Foamhead

I have offered to let one of the programmers on my payroll to work full time on finishing this project and have each time been ignored. They clearly do not want the project finished quickly and Darth "I'm-on-the-beta-team-who-wants-to-touch-me" Windu berated me for even offering my time and money, (for free on top). I may or may not just have my people finish this mod based on the leaked beta during the summer, depending on my resources and inclination.

You will not have to wait that long. If a playable build is not out soon I promise I will have it professionally restored myself. People have waiting long enough.

It's actually not in our hands - the closed betas don't get a say. It's up to the team themselves, and if and when they feel the need to find a new buildmaster, I'm sure they will. As to finding one, I can probably say without fear of contradiction that no currently active KotOR modder is up to the task. Likewise with bugfixers. It's unfortunate, but there you go. Yes. It can be quite difficult to separate out the two, to be honest. That's a grey area; it's never been tested in a court so there's no way to really answer definitively on this subject. At least in western legal systems. Different people answer this one in different ways... *shrug*. I'd lay off making any definitive comments on the legality, unless someone with relevant credentials would like to weigh in... ? I did not ever state that they sucked.

Yeah...that's probably because none of them post here! I mean seriously, great information sources you must have. Anyway Dash is the project leader, it is HIS decision on whether to bring anyone else in. He's busy, so everyone can wait. As for 'feeling for the community', what an absolute load. Go and pay your programmers of create a version of TSLRP, or shut up. I don't recall anyone asking you to be their PR man nor Obsidian asking you to be a moderator. You are just a guy riding the coattails of a guy riding coattails and i'll talk as much as I like, so wah wah wah cry to your mommy.

If only it were just a couple weeks more! I can understand your enthusiasm and frustration, but since you also yourself admit you are not a modder, you probably don't realise how difficult assembling a team of people for such a project is in the first place. Most people who produce mods for the game (and hence have the technical know-how you require) do so in their spare time. No offense to the quality of their work and efforts (much appreciated), but since they are a labour or love, rather a strictly-speaking professional venture (as well as a notoriously bug-ridden game to boot), you are very unlikely to find people willing to undertake such a professionally-orientated project as you suggest. There have been other teams of modders in the past that have attempted to do what you propose and failed. The other option is to find programmers from outside the KotOR modding community which presents a whole different set of issues to be dealt with, such as getting them to play the game and figure everything out from scratch, before going on to examining everything that already exists and figuring out how they are going to complete their allocated task. It seems to me quite unrealistic that you would find amateur modders or professional programmers willing to do this. There is a good reason that nobody else has done anything as extensive as TG is. In any case, don't let my cynicism dissuade you from any such efforts. I said I wasn't a programmer, not that I knew nothing about game design. I design my own games for a living, (or at least try to) and I understand the difficulty of modding when you do not have access to the original tools or source code. It isn't my frustration or enthusiasm that is the problem since I am very indifferent to this project personally. It is my sympathy for all the people who have been far too patient for far too long and my desire to give them what they deserve after waiting so long. Enough is enough and if this Team Gizka really were as altruistic as they claim they would not have any trouble bringing in someone else to speed the process. You will notice none of the people working on it tried to take me up on my offer of a full time programmer to help debug and finish the project. The reason is he/they don't want the attention to end and the arrogance of "no one but me can touch this". I simply feel for this community and how long they have waited for this and I want this nonsense to end.

I'll hold you to that. Why? Because not only would it be funny to see you throw your money away but you might also learn some humility in the process. Making people happy is never throwing money away, and I would first have to be arrogant in order to require a humility lesson. In any event call my bluff by all means. I would derive an obscene amount of pleasure in pulling the rug out from under this slovenly, glory seeking group of modders by releasing their own mod before they can. It's not like it would take much work or money since most of the restored content can be found via torrent sites anyway. If you are serious about this, why don't you talk to TG about funding them to do the work and agree on a deadline? That way they can afford to work on it full-time, rather than on their weekends, holidays or other precious free time. Furthermore, why wait 12 weeks to begin? Are you that optimistic that you can assemble a team of professionals to complete it in something like six months? By all means go for it, although I doubt you will find actually people willing to work on a mod for an ancient (by gaming standards) bug-ridden RPG. By the way, would you be selling this mod or would you be giving it out for free, like TG plans to? You realize that Lucasarts will have legality issues with that, as well all the authors of existing material (that is available for free) that you plan on utilizing. No I would not charge for such a thing, it would be free as it should be. Since the modded material does not belong to Team Gizka as the copyright belongs to Lucasarts, if they have a problem with it my answer is "Wah, you had your chance". The reason I said twelve weeks is I would much rather the people who started the work to be the ones to finish it. Despite how much I dislike them it is still their work. I think three months is plenty of time to finish things up and get a slap on the back. I might consider lending them one of my programmers if it will greatly speed things up, but I don't think they want it sped up as there would be no more attention when it is done. If I had to start it from scratch I doubt it could be done in six months but I also have never looked at this game or what would go into modding it, nor am I a programmer by any stretch. I would almost certainly download what is out there and have it professionally debugged and finish whatever is left to be added if anything. Yes it would be using the work Team Gizka have already done but I am not trying to jerk Obsidian's coat tales to get myself recognition either, my only interest is getting the people who have patiently waited FOUR YEARS what they have been more then patient for.

I'll hold you to that. Why? Because not only would it be funny to see you throw your money away but you might also learn some humility in the process. Making people happy is never throwing money away, and I would first have to be arrogant in order to require a humility lesson. In any event call my bluff by all means. I would derive an obscene amount of pleasure in pulling the rug out from under this slovenly, glory seeking group of modders by releasing their own mod before they can. It's not like it would take much work or money since most of the restored content can be found via torrent sites anyway.

You know even though I care very little if this Mod ever comes out, a lot of people do and I am starting to feel everyone's anger and impatience. If "Dash" or whatever his name is does not release this mod within twelve weeks I am going to pay professionals to restore that content myself, and I absolutely assure everyone the people I hire WILL have it out by summer. If Team Gizka can't be bothered to hurry the hell up then either get more people on board or get someone who has the time to devote. Enough is enough.

Team-Gizka, "We're here for yeah. We will save you!" Messiah complex? "The Sith Lords" is just fine the way it is, and no one should hijack a game title to get famous. I know that I for one wish I could surf MTV or the late night talk shows just once without Team Gizka being mentioned by yet another celebrity. So, you're oky with hijacking someone's hardwork to gain notability? I don't hate Team-Gizka for being modders, but I do have a problem with them hijacking someone's property. Obsidian and Lucas Arts have granted fans with the rights to modify game elements, but did they give us a right to become famous for it? You focused only on their website, but you are only narrowing on a small piece. Example :: You create a website of your own, and someone else comes around and take's your images (or work). They say, "These look unfinished, so we are going to fix them." They end up opening a website, several forum threads, take some interviews, and then open a forum of their own. They even create a logo that will now be placed on your images, and they make video clips of the work they are doing. All the hard work you put into those pictures is being hijack by another person. Suddenly, when people say, "Darth Windu's pictures", the first thing that comes to mind is, "That guy who is finishing them". Your name has become hijacked by another individual, and they are getting famous for your hardwork. Yes, you may let people do modifications, but do you really want them to become famous for your work? People will be talking about how Darth Windu didn't finish his images, and how great the second party is for finishing them. Does that seem right to you? If you can answer 'yes' to the above, there is something seriously wrong. Small modifications are pretty respectable, but Team-Gizka's level of modifications and notibility is wrong. Obsidian is a great hardworking company, and they should be asking themselves, "Do we really want people to hijack our client's product, so they can become famous for something that doesn't belong to them? Are we in a position to allow this type of hijacking to continue, and to allow them the freedom to get famous off of our client's product?" Right at this very moment, this thread is sending a message. People may not like it, but it is sending a clear message. You go to school for game designing, you get a degree in game designing, you work for our company, so that fans can hijack your work to get famous off of it. That bites! Why would I want to work for a company who would allow outsiders to gain prestege off of my education and work. I put long hours and money into gaining an education, to look for a job, to work on a game, so that someone like Team-Gizka can get famous off of my work. That blows. Why in the world would I want to work for a company that allows Team-Gizka's level of modifications and notibility? Obsidian is becoming established under their new name, but their first game as one company has become hijacked by Team-Gizka. That stinks. Before anyone races to defend them, I want you to thinks about your replay for a minute. Reread this post carefully. How would you feel if it happened to you? As a budding game designer myself i'll field this one: I wouldn't give a flying monkey wang what people did to my game after they bought it. If they wanted to skin every character to look like Ron Jeremy or change all the spoken dialogue to musical burps...they bought the game it is now theirs to disassemble and mod to their hearts content. I certainly don't like team Gizka or their foot dragging pace but you are being a total jackass.

Like publishers ever answer questions on their forums =/ Obsidian guys at least communicate with their customers, plus they are a handsome bunch so we need any excuse to drag them away from their cubicles now and then. I understand why games have a street date my question is how one is decided since as I said before sometimes they seem totally arbitrary.

I'm just curious how you folks decide on a games release date. A game I want is being released on November 9th (Sunday) even though I know EB Games already has them in stock and surely today would be a better time to release a game?!? So I am asking you to explain to me how you guys decide a street date for a game and why you would hold off putting them on sale right away when all the stores have copies because it seems a lot of the time these release dates are arbitrary. Thanks in advance for your time.

Quite. Because we put real life ahead of the mod. Scandalous, I know. How dare you I am being a bit of a tool and I apologize. Everyone else was being so positive I felt the need for balance.

You're making the assumption that I posted that out of impatience or some sense of entitlement. Neither of which are true because I almost never play with mods. Yes they could destroy it and I wouldn't care since I will never use this mod anyway. I only commented as I did because of the ridiculous amount of time it is taking for them to release this thing to the many people who do care, and at my amazement that peoples enthusiasm has not worn out after so long a wait. I honestly hope people are rewarded for waiting so long but I have seen entire games created in less time then it has taken this team to create a bunch of if-then statements. They aren't creating new artwork or re-recording voice overs so one can only assume that the plodding slovenly pace is on purpose.

I seriously doubt this mod will ever come out until Team Gizka has milked all the attention and praise they can get.

Those designs are the facts of what FO1/FO2 were per the developers themselves. I don't agree with the premise that the design documents, etc. from Fallout 1 must carry over to ALL future games in the series, regardless of developer, current owner of the IP, etc. The hardcore fans don't have to agree with this and they are free to make suggestions and lodge complaints, but they are hardly in a position to make demands (which is what quite a few of them do... strange sense of entitlement there, unless they recently acquired the IP and I didn't hear about it). Also, the manner in which some of them communicate is extremely vile and distasteful... this doesn't exactly help their case. When I read posts on how they want FO3 to fail, it makes me think of a brat who, after tasting his/her ice cream cone and finding he/she hates the flavor, runs around and knocks everyone else's ice cream cone to the ground (the "If I can't enjoy it, NO ONE CAN!" sentiment). I only did that a couple of times! And it was after I gave fair warning that I hate tigertail.

Oh it happened already. At post 7 and 19. Could some people please tell me what you could possibly do different with a post-apocalyptic world? I mean the graphics aren't earth shattering but Fallouts 1 & 2 weren't either. As for bloom well it is Bethesda, and if thats the only thing you can find to pick about. Years later I still don't compute why some people are so rabidly anti-console, personally I don't see a friggin' difference. While I will go on record as saying I am not remotely pleased with the direction Fallout 3 went, I would not go so far as to call the game "ugly". I think the graphics, while I agree they lack variety, are pretty much on par with others games in the FPS genre.

The research isn't about who makes awesome games, if I've read it right, it's more about how random people rate them and how their games score with reviewers. And yes there is a difference between them. You're right. And although I'd say Obsidian deserves to be ranked higher (much higher actually), I'm surprised they made it in the top 50. I still experience random encounters with forumites that are so sure Obsidian games suck that they'd dip their hands in lava. Of course, these are the people that think of Halo as the greatest game in existance and Oblivion as the deepest RPG ever... Everyone has a right to their own opinions and enjoyment. If someone tells me they think Battle Raper is a superior fighting game to Tekken 4, i'll think they are nuts but who am I to tell them their opinions are any less valid then mine?

Uh...I was here and on the other sites, hence my comments about finding few game and all are either not allowing most character types or are someones uniteresting homebrew.

Is it just me or is the online pen and paper scene comprised only of people wanting to test their own B.S. homebrews and "No evil characters and twenty other house rules" type DM's? Has anyone here had any luck finding a decent online game of D&D? Am I just looking in the wrong places? Any help or advice is welcome.

No, we make good villains because we ruled the world for several hundred years with a rod of iron. Mwuhaahahahaaaa!!! (etc, in a very deep resonant British accent) I think Ray Winstone (i.e. King Arthur & Sexy Beast) who has a gravelly London accent can do a good villain. Americans seem to prefer upper-class British villains, though. I digress. Please, back on topic. Why are NWN2 modules, so far, so meh? Cheers MC Same answer, because Obsidian wanted to make a "meh" game. I've played much worse, but I know they are capable of much better.

Because the game itself is "meh". Boring story, boring characters, no freedom, the list is endless. Why no one is capable of making a D&D game with the scope of Baldurs Gate anymore is beyond me. Since roughly seven people on the face of the planet actually use the editor beyond screwing around I don't even understand why Obsidian or Bioware wasted their time splitting resources.

I don't know what that did but it really helped. Thank-You

I just got a new computer with the following specs: Celeron 3.2 One gig of ram A Nvidia GeForce 7300 GS OC .... why is this game performing WORSE then on my other machine which had half the power? I can't turn on any of the smoothing or filtering effects without horrid lag. Anyone else ever have this issue or know what might be the trouble?

I am currently using a TRS-80 with 4 kb of ram and 4kb of rom. I also have one of those new cutting edge "display monitors" in glorious Black and White. Due to what I suspect is horrible programming on the parts of web designers, it takes FOREVER for a new "web-page" as they seem to be called to load up. I only hope that one day these poor programmers can catch up with my awesome hardware so that I can finally enjoy all the wonderful things I hear about this inter-net.

Shoot didn't you get the memo? If you interface with a game using anything other then a mouse and keyboard, that makes the game inferior regardless of the quality of the actual game. In order to be allowed to call yourself an rpg fan you have to only like Fallout, Planescape and old school rpgs like Ultima. You must also bash and dislike the Baldurs Gate series, KotOR and it's sequel then act like you saw all the plot twists coming a mile away. That is unless you are on the Obsidian or Bioware baords, then they are the best ever.