Source what exactly?

[supreme kotor]

My first note: Please don't say "They're not going to release the source code"... I already know that. I'm just wondering....

 

Now for my question; Lets just say Bioware and Obsidian (EA whoever would actually be the ones to release it ) released the source code today what exactly does that change for kotor modding? What are some of the new things we would be able to do?

 

Thanks-Supreme Kotor

[glovemaster]

I think people are more interested in them releasing the developer tools for the video game engine; most game engines are developed by 3rd parties and game developers lease the engine and tools made by the engine devs to build the game to sell.

 

With regards to what advancements in modding that would change, surprisingly very little really, I stopped doing work back in 2008/9 on this game and even back then most of the game was open to modification - the only problems we had were with the MDL/MDX format mainly to do with emitters, walkmeshes and area models; though I worked with magnusll and Quanon at the time and the only problems that couldn't be solved was with the camera passing through walls and lightmaps I believe.

 

But as it stands and with enough time spent and knowledge of the game engine you can pretty much change anything about these games already

[Canderis]

Level caps, feats, classes. probably more.

[DarthParametric]

In practice it probably wouldn't change anything. The vast majority of people crying out for access to the source code (for this or any game) couldn't do anything with it even if it was handed to them. I doubt there are many people left with enough interest in KOTOR to make proper use of it.

[Canderis]

There's a few of us left.

[glovemaster]

In practice it probably wouldn't change anything. The vast majority of people crying out for access to the source code (for this or any game) couldn't do anything with it even if it was handed to them. I doubt there are many people left with enough interest in KOTOR to make proper use of it.

 

Yeah I doubt anyone would put aside the time to make modifications to kotor if the engine was released open source, plus there's no guarantee the engine could be compiled anyway - I'm guessing it was written in C++ and its been a good 10 years so its probably very outdated

[DarthParametric]

There's a few of us left.

People with an interest in KOTOR, sure. People with an interest but also willing and actually competent enough to make fundamental code changes and recompile a working game? Not many of those still around.

[Canderis]

Again, a few of us haha.

[Darth Sapiens]

People with an interest in KOTOR, sure. People with an interest but also willing and actually competent enough to make fundamental code changes and recompile a working game? Not many of those still around.

 

as canderis said, a few of us, but whats to say that, hypothetically , if it was released the community could see some return to it, maybe even attract new people.

 

i suppose in the end we could make more use of the tools than the source, if either ever became public.

[Marius Fett]

Again, a few of us haha.

 

To be honest, I doubt it. The difference between modding the game and the kind of thing being discussed here is VAST.

 

I sincerely doubt there's anyone left in this community with the knowledge, skills and/or inclination needed.

 

That said, this community has done a LOT of things with KotOR that we previously thought couldn't be done, so...

 

Wouldn't make much of a difference if these hypothetical people were here anyway.

[glovemaster]

There's a pretty huge difference between writting for the game's NWScript and writing in C; and as I said, I doubt the old source code will even compile on the latest C compilers as some of it will likely be depreciated and require manually updating - when companies have a load of employees writing different parts of the engine you'd have to hope they were generous with the documentation otherwise that's a lost cause

 

Also I'd imagine it's in Bioware's best interests to protect their property from modification because if they released the engine source there's nothing stopping another company taking the source, updating the engine to a more competitive version, and then building their own games on that platform at minimum effort

[VarsityPuppet]

Again, a few of us haha.

 

Even fewer.

 

If the source code was released, theoretically, there's nothing we couldn't do.

 

Keyword is theoretically. I'm sure that'll get some of the nubs excited :-P

[Vindikorr]

Just a quick question, if you haven't heard KotOR 1 has been released on iPad. Does anyone know if this still uses the Aurora engine or has it been ported to another engine? Also, was this released by BioWare?

 

As I'm sure you have realized, I'm wondering if someone was able to get their hands on the source code and modify it for iOS. If so, this could be an interesting development.

[DarthParametric]

It just reinforces the notion that the source will never be made publicly made available, not when they can still monetise it.

 

It's by Aspyr Media, which appear to make a living out of porting PC games to the Mac/iOS. It would have been done under licence.

[glovemaster]

Quite interesting actually, presumably a modified version of the OSX Odyssey engine for iOS. The work I do now is for iOS hacks so I might look into it out of curiosity but to be honest even if there was something useful there, the architecture is completely different to Windows systems

[VarsityPuppet]

Quite interesting actually, presumably a modified version of the OSX Odyssey engine for iOS. The work I do now is for iOS hacks so I might look into it ou. of curiosity but to be honest even if there was something useful there, the architecture is completely different to Windows systems

 

So different indeed. iOS apps need to be compiled in objective c because ios apps work best when compiled natively. Likely they would have had to rewrite alot of the code in objective c, or it's possible that it was written in an IDE that can compile out to iOS, android, pc, xbox, etc.

 

That would make an android port very likely, but who knows for sure? Either way, no one is getting that source code.

 

I know that this renewed developer interest in kotor seems to be gauging interest in the franchise.... almost as if they're hyping up for a third installment for something....

 

 

 

EDIT: No Android version likely. Aspyr does only Mac.

[glovemaster]

I doubt they'll do an android port since devices running android have a pretty big range of specs, you can compile C++ to run on iOS however. To be honest I think it's just EA trying to squeeze a bit more money out of it after Rockstar Games managed the same with GTA but you never know, they might be testing the market

[VarsityPuppet]

I doubt they'll do an android port sincne devices running android have a pretty big range of specs, you can compile C++ to run on ios however. To be honest I think it's just EA trying to squeeze a bit more money out of it after Rockstar Games managed the same with GTA but you never know, they might be testing the market

 

I would be inclined to think that, but the GTA ports were done by Rockstar themselves. Also, given that there was no real demand for KOTOR mobile, I think they might have something up their sleeves.

 

But no Android.... :-(

[glovemaster]

I think it has more to do with Disney's takeover of LucasArts and turning over extra profit, I bet Bioware have more profitable projects themselves than porting a game they made over 10 years ago. That said it may well be Aspyr's proposal to port the game and LA have pushed the paperwork since why not?

[VarsityPuppet]

I think it has more to do with Disney's takeover of LucasArts and turning over extra profit, I bet Bioware have more profitable projects themselves than porting a game they made over 10 years ago. That said it may well be Aspyr's proposal to port the game and LA have pushed the paperwork since why not?

 

Right, I agree. Squeeze profit out of an old game by porting it to a popular medium. Either way though, this serves as both profit and analytics, whatever either Aspyr or Disney's intention.

[dave450]

Hi everyone,

 

Long time lurker, I did a quick forum search and didn't find anything related so I thought I'd share about project Xoreos http://xoreos.org/

 

From the website:

 

"What is xoreos? xoreos is an ongoing FLOSS project to reimplement BioWare's Aurora engine (and derivatives) as used in their 3D games, beginning with Neverwinter Nights.

The goal is to have a portable program to play those games even on operating systems those games were never meant to be played on, such as GNU/Linux and Mac OS X."

 

Here's a couple of "slightly outdated" videos showcasing it partially running Neverwinter Nights

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and Kotor

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The author's blog http://drmccoy.de/gobsmacked/

[supreme kotor]

^Sounds cool although I'm a bit worried that in his most recent update he said motivation was low, that's never a good sign.

 

Ps. Welcome to the forums

[dave450]

Thanks for the welcome.

 

I've been following this project for some time.

Even though DcMcCoy, the projects founder, said his motivation is waning, there's been many outside contributors who joined since the projects beginning and they've helped immensely.

 

The code was updated yesterday, just fyi https://github.com/DrMcCoy/xoreos/commits/master

 

In order to help, I've tried learning to program on my own, but it hasn't worked out so far.

 

This is brings me to why I posted. I'm looking for others who can help, even though I can't personally contribute.

 

In this thread, it was mentioned by Canderis that there's a "few" who might be code savvy and interested enough to help with the original source code should it ever be released.

 

Wouldn't a project like this be the next best thing?

[Canderis]

What exactly is the legality of this anyways?

[dave450]

While there's great potential with regards to, say creating an editor for Kotor1/2. The fact that it can play game content while ignoring the original executable (and any DRM it might have) is its Achilles' heel.

 

However, I was hoping, with my very limited understanding of things, that it might be possible to use/develop it as an overall functionality extender. Along the lines of Morrowind Graphics Extender http://sourceforge.net/projects/morrgraphext/ thereby requiring the original exe.

 

Think of the (good) possibilities!!!