after seeing mots and JK mod community be so huge and active, i watched it slowly die. Then when i heard Jedi Outcast came out, I was like the mod community has life, and the game comes out, , great game so i know a lot played it, but the mod community got a tiny active and then died fast. I dont understand?
They released mod tools, people told me the game engine is mod friendly. So why is it dead? Also any word of Jedi Academy will have any new mod tools any better ones?
Who says the mod community is dead?
The thing is, good mods take time. All the easy skins and saber mods have been done already.
And remember that we had no official tools for JK/MotS and it took years for the editing community to get off on the right foot.
With the easy transition to JA, why couldn't this also be the case?
so is there any limitations in Jedi outcastr that wasnt in Jediknight?
Every engine has limitations. If that's what you're asking. The Q3TA engine is certainly more powerful than Sith engine.
It may not have all of the same features (like the dynamic lightsaber light source) but some of those 'Missing features' seem to be added in JA.
Many things have changed since 1998. Now new moddable games come out so fast, it's hard for any community to get well established before "the next big thing" comes along. This is why I think Raven had the right idea to use the same engine and make the transition with mods easier.
JA will complement the JK2 mod community, much in the same way that MotS complemented JK1.
so whats the best mod site i can go to that is updated more than once a month? and has news on mods and downloads etc?
I can think of two right off hand (there are plenty more I'm sure).. jk2files.com and massassi.net.
And hopefully LucasFiles.com someday...
yea, like Kurgan said (seems like all I am doign tonite is complimenting him) that great mods take time, like the Attack of the Clones TC and the Dark Forces/Dark Forces 2 Enhanced Mods are also being ported over directly to Jedi Academy I believe since there was only so much the teams could do before the lack of SP Source SDK left them hanging dry on what is left to do. But with JA, the MP is going to be designed similar to SP, which will allow for better mods and TC's to do what they want.
Yeah, hopefully a nice stream of custom Siege levels will be made, which should alleviate the sting of the lack of SP SDK.
Hopefully it will be similar to the UT mod community and "Assault."
For the record, real mod (code mod) community is mostly dead. There are dabbling here and there, negotiation of starting glorious projects (tm), but no real action.
Reason: lack of appreciation.
Most of the modders that I personally know are fed up with the lack of appreciation that emanates from JK2 players. I would say that if JediMod was never released as open source, the community would be in much better shape now. Frankly, when a modder asks for feedback, and gets "add emotez liek JediPluSS" as reply, or 'I wunt two sabre', it makes you think, what exactly the people here want. So far, all non-SW mods have been bashed to death. The rest...90% of them are jedimod derivatives, mostly with added emotes and admin commands...and there are 1 or 2 finished mods that are somewhat original.
The state of online multiplayer is something to ponder about as well....I personally do not want to create mods for the people I see on most public servers - whiny, lacking even basic skills, emote-spamming and color spamming kids. When anything except swinging your saber in a 'duel' is lame, and when they attack you as 5 versus 1 and you defeat them, and you are lame. Reminds me of Counter Strike, honestly. If you kill somebody, you are a cheater/lamer. And the kid admin comes with Sleep and Slap.
I have seen many promising modders trying their luck with JK2. Most of them left in frustration. Some switched back to good old Quake3. The only remaining people are the ones that still believe that redemption is possible...I am sadly on a borderline, torn by both sides on the ring.
Future will tell.
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=87536)
=X= mod 2.x
Made by the best players in the game and input taken from the best players in the game (well the best from jk2 but you get the point).
If you are a serious no nonsense gamer who values game play and mechanics over "MAKE TEH GAME SO I CAN BE JUST LIKE TEH DARF MALL AND DO THE BUTTER PHLY MOVEZ RAAAGGGHH!" mentality bookmark that page and check it out in about a month.
what is the SP Source SDK? what does it do?
and commandchamber.net isnt a site i like, it usta always been updated but now it gets updated like once every two months.
I've only done a little bit of modding myself (a few skins), but what I found annoying about mods is that I couldn't really use them online. There are a ton of models, skins, and maps out there, so it is not for lack of content. But unless other people have the same mods, and unless the server isn't pure, you can't really use them in MP. I mean, after all this time FFA_BESPIN is still probably the most popular FFA map out there. There are some great models available, for the most part I've only seen Vader, Maul, and maybe a few others.
So as a modder, where is the real incentive? In a funny way, I've found SP to be a more appealing way to get your mod out there. For all the skins I've done, for the most part the only emails I get are requests to turn them into SP to replace Kyle or whatever. The same with maps. People love SP maps.
Just some of my observations.
I usually just get files from
www.jediknightii.net). But you have probably already been there if you are at these forums.
Though the JO modding community is far from dead, it has certainly slowed down a bit. My guess is that they're simply waiting for JA to come out. After all, JA will add features that will allow for both easier modding and more options. Once JA comes out, expect a deluge of mods.
As I said before, the community is far from dead. The release of several excellent SP levels (such as Occupation 2, Project Lighthouse, and the Colosseum mod) in the past month or two is a living testimony of that.
I agree that the mod community has certainly slowed down quite a bit, and there were only a few mods that I was actually interested in. Its just that the majority of the mods were skinpacks or emote fun fests, something I wasn't very interested in. And the TC's have apparently stopped, due to JA.
Well, as I alluded to before, the reason you see so many emotes, saber packs, duel maps, skins, etc. is because as mods go, those are quickest and easiest to do.
Simply put, better mods take more time and effort. You can't expect full fledged Total Conversions every week, now can you? How is that realistic?
JK has been out 6 years. Players know how to mod it, and are familiar with the system.
JO has been out 1 1/2 years. Players know what the engine is like, but do not have access to SP source, and it is better to mod a more popular game, or an older one.
What are you asking for? Every imaginable Star Wars model, skin, or hilt has been made for JO. There are very good maps out there- most players don't know they exist, or don't see any point besides sitting around the ffa_bespin map all day and cussing poeple out.
im a dude who iksnt interested really into multiplayer mods. What im interested in are single player levels or campaigns that have a excellent story to them and are well made, unquie.
Well, I DID just explain that we don't have the SP source code...that sort of limits mod-making potential.
most SDKs take years before they are released to the modding community an example is freespace 2 its SDK came out last year and the game has been out for 3-4 years
maybe in the late future they will release the SP Source code but we will have to wait for that to happen
Well, they never released the SP SDK for JK or MotS and yet people still found ways to mod that.
Anyway, with scripting in MP, and the limits on objects and stuff raised (hopefully significantly) we should be able to create some nice missions in MP...
Coop, Siege, etc... could all be within our grasp.
I think the reason people were able to do that for JK/MotS was because JK/MotS used a scripting language which did everything from how the weapons worked to doors opening in levels. It's files were just text files with a .cog file extension, so they were very easy to edit and make new ones.
I've never had any interest in MP mods. I'm a SP mapper, so the lack of SP SDK hasn't affected me much.
In general, people like new SP maps more than MP, but for a SP map to be good, it requires a good storyline, which can take a while to write and so most people map MP. As said, the editing community is far from dead. We still have many mods coming out.
My project, "The Attack on Yavin: 2" is coming out in the next few months, except for some technical difficulties (can't get my map to compile into a bsp, which is the file the game uses).
I think the reason people were able to do that for JK/MotS was because JK/MotS used a scripting language which did everything from how the weapons worked to doors opening in levels. It's files were just text files with a .cog file extension, so they were very easy to edit and make new ones.
Good point. Conceded.
I agree that JK was extremely easy to edit :D. I remember on my very FIRST day of JK in the trial room, I learned how to change my lightsaber color to black and gold, simply by changing 2 lines of a text file! Not to mention fly around in multiplayer, throw lightsabers and 1000 conc blasts in 3 seconds. Otherwise known as "cogs".
It was somewhat of a downfall cheatwise, but was extremely amusing at times!
Well i for one have been around since the beginning of this site. I have seen people do great things with this game and others do not so great. I think, and this goes for me as well, it is the fact that this engine is so damn hard to work with. It is one of the most technically challenging programs i have ever had to work with (radiant). I have made about 7 sp levels total, never one have i released and probably witll never release. Why? I think a lot of people are also turned off by criticism. When their levels are not grade A with cut scenes or don't include a text crawl at the beginning then their levels "suck".
What people don't realise is that a lot of modders aren't as inclined as others in terms of architecture and scripting, and what have you. Others just don't know it's there. It took me 5 maps and many hours to realize you need area portals and no leaks for a half decent frame rate. I think the real heart of this game is the SP levels. You would get more people doing those if the engine weren't so difficult to use and if others were a bit less brutal and critical maybe there would be more.
Yeah, the so-called "hacks" were all we got for mods for quite awhile, until the first editor, Force Builder, was released.
Then we got successive editing tools like Conman, JED (and its seemingly endless plugins), JKEdit, BMut, PuppetJedi, Matmaster, etc. and finally Kicker Helper to deal with the cheaters.
The problem was that JK/MotS had no system for checking the files that clients used to connect to be sure they were the same (the "pure server" option in Q3 engine games). Instead it just matched the file names. MotS encrypted their MPC files, but that only stopped one commonly used cheat.
Anyway...
Its funny you mention the text crawlers Tyler because I actually made several for some of the more popular Mods' and TC's coming out, like the Attack of the Clones TC as well as the Dark Forces 2 Enhanced Mod and helped Gohan123 get together a text crawler for his Episode 3: Fall of the Jedi mod. I mean really they weren't hard to do in terms of the text itself. you just open it up in a proggie like Adobe Photoshop, view the alpha layer of it, and then remove and edit text as necessary and then remember to save it as a 32-bit (NOT 16-bit) tga file and voila... all done.
Originally posted by Tyler_Durden
Well i for one have been around since the beginning of this site. I have seen people do great things with this game and others do not so great. I think, and this goes for me as well, it is the fact that this engine is so damn hard to work with. It is one of the most technically challenging programs i have ever had to work with (radiant). I have made about 7 sp levels total, never one have i released and probably witll never release. Why? I think a lot of people are also turned off by criticism. When their levels are not grade A with cut scenes or don't include a text crawl at the beginning then their levels "suck".
What people don't realise is that a lot of modders aren't as inclined as others in terms of architecture and scripting, and what have you. Others just don't know it's there. It took me 5 maps and many hours to realize you need area portals and no leaks for a half decent frame rate. I think the real heart of this game is the SP levels. You would get more people doing those if the engine weren't so difficult to use and if others were a bit less brutal and critical maybe there would be more.
I actually think editing JKII is great...much easier than Jedi Knight. While cogs were powerful, it got a bit tedious having to use one just to open a door (of course at the time I didn't know of anything easier, so I wasn't really complaining then). My main gripe about JKII editing is the bugs with the scripting, where you may have a script that should technically work, but don't because of a bug which they never bothered to take out, so I have to try and track down what it doesn't like. Otherwise though, Radiant is much easier to use than JED (it wasn't that JED was hard to use, it's just that Jedi Knight editing is based on deleting stuff to create it...it's hell trying to do even the most simple details)...and you don't have to use a cog every time you need a door to open.
It's true that it's a lot of work to make a good level, but I start off coming up with a story, then coming up with about what the cutscenes are going to be and write all the dialog (as well as put down what the mp3 file names will be). Then I actually go about figuring out how I'll get it done...that way I'm not limiting the level by thinking about it from the technical view first.
Even an experienced single player level editor, like Anthony Piggott, wasn't able to release his first level for JKII because of technical problems (something with the framerate, I think), but remember that every failure gives you that much more knowledge so that you don't make that mistake again. My first JKII level ended up having a terrible framerate also, but I learned many things about doing cool cutscenes (and also about the bugs) and that having a very open floating platform made up of many patches, and the brushes not being textured with caulk was not a recipe for high framerates. (Actually it was fine until I added the NPCs...the level was so open that most of them had to spawn at the same time, which just pushed the FPS into the trash can)
I think we just need a definitive tutorial on how to modify ALL of the stuff that comes with this game, the best being rich diesal's tutorial, however it is incomplete so you either have to go to different sources and attempt to find what you're looking for. It really becomes cumbersome if you just don't have that kind of time. My point is there should be a site that pertains to this game exclusively with how to do everything whether it be mapping, modelling, etc. This way everyone has a central place to really learn how to make their own mods and release some quality stuff.
But yeah i totally agree with you that you need to plan out the whole thing beforehand as it really helps you out in the long run. I myself have been working on a sp mod that has nothing to do with the movie continuity since i heard this game was coming. But it is definitely a star wars mod. I have to learn modelling/skinning, and scripting. I am also going to be doing story, dialogue, and original art for loading screens as well as for the startup screen (whoa). Might take a couple of years but it seems like it'll be worth it. Whether it is released or not, well.....
Ah, yes...that was one thing about Jedi Knight editing...I could just go to massassi.net and find a tutorial on how to do what ever I needed to do...so even if it was harder to do, it was easier to learn how to do it.
It sure is great, though, that Raven released all the SP scripts...I don't think I could've hardly gotten anywhere without those. (That and the Kejim .map file...and that one space base level where you first meet the shadow troopers that came with for GTKRadiant)
:)
Good mods take a lot of time. That is the basis of the fact that things didn't start so fast. Also, people have to learn the modding tools. Next, proper resources have to be found and utilized.
I have a WIP for Single player, and from my experience it takes a heck of a lot of time to work. I don't know about others though.
Originally posted by Tyler_Durden
I think we just need a definitive tutorial on how to modify ALL of the stuff that comes with this game, the best being rich diesal's tutorial, however it is incomplete so you either have to go to different sources and attempt to find what you're looking for. It really becomes cumbersome if you just don't have that kind of time.
Nah, I think we just need people with enough drive to complete their projects. Yes, many people are put off by the learning curve, but that probably just weeds some of the crappy stuff.
Besides, I suggested a JK2 documentation project a while ago, but noone was really interested. It's too much work to document stuff when you're not the developer.
I did some things for JK2 outcast but has never released anything cuz nothing was realy finished. That will change with jedi academy for sure. I have straigth plans on doing some endor stuff finally with the supported swoop flying stuff we know they have implemented...yay speeder bikes ROXS jojojojojojojojojo.
Another reason imo is the condition of modders now a days which is by far weaker as it was where modding was a "scene thing". Dunno maybe itґs the "common thing to mod on somthing" which makes us believe all the announced things will see the lights of playable betas but thats just a fake and so they end up getting onto other projects or just drop the whole modthing.
JEDI ACADEMY I`M COMING:)
ASK nailed it!
we had a mod named duel_se. and ist realy had some neat features, i allways wanted to have as an admin and a player. multiplayer got realy ridiculous with all the stupidity and so on. but as we got the mod playable, the players wouldn't join our servers. it was to hard to convince the majority to play that way.
it wasn't even a real mod on saber combat and forces as it was a mod for the most important things at that time: beeing able to duel without inteference by disturbing kids. my dream was a league with fair fights and no anonymous anarchy. all players had an "account" and so on. but it was to late for that to happen. my RL problems got in the way and the servers are not paying themselves.
the worst part was, that Jaii left the "team" (he was the coder and me the guy who talked him into it). he went back to his sp mod, since the feedback was not realy great or even comming from the community. and we had emotes! and admin commands! some coders from other mods were interested in our features. like the noninteference duel and stuff like that.
modders need positive feedback. they don't get any money...
I think it goes beyond simply positive feedback. Most modders need actual support from the community, meaning servers, players, and additional modders.
I think a lot of it stems from everyone wanting something different from the game and therefore don't want to work together on anything.
true, servers are essential. extra modders were not needed, since the mod, was only about the gameplay. so only codework actually. we had a php coder for the league site. it all worked out like i hoped. the players registered like on a forum and got a unique password. with it they could not only login to the site, but to the servers too! no renaming, no fakers, no cheaters no lamers, no anything. admins could just bann the idiots. it would take 30 minutes to get a new registration updated on the servers password list file, and then still wait until the next map loads. that way, we finaly could get real stats, and clean fights.
but there were bugs in the saber combat. that and the drastic decreasing playernumbers on all servers in germany were the cause of total loss of interesst.