Fair Strides

Aye. It's been a nice trip down memory lane as it were with everyone contributing in surprisingly-chronological order for the most part. Mind you, with remembering how much progress was made, I'm actually thinking I could take some time soon (around birthday and school stuff) and finish up the missing bits for an actual SG release. Might be a few things left on the cutting room floor, but it'd be what it'd be with time as it is. I think I'm looking forward to this.

I suppose it's time to throw in my contributions and experience with Scrapyard Games. I got the files way back, though I'm pretty sure it was far after 2012. I think I got them around 2018 or afterwards, so they were already old by then. The scripts were indeed a bit of a mess, but were coherent, and I really appreciated the notes that were left behind on things that were planned, worked on, and not finished. My areas of knowledge were mainly scripting and level building (not the modelling, collisions, or texturing), so I explored each of the areas and noted the issues I'd need to address and things I could add. Most were minor tweaks here and there. Most of my work was in scripting for the arena battles, including randomized spawn locations around the arena's 8 cells around the central area, randomized enemy loading (and building several varieties of enemies to spawn in this list), and tweaking the balance to be challenging at higher levels. Especially given the power that players can wield from modded items. Eventually, I'd shared these updates with SH and we managed to wrangle Quanon back around for a spell to re-do the Scrapyard Games levels now that there'd been a few new advancements in tools that made a lot of area work pop more, along with better guides for lightmaps. After a few iterations, back-and-forths, and tweaking, we managed to get some solid re-built levels together. I think there were still some minor things I'd wanted tweaked, but I got sidetracked and then too much time had passed. I believe one of the last things I'd wanted to finish up was trying to get the level maps to line up with the player's direction and movements like the normal levels do, though the settings in the level files were archaic in this spot for me. Come to think of it, I never did check the work that was to get the party to Scrapyard Games, though I recall the idea was a projector or holocron of coordinates that would get onto the Ebon Hawk while on Nar Shaddaa... Whoops. 😅It's been a few years, but I believe I still have all of the files from our last round of level work. The installer would have been the last step.

Hello, there! I'm going to move this to a more appropriate spot in the forums. That being said, I'm afraid it's difficult to help you without more input. What told you to do something? If this is related to a mod, then what mod was it?

Hello. I am one of the admins. I've looked through the deleted and pending files and haven't seen it, nor any other odd activity at a glance. Could you please re-upload it, and could you please attach to this thread or a DM a screenshot of the proof of permission? Thank you, Fair Strides

...What is "Sml", and is this the same mod, since that sounds very different from the original post? Still not sure if you're requesting or creating a mod. If it's making a mod, what is the goal with uploading files like this? Feedback?

...Are you requesting a mod or trying to post a completed mod? You're in the spot to request a mod and talking in the future tense, but I'm not sure about those files.

Most mods are free, so that part is moot. The culture iwth modding has always been very aware of the amount of time that goes into a hobby, I assure you. SAO has also not heeded much in the way of advice given by SH or others with such an ambitious starting project, even with such basic things as sharing screenshots here of their project. Whether I trust you or not is also moot, since you're not trying to release or upload the mod. While you do seem to edit your posts a lot instead of taking the time to craft a reply, my comment was not out of trust. You entered in with a lot of support from out of nowhere, hence SH's white-knighting comment, with this being the first mention that you're helping and beta-testing. That helps explain the hearty defense, but not all critique and criticism is wrong. And SAO can share what details they're okay with sharing here.

Testing, testing, is this thing on? Dropping a friendly reminder to be civil with each other. Criticism and critiques of a project are fine when constructive, though simple observations of the facts are neither. The same cannot be said of the later interactions here. SH and DP both pointed out and expressed similar sentiments, just a bit differently. It's not right to get on someone's case just because you don't like how they expressed themselves. For one, this manner of dialog is blunt, but typically so. If SAO wants to respond to fair criticisms about their timeline, they can do so when they're online. @The_Chaser_One As far as I'm aware, it's still not the norm for someone not working on or associated with a project to be giving updates and sharing projected schedules, as that can be misinformation or wildly inaccurate. Getting upset when called out on it is rather poor form. Especially when you simultaneously want someone to not post the way they normally post but also won't block them because you like reading their responses. It's always possible to ignore posts you don't like. P.S: On a personal note: Kinda cheeky throwing SH's words back at him here. The statement is still true, as SAO did give a deadline already, when SH's advice would have been to not announce a release timeline. It would have been better to not give a deadline than to miss the deadline. While it could be true that missing the deadline is better for quality, I'd also ask this: is it a good thing that a deadline was missed in a project? Doesn't that mean the deadline was not estimated correctly in the first place?

The EXE size changes are likely from widescreen patching or something similar. I can't say for sure why Mission is either there or not there, except that other mods may be interfering with things. That cutscene spawns several people, which mods could be altering. Or in the case of NPC files, there could be mulltiple copies of the same-named file that are being overwritten by being put in the overrides folder.

Believe it or not, Frank Sinatra.

Wow, I didn't realize we had that much glare on the camera. 😅 It was a lot of fun hanging out with ya, SH. And guys! I swear he can sing!

I want to agree with N-DReW25 with most of the above, though I'd likely not have the last three paragraphs were I writing it. Granted, people know I tend to err on the side of nice and overly-cautious with my wordings.

I don't know how things are in other modding communities, but even as far back as Lucasforums, we had a general good faith policy of communicating with the mod authors. A form of common courtesy to reach out and check in with them. This allowed for open communication, everyone being aware (as they could be) of what was going on, and even assisting in refining the work or helping to avoid pitfalls. And that was a wonderful system. The point was the common courtesy and being able to have evidence of a good-faith attempt to update the mod author on things. Even with KotOR's Filefront died, we as staff discussed and agreed on a process using the community's historical precedent of good-faith contacts. We checked each author's permissions and when necessary, we reached out to those authors through any channels we had. Then we waited a respectable time for a response (I can't recall how long that time was, but I believe it was at least a month). This was well-received by many, and a key point was that we reached out before we went and did a thing. Now, I realize that was years ago and cultural norms shift, especially online, but this has usually never been an issue in this community. I can well understand SH's response to getting told about `proper modding etiquette`; SH has been a stable pillar when it comes to that very concept for well over a decade. The seeming lack of perspective to realize that is surprising. I don't know if the person frequents NexusMods more than here, or how knew they might be, but I foresee this problem could come up more and more over time with the sheer size of an outlet like NexusMods.

Haha, thanks! I still have no idea where you came up with this image, but it's fucking beautiful. Hell, can I borrow it as the cover photo on FB? You're welcome. The reactions have been nice so far; a few years ago... I wouldn't have expected people to be so understanding. Part of that phenomenon where you expect others to think like you do, I guess. And back then? I was ignorant. You! You're still around?! Yes!!! You volunteered me into a chaotic mess, ya know that? (K1R) I still need to try out your Crashed Republic Cruiser mod. I'm glad it saw the light of day, man.