Two ideas I have been walking around with for TC mods

[TDG]

Hello all,

For a couple of years now I have been walking around with two ideas for two Total Conversions for Jedi Academy (though it would be great if this could be made in a new engine).
Like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy these would be story driven games in which the player goes through an adventure with elements recognisable from the movies or other Star Wars video games.

Making these Total Conversions would be rather difficult, really difficult as it would involve a lot of work for which various people would be needed. Mode makers/animators, programmers, script coders, level designers, people who can make new music and sounds, writers.

That sadly puts both these ideas in the realm of the impossible, something even I have to acknowledge.
Still I would like to tell other Jedi Knight games fans about what I would loved to have made and shown to you all.


Yoda Stories TC for Jedi Academy
Many years ago Lucasarts released a number of very small games for Windows that could be played on the desktop screen; Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures, and Star Wars Yoda Stories.
Both were two Zelda esque overhead little action-adventure stories but with movement taking place on a grid and very minimal animation. Each time the player started a new game a random story was chosen (I think each game had fifteen possible ones) and a random map with various locations and puzzles was generated. (the various "screens" on the map are not random, being chosen from various pre made ones, but the order in which they are placed is random)
The player would have to explore these maps, meet NPCs, fight enemies, locate items that can be used to solve puzzles or exchanged for other items, and would have to find the final location where the story could be completed.

I really enjoyed both games despite how small and limited they were in scope and I have been talking with someone I met on a Indiana Jones forum about having Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures turned into a sort of Uncharted/Just Cause open world game that would contain all the mini stories of that game along with new locations such as mini dungeons and towns. This time however it would be a continuous story with some locations not be able to accessed yet until the player has reached that part of the adventure.

I sort of imagined the same for Yoda Stories, turning the mini stories into missions such as those in found in the regular Jedi Academy, with plot advancing story segments between the smaller stories.
There would be a degree of continuity between the sets of missions.
For example, during the first or second set of the mission the player/Luke Skywalker needs to locate and destroy a hidden Imperial factory on a snow world that is producing Stormtrooper droids equipped with powerful blasters. The player will encounter these droids during the mission and will encounter them again in the second and third set of missions as well as in some of the story advancement levels between the mission sets.

As Jedi Academy can not randomly generated levels for the stories, and because these in regular Indy Desktop and Yoda Stories were mostly used to fill up the world (the player just goes through these to search for the final item with which the end location can be finished), focus would be on recreating the final location of each stories and expanding on these.
For example; in one Yoda Stories mission Luke Skywalker has to destroy a battlestation that is constructed into the airless moon of Varn. To reach the moon the player must get into an Imperial bunker/space port and get access to a Lambda class shuttle which the player uses to travel to Varn undetected/disguised as an Imperial.
Rather than travel all over the map to search for an item to get into the bunker (or collect explosives to destroy the station) the player travels directly to the bunker, perhaps picking up the explosives there or from another Imperial base.
These maps would also be reimagined to fit Jedi Academy, greatly expanded.

Like in regular Yoda Stories the player travels to desert worlds (including Tantooine), forest/water worlds (including Endor), and ice worlds. From there visiting the mentioned battle moon, an Imperial base on yet another planet, and Darth Vader's personal Star Destroyer.
The player would encounter familiar characters, species, and droids from the original trilogy as well as some new unique ones such as the mentioned Stormtrooper droids.
As in the regular game species like Ewoks, Sand People, and Wampas could be found, and some Ewoks and even Sand People were friendly NPCs some of these would perhaps have to be replaced with new models
In one mission for example a group of sand people on a desert planet possessed and worshipped a Sith medallion. These would be replaced with different worshippers.

Unlike Yoda Stories this game would have an ending. Darth Vader would have captured Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and C3PO, holding them captive on his personal Star Destroyer after the Millenium Falcon was captured by Darth Vader.
After getting onto the ship the player would have to face Boba Fett, Royal Guardsmen, and Darth Vader in the end.
(this game is sort of an alternative take on the Original Trilogy, some recognizable elements return such as Han being trapped in Carbonite and being held captive by Jabba the Hutt and the player having to free him. Basically everything after Star Wars A New Hope is now different)


KOTOR-Jedi Knight for Jedi Academy
I was quite a fan of KOTOR 1 and 2 as I found the world/setting and situation quite a refreshing change after the original trilogy and the related spin-off/expanded universe material, giving the opportunity to tell some different stories that wouldn't work in the Galactic Civil War/New Republic era, showing instead a time period we knew little from outside comics and Star Wars timelines included in Star Wars encyclopedia.

Sadly KOTOR2 wasn't as complete/finished as KOTOR1 and it ended with a cliffhanger that basically closed off this era of Star Wars as the "follow up" SWTOR would take place three hundred years later. KOTOR3 sadly got cut because I think Lucasarts was having financial problems.
I can't really say that I liked the "answers" in SWTOR that much to lingering questions from KOTOR1 and 2 and what suggestions 2 gave about what the True Sith might be. (I had expected something different than the Sith Empire that we saw in SWTOR).

While I do like some of SWTOR's content I do wish it had been completely separate from KOTOR1 and 2, not referring to characters like Revan for example. I think a much better choice for a setting as someone else on reddit suggested would have been during the New Sith Wars. New characters, Sith not related to the Hyperspace War era old Sith.
This way there would always have remained room for an eventual KOTOR3 to finished the KOTOR series as its own contained saga.

Unfortunate the fates of characters such as Revan, the Exile, HK-47, have now been set, and we know that Vitiate's Sith Empire will not show up for three hundred years, giving the Republic a relative period of peace during which the worlds of known space managed to relatively recover from the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War.
It is however mentioned in an encyclopedia that there was a Dark Lord active during this period (after the fall of the Sith Triumvirate), if just training a new apprentice.

I would like to continue the KOTOR era of SW even if the major plotline of KOTOR2 can not be continued.
Instead a new story would be taking place with new characters but with some KOTOR1 and 2 characters returning that remained in Republic space.
Perhaps this story was not of such as significant scope of that of KOTOR 1 and 2 or the later SWTOR but it would not be less important as the fate of many worlds and perhaps the Republic itself hangs in the balance again
The player would assume of a Jedi Knight who has recently finished his or her training by some of the "Lost Jedi" from KOTOR2 (now Jedi Masters) and he/she is now send out to assist worlds that have asked for aid from the Jedi as well as undertaking jobs for the Republic.

During this the player may visit worlds and places we have seen in KOTOR1 and 2 and new places.
NPCs, creatures, and enemies would include ones returning from KOTOR1 and 2, enemies of course now modified to function in a FPS games.
These would included hostile creatures, bandits, pirates, Exchange enforcers, robots, Mandalorians, and also remnants of the Sith Empire that Revan build prior to KOTOR1.

Not all remaining regular Sith troopers, technicians, pilots, and officers sided with the Sith Triumvirate, or they survived the fall of the Triumvirate. Perhaps not willing to give up the cause, or not able to return to the Republic, or going native on any world these Sith military have sided with one of the few remaining Sith Lords/Ladies in Republic space, trying to continue the war against the Republic in what small ways they can (they are pretty much like the Imperial Remnant now)
They are perhaps now working on a last attempt to make the Republic fall and destroy the still weak new Jedi Order.
The player would perhaps visit a world still under control of the Sith military or one of their bases.

Most if not all of JA's content would be replaced with content based on that found in KOTOR1 and 2 and expanding on that with new NPCs, creatures, robots, architecture and of course new animation,  music, sound effects.


As all of you can read, these are projects that require a lot of resources that probably only a game developer studio could provide.
I hope by being able to tell about all of this that I can finally get it out of my mind and accept that I will never be able to play either.