Why did the game die/is the game dying?

[Kengo]

Originally posted by ImmolatedYoda

yes, TFC is dead yet there are constantly what, 400+ servers running it? and im one of those 1000s of players populating those servers .

 

People in the TFC community were saying it was dying shortly after I started playing it...over 2 years ago now. It just...won't...die! As some other people have said, it is rare for an FPS game to have a large community base after say 2 years, but it does happen occasionally.

 

What with my rubbish connection I don't play much MP anyway, Promod has been the only mp mod that really appealed to me. It brought saber vs gunner balance back a lot, and as some others have said, CTF became guns only in the 1.04 patch. And if your game is gonna be guns only...the guns need to be a bit more varied and generally fun than most in JK2. There aren't that many to start with, and easy to think of a few no one ever uses....

 

As an SP mapper I'm mostly interested in the SP side of things, and although it definately started slow, I really think it is picking up, along with some of the obvious stand-out levels on the way like Party Crasher, there are more and more good levels getting started, more and more people moving to SP mapping (including LivingDeadJedi ). These are projects that actually look like they have a good chance of getting finished...and within a decent time scale too!

 

The SP community is a bit harder to guage, you can't look at servers or whatever, I guess the best way is downloads for SP maps. I think an SP playing community may prove to be more long lasting than an MP one as you don't need to repeatedly play SP to keep in practise, you can just go back to it whenever. SP doesn't have to compete with other online games either, its in a section on its own.

 

Although the code for SP wasn't released, I really don't think anyone can complain - it doesn't seem to make sense from a business point of view, and as someone already pointed out, Raven have given people in the editing community a lot of help and released the MP code, which is a lot more than some software houses do. Wheras the MP game has in some way suffered from a mass of mods, which have split the online playing community into smaller fragments, SP doesn't have the same problem with no SP mods altering the nature of the code itself. Although being able to alter the code would be nice, it is a luxury, you can edit a huge amount without it.

 

I have a feeling (I kinda hope they do too) that the next JK game will be an expansion focussing on the SP element, much like MOTS was for JK2. It will give SP editors more creative tools, hopefully rejuvinate the SP community a fair bit, and won't stop the MP mods for JK2 that already exist from working, and split the online community further.

 

I hate the word community, and I've used it...what...20 times? And yes, I was bored...interesting thread though

[Break_dF]

Originally posted by Spider AL

No Break, you don't get it. What are you doing here, trying to make a point? A point? How is calling people "tools" making a point? How is it mature? How is it intelligent? Are you just a troll, looking for a fight? Try to read people's posts properly in future before mouthing off with such intellectual masterpieces as "U R A TOOL" or "STFU". You have NO idea. None.

 

What's that?...

 

/cry

[ILR]

Originally posted by shock ~ unnamed

JK2 is a video games loosely based in SW universe.

Much like the novels that have been put out for several years now.

 

The authors/developers are given the creative freedom to do things you never saw in the movies.

 

Hence another reminder this is not in any way related to the previous or current films.

 

JK2 is a game.

It will not play like a movie because it never was one to begin with.

 

Hence yet another validation of what people like myself have been saying.

 

You people are not mad because it is a bad game, you’re mad because it is not like the movies.

Until people can learn to separate the movies from the games they will never be able to enjoy the games for what they are.

 

"you poeple"? Don't generelize. You've slapped down some assumptions about me that I have never stated in any previous post at this entire forum. In this post you've said that the movies and games are different. Yes.. its been said. The problem is you don't say why this is a good thing.

 

... And no, "It will not play like a movie because it never was one to begin with" doesn't cut it. That's like saying "You can't grow up to be a scientist, because your not a scientist"... and the poor kid who dreams of being a scientist now goes and drinks bleach.

 

Okay okay.. JKII is released and patched up the ass. He's grown up, went through high school, smoked a bit too much pot and didn't cut it as a scientist. JKII MP can NEVER be like the movies at this point. But.. *points to title of thread* somebody wanted to know why the game died. IMHO it was because of the extreme force powers.. and because of their extreme nature they were too difficult to balance for the raven team.

 

If force powers are kept the same the game would thrive. But somehow I believe that when the powers become balanced, we would end up with something that's much less "kinda sorta SW" and more "SW". While I don't know who "those people" are who irritate you so much, they probably want the same thing we all want: balanced MP. They just think their road is better, as we think the same of our own.

[shock ~ unnamed]

Sorry, my "you people" comment was not necessarily directed at you but just a broad generalization.

I apologize if it seemed to be directed at you; it was not (nor are any of the comments below).

 

I have stuck with this game for almost a year now (damn has it been out that long?) and I have never seen a bigger group of whiny crybabies in an online gaming community than what I have witnessed in JK2.

 

JK2 players demanded these patches, they got them, and then they complained the patches that they cried for destroyed the game...

 

Raven didn't make the saber useless to sell more copies.

It was not a marketing decision.

 

It was in direct response to all the bitching, pissing and moaning people were doing on these forums and via e-mail.

 

Every one of those patches was put out to shut people up and give them what they were crying for.

 

People bitched about the DFA/Drain/Grip/Back stab/one hit heavy kills it all got neutered like everyone thought it should be.

 

Go back and dig though some threads from 6 months ago.

 

Damn near every single new topic was:

 

"THIS <whatever> HAS COMPLETLEY DESTROYED THE GAME AND MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!"

 

Why are people still bitching, you got what you wanted, your infinite wisdom and the things you cried for should have made the game better right?

 

People who didn't know a damn thing about first person shooters, but were so damn vocal and adamant in expressing their infinite wisdom about what was wrong with everything (in their opinion) brought these stupid patches.

 

And now they sit here and wonder why people got sick of the game.

It was because of what the "community" was doing to it.

 

These "RPG saber off = peace BUT BUT IT'S NOT LIKE THAT IN TEH MOVIE IT'S NOT RIGHT FIX IT FIX IT MAKE LUKE HAVE TEH POWERS LIKE TEH MOVIE!!!!!" type of people make playing this *game very unpleasant for people who are just out to blow stuff up and kill people in a FPS.

 

[sarcasm]But wait, my bad this could never be an action game or a FPS.[/sarcasm]

 

It just *has to be a role playing experience and we have to set rules and honor codes and be real Jedi and bow and show honor to Darth Chewbacca and kill the lamers who swing sabers in a 32 man FFA instead of /amsitting and blah blah...

 

 

 

 

One of the very first posts I ever made on these forums was:

 

“Hi I’m new grippers are killing me a lot any tips on countering it?”

 

 

Yeah, I actually had a problem with a move/attack/power and I ASKED FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO COUNTER IT.

 

Wow, don’t see that a lot in the JK2 community do you?

 

Of course not, just post something like:

 

“OMFG GRIP IS SO GAY IT IS DESTROYING THE GAME IT MUST BE PATCHED!”

 

Then get a few hundred similar minded fools to chime in and agree and bingo, you’ve got a patch!

[Break_dF]

lmao... IRL's 27th post of infinite wisdom...

[Guest Jolts]

like I said in another post....

 

a few things that turned me off of JO MP.

 

the rpging crack heads. I hate them, I hate them all. Thank the dear lord god above for swg, I hope in consumes all sw rpgers forever, I hope its sucks them in so fast and hard they never look at another sw game again. Being realistic it won't, they will always spread out and get their stinky rpging hands in every sw game that comes out. It is the curse of sw.

 

The community forums being down 70% of the time right after the games release I'm sure also didn't help much for average person. I know its hard to run a site like this and its not free, but it still hurt the game.

 

But the general thing that killed the game for me was it just wasn't all that fun for more than a week or 2.

[razorace]

Well, you can spend you time whining about JK2 or you spend it working on improving it.

 

The following is a simple demo of the .01 version of my ghoul2 based blade collision system for MP. Unfortunately, the demo recording doesn't seem to record True View data (without the .pk3 at least) so you're stuck with thirdperson for now. Hopefully, this will work on vanilla JK2 setups. Please tell me if it doesn't.

 

ProtoGhoul2 Blades Demo

 

Cool, eh?

[Prime]

Originally posted by Kengo

As an SP mapper I'm mostly interested in the SP side of things, and although it definately started slow, I really think it is picking up, along with some of the obvious stand-out levels on the way like Party Crasher, there are more and more good levels getting started, more and more people moving to SP mapping (including LivingDeadJedi ). These are projects that actually look like they have a good chance of getting finished...and within a decent time scale too!

 

The SP community is a bit harder to guage, you can't look at servers or whatever, I guess the best way is downloads for SP maps. I think an SP playing community may prove to be more long lasting than an MP one as you don't need to repeatedly play SP to keep in practise, you can just go back to it whenever. SP doesn't have to compete with other online games either, its in a section on its own.

 

Although the code for SP wasn't released, I really don't think anyone can complain - it doesn't seem to make sense from a business point of view, and as someone already pointed out, Raven have given people in the editing community a lot of help and released the MP code, which is a lot more than some software houses do. Wheras the MP game has in some way suffered from a mass of mods, which have split the online playing community into smaller fragments, SP doesn't have the same problem with no SP mods altering the nature of the code itself. Although being able to alter the code would be nice, it is a luxury, you can edit a huge amount without it.

 

I agree that the SP side of things seems to be picking up a bit. There have been and will be some fun SP maps. This has always been my favorite part of the game, and I've never been a big MP person. I just played Nar Shaddaa Once Again and it was great. There is a new Bespin one coming out that looks like it should be cool as well.

 

You are right that the SP community is harder to know, but I get the impression that it is pretty big, perhaps even bigger than the MP one now. Although not really a way to guage the size, but I got more emails asking how to convert my MP skins to SP than anything else. There are lots of those kinds of questions around the boards here as well. A lot of people are still operating with a 56K modem.

 

I never understood why people complained so much about the SP source code not being released. The modeling and mapping tools were released, which is plenty to make great addons for SP. Really, the majority of mods for MP are skins, models, and maps.

 

The funny thing is, it seems to me that if you really want your editing work played/used, you should do it for SP. I just play on public servers, and I know I and others are "frustrated" that many of these are pure, so you couldn't use any custom skins/models and only the default maps are played. So unless a moder is making a Vader skin or something, it is probably not going to get widespread use. With SP on the other hand, perhaps mods can get a wider audience.

[Solo4114]

Jolts,

 

Why wasn't the game that much fun for you after 2 weeks or so?

 

ILR,

 

I think you're right that there are ways in which the force powers and sabre combat (and the guns, for that matter) could have been implemented to make the game more "SW" than it is now.

 

Is the game fun, in and of itself, as an FPS? Sure, for a little while, but then it loses its lustre and seems not all that much different from other FPS games out there.

 

What distinguishes this game is not the gaming modes, but rather the SW content. Without that, this would just be another Q3/UT type game with the same sort of ho-hum weaponry you usually see. So, when the SW content doesn't live up to what folks hoped for, whatever that may be, you've got a problem, as you pointed out.

 

Now, assuming we don't add in any new game modes (that would be heresy, naturally -- see other posts in the thread for more on this), what could've been done to the game as it is, to make it more SW, in your opinion? I'm not challenging you, just curious as to what would have made the game more SW? How would you have tweaked/changed the force powers, guns, sabre combat, etc?

[ILR]

Originally posted by razorace

Well, you can spend you time whining about JK2 or you spend it working on improving it.

 

The following is a simple demo of the .01 version of my ghoul2 based blade collision system for MP. Unfortunately, the demo recording doesn't seem to record True View data (without the .pk3 at least) so you're stuck with thirdperson for now. Hopefully, this will work on vanilla JK2 setups. Please tell me if it doesn't.

 

ProtoGhoul2 Blades Demo

 

Cool, eh?

 

 

 

I uh.. -_- couldn't get the demo to play. I just slap it in the base file and look it up in the demo option in MP right?

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

Is the game fun, in and of itself, as an FPS? Sure, for a little while, but then it loses its lustre and seems not all that much different from other FPS games out there.

Once again you missed out the all-important "in my opinion". It's high time that games were left alone to mature and develop without constant interference from sub-community-pandering patches. If a game grows boring for certain people, those people should find another game. If a game bores me, I don't run around trying to turn it into another game in order that it might interest me more, I leave it. I find another game that DOES interest me.

 

Trying to change a game into a completely different animal because you don't enjoy it, will only ruin it for those that DO enjoy it. Once that simple fact is grasped by all fanboys in every game community, the world will be safe from fanboyitis once more.

 

Originally posted by razorace:

 

Well, you can spend you time whining about JK2 or you spend it working on improving it.

Well put, razorace. All those whingeing about so-called "improvements" to the game should put their money where their mouth is, learn to edit, and make a mod.

 

Originally posted by Break_dF:

 

lmao... IRL's 27th post of infinite wisdom...

rotflmaoloool!!111 Another of Break's oh-so constructive snide remarks. Joy to the world. I don't agree with ILR, but at least if I wish to express it I'll have the maturity to make some logical arguments against his ideas instead of just sneering like a fanboy.

[ILR]

Originally posted by Break_dF

lmao... IRL's 27th post of infinite wisdom...

 

And this will be my 30th. I fail to see how my newness to this board corrilates with my prior knowledge of the game. Seeing as how prior knowledge (by f'n definition) would not corrilate with what's going on now.

[razorace]

Originally posted by ILR

I uh.. -_- couldn't get the demo to play. I just slap it in the base file and look it up in the demo option in MP right?

 

You gotta put it in the base/demos directory, fire up JK2, open the console and type in demo demonamehere.

[Break_dF]

Basically, Spider, IRL, you have to understand 2 things:

 

1: I know more about this (game) than you two idiots combined.

 

2: If you're offended by no. 1 then you completely missed out on my other posts.

[ILR]

Originally posted by razorace

You gotta put it in the base/demos directory, fire up JK2, open the console and type in demo demonamehere.

 

that is pretty sweet man. Hope you can take it to it's full extent.

[Guest Jolts]

solo: There wasn't anything there I havn't already played. It was an updated version of jk1 with some improved lightsaber moves, but besides that it was pretty stale for me. I didn't like any of the guns, they were generic and unstar wars themed to me. The levels were bland and not very interesting to fight in for me to play in. I just didn't like it.

 

As for editing, everything i would want to add to the game would take a complete rebuild of it. I would rather do that with a newer different game engine like ut2k3 or for single player u2 or wait for some other engine.

 

I use maya so for modeling/animation I'm out of luck with JO.

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Break_dF:

 

1: I know more about this (game) than you two idiots combined.

Ohh is that right son? Well good for you! If the community has a player who's won more major tournaments than I have, played more games than I have, made more kills than I have, set more records than I have, discovered more techniques than I have, beaten more notable opponents in more game modes than I have...

 

someone who played Dark Forces 2 and MotS for years, winning money in prize tournaments, someone who was closely involved in the editing community of those games, producing maps, skins and entries for the Massassi level competitions, writing reviews for other fan-made levels for that site...

 

Someone who's dilligently researched the limits of the capabilities of the engines of all the Dark Forces series since his entry into that community, someone who trained for up to ten hours daily, unceasingly and relentlessly to become as good as he possibly could at both games, amassing a formidable record of results in the process...

 

Well, if the community has another player who's done all that and more, it's a really really good thing for the community, and I am thankful for it! If that player is you though, it's a shame that he's so arrogant, insulting and feeble-minded on the side.

 

Besides, the only great knowledge you've demonstrated here is your great knowledge of how to sling sad and petty little monosyllabic insults around, insults worthy of a true fanboy. Oh, I forgot, you fence too. Good for you, stabb0r! Because fencing is a truly well-rounded fighting art, with many modern applications, and close relations to lightsabre fighting styles as depicted in the canon, as we all know.

 

Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, Breaky, you listen real close: Your logical arguments are non-existent, you fail to back up any of your wild slurs with fact, and even when you're contradicting people like ILR, people that I disagree with strongly, you do it in such a childish and insulting manner that you sicken even me, I who have been famous in the DF community since 1998 for my uncompromising debating style. Now my advice to you is to grow up forthwith. It's good advice. An intelligent person would take it.

[razorace]

Originally posted by ILR

that is pretty sweet man. Hope you can take it to it's full extent.

To the EXTREME, BABY! TO THE EXTREME!

[Tosh_UK]

Go back and dig though some threads from 6 months ago.

 

Damn near every single new topic was:

 

"THIS <whatever> HAS COMPLETLEY DESTROYED THE GAME AND MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!"

 

This is so true.

 

What i tend to see in the game is when you killed some one, you have done one of the following..... pull push hore, kick monkey, (in united coursent (sp?) this server has Back slash as in 1.03 nice pull backslash newb) or rocket freak yaddda yaaddaa unless they kill you and they never Die, they are not happy. or they like the sabber fight to last 2 hours lol. or the one that makes me Roll on the floor, is when you get the rage runners in a CtF game and get upset when you grip them, then say your a grip monkey hahahahaha

 

if i join a game i.e a full force with guns map, if i get killed by some one pull/push or blown up or kicked of a ledge, its ok with me, as if i did not want that to happen to me, i should of not joined a full force with guns map.

 

its not long ago that i posted about Kick is destoying the game. well i was wrong. first i thought it was a lot of bind key users, but i have only just upgraded to a better system, and found that it was a laggy PC that was cause of being owned. second is instead of getting angry try learn to be good at what move they are using on you, and try find a way of counter attack/avoid the move to. and now what do i do if some one is running at me to kick... well if i am next to a ledge, I find that a simple duck can help, or try time a roll to go under them.

 

 

btw mindtrick is gay and should be nerfed as i cant be botherd to use seeing...... j/k

[Solo4114]

Originally posted by Jolts

solo: There wasn't anything there I havn't already played. It was an updated version of jk1 with some improved lightsaber moves, but besides that it was pretty stale for me. I didn't like any of the guns, they were generic and unstar wars themed to me. The levels were bland and not very interesting to fight in for me to play in. I just didn't like it.

 

Yeah, see, those were some of my problems with the game. That's why it didn't have any real longevity for me. You've got shiny graphics and an improved sabre system (from Jedi Knight I, that is), but it just got stale for me after a while. There was nothing really all that innovative about the game, and the CTF maps that shipped with the game were never all that good. The guns definitely seemed more UT/Q3 than SW to me. I don't know why the secondary fire on the repeater turned into the big plasma ball thing, when it used to be the three shot spread. I guess they wanted to include some grenade launcher type weapon, a la Q3. The flechette cannon basically was the UT flak gun, but everyone's pointed that out already.

 

I'm still curious about what kind of edits you'd make, though. It sounds like they'd be pretty sweeping, so I'm rather curious to find out what they might be. If you don't feel like typing it out here in the thread, PM me or something.

[Spider AL]

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

Yeah, see, those were some of my problems with the game. That's why it didn't have any real longevity for me. You've got shiny graphics and an improved sabre system (from Jedi Knight I, that is), but it just got stale for me after a while.

Shame for you. I however, enjoyed it right up until I stopped playing because I couldn't find a decent game. I also played Jedi Knight right up until JO came out. Gawd, I love Dark Forces games. They're leet, and require no changes to the format.

 

Originally posted by Solo4114:

 

The guns definitely seemed more UT/Q3 than SW to me. I don't know why the secondary fire on the repeater turned into the big plasma ball thing, when it used to be the three shot spread. I guess they wanted to include some grenade launcher type weapon, a la Q3.

Well Solo, anyone who's played JK1 will remember the Concussion Rifle aka "conky" which was used by Trandoshan bounty hunters from errm.. I think it was level 9 onwards. The secondary fire on the "Heavy Repeater" from JO was a "concussion explosive," according to the official site. Can't have a JK game without a conky.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Spider AL

Once again you missed out the all-important "in my opinion". It's high time that games were left alone to mature and develop without constant interference from sub-community-pandering patches. If a game grows boring for certain people, those people should find another game. If a game bores me, I don't run around trying to turn it into another game in order that it might interest me more, I leave it. I find another game that DOES interest me.

 

Trying to change a game into a completely different animal because you don't enjoy it, will only ruin it for those that DO enjoy it. Once that simple fact is grasped by all fanboys in every game community, the world will be safe from fanboyitis once more.

This really sums it up for me. I have loved this game from the very beginning, both MP and SP. Frankly there was little that I wanted changed, apart from the obvious bugs (DFA collision box and so on). I didn't really like the fact that each patch changed the game so drastically, firstly because I had to learn a new way to play, and secondly because I thought the game was good to begin with and didn't need sweeping changes. Personally, I think Raven knew that they made a good game, both from the reviews and boards, and should have let it find it's audience on its own. If it was a bad game, no amount of patches is going to make it a good game. Ignore people who whine when you know it makes no sense for the game. I never understood why people took the time to come here and demand sweeping changes about a game they didn't like and didn't play.

 

 

Originally posted by Spider AL

rotflmaoloool!!111 Another of Break's oh-so constructive snide remarks. Joy to the world. I don't agree with ILR, but at least if I wish to express it I'll have the maturity to make some logical arguments against his ideas instead of just sneering like a fanboy.

I was going to comment on this also, but after all the back and forth we had, I felt it just wasn't worth the effort.

 

Originally posted by ILR

And this will be my 30th. I fail to see how my newness to this board corrilates with my prior knowledge of the game. Seeing as how prior knowledge (by f'n definition) would not corrilate with what's going on now.

It doesn't. You have shown more class and knowledge than Break has shown after 500+. Even if people don't agree with you, at least you are willing to debate with counterpoints, and that deserves respect.

 

Originally posted by Break_dF

Basically, Spider, IRL, you have to understand 2 things:

 

1: I know more about this (game) than you two idiots combined.

 

2: If you're offended by no. 1 then you completely missed out on my other posts.

Whether (1) is true or not, we'll never know. When you do decide to post arguments, they don't always seem to make much sense, and the rest of the time you are just calling people names. You haven't posted anything that seems to show any sort of deep knowledge about the game.

 

As for (2), what the hell does that mean? If they were in fact "offended" by you knowing more, that would mean they wouldn't have missed out on your other posts, because they would have had to read them to see your "superior intelect". You seem to have no idea what you are talking about. The point is mute though, since these guys probably just disregard your posts now anyway...

 

And the number of posts indicates nothing about a person's knowledge about this game. Just because ILR has about 30 or so posts at his point says nothing about his knowledge compared to yours. This much is obvious when you post things like:

 

Yeah ok... continue being a tool.

and

lmao... IRL's 27th post of infinite wisdom...

When you post crap like this, you come across as a teenager that either is a geeky nerd with an inferiority complex and has to verbally attack people on the internet to compensate or a troll. Since I don't know you, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and consider you the later.

 

In either case, it sure is easy to call people names when sitting safely behind your keyboard in your parents basement, isn't it?

[ILR]

one more thing.. its ILR... If I had a dollar every time someone said IRL.. I'd have thirteen dollars.

[razorace]

^^^

 

[Break_dF]

Originally posted by ILR

one more thing.. its ILR... If I had a dollar every time someone said IRL.. I'd have thirteen dollars.

 

That's what you get for creating a stupid name.

 

Spuder AL: Wow u r smart. DF community cash money wowow. I wish I were as gud as u. No, wait.. you're a joke. Read some of my past posts then comment on how much I've innovated. While you mindless drones where screaming "FF is CHEAP," and wailing your limp sabers around, I was actually helping the community. If you play 1.04 FF and *if you're any good what-so-ever (which I highly doubt), then you can thank me for helping you w/ your *leet moves. I make snide remarks because you're a "tool." Oh, and yeah, I fence. There's a life outside of hentai and sw forums. Now go buy an idiot's guide to on-line gaming and stfu before you say something you can't back up.