to best benefit me' kind of evil.

Finally, i fell into the all too common trap (for me) of power gaming. I started forcing myself to make it off Taris with as low a level as possible (3?) which made it a complete chore/bore. You really don't need those extra few Jedi levels. I only have myself to blame. I did the same thing with Baldurs Gate 2 and soloing. I'm my own worst enemy.

[Nightsong]

In many ways I prefer the first KoTOR as light side female, the story seems to 'click' better that way. Dark side female is fun as well, using a mod to restore an alternate ending.

For the KoTOR2, so far I'm preferring dark side male. Like with the first one, there's just something about the way the story is written that just 'clicks' better with me this way.

And yes, I have played through both games as LSF, DSF, LSM, DSM. (And for KoTOR2, if I was LSF I acted as if I finished KoTOR as LSF, etc.)

My only real beef is that being dark side in both games is a bit... flat. It's better in the second one, but in the first it seemed that most of the 'dark' actions came down to being a mere bully.

Although the second one did have the memorable:

SPOILER:

On Nar Shadda, you encounter two thugs trying to get their money from a scumbag. You approach, and the scumbag points at you and says you have their money! One of the responses, assuming you have the appropriate skill, is to [Force Persuade] the thugs into giving you all of their money then jumping off the nearby ledge. Very fun.

___
<< Sith happens. >>

[Scissorjack]

My favourite dirty trick was stripping Juhani and Jolee {the Abe Simpson of the Jedi} of their weapons and robes after we'd cleaned out the alien temple but before the rooftop confrontation with Bastila. That way,

SPOILER:

when you ally with Bastila to fully embrace the Dark Side and J&J object and try to fight you sans lightsabres, you get to toy with them before killing them...

I should have received extra Dark Side credits for that little ploy, but I was maxed out by then. Mind you, I was never quite bad enough to make Mission run around in her undies: Darth Humbert Humbert just doesn't have that ring to it.

[HPL]

Do you get dark side points for using the "Dominate Mind" to get discounts on stuff? I keep thinking how cool it would be to have that ability in real life.

"You marked this test incorrectly. I did much better"

"You want to give me a free sample"

"Mr. FBI guy, these are not the illegally downloaded movies you're looking for. I can go about my business"

"I have business with the President"

"You want to give me a cabinet position, Mr. President"

You don't even need the rest of the force stuff. Just being able to persuade people by suggestion would be very useful.

[Scissorjack]

Originally Posted by HPL

Do you get dark side points for using the "Dominate Mind" to get discounts on stuff? I keep thinking how cool it would be to have that ability in real life.

"You marked this test incorrectly. I did much better"

"You want to give me a free sample"

"Mr. FBI guy, these are not the illegally downloaded movies you're looking for. I can go about my business"

"I have business with the President"

"You want to give me a cabinet position, Mr. President"

You don't even need the rest of the force stuff. Just being able to persuade people by suggestion would be very useful.

"These aren't the bootleg Star Wars DVD's you're looking for." Actually, maybe you could just Force Persuade Lucas into releasing the unaltered original movies on DVD, then retiring forever.