Why did the game die/is the game dying?

[Solo4114]

I used to be an avid JK2 player and poster on these forums. On a whim, I decided to come back here to take a look at the forums and it seems like much of the same old stuff, albeit I've noticed people posting that they're leaving the game (folks who apparently got pretty involved with the community) and a few posts saying that the game is dying. For me, the game died a while ago, but I suspect that the game is dying for other people for a number of reasons. But, this got me thinking: what happened here? Why did a game that had such fantastic licenses (Q3 engine, SW source materials) end up losing steam when it should still be going strong? Incidentally, these are not in rank order as to what I believed killed the game. They're just whatever popped in my head.

 

1.) The Patch Fiascos

 

Let this game be a lesson to developers everywhere. GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. From 1.02 to 1.03 to 1.04, too much changed. Granted, I happened to enjoy 1.04, but I agree with a lot of the criticism that it slowed the game down. This game had some serious design/balance flaws to it from the get-go. Originally, the dark side powers seemed to dominate, especially given that the blue glow of "absorb" was always on. Plus, there was the whole DFA thing that was a problem. So, then came 1.03. Well, this fixed a great deal of stuff, but it also broke a whole lot more. Anyone need to be reminded of the ass-fighters? With 1.04, all moves seemed equally weak, and they all took forever to kill a person, especially due to the blocking. ArtifeX's ProMod helped to fix a lot of this, by essentially making the lightsabers always lethal and at the same time making the real question be based on the ability to get inside an opponent's defenses (which is as it should be with sword fighting). The mod also fixed a lot of stuff with gunners and mixed force users being WAY overpowered in relation to pure force users. Regardless, though, that mod alone was too late to save an already divided community. Many people left the game with each patch iteration, as each patch continued to isolate people from their particular playing style. Whether I agreed with these playing styles or not, the simple fact of the matter is that many people were driven away by fundamental gameplay changes. If the game had shipped using ArtifeX's mod as the core for sabre fighting, I imagine the community would've lasted MUCH longer. And I say this after having publicly lambasted ArtifeX (at least I think I did) when he left the first time, due to boredom with the game (during the Ass Wars). Playing the mod really pointed out to me the fundamental flaws in the sabre system with "vanilla" JK2 in ALL of its forms. For my money, the lightsabre should be lethal for any clean hit, regardless of how you execute it. If memory serves, this was the case with ArtifeX's mod. However, this brings us to a certain undeniable fact, which even ArtifeX's mods couldn't save.

 

2.) The gameplay modes were BORING.

 

Ok, I admit it. I'm a Star Wars junkie. I love most things Star Wars, and the idea of being able to play a first person shooter against otehr people in a starwars environment REALLY appeals to me, even after JK1 and JK2 left me rather disappointed. I also loved the models and maps that came out (well, most of them), and loved how the game looked. But in the end, the gameplay itself that lay beneath the flashy graphics left me rather bored. Fundamentally, it came down to deathmatch. Either individual deathmatch (IE: duel), team deathmatch, or free-for-all deathmatch. It's all just the same thing, over and over again, though. Grab a gun or lightsabre, find a guy, kill him, rinse, repeat. You can add all sorts of intricacies into HOW you go about doing that, but in the end, all you're doing is fragging opponents. Plain and simple. Throw in force powers, different moves, fancy looking models with cool sounds, nifty looking sabres, etc., it's still just running around mindlessly killing enemies. For me, the game lacked any sense of greater purpose or cohesiveness. Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Battlefield 1942 provided me with a much better sense of purpose in the game. Why? Because there were objectives to playing. You weren't just killing people for the sake of killing people. Star Wars has a rich background in that it takes place in the midst of a Galactic civil war. People fight in the star wars universe for a reason. It's not just running around fragging things. Ultimately, I find deathmatch to be intensely boring. It just feels like the same old thing over and over again, and to no real interesting end. Seeing who is the '1337est of the 1337' doesn't matter to me. I'd much rather work as part of a team in achieving a goal of some sort. Even the CTF mode in this game always felt weak to me. Maybe it's because it lacked any kind of class structure (IE: medics, soldiers, engineers, jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers, whatever), or maybe it's because there were never all that many CTF maps made and the ones the game shipped with were dull (it always felt like half of them revolved around throwing people off of balconies, rather than capping flags), or maybe it was because of balance issues with gunners vs. jedi. In the end, I always felt like CTF was sort of lost in the shuffle in this game, and the only modes that were played were the DM variants. In the end, I think we can't help but get bored with this style of play. I mean, how many times can you kill "H3114 1337 d00d" and really enjoy it? Even if you do it in a new location with a nifty-keen player model, or a cool lightsabre (or two, if you're playing one of the mods), it's still just the same thing over and over and over. And ultimately, that's just plain boring.

 

So, here's a lesson for the devs in the future:

 

1.) Make your gameplay balanced from the start. NOTHING is more important than balanced gameplay. It's because of the flaws in balance that this game had its community drastically cut each time a new patch came out.

 

2.) Make your game modes more interesting. BF1942 has been one of the highest selling games for some time now. Take a tip from this. Deathmatch is passe. We need soemthing more to sink our teeth into.

 

3.) Support your game to the bitter end. After 1.04, I got the notion that Raven's basic attitude was "hands off" for this product. Which is a shame, considering their patches had screwed with stuff to the point where we really could've used another one. Then again, each time the agme was "fixed," something else broke. As I said, I liked the ability to block in 1.03 and 1.04, and I liked the fact taht ass-fighting was gone, but there were still many many things that needed fixing/balancing.

 

So, if you want to know why the game died, that's my own view. It just got boring.

[JonJonPoPong]

I agree with the idea that yea patches are asstastic.

However the whole point of jedi knight games has and will allwys be to frag. There shouldent be classes or anything like that, since if you want that, theres allways SWG the massive multi player thats currently in Beta.

One of the reasons I stoped playing was that I became 1st in the world and only had played to become the best, so I quit, plus my fave server ACGA which was one of the most popular servers for the game for several months went poof.

[NerfYoda]

I'm not sure this game is dying. I still get at least 10 or 15 applications to the Academy a day.

[RpTheHotrod]

It's dying.

 

A lot less servers...and most of them are empty.

 

Why did it die? Two reasons...

 

 

Lucas Arts patches. According to them, they "thought" that most players did duel maps only, because they were getting complaints about duels ending to quickly. To "fix" this, they set sabers so minimal damage so saber duels would last longer. They however, forgot...that most servers are actually FFA or CTF...and weapons kill one shot.

 

Second, all these dumb mods/models/files admins put into their servers, then not allow people to download them. Common sense "I'm gonna make some crappy mod to evryone else, but I think it just r0x0rs..then make it where no one can join my server due to auto-download being off! Hey! Why is my server always empty!?"

 

plus...admins that use jedi knight difficulty, and admins that fill their servers full of bots.

 

There are a TON of mods out there...and only ONE of them was worth downloading. Promod.

[Simplex]

I havent posted in MONTHS, and I probably wont even check back to this, however:

 

I AGREE. Gameplay got repeditive, big time. Deathmatch, and Duel...........yay.

 

I had ALL the models and ALL of this sweet ****, but no servers ran with models it seemed. When they did, it was 3 guys in a DM. Wo, hoo......

 

Gameplay was boring, for me, because of the guns. Every gun stunk like awful boring clone crap to me. Unreal anyone? Same guns......

 

Ugh.........I dunno, single player was good, NOWHERE near great. Guns uselsss again, turrets, etc.......

[AKPiggott]

You know.. I've never played JO online, not even once. I've played some bot matches but that's it. JO's juicy core is the Single Player element of it, if SP editing takes off, the community will flourish once more.

 

So the moral of the story is: Go out and make some bloody SP levels!

[Solo4114]

Agreed, if single player editing ever took off (which it won't -- people are too concerned with MP), the game could survive in a limited fashion, but the online JO experience is dying and has been dying a slow death for some time now.

 

What I'd have liked to see is an RTCW style of gameplay, classes and all. That's what I happen to like, and based on what games are selling well these days, that seems to be what a lot of other people like. In terms of the game always being about fragging, so's Q3, and I never played that. DM is boring. It's the same thing over and over again. Look at the self-proclaimed best player in the world in this thread (I have no way to verify if you were the best player in the world or not, hence the "self-proclaimed" bit). This guy claims to have played until he felt he was at his best, then quit. Why do you think that is? Because dueling with other people gets boring after a while. Even if you're the best. I imagine if you'd played as a part of a team, and towards a particular goal on various maps, then the game would've had more longevity. As for playing classes and comparing that to SWG, that's not what I'm advocating for (though I do enjoy RPGing). I'm talking about games like Team Fortress, RTCW, BF1942, etc.

 

I think that ultimately, when you rely on DM to carry your game, it's gonna die eventually. The only reason why the various quake games have survived as long as they have is their modability. If it wasn't that modable, and if it relied on DM solely, I doubt they'd be the blockbuster games that they are.

 

Something else to consider about why MP never quite made it for some of us (myself included): it never felt like it was a real Star Wars experience. Honestly, the game felt like just another quake mod which, while cool to look at, was ultimately fairly boring in terms of gameplay mechanics. You lost the Star Wars feel of the game because it was just DM. Like I've said, I love Star Wars, but I don't love it to the point where you can just slap Star Wars graphics on a game and have it automatically be fun for me.

 

THE fundamental thing that killed this game for me at least was it's eventual lack of immersiveness in the universe in which I wanted to play. Whether it was because the sabre fighting was more like jousting (1.02), because a single move could be spammed over and over to ensure victory (1.03), or because DM finally just got really really old for me (1.04), it all boils down to the same thing: that Star Wars feel to the game just wasn't there.

 

Now, that said, in terms of Single Player, this game was definitely one of the best Star Wars games put out in the past 6 years. However, I've yet to see a REALLY kick-ass SW MP game. Maybe Galaxies will do it for me, but I still don't like the idea of paying $10 a month to play a game. Maybe Knights of the Old Republic will do it, but in terms of MP FPS action, I doubt we're going to see anything to revive this game, and I wonder about the future of SW MP games.

[RpTheHotrod]

It isn't just graphics, but gameplay.

 

I think Team Fortress Classic has a lot more re-playability and fun than JK2. The graphics suck vs JK2:O, but...it's a team game with classes...and it's been around for...what... 5...6 years?

 

JK2:O turned into another Deathmatch quake game. They also pratically removed saber usefulness. Boring.

[txa1265]

So far as I can tell, JKII has been dying since ~March 29th of last year.

 

I don't play much at all online, SP is my thing. However, I agree that the patch issues really hurt the community. Looking back, they should have tried a 'MP Test' like RtCW to see how the gameplay balanced out. Maybe they'll try that next time.

 

When I've been looking around, it seems just about everything but Counter-Strike is dead. The 'war' games are clearly most popular - CS, MoHAA, BF1942 consume >90% of player on Gamespy. 'Fraggers' seem happy hopping around in Q3 ... JKII is no more dead than SoFII or RtCW - and many, many others.

 

I bet I could find an interesting game right now ...

 

OK, I'm back after getting my a** handed to me, then handing someone else their a** ... Good games and players still easily available.

 

So let's not bemoan the 'death of JKII' as so many have for nearly a year. Let's advice LEC how to better prepare for MP success with JKIII / exp. pack / whatever Activision leaked.

 

Mike

[Prime]

Originally posted by txa1265

So far as I can tell, JKII has been dying since ~March 29th of last year.

 

I don't play much at all online, SP is my thing.

 

I bet I could find an interesting game right now ...

 

... Good games and players still easily available.

 

 

People have been saying that this game has been dying forever. Maybe it is, but I view it as just a natural progression in the game's lifespan. Sure there aren't as many people playing it as there was in the beginning, but that is to be expected. The patch issues certainly didn't help, but at least Raven tried to fix things, even if they shouldn't have happened in the first place. Imagine how dead this game would be if we were left with 1.03.

 

The SP point is a good one. Besides the real online junkies, I would say that the majority of players picked up this game for the SP aspect. I know I did. I have made a few skins, and I don't know how many emails I get asking how to use or convert them for SP. IMHO, I think JO is ultimately an SP game, and that is where it really shines. I used to play online a lot, and it was fun for a while. But as has been mentioned before, the same kinds of games get boring. I also agree with the sentiment that MP doesn't really feel like the Star Wars universe. But I suppose this may be an difficult goal when you have to rely on 14 year old geeks to help create that immersion. Funny thing is, I seem to have more fun loading some of the great custom maps out there in SP and spawning Reborn or other custom models I've downloaded and fighting them. That seems to fulfill my dueling cravings. To me it's a lot more like Star Wars than fighting "r0x0r d00d" who pull-kicks all the time

 

But for those people who play this game for MP, as far as I can tell there are still a lot of servers around with people playing...

[txa1265]

Originally posted by Prime

<snip>...difficult goal when you have to rely on 14 year old geeks to help create that immersion. <snip>

 

But for those people who play this game for MP, as far as I can tell there are still a lot of servers around with people playing...

 

Very good thoughts ...

 

I'm 36 (actually I got JKII for my 36th b-day, 1 week after release, so I'm quite nearly 37 ;-) and I play this game very differently now than I would have when JK1 came out, when Dark Forces came out, and certainly when I was pumping tokens in the Star Wars arcade game in the early 80's. I play like a Jedi - I really do. I feel completely immersed in the game, like no other.

 

Perhaps they should just scrap MP for the next version ;-) Only kidding! I think they should do mission-based MP. Light vs Dark, Jedi hunters, Destroy the shield, and so on. We all know different Jedi excel in different things, so you'd have 'see-ers', healers, DFA-spammers , and so on.

 

And don't forget co-op - master & padawan missions! Kyle and Jan missions .... uh, don't go there people!

 

Mike

[AKPiggott]

Initially, it wouldn't bother me the least bit if they scrapped MP for the next Jedi game. But if they scrapped MP, there probably wouldn't be enough interest to release any editing tools, so it would hurt the SP editing community.

 

The original Jedi Knight had the best SP editing community on the internet. The Star Wars setting made it easy for people to make great levels with great stories. I was hoping JO would take the same course, in fact I strongly believed it would. I mean why not? Even Dark Forces had an exceptional SP editing community. Granted, really good SP levels take forever to make (Party Crasher has taken about 9 months so far, although it's nearly finished), but there doesn't seem to be that many really good SP levels in development.

 

So far JO's SP levels consist of; many badly designed levels involving combat with millions of Reborns and Stormtroopers, about three dozen or so Ladder maps and Occupation (the only SP level out there that is actually any good).

[StormHammer]

Hmmm..interesting points already raised. Jedi Outcast is one of the few games I've actually attempted to play online, and when the game was first released, I did quite well. I had (and still have) a laggy connection, so I relied mostly on other weapons in FFA, rather than the saber (though I actually won a couple of duels, to my surprise ). Anyway, along came the patches, and the saber combat became more difficult, etc, etc., unti it was pointless for me to try and use the saber at all on my laggy connection. I just kept dying, so I gave up.

 

Now I'm looking forward to the Dark Forces and Jedi Knight mods for SP, which look very promising. My recommendation to those who are growing tired of MP is...if you have the skills to help some of these SP Mods, why not help them? The more people who get on board, the quicker they will be developed, and the more quickly we can play them.

 

As far as future titles go...well, I also would not mind if they separated the game out into two separate games - one for SP, and one for MP. Get two developers, one to focus on MP, the other SP, so they can concentrate their efforts on delivering an excellent SP or MP game. That way they can expand on MP content, tweaking, gameplay dynamics, so that different saber styles and strengths can apply in different game modes, and not simply apply across the board. If they could sit down and really focus on optimising each MP game mode to deliver a slightly different and more rewarding experience, it would make a lot of difference, IMHO. Call it a Jedi equivalent of Unreal Tournament, and maybe then the MP will really shine...while the SP takes a different approach and direction.

 

Just my three quid...er, pennies...er...oh forget it...

[AKPiggott]

I agree with the part about seperate developing studios Hammer. RTCW did that and they managed to pull off well developed SP and MP components.

 

Regarding the DF/JK mods, I'd much rather editors just worked for themselves. I've seen too many TCs go under after years of development and loads of staff. I'd much rather see lots of good SP levels than two or three good full-game-length episodes that go in development for years and never get released.

[Solo4114]

Objective based gameplay is where it's at. The mention of the light v. dark, rebels v. imperials, blow up the objective/grab the objective/hold territory, etc. style of play is really what I would've enjoyed.

 

I loved RTCW. The only reason I stopped playing was actually because I was trying to get into this. By the time I went back to RTCW a lot of the folks I'd played with had moved on. And this was a real shame because I'd found a great group of folks to play with. Now I'm playing mostly BF1942 because I've again found a good group of people to play with, but none of 'em play JK2 (and I don't blame 'em).

 

I tried the UT2k3 demo and found it to be intensely boring. The only marginally interesting gameplay style was bombing run, and even that was fairly weak. It was just more of the same spastic running and shooting with very little feeling of PURPOSE.

 

What appeals about the Star Wars setting is the grandiosity of the environment and the backdrop of the larger conflicts. That's why the WWII games are doing so well these days. The only reason, I think, that RTCW stopped having a lot of players (at least, I think it stopped) is that people moved on to new games and the mod community never really took off (thanks to PunkBuster -- a good idea, but one that ultimately limited the ability to customize the game beyond releasing new maps).

 

In terms of design flaws with this game, the more I think about it, the more two things seem apparent:

 

1.) The guns were boring as hell. Just variations on your standard UT/Q3 theme (another reason why this just felt like a mod). This was true of Elite Force as well, actually. Maybe Raven just can't really design good multiplayer action, although their single player games do rock. (EF had a great single player story, I thought.) The guns also didn't feel "Star Wars" enough to me. With the exception of the various blasters, they mostly felt like Quake or UT ports. Another strike against the immersion factor.

 

2.) The sabre combat always suffered in one form or another. Here's a big tip for the next designer of a SW MP game that includes the sabre: the lightsabre is always lethal wherever it hits, unless you're slicing off a limb. If you hit the body or head, it's game over. The notion that the sabre is blocked by shields, that you can take multiple hits, etc. is crap. Toss that one out the window PLEASE. Consequently, make it so that ALL moves are equally lethal, and it's simply a question of which move to use when, in order to break past an opponent's defenses. If you set things up in this fashion, the sabre combat will be MUCH more interesting.

 

That's it for now. If I come up with other improving ideas, I'll post 'em. I DO want to see something good come from the remenants of this game, and I'm not ALL about just bitching.

[txa1265]

Originally posted by Solo4114

2.) The sabre combat always suffered in one form or another. Here's a big tip for the next designer of a SW MP game that includes the sabre: the lightsabre is always lethal wherever it hits, unless you're slicing off a limb. If you hit the body or head, it's game over. The notion that the sabre is blocked by shields, that you can take multiple hits, etc. is crap. Toss that one out the window PLEASE. Consequently, make it so that ALL moves are equally lethal, and it's simply a question of which move to use when, in order to break past an opponent's defenses. If you set things up in this fashion, the sabre combat will be MUCH more interesting.

 

I more or less agree, but think it should even be a bit more complex. Think about ObiWan and Dooku in AotC - you should be able - with 'Blue' stance - to take an opponent out without killing him. Perhaps you'd have to crawl off for a while to heal up, have only 1 life and 0 shield. Similarly, arm chops should render you vurtually dead, but still able to do something, again very little life, no agility, etc. But head swipe - lethal. Down chop - lethal. Up-swipe - lethal. And so on.

 

Mike

[Solo4114]

Right. Dismembering moves can be used (IE: Vader "disarming" Luke, Dooku "disarming" Anakin), and will effectively take the player out of the game, or, perhaps, to make it more team oriented, put the player in a state of shock. If they don't get force-healed or bacta-healed in X number of seconds, they die, but if they are healed, then they can fight one-armed or something. Though that'd mean coding for ambidexterity.

 

Or if this was a team game, they could be returned to the home base and healed quicker than it'd take them to respawn. Or just have it work the way RTCW's medic function did: you're lying on the ground, near death, but can be revived and fully (or mostly) healed.

 

Anyway, other stuff to improve the game:

 

Make the guns less explosive/energy ball focused, and much more blaster focused. As far as I can recall, no one EVER used a flechette cannon, plasma bomb, etc. in the films. You could have a variety of blaster pistols, rifles, etc. and include heavy rifles as well. Honestly, I'd take a major page from either RTCW if you want small unit tactics, or BF1942 if you want large scale battles if you're going to do another MP game. This universe DEFINITELY deserves to have a full-scale team-based objective-focused FPS made for it. And I'd LOVE to have the ability to drive vehicles like the AT-AT, or AT-ST, etc. Someone's making a BF1942 mod for Star Wars, but it'll probably be shut down by Lucasarts before long. Lucasarts should license the BF1942 engine and use that to build basically their own Star Wars mod, or something along those lines. That's what I'd REALLY like to play.

 

You could have the following classes:

 

Jedi/Dark Jedi

 

Trooper

 

Smuggler/Scoundrel (depends on which name we like better)

 

Bounty Hunter

 

Then, within each class, you could pick different specialties. IE: medic jedi, stealth jedi, explosives-based scoundrel, infiltration based bounty hunter, heavy-weapons based trooper, etc. Whatever. Something along those lines.

[Simplex]

Flechette? A storm trooper using this abomination of a gun (looks like two squares put together, of different sizes, firing little cubes).....the guns SUCKED.

 

SINGLEPLAYER? I beat it in a couple DAYS! I downloaded TEN single player missions and beat them SO EASY. You need a BIG single player element, much bigger than JKO had, to say the games emphasis and gold lies in the singleplayer.

 

Quake1, Quake2, had single player stories. Ya beat them then go multiplayer with mods.

 

But there are TOO MANY MODS. What version? Jedimoves1, 2, 3, .xxxx, promod 1/2/3xxxxxx etc. Its stupid.

 

Ugh I could go on.

 

I play Day of Defeat right now. Differing TEAM BASES GAME with different teams and guns, maps arent symetrical, and there are camping spots, and fun weapons......

[ImmolatedYoda]

well, the flechette launcher is in the Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, albeit that technically isnt canon...and the JO version is changed from what it should be (of course). i wish that guns like the blaster and blaster had actual clips, because technically, they do, they have blaster packs and also gas cartridges, but i guess its just easier to give you 500 rounds with no reloading...yes, making JO more "realistic" (in the Star Wars universe) would be cool, but eh, i dont know. video games are meant to be an escape from reality, in my opinion, so anything TOO realistic would suck. anyways...you play DoD too Simplex? cool, i got into it last month, been playing TFC for a long long time. my name is Die Sturmgewehr 44 on DoD...

[Jeff 42]

The original Jedi Knight had the best SP editing community on the internet. The Star Wars setting made it easy for people to make great levels with great stories. I was hoping JO would take the same course, in fact I strongly believed it would. I mean why not? Even Dark Forces had an exceptional SP editing community.

Huh? Compared to the awesome array of DF add-on levels that have been made, JK SP editing was completely pathetic. So it's no surprise to me that JO SP editing has been even more lacking. The DF mod looks promising, at least.

 

I still find JO to be a very fun multiplayer game, and I think that the weapon set is great and quite well-balanced, except for the saber being too weak. But even though I don't use the saber much, the combination of different guns with fast-paced gameplay and Force powers makes for some exciting games.

[wassup]

Uh...you realize it quite hard to mod SP when the frickin' code isnt even released to the community!! YOU HEAR THAT RAVEN, YOU GOT NOTHING!!

 

/rant

 

JKII is pretty much a hardcore players/RPG game. All the casual players have left, and the hardcore players are only here to squeeze whatever is left out of this game until SWG rolls around. RPG is quite fun IMO but not very widely accepted, for some reason...

 

Me? I'm waiting for a new video card and BF1942...heck of a good game...

[.:Silver:.]

JK2 didn't eat enough roughage as a kid.

 

It did way too many drugs and drank too much booze.

 

On top of all of that, it fell in with the bad crowd.

 

And that is why JK2 died.

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

The reason i've been losing interest for so long, is that its actually far more enjoyable playing people who are completely out of my league. Now that the good players are leaving, i'm left with the people who just like to spam certain moves.

 

That's right, I absolutely LOATHE pull/push. JK was a fully three-dimensional game, flying through the air, air-to-air combat etc, that's what I loved about JK multiplayer. In JK2 you have to be completely insane, or KNOW that your opponent has zero force in order to attempt anything remotely enjoyable and rewarding.

 

There is something about the game which means that no matter how skilled you are, easy spam moves such as pull/push can stop you dead. I like a game where my own skill allows me to evade such basic traps.

 

I still play the game occasionally, but that's just out of boredom. I no longer think of JK2 multiplayer as a source of entertainment.

[AKPiggott]

Originally posted by Jeff 42

Huh? Compared to the awesome array of DF add-on levels that have been made, JK SP editing was completely pathetic. So it's no surprise to me that JO SP editing has been even more lacking. The DF mod looks promising, at least.

 

To be perfectly honest, I didn't delve too deeply in the online DF scene. I played Mt Kurek, the Dark Tide series, Red Alert and a few others (all were pretty damn brilliant) but that was it. JK's SP editing scene (especially MotS) was excellent I thought and much better than any other of the heavily MP-orientated gaming communities that I've seen. I mean even the editing giant Half-Life only had about four SP levels that were worth playing, everything else was basically a level set in a half-arsed version of Black Mesa where you fight the same old Half-Life villains.

[Prime]

Originally posted by txa1265

Very good thoughts ...

 

I'm 36 (actually I got JKII for my 36th b-day, 1 week after release, so I'm quite nearly 37 ;-) and I play this game very differently now than I would have when JK1 came out, when Dark Forces came out, and certainly when I was pumping tokens in the Star Wars arcade game in the early 80's. I play like a Jedi - I really do. I feel completely immersed in the game, like no other.

 

Nice to see another old fella around here. I'm 28 and remember going through tons of quarters playing the old arcade games.

 

Uh...you realize it quite hard to mod SP when the frickin' code isnt even released to the community!! YOU HEAR THAT RAVEN, YOU GOT NOTHING!! /rant

 

JKII is pretty much a hardcore players/RPG game. All the casual players have left, and the hardcore players are only here to squeeze whatever is left out of this game until SWG rolls around. RPG is quite fun IMO but not very widely accepted, for some reason...

 

First of all, being in the software industry, I don't get why people are so hateful to Raven for not releasing the sourcecode. Now, I don't know if many other game companies release their source code, but I know in my business you are trying to get every advantage over your competators. Releasing source code is not the way to do that. They spent millions developing that code, and you want them to give it away for free so other companies can take advantage of it? The fact that they have released the MP source and development tools is already above and beyond what they needed to do. They have even been active on these forums helping people edit this game!. They didn't have to release anything. Besides, in SP you can make your old models, levels, and scripts. That already gives you a lot of freedom in developing new SP levels. I know there are things you can't do without it, but what do you really want the SP code for? I mean, AKPiggott is making something for SP that looks fantastic!

 

Also, how is SWG going to replace JO? They are two completely different games. I get the impression that people are expecting the wrong things from SWG, and are going to be sorely disappointed when it comes out. Do people think you'll be able to do FPS combat with lightsabers?