Jun 15, 2011

Posted by in News | 4 Comments

Ask A Jedi: Will The Missing Droid Factory Appear In TOR?

If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of the Jedi. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!

Welcome once again to another edition of Ask A Jedi! I’m Professor Walsh, and this is where I try to answer any questions about Star Wars lore that you may have.

This interesting one came in recently and I figured I’d go ahead and answer it to the best of my ability…

Dear Jedi,

A friend and I were talking about HK-47 in KotOR2 and we remembered that there was a HK-50 droid factory they edited out of the game. I have tried to look for anything for this but found nothing. Will here be a HK factory in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Or is this one just dead?

Keep Rockin’ the news. You are now my fist place to look for anything TOR. Thanks!

DozingDawg

First off, let me say thank you for your question, and thank you for ranking us as the first place you head for TOR news! It is always nice to receive positive feedback because it gives me the warm fuzzies. Now, onto your question…

A room from inside of the lost Droid Factory

Ah yes, the HK droid factory from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Indeed it was intended to exist and there are a number of fan groups who have tried to restore the content and have gotten close, though I know of none of them who fully succeeded. There is an interesting story behind this one.

You see, Knights of the Old Republic II wasn’t made by BioWare, it was handed off to Obsidian Entertainment. Obsidian is a lesser known, but very strong studio that is responsible for making some pretty impressive, if a bit bug filled games, games such as Knights of the Old Republic II and Alpha Protocol. The problem with Knights of the Old Republic II had to do a bit with funding and time constraints.

To put it bluntly they were forced due to a number of circumstances to release Knights of the Old Republic II incomplete. They absolutely upgraded the character customization and progression, which Knights of the Old Republic II did far better (in my opinion) than Knights of the Old Republic I, and they also updated the graphics as well. Where they fell flat was in story… Sort of.

For those of us who played the game, most of us agree that the first half of the game was great. There were indeed problems, such as having to wait so long to get a lightsaber, but the overall game was simply amazing. The problems didn’t come in until the second half where it started to feel like something was missing.

That feeling only got worse when the player reached the final level of the game. Some story-lines just fell flat. Others felt like they were simply never explained… For example… Where were all those droid assassins coming from?
Well it turns out that there was an entire level devoted to answering just that question. This level is known as the Droid Factory and it is the subject of many a Star Wars video game myth. This level was spoken of in the same revered tones that one would usually use to refer to the Holy Grail.

Basically the Droid Factory was a huge automated factory that was making droids that were based on the character HK-47. This factory was apparently a droid itself, which I guess seems possible. Bringing HK-47 there was supposed to reveal his entire past, and also ended the quest line with the droid and granting him new abilities and upgrades.

The factory however was cut due to it being incomplete when the game was released. Again, this was due to a combination of time and financial constraints and to this day the content has not been fully restored despite numerous attempts. This remains one of the legends of the Knights of the Old Republic game franchise.

As to if will we see it in TOR? I cannot answer that. I would like to see it, but I have no way to know if it is planned. We do know however that HK-47 makes a cameo in the game and there is some speculation that some classes may even be able to get the droid as a companion.

Time will tell.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to fully answer your question with any kind of certainty, but I do thank you for taking the time to write it.

Until next time, this is Professor Walsh for Ask A Jedi saying, “May the Force be with you.”

  1. fantomas says:

    It appears the Professor has failed at his research. The factory has been restored. “TSL Restored Content Mod” being one of the mods I’m aware of that has done so.

  2. DozingDawg says:

    Sweet! Thanks for the info. I hope to see a droid factory in TOR too.

  3. You’re welding two entirely separate pieces of cut content here. The HK Droid factory was the sealed section of the military base on Telos. You were supposed to be able to find this out by torturing one of the HK-50 droids. Then Bao-Dur would die bringing HK-47 there, and hilarious hijinks would occur inside.
    The living droid factory was, in fact, not a factory. It was an entire Droid Planet that was cut from the game, called M4-78. It was supposed to be accessible after Korriban so that you could talk to Lonna Vash and convince her to return to Dantooine to assemble with the other Jedi masters.
    The two cut areas where entirely separate from each other.

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