Yeah, both Bioware and Obsidian are good developers. The people at Obsidian are also talented programmers/designers/writers/etc. whom came from the former Black Isle development company. Although Obsidian hasn't had much leeway with their games, the stories have definitely been interesting. For some, it's hard to get into the games that have moral issues painted as just black and white, so the large amounts of grey area that Obsidian's stories work in is rather enjoyable, in my opinion. A lot of people tend to knock on them because of the rather loose ends that their games have, but when playing the bulk of the game, you get a very good feel for the talented work that went into that, and it really can't be denigrated nor should their game as a whole be judged upon just the ending or latter part of the game.

Also, the reason NWN2 had/has a lot of bugs is because the engine that Obsidian got from Bioware was the original one that had not been updated/fixed/patched like NWN1 had undergone during its time. So in essence, Obsidian had/has to deal with generally the same issues that NWN1 went through during its early years. Growing pains, so to speak.

I don't think I need to mention much of anything about Bioware. I'm mainly looking forward to Mass Effect on PC.

Jythier, yep - that's it. Jade Empire.

Ravenstrike, I thought that the KOTOR3 rumor and Bioware's involvement with the title are both rumors. Do you have a source on that? Even though I'm bashing KOTOR2 I am at the core a Star Wars fanboy and will surely pick up a third installment

KOTOR2 was fairly fun, it was just that the end was extremely rushed. When I see the Ebon Hawk fly off after defeating Kreia, and then seeing the credits, I'm like, "That's it??!!". Darth Nihilius was supposed to be the big bad guy, and you only see him once. Bioware should learn to put up with demanding publishers. Or better yet, move to Stardock!    However, endless beta will certainly push back the release, but at least it will be complete.

No doubt. I'm of the same opinion. Obsidian has let me down so much with two franchises I have much love for. Anyway, on a more positive note, I am so stoked for Dragon Age (DA). I only hope that BioWare does the x-pack and the sequel.

Obsidian found their way again with the NWN2 expansion pack; Mask of the Betrayer.  It was what the original game should have been.  Well written, faster pace, more "fun" less "work" and a lot of improvements to the UI and engine.

KOTOR2 was one of the most disappointing games I've played in years.  After the greatness of the first one, I had high hopes for the second.  Even higher once I was told that how I interacted with each character would have subtle influences on the outcome of the game.  Sadly they had to scrap that about half way through the game and were never able to implement it properly.  A lot of blame for this one gets laid at LucasArt's feet since they reportedly forced the game out for a holiday release, something they couldn't do with Bioware (bioware has a lot more pull with a publisher than a brand new studio like Obsidian).

I found both NWN2 and KOTOR2 superseding the originals in most aspects even if both games seems unfinished. I also find “Mask of the betrayer” being one of the best things that happened the rpg market since Bloodlines, even though I have high hopes for mass effect (and I have not played “The witcher”).

Seems like industry standard practices give too much clout to publishers who know nothing of game development (apparently) and not enough to the developers who actually know how to make a good game. A smallish studio without much clout can't afford to try to stand up to a giant like LucasArts or Atari, and so ends up blackening its own reputation for somebody else's decision. Sure, a company like Bioware can basically say "You want us to develop your game, you publish at any time you like *AFTER* we decide the game is finished." A very recent start-up like Obsidian had no such ability.

The moral of the story is that the industry is broken and marketing is allowed to make engineering decisions. That's never good in any company.

I guess this is a reversal of the stance I expressed in one of the DRM threads, where I said the developer has at least partial responsibility for publishing decisions, because those things should be established in the contract between the developer and publisher, and if the contract is not acceptable, the developer should walk. It's still technically true, both about DRM and about early releases - but I'm coming to see that the publishers seem to have enough clout that smaller developers will go out of business before they find a publisher that's not going to screw them over with horrible publishing decisions of one sort or another.

When talking release dates, I think retailers have some pull there too. Get it to me for Christmas or we won't stock it at all kind of thing. Maybe not, but probably. They push on the publisher, the publisher pushes on the designer, and you end up with crap. So next time, yell at the guy working behind the counter at GameStop, because he's the only one not at fault!

Both KOTOR2 and NWN2 suffered primarily because of the klutzy graphics engine. Both of them had pretty strong storylines, although KOTOR2's in particular got truncated thanks to those (beep)s at Lucasarts.

If people weren't so obsessed by the cosmetics (graphics and sound), we wouldn't be reduced to only seeing a handful of game releases every year (it's basically impossible for a small team to produce a game these days), nor would we be forced to keep upgrading hardware just to play the latest games. And developers could spend their time on the things that *really* count.

I just hope they don't do what they've already done once: buy up the name to a reputable company and just use that instead of their "own" name. (Atari is actually Infogrames Interactive, a company with a really bad reputation, so they decided to just grab a new name instead of fixing the problems that gave them a bad rep)

Nuts, I can't edit my post for some reason, but I also wanted to say "I wish I could buy KOTOR or KOTOR2, but alas I never heard about them until way too late".

Check mail order, you may not find either game on retail shelves, but I'm sure you could get them from Amazon or some such.

For that matter, KOTOR may still be on some shelves if you have any stores with any Xbox original games still in stock - it was one of the platinum collection games, I believe.

Wasn't KOTOR a PC game? The copy I'm within 2 minutes of winning on EBay labeled it as such!

KOTOR was on XBox as well.

KOTOR is also available as part of a 5-game Star Wars package for around $35 on the PC. That's how I got my copy of it. It also contains Jedi Knight 2, Republic Commando, and two other games. I believe one is a strategy game while the other may be another strategy game. It also includes a 14-day trial of Star Wars Online.

I only played KOTOR though. I tried to play JK2, but FPS games from that era and earlier tended to give me major motion sickness, and they still do. I can handle the lightsabre moments, but having to use projectile weapons beforehand makes it a bit difficult to get there.

You should still be able to find KOTOR2 in on-line stores if not in actual stores.