Bobba Fett Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 I'm have install KOTOR II in my computer again so I could try the new "High Quality Media patches". I went to nZone and spent time an money (my next internet bill will let me know) downloading 1 GIgaByte of data, install it and start playing the game. After reaching the worst cutscene of the game: The Introduction of Darth Nihilus/Visas Marr, I am left with one excrusieting doubt - WHY DID I BOTHER TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS PATCHES????? There is not a single improvement that a I can tell, exactly what are the differences in this game with 1 GigaByte of patches???? Everything is exactly the same, o no sorry, the worst cutscene now jams twice (everytime) in 30 seconds. Are this patches someone's idea of a joke?? :angry: Someone please clear this mather to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 The music is definitely worth downloading, even if you are on dialup. The effect is very noticeable even if you aren't musically inclined. As for the movies, hmmm... They are the original movies at a higher resolution: 1600x1200 (and that was all that was promised). Issues like the "fog" surrounding Visas in her chamber looking poor, or the lightsaber disappearing from Sions' hand as he reaches for Kreia were never going to be resolved. In the plus column, "blurriness" - like that in Visas' introduction or Kreia's fall - is largely gone (although the light sources can be a bit weird). However, if your monitor/graphics card is not capable of that resolution then the bink player will have to scale the images down in real time at a rate of 30 frames a second. Given the now larger size of each frame this can overwhelm the playback, so that - depending upon your system - the bink player cannot scale the images fast enough. When this happens, it is most notable as sound stutters and "jams" as you have seen. So, if your monitor/graphics card/system isn't up to snuff, think twice. I also experience stutters - my monitor supports a resolution up to 1280x768 - so I am using the free RAD Tools to resize the movies to that. So far it looks good (and cuts the size of the movies in half), but it is very time consuming (two hours for Kreia's fall) and not exactly user-friendly. I would understand entirely if you didn't think the effort worth it. "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobba Fett Posted October 10, 2005 Author Share Posted October 10, 2005 The music is definitely worth downloading, even if you are on dialup. The effect is very noticeable even if you aren't musically inclined. As for the movies, hmmm... They are the original movies at a higher resolution: 1600x1200 (and that was all that was promised). Issues like the "fog" surrounding Visas in her chamber looking poor, or the lightsaber disappearing from Sions' hand as he reaches for Kreia were never going to be resolved. In the plus column, "blurriness" - like that in Visas' introduction or Kreia's fall - is largely gone (although the light sources can be a bit weird). However, if your monitor/graphics card is not capable of that resolution then the bink player will have to scale the images down in real time at a rate of 30 frames a second. Given the now larger size of each frame this can overwhelm the playback, so that - depending upon your system - the bink player cannot scale the images fast enough. When this happens, it is most notable as sound stutters and "jams" as you have seen. So, if your monitor/graphics card/system isn't up to snuff, think twice. I also experience stutters - my monitor supports a resolution up to 1280x768 - so I am using the free RAD Tools to resize the movies to that. So far it looks good (and cuts the size of the movies in half), but it is very time consuming (two hours for Kreia's fall) and not exactly user-friendly. I would understand entirely if you didn't think the effort worth it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thank you for clering this up for me. I now think this patch is a total rip-off/insult to the owners of this game. Come on, I wasn't expecting them to hire Blizzard to do some expectacular cutscenes, but coming up with some tiwiks that only 0,1% owners of this game can "enjoy"?? Why bother at all, I ask With this game is just one dispointment after another Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieKirby Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 The music is definitely worth downloading, even if you are on dialup. The effect is very noticeable even if you aren't musically inclined. As for the movies, hmmm... They are the original movies at a higher resolution: 1600x1200 (and that was all that was promised). Issues like the "fog" surrounding Visas in her chamber looking poor, or the lightsaber disappearing from Sions' hand as he reaches for Kreia were never going to be resolved. In the plus column, "blurriness" - like that in Visas' introduction or Kreia's fall - is largely gone (although the light sources can be a bit weird). However, if your monitor/graphics card is not capable of that resolution then the bink player will have to scale the images down in real time at a rate of 30 frames a second. Given the now larger size of each frame this can overwhelm the playback, so that - depending upon your system - the bink player cannot scale the images fast enough. When this happens, it is most notable as sound stutters and "jams" as you have seen. So, if your monitor/graphics card/system isn't up to snuff, think twice. I also experience stutters - my monitor supports a resolution up to 1280x768 - so I am using the free RAD Tools to resize the movies to that. So far it looks good (and cuts the size of the movies in half), but it is very time consuming (two hours for Kreia's fall) and not exactly user-friendly. I would understand entirely if you didn't think the effort worth it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thank you for clering this up for me. I now think this patch is a total rip-off/insult to the owners of this game. Come on, I wasn't expecting them to hire Blizzard to do some expectacular cutscenes, but coming up with some tiwiks that only 0,1% owners of this game can "enjoy"?? Why bother at all, I ask With this game is just one dispointment after another <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think they are proving how cheap and selfish they can be. We all know LA could have done ALOT better, but did they? nope, because it would cost them money and all they care about is their profit margin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 Actually, I think it is quite amusing. Picture the scene: a meeting with a few LA "suits" who don't understand what is involved in getting things done, but don't let that interfere with them interfering... "What can we give the whiners - sorry, fans - to get them off our backs - sorry, keep them happy - that won't cost much - sorry, is what they really want but haven't asked for?" [ Sometime later ] "HOW BIG DID YOU SAY IT IS? What do you mean, we never asked? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU'VE ALREADY SAID IT EXISTS?" [ Sometime much, much, much later (about four months, give or take) ] "Ok, we've found a sucker - sorry, strategic partner - to host it for us. It will all be roses from now on won't it? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY WANT BUG FIXES AS WELL?" "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Eye_90 Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 this whole kotor 2 fiasco is just very very sad....... not only do they give us a very rough and unpolished final product, they decide to give almost no support for it whatsoever has anyone ever seen a dev on these boards commenting on the buggyness of the game? nope has anyone ever seen anybody commenting about all the cut content? or maybe even saying the TSLRP is a good idea? nope the whole thing is just a good example of bad customer service I wasn't all that dissapointed with the first patch they put out because with that patch ( after I think 3 months of owning the game and not being able to finish it ) I was finally able to get past the jek jek tar and see the ending...........which really wasnt worth seeing but this patch is probably the biggest dissapointment I've had............the music is now great but so what?? thats what I expected in the final product, not a patch.......and lucasarts has the nerve to not even host it themselves........oh and call the patch "optional" that makes me laugh too I'm just very dissapointed by the whole thing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 (edited) has anyone ever seen anybody commenting about all the cut content? Chris Avellone, Lead Writer (posts now deleted, presumably at LAs behest) and John Morgan, Assistant Producer (brief reference in the 1.0B patch thread). Edited October 10, 2005 by w666tvr "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racofer Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 What scares me the most is not what happend to Kotor2 or might happen, but knowing that it's Obsidian who's making Neverwinter Nights 2. If they screw up this one (and by judging their amazing customer support and care for kotor2, they probably will) I gonna cry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Eye_90 Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 I dunno..........youd have to look at who the publisher of nw2 will be the impression I get is that Lucas arts runs it company like a totalitarian regime....and that is why we get little to nothing from obsidian so I'm sure Obsidian having probably had a bad experience with lucas arts will be trying very hard not to have an equally brutal time with neverwinter knights 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Hades Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 As long as Obsidian learns from their mistakes with Lucas Arts, such as never doing business with them again, everything will be kosher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arclam Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 (edited) Does Atari even pay for support patches? I thought I read that Bioware paid for most/all of the NWN patches themselves? That is something I am not sure Obsidian has the capital to do yet. As for the quality stuff, I was not expecting greatness from the movies, nor did I really care about the moves. I've seen them, I don't really care if I see them again in higher quality. I am happy about the music, it needed a fix. My ears bled listening to what, composition wise, is a superior soundtrack to K1 in such low quality. Griskey's work deserved more respect than it originally recieved. Edited October 11, 2005 by Arclam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieKirby Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 I would laugh my head off if LA lost the rights to Starwars and all related stuff and it went to Bioware. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dufflover Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 (edited) Unfortunetly this is a world with a lot of scammers and lawyers meaning everything that is said by officials has to be very carefully worded. It's like how saying "sorry" and "regret" are two different things. We have a stadium in Melbourne called the Telstra Dome and it's surface is very poor - all the AFL players and well nearly everyone will atest to that but the owner and people affiliated will say there is not a problem; why? well firstly, it's like polluting companies saying there's no problem with global warming, and secondly it legally might be an admission of a problem and thus open to legal action (ie. compensation). Now in terms of K2 I'm not too sure what you could sue for if they admitted it wasn't completed properly, but there I reckon there would be a few people looking for an excuse, even if it is to get some freebie compensation. Secondly who would buy a game if it's advertised and admitted it's not finished. I now think this patch is a total rip-off/insult to the owners of this game. I don't see how it's an insult or rip-off (especially when the patch itself is free). People wanted higher quality content files and after a very stupid long delay, it has been eventually been delivered. Edited October 11, 2005 by dufflover Pure Pazaak - The Stand-alone Multiplayer Pazaak Game (link to Obsidian board thread) Pure Pazaak website (big thank you to fingolfin) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieKirby Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 dude, they have just released the old movies, but they stretched it....that is NOT acceptable. I personally demand the cut content to be put into a patch with proper high quality movies in a patch....otherwise, i won't buy another LA product EVER again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu 86 Posted October 11, 2005 Share Posted October 11, 2005 I always like looking at cutscenes out of the game - so you could probably imagine I was all over the patch to see what it was like, and I could see some improvements right away - not everywhere, but some, definitely. Unfortunately BINK now can't fit them on my screen, so chunks are missing at the side. However, going through them all, I'm absolutely convinced there are some brand new movies here. Well, about 5-6. And 5 of those don't seem to want to load unfortunately - but there is one, it's a simple clip of Sith fighters flying by as Citadel Station goes absolutely nova. Some of you might or might not recognise that, but I'm SURE I haven't seen that before. Also, I tried that ini-edit thingy to unlock all the movies - well, I've done that, apparently there's 5-6 locked still - and I've definitely unlocked all the obvious ones - for example of the Dark Side endings. Only thing that makes me worry about is that we've been given completely new cutscenes - but they haven't actually been properly implemented into the game perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Eye_90 Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 how many new movies did you say there was?? I thought it was only citadel station going nova that was included.... are you sure there are 5 or 6? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu 86 Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 (edited) how many new movies did you say there was?? I thought it was only citadel station going nova that was included.... are you sure there are 5 or 6? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well that's just it, I've been thinking about it - the ingame movies menu says that there are 61/66 movies unlocked - even after I used that edit to technically unlock them all. 66 is definitely the number of bnk files in the movie folder. However, at least three of those are logo screens which I don't think appear in the ingame menu, and of course there's the Citadel boom one that doesn't either - so that leaves two* not accounted for. The ones I thought I couldn't open where KhoMovxx files, which I'm convinced are just the Khoonda battle thingies - but there is another that wont open called ScnMov01 which I just don't know. I'm almost tempted to ask someone without the patch to cross-reference how many files are in the unpatched folder (although I could just uninstall it and re-install it myself - cept I can't be arsed ) /edit - * sorry - one. Get your maths right Doug... <_< Edited October 12, 2005 by Zulu 86 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 (edited) Originally there were 65 movies, now there are 66. One of the Khoonda movies (mercenaries coming over the mined bridge) wasn't used in the original game. Three are the opening "movies" before the game menu appears (which never count as unlocked), and there are the LS/DS Khoonda and Malachor "alternatives". ScnMov01 is the arrival of the Harbinger at Peragus and the introduction of Scion. It appears that only MalMov06 is new (and as there are no code/script changes I can't see any way in which it could now be used. It would mean joining with Nihilus, which appears to have been originally designed to be possible, from dialogue shipped but not reachable ingame). Also, MalMov12 and MalMov14 were not included in the patch; presumably because as they both weigh in at 100Mb+ each originally, they would have added nearly a gigabyte to the patch by themselves if they had have been replaced... Edited October 12, 2005 by w666tvr "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamieKirby Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 Originally there were 65 movies, now there are 66. One of the Khoonda movies (mercenaries coming over the mined bridge) wasn't used in the original game. Three are the opening "movies" before the game menu appears (which never count as unlocked), and there are the LS/DS Khoonda and Malachor "alternatives". ScnMov01 is the arrival of the Harbinger at Peragus and the introduction of Scion. It appears that only MalMov06 is new (and as there are no code/script changes I can't see any way in which it could now be used. It would mean joining with Nihilus, which appears to have been originally designed to be possible, from dialogue shipped but not reachable ingame). Also, MalMov12 and MalMov14 were not included in the patch; presumably because as they both weigh in at 100Mb+ each originally, they would have added nearly a gigabyte to the patch by themselves if they had have been replaced... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Either way, they are responsible for this beta version game...they have to finish it or just stop doing games. If you can't finish it, don't start it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BattleCookiee Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 (edited) Originally there were 65 movies, now there are 66. Indeed they have added in a new movie (1, not 5/6). In that one Telos explodes. Very cool, but probably impossible to get ingame... (NalMov 6) Edit: Also, since the patch opening any of the Kho... (and scn) movies does not work... Wonder why that is... EDIT2: Also odd is that the 2 endmovies have not been changed... EDIT3: CsnMov01.Bik is NOT Sion. PerMov03 is Sion's. Seeming how also Kreia's doesn't work for me, I believe this one is Visas' EDIT4: And about the deleted scenes. One was GO-TO's Flyby (NarMov3); possibly intended to be used before GO-TO's meeting with the Twins, HK-50's, Hanharr and the aliens (forgot type) The other one is a alternative for Khoonda's "Mines Cleared" where half of the Bad Guys makes it through... (unlike all die in the current). It might have been intended to get used if you defused one side of Khoonda's mines, but not all... (maybe it even does, but nobody confirmed it) Edited October 12, 2005 by Battlewookiee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 (edited) Edit: Also, since the patch opening any of the Kho... (and scn) movies does not work...Wonder why that is... The Kho*, Kre* and Scn* movies are 1600x1200 with the widescreen "letterbox" black bars included, whereas the others are at 1600x680 without the bars. The downloadable bink movie player doesn't resize the movie for playback, unlike the ingame bink movie player. So, if your monitor doesn't do 1600x1200 then the bigger movies crash the player and the others just cause a little corruption and general strangeness (if you look closely). EDIT3: CsnMov01.Bik is NOT Sion. PerMov03 is Sion's.Seeming how also Kreia's doesn't work for me, I believe this one is Visas' You are right x 2; it is Visas' introduction. My bad. Edited October 12, 2005 by w666tvr "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BattleCookiee Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 So, if your monitor doesn't do 1600x1200 then the bigger movies crash the player and the others just cause a little corruption and general strangeness (if you look closely). Look closely? Little corruption? Might take a look at this screen then... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w666tvr Posted October 12, 2005 Share Posted October 12, 2005 Isn't that generally strange enough? For those of us with monitors/graphics cards that don't do 1600x1200 try this to resize them to 1024x768: (Why would you do this? To reclaim more than half of the disk space, to smooth playback and to get rid of sound stutters, that's why) Download the RadGame Bink Tools (if you haven't already) then just drop the attached batch file (you will have to unzip it, I can't attach a naked batch file) into the TSL movies folder (usually "C:\Program Files\LucasArts\SWKotOR2\Movies") and run it (double click on it windows explorer). Each of the 1600x1200 and 1600x680 movies will be scaled down with the Bink compressor. It will take a looooong while (depending upon your system, most files take approx. 20 minutes to convert and a couple take up to 2 hours) and you will have to click on done at the end of each file. (There may be a better way of doing this, but as the Bink tools don't come with any documentation....) Each converted movie will be placed in a subfolder of the movies folder, called - with stunning originallty - "Movies@1024x768". Once done, just use windows explorer to move them up one level into the movies folder to replace the originals. Enjoy. Feel free to use, abuse and modify. THIS IS SUPPLIED AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED... MAY INSULT YOUR GRANNY.... AND TREAD ON YOUR CAT'S TAIL... PLEASE IGNORE IF YOU DON'T HAVE A CAT... :cool: movies.zip "We were hoping we could bring the Xbox platform into December but didn't want to make the formal announcement until we knew an earlier ship date would not compromise the quality of The Sith Lords," says Producer Mike Gallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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