KotOR III - Juhani and Atris engaged in pest control...
In the last couple of months, I've wandered back to the KotOR forum after many years elsewhere and find that, perhaps inevitably, it looks more or less exactly the same as when I left, with a general "we want KotOR 3" motif to it.
Fine, I want KotOR 3 too... And I've got it.
I was just looking back through some of my old files recently and found "KotOR III - Legacy" jammed in the back of a cupboard where I'd more or less forgotten about it.
It directly follows the events of KotOR 1 & 2, the main plot involving the evolution of various fragments of Star Forge debris which, by means of their regenerative circuitry, are growing. And they're aware. And EEEEEEVIL! There's also a linked storyline involving an ancient alien being of incalculable power, a rogue Sith faction with very surprising motives and the rebuilding of the Jedi Order whose supposedly noble but all too parochial and inflexible ways prove the greatest danger of all...
And YES, it is a BioWare game...
Only BioWare didn't make it...
I did.
Given the fact that you've never heard of it before, you will gather that KotOR III - Legacy is not a publically released game available on a nice, shiny disc in a nice plastic box.
This is because I made it myself by hitting a pile of stuff with a big brick. Hitting things with bricks, by the way, is the approved PLUSH HYENA of DOOM way of doing almost everything. It was created years ago, not long after I got KotOR 2 and became VERY RAPIDLY fed up with waiting for KotOR 3 to come out.
Because Juhani was my favourite character in the KotOR games, I made her the main player character of Legacy. There was quite a bit I wanted to do with her character, including catching up with her old master, Quatra. Juhani's a renegade by this point, having come to the conclusion that the Jedi's teachings are too fixed, unable to adapt to changing circumstances, stagnant and ultimately a potential threat. She follows her own version of the Order's code along with a more feral, animalistic ability to react and adapt - which is just as well, considering what she's up against...
But I said it was a BioWare game? That it is. Technically.
I've been modding games for years and have done quite a bit with Fred Tetra's wondrous KotOR Tool to "adapt and improve" KotOR 1 and 2 to my liking. However, KotOR was never designed as a platform upon which to build unlimited new adventures and whilst it is, just, with a lot of hitting with bricks, possible to add new little side quests, to build an entirely new epic story in KotOR itself is, certainly for mere mortals, essentially impossible.
But at around the same time it made KotOR, BioWare also made Neverwinter Nights. And it WAS designed to be a platform upon which new epic adventures could be built. By anybody. Well, more or less anybody, I mean, not stick insects or anything... though my dog had a pretty good go at it...
Anyway... NWN comes with the Aurora Toolset, containing everything BioWare used to make the game - available to us to build our own games. It's very SIMPLE and EASY to use and requires no knowledge of game modding at all.
But it's a sword and sorcery game unrelated to KotOR I hear you cry.
Yes. It is... But it also uses, so far as I know, exactly the same Game Engine as KotOR and everything in the game, the creatures, environments, everything, is made from exactly the same kind of trimesh as everything in KotOR. It's all compatible. For those as know what they're doing - like I pretend to - it's an easy matter (not actually quite as easy as all that) to take a model from KotOR and put it into NWN.
By this point in time, many talented modders and CC creators in the NWN Community (including myself in a small, hitting with bricks way) have converted a great deal of stuff from KotOR. Pretty much every Placeable object in KotOR is now in NWN, the very wonderful Estelindis converted the majority of all the character head models. There are futuristic/sci-fi Tilesets to make Areas with along with piles of Tilesets for forests, deserts, icefields, grasslands, etc, etc, there are lightsabers, including shortsabers and doublesabers (with much nicer hilts than the KotOR ones) and I've recently added a lot of heads for various Star Wars aliens that hadn't previously been available, having converted a load of stuff from Raven (that's RAVEN not Revan) Software's "Jedi Academy" game as well as KotOR.
Furthermore, I am currently engaged in the ludicrously over-ambitious task of converting much of the actual geometry of KotOR's Worlds to NWN - the Star Forge, Manaan, Korriban's tombs, Taris, etc, etc, etc. It's a big undertaking, largely done for the ALIEN Modules I've been doing... Oh yes, I've got Giger's Alien into NWN too...
But it reminded me of my old KotOR III and I dug it out and started making some improvements...
Anyway... the point - yes, there was supposed to be one - is that after all these years since KotOR 1 and 2, we've all had plenty of time to think about what we'd like KotOR 3 to be. Some might want to play as Revan again, others couldn't give a damn if they never heard the name ever again. Some might want the Exile explored further, others might not. We've all got hopes, expectations - demands even!
NO KotOR 3, by BioWare, Obsidian, me, or anyone else is ever going to satisfy everyone. It simply can't, however good it might be. After this length of time, there are just too many different things on our communal wish list for any one game to satisfy.
So, you want KotOR 3? MAKE IT YOURSELF!
Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Toolset is easy to use, the basics can be figured out in a few days by anybody. Even stick insects. The NWN Community forums - which are just over there, past them trees - are full of people who will be able and willing to answer your questions if you get stuck somewhere. Also, as well as people who know what they're doing, I'm there too but I'll probably just panic, foam at the mouth, growl and hit something with a brick if I get asked a question - that's what you must expect of Shabby Hyena Objects.
There are more mods for NWN than you can shake a stick at (check it for insects before shaking it), including systems to add laser guns, pretty much all the KotOR character heads, all sorts of Placeables and environments and all sorts of content of every kind imaginable is still being added to NWN all the time... and if you know what you're doing with gmax etc, it's a very easy game to make CC mods for...
Just add your own story ideas - and there seems to be no shortage of those floating about.
So technically, we really don't need a KotOR 3 from anyone else, much as we might want one, because all the resources to build our own already exist... If I can do it, anyone can.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Retour en haut
