How come the valley of the dark lord's layout is so much different than in kotor 1 and 2

it was pretty radically different in jedi academy too. they just sort of change it whenever they wanna go with a new design.

 

i guess its because the force.

The original layout in the games probably wouldn't have worked very well for a zone that size.

The tombs and academy are quite different inside too. I'd say the current design is a compromise between a number of things:

 

1) Trying to remain consistent with several prior games at once (frex Academy and KotOR, which as mentioned above were quite different; I think they captured both aesthetics pretty well)

 

2) Making sure quest areas are linear enough to accommodate MMO gameplay (where too many branching paths can lead to problems with party play)

 

3) Making sure central areas are large and non-linear enough to accommodate MMO gameplay (where quests might be tackled in any order and resources need to be plentiful enough to keep two gamers on the same gather/kill quest from ninjaing each other's nodes/mobs)

 

3b) Making sure the whole thing is extensive enough to accommodate the much larger number of quests and storylines that happen there and the greater variety of player resources (stores, trainers, travel points) that are needed

 

4) Reflecting three hundred years of change

 

5) Creating a unique new layout that better suits this design team's vision (few artists prefer to directly copy someone else's work when they can put their own name on something from scratch)

Edited February 13, 2012 by Quething