Engine Update

tincanman · 10-13-2012, 04:56 PM

Ok, this is most likely a crazy idea, but you must admit a good request. I remember a while ago there were a dragon age mod project they were never able to finish, kotor on dragon age engine (they were going to put only voices, music and the story itself, as putting everything else would be hard to accomplish)

my request is to convert all of kotor 1's map files to dragon age 2 engine (with really hd bumpmaps) and use every greatly made resource in this forum to recreate and polish kotor.. i belive we owe it to this game..

we may need to ask permission from the bioware, but i don't think there will be much problem with it.. all we need is a few good hardened modders who doesn't fear challence!

Canderis · 10-13-2012, 06:17 PM

Q · 10-13-2012, 06:25 PM

I don't believe that the OP is aware of what a huge undertaking that would be.

tincanman · 10-13-2012, 06:32 PM

no, i'm aware.. yet it isn't something thats never been done before.. it maybe hard but not impossible.. they already carried kotor missions and audio to dragon age in that mod, only if they carried maps too..

similar example would be gta 3 rage and vice city rage, it's not like dragon age's engine is not similar to kotor's..

Canderis · 10-13-2012, 08:30 PM

Its also illegal.

tincanman · 10-14-2012, 12:19 AM

you are kidding right? it is only illegal if two games are belong to different companies and/or you use what you've created to gain profit.. (and like i said if you didn't get permission for it) it has been done before, who do you think gave permission for baldurs gate 2 remake...

Canderis · 10-14-2012, 12:26 AM

It's illegal because of Lucas arts.

Shaggoth · 10-14-2012, 05:33 AM

porting is illegal, but if you remake from scratch - it's not. afaik.

VarsityPuppet · 10-15-2012, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaggoth

porting is illegal, but if you remake from scratch - it's not. afaik.

Remaking from scratch? That sounds super fun!

It's a good idea, guy, just not really feasible with... well anything we have here.

tincanman · 10-15-2012, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VarsityPuppet

Remaking from scratch? That sounds super fun!

It's a good idea, guy, just not really feasible with... well anything we have here.

glad you think so.. it may not be feasible but if is there any game worth doing, it is this game, don't you think?

as long as they would stick o the original map designs without changing anything, it would be great!

i mean look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq3uQGujULE

can you imagine kotor with dragon age or dragon age 2 effects and animations? i mean it would be awesome.. i mean kotor didn't even had some basic animations, one example would be, screen goes black and boom! game says you investigated the ruins, and screen goes black and game says you kisses Bastila.. dragon age already has this kind of animations.. better cinematics can be made and lots of other good stuff..

VarsityPuppet · 10-15-2012, 08:53 PM

I think if they were to remake Kotor or TSL, they'd have to first re-imagine it in terms of scale and modern gameplay and cinematics.

If anything, it would be a good precursor to the fabled Kotor 3

Zhaboka · 10-15-2012, 11:03 PM

VP STOP TOYING WITH MY EMOTIONS LIKE THAT.

Dak Drexl · 10-16-2012, 01:23 AM

While I can say with confidence that there isn't one person on this forum that wouldn't like to see this happen, it's still the wrong place to post this. It's not going to happen. Honestly, this is a job for a AAA game studio.

Fun to think about what it could be like, though.

tincanman · 10-16-2012, 10:09 AM

people who made black mesa source wasn't a AAA game studio.. it was just a few people who knew what they were doing.. support came later from people who loved the series.. there are lots of talented people here, we could do that.. (even though they didn't stick to the original maps, they did it...)

if only we could get permissions from both Lucas arts and Bioware, porting it and than improving it would be a lot easier than remaking it from scratch..

Christos K · 10-17-2012, 02:33 PM

We could try getting permission from LucasArts because I would love to see the KotOR games on a modern engine. It would be awesome.
Just make it a thing where you HAVE to own both games in order to play the old game on the new game's engine. Then no one involved should have any problem with it since they're not losing any money, which is all that matters to LA anyways.

Dak Drexl · 10-17-2012, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tincanman

people who made black mesa source wasn't a AAA game studio.. it was just a few people who knew what they were doing.. support came later from people who loved the series.. there are lots of talented people here, we could do that.. (even though they didn't stick to the original maps, they did it...)

if only we could get permissions from both Lucas arts and Bioware, porting it and than improving it would be a lot easier than remaking it from scratch..

That's not really what I meant... of course there are people who could do it, but they aren't here. This isn't a group of programmers or really people who know anything about making games at all. We do know the KotOR games better than anyone, even Bioware/Obsidian at this point, but that doesn't really help us in making a new game. This is pointless anyway, I was just saying that nobody here really could do that, no matter how many good modders we have (and there are a lot!). It's all very different stuff.

VarsityPuppet · 10-17-2012, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dak Drexl

That's not really what I meant... of course there are people who could do it, but they aren't here. This isn't a group of programmers or really people who know anything about making games at all. We do know the KotOR games better than anyone, even Bioware/Obsidian at this point, but that doesn't really help us in making a new game. This is pointless anyway, I was just saying that nobody here really could do that, no matter how many good modders we have (and there are a lot!). It's all very different stuff.

Of the best known modders active in the community at the moment, I don't think there is anyone capable of developing a 3D game engine from scratch all the way to fruition.

Suppose we use DA:O's engine - that's still a **** ton of modelling to be done and guess how many in the community can currently model with reasonable skill? Maybe 3-4

Then we'd need skinners. Only 3 people I know that can create skins of excellent quality. They're all busy and hardly come around.

That leaves oh maybe the rest of us to script events in the game as they happen in the original. And of the active members, not even everyone can script all that well.

Even if we did get everyone to come together and build something for the greater good, it'd be a thing where everyone would have to be committed to this project, have enough free time and have good communication skills. Most people don't want to put that much work into something that they'll never get any credit for.

And that's also if LucasArts never catches on and shuts us down. They'll figure out somehow usually...

LDR · 10-17-2012, 09:51 PM

Sad but true. I utterly fail at all three of the above.

Dak Drexl · 10-18-2012, 12:31 AM

VP said it much better than I could.

Would be awesome but it's just way too unrealistic, unfortunately.

DarthParametric · 10-18-2012, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tincanman

who do you think gave permission for baldurs gate 2 remake...

If you are talking about BG2R, nobody gave permission. At any minute Wizards of the Coast and/or Atari could issue a cease and desist. Bioware don't own the BG IP any more than they own the KOTOR IP and aren't in any position to offer permissions for either mod. Not that they would anyway even if they did own the IP.

Dak Drexl · 10-18-2012, 03:27 PM

While were talking about this, there was an extensive Lord of the Rings mod, called MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying Project) that was just issued a cease and desist from Warner Bros. This was just a little while ago (a month?). The project was all made from scratch and put into the Skyrim engine, but Warner has rights to the content and they decided to be dickheads about it, even though it was not for profit.

Stupid stuff in my opinion...

tincanman · 10-18-2012, 05:03 PM

Well, if we take permission beforehand, that should not be a problem.. Sure, it won't be easy, but as proven many times before, it can be done.

If we had the official word, we wouldn't have any problems with legality issue and no one would be able to say "cease and desist" to us after that... and by the way, i never liked " Warner Bros." much.. Now i know why.

Sith Holocron · 10-18-2012, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tincanman

Well, if we take permission beforehand, that should not be a problem.. Sure, it won't be easy, but as proven many times before, it can be done.

If you wish to present a proposal to them, let us know what they say.

tincanman · 10-19-2012, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sith Holocron

If you wish to present a proposal to them, let us know what they say.

I'm terrible when it comes to that kind of stuff... I'm sure there are people who is better suited than me around here.

anyway, it would be amazing if we got things together... i'm not very talented but even i would help out in any way i can.

Disturbed205 · 10-20-2012, 05:31 PM

Well, according to the software license we are not allowed to "design or distribute unauthorized levels".

Christos K · 10-20-2012, 11:20 PM

I'm SURE there are more than enough of us to sign a petition to LucasArts asking for permission to give us more extensive modding rights. Maybe not quite as far as putting the games onto a new engine but at least being able to get into the hardcoded things and being able to put everything from KotOR into KotOR II.

I've always wanted to play KotOR using KotOR 2's engine. I wonder if someone has even done it on their own computer somewhere (obviously without uploading it)

Sam Spain · 02-10-2013, 04:58 PM

Just came about it this in a Google search and I love the craziness of this idea and wanted to say that.