I need someone to make (or help me make a MOD)

[Sith Lord Soth]

Greetings everyone,

 

I came to this board for one reason - I feel the need to fix the problems with Jedi Outcast. Or at least, partake of the fruits of someone else doing it for me.

 

I have noticed several problesms that must be rectified, here is the angry letter I e-mailed to lucasarts:

 

"This isn't a problem so much an angry letter from a customer who feels cheated and let down. Let the tirade begin:

 

You held in your hands a game that could have been the coolest Star Wars game ever, you incubated it, you bragged on it, you presented it for the world to see - and what do we get?

 

Candy coated - crap that looks good at first - REAL good at first. I mean you can dismember with your saber, you can run up walls with the force, the graphics and animation are undeniably beautiful - there are fighting styles! But then, it stalls - it chokes. The singleplayer game seems to have been written by a sadistic Mario brothers fan, hell bent on making people solve lifethreatening, illogical jumping puzzles, that have you scouring the internet for a strategy guide to figure out - oh! you can't use those computers anywhere else in the game, but right here, this one time, it is necessary to continue on.

 

Also, past the rediculous puzzles, there is NONE of the atmosphere that made the original so enjoyable. Never in the game is there a person who isn't either an ally or an enemy - not even at a bar! They all instinctively turn to shoot you! What were you thinking?!

 

Now for multiplayer problems...... where to begin. Let's start with those fighting styles I was so excited about. I was expecting to play a balanced game - fighting styles I assumed to be mainly visual candy to smooth the deal. If I fancied myself a backhand jedi holding the saber Highlander style, then I could - maybe I would choose to be flashy like Obi-Wan. or fight with a double bladed saber like Darth Maul. This is what I expected. Instead, I was sickened to find three styles that killed the saber fighting. First of all, how can a saber do more or less damage depending on how slowly you swing it. Its a lightsaber! It cuts through anything but another saber! I could flick my wrist and cut someone in half. But apparently not in Jedi Outcast. Instead, the fast style means, you are swinging sooo fast, that obviously your lightsaber doesnt have time to cut anyting, taking roughly 10,000 attacks before someone dies in multiplayer. The medium style is good, I admit - well balanced - does a lot of damage, not instant death so as to make the battles so realistic that they are no longer fun, but do enough that you'd think twice before running headlong into a fight. But then the strong style - oh my gosh, what drug was the production team on when they had this gem of an idea. I can only imagine the conversation - "I've got it! Let's make a fighting style that swings so slowly as to make the jedi seem to be underwater - then claim that his attacks have so much momentum as to clearly do massive amounts of unblockable damage to his opponent. Great plan!" Guys, crack is not a good thing to be doing while in game production.

 

Next are the wildly unbalanced and occasionally completely made-up force powers. I know these are the same powers from Jedi Knight. I hated them then as well - but at least they seemed better balanced then...... I'll start with the silly graphics used for force powers. What is all that red stuff flying everywhere? The only power that is visually seen as anything more than a slight distortion in the air on any of the movies is Emporer Palpatine's lightning. (which I'll admit was well done in the game) Force grip should not have that silly red floating arm - we can tell that someone is being choked by the sound effect and the person holding their throat in mid-air. That's a minor gripe - I'll move on.

 

Why are there made up powers? I want to know who's idea this was, so that I can form a lynch mob. Force push is not powerful enough - it can hardly ever, even at level 3, push someone down or very far. Also an animation for someone getting pushed back instead of simply sliding back would have been nice. Ditto to force pull. I can deal with force heal, but it's a bit too powerful. Maybe it should have cost more to purchase, or perhaps the jedi should have to crouch and wait to use it (Qui Gonn style in the fight with Maul). I like force speed, but it should allow you to attack faster, all it is really good for, is running away. Dark rage is dumb - truly stupid - it should have been left out entirely, as it is made up anyway. Also force drain is dumb, force absorb, jedi mind trick, seeing, and to a lesser degree force protect. It's alright - except for the fact that you can see when someone is using it. My final gripe is that anyone should be able to take any of the remaining powers.

 

You should at least have been able to deicide what force powers are available in your server and whether fighting style damage adjustments should be allowed. Perhaps this could be fixed by a skilled modder. However, my patience with this game has run a little too thin. I fart in your general direction - your mother spent most of her time up against the wall with sailors, and your father smelt of elderberry!"

 

Join my cause! Together we can fix what should have been. Only then, will outcast be a truly enjoyable experience.

[Ralleous_Dyr]

Well, as I agree that there is alot of great improvements possible, the task would require a GOOD core team of dedicated members who were profiscient in modeling and animating to rectify/recreate fighting styles. I do like the idea of breaking it off into alternate styles (double bladed, 2-lightsaber florentine, backhanded, etc.)

Then of course come the coders to make the mastered animations mean something, the damage and hit areas would need adjusted to compensate for these new systems as well as tweaking the force power section.

The big problem I see is that there will always be disagreements on what and how so a Core team to "fix" the game would end up in more comittees than the Galactic Senate. Not to mention by the time these came out, there would be a better engine/game in the works.

Looks like we will have to keep an eye on individual MODS and bastardise the best of the best into a "standard" of sorts.

Although kudos to LucasArts for getting us this far, just another example of game manufacturers going so far and the longitivity of interest based on the player base and their creative input and expansion.

 

Ralleous Dyr

btw: probably better placed in MOD personnel wanted