So, Jan Ors will be back in this latest installment. It might just be me but I'd always thought Jan sort of had a crush on Kyle. She's got that innocent beauty about her, and Kyle's got that rugged, man-on-a-mission thing going on. It's only natural that the pheromones are going to fly.

So who here thinks that there will be a love story between Kyle and Jan? Who would like to see one?

Me? I'd kind of like to see something develop there - it seems natural. Of course, that means she'd be captured by the villain, and giving Kyle an extra-huge incentive to go rescue the love of his life.

So, I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

Yeah, Vag. I think that would fit pretty well. The three books based on Kyle's exploits do actually hint at such a relationship.

As for the villain holding onto her...hmmm, I don't know. It's sort of a tired old cliche, that one, IMO. I mean, Jedi Knight rescues damsel in distress?

It would be better if Kyle gets himself in a fix, and Jan has to do the rescuing...a la Leia rescues Han...

This might be the incentive he needs to come out of retirement, nice thought..

wardz

Yeah, that would be interesting. I'd like to have it as an underlying plot, rather than have the game revolve around the love story. Haven't we saved the princess from Bowser and Zelda from Ganon enough? ;)

Yep, Storm, haivng Jan do the rescuing would be a nice twist, and fitting within the Star Wars tradition.

Primarily, I was thinking that since Love is often held as most precious above all, that somehow this most perfect thing would need to be held in jeopardy, presumably by the nemesis.

This creates a huge motivator for a final conflict. Or, borrowing from Return of the Jedi, perhaps the villain is threatening to turn Jan to the Dark side, rather than kill her (presuming she Force sensitive).

This is fun to speculate about ;)

It wont really be that long before we start to get some details through will it? I mean concrete details, none of the rumour stuff.

Shall we take bets on when the plot comes through from LEC?, I'd say *5 weeks max* - any improvements on 5? ;)


wardz

Yay, im past 100 posts! Doing it the normal way *cough cough* captain rave....

Love can be an exceptionally powerful motivator. It was an underlying theme of ESB, and that turned out to be the best in the series, IMHO. Another film I enjoyed immensely in which love played a major part was Braveheart. Wallace took revenge on the entire English nation for injustice, which was triggered by the death of his wife. In a way, Gladiator reflected on this theme - Maximus is thinking about home and his family at the start and end of the film.

It could make for a very strong underlying theme in Jedi Outcast. As I said before, the foundations were laid mostly in the books, but not really explored in any depth.

In a way, Kyle's feelings for Jan did arise in Jedi Knight - the internal conflict during the cut scene when he could either choose to kill or save her. I'd like to think in the Light version that it is his love for Jan that prevents him from turning to the Dark Side. :)

Good point, ESB was my favourite as well.

However, this talk about love could potentially make it a very compelling game BUT they must do it right or it could turn out to be very cheesy, and instead of people wanting to see the cutscenes again, their finger will be going straight for the ESC key every time...

Love would be better as an underlying theme rather than a main story anyway IMO, and as much as I think it could be good, they are going to focus on this 'dark jedi' sort of person again..

We will have to wait and see!

wardz

i give it 6 weeks. They'll crack by then.

Of course, that means she'd be captured by the villain, and giving Kyle an extra-huge incentive to go rescue the love of his life.

Jan was captured by Jabba along with Kyle, both were taken aboard Jabba's personal ship after it tractor beamed the Moldy Crow as it was leaving Nar Shaddaa. After Kyle escaped his death-by-Kell-Dragon fate he had to resque Jan, who we did finally get to see in game when he found her.

This all happened in the original Dark Forces of course... they were definitely still friends after that from what we can gather.

Hmm, nothing else to add at this time, except that the plot of JK2 should be deeper imo then anything they've done in DF or JK.

I don't know, I'm more of a Crow fan when it comes to matters of love and justice...
For me this movie proves that there is nothing cliche...it all comes down to the way you present things to an audience.
The "save the princess" kind of plot is great for games like Donkey Kong or something. If LA starts thinking about making a plot like that, they'll have to put a lot of effort in it 'cause otherwise it will be as cliche as it could get...

They told us about AI sidekicks. Maybe Jan is one of them.

i wouldnt mind doing a bit of NPC interacting with jan ;)

Great. Now that you've come up with that in your twisted head, their are gonna be nude mods. Thank you.

Are you saying you want to see Kyle & Jan do the wild thing?

ugh. a love story?

Maybe something that ties in with the EU?

Hopefully this game's plot will be as good as JK, which was a damn entertaining game IMHO.

-The all powerful M.

Maybe it could be a hidden feature
like you fire up ur dvd drive, enter a passcode, whatever

who knows.... maybe if we find ALL the secrets in the game, we'll get to see some action

In Baldur's Gate II you get tons of action, and you can have it over and over and over... :o :D ;)

How did this discussion devolve from discussing love as a progression of Kyle's and Jan's relationship to cyber-porn? It's fairly safe to say that we won't be seeing any nude people in JKII.

Did anyone ever wonder if there would have been any jealously brewing between Jan and Mara Jade in Mysteries of the Sith? Could have turned into a real cat fight ;)

Clearly Jan has feelings for the Katarn. Why else would she show such dedication to him?

I like the idea about Jan being somehow corrupted by the Dark Jedi, Thrawn (the mastermind) and their Force-channeling technology.

Raven/LEC need to develop that story, and wrap it around lots of laser blasts, stormies, GNK Power droids, the Force, Dark Jedi and lightsabers.

Nothing wrong with the old 'damsel in distress' story. The reason it's used so much is because it works.

Ok there are feelings there.....but theres nothing wrong with a man and a women being friends. Thats just sexist.

What if Kyle or Jan had siblings? Or, what if Kyle and Jan were brother and sister?

Them being brother and sister would definitely fall within the Star Wars tradition, but would it be too much? For me, that was a big bite to swallow the first time around, so I don't know that it would be palatable as a second-helping.

So let's take a closer look at Kyle or Jan having siblings. Oh! I have it!

What if Kyle had a brother - a brother that was also strong with the Force - a brother that had succumbed to the dark side of the Force? This would be a good story. It's perfect! It's a story about temptation, disgrace, family, and redemption. Kyle's brother once a promising officer with the Alliance, suddenly disappeared and hadn't been heard from in the years since. The chilling truth is that his brother had uncovered an ancient Jedi artifact filled with the secrets of the dark side. At first repulsed, then torn and ashamed, Kyle's brother is soon seduced by the dark side, thus beginning his lustful quest for power.

After years of relative peace, Kyle is summoned by the New Republic, and ordered to clandestinely investigate strange reports in the outer rim territories. Reluctantly, Kyle agreed, and upon arrival started putting the pieces of the puzzle together - a Dark Jedi. Kyle must face him. And it's then does Kyle realized that it's his own long-lost brother. Does he fight him? Does he kill him? Does he attempt to save him? The conflict here is great and compelling. I personally love this idea, even if I did come up with it on my own ;)

Granted, it's a bit like the Vader / Luke conflict, but this is brother -vs- brother, surely something that many of us males can relate to.

So, what do you think?

Interesting. Such a touching, moving plot would be integral to getting really involved with the game.

thats a nice idea vag, Bro v.s Bro. Whoever wins gets to rag Jan!

Nah, only kidding. That would be interesting, having to destory your own brother.. it would be a very immersive plot -slighlty cathartic but never the less, its a new idea to mull over...


wardz

Yeah, that's a really good concept, Vag. it could be even better if it's a long-lost identical twin brother - because then you could introduce elements of mistaken identity... Except for Jan. She knows Kyle, knows his battle with the Dark Side, and enlists Luke's help (in the form of some Jedi students) to find Kyle before the authorities can kill him.

Then Kyle has to try and discover the truth. Is it a clone? A trickster? Or a long-lost relative? Along the way, he has to deal with people the look-alike has wronged, and not necessarily by killing them.

Then in the final battle, he faces a mirror-image of himself...a Dark Kyle...the very thing he feared the most... ;)

Nice spin, Storm. I wonder if Raven is reading this posting, harvesting it for ideas, and maybe looking for a couple good writers to employ ;)

That would certainly be sweet, Vag... ;)

Of course, we could always collaborate on what happens to Kyle between MotS and JKII. I've been thinking about writing some fan fic about that time. I mean, there are nearly four years to cover - and he could have got into a lot of trouble in that time. :D

eh... I dunno...

I'm really not looking for a love story in JK2. Video games just never really get it right (so far). Let's say that an interest does develope during JK2... so then what? That really doesn't make the game any better; it just would be more of a "Oh, so they like each other and there'll be Kyle Jr.'s running around. That's nice... Now uh, back to some gameplay please!" :)

(Just IMHO, but am I really alone on this?)

Wanting to destroy your brother. Realistic...Sometimes.

The only game I remember that succeded in bringing a story like this was Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers. Of course that was an adventure game and with a resolution of 640x480 and 256 colours the gamer had to imagine a lot of things that were not as clear as they could be in his monitor...
And of course that was the reason it worked...
Of course the voice acting was perfect with actors like Tim Curry and Mark Hammil on the leading roles and that really helped the overall story of the game.

If there won't be enough effort put in an attempt like that I honestly believe that JKO will have a story we all have seen many times and speaking for myself wouldn't like to see again...

So your guess is generic story?

Just let me clarify that I don't think the love story should be the focus of JKII. Rather, if one develops, then that creates a very strong motive for Kyle to protect Jan, or the other way around. Obviously people who love each other are going to be highly motivated in that regard.

Also, the idea about the brothers is a conflict, in my opinion. On the one hand you want to destroy the evil Dark Jedi, but he's your own brother. What do you do? If you kill your brother, that's evil. If you let him continue his reign of terror, that's also evil. You should want to save him, but that may not be possible, and you may have no other choice but to kill him. Do you commit an evil act so that others may be saved? Or, perhaps an even darker option - you join him. This is a very interesting area to explore, in my opinion.

Yes, Storm, some fan ficiton might be fun :)

No, perhaps I wasn't to clear.
Many if not all of Vags and Stormhammers ideas were IMHO very interesting.
What I fear is that with only one year for Raven to develop the game they might not give the attention a story like this needs.
They should look for clever and meaningfull dialogue, make interesting characters that have strong motivations for their actions and direct the cutsceens of the game so that you won't see 3000 polys at your screen but characters you can relate to just like you would in a good movie...
I somehow feel that this is dificult to accomplish in so litle time.
I really wish that good gameplay (SP+MP) and a great story were both present in this game and I really wouldn't mind waiting 2 years instead of 1 for the game to be completed but Raven and LEC seem to have other plans.
All I'm saying is that I'd take anytime a simple story instead of one that is complicated just for being complicated.

Apparently none of you guys have read the three Dark Forces books by Dark Horse...Im half way through the second one and both professed(to themselves)their love for each the other....oh btw the books are called Soldier for the Empire,Rebel Agent,and Jedi Knight

hmmmmmmmmmm verrrrrrry interesting indeed. I like it, and also I don't like it. Only because I think that unless handled properly it's in danger of being a bit on the cheesy side, but I have to say it has potential. And it's much better than yet ANOTHER unknown Dark Jedi popping out of the wood work years after the jedi were supposedly all but extinct (darn, that wacky Vader sure did a shoddy job of wiping out all of the jedi, what kind of evil messiah was he anyway?)

To have a good villian, you really need that kind of tension between him and the protagonist. The best villians are the villians you can hate (unlike Darth -yawn, look at my cool gimmick lightsaber- Maul) The other way to do that is to have the villian kidnap Jan, and I don't care what anyone else here says, that's just stupid. it's been done twice now, it's VERY cliched, and it's stupid. tho I do like the idea of Jan popping in and saving Kyle's butt.

And reguarding the whole Jan/Kyle relaionship thing, I think that should remain in the background, I don't think it needs to be central to the story. Watch sitcoms, once crushes bloom into actual relationships things get less interesting.

what I'm noticing here is that it seems like most of us are really most looking forward to JO being a good story based game. I hope Raven is listening.

Originally posted by Letalis:
<STRONG>Incest is best....</STRONG>

Okay, here's another interesting twist:

Instead of the Dark Jedi being Kyle's brother, what if he was Jan's brother? Now what does Kyle do? If he kills Jan's brother, Kyle's and Jan's relationship would probably never be the same. But he can't let the Dark Jedi continue doing all his Dark Jedi things. And Kyle doesn't really have the same personal motivation to save this guy as he would if it were his own brother, but if he loves Jan, then maybe that would be the motivation for him to try to save this guy.

Or maybe Jan jumps in and saves him somehow, maybe sacrificing herself. Maybe she tries to save her brother, but her brother's minions capture or kill her, forcing her brother to turn toward the light. Of course, this option has the effect of pretty much leaving Kyle (us) out of the action.

And to answer the question above, no, I've never read the Dark Forces books. I wonder if I should?

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

I would prefer the "Jans Brother" scenario, Facing your brother, or a Dark Kyle i.e your inner demons, is a bit of a cliche. After we find out who our nemisis is, Perhaps after long and hard thought, even in the face of your feelings for Jan, you decide to kill her brother. Then after a hard battle to find and get to him, you reach him. After an epic battle, during which you try to convince him to join the light side, you gain the upper hand. Whispering words of regret and sorrow to an absent Jan you prepare the final blow. Just then (enter ship here) comes flying down and picks up Jans brother, over a speaker ( do they have these) we here Jans voice. Obviously distruaght she says she's sorry but could not let her brother die, she believes ther is still good left in him. Then we hear a scream and hear here brothers voice, he laughs saying that his sister does not know the power of the dark side, but she soon will.... The ship acends into the sky with Kyle left crying out Jans name and wondering what that cryptic message her brother said meant?

Great idea, Syndrix. And your suggestion could go a couple of interesting ways.

The first, as you suggested, is Jan rescuing her brother in an attempt to save him - to turn him to the light. She gets betrayed as her brother intends to turn her instead.

Another idea is that Jan decided to rescue her brother, regardless of whether he's good or bad. If she needs to turn to the dark side to rescue him, then so be it. So the conclusion of JKII could end in a cliff-hanger, with Jan turning to the dark side, and becoming her brother's apprentice.

This option has a couple of great benefits: (1) We'll get a JKIII :) , (2) It's an incredible motivator for Kyle to bring Jan back to the light.

I wouldn't see Jan turning to the dark side as her preferred choice, but she may do it out of love for her brother. What she will have done is to accept the offer that Luke refused when Vader asked Luke to join him. Maybe she has the hidden motive of turning to the dark side only so that she can earn her brother's trust and then turn him back to the light, which leaves another interesting possibility. Maybe in a JKIII, at the climax, she does in fact turn her brother back to the light, but only at the cost of her own life. Her brother is saved, Jan is dead, and Kyle is heart-broken. It's a tragedy about sacrifice and salvation.

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Mysteries of the Sith touched on some of these ideas, Vagabond. I do believe Mara Jade faces her own evil twin in Mysteries of the Sith. I believe she also faces a corrupted, twisted 'dark Kyle.' Mara must decide at the end whether to fight and destroy her own friend, Katarn.

I am not sure we want to go down that path again.

However, the concept of facing your own family or friends, who have been corrupted, seems pretty consistent thoughout Star Wars and the 'expanded universe.'

Still, I'd rather fight Thrawn, evil military genius and plotter, and his henchmen, than kill my twin brother, who I don't really know. :cool:

Even though Thrawn is a great villain (from Vilnius), we already know that he will survive as he still needs to make a small cameo in the Heir to the Empire (HttE) trilogy ;) Plus, his genius lies more in fleet tactics and strategy, and would probably be more difficult to realize in a game about Jedi, since it's at such a lower, more personal scope, than capital ships.

Still, it could work with Thrawn as the mastermind over the Dark Jedi, as he was in HttE, but again, that too has been visited before. Plus, at least for me, I sort of feel more detached to that storyline. I mean, ya, there's the bad guy, and you want to kill him, but the emotional attachment isn't as strong, at least for me.

But maybe if Raven takes their time to present a Dark Jedi that we can really hate, or love, or sympathize with, then the emotional attachment - that thing that really pulls you into the story - will fall into place. I just don't want a cookie-cutter villain with lots of force powers to fight at the end of the game. I want to know him (or her), I want his motives to be complex and conflicting, I want it to be personal. If it's not, then it feels like I'm fighting just another Storm Trooper.

Oh, how about this: using the previous idea about Jan turning to the Dark side so that she can save her brother, what if Jan had to fight Kyle? That's about the biggest conflict those two could ever have! They both love each other, and now they must fight. Jan, trying to earn her brother's trust, must choose between her brother, and her love - Kyle. That would be pretty interesting :cool:

[ June 13, 2001: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

Now how about this: we learn that Thrawn is actually the father of Jan's dark jedi twin sister Anne. Kyle's dark twin brother Lyle loves Anne.

Now, don't forget, Thrawn also has a secret twin brother (Brawn). Brawn is basically a granola hippy who lives on Endor, being in 'nature' with the Ewoks. Thrawn is very embarrassed by Brawn's 'slacker' attitude. (Get that haircut, hippy, you'll never amount to anything!)

But Thrawn (being not only scheming, but overly protective) doesn't want Lyle near his daughter Anne. The great plot twist would be that at the end, Thrawn must cooperate with Brawn, Jan and Kyle to fight Ann and Lyle!

Ya, but who's on first?

;)

Seriuosly though, surley the relationship between Kyle and Jan will progress or change in some fashion. I mean, The Empire Strikes Back, argued by many to be the best Star Wars movie, had a love story in it - between Han and Leia - it wasn't the focus of the movie, but it was there and it helped to progress the story. I just think something interesting should happen there. It doesn't have to be her going to the dark side, it doesn't have to be a love story, but something compelling would help pull you into the story.

Does anyone have any interesting ideas they'd like to share about this? Ideas not involving the Rhyming Family clans? ;)

excelent sarcasm/commentary on where this post is heading wilhuf

Originally posted by The Wanderer:
<STRONG>excelent sarcasm/commentary on where this post is heading wilhuf</STRONG>

Which is? What are your thoughts about Kyle and Jan, The Wanderer? Do you have a preference? Do you not care? Just curious.

Just joking around a bit. I like the family intrigue concept.

It's absolutely true that there should be an involved and engaging plot for JKO, hopefully something that challenges us at least a little.

By challenge, I don't mean a game that is hard to complete. I mean a plot that kinda sorta challenges our ideals.

Like for instance, when Brawn challenges Thrawn to a Galactic Basket Weaving contest on Endor, Thrawn faces the moral dilemma that he must either suffer the annoying Ewoks, or destroy the Ewoks. But in doing so, he thereby insults his brother, who has come to understand them. The agony of consequence!

The story speaks a universal truth. I think when I say this, I am speaking for us all: we all must face the decision whether or not to accept Ewoks. ;)

I don't think it was meant to be insulting vag. Well I hope its not for his sake...

wardz

Oh, I'm not insulted, not by Wilhuf. I know him well and know he's just being silly. I'm silly quite often myself, as Wilhuf can no doubt attest. Off-the-wall comments and tall tales are favorite past-times of mine while in the midst of a multiplayer game :)