Star Wars: KotOR II Designer Diary #1

GameSpot has begun a new designer diary series for the upcoming Star Wars: KotOR sequel, with LucasArts' Mike Gallo and Obsidian's Chris Parker discussing the demo they created for this year's E3 in the first installment. A snippet:
At the end of E3 there was a collective sigh of relief. Living up to the original KOTOR, and proving to everyone that we were on the right path, was a huge task. In the end, I think we were successful, and we've shown everyone that the development team cares a great deal about this game.

The gamers liked the stuff we were doing with the rules system and the game mechanics, and they seemed intrigued by the story. The game looked good at the show, even though we know it will look even better, and the intense combat that BioWare perfected certainly didn't hurt. The overall reception to everything we showed was tremendous. E3 was great--we are happy that it went off well, but we have a crazy amount of work to do to pull this game off and have it live up to, and hopefully exceed the original--so I guess it's time to get back to it.