New Patch

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Jah Warrior

 

If promod is a quest for realism then surely all blasters would be 1 hit kills (ffs stormtroopers drop like flies and they have armour!), any single hit with a saber would immobilise an opponent if not kill them. If you kick someone and you fly back 20 feet then the laws of physics would surely dictate that every action has an equal opposite reaction, so should the person you've kicked not be sent 20 feet the opposite direction? (read Isaac Newton)

 

I think realism does not necessarily equate to fun, and as such this needs to be taken into account.

 

I only go for realism when being "real" is fun. If I was solely focused on making something realistic, nearly everything would be a one hit kill, and even a minor would would hamper your abilities so badly that you may as well have been killed. That's not very fun.

 

Glad you got a taste of Beta 2. Beta 3's going to be out by the 25th of this month!

[razorace]

Originally posted by ArtifeX

I only go for realism when being "real" is fun. If I was solely focused on making something realistic, nearly everything would be a one hit kill, and even a minor would would hamper your abilities so badly that you may as well have been killed. That's not very fun.

True. It all comes down to good design. I think it's possible to have one hit kills AND have it be fun.

[Spider AL]

I only go for realism when being "real" is fun. If I was solely focused on making something realistic, nearly everything would be a one hit kill, and even a minor would would hamper your abilities so badly that you may as well have been killed. That's not very fun.

 

Well I agree absolutely that fun should be more important than realism in a game, but I don't think that it's easy to decide what's fun.

 

CS for instance. It's extremely easy to die and extremely quick to kill, especially if the players involved are of decent skill. AND one has to wait around in ghostly form until the next round starts, for up to five minutes at a time, depending on server settings. Does that mean it's not fun? On the contrary, it turned out to be such a winning formula with most people that it's still possibly the most popular online FPS of all time.

 

It's so difficult to predict what will be fun or not, and what we may find fun, other people may find rubbish. The majority aren't necessarily right either, so few people have taste or the inclination to practice to get good.

 

On a similar point: that's why I think gameplay-changing patches aren't a good idea. They will always dissapoint someone. Barring bugfixes, I don't think a game's dynamic should be changed at all from the moment it's released. What you buy is what you get, in other words.

 

And Fatalstrike, I've given you an awful lot of time to step up to the plate... I've been playing on BY and Jolt duel servers exclusively for the past seven days, and in order to be accomodating to your time zone, I've been playing extremely late at night, GMT time. I really don't think you've got any excuses left. If you'd ever had any intention of backing up your now-proven-to-be-empty challenge, surely you'd have done it by now. Ah well, it was your choice.

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by Spider AL

And Fatalstrike, I've given you an awful lot of time to step up to the plate... I've been playing on BY and Jolt duel servers exclusively for the past seven days, and in order to be accomodating to your time zone, I've been playing extremely late at night, GMT time. I really don't think you've got any excuses left. If you'd ever had any intention of backing up your now-proven-to-be-empty challenge, surely you'd have done it by now. Ah well, it was your choice.

 

I had a feeling you would post some nonsense like this. I was on the entire week and managed to find everyone. I won in every silly duel server you asked me to go too, and met many fine folks along the way. In fact I was playing and signed off only to find you were posting on these forums while I was wasting my time hunting you down.

 

If you want a duel then I will be on Arti's server most thursday's. Otherwise I have clan matches to prepare for in 1.02 that I don't plan on losing.

 

Fact is we weren't able to find eachother, and I will leave it at that. If you insist on thinking I avoided you, so be it. Jah knows that I was looking for you, as I managed to find him. (after downloading maps and mods for a frickin hour!)

 

Although Spidy I heard much praise for you as a gunner (I was impressed), no one in saber only knew who you were? Did you stick to guns servers? That could be why I didn't run into you as I haunt saber only in 1.04.

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

Hmm who won the Jolt Force-of-One Saber Duel tournament (version 1.02)? Lemme think... oh yes! It was Spider_AL.

 

Who won the Wireplay FFA tournament? Hmm ... I remember. Spider_AL.

 

Spider_AL is one of those players who enters a server, wins a few games then leaves. He doesn't say anything. Its not suprising he's unrecognised on duel servers, since the players I find myself recognizing are the ones I talk to during the game.

 

I can vouch that Spider has been staying up until about 2:30am most nights for the past week, he's even resorted to playing pictionary whilst waiting.

[Guardian Omega]

I said I'm not contributing to the discussion, so I'm not.

 

But geez! 2:30 AM??? Damn you must have quite a bit more beef with each other than I thought!

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

Hmm who won the Jolt Force-of-One Saber Duel tournament (version 1.02)? Lemme think... oh yes! It was Spider_AL.

 

Wow the Jolt tourny! WOW.....

 

I have done more then well in clan tournies in 1.02. I am not impressed by Jolt magical tourny.

 

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

Who won the Wireplay FFA tournament? Hmm ... I remember. Spider_AL.

 

Oh so I guess that I stand no chance in 1.02........

 

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

Spider_AL is one of those players who enters a server, wins a few games then leaves. He doesn't say anything. Its not suprising he's unrecognised on duel servers, since the players I find myself recognizing are the ones I talk to during the game.

 

I can vouch that Spider has been staying up until about 2:30am most nights for the past week, he's even resorted to playing pictionary whilst waiting.

 

LoL I played a lot considering I had to re learn attacking strats to play!

 

I am not saying that Spider sucks, I am just saying I would like to see for myself.

 

If he wishes to come to dreps server in 1.02 he is more then welcome. If he can impress the [sM], [Agito], and [OR] guys I would be impressed. I don't know who played in those tournies or how good they were way back then I only know the guys that I see.

 

I saw that the guys on Jolt weren't geat. I know that the guys in BY weren't great. I know that a guy that never plays 1.04 came and won 80% of the time. I also know that 90% of the players on my servers in 1.02 have played since day 1 and that anyone who hasn't would have an incredibly tough time adapting to 1.02 quickly enough to succeed against them. I am in SM and we would love to have you and Spider.

 

If you guys Own, good I could learn some new tricks and become better. If some of us 1.02 guys are better then at the very least you guys would have fun.

 

I heard about spidy on the gun servers and know he Ownz with them, and I believe you when you say he is good, but I'd like to see it. Until then.......

[razorace]

Wow, cause we ALL know that the players with the best scores know best.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Spider AL

 

Well I agree absolutely that fun should be more important than realism in a game, but I don't think that it's easy to decide what's fun.

...

 

On a similar point: that's why I think gameplay-changing patches aren't a good idea. They will always dissapoint someone. Barring bugfixes, I don't think a game's dynamic should be changed at all from the moment it's released. What you buy is what you get, in other words.

 

...

 

I see what you're saying, but two things:

 

1. if nobody ever altered the gameplay, things like Counterstrike, Rocket Arena, Threewave CTF, or any other mod wouldn't exist in the first place.

 

2. Game developers are sadly not always a good judge of what's fun, either. Many times the people developing code are so busy trying to solve the problems associated with the logic that they don't spend the time to play their own game to see if what they're spending so much effort on is going to pay off for the player. I think that JK2 is a perfect example of this. Raven did a great job of making this game very complex and deep, but they used up all of their development time getting it all in and working, rather than stopping and taking a long look at what they'd created. The result was a game that was profoundly fun to begin with, but very flawed once the players had a good amount of practice.

 

Jk2 has the feel that everything was crammed in just to get it in the game before the deadline with little playtesting involved. With Lucasarts ordering Raven to quit working on it, and Lucasarts refusing to give word of any expansion/patches, it's up to modders to make the game better. That means altering the gameplay.

 

I think that Lucasarts should actively applaud and support modders' efforts, and tap a sword on the shoulders of any mod that really improves on their product by giving it some kind of official stamp. There's plenty of mods so far that deserve this.

[ArtifeX]

Spider, you should drop into my server tonight. Thursdays at 8:30pm (EST, -5 GMT) is our game night. Anybody's welcome to drop in. I'll be turning off guns for tonight most likely.

[C'jais]

Ooooh...... When did Fatal visit Hermes?!?

 

Drop by again some time!

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by cjais

Ooooh...... When did Fatal visit Hermes?!?

 

Drop by again some time!

 

Heh...I wish I could. My ping is so high that its very hard for me to play there. I get connection errors where I am frozen for 10 sec's at least once per duel. I get hit went on my screen the other guy isn't near me because of the lag.

 

It sucks because who ever runs the HP server has done a damn good job.

 

If you need me feel free to hit 1.02 or Artifex's Promod.

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

Artifex, I think you missed Spider's point. Mods as just minor gameplay modifications aren't an especially good idea unless EVERYTHING is changed, tweaking areas of gameplay will nearly always split the community and this is one of the reasons JK2 CTF and FFA servers are becoming increasingly empty.

 

If Promod changed Sabers, Guns AND Force powers, ie a complete mod, I personally still wouldn't play it, but the gameplay would be sufficiently different to make people make NEW servers for them as opposed to adding mods to existing servers. Here's my example:

 

The Jolt CTF servers were both originally basejk with Jedi Master force settings, they were THE most popular CTF servers in Europe. Then they added jk2++, then jedimod etc, now the Jolt servers are pretty much empty 24/7.

 

I'm in favor of mods which add new GAMETYPES, this is what Counterstrike, Rocket Arena etc do. They allow the more hardcore players to play something different without loosing their edge in the old gametypes.

 

Promod is a gameplay mod, Counterstrike and Rocket Arena are gametype mods. The difference is crucial.

 

So far JK2 only has 1 mod which I played, that was Hydroball.

 

In fact we can even go back to JK with this thinking. In JK SBX, DBZ, the various weapons mods etc were popular but they effectively split the game up into far too many groups of people. I never played any of these mods more than a couple of times, not because they weren't good, but because they made me learn new ways of playing which would have lowered my skill in basejk.

 

The JK mods which I did play, were Invasion, Jediball, Jedipong, Infiltrate! etc. ie mods which went beyond changing the gameplay. You see in these mods, the feel of the game, the force powers and weapons were fundamentally unchanged (Infiltrate! changed some force powers to make them more suited to the game), so I was playing something new without actually having to LEARN anything new.

 

Let's look at Rocket Arena, in the various incarnations on various games, Rocket Arena has added a new gametype but never meddled with the existing style and power of the guns and physics.

 

Counterstrike is a somewhat unusual example who's success is beyond the other mods, it changes EVERYTHING. It is a total conversion, so counterstrike isn't even a mod by definition. Day of Defeat follows this same definition.

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by FatalStrike:

I was on the entire week and managed to find everyone.

 

Oh dear. You're so immature that I think we should start calling you "FoetalStrike."

 

There is no possible way you met "everyone" nor that you have any conception of who the better duellists are on Jolt or BY. These are all just empty foolishnesses designed to disguise your desire to avoid meeting me. Furthermore if you were on "all week" then why didn't you turn up in any of my player searches all week, or show your face when I was actually on the servers every night? Rank idiocy, frankly.

 

Originally posted by FoetalStrike:

If he wishes to come to dreps server in 1.02 he is more then welcome.

 

I wondered when you'd wheel this out. Didn't have to wait too long... You challenged me. Now you had your chance to meet me on the designated server, and you bottled it. The challenger doesn't pick the server. You're lucky I allowed you to pick the game mode. AND lucky that I stayed up late enough for you to play me.

 

You've exposed your cowardice. Now I'll be on those servers often, if you ever want to challenge me again, that's where you'll find me. Ciao.

 

Originally posted by Artifex:

Spider, you should drop into my server tonight.

 

Thank you for the invitation, but I'm not a big mod-man. Also I think your server's in America, isn't it? I am an Englishman.

 

Originally posted by Artifex:

1. if nobody ever altered the gameplay, things like Counterstrike, Rocket Arena, Threewave CTF, or any other mod wouldn't exist in the first place.

 

Those are mods, Arti. I said: "that's why I think gameplay-changing patches aren't a good idea." I don't think anyone disputes that gameplay-changing mods are a good thing. Mods might be quite boring without gameplay changes.

 

Also Detritic hit it on the nose when he said that too few gameplay changes in a mod are bad. I find the slew of "skins n' models" mods with a few changed damage specs and sounds to be most tedious. A mod must truly modify the game to be exciting, but that's only my opinion, I must stress.

[FatalStrike]

I looked for you and couldn't find you. If you had really wanted to duel you could have given a time and place but you said find me. I added you to Q-tracker, but no sign of you.

 

You could have given me ONE server to go to but you instead gave me many. You could have made it easy but instead you intentionaly made finding you difficult...I am not surprised. You could have gone to Promod tonight but you chicken****ted out. You whine about "thats an american server" but found it more then fair for me (in america) to face you on UK servers.

 

Fact is you gave yourself every advantage and made it hard to find you. Those aren't the actions of someone who is confident. It sounds much more like someone seeking to avoid embarassment. Congrats you succeeded you coward.

 

When you want to find me, you know EXACTLY where. I won't waste anymore time looking for someone who does not wish to be found . Call me what you want, to me you are just coward, nothing fancy, just accurate.

 

As for the 1.02 invite it was to have fun. Frankly I knew you wouldn't show, you need all advantages.

 

Also you don't like Mods many of the server you told me to search were running Mod's. Save your excuses, it obvious that when we had a time and place to meet, YOU found a reason not to be there.

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

Ermm Fatalstrike, your original challenge was in either 1.02 or 1.04 sabers, now you change it to a mod which Spider doesn't even play?

 

He has NEVER backed down from a challenge, he didn't say he had to play you on european servers, he said that's where he plays most. He told you that's where to start looking.

 

If you give him a 1.04 or 1.02 duel server name, a time that he can make and stop making excuses he will almost certainly find you.

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

Ermm Fatalstrike, your original challenge was in either 1.02 or 1.04 sabers, now you change it to a mod which Spider doesn't even play?

 

Ermm Spider-Jr., I haven't changed anything. I just liked to point out that I had no problems playing at servers running vanilla 1.04 (which I don't play),certain other Mods (which I also do not play), and went to servers in Europe (which I had never visited).

 

Spider-Sr. will only go to server he is familiar with, where he has ping advantage, and still can't manage to pick one.

 

 

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

He has NEVER backed down from a challenge, he didn't say he had to play you on european servers, he said that's where he plays most. He told you that's where to start looking.

 

Yes he did. He backed down yesterday.

 

 

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

If you give him a 1.04 or 1.02 duel server name, a time that he can make and stop making excuses he will almost certainly find you.

 

Excuses? What excuses have I made? I am done searching for your idol Detrictic. I was content to leave it at "we missed eachother", but he had to act superior again. I won't be inclined to allow him all advantages again. If he wants to act like he owns JKII that's fine, but someone who owns doesn't whine like a baby when you suggest he comes to a server where he doesn't have all the advantages.

 

I am done looking for Spider, he wants a match he can find me. Otherwise I am not interested.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

...

The Jolt CTF servers were both originally basejk with Jedi Master force settings, they were THE most popular CTF servers in Europe. Then they added jk2++, then jedimod etc, now the Jolt servers are pretty much empty 24/7.

 

I think there's a lot of other factors contributing to how empty the servers are these days. A big one is that there's tons and tons of servers, but barely any players. That thins things out considerably.

 

I'm in favor of mods which add new GAMETYPES, this is what Counterstrike, Rocket Arena etc do. They allow the more hardcore players to play something different without loosing their edge in the old gametypes.

 

Promod is a gameplay mod, Counterstrike and Rocket Arena are gametype mods. The difference is crucial.

 

So far JK2 only has 1 mod which I played, that was Hydroball.

 

In fact we can even go back to JK with this thinking. In JK SBX, DBZ, the various weapons mods etc were popular but they effectively split the game up into far too many groups of people. I never played any of these mods more than a couple of times, not because they weren't good, but because they made me learn new ways of playing which would have lowered my skill in basejk.

 

Actually, the modifications to the saber fighting (i.e. the CSC system) just reinforce skills that you should have been practicing all along. The saber damage scale in basejk is determined by what point in the animation you connect with your saber. That just happens to be directly in front of you--right where the CSC is. With ProMod's CSC visual feedback, it actually provides a better training ground for this aspect of combat than the basejk game does.

 

The JK mods which I did play, were Invasion, Jediball, Jedipong, Infiltrate! etc. ie mods which went beyond changing the gameplay. You see in these mods, the feel of the game, the force powers and weapons were fundamentally unchanged (Infiltrate! changed some force powers to make them more suited to the game), so I was playing something new without actually having to LEARN anything new.

 

There is only one thing that you must learn in ProMod--that you need to aim at your opponent. Everything else is just a minor change from skills that you've had all along.

 

Let's look at Rocket Arena, in the various incarnations on various games, Rocket Arena has added a new gametype but never meddled with the existing style and power of the guns and physics.

 

But it did change the gameplay away from the base game by removing the rocket jumping damage and spawning players with all the weapons and a full load of ammunition. Playing RA too much kills your base tourney skills by not forcing you to practice your resource management and by making you more likely to rocket jump when you shouldn't.

 

Counterstrike is a somewhat unusual example who's success is beyond the other mods, it changes EVERYTHING. It is a total conversion, so counterstrike isn't even a mod by definition. Day of Defeat follows this same definition.

 

The "total conversion" label is just a degree of modding. It's a completely subjective name. Counterstrike is still a mod of halflife, but it certainly earns the total conversion tag.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Spider AL

I said: "that's why I think gameplay-changing patches aren't a good idea." I don't think anyone disputes that gameplay-changing mods are a good thing. Mods might be quite boring without gameplay changes.

 

Also Detritic hit it on the nose when he said that too few gameplay changes in a mod are bad. I find the slew of "skins n' models" mods with a few changed damage specs and sounds to be most tedious. A mod must truly modify the game to be exciting, but that's only my opinion, I must stress.

 

I actually agree with you that too many mini-mods are a bad thing. My opinions on the release of the jedimod source are well known.

 

ProMod was initially created to fix the game balance(which I don't think anyone can argue wasn't horridly broken)--something which Raven/Lucasarts were either unwilling or unable to do. It has succeeded in this so far with the saber vs. saber changes. As it progresses, it will also correct sabers vs. guns, then will begin to add new gametypes.

 

Making something like this is an iterative process. I'm still labeling versions with "Beta X". I'll stop labeling it as a beta when I've gotten the foundation laid down for the new gametypes.

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

And as such I won't play the beta versions of mods unless they are very close to what the final version is supposed to be.

 

Oh and Fatalstrike, Spider_AL isn't my idol, I absolutely hate playing CTF with him even on the same team because he hasn't played enough of it to adopt the team strategies, but I am also aware of his skill.

 

I've never seen you play, for all I know you might be able to beat Spider_AL, but your flaming and accusations of cowardice are just as bad as his so don't take the moral high ground if you are in no place to do so.

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by DeTRiTiC-iQ

I've never seen you play, for all I know you might be able to beat Spider_AL, but your flaming and accusations of cowardice are just as bad as his so don't take the moral high ground if you are in no place to do so.

 

I was fine to just leave it at "we did not find each other", but spidy boy came in here claiming I didn't want to find him.

 

Oh well one week of wasted time is all I had to waste. I will be in 1.02 only for a month for clan matches.

 

I apologize for comin down on you detrictic, I got pissed and well I am known for having a temper.

[Chewie Bakker]

Spider AL vs Fatalstrike. Fight!

 

<Queues Mortal Combat music>

 

Man, the entire 4 pages in this thread are nothing but bickering.

 

I've kept clear of JK2 Multiplayer for a while, turned my sights towards mapmaking (RichDiesel's tutorial's godly) and came back to the forum, saw a nice big post about a new patch and found this!?!?

 

 

This is depressing.

[FatalStrike]

Originally posted by Chewie Bakker

Spider AL vs Fatalstrike. Fight!

 

<Queues Mortal Combat music>

 

Man, the entire 4 pages in this thread are nothing but bickering.

 

I've kept clear of JK2 Multiplayer for a while, turned my sights towards mapmaking (RichDiesel's tutorial's godly) and came back to the forum, saw a nice big post about a new patch and found this!?!?

 

 

This is depressing.

 

True this thread should be closed, its gotten far too off topic.

 

Admins feel free as there is no longer anything to be gained here.