JK.net releases NEW E3 Video of JA (official discussion) 8/15/03

[Kurgan]

That's right, get it while it's hot... (just try not to kill the server)

http://www.lucasfiles.com/?s=&action=category&id=57

Never before seen E3 video taken by our staff guys who were at E3 last May.

Discuss. ; )

WARNING: The video contains some spoilers.

[defalc]

Downloading. What format is it?

[ImmolatedYoda]

hellzzz yeah Kurgan, im glad it took me a long time to make that last post, cause i got to see this news .

[Andy867]

The file is in Quicktime movie format, and talk about not getting a "head" in life... Guess that Jedi will never be the "head" of a major operation. Not a good time to lose ones head... Ok, I think that's enough from me... But it looked like they had the cheat code enabled to allow the person demonstrating the game that you could use dual sabers in SP.

[StormHammer]

Heheh. That there be some nice footage, and worth the wait (took me an hour and a half to d/l on my 56k).

Jedilicious, in fact.

[Kurgan]

Andy, why do you say he's using a cheat? I don't see any evidence of that fact, unless of course you know something we don't. ; )

(following is only a spoiler if you haven't watched the movie yet)

spoiler:

There's just the cutscene of the Rancor coming out and then the next thing we see is the Jedi holding two sabers... no big "text message" at the top showing they cheated or Brett saying he's cheating. He could very well be cheating for all we know, but I don't see any direct evidence that he's doing that HERE just from the video.

I like how the video shows him scrolling through force powers, I see Speed, Pull, Push, Mind Trick, Grip, Lightning... (not a big surprise, but still). ; )

Also, it looks to me like the saber throw animation isn't finished in this vid...

[StormHammer]

Hmmm...having scrutinised the video a little more closely, two more things came to my attention. One was the appearance of..

spoiler:

...a little hand icon, which pops up when you can interact with something.

I hadn't noticed that before, so I've probably been looking at other stuff with my eyes half-shut again. It's probably a good addition, because this sort of thing worked well in games like NOLF2 and RTCW.

The other thing is not really a spoiler in my view, because it's just a return of something that appeared in Jedi Outcast. Yes...it's the dreaded Dynamic Crosshair. Blech. I have to say I really dislike the way the crosshair is constantly dancing around the screen in 3rd person view. I find it very distracting, and pointless. I much, much prefer a static crosshair centred in the screen. Having said that, there was a similar dynamic crosshair in Heretic 2, and it worked well in that game. For some reason, though, it seems a lot more erratic in JO and now in JA. So I hope I can still switch it off in the console...

[Swoosh]

If my memory serves me correctly, Brett said nothing about having a cheat code enabled. But, keep in mind this was an e3 demonstration...and it was only one level, so they could have done anything to make it more interesting. Showing off the dual sabers made the spectator in the video excited, so perhaps they were going for that effect.

BTW, sorry about the bit of shakiness and the other problems with the video...we had some sharp LEC eyes on us, so we had to be very stealth in our video retrieval!

Swoosh

[JEDI OUTCAST]

cool trailer.

[Kurgan]

If my memory serves me correctly, Brett said nothing about having a cheat code enabled.

I stand corrected then. I just wasn't sure how Andy could tell from the video...

Agreed about the dynamic crosshair thing in JO (I turned mine off too after awhile).

Swoosh, as far as E3 vids go, this one has actually been the best overall I've seen (other than the official LA one of course). The real problem is not the shakiness but the reflection (from the Gladius booth it looks like) on the monitor, but it's not that bad thankfully.

[boinga1]

spoiler:

I don't really care about the dynamic crosshair in thirdperson...I don't even really use it with the saber.


That is a sweet film...But what up with letting the rancor kill you? The guy asks "You can't take it out?" and the guy playing says "Oh, I can kill it, but I usually let it eat me."
What the heck?

I wonder what Powers will work on the thing? probably no grip...it would be funny as heck if level 3 mind trick worked and you got it on your side a couple seconds.

That Rancor really looks good...he roars, he slashes...he looks much better than the ROTJ puppet...but he seems kinda shrimpy...teenage rancor, perhaps.


There was a point, right before the end, when the Rancor was just...standing there, and the player was standing shooting lightning at him, and he wasn't reacting...I'm hoping that's gonna be fixed. A Rancor that stupid is almost not worth having.

Did anyone else hear some blaster firing, after the player was eaten? I did, and I think Isaw some guys waling it the room. Couldn't tell who they were, though.

[JEDI OUTCAST]

Originally posted by boinga1

spoiler:

Did anyone else hear some blaster firing, after the player was eaten? I did, and I think Isaw some guys waling it the room. Couldn't tell who they were, though.

i did. i was also hearing a gran sound has well.

[Kurgan]

boinga1 wrote:

spoiler:

That is a sweet film...But what up with letting the rancor kill you? The guy asks "You can't take it out?" and the guy playing says "Oh, I can kill it, but I usually let it eat me."
What the heck?

Here is my answer to that:

spoiler:

Brett knows the Rancor is hungry so he takes pity on the poor beast and feeds him.

In MotS, I remember using persuasion and crouching underneath the Rancor's chest, and beating him up with my fists. ; )


One thing I hope they add to this game is when you finally kill the thing, a fat guy runs out and starts crying that his pet died.

[Swoosh]

Brett was trying to show off the game, not his skills as a Jedi He knew we'd all get real excited when the rancor chomped his Jedi up. The video doesn't do the actual chomping action justice. It looked a lot cooler when we saw it in person...that glare in the video really distracts the eye.

Kurgan, thanks for the comment. I wish we could have eliminated the glare, but it wasn't really possible. Also, we would have gotten more footage...but that was pretty much all they were showing off.

As far as the blaster fire and the other noises...did you notice the group of people Brett freed before the Rancor came too close? Those were some type of team trying to escape the pit. I assume they were armed with blasters and trying to escape, which gives us the various off-screen noises.

Swoosh

BTW, I'd like to thank Visac for all the hard work he's put into LucasFiles and getting the video up so quickly. Without his work we'd probably have crashed jk.net already and half as many people would have the video. Thanks Visac!

[Tinny]

omgosh, that was horrible. like when the dinosaurs ate the jurassic park pple. the poor jedi woman screaming and all . will be fun with dismemberment cheat and a blood mod

[ImmolatedYoda]

boinga1, i agree with you on the Rancors stopping. thats just..wrong. also, it appears to have the same attack animation (swipe with left arm) every time. just kind of...annoying.

[Kurgan]

442 downloads in 32 hours.... but only 3 votes? C'mon people!!

Rate the files you grab! ; )

[Swoosh]

I wonder who the third person is...cause I know both Kurgan and I voted

Swoosh

[txa1265]

Just back from a nice week with no computer, no cell phone, nothing but the wife and kids and nature ...

And what I came back to ...

- JA Gold, with Sept 17th release

- Two page spread in Maximum PC

- This video

Ahhhh ....

One interesting thing for me, based on old screenies

spoiler:

was that the lightning was blue, perhaps indicating the person was lightside, whereas in other screens the lightning looks red. They said that using the ligtning doesn't effect light/dark path choice

Thanks for the link.

Mike (Rater #4)

[Andy867]

I had read in an interview that they enabled cheats for the E3 demo so that the game players could show people the dual saber for levels like where they are on a moving ship or something, and then also on the Rancor level because the Rancor level is earlier on according the interview, and when Kenn and a person for Lucasarts were commenting about the new sabers, they said that with time and experience, players would then be able to switch between choice of sabers before a mission. I'd have to look again for the interview since there are soo many.

[Kurgan]

Ok then. ; )

txa1265 wrote:

spoiler:

was that the lightning was blue, perhaps indicating the person was lightside, whereas in other screens the lightning looks red. They said that using the ligtning doesn't effect light/dark path choice

It's possible that:

spoiler:

You're simply confusing Drain "Red Lightning" with Lightning "Blue Lightning." Though the idea of having different colored Dark and Lightside lightning sounds interesting, it doesn't have to be that way.

[SettingShadow]

Originally posted by Kurgan
Ok then. ; )



It's possible that:

spoiler:

You're simply confusing Drain "Red Lightning" with Lightning "Blue Lightning." Though the idea of having different colored Dark and Lightside lightning sounds interesting, it doesn't have to be that way.

spoiler:

But in JA drain is different, the player grabs the opponents throat, and drains energy. I don't remember where, but I saw this in a interview.

[Kurgan]

SettingShadow wrote:

spoiler:

But in JA drain is different, the player grabs the opponents throat, and drains energy. I don't remember where, but I saw this in a interview.

spoiler:

I saw that too, it was in some leaked (ie: early) info sadly, but I figured that was a lower level Grip (I swore it had a type of pulsing effect, I could be wrong I suppose. We have seen a more traditional grip screenshot. The thing you mentioned did have a red effect like drain. Since drain now takes health rather than mana, you may be right.

[StormHammer]

Originally posted by SettingShadow

spoiler:

But in JA drain is different, the player grabs the opponents throat, and drains energy. I don't remember where, but I saw this in a interview.

Actually, you see this clearly in one of the trailers.

And just to let you know, I rated the file as well.

[Kurgan]

Just so we're on the same page Stormie...

spoiler:

Do you mean the one where it looks like the player is "hugging" the enemy (with both hands) he's using grip/drain/whatever on? Because that's the one I was thinking of. The only other place I've seen anything similar to grip is the screenshot of the choking gran.

Also, to the other guys in the spoiler discussion...

spoiler:

You may be on to something with the red vs. blue lightning thing, BUT, it was speculated at the time of the above thing I mentioned that perhaps this was an example of the new "combined force powers" they were talking about.

Though if the movie was from the leaked beta, it's possible it was just experimental and won't be in the final version as we saw it in those leaked pics/video. That's the trouble with any of the leaked stuff. ; p

Another possibility is that at different levels, the power has different animations (much like Heal had in JK2 SP).

[StormHammer]

Originally posted by Kurgan
Just so we're on the same page Stormie...

spoiler:

Do you mean the one where it looks like the player is "hugging" the enemy (with both hands) he's using grip/drain/whatever on? Because that's the one I was thinking of. The only other place I've seen anything similar to grip is the screenshot of the choking gran.

Yeah, that's it. I'm damned if I can find that footage now, though. I've checked the trailers on my hard disk, and that bit isn't in there. I know I saw it somewhere, though. At least I know I'm not going crazy if you've seen it too. :/

[Reprehence]

spoiler:

Does the guy doing the demo say something about being tempted to choose the dark side but that there weren't really two paths like in JK. It's in response to a question he's asked. I assume there's still two endings, but I"m wonder what that's gonna look like in the real game?

[txa1265]

Originally posted by Reprehence

spoiler:

Does the guy doing the demo say something about being tempted to choose the dark side but that there weren't really two paths like in JK. It's in response to a question he's asked. I assume there's still two endings, but I"m wonder what that's gonna look like in the real game?

spoiler:

What I got from what I heard was that using so-called Dark powers, like Grip and Lightning that he scrolled through, would not tip light to dark, but that the player is tempted by the dark side.

To me, combined with everything else we've heard, that says that it isn't what powers you use, but how you use them, that matters.

Mike

[Kurgan]

I hope they don't end up just making a scene like this:

(near the end of the game)

Bad Guy: Okay, go through Door #1 to join the dark side! or go through Door #2 to stay with the crappy light side! Muahhahahah!

And that's it. But, who knows...

[txa1265]

Well ...

we have heard that there is no 'morality scale' like in JK (and similar to what is seen in KOTOR), but there must be something. I only hope it is a cumulative effect - I don't care if they show me progress, I should have a clue how my decisions are going, so long as after a long game of patience and mercy I stay on the light side.

Look - for me it doesn't seem right that you can use grip, drain or particularly lightning and not have it impact your balance - all of these (well, grip above level 1 in JO) are pain based powers, disproportunate pain to hit damage power. Isn't that the definition of the dark side - in JO, if I'm sailing along and get annoyed by a Stormie taking some of my shield I'd sometimes grip him to 'make him pay'.

Mike

[Kurgan]

Wow, 1,406 downloads (seven votes, doh) in three days... not bad for not being really posted anywhere!

I wonder if the server could handle a post by TheForce.net or some other major SW site about it?

[txa1265]

I love this movie ... but it reminds me how well Valve is playing the marketing game. They've released nothing new since E3, yet are getting all of the press by dishing small chunks of what they did show in hi-res blocks. They do it once a week and everyone tunes in and we all keep HL2 on the tips of our tongues.

Too bad they didn't have something like this JA video, but in hi-res, to release ... or something else to keep things moving - not a full trailer, just snippets like they're doing for HL2.

I also love the new Rebel Strike web site ...

Mike

[Kodaichi Kuno]

Has anyone seen any other spoilers around?

That one was cool

[Miko Reglia]

yeah i loved that movie, i just hope i dont share the same fate as that character

[Andy867]

But your sacrifice, like the character, would mean that the lonely Rancor would be able to survive.. I mean, he is probably a creature that is tortured and suffers from malnourishment, and is only eating to survive... Please help him hehe

[Kurgan]

Well if you want spoilers, check out the official site:

http://www.swjediacademy.com

We'll probably start allowing that info on here, since it's now official, and anyone can see it confirmed on the LA page.

[Andy867]

What sucks is that if that saber creation video is true, people won't be able to construct a saber with a red glow.... That totally bites. I wanted Red and Blue for my Avalanche:-D but I cant now(

[txa1265]

Originally posted by Andy867
What sucks is that if that saber creation video is true, people won't be able to construct a saber with a red glow.... That totally bites. I wanted Red and Blue for my Avalanche:-D but I cant now(

Of course you can't start with a red saber - what do you think, Luke has a pile of synthetic red crystals that resonate with Dark power just lying around th etemple ? But we have seen players (i.e. not just NPC's) with red sabers in screenshots, often as part of a lightstaff or dual saber config, meaning later in the game. Interesting development, actually ... yet another one ...

Mike

[Andy867]

Well, from my understanding, the purple crystal used in Master Windu's saber is actually a fusion of a red crystal and some other crystal. Of course I cant remember when on the forums I remember reading that.

[txa1265]

Originally posted by Andy867
Well, from my understanding, the purple crystal used in Master Windu's saber is actually a fusion of a red crystal and some other crystal. Of course I cant remember when on the forums I remember reading that.

I know that Mace Windu has a purple saber which has a synthetic crystal, but I think the point is that they want to keep the movie associations there - we've seen Blue, Green, Orange, Purple and Yellow as 'good', and only red as 'evil'.

Mike