| This is what Siege mode should have been... -Sared - May 02 10:17am | |||||||||||
I am pleased to announce that around noon, our dear friend Kenyon went completely and utterly insane. He had run across Movie Battles, a modification for Jedi Academy that, insofar as I have experienced, is completely revolutionary. It is SO revolutionary that my computer was too stupid to play it.  When I logged back on to try and fix it, Kenyon appeared on MSN in a mutual chat with Richie, the creator and Team Leader of Movie Battles. Give a mad shout-out to Kenny for introducing me to the mastermind behind this mod. Sared: If you would please, give us a rough overview of what MB is all about. Richie: Movie Battles is about achieving 2 main objectives. 1. Make the basic game play look more like the Movies wherever it is possible game play wise 2. Make the game play itself more team-orientated and 'realistic' In short, a game play round should look like it could have come right out of a Movie Scene -at least that's the objective  Sared: Would you say that with today's open beta release, you have come a step closer to this goal? Richie: Certainly. While there are still quite a few glitches to work through, I'm very pleased with the game play as it presently stands. Sared: For those of us not familiar with your past progress, explain some of the major changes/fixes from the first release of MB. Richie: The original Movie Battles for Jedi Outcast had many of the elements which now make up MBII (Block button for saber system, LMS [Last Man Standing] game play, forced models for classes etc.), but really it was only a half-finished product in truth. I had a lot more in mind when I made it, but because I was working on my own, and also because of the extra content in JA, I have now been able to implement everything I was planning back when I started the original Movie Battles. Sared: With the release of Jedi Academy, were the extra code and game play elements a plus or a setback? Richie: The only negative was having to relearn some code. In all other ways, the extra code in JA has proved beneficial. One of the main additions which allowed me to move MB forward to MBII was the inclusion of the Siege game type, which allowed me to introduce objective game play. Sared: What was it that originally inspired you to begin a mod like this? (i.e. drugs, women, other games/mods) Richie: Well, drugs and women influence all my actions! So they must have had something to do with it, if only sub-consciously  What mainly influenced me to make this game was the now cliqued Counter-Strike influence - although I like to think that Movie Battles is not a CS clone by any means . As soon as I heard about Jedi Outcast being in development, I imagined a game which was essentially mix of CS and TFC, but set in the Star Wars universe. That's when I first got into modding. Why? Because I didn't want to wait for someone else to make the game I was imagining in my head. Sared: Have you done any other modeling, skinning, coding for any other games? Richie: No - only Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy thus far. But now that I have the modding bug, I could easily see myself moving onto other projects for other games in the future. I am mainly just a coder, although I can also handle sound editing and recording. Of course, leading a mod itself is quite a challenge too Sared: How did the MB team get started? Richie: Well, the original MB for JO was mostly my own work, with significant contributions from various people. A few who deserve specific mention are BloodRiot (modeler of the Mandalorian models used in MB) and game play help and advice from people such as Smoot, Silent Shadow, and Avatar. What proved to be a turning point for the mod was when it was noticed by [JEDI]Adam - the leader of JKmods www.jkmods.com JKmods has allowed some essential resources to be available. And from there, a team has slowly built up. Dacks Zero was a regular player of MB I, and had a lot of good ideas as far as game play - combined with a lot of enthusiasm for the game itself. So I took him on board the team as head PR man, as well as having significant input into many of the game play features of MBII. He has also quickly become a bit of a Siege expert, and has directly worked on many of the MB maps to get the objectives working. Keshire knew of the original MB I, and approached me once he heard a sequel was in the works. His contributions have been relatively minor thus far (work on the Jabba and Han-In-Carbonite models mainly), this is all set to change now that he (along with the efforts of several others) has cracked the ability to make new animations. Expect to see future versions of MB taking advantage of Keshire's…..expertise. [JEDI]Adam not only runs JKmods, which gives the MB Team it's base of operations, he also chips in directly with work for MBII. For example, he provided some code for some limited admin features for the mod. (Note - NO abuse able admin features). Adam has also worked tirelessly to promote MB, recruit new members etc. It's safe to say MB II wouldn't exist without his efforts "A period after this interview took place, the Movie Battles team found thier own host and [JEDI]Adam lost intrest the mod. The MB Team would still like to respect Adam for helping them get a good start in this endeavor." We also have 2 mappers who have contributed directly to the Movie Battles project. LivingDeadJedi - who of course is well known in the community. Second is [CLU]Nathan - who of course is also very well known. While not officially part of the team, Duncan_10158's contribution is of course essential and a central part of the mod. MBII uses his Droideka vehicle to implement the Droideka class of the game Lastly, Movie Battles is a mod built upon code from the OJP (The Open Jedi Project) The OJP is an open source project collecting work from the best mod developers for JKA together into one mod - and making it all open source so that any mod maker can use it. It's a great project - headed up by RazorAce. To see more about it, go here. Speciifc contributions to MBII from the OJP include some of the fundemental coding of the saber system from RazorAce, and also an enhanced melee fighting system, again coded by RazorAce Sared: The MB site includes a map package available for download; can you give us a brief overview of each map? Richie: Cloud City. By [CLU[Nathan and LDJ. This map is of course based on Cloud City from ESB. The objective of the map for each side is to push Han (In Carbonite) to either Boba Fett's ship (Imperials), or to the Milennium Falcon (Rebels) Siege implementation by Dacks Zero Jabba's Palace, By LDJ. Siege implementation by Dacks Zero. The objective of this map is for the gangsters to defend Jabba the Hutt and lead him to one of the exits. The objective of the Republic team is to storm the palace and assassinate Jabba before the Villains get him out, You can think of this as similar to an 'escort the VIP' mission in CS. MB_Streets. By [CLU]Nathan. This map pays homage to ns_streets from JO (A favorite map in the original MB), but set on Courscant. It has no objective except to hunt down and kill your enemies. Tantive. By LDJ. Siege implementation by Dacks Zero. This map recreates the deck of the ship carrying Princess Leia and captured by imperial troops right at the beginning of ANH. The objective for the imperial team is to assault the ship and reach the other end of it (at least one man). The rebels - of course have to defend and keep the imperials back Sared: The most current release is an open beta test, and a surprisingly stable release for a beta at that. When can we expect an update? Richie: I'm growing wary of giving out proper dates for these things anymore - because we never manage to quite hit them - although that hardly makes us unique All I will say is that I'm going to be working hard to get rid of all the glitches and problems we currently have as soon as possible. We've only really allowed the beta to go public at this state is because our old MB I community deserved to see where MBII was going as soon as possible, and also because we were confident once people saw the mod in action, we could drum up some good support for it. Sared: One pressing issue has been brought up about this mod, m00 or Derp? Richie: Well -obviously Derp - because it sounds like Slurp and has more letters! hehe Sared: Any final shout-outs you would like to give? Richie: To everyone at JKmods and OJP and I'd also like to thank Diet-Coke and nachos, which has been fuel-food for many late night coding sessions To check out this incredible mod, head on over to http://www.moviebattles.com/ Update: Kenyon has since joined the MB team and given their website a total makeover! Good job Kenyon! |
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| Comments |
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monkai - Student |
We could change the projects server to MBII |
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tarpman - The Tarped Avenger 
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SWEEEEET!!  although no one's ever on their servers when I am...  _______________ Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time. |
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Sared - Retired 
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Dude, THAT would be awesome. _______________ I'm crazy, not stupid. |
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Flash - Student 
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Hmmm if this turns out to be awesome will we get an MB JA Server? |
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Jippie Phoenix - Student 
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nice read, the mod rox and dacks rules _______________ |
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D@RtHM@UL - Student 
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w00tish, sweet piccies! |
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Ash - Eats Babies 
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w000000000000000t i wasted dem punks! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee fun fun fun _______________ "We keep odd hours...." ----------------------- They Live, We Sleep |
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3th - Retired 
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great stuff guys! i'm getting off my butt and downloading it now _______________ this is the internet, be serious damn it! This comment was edited by 3th on May 02 2004 10:47pm. |
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Mookie - Ex-Student 
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Pictures! |
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Lancer007 - Student 
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Yeah I agree with you on this one darth maul it does rock. |
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D@RtHM@UL - Student 
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w00t, Movie Battles r0x0rz! |
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Setementor - Jedi Master 
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That was good, but that drugs thing made me laugh to myself. I think I found a spelling mistake. Quote: Lastly, Movie Battles is a mod built upon code from the OJP (The Open Jedi Project) The OJP is an open source project collecting work from he best mod developers for JKA together into one mod - and making it all open source so that any mod maker can use it. This comment was edited by Setementor on May 02 2004 11:19am. |
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_cmad_ - Ex-Student 
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I've played MBII. It totally pwnzors!!!! _______________ Your friends of today, are your enemies of tomorrow. |
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D@mned ++ - Student 
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omg lolz _______________ Bartender at Mune's bar. It’s not just a site, it’s a community. It’s not just a community, it’s the Academy. It’s not just the Academy, it’s a place in my heart. |
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Darth Bamse - Student 
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Very nice reading indeed. _______________ Why use only one saber, when you can use two, and double the mayhem? |
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Mookie - Ex-Student 
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Whoa, an interview! Looking great Sared, interesting stuff. |
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