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The past couple days I have been working on the arena. The original one in the game's files, m31aa_00a.mdl/mdx is a bit of a mess, and also seems to be scaled differently than the rest of the game. Some of you may know that at one point in time during development, the environments in KotOR were scaled larger. About 33% larger than the current scale. I can't remember precisely how the change came about, but they ended up liking the smaller scale that everything ended up at. I believe the arena is leftover from this phase of development. It seemed a little bit large during testing, so I re-created it from scratch in 75% scale of the original. The original had a few minor issues that I've adjusted as well. I think this is turning out rather nicely, and I like the new scale and lighting: Also, I have made the floor modular to add in other obstacles or such for variations in the arena. The other two areas still included in the files have what seems to be a "maze" style arena and a "king-of-the-hill" style arena. The maze is little more than a few walls, but it breaks up the place. The "king-of-the-hill" is an elevated platform with ramps on the sides. I am open for suggestions on how to make these different "game-modes" work. One idea for the "king-of-the-hill" arena is to have two switches on either side of the arena, either of which will knockback all PCs/NPCs off the center when triggered. On the center platform there would be a trigger that activates a counter when members of either team are on it. First team to a certain count wins. I am thinking there will be 10-15 different matches over the course of the game, with escalating difficulty. Sort of like a Taris Dueling Ring for the entire game. It would keep the player coming back to Sleheyron and allow for higher level enemies. I also had an idea that after a certain point in the matches (maybe about halfway through the 10-15 matches), you have to side with one of two Hutts as your sponsor. This would affect which teams of gladiators you would encounter. Another question I've been pondering, should these matches be death matches or just knock-out matches like Taris? Death matches for the entireity seem a bit macabre, and potentially darker than the lighter tone of KotOR. They are also problematic for light-siders to participate in. But why would the Hutts restrict the matches to knockout only? Perhaps a steady supply of good fighters is hard to come by. Maybe by restricting the matches to KO only, they retain their fighters and the losers get a chance to learn and improve, leading to more competitive matches and larger betting pools. Let me know what you think! I am open for suggestions and discussion as to how these concepts would work, and other ideas anyone may have to keep things interesting.

For the totally open one, perhaps a series of duels. You get to choose which player on your team participates in each round, and the last team standing is the winner. I think this would be a good opportunity to make use of the SwitchPlayerCharacter() function, which is only otherwise used for the Leviathan prison break. There can also be a variations on this, such as how many and which teams participate in a round, and how many members of each team participate (1-3) and could even be determined by a random number. There could also rules regarding who is allowed to compete in a round (like you can't send the same team member twice in a row, for variety) or what sort of weapons are allowed (so you have to be strategic with who you send). Hmm, would there be any conventional combat in this? I suppose some grenades and Force powers have a knockback effect, but the usual shooting/slicing does no such thing. Maybe rather than just being knocked back, they have to hold down a switch and can't be involved in combat. And if they're attacked, they can't use the switch - or to make it simpler, you can't use the switch as long as an enemy also occupies the hill. The goal could be to hold down the switch for a certain amount of accumulated time. All the knockback stuff could still apply, of course - if they're not on the hill, they can't hold the switch. An alternative would be to have being on the hill offer some advantage rather than being the goal. Like maybe as long as a team member occupies the hill, it gives the rest of your team shields or heals them or makes their attacks do extra damage... but the person on the hill has to stay there, giving you a numbers disadvantage as before. A few LucasArts games had a different sort of king of the hill style too, with the hill having some object to collect that you have to hold on to for as long as possible. If I remember correctly - we're talking older than KOTOR here - this was called "Kill the Fool with the Ysalamiri" in the Jedi Knight games. You had to hold on to the ysalamiri to win, but as long as you held it, it would disable your Force powers, and of course everybody would try to kill you to take it from you. I think one of them changed the premise a bit and made the item to collect a lightsaber, so you had an advantage while you held it instead of a disadvantage. The goal could again be the duration the item is held, or maybe the amount of kills you make while holding the item. This might be more suitable for the maze arena, as you would have to hunt down the item or whoever holds it through the maze. I think you could justify it either way. The audience might want to see bloodshed but they also want to cheer for the teams they like and see them win and death matches put a damper on that. And obviously the competitors don't want to die. Maybe it's just better business. You could always have both options too. Maybe one of the Hutts you can choose does death matches and one doesn't. Death matches do limit the gameplay options, though. Logically the game should be over as soon as any of your party members are killed - because they can't die for story reasons - and that's not how combat in the game usually works. And this limitation wouldn't apply to the other teams, because who cares if NPCs die. So I'd suggest limiting death matches to solo encounters, if they are to be used at all.

Player: Why would you think I would be willing to kill others for your entertainment? Hutt: You fight with big bad criminals jedi; slavers, assassins, female killers, maybe even one of your sith. Nobody miss them, you do galaxy big favor. Player: I don't believe you, I can't allow myself to hurt others. Hutt: You right jedi, but I can't allow myself to let entertainment like you slip to one of my rivals. Maybe you don't fight, and *maybe* you have accident with ship's air scrubbers. Or you could have them kidnap T3 if lightsiders refuse to fight.

The head model itself specifies the base texture per-mesh. If you are recompiling it with MDLEdit, opening the texture list and double clicking the name should allow you to rename it.

I am still working on it! I haven't posted much because there isn't much that's extremely pretty to show. Lately I have been overhauling the street with updates to the doorways and a few other minor improvements. Other existing areas are in progress with small improvements, and I still need to model one additional area. Ironically, one of my major holdups this year was my mouse. My 3DSMax workflow is dependent on the center mouse button (or wheel) clicking properly. My mouse had deteriorated to where the center button wasn't clicking anymore. I procrastinated for several months before getting a new one. I have a new one now and progress is much improved. Haven't planned much as far as high level enemies go just yet. Will try to have some more difficult fights in there. Once again, thanks all for continued interest in the project. I will continue to work on it and post updates when available.

well, for the time being: TOCs by Darth333, Canderis, T7nowhere and tk102 from Holowan Labs/Lucasforums (via waybackmachine): General Tools & Tutorials: Modelling, Skinning/Texturing: Modding Tools (T3-M4's Astromech Droid Center) There's also a TOC in T3-M4's Astromech Droid Center listing all tools: https://web.archive.org/web/20150906172255/http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=152392 Most links will be dead anyway, but it gives a nice overview/ a place to start hunting them down. .2da Tutorials Scripting Tutorials That's at least better than navigating Lucasforums' archive by hand (esp. on mobile).

He's fine. He posted yesterday on Facebook. BTW: How did you expect him to see your message? He's not following this thread and you didn't tag him. Finally, he said to PM him if you needed to reach him. (Reread the OP.)

Troha, and many others have voiced what I was planning on saying.... Again, we gratefully thank you for all your time and effort in continuing a beloved story such as this. We may never get a kotor 3 but I must say what you gave us was better then nothing at all. You gave us a glimpse at what was possible with the game a decade after it's release, you are an example of how devoted this community is to this part of Starwars, it's beautiful. What's even more so is the preservation of your well-being. Take care and may the force be with you.

Glad you’re doing alright Logan! Like many others have said, all that matters is your health. No matter what happens I can’t wait to hear about these story elements, always liked hearing ideas of an ideal third game

I've been following this mod on and off since I was a kid lurking around Lucasforums. Although it is sad to hear you're not working on it anymore, we are all glad you're doing OK and that it has come this far. Looking forward to what the community can do with the files as a resource.