Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Wrap Report, Part 1

Amongst the team, we've seen a lot of work on a lot of different projects. Members worked on the following titles (that I know of): Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and their expansions, Icewind Dale 1 and 2 and their expansions, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum and a host of other non-RPG games. There's an incredible amount of experience and talent at Obsidian that makes me, personally, very proud.

we recognized that a core part of what made KOTOR I so great was the story and your companions, and that was our intention in the sequel

As far as designers go, Chris Avellone wrote the overall story, most of the companions, Peragus and a chunk of Nar Shaddaa, but we had a number of designers who made the story and the project what it was, Michael Chu (Worlds of Warcraft) was responsible for much of Telos and the lightsaber quest plus some Nar Shaddaa quests, along with Mandalore and Bao-Dur. Kevin Saunders (Zero Hour, Shattered Galaxies) worked on Nar Shaddaa and did much of the game mechanics and workbench design. Tony Evans (Secret Weapons over Normandy) made the prologue kick-ass and helped with four other planets to get them into the shape, including Korriban, Dantooine and Dxun / Onderon). John Morgan just started, going the production route; he did text edits plus many, many lists, and quest design for Nar Shaddaa. Scotty Everts did technical design, and we also had two designers transition off the project. One was Ferret Baudoin (Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries) who went on to become the lead for Neverwinter Nights after working on Dantooine, Korriban, Dxun / Onderon and mini-games. The other was Dave Maldonado (Dark Alliance 2) who did part of Telos.

We worked with a few out of house contractors. TJ Frame did a ton of concept work for us, and his talents were very beneficial to the project. Rob Giampa did almost all of our level blocking. Chris Appelhans also did some concepting on the project.

Our biggest out of house contributor would actually be LucasArts. About six months before completion, they offered to assist us with some production assets. At the time, we had completed about 50 of the 60 movies for the game to about 90%, but some of them needed polishing and some weren't done. They also offered to help out with heads and props. We took them up on all those offers because it would open up bandwidth to polish up areas and characters in the game - and they really delivered.

We had two audio gurus, Nathan Smith onsite and Julian Kwasneski offsite, who worked tirelessly with the audio group at LucasArts to help get all of the audio in the game and sounding great. LucasArts put three of their QA guys onsite to help test along with four temp guys - they helped us fix a ton of bugs. And I don't even know how many guys were testing the title up at the LucasArts offices, but I know it was a lot. We'd never finish a game without QA, and those guys were great.

Finally, we had help from the production staff at LucasArts. As a developer, you never know what you are going to get from a publisher's production staff, and I've said for a long time we won that lottery with Mike Gallo. Yeah, Mike's not perfect, but he's got a ton of experience and has a low tolerance for BS. More important than any of that, when you explain stuff to him, he actually listens and tries to fix problems - and you can trust him with any interview (he's way better on camera than I am), and he's fun to have a beer with. He was assisted by Rachel Bryant and Corrine Wong, who also kicked some serious *ss to help get the project done.

At the end, everybody was really working hard here at our offices in Orange County, California. I know that I was typically working a *normal* day from 9am to midnight during the week, with nice short 10-hour days on the weekend. Except Tuesday... I bowl on Tuesdays, so I take off early at around 5. :)

High-Level Goals Chris Avellone: When we sat down to set up the high concept and the overall design for The Sith Lords, we recognized that a core part of what made KOTOR I so great was the story and your companions, and that was our intention in the sequel as well. So, we wanted to see how we could add more depth to those interactions, and went from there. We borrowed a set of tools from previous Black Isle games, incorporated more skill checks into dialogues and quests, set about creating an influence system so that your dark and light side struggles could be mirrored in the companions (plus it also reinforces one of the main story aspects of the game), and gave the companions as much depth as we could. Then, we made sure we let the exploration of these companions' pasts be optional if the player desires.

We weren't seeking to stand out from other RPGs; we just wanted to create a game with a great story. We wanted deep characters, lots of interaction with people in the world, the sense that your fate and those of others are the most important things in the galaxy, and most of all, we wanted to play in the Star Wars universe and put our own spin on the events and physics of that world.