"to create a huge mod together..."

[afi]

In relation to this topic: http://jkhub.org/topic/6157-revival-of-jkas-modding-community/
 

If we are to create a huge mod together, I suggest we open another thread for discussion and collect the results in the wiki. Getting such a project done is difficult and requires good organization. Where would this thread go? In the WIPs forum? If it's serious, it might get its own Mod Project Forum...

Personally I'd really like to see something like this happening. Quite a few people in this topic liked the idea of a big community mod but a project like this is only realistic if many people contribute..

What would you like to see in a mod like that? What do you think would benefit the JK community most?

[Ping]

An SP campaign. Such a project would utilize all the various skills that each one of the modders here can bring to the table: textures, skins, new models, maps, cutscenes, voice acting, narration, whatever.

[Wasa]

An SP campaign. Such a project would utilize all the various skills that each one of the modders here can bring to the table: textures, skins, new models, maps, cutscenes, voice acting, narration, whatever.

inb4 nobody plays sp!!!111

 

I greatly agree with the OP and Ping, perhaps an overhaul(with few changes, but it'd request new voice actors...) to the JKA SP?

[Lancelot]

Has anyone ever started to "crack open" the SP part of the source code and modify it?

It would be a great first approach to see what can be achieved.

 

There are many things that needs to get to be in the SP campaign, like proper widescreen support,

better graphics, a larger NPC limit and support for models with a higher polycount.

I think if Jedi Academy can be modified so it has more modern standards, it could be a basis for a greater mod that can be built around it.

 

My suggestion would be: A big community patch for Jedi Academy.

[redsaurus]

Jedi Knight: Enhanced

[afi]

Since most people play MP I actually think it should be a MP mod with new gamemodes, maps, ingame-tutorials, new interface etc... Stuff to make playing easier and to help new players to get into the game (like Quake Live did).

But I also like what JKE does so... this "big community mod" could be a complete overhaul of Jedi Academy including SP and MP?

The point of all this should be to get more people to play and mod JKA.

[therfiles]

Thanks for starting this conversation, @! I've got two ideas.

 

One: we really make JKE (Jedi Knight Enhanced) work. While we have the almighty @@redsaurus working hard to make some incredible features, we had discussed making sweeping changes to the game. Do we want to re-write the story? Members (I think it was @@MagSul) suggested things like redoing Rosh's part (making him female?) and maybe redoing Alora as well. Also, we wanted to make the missions more engaging and exciting (like JKO) and not "go to this room, kill this, jump here, etc". Making new missions, new story-lines, and maps were some of our grand plans for the game. How sweet would that be? I would love to essentially redo the Base SP campaign because, let's face it, it just isn't that strong.

 

Two: There is one mod type that has been around for literally the last decade. This mod type excites the outside community the most and makes the inner community tremble with joy. I'm talking about Star Wars saga mods. Now we all know the infamous mod KOTF. The reason this was SO DANG POPULAR is that people love the Star Wars movies and the JK engine is an excellent way to play through them. Just look at the tremendous success of Movie Duels II (and even Movie Battles II for that matter...). People love the saga, and while MD2 did a great job with Prequels, no one has really created a great SP campaign, with new maps and models, for the original movies we all love. These projects have died too many times. It's time to make it happen. This could get us the attention that we need from the outside gaming community.

 

And even if none of these ideas are chosen, I'll be on board with what ever we choose to do? Why? Because I'm frankly quite tired of letting great projects die. I've been involved with tons of mods (Jedi Knight Betrayal, Harry Potter SP, a KOTOR mod, and numerous personal projects that never saw the light of day) and none of them have been released. Part of that is that we don't share these projects with the community. So when the team gets burned out, no one continues the work. But this project needs to be ran and created by the community. That's how we'll get stuff done.

 

Both of my ideas are SP. We've got some excellent mods out there for MP. I don't think creating another faction of the JKA gamers would help that much. I think JA ++ and Movie Battles and others have that market cornered, and it's going great.

[Ping]

Yeah, there's a lot of potential to get people's attention through SP related stuff, especially given the let's play community, which can spread the word very quickly. Building upon that, JKHub and clans can foster interest into the MP side of things.

[JAWSFreelao]

I say we rip off the entire KOTF code and make it our own. That mod has excellent features- NPC menus, selection of missions by Episode... Things like that. While it was incomplete and stole tons of models, I say we incorporate JKE into it and turn KOTF into what it really should've been.

@@therfiles, I think our little team should focus on Episode IV. I say just to let everyone know we have IV covered, @ should edit the first post. Then everyone can be added next to each episode/era of missions they have covered.

You can put me down for Episode IV and The Clone Wars television series. As y'all have seen I go HAM on my clone skins and I'll do my best to frankenstein.

[mrwonko]

I don't think you want to have anything to do with KOTF...

 

I like the idea of basing it on the movies, and the Original Trilogy at that. It doesn't have that many duels/fights either, right? So it's not all that much work.

[JAWSFreelao]

I'm curious to your logic behind KOTF. I mean, I'm not saying we use their code. I'm saying we use the basic layout:

1) Open (insert name of our grand mod here).

2) Desktop Menu pops up. Three options: Single Player, Multi Player, Options.

3) Select Single Player. New submenu pops up. Three options: NPC selection, effect selection (which allows players to turn on/off glowing force, absorb blue, protect green, blood, etc), and Play.

4) NPC selection opens submenu which has all eras listed (TOR, Original, Prequel). Select an era. Shows NPC based off of eras. So for example: Commander Thire would show up under Prequel instead of Original. Sort each NPC by era.

Just my thoughts.

[therfiles]

Yeah...I don't think we need KOTF. I've already built a lot of the features, and the can be easily adaptable if we wanted to include the saga time line. And yeah...KOTF would tarnish the overall intention of the mod. It will be quite the challenge finding and securing the permissions for all the maps and models needed.

 

A few of us have been tinkering around with this idea for a while...Episode IV definitely is a nice place to start! I've had ideas like implementing the Party System on some missions, so you can swap between Chewie, Luke, Han, and Leia on the Death Star mission. We'd extrapolate some of the events from the movies of course, and we'd need some cutscenes. But dang. This would be sweet. This would basically be the mission list:

 

-Tantieve Boarding

-Droid Wandering (?)

-Tusken Ambush

-Mos Eisely Escape

-Death Star Rescue

-Trench Run

 

Poking @@Circa because I know he loves this stuff

 

EDIT: Sorry didn't see your post on KOTF. Agreed. They had some good thoughts behind it. I've always been in favor of a "Free-Play" and "Story" modes that let the player just play around and then actually work through the mission if desired.

[JAWSFreelao]

So how do you guys want to proceed with this? Let's try to divide responsibilities to give what Therfiles needs for his missions.

I think Barricade's new sandtrooper will be good for the Desert mission. Do we have a map for the desert dunes?

[mrwonko]

I say we rip off the entire KOTF code and make it our own.

I mean, I'm not saying we use their code.

You'll have to excuse my confusion. Did you mean "rip out" and "replace with"?

[afi]

Well those are two completely different approaches. Either do something like Movie Duels/KOTF/Movie Battles or extend the Jedi Academy SP campaign.

I think both are interesting ideas.

These three mods I've mentioned (Movie Duels, KOTF and Movie Battles) are probably the most well known mods outside of the actual Jedi Knight community. All three mods were featured in game magazines, blogs etc and all of them are about playing missions based on the SW movies.

So when it comes to attract more people from outside of this community, doing a mod like that would be more useful I guess.

 

Being honest... the idea behind KOTF is simple but not bad. Playing scenes from the movies IS fun if done right (see Movie Duels or Movie Battles) so copying some ideas from KOTF should be valid as long as we don't use any actual material and as long as we try not to get associated with that mod.

 

When it comes to MP... I agree that there are a lot of (good) multiplayer mods already. However, what I have in mind is more like a mod for beginners with tutorials, new ui and stuff like that. Something that maybe even works with other server-side mods.

[JAWSFreelao]

I should have explained better. When I say "rip off" I mean copy their ideas- NPC menus, ingame menu that allows to load player models (and changes their team and force powers with it as well as weapons), and playing out scenes seen in the movies. But we have to find the careful balance of "Running X to kill Y and slaughter everything in our way" while still maintaining the curiosity. For example, simple things like not having enemies lead directly to the boss- like no battle droids before Kenobi fights Grievous, or Stormies before Vader. Create false ends. Use the enemies in strategic manner instead of as a guider. In addition to more puzzles- like upgrading force sight. Use it the same way they did in "The Last Of Us." When you "focus Joel's hearing," the enemies show up. Watch this and you guys might appreciate it.

[Kualan]

I would be more than happy to offer what I can to a larger project - I guess at the moment that would mostly amount to characters, skins, and probably help with the graphical side of promoting the whole thing - banners, and so forth. I'd definitely favour an SP project over an MP one though. That's purely down to personal preference rather than a judgement of which is the more 'worthy' option.

[therfiles]

Just to give an example of how I would see a typical mission shaking down, here's an example: (Tantieve)

 

 

• Opening cinemeatic
• You are a rebel soldier, you must get to the guns. You must take out some tie-fighters.
• The ship is overwhelmed and is captured.
• You start as a rebel soldier, and you have to defeat X amount of Stormtroopers. You quickly realize that they are an endless wave.
• You retreat to a nearby chamber, locking the door. You find several other rebels who were also overwhelmed. You split yourselves into two teams: one (yours) will get all the diplomats to the escape pods, and two (the NPCs) will hold the imperials here as long as they can. Then, they will activate the security lockdown, isolating the intel and blocking off the boarded section of the ship.
• You can use the party system to control 3 unique rebels. You have to escort 5 diplomats to the escape pods. Also, you have to deal with computer/technical repairs as the ship is bombarded.
• You return to the breach to find that the rebels are almost defeated. You manage to take a lot out, but there is no hope. As you hear Darth Vader's ominous breath, you manage to seal off the side they breached...but trapping yourselves there. The rebels sacrifice bought some time for the rest of the ship. Darth Vader executes your rebels.
• You then control Leia. You use the cameras to see that Vader is cutting through the blast door. You hurry to the Bridge, knowing you need to download the Death Star plans. You get their wipe out the info, and save it to your datapad. Around this time, Antillies is being tortued by Vader.
• You learn that the imperials managed to get past the security defenses. You will now need to use stealth and get to R2D2.
• You upload the message and the plans to R2. Leia is captured and presented to Vader.
• You now control R2 and C3PO, who must evade capture and get to the escape pods. Once you're there, your home free!

 

 

 

Glad you guys are interested in the idea! And there's no reason we couldn't do a bit to the MP side as well. KOTF had some great ideas...we can execute them better. For instance, with the SP source code, we can add new features that weren't ever possible before!

 

But don't feel pressured to accept this idea...lots of discussion and planning are required to get a mod like this off the ground and we got to be sure we know what we want to do.

[Circa]

Let's just make the Star Wars Saga mod public @@therfiles. Might as well. We never got to a good point to make it public to gain interest, but I say let's go for it.

[therfiles]

Sure! Go for it!

[Circa]

Take a gander, fellas.

 

Star Wars Saga Mod

[Kualan]

Wow, just read through the subforum. Had no idea this was progressing behind the scenes. 

[Circa]

Wow, just read through the subforum. Had no idea this was progressing behind the scenes. 

We haven't made much progress at all, but if some of you guys could help out, that would change things.

 

We mostly need mappers/scripters, but modelers and skinners will be appreciated as well.

[afi]

Is there no way to convince Raven to release the original .map files (if they still exist)? I mean, this game is 12 years old. What's the worst thing that can happen when they  do that?

[therfiles]

*me pokes @@eezstreet*