I was thinking, in JO, there were the two jedi models at the academy. To me it didnt seem like the academy had jedis there, nobody wandering the halls when you went to get your saber, just kinda empty, also the rooms and hallways were verry boring with no decorations, the archatechture was verry simple, I know its an old temple, but livein it up a bit. Anyway, do you think they'll have well known jedi from the EU at the academy, you reconizeable models? It would make the game much much more involving, have greater depth and lagitamacy to the story. Like the Solo kids, or that one from the Thrawn Trillogy, Kip? I've read few of the books. Is JA in the same timeline as these charachters? Basicly, I hope they dont have just generic jedi that all look the same. That dropped the atmosphere for me in JO. With the create a charachter system it would probably be easy, right? I dont know. Any thoughts?
I agree with you. The problem in JO was that all of the Jedi, both trainers and students, were all humans. It didn't really feel like the Academy from the books, because there were students from all different kinds of races in attendance. And I also agree that it would be a nice touch for them to include some of the familiar EU characters (in terms of looks if not by name) to give the Academy more colour. Having students walking around, and perhaps talking with each other, would be excellent. I'd love to be able to listen in on a conversation between students as they discuss the latest troubles going on. Or listen through a closed door as Luke and Kyle discuss something of importance.
This kind of thing can really bring an environment to life, and help to immerse you in the game. :)
I would imagine they'll focus much more attention on the academy this time, since the game is based around it... I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up back at the Academy for the final fight, a la JO, either.
Originally posted by TheBlueFlamingo
...nobody wandering the halls when you went to get your saber, just kinda empty...Strikingly similar to the rest of the JO universe :)
Originally posted by Prime
Strikingly similar to the rest of the JO universe :)
It is amazing how much joy it would bring me if they did nothing but make new maps of the same locales as JO, with a slightly different story, but this time have loads of neutral or friendly NPC's everywhere, of all different races ...
Forget the character build, the new graphics and sabers ... ok, don't forget that stuff - just give me more NPC's while you're at it ;)
Some of the stormtrooper (and other) conversations were so priceless, I'd love to have that applied everywhere.
Mike
Agreed completely, these things are what make a map. Sure the entire map can be the best map ever done, but it still won't immerse you if people should be there but they aren't...
Originally posted by babywax
Agreed completely, these things are what make a map. Sure the entire map can be the best map ever done, but it still won't immerse you if people should be there but they aren't...
I will never quite forgive the SoFII Hong Kong levels ... the most populous city in the world, suddenly devoid of anyone except the people shooting at me, and the two people at the beginning of the 'streets' level, one who has a briefcase over his head as he runs away, the other just runs away.
Mike
That's why I really liked Deus Ex's Hong Kong. Do to engine limitations, they couldn't make it that jam packed with people, though. However it makes sense. It's at night, it's under martial law, and it's in the future where the world is very different.
Originally posted by Emon
That's why I really liked Deus Ex's Hong Kong. Do to engine limitations, they couldn't make it that jam packed with people, though. However it makes sense. It's at night, it's under martial law, and it's in the future where the world is very different.
Yeah, Deus Ex did a good job considering the limits of the tech at the time.
Another game that comes to mind that has an acceptable number of NPCs is NOLF2. With the mission in India, there are quite a few people walking around, who run away when the shooting starts.
Originally posted by StormHammer
Yeah, Deus Ex did a good job considering the limits of the tech at the time.
Another game that comes to mind that has an acceptable number of NPCs is NOLF2. With the mission in India, there are quite a few people walking around, who run away when the shooting starts.
Deus Ex is quite a game - I didn't play it until a few months ago, and it is still god enough to be one of my faves. It found a way of managing to work very well with the technology available for a number of different things ... and still looks pretty decent today. (sorry to disappoint all of those who think that if you don't use the newest engine your graphics look like ... well, we all know what has been said).
I've not played NOLF2 (or NOLF for that matter) but that approach sounds pretty good. I think we are reasonable in terms of 'suspension of disbelief' - I don't need to be wading in people, just show me a few.
Mike
of non star wars/ non lec games, nolf and nolf2 are right up there as my favorites, only in contention with freespaces and wing commanders.
anyway, im thinking with the new mix n match clothing system reaven has implimented, different looking npc's will be easy to come by, weather the engine limitations and map limitations will have anythign to do with it i dunno, but it sure is easy from a standpoint of not haveing a bunch of clones of ppl, like in the original JK, there was one man, and one woman model for all the levels in JK. it was rather funny. :D
said it many times before, but NPCs are a must, and Deus Ex and NOLF rock!
ps/ deus ex still implements a lot of effects that i don't remember being in JO (mirrors, water etc..). The polys are lower, but the rest of it compares well.
oh, as for EU characters at the academy, i haven't liked any of the books except the thrawn trilogy (no real new jedi in there) but i wouldn't mind Mara Jade popping back in. Oh, and those solo kids sound way too cute and anakin like, if i saw them there i would very likely chop them up. :D
oh, there was a jedi's kid who lived among the sandpeople, he would be cool.
... that it starts the same year as JO, so MOTS couldn't have happened, not really.
I love it when Luke says "After all this time?" (what... 2 weeks?)
There are probably only about a dozen Jedi students at the time of JO. (People apart from Kyle, Mara and the people from WEG)
Originally posted by toms
oh, there was a jedi's kid who lived among the sandpeople, he would be cool.
Aha, you refer to tahiri no- she's not cool, shes very annoying, like all the little solos. They better all die in The Unifying Force....
i dunno, i think i got my timeframes mixed up. :(
Aurra sing was on Tatooine in Ep1 to kill a jedi who had joined the sandpeople, she killed him but ki adi mundi (or the jedi with a pointy head, whatever his name is) saved his son who had grown up among the sandpeople. Im not sure if he would still be around in JA, probably not. :(
I just think ep2 gave the sandpeople a bad wrap, never explained why they did that to shmi. They had quite an advanced code of honour if i remember rightly. just wanted to even the score.... :D
Originally posted by toms
i dunno, i think i got my timeframes mixed up. :(
I just think ep2 gave the sandpeople a bad wrap, never explained why they did that to shmi. They had quite an advanced code of honour if i remember rightly. just wanted to even the score.... :D
I don't know the 'rest of the story' on Sandpeople, but most people have seen them (a) attack Luke in Star Wars, (b) snipe podracers in Ep1 and (c) die in mass numbers at the hands of a future Dark Lord of the Sith for messing with the locals.
Chances are that the Sandpeople in JA will reflect the basic Star Wars mentality as seen briefly in the released media. And we will kill them ... all of them ... not just the men, but the women, and the chil ... OK, now I'm just getting carried away ;)
Mike
Remember that the prequels don't seem to take into account a hell of a lot of the EU that popped up between 1977 and 1999.
Anyway, EU jedi in the academy couldn't hurt. People who don't like EU won't know who they are, and people who do will get an extra little bonus. Exactly when does JA take place? Has an actual time been decided on?
Jedi from existing EU would be nice, but brand new characters would be cool, too. If the manual has brief backstories or there's a few short stories on the official site, that would be a very nice touch.
Now I must come to defense of the solos. When they were kids, they were weiners, but in the more "recent" stories, they are somewhat better. I particularly like how Anakin Solo died. He just sort of used the force to go on this big kamikaze attack and then spontaneously combusted, in a way.
Originally posted by Solbe M'ko
Remember that the prequels don't seem to take into account a hell of a lot of the EU that popped up between 1977 and 1999.
Personally I don't care ... I know many do, but not me. To me, any EU inclusions are window dressing. I would likely look up characters who seem important / cool, just to learn more.
Anyway, EU jedi in the academy couldn't hurt. People who don't like EU won't know who they are, and people who do will get an extra little bonus. Exactly when does JA take place? Has an actual time been decided on?
Jedi from existing EU would be nice, but brand new characters would be cool, too. If the manual has brief backstories or there's a few short stories on the official site, that would be a very nice touch..
I agree about that. The JK games have introduced some cool characters, and reused/expanded others. Bit parts from the U would be nice homage, IMO.
Now I must come to defense of the solos. When they were kids, they were weiners, but in the more "recent" stories, they are somewhat better. I particularly like how...
I liked the kids in the Jedi Academy trilogy, but have had little to do with the NJO series, so I can't speak for that. I have no real negative opinion of them.
Mike
Personally, I'd like more special Dark Jedi in JA, more 'level bosses' so to speak, like in JK. I really liked the force/saber weilding opponents in JO, but only Tavion and Desann had a personality (even though I didn't like them as characters) :)
they always have a problem on that point, if they introduce too many dark jedi from out of nowhere then SW fans complain that they weren't in the films (i remember a lot of people complaining that these 8 or so dark jedi just turned up in JK)... but on the other hand they need to come up with a good excuse for lots of lightsaber battles. I guess the Reborn were their compromise...
I do agree though. maybe a good plot device would be to have the guys you are fighting/training with in the early missions go off and come back as bad guys. (bit like Kyle in MotS or Magnum Force:p )
Originally posted by HertogJan
Personally, I'd like more special Dark Jedi in JA, more 'level bosses' so to speak, like in JK. I really liked the force/saber weilding opponents in JO, but only Tavion and Desann had a personality (even though I didn't like them as characters) :)
I liked Tavion, but she could have used more backstory. Obviously strong in the Force, but not fully committed to the dark side, she likes the power and inducing fear, but crumples in th eface of a stronger adversary. I'd like to have known where she came from, how Dessann recruited her and about her training.
Dessann seemed flatter and underdeveloped. He was ridiculed as a child, then began to flourish at the Academy. But something happened (what!?!?!) so that he began to seek power for its' own sake, to look down on the pursuit of 'knowledge and events' and the 'lesser powers'. As his power grew, so did his thirst for more power. But we really don't get any motivation to hate or fear him.
Originally posted by HertogJan
they always have a problem on that point, if they introduce too many dark jedi from out of nowhere then SW fans complain that they weren't in the films (i remember a lot of people complaining that these 8 or so dark jedi just turned up in JK)... but on the other hand they need to come up with a good excuse for lots of lightsaber battles. I guess the Reborn were their compromise...]
I agree ... unfortunately, it just doesn't make sense to have a group of the size you'd need to make it fulfilling appear out of nowhere. I never bought the whole 'few other surviving Jedi' ... that somehow Yoda or ObiWan didn't know about. Oh well, they need some license to get things rolling in a game ...
I hope also that they come up with a way to integrate more personality-containing saber opponents, and make them more '3-dimensional' as characters.
That's every bit as important - more important, IMO - than whether or not I can choose to play as a Male Twilek.
Mike
Originally posted by txa1265
I hope also that they come up with a way to integrate more personality-containing saber opponents, and make them more '3-dimensional' as characters.
I totally agree. This is where games like NOLF/NOLF2 also got it mostly right. They fleshed out the characters pretty well, giving them individual personalities, for the most part (for the key villains and allies anyway). The first thing you see in NOLF is the arch-villain of the piece taking out other agents...so you know he's bad and to be feared.
This is really where cut scenes should be better utilised for the Jedi Knight series of games. When you look back to A New Hope, you learn within a very short space of time that Darth Vader is pretty evil, because he strangles the Captain simply for not giving him the information he wants. And during the film, you learn quite a bit about what Vader did to make him so feared. In JK, you learn that Jerec has murdered Kyle's father...and Maw stuck his head on a spike and enjoyed it. These kinds of things can really help to flesh out a character.
So you're absolutely right in that Desann was hardly fleshed out at all, and should have been.
I certainly hope we get to see more of the villains in action in JA to get a good idea of why they are bad, and what they intend to do. And I sincerely hope that there is a lot more variety in the appearance of enemies, of the same race or cult. Appearance and behaviour can go a long way in convincing you you're not just fighting the same cloned enemy over and over...
Originally posted by StormHammer
This is really where cut scenes should be better utilised
A total of ~ 10 minutes of extra cutscenes could have made a huge difference in terms of the depth and believability of the plot and the environs (lack of weapons, lack of civilians, Valley, Morgan, etc). I hope they spend the time with JA ...
I certainly hope we get to see more of the villains in action in JA to get a good idea of why they are bad, and what they intend to do. And I sincerely hope that there is a lot more variety in the appearance of enemies, of the same race or cult. Appearance and behaviour can go a long way in convincing you you're not just fighting the same cloned enemy over and over...
It was easy enough to believe that the Reborn were essentially clones - until you thought about the fact that they weren't. Again, a quick cutscene could have gone a long way - I have a good imagination, but throw me a bone! (My kids love that game ;) )
Mike
The cutscenes are very important to me. In JO, most of the cutscenes dealt with Kyle Katarn, whom you play as the whole game. A cutscene seems unneccesary if it deals with the protagonist; the story could be moved along through the gameplay.
I think that a good Star Wars game should have some political/social conflict, like TIE Fighter did. Since JA is set in the fledgling New Republic, there is plenty of room for political conflict.
Anyway, back to the cutscenes. The cutscenes should move the story along by letting the player in on what is happening, without letting Kyle Katarn (or whoever) in on it. This is a classic dramatic device. We all saw the Death Star blow up Alderaan, then we got to see how the characters reacted.
I guess my main point is that this game needs a good storyline.