TSLRP: Not Quite A Post-Mortem

[Mandalore 61]

I've been away from here a fair while and this was a brilliant read to come back to, seeing all the drama and all those names that I already regarded as old hands of modding when I joined

[Guest]

Also those annoying ones we can't fix like the sparring gamebreaker :/

 

Sparring gamebreaker?

[Domino5555 119]

Sparring gamebreaker?

I think the one where you spar with the Echani Handmaidens, and can physically move them off the mat.

[Guest]

I think the one where you spar with the Echani Handmaidens, and can physically move them off the mat.

Yeah I do it all the time when I play a Consular, don't see how it's gamebreaking.

[ADG12311990 21]

Sparring gamebreaker?

I want to think it's the one where, if you spar with the Handmaiden on the Ebon Hawk, sometimes, you can kill her, and in the party select screen, her portrait is gone, and her name is changed to "I am Broken. So very, very broken. I know I had that glitch happen to me once back in the day when I was playing on the Xbox... (Not the weirdest glitch I had happen, however.)

[N-DReW25 1,336]

If anyone still has it would they be so kind as to via PM send me a copy of the leaked TSLRP Beta for comparison video reasons?

 

Out of curiosity, did TSLRP even change cutscenes and such?

[Hassat Hunter 571]

They altered the intro.

And the sparring gamebreaker is how you lose access to your teammates after sparring and losing in a certain manner, making them unable to EVER talk to you again or follow you, breaking the entire game in the process since all 3 of them are pretty important.

[superSzym 155]

Oh, during sparring I lost my companions in the Telos Academy on unmodded TSL, but this didn't make them unable to ever talk to me.

[Guest]

They altered the intro.

 

And the sparring gamebreaker is how you lose access to your teammates after sparring and losing in a certain manner, making them unable to EVER talk to you again or follow you, breaking the entire game in the process since all 3 of them are pretty important.

Eh, that's an easy loadback, not so bad.

 

The one that really irritates me is the Tomb glitch in KOTOR 1. Then you really lose companions.

[ChrisC26 12]

There's like a 77 page thread dedicated to the downfall of TSLRP on RPGCodex.net - including the Windu story.  It's not for the faint of heart but it's hysterical.

 

Before you ask: Yes, I said and meant 77 pages

Link?  Here is the link.

 

Any recommendations on what pages to skip?

 

I remember back in the day following the progress on the different big projects around LucasForums. 

 

Was so much younger then... lol

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

If anyone still has it would they be so kind as to via PM send me a copy of the leaked TSLRP Beta for comparison video reasons?

I'd also like to have it as well - for archival purposes not for a video. Does anyone still have the TSLRP beta that they could send a link to me in a PM?

[Stoney 1,511]

Good reading , so much unnecessary drama. Thanks for the behind the scenes look.

 

We didn't need a team name , pretty sure we got called a few bad ones when we started.????

[Guest Qui-Gon Glenn]

It was rumored the 90SK bragged about leaking it on another forum. It was brought to my attention then, I looked it up, and the accusation seemed legit.

 

I do not know the answer.

 

 

@Hassat Hunter, pretty sure the version you have is 1.10b, but it may be 1.11. I still have it archived, and don't feel bad at all for leaking it to you

 

Edit: pm me, anybody, and I will share the file. It will be tonight though.

 

Edit2: dvd archive did not contain it, now to go through about 12 old hdds... But it will be done.

[Guest Qui-Gon Glenn]

Sorry for the double post, but I did find the old broken POS and have shared it to those who were interested.

 

To me, what was worthwhile in this exercise, was finding the good ol' UberArmband again. Totally should have been released as a separate tool by TupacAmaru.

 

Looking back, it was when TA gave up that I should have moved on.... but I was, as Molaram Sularom would have said, "a true believer".

 

EDIT: Had to find it, just to read my words again.... It, it is different. It has been some time.

 

 

 

I have been disenfranchised as a tester. I cannot update to the last build anymore, and none of the powers that be care much. I worked diligently on testing this mod for a year, and I see the waste of my time that it has been. Yes, I got to see a lot of cool stuff, some of it the very best of KotOR modding I have seen to date. But I wasn't testing the mod to play it, I really was testing the mod to help move it towards release.

Yep. I have had it. I no longer have any patience or stomach for what Dashus has decided to do with this project.

I can mod now myself, and I know that while I could not have done a project like this myself, I could have got it done with help.

Many over the years, far more skilled than myself, have made offers. I used to argue that this was unnecessary, that it would actually slow or muddle things, whatever. I took the company line for over 3 years. Now I know better.

Dashus holds this project hostage, and will never release this thing in any format better than it is in it's current state. My belief for this is that the one area to be Dashus' baby, the HK factory, still is in the same state that it came in out of the Xbox. Playable but crappy. And not changing.... because it is quite possibly beyond Dash's solo skills to fix it. This would not be an indictment of Dashus had he done anything to remedy the situation, but pride/arrogance/apathy prevented his getting help, and now here we are. IMO, Dashus has not only betrayed our community for years by being condescending by post whenever possible, but by letting this enormously popular and desired project to die on the vine, let it be made mostly irrelevant by not finishing and releasing in any state fomenting the creation of TSLRCM.

Shame on Team Gizka, and Dashus especially. Yes, dude, I am calling you out. Not that you'll ever read this, since you and your girlfriend simply have time for nothing else but machiattos and snuggling. And the fact that you simply do not visit the site, or care at all about it.

As for the forum, its moderators and my many net-buddies I have made here over the years... I am sorry that I could not keep my mouth shut any longer. I am sorry that you will have to lock or delete this or whatever, that I added another annoyance to this generally annoying forum. I know that some of you will view this as a betrayal in itself, but I want you to look a long minute at the history of this mod, and if you are still hot at me, pm me over at LF - qui_gon_glenn is the username, oddly enough. You won't see me here - I'm done with the Gizka. If the mod is ever released, I will download it and play it, for nostalgia's sake. The project itself is something I hold unnaturally dear... just the giant SW nerd inside me, I guess.

For the record, Dash, hate on me all you want, but in the real world I am your boss. I am the guy that is ten years older than you, has the position you want, and will fire you for work like this. If this project was a hobby for you, and hobbies generally being things you love, I'd be frightened to see the work you do that is simply just work...

 

...

 

LOL

 

And Stoney, I remember being surprised a little when you asked me to play around with the original M4-78 and test for you. My expectations were extremely low, and what I got was so surprisingly good that I didn't have a ton of gameplay criticism and was mostly concerned with text errors and obviously broken things. I can't remember what the order of things coming out was exactly, did M4 release before TSLRCM?

[Stoney 1,511]

The original m4 came out first. Tslrcm came about because I was waiting on my lead writer for m4ep and was needing something to do while I waited.????

[Domino5555 119]

The original m4 came out first. Tslrcm came about because I was waiting on my lead writer for m4ep and was needing something to do while I waited.

So that's why this entire mod exists. It was because you didn't want to have too much time on your hands.

[Stoney 1,511]

Can only speak for myself but yes basically I started restoring tsl due to boredom.????

[Mandalore 61]

Can only speak for myself but yes basically I started restoring tsl due to boredom.

I'm reminded of Ghent in the Thrawn books - "oh yeah, that massive security leak you've been struggling with for ages, I hacked that a few days ago 'cause I was bored."

[DarthRevan101 104]

 

 

Lies and propaganda. Nothing more. This so-called "mod" does not exist. It is nothing more than lies and propaganda created by the Liberal-controlled media. I cite the COMPLETE LACK OF EVIDENCE for its existence as proof. There is no mod. Only the empty talk of people who have promised more than they can deliver.

 

Page 2 of that 77 page thread and it's already wild.

 

I've heard bits and pieces of what happened with TSLRP and it's nice to finally get the whole story.

 

[Tyvokka 198]

Hah I remember so much of that as well, never got on the inside track of TSLRP but that 05/06 time period was an interesting time for the KotOR community at LF and then at the TSLRP forums. I did help Pikmin with a few hosting things at one point. He was quite the tool

[N-DReW25 1,336]

Page 2 of that 77 page thread and it's already wild.

It gets worse

 

There is no restoration project. It is a front for a secret black project that they've been diverting money and manpower into. If you view their site without wearing your regulation tin foil hat, they will corrupt your mind using secret subliminal messages and transmit mind waves that will brainwash you into thinking there really is a mod. Rise up against these foul conspiritors. Our brother Norfleet has opened our eyes to the lies and manipulation. Rise up and cut the strings controlled by these puppet masters. We will no longer mindlessly take part in their twisted Grand Guignol. The revolution begins here. Give no quarter.

 

But not all of it is crazy talk, I found something that makes a lot of sense on there

What I am most interested about is the Battle of Khoonda. Most if not ALL of that scripting was already done. We had to cut it and turn it into movies because the framerate on the original xbox was just too low during that fight.

This makes a lot of sense, this means even if Kotor 2 was finished on time we'd still lose the battle of Khoonda.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

I use the UberArmband extensively for M4-78EP and TSLRCM's fixes (swapping it around with Whereami if I need co-ordinates).

So, thanks for that. And if I knew you were looking for it, I got it right here 0_o

[InSidious 237]

Thanks everyone. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

I finally have a small amount of free time, so I'm going to be responding to a few of the points raised in this thread in sequence.

 

 

Well we did get DeNCS out of it, so it wasn't all bad.

Having been involved in an ill-fated large modding project myself (BG2R), I have some sympathy for TSLRP. I know well the pain of lots of people clamouring for a release, but nobody willing to actually help do the work. Having observed the TSLRP drama unfold fairly passively from the outside, I think their main mistake was not making public releases from an early stage. Closed beta testing is fine and a necessity, but don't go making a big song and dance publicly about something until you are willing to release it. Doing so would have done two things. It would have dampened some of the noise from the peanut gallery, and it likely would have encouraged more people to volunteer to help.

 

True, although as  I recall DeNCS requires a specific and long-out-of-date version of Java to run. I think JdNoa made a few other bits and pieces for TSLRP which got released separately, like DeNCS and AniCam.

 

Yeah, it's far from the only project to go south in this kind of way. One of the most frustrating parts of the whole saga is that there were was a small but steady stream of people over the years offering to help implement the mod, and they were all refused. Whether they actually would have stuck around, and if the project would ever have been finished that way, is probably moot, I'd guess.

 

 

I recall this epic shout out to Dashus - screen-capped from the Team Gizka forums days . . .


 

 

Pavlos' post-mortem on Team Bantha was practically read out verbatim near the end of one of the videos Xuul and I did.  There's a lot of good information in that post-mortem.

 

I am so looking forward for the Pikmin/Balor stuff to come out in a future chapter of the M4-78 Documentary.  That guy was a tool.  The website for K2RP still exists!  (Apparently, he never got around to removing me from the staff list after I denounced him.)

 

QGG's call-out stirs a distant memory. I think it's what actually provoked Dashus into telling everyone he hadn't done any modding for two months because of all that totally real sexy sex he was sexing.

 

Pav's post-mortem is full of good advice for people working on big projects in general, IMO.

 

And yeah, the Pikmin/Balor stuff will be well worth waiting for.

 

 

 

 

A few questions regarding the GenoHaradan:

What was the excuse for the Exile to go to Nar Shadda? Was he/she captured by the GenoHaradan before he could go to Telos and was taken to their base or does he/she just say "Let's go to Nar Shadda to defeat the GenoHaradan at their base we don't know where to find"?

 

How did they tackle Batu Rem? Since I've been working on Rem for some time now I know from experience that Batu only has two voiced lines about the GenoHaradan which on its own isn't enough and three more with no VO and two Atton line with no VO. Did they splice or did they redo his lines with a new actor? (Or did they use the two lines?)

 

How did they tackle Luxa's bounty hunters? Because the only evidence of their GenoHaradan involvement is the DLG they have for when you contact them on the terminal in that hospital is called "geno.dlg" I have no other evidence besides that to support the theory of them being GenoHaradan.

Where there any rewards for killing Desicuss the GenoHaradan leader? If not then I can happily announce there will at least 3 or maybe 4 amazing rewards for defeating Dessicus in my mod.

 

I apologize for hounding you with questions you probably won't remember but unless I can get my hands on the TSLRP leak to observe what they have your the closest thing I have to information regarding how they wanted to pull it off.

 

It's been the better part of nine years, but...

 

In TSLRP, the Exile received a summons like the summons to return to Onderon in the vanilla game. It came late in the game, and really screwed up the pacing.

 

I think they just added back in the cut lines for Atton and Batu Rem, I think after "no mere assassin...". Are you sure the VO for Atton isn't hidden somewhere odd? I'm sure the lines were voiced in the RP, but they may have grabbed those lines from the Xbox version or something.

 

I don't really remember Luxa's bounty hunters. Sorry. I'm not sure if they added a reference in there or not. I think possibly they added a reference to the alien VO for the two, and then altered one of the player responses in the dialogue with Luxa. But I can't really remember.

 

As I recall, the reward for beating Dessicus was decidedly underwhelming.

 

Hope that was helpful, but as I say, it's been a long time.

 

 

Was hoping for more behind-the-scenes forum drama, but it seems you never knew much more than regular forum users. Interesting read, thanks for sharing!

 

 

Hahaha I remember this, you were probably our biggest opponent back in the beginning. Good times

 

 

Quick clarification here, Goto was never intended to be on M4-78. I heard people mention this quite a few times, and I think the misconception comes from the fact that M4-78 and Goto's Yacht have the same puzzles, but that's not because they're connected.

 

The real story behind it is, Goto's Yacht was supposed to be cut out as well, until Kevin Saunders said he can design the whole area in a week. He did so by moving content he'd designed for M4-78 - which was already cut by that point - to Goto's Yacht.

 

No idea how Goto would fit into the GenoHaradan plot line, though.

 

 

 

 

I actually remember that, since it was so hilariously out of place. On your way to Malachor, T3 would approach you and tell you that the GenoHaradan would blow up Nar Shaddaa or something if you didn't go there and fight them.
I never really played the leak, but I know someone who probably finished it more times than any of the real beta testers

 

Yeah. What little we thought we knew was also possibly a lie. As an exercise in project management, it was a disaster.
 

I remember Lord of Hunger was worried I'd block the mod being uploaded to KotORFiles.

 

(I also wrote a horrible review of the very first version of M478, giving it a 5/10. ) That led to working on the various plot revisions with Sharen Thrawn before they disappeared off the map.

 

Re: Goto: Interesting,  thanks. I've no idea how Goto and the Genoharadan fit together either. There is a line for one of his opening scenes that goes something like: "The GenoHaradan are no concern of yours". So presumably they were meant to be part of the plot at the same time.

 

 

Thanks for the shout-out Insidious, but I don't think I was involved in any of the testing process for TSLRP

 

Hmm. In that case, I think it must have been Miltiades who was working out the Droid Factory stuff. Maybe I confused you with him because you worked on the RCM droid factory. Apologies.

 

 

Damn, this is a long topic already... well, time to read (yes, nothing done yet). Skimmed a few posts.
Aside from hating us, I also recall you weren't fond of my about my bug reports I made for TSLRP during it's leaked beta (only about 400 entries or so). Should have had saved that list, would have saved me a lot of time on TSLRCM. Might even still be issues in I listed there but then completely forgotten about afterwards.

 

Really? I've completely forgotten that. Then again, my memories of the TG forum is mainly of flame wars, and "I think this thread should be locked now" copypasted everywhere.
 

 

Anyway, a few keyparts you forgot to mention.

* You mention Dashus didn't mind the leak. This however was NOT my experience, as shortly after doing so he uploaded an "update" for the game that basically broke it down entirely. Had to re-install the entire game and TSLRP due to it (thanks Dashus). Which doesn't sound like something someone who "doesn't care" would do. Actual testers got affected too since those gamebreakers started popping up in the official Bug Tracker.

 

I'd forgotten that. He didn't seem particularly ruffled in the limited communication I had with him.

 

 

* You say the blame felt on 90SK, but according to posts by the RPGCodex it was all due to Darth Windu (who stayed on the team), who exchanged his TSLRP code in promise of getting laid. Of course the validity of this claim got never proven, but if it was a hoax they did type up a pretty giant detailed chatlog. One Windu claimed was partially true, but faked out in the end. Anyway, that was the drama seen on the outside.

 

Never knew this. Windu seemed to keep that pretty quiet in the tester's forum at the time, if my memory is right. I do remember him wanting the beta team to release the mod on the grounds that we were the last people around with a connection to the original team.

 

 

* Crap hit the fan WAY before Dashus' "screw you guys, I'm getting laid" when a new trailer was released for TSLRP. Why would a trailer cause commotion? Because it was the "release trailer" and in the end it had a release date 1 year EARLIER than the video was released at. This... fell really REALLY bad with everyone, especially after outcries of "what the hell is this?" got completely ignored or sarcastically dismissed (don't recall specifically). That was really the point where the TSLRP "team" shown the world that this was leading nowhere, Dashus "but I failed everything I ever did, I will succeed at something for once!" was just the final nail in the coffin. That it was a thinly veiled "I'm getting laid, you probably not, SUCKAHS" after withholding TSLRP, refusing to release it even when giving up and all that BS definitely made us all remember him as a giant douchebag. Thanks for DeNCS, but really... that's the legacy left behind, that's what people will remember.

 

Again, I'd completely forgotten this.

 

But yeah, the legacy of Team Gizka, apart from its indirect influence on TSLRCM, wasn't great. I think the guy who made the Atton leaning animation for TSLRP pass it on to TSLRCM, or is my memory playing tricks?

 

 

It was rumored the 90SK bragged about leaking it on another forum. It was brought to my attention then, I looked it up, and the accusation seemed legit.

I do not know the answer.

 

I knew I'd seen something about it. Never thought it was all that likely, myself, but it's all long past now.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

But yeah, the legacy of Team Gizka, apart from its indirect influence on TSLRCM, wasn't great. I think the guy who made the Atton leaning animation for TSLRP pass it on to TSLRCM, or is my memory playing tricks?

IIRC, Stoney was the one that convinced Savvy to give it to TSLRCM and I was the one that suggested poaching TSLRP's talent as that project started to crumble. I also recall that Savvy was female but I may have been remembering incorrectly.

[Stoney 1,511]

Yes savvy was a female and she actually came to me asking if we wanted the animation. Of course I said yes.????