Jedi Academy was given the freedom to mod ,by lucas arts , Why Not Kotor ?

[Baadu Apprent]

I know this may sound corny for people who don't believe in negotitions

With a company ,but Jedi Academy was given the right to Mod , How you saw well from what I understand of the agreement is that formed an organized mod communitiy with representatives .Then settled on an agreement with lucas arts ,unfortunaly things like this I’ve to come to understand lucas has done (Similar to the lawsuits lucas formed against lonely fan girls online writing about Luke and Hon Solo ) Hm do you think it would be possible for Holowin and other modding groups to come together and form a similar agreement . I mean the power is in the politics . I know people will go “Oh those petition and things do nothing “ I mean Yeah if you don’t put the effort into to become organized and look professional and presenting that point of view to them and . I’ll see if I can find a copy of the agreement that Lucas arts and the Jedi academy modding community signed .Yet from what I understand of Lucas pretty much and The Star wars name brand is “No Pornography and No grandtheft auto meets star wars ,bashing whore etc .” and anything along those lines . I don’t see what separate Kotor from jedi academy on the terms of story canon, in fact given the the timeline Jedi academy is much closer to the canon star wars orignal material then kotor ever will be due to the greater liberties given to (What exactly is Evil Good Light dark and the Gray jedis ) .These are just my thoughts I mean it would honestly for all the trade offs it would expand what we could do with modding by a huge precentage .

[Bobo]

Bioware, Raven Software, and Obsidian are all diffrent companys.

 

They made a star wars game, therefore had to get it Okayed by Lucasarts, and Lucasarts helped with materials and resources.

 

however, Raven Software didnt much care about what the people did with the game as long as they didnt illegally copy the game and sell it for their own gain.

 

Bioware and Obsidian took pride in their game and didnt want anyone messing with it, and they frown upon us modding it.

 

just for the record, obsidian

 

<Whoops went off the deep end

[Baadu Apprent]

Not completely true given bioware history of modding and Obsidian history with bioware creating modded games . The issues isn't with Obsidian themself but The holder right to the publisher . Obsidian isn't to blame for the rushed errors in kotor 2 from what I understand or Bioware for the lack of modding abilities . Since where talking about the people who made neverwinter nights . Then As one person put it, the developer wouldn't use an engine orignally designed for custom creations by players to make a game if they where against Modding . (Now you could argue final fantasy and square in general frowns upon touching there games , Sure thing but not bioware or obsidian . ) .Then at the same time offer support utilities and full suites SDK for that Game Engine base . Lucas Arts is the one who didn't want the games modded due to the control of the cannon material .(Without some kind of prior agreement to have some control over the content of those mods .)

[Nodakrattler]

I don't mean to be an a__, but this subject has been covered in the past. So please use the search function in the future.

 

Now if you want my opinion, after seeing some of the mods put out for JA I feel that I understand why Lucasarts doesn't support modding of this game. I mean come on next thing you know you'll have Neo slashing through terminators on the bridge of the Battlestat Galactica, which would totally distroy the game they took great time to write and design. I personally wouldn't want joe somebody doing that to my game. So all in all please drop the subject, besides we're coming along great without their support so wht demand it when it's not needed.

 

Thank you and I'm going to continue enjoying this great game they made for us.

[Hive]

Originally posted by Nodakrattler

I don't mean to be an a__, but this subject has been covered in the past. So please use the search function in the future.

 

Now if you want my opinion, after seeing some of the mods put out for JA I feel that I understand why Lucasarts doesn't support modding of this game. I mean come on next thing you know you'll have Neo slashing through terminators on the bridge of the Battlestat Galactica, which would totally distroy the game they took great time to write and design. I personally wouldn't want joe somebody doing that to my game. So all in all please drop the subject, besides we're coming along great without their support so wht demand it when it's not needed.

 

Thank you and I'm going to continue enjoying this great game they made for us.

 

I find your argument about not wanting your game ruined to be outright stupid, honestly. No one would force you to download *anything*, and I can't see how it can be of your concern what other people play with in *their* game.

[Arlen Treesong]

Originally posted by Hive

I find your argument about not wanting your game ruined to be outright stupid, honestly. No one would force you to download *anything*, and I can't see how it can be of your concern what other people play with in *their* game.

Deflamation of character.

 

It's like HK-47 and the HK-50 models. His good name was ruined after all he is an assassin droid of superior sophisitication.

[Doom_Dealer]

RE: Petitions - Im know it does not always wok, but the THief 3: Deadly Shadows fans set up a petition a few months baclk for some modding tools, becasuse at first the Devs didnt seem to want them to mod....

 

The tools were released 2 weeks ago...

 

enough said really

[Hive]

Originally posted by Doom_Dealer

RE: Petitions - Im know it does not always wok, but the THief 3: Deadly Shadows fans set up a petition a few months baclk for some modding tools, becasuse at first the Devs didnt seem to want them to mod....

 

The tools were released 2 weeks ago...

 

enough said really

 

While that is indeed a sunshine story, you must remember that *we* are dealing with LucasArts...

[Nodakrattler]

Originally posted by Hive

I find your argument about not wanting your game ruined to be outright stupid, honestly. No one would force you to download *anything*, and I can't see how it can be of your concern what other people play with in *their* game.

 

I think you miss understood me. I was trying to come at this form the creators perspective. Lets see if I can explain it better. What if someone took the Mona Lisa and changed it, to say give her a smile, the orginal work is destroyed and no longer the same, and would more then likely cause said artist to roll over in his grave so to speak. It's my opinion Lucasarts didn't want this to happen so they decieded to not asist people in modding their game. All in all my post had nothing to do with what I wanted or didn't want in my game, but what Lucasarts may not want to see people put in their game. Think about it if you spent years and thosands of dollars to create something, then Joe Somebody went and added something that has absolutly nothing to do with your creation wouldn't it bother you a little bit? It would bother me, but then I'm one person.

 

Well now with my opinions expressed I'm leaving this thread, I just hope your persuit of support doesn't end my ability to mod and share what we already can.

[Hive]

Originally posted by Nodakrattler I think you miss understood me. I was trying to come at this form the creators perspective. Lets see if I can explain it better. What if someone took the Mona Lisa and changed it, to say give her a smile, the orginal work is destroyed and no longer the same, and would more then likely cause said artist to roll over in his grave so to speak. It's my opinion Lucasarts didn't want this to happen so they decieded to not asist people in modding their game. All in all my post had nothing to do with what I wanted or didn't want in my game, but what Lucasarts may not want to see people put in their game. Think about it if you spent years and thosands of dollars to create something, then Joe Somebody went and added something that has absolutly nothing to do with your creation wouldn't it bother you a little bit? It would bother me, but then I'm one person.

 

No, it would definately *not* bother me - as long as people would make it clear that I'm not associated with their changes, and as long as people doesn't try to take credit for *my* work.

 

Lots of other companies are extremely mod friendly, with several aiding the modding community with tools and guides. And I'm sure both Bioware and Obsidian would do so if not for Czerka ...uhm, I mean LucasArts having this attitude.

 

I don't believe LucasArts are afraid that their brand will take damage - I think it's simply a matter of them wanting their games to have a short life, so that people will move on and buy a new Star Wars game instead of playing the old ones over and over...

 

But that's just my opinion, of course.

[Baadu Apprent]

Eh think that a response is out of fear rather than rational . That lucas will send his lawyers to destory the modding community because someone got organized and sent letters to the company . No let me clarify on what I said , I believe the reason the company support one mod and not the other is depending on the agreement with the people in charge . Second off most of the mod created by the communitry from what i've seen always have something to do with the Star Wars Universe .It not like someone went and said let make a cross over of Star Wars meets Pokemon .I mean that logically why they would support one if they implied there own guidelines and not the other .It not something new that lucas arts hasn't done before they did it with any fan created media website that was sancation by the company it'self . I mean obviously there not blind , and can't see a huge website that say "Lucasarts foums " .Not even about having a short life span for a game , because the ability to add new content is what keeps people coming back to a game . And the company knows that other wise there are plenty more Extremes that company can take when trying to strike down mods .Look at Steamvalve and the Half life 2 contronversia when someone got ahold of the source code .But that didn't kill off the mods for Half life 2 did it ? No they still released the tools for the mod , they want to control certain aspect of the designs . Not every little thing . If I make a Clone trooper Mod for kotor is that really going against the star wars universe with a star wars creation ? If I allow more aliens to become choosable in the menu. Do you really think a company that alllowed it for one game is going go (Well Hell this is evil now ! )No I seriously doubt that . It's comes down to maintaining a connection to the control of what other people are creating from the star wars name . Which is why Obsidian is controlled by lucas arts when they made Kotor 2 .The guildleines they can work from and there limits then the rest is the developers freedoms .

[Mono_Giganto]

Hey guys, quit the arguing, otherwise prepare for D333 to close your thread.

 

Although it seems like JA and KotOR are the same situation, they really aren't. LucasArts did support modding for JA, and whether or not the game was "ruined" by things like server mods, player hacks, etc. A majority of people who played the game ultimately got fed up with mods and returned it to the where they bought it from (I handed mine off to a friend). That's quite a bit of money loss from LucasArts.

 

On the other side, KotOR mods are in no way forced upon you like JA mods were. With JA, it didn't matter what was in your Base folder; 99% of the servers ran some messed up mod, which for a lot of people ruined the fun. KotOR isn't online with other people, so there really is no way for a repeat of the JA incident. Still, it would be smart for LucasArts to be cautious.

[Boba Rhett]

I, and I'm sure others, are really having a hard time reading your posts, Baadu. Could you break your writing down into paragraphs from here on out? Thanks.

 

 

Just one thing I wanted to say is that whether or not a game is made modifiable has little to nothing to do with the creators not wanting their work "defiled" or what have you. It mainly depends on the initial agreement they made with the people running the show, like Baddu pointed out. The "default" option in this is that modding of the game won't be supported, and I'd say that mainly because it's another headache they don't want to deal with.

 

 

Why haven't we been slapped like I worried we were going to when I first stuck Holowan up?

 

1. Incredible, "only in the movies", luck.

 

or

 

2. Bioware/Obsidian don't really care if the games were modded but they don't want to break any part of their original contracts with LucasArts so they don't show any support for it whatsoever.

 

I just don't really think poking the "Big Dog" with a stick is the best idea at this point in time.

[tk102]

Originally posted by Baadu Apprent

It not like someone went and said let make a cross over of Star Wars meets Pokemon .

Well Darkkender says he didn't do that when he made this mod but it has been discussed.

 

A spirited discussion here, but as Mono suggested, the no-flame rule is still in effect.

[Atavist]

I think demanding anything would be a good way to see KoTOR mods start getting shut down. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.

[Mono_Giganto]

Originally posted by tk102

Well Darkkender says he didn't do that when he made this mod but it has been discussed.

 

LOL that was the first thing in my mind when I read that post.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally posted by Mono_Giganto

LOL that was the first thing in my mind when I read that post.

ummm.. okay Darkkender I publicly apologize for ever raising the Pokemon name referring to your mod... heheh

 

In Dk's defense, I found his grenades to be Uber helpful and it saved my arse several times. Still a great mod.. hehehe...

 

I beg for forgiveness Oh great Bard of Holowan

[Baadu Apprent]

LoL.. Well Okay back to my comment with pokemon. LoL He still used star war monsters. Well it's not demanding anything, It's playing the Devils advocate. Negotations rather than going (" WE WON'T BUY YOUR GAME NO MORE!" Or Lucas has fallen to the dark side, or some crazy stuff like that )

 

Nah LucasArts mind set is

 

A) Money

B) Keep people happy long as it doesn't hurt profits

C) Control Star wars name brand.

D) Make as many star wars spin offs as humanly possible. I mean pretty much these things come about through central organization of the people wanting to negotate with them. I mean ,trust me, if Lucasarts really hated us, They could destory this forum so quickly with a lawsuit that it wouldn't be funny.

 

Look at Bioware. The design of kotor goes against the star wars normal formula. Featuring ambiguity in the light and dark side break down. (Jedi being accused of crimes without any dark side assocation) And the Novels? I mean the novels are even more far flung from that with the introduction of species like the Vong from another galaxy. But hell they promote them. there no an orignal lucas arts creations the author is bounded by whatever guidelines they gave them. As far as I know those authors started out writing from being role players on AOL.

 

lol It's not like these people have some type of great precedence in the lucas corporation. And another thing, what about the comic books? I mean, these are not, well none of these products are produced directly by the company but outsourced to other groups, writers and developers .

 

I straightened this out but it's still hard to understand. Please slow down and read what you are writing. If you cannot convey your message well you won't be able to help your case. Please! I beg you! - Rhett

[Darth333]

Right now we are not having any troubles with LA and they know we exist. Our main website even appears on the official site with the announcement of our mod of the week page appearing on the screenshot they took (check the official kotor 2 website under the community tab: it's small but it's there).

 

Until now, they have been tolerating Kotor modding and as long as it stays reasonable and constitutes fair use (it is also one of the reasons we have strict rules here) we should be safe. At the same time LucasArts does not waive any rights and they keep all their means if needed.

 

You have to keep in mind that Star Wars is is a very valuable license and LucasArts want to protect their property and their image... This way, they exclude their liability for anything related to mods. Finally, there is more than just LucasArts involved here: there is Bioware and Obsidian Entertainment...that would mean a lot of paper work and $$$ in legal fees.

 

Leave it as it is. Abuses in one way or another are never good. Don't disturb the "Big Dog" for nothing...and go get a law course...

[Hive]

Originally posted by Atavist

I think demanding anything would be a good way to see KoTOR mods start getting shut down. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.

 

I think I'm entitled to demand that LucasArts either fix the obviously incomplete KotOR II, or give the modders the tools to do it themselves.

 

If bet that none of the LucasArts people would like to buy a car that had important parts missing, either - with no means of having it fixed.

[Baadu Apprent]

Well there two things right there , they tollerate The existence of these mods , and we abide by strict rules .Why not expand the modding tools then ? make it legal and make those rules offical. You mentioned Bioware and Obsdian as I said before both these company pretty much gave birth to the modding community for role playing games .

[Atavist]

Originally posted by Hive

I think I'm entitled to demand that LucasArts either fix the obviously incomplete KotOR II, or give the modders the tools to do it themselves.

 

If bet that none of the LucasArts people would like to buy a car that had important parts missing, either - with no means of having it fixed.

 

Well, I would disagree. KoTOR II is (unfortunately) the finished product. If there are technical issues that prevent people from playing, then there ought to be support and a fix for that. But we have no implicit 'right' to the cut content, because it was removed by the developers for reasons unknown before the game was ever released.

 

You wouldn't go to a car dealership demanding they add some feature to your car that had been scrapped during the vehicle's design phase, would you? Or demand that they allow you access to their shop and tools to do it yourself? No. If you have the skills and the time, you use your own resources to do it yourself.

 

That said, I am no enemy of game mods. I think they are necessary to extend longevity once you have exhausted the original content, and sharing mods with the community is a nice outlet for creativity. I think we're fortunate that LucasArts has been tolerant, and I think it would be a little foolish to overplay our hand. 'Our' being the KoTOR community as a whole.

[reiella]

Originally posted by Nodakrattler

I think you miss understood me. I was trying to come at this form the creators perspective. Lets see if I can explain it better. What if someone took the Mona Lisa and changed it, to say give her a smile, the orginal work is destroyed and no longer the same, and would more then likely cause said artist to roll over in his grave so to speak.

 

Another poor example, as we really aren't sure if the current 'Mona Lisa' on display was done by DaVinci or another fraud. Given how many times it's been stolen (and how long it took them to realize it on the most recent attempt that's been recogonized)... There's a pretty reasonable chance that the Mona Lisa isn't the one we believe it to be .

 

Originally posted by Mono_Giganto

Hey guys, quit the arguing, otherwise prepare for D333 to close your thread.

 

Although it seems like JA and KotOR are the same situation, they really aren't. LucasArts did support modding for JA, and whether or not the game was "ruined" by things like server mods, player hacks, etc. A majority of people who played the game ultimately got fed up with mods and returned it to the where they bought it from (I handed mine off to a friend). That's quite a bit of money loss from LucasArts.

 

Just a side comment here. Lucas doesn't really lose much with returns to retailer. Software distributors don't accept returns, hence the retailers is almost always the one who eats the loss on software returns. What hurts is that the retailer in question doesn't order more copies of the game, and the customer being embittered towards future product.

 

Eeeke, It's all sidecomments! NooooOoooo.

Some companies are more stringent with their protection of IP. I imagine LA simply has a different standard set for RPGs than FPSs. I also imagine that personnel changes and reaction from previous titles caused a change in policy. But, by all means, demand all you, just take care when gnawing at that hand.

[Hive]

Originally posted by Atavist

Well, I would disagree. KoTOR II is (unfortunately) the finished product. If there are technical issues that prevent people from playing, then there ought to be support and a fix for that. But we have no implicit 'right' to the cut content, because it was removed by the developers for reasons unknown before the game was ever released.

 

You wouldn't go to a car dealership demanding they add some feature to your car that had been scrapped during the vehicle's design phase, would you? Or demand that they allow you access to their shop and tools to do it yourself? No. If you have the skills and the time, you use your own resources to do it yourself.

 

You don't understand. I'm not complaining because some content where cut; that happened in KotOR I as well. I'm ok with that. Sure, I'd have loved it to be in - but eh...

 

The difference with KotOR II is that it's *incomplete*. It has way too many lose ends and plot wholes, with many vital partso of the story simply missing.

 

KotOR II is in my eyes a beta release - and LucasArts should be ashamed to call this a finished product.

[FunSolo]

thats prolly why the 'last stage' on the astroid feels like 'somthings missin'.

and i bet they know it, but couldnt change it cause of pressure (time, money, dates etc.)

i think someone somewhere tried to explain it said a lil 'sorry' bout the missing parts.

 

it would be pretty 'cool' to hand us some good tools, n guidelines to do stuff. i mean the stickies are pretty helpful, so we can do some really good stuff here, but without the help of the creators its a bit frustratin from time to time. specially when it comes down to changes from kotor1 to TSL in the tools itself or changed codes or stuff like that.

 

as i saw the shot taken from the mods page i thought somethin similar like 'why this but not that'.. meanin, why directing them towards this place, but no big support from there side for the ppl over here.

 

its simply.. kinda... irritatin sometimes, so to speak.