Yes! Yes! Yes! Downloading... Hoping to play it after school! :D
Thank you all in the DF mod team! You guys rock! :)
Beautiful job, better than the original, absolutely loved talay...going to be quiet and not screw it up for everyone.....thanks for the mirror otherwise I'd be posting in the corrupt download forum....Ack is right, you guys rock!! Sorry for the bad grammar and punctuation, the BUD ICE is kicking in.
Damn! I can't get the demo because of my crappy 56k modem :mad: . Luckily one of my brothers friends is gonna download it and burn it to a CD. Gotta wait till tommorow.
Oh my God, that was so much more than I'd even hoped for. Talay was perfectly dark and gloomy, as it should be, and Sec Base, that was a complete revamp on the atmosphere, you guys should be patting yourselves on the back for a job well done. I got lost a little on Anoat, apparently I hit all the switches in the wrong order so I couldn't find the correct combo to open up the right valve! The remotes were a little annoying, but it was cool that you could hear 'em before you saw them. One discrepancy I noted was the fact that melee damage apparently affects shields too? One Gran (three-eyed guy) walked up right next to me and punched my shields and health down. Other than that and the corrupted download from lucasfiles, that was honestly one of the best mods I've had the pleasure of playing through. Continue the hard work guys!!!
Ok, downloaded it to my laptop in school (on a lesson... bad me :D ) and played secbase and part of talay...
Love it!
Now that I came home and wanted to continue, I realized I HAVEN't INSTALLED JKA! doing so now. Just wanna say, I think i love you guys :P
I don't think you'll be able to finish the whole thing though, I really think LucasArts would offer you a job before that...
I kinda hope so, we would get better games :)
Nicely done (so far).
A few things: it's actually a bit more fun than the JK2 "gun levels" because you can aim for the heads of enemies in JA, thus killing them off a bit faster.
I did have a bit of fun when I made it to the Moldy Crow in the first level, because I was down to 10 health and had no more ammo. I was hopping around picking up ST rifles while the bad guys fired and missed.
So it's not quite as excrutiating an experience as I originally feared (based on my experiences with SP gunplay in JK2). ; )
Sadly, loading the maps into MP isn't very workable, they crash quickly (I assume due to the scripting).
The first time I fired it up, I got through Secbase okay, but moving on to talay I had problems. During the cutscene with Kyle and Mon Mothma the sound started getting very "staticy" (as if my speakers had something wrong with them, but everything checked out) getting progressively worse until the sound was completely gone.
I was faced with what seemed like several minutes of Mothma gesturing and Kyle nodding his head. : (
The map loaded up (talay) and crashed within seconds of spawning into the new map. So I used cheats to get back. So far everything else seems to be in order.
I of course messed around with cheats to look at some of the other stuff. I noticed the Dianoga, while looking cool, definately doesn't have that "scare factor" like it did in Dark Forces (I suppose I should wait until I encounter them in the darkness of level 3). They also seem to "punch" you, rather than biting and rasping, which again, added to the fear effect in the original. I guess it's harder in a 3-D game because you can't just make a monster appear and then disappear after attacking the player. It would just seem to weird and random (people expect a 3-D object to BE somewhere and it can be reached).
I was disappointed that the "map" wasn't implemented (I still think some way could be found to modify the Siege radar for this purpose), but I understand if the team didn't have time yet. I do hope a way can be found to incorporate it. While Dark Forces was a "hard game" because it lacked a mid-level save feature, it also was logical and methodical because you had a map to help you navigate the levels. Now you have no map, and you can pound the quicksave button like a madman. I'm sure the difficulty was bumped up to coincide with this. But sometimes I felt like firing up the original game just so I could remember where I was supposed to go.
I was curious about the "usable items" (like the IR goggles, etc). Dark Forces, like JK had a field light and other items. Jedi Outcast, while lacking the quality of the items in the previous installments, too had items in single player in your inventory. But Jedi Academy removed them from the Single Player game. Sure, you can mod them back in or use cheats and binds, but (correct me if I'm wrong) they are no longer listed in the menus, leading to some confusion. I had IR goggles, but couldn't tell if I had any battery power or how to switch them on.
A question: is there more than one voice actor doing Kyle's lines? It sounds like a different person on level 1 vs. level 2.
I must say I like the curved surfaces and stuff in Talay (various pipes and cables and things). The overall "blocky, simple textures" look of Dark Forces was replicated well, but in an engine like this it can be underwhelming. But little details like that really showed off the engine in a good way. Kudos.
I realize this is just a demo, and we've all been waiting a year for it, but that's my 2 cents of feedback. ; )
I love the demo. It was awesome. :cool: :cool: You guys are great. I didn't run into any problems with it either. :)
Originally posted by Kurgan
I noticed the Dianoga, while looking cool, definately doesn't have that "scare factor" like it did in Dark Forces (I suppose I should wait until I encounter them in the darkness of level 3). They also seem to "punch" you, rather than biting and rasping, which again, added to the fear effect in the original. I guess it's harder in a 3-D game because you can't just make a monster appear and then disappear after attacking the player. It would just seem to weird and random (people expect a 3-D object to BE somewhere and it can be reached).
We couldn't find any suitable AI for the creature, so I didn't complete all the animation sequences (like biting or rasping). If we start working on the MP code then I'll be able to program some new AI suitable for the dianoga (like using the tentacles to attack or not drowning on water). If we do no not continue the project on MP, then I'm gonna put those animations anyway just for the looks and feel.
IMPRESSIVE! MOST IMPRESSIVE! I love the demo. You've made some very beautiful changes to the levels such like the shuttle in secbase and the holo of Palpatine. Something I miss are some secret places in secbase (e.g. the secret tunnel from the original level, where you've got to use IR Google to see anything, or the secret door in the cave where you have to shoot an the wall to get in). I understand that you probably weren't able to realize in Anoat City to get Kyle drift from the water stream in the channel, but I like your solution for this. A pitty that there were no maps and items, but I know it's just a demo, and I honor your work so far. Thank you!
I'm very happy you like the demo :)
About the IR goggles... part of the functionality had been removed by Raven in JA (perhaps by error, or because the goggles were not needed anymore there in favour to Force Sight).
We tried a lot, included we've been asking Raven,
but we could not get it working.
Only a shader trick worked half, so we decided to keep it out actually.
Perhaps we might have used the Force Sight, but its not light amplifying, only making walls transparent to force related things.
Same goes for some other stuff in the demo. Limitations of SP engine due to the lack of coding...
In MP we'll have other limitations,
so basically it will be a new engine for us....
Played it all!
The dianogas scared the crap out of me... Till' I saw one, and got even more frightened, but then I found out that it didn't jump at me :p It got kinda cute after that :D
The level designs are great and Talay looked the best (in colors and atmosphere and such)
I only had one problem : The rendered cutscenes were widescreen, making kyle veeery flat.
I would actually rather have them unrendered.
The ending with the "surprise" rocked :D
Thanks you guys! You rule!
All 3 maps looked their best in their own way, Talay needed alot of extra stuff done to it thats all.
Originally posted by Kurgan
Nicely done (so far).
The first time I fired it up, I got through Secbase okay, but moving on to talay I had problems. During the cutscene with Kyle and Mon Mothma the sound started getting very "staticy" (as if my speakers had something wrong with them, but everything checked out) getting progressively worse until the sound was completely gone.
I was faced with what seemed like several minutes of Mothma gesturing and Kyle nodding his head. : (
A question: is there more than one voice actor doing Kyle's lines? It sounds like a different person on level 1 vs. level 2.
The audio problems with the Talay cutscene are a known issue. It's not a problem wuth the ROQ file itself but rather seems to be an issue with JA. If you play it again you'll notice that if the sound get garbled again it won't happen in the same place twice. I've never known it to get so bad the sound would stop though. It seems to be an issue in JA that we don't have control over.
We used our own voice talent for Talay. We intermixed the new stuff we did with what was in the original DF.
Originally posted by Benevolence
We used our own voice talent for Talay. We intermixed the new stuff we did with what was in the original DF.
Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I'm much more comfortable doing the Stormies.
Ok. Now i will give you my two pennis.
("Senf dazugeben". My opinion. I hope I don't mix things up)
It didn't worked first and made me reinstall my JA, but than I had no problems at all.
The Level Design is great. Talay is very beautiful an make more sense than in the original (He! It's a real city now!).
Very nice models (great emperor ;) ) and great soundtrack!
Well but it has some weaknesses.
The cutscenes seem to be sometimes very fast, so he is already finish with an animation but than he plays the sound.
The Dianogas are spotted too easily. The first one just stared at me, and it took some time until it realised that I was there.
playing your mod was a great experience! If you keep up with this quality, your mod will be the greatest of them all.
I realy enyed playing the demo! It has this cool retro feeling!
I loved the idea, that you even used the crappy KI of Dark Forces. Overall it has the right Dark Forces feeling in it, even that you have improved the levels slightly.
What I don't like (but I think it is an engine problem) is the thing with doors and switches. Some times in Talay it was realy hard to open the doors. I would like it more, if you could just walk in front of the door, then click use so that the door opens.
The music was superb! I loved the original soundtrack and the various remakes, but the one used in the demo is for sure the best remake so far!
I love the demo and I can't wait for the finished product!
overall really nice!
And a great improvement to the first demo. I liked almost all the new features.
And there were just a few bugs ... like kyle repeating that he has "to get to the other side of that channel" over and over again. :D
I just hope that it won't take you another 2 years to get it all done. j/k :p
Originally posted by Pahricida And there were just a few bugs ... like kyle repeating that he has "to get to the other side of that channel" over and over again. :D
Heh... it's not a bug... you simply took too long to cross it then :p
Originally posted by Gringlas you even used the crappy KI of Dark Forces.
? Its the "crappy" KI of JA ;)
With SP engine, we could only change some parametes, but not use a different KI...
How do I prevent the cutscene from going widescreen?
Originally posted by Fracman
I'm very happy you like the demo :)
About the IR goggles... part of the functionality had been removed by Raven in JA (perhaps by error, or because the goggles were not needed anymore there in favour to Force Sight).
We tried a lot, included we've been asking Raven,
but we could not get it working.
Only a shader trick worked half, so we decided to keep it out actually.
Perhaps we might have used the Force Sight, but its not light amplifying, only making walls transparent to force related things.
Same goes for some other stuff in the demo. Limitations of SP engine due to the lack of coding...
In MP we'll have other limitations,
so basically it will be a new engine for us....
So you're going to drop support for the JK series and start from scratch?
Whoa!
Seriously though, despite limitations, you'll have more options in the MP version. If nothing else you can borrow the code from JK2 and import it into the JA MP engine.
Force Sight is nice, but it doesn't illuminate anything. The saber only illuminates some surfaces (none in JK2). I miss the old lighting effects of DF/JK/MotS. But stuff like the Field Light I would think would be possible. Just make an item that casts a white saber-like glow on an area in front of you, or around you (like a flashlight).
Originally posted by Benevolence
The audio problems with the Talay cutscene are a known issue. It's not a problem wuth the ROQ file itself but rather seems to be an issue with JA. If you play it again you'll notice that if the sound get garbled again it won't happen in the same place twice. I've never known it to get so bad the sound would stop though. It seems to be an issue in JA that we don't have control over.
We used our own voice talent for Talay. We intermixed the new stuff we did with what was in the original DF.
I figure you gotta do what you gotta do. It just sounded like Kyle got himself a cold in the rain. Understandable.
Kyle's gravely voice from the later games probably came from all the dust, smoke and other noxious fumes he inhaled on these early missions. ; )
Jan isn't too enthusiastic either in parts (I'm not saying voice acting for game mods is easy, mind you).
And one more nitpick you're gonna hate me for.. isn't it "Uh Noe At" rather than "An oh at"? Then again maybe that's just how Jan speaks. ; )
Overall good job and thanks for the replies.
congratulation ... and suggestions
very good job especially the level design (with rain , darkness, atmosphere in general...) , impressive!
sugestion n°1 : during the cutscene with kyle and mon mothma.
the camera could move more around the characters , and mon mothma could walk and made demonstrative movements interacting with the hologram and interacting whith kyle.
the camera could make travelling , and more movements, for the narative and psychological interest.
sugestion n°2 : the colors of talay city
try anothers colors for the sky, perhaps a little more grey and blue, to make sense with the city grey color.
the visual will be better, with a more realistic light on the architecture. i have search that on photoshop and i have posted modified screenshot to a member of your team.
sugestion n°3 : dianogas
dianogas can be more dangerous if they hide in the water and appears suddenly where you dont wait them : very near to you or behind you...
that could give more suspense each time the player see the creature.
these are only sugestions , you have made a great job and one of the best mod i ever played. thank you again!!!
Originally posted by Kurgan
So you're going to drop support for the JK series and start from scratch?
Whoa!
Seriously though, despite limitations, you'll have more options in the MP version. If nothing else you can borrow the code from JK2 and import it into the JA MP engine.
I think they meant that the multiplayer version is so different that it'll be like working in a completely different engine.
I found a bug on talay!
You can go through the Dark Trooper capsuls, they have no clipping!
I played it just now, unfourtanetly not what I was hoping for :( .
The dianoga issues are AI related issues. None of the existing AI are suitable for this nasty water creatures, since, for a start, they all drown on shallow water.
I know dianogas are not all the scary they should have been, but there was nothing I could do without code changes, and in SP code changes are not possible.
Nnew animations and sounds will be added for a later release (or perhaps even a patch).
Hey guys. Its been a long long time since i posted anything, but i've been following your mod since it was only a few screenshots of secbase. I just wanted to say fantastic job on the demo. I was floored by talay. It had just enough balance of new versus old to make it fresh yet retro. I got a similar vibe from the colony elite force 2 level, but this was much better because it was dark forces and i felt like i was playing it all over again. I haven't had a chance to get much into the anoat level, but the sec base level is a huge improvement over the last demo. I'm glad to see you guys added some creative flare to the levels and made such the engine was used to its potential. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic work guys. Talay is especially stunning. I enjoyed the little conversation between the two stormtroops enveying the Dark Troopers, and the atmosphere throughout the entire level is fantastic. I finally felt like I was moving through a wrecked and occupied city. I've already played in through twice, with plenty more playthroughs to come.
just got through it. Damn this is nice work, I especially like the mood in the levels and the extras in the levels - both the secrets and the extra details e.g. the dark trooper pods and the bridge crashing down in Talay.
Were the custscenes very compressed btw? They seemed kinda blurry at times which is a bit of a shame because the models used looked very high detail.
Also will you try to add lipsync in the cuscenes in the future?
Keep up the excellent work - if this quality holds up all the way through all the levels then this mod would be good enough to sell. (though that would probebly come with a lot of legal issues:P)
Well, if the mod is really so good, then Raven might sell it instead of us,
and give us some money as payment for external employees ;)
But since there is no contract, there will be no money, and still free downloads...
i guess you won't complain about this, eh? :p
EXCELLENT work! This is fantastic! I haven't completed the sewers yet mostly due to the fact that I've never played Dark Forces before (only saw it once at a friend's house years ago), but I'm sure I'll find a way out eventually.
I really like Talay in particular (like everyone else :D ) and its foreboding atmosphere. In all, the demo was everything I hoped for. Again, fantastic work on a job well done!
I still cant get the cutscenes to be unwidescreenish.
The planets looks like pancaces :(
Anyhow - I was thinking about the Dianoga problem, not that I'm a scripter, but maybe it would be possible somehow to use the Sand Critters coding? They appear/disappear. Just an idea.
Also, why not have the vader/mohc and kyle/mothma parts ingame? Unrendered. Cause, I think the models and the surroundings are so good that it does not need rendering.
Anyone else agrees?
And please please please: How do i make it unwidescreenish?
Demo = :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Originally posted by Ackehallgren
Also, why not have the vader/mohc and kyle/mothma parts ingame? Unrendered. Cause, I think the models and the surroundings are so good that it does not need rendering.
Anyone else agrees?
Yes, I fully agree that the cutscenes should be rendered in the engine, like they were in JO and JA...they would look a whole lot more high quality.
Originally posted by Ackehallgren
I still cant get the cutscenes to be unwidescreenish.
The planets looks like pancaces :(
Anyhow - I was thinking about the Dianoga problem, not that I'm a scripter, but maybe it would be possible somehow to use the Sand Critters coding? They appear/disappear. Just an idea.
Also, why not have the vader/mohc and kyle/mothma parts ingame? Unrendered. Cause, I think the models and the surroundings are so good that it does not need rendering.
Anyone else agrees?
And please please please: How do i make it unwidescreenish?
I experimented with using the Sand Worm for the AI and what it did was make the whole level shake, and the dianoga would 'punch' you. It just didn't work. I worked for 4 hours trying every AI in the game to find what was best and we basically settled on the Gran because it uses a Melee attack. It's a bummer I know - hopefully we can fix it for the full version by doing some code work.
The reason the cutscenes were not rendered in game is becase that require a TREMENDOUS amount of scripting, and we just don't have any one on the team that feels confident doing that work. So the only other choice was to pre-render . . .
thanks for the feedback
Originally posted by Kurgan
IAnd one more nitpick you're gonna hate me for.. isn't it "Uh Noe At" rather than "An oh at"? Then again maybe that's just how Jan speaks. ; )
You're making one HUGE assumption here - that is that Jan speaks American English . . . lot's of people speak English in the world, but only Americans speak it with the accent we have. If you want more conversation about this topic, ask The-One about how Americans have butchered the English language . . .
there really is no "correct" way to pronounce words in the Star Wars universe because Star Wars happened "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away . . ." not in America. Your native accent determines how you pronounce vowels and consonants, but that doesn't make it "correct."
Actually, the dianoga thing isn't something to apologize about.
It scared the crap out of me just seeing the eye.
I also noticed that when it got close enough it like, moved its tentacles up! That scared me too!
And the Uh-Noe-At thing, well, there IS actually a correct way to prenounce it.
Han Solo or Leia says it in Empire just before the "lando system" :) They say something like "What about the Anoat system?" So, you could always check there for the ...right... accent. But, isn't Jans voice taken from DF?
No, only ingame voices are from DF.
The briefings were re-recorded from a new actress.
Just made it through all 3 levels:
AWESOME! :eek:
My favourite is the "Subterran Hideout", this really rocks :)
It's one of the best game mods I've ever played. Congratulations to everyone on the team for their dedication and all the hard work to see it through to this point.
I can say that I did experience some 'static' in the game - until I remembered to turn off 'environmental effects' on my sound card. This is outside of the game - I've always experienced the static problem with JA, for some reason. Gladly when I sorted that out, I didn't experience any other sound problems. So for other people having some 'static' issues - it's not enough to disable EAX in the game if you have environmental audio effects enabled under Windows.
I do feel the cut scenes could have been a higher visual quality - there were some really noticeable compression artefacts in some scenes (Mon Mothma becomes very obscure in the cut scene with Kyle) - but I do understand issues around file sizes and trying to get the best framerate on screen.
Anyway...the revisualisation of this old classic brought a tear to my eye. You guys are pros.
*applaudes*
Heh StormHammer, you forgot that you also have added some stuff... the nice briefing drawings of Mon Mothma and Jan :)
Thank you a lot for them !!! :)
I tried to have the JA models talking there like in the JA post briefings, but it simply not worked, all i could see were ghosts with no eyes and no mice :D
(plural form for mouth is... mouths? :rolleyes: :D)
Maybe I'm retarded but I can't get it to work. It gets to the mission debriefing with Mon Mothma, and then it just quits.
This is what I get:
Main menu trying to select skill level
http://www.jedispy.com/images/dfmod/mainmenu.jpg)
Level 1 debriefing
http://www.jedispy.com/images/dfmod/debriefing.jpg)
It gets stuck at this point, and doesn't continue any further.
Anyone else having this problem? I am fully patched and good to go.
To jedispy: use the DFMOD shortcut, do NOT try to load the mod through Jedi Academy. That should fix your problem, as I'm sure you're experiencing exactly what others have already said.
yeah, um........what uh......he said
Originally posted by Fracman
Heh StormHammer, you forgot that you also have added some stuff... the nice briefing drawings of Mon Mothma and Jan :)
Thank you a lot for them !!! :)
:rolleyes: :D)
Nah, I didn't forget. I'm just a very tiny cog in the machine. ;)
Hopefully my health won't keep interfering with what I want to do. :(
Thanks to those providing the demo. It really brings back memories and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm on the anoat level. I've operated all four switches in the main switch room and been through all corresponding gates and sewers,etc. but I'm really not sure where to go next. I suspect the differences between the demo and the original will mean the original's walkthrough will no longer apply. Which is fine. So, any hints would be greatly appreciated.
I originally tried posting this as a new thread, but it seemed to disappear into hyperspace or somewhere - only accessible via my profile. Someone replied saying they'd had similar problems and just "noclipped" to the next floor but didn't say from where or in what direction. So I'm trying this as a reply in an existing thread.in the hope of reaching more people. Thanks in advance
O.k. I got it to work now. Unfortunately I had to go to work (stupid work!!!)
So I will drool in front of it later. Looks awesome so far guys.
Originally posted by merlinuk1
Thanks to those providing the demo. It really brings back memories and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm on the anoat level. I've operated all four switches in the main switch room and been through all corresponding gates and sewers,etc. but I'm really not sure where to go next. I suspect the differences between the demo and the original will mean the original's walkthrough will no longer apply. Which is fine. So, any hints would be greatly appreciated.
I originally tried posting this as a new thread, but it seemed to disappear into hyperspace or somewhere - only accessible via my profile. Someone replied saying they'd had similar problems and just "noclipped" to the next floor but didn't say from where or in what direction. So I'm trying this as a reply in an existing thread.in the hope of reaching more people. Thanks in advance
remember, the switches form a puzzle, so it's not enough just to "turn them on". They must be turned on in a certain order . . .