reone - KotOR engine recreation

[joshjonasone 3]

On 3/13/2021 at 12:04 PM, seedhartha said:

Thanks!

Talking about possible - anything is, this is an open-source project after all. Do I have plans to add anything graphics wise? Not for the time being. I find it much more important to focus on the gameplay - particularly making the first game completable, minus the minigames.

 

You are right, gameplay must come first, but I feel like this is all about what reone can do and it is able to do incredible things. If this was only about gameplay, we wouldn't need reone. We are already able to play the game just fine. Showcasing some of the graphic capabilities going forward should be one of the priorities. I mean, sure, it is open source, but unless you or someone else capable pave the way, it will not succeed as much as it could. Granted, there are many fans of Kotor capable of doing things like these, but how many of them do you think even heard of Reone so far?

 

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Changing vanilla behavior is kind of a grey area, but that certainly sounds doable. Things like these could work as a feature toggle, I think.

 

A few small improvements such as these is a must, no? There is a reason why people expect things like real time combat from reone. Original feels too clunky to play these days.

 

Changing vanilla behavior is one thing, what we are talking about is small improvements over the original. Just look at the last good Bioware game, Dragon Age Origins which uses basically the same engine (well, same underlying codebase anyhow), even original devs noticed many of the shortcomings of their engine and improved upon them and added many of the features that the original engine was sorely missing. A feature toggle for improved vs original would be amazing.

[seedhartha 116]

4 hours ago, ebmar said:

I mean if it's more like -- let's say someone edits a creature object/UTC or any template objects inside one module; so for the change to take place immediately that specific module should need to be loaded the first time before entering, and won't work if the change made from a load of an already saved game [inside that module]. But if you say it does its best to recreate behavior of the vanilla engine then it's pretty much similar I'd gather. 🤔

Oh, I see. This has more to do with the save system, than with modules. Save system is actually one of those things that I'm willing to completely redesign, due to how hard it would be to make it 100%-compatible with vanilla. If "real-time" reloading of templates would make modders' life easier, then this is the way we could go, no problem.

2 hours ago, joshjonasone said:

If this was only about gameplay, we wouldn't need reone. We are already able to play the game just fine. Showcasing some of the graphic capabilities going forward should be one of the priorities. I mean, sure, it is open source, but unless you or someone else capable pave the way, it will not succeed as much as it could.

I hear you - recreating something that already works and NOT improving upon it does sound wrong. I'm coming from the "minimum viable product" point of view. Getting the equivalent of vanilla out with slightly better graphics and QoL improvements beats releasing a shiny but incomplete engine, in my book. I will of course consider adding advanced graphical features - perhaps when the engine is a little more mature?

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A few small improvements such as these is a must, no? There is a reason why people expect things like real time combat from reone. Original feels too clunky to play these days.

That's a good point. I will keep this vanilla/ehanced mode toggle in mind and develop accordingly.

[Salk 376]

Well, my two cents' worth.

I think seedhartha's approach to the recreation of the engine is right. I don't think it's time to speak about making changes to the engine when we aren't sure everyone would even welcome specific changes as "real improvements". 

I think the author should only consider making straight changes if there are some aspects of the engine we're not interested in replicating because we know already now with certainty that they need replacement. In this case it's perhaps correct to plan ahead and save time by not even bothering with the vanilla game engine behavior.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to see if reone can overcome some of the annoying limitations of the Odissey Engine. Lifting those limitations could really make a difference when it comes to modding, which I reckon is the main reason to have reone for.

Cheers!

[seedhartha 116]

4 minutes ago, Salk said:

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to see if reone can overcome some of the annoying limitations of the Odissey Engine. Lifting those limitations could really make a difference when it comes to modding, which I reckon is the main reason to have reone for.

What are the limitations, I'm curious? Things like maximum number of lights and bones are not going to be an issue any longer. New graphical features could be added mid-difficulty, as well as new game mechanics, given enough interest from modders/developers.

[Salk 376]

The .2da files are limited column-wise. 

That means we cannot add new model classes but just replace existing ones, for instance.

I'm not knowledgeable enough but I am sure experienced and talented modders like DarthParametric could tell you about many more limitations. Just recently he told me that what he planned to do (upgrading the DS ending scene) could not be done because of engine limitations.

@JCarter426would be another great modder that could tell you about other hard limits he encountered modding the game, I am sure.

Cheers!

[Crazy34 67]

Hey @seedhartha,

I just want to give a short feedback to 0.17. I was able to get it to run.

It runs pretty good, I must say. Obviously its not finished but to reach the point which you have is a pretty exciting achievement.

Some feedback I can give you from the first test on the Endar Spire, is that in some non-English languages there are letters outside of usual English alphabet.

In your current version these specail letters are currently not displayed at all. So to give you an example: ingame your close to a door and the gui overlay appears. In german it should say "Tür". reone only displays "Tr" missing the ü in the middle. I guess this is also true for over languages.

Anyway your progress is amazing and I will happily test your next versions as well!

Cheers!

[seedhartha 116]

On 4/15/2021 at 9:02 PM, Crazy34 said:

Hey @seedhartha,

I just want to give a short feedback to 0.17. I was able to get it to run.

It runs pretty good, I must say. Obviously its not finished but to reach the point which you have is a pretty exciting achievement.

Some feedback I can give you from the first test on the Endar Spire, is that in some non-English languages there are letters outside of usual English alphabet.

In your current version these specail letters are currently not displayed at all. So to give you an example: ingame your close to a door and the gui overlay appears. In german it should say "Tür". reone only displays "Tr" missing the ü in the middle. I guess this is also true for over languages.

Anyway your progress is amazing and I will happily test your next versions as well!

Cheers!

Thanks!

That was to be expected, I suppose, since I do all my development and testing using a vanilla English version of KotOR.

I've added this issue to the roadmap - will make sure to look into it.

[seedhartha 116]

Made a poll on /r/kotor regarding the future on reone. Feel free to chime in.

[Jorak Uln 458]

On 4/21/2021 at 5:39 PM, seedhartha said:

Made a poll on /r/kotor regarding the future on reone. Feel free to chime in.

As good as various options e.g. day-night cycle etc. are, personally, i think improving Graphics & Controls/real time combat sounds best.  Perhaps even with a freely movable camera instead of WASD?

[seedhartha 116]

5 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

As good as various options e.g. day-night cycle etc. are, personally, i think improving Graphics & Controls/real time combat sounds best.  Perhaps even with a freely movable camera instead of WASD?

That is the most voted option so far, followed by feature-parity with vanilla (i.e. no alterations, until it is finished, haha). I'm surprised more people hadn't vote for co-op multiplayer.

Starting that poll was a good idea - I'll make sure to adjust project priorities accordingly.

Regarding real-time combat: it is going to be tricky due to how KotOR systems (e.g. d20 and animations) are orchestrated for turn-based combat: feats, Force Powers, damage calculation - everything is tied to these 3-second combat rounds. We're looking at some major balance-breaking changes, unless we find a good enough compromise (any ideas?).

[Jorak Uln 458]

2 hours ago, seedhartha said:

Regarding real-time combat: it is going to be tricky due to how KotOR systems (e.g. d20 and animations) are orchestrated for turn-based combat: feats, Force Powers, damage calculation - everything is tied to these 3-second combat rounds. We're looking at some major balance-breaking changes, unless we find a good enough compromise (any ideas?).

well, the  easiest solution that comes to my mind is: 

- the Aurora based Neverwinter Nights had a feature called "automatic quicken spell" that allowed the player to attack every round - in combination with using hotkeys for the spells it was a much faster paced experience. 

And as you might know, in Kotor we also can use Spells via Hotkeys e.g. 4 = supportive Powers like heal, R = standard attack, 3= currently selected offensive Force power...

If its possible to assign all available force powers to hotkeys in a separate menu, enabling every round attack and shorten the time for every round to <3sec.   should give a more satisfying feel to combat already.

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That said, nothing comes close to actual real time combat though. Honestly, if managable, that would be perfect. For balancing, i think Jedi Knight might be a good reference - in general, blaster bolts & lightsaber should be deadly, like 1 hit kill. With the games progression, in later stages  (jedi master lvl) you should be able to block most blasters easily. 

Lightsaber fight would be very interesting if every strike is blocked/ dodged.

-If the saber is blocked, fight goes on until either Combatant is hit e.g. with critical strike which kills him on the spot. (if relevant stats STR & DEX are similar ).

-If the saber is dodged, theres a good chance for a counter that kills the opponent immediately (high chance to dodge if STR & DEX are much higher)

However , if your opponent is much stronger than you, you are overpowered & will die from the first  hits & vice versa (if relevant stats STR & DEX are much higher).

About balancing this, i tried out a very similar existing mod once,  "the super enhanced mod" with on hit kill blasters & Lightsabers, with no other mods installed, where i got 1 shotted from Peragus Mining Droids, but as the game progressed the character development felt very balanced & rewarding with everything else stayed vanilla.  (the Defence bonus from Handmaiden felt huge and the moment you got the lightsaber was incredibly relieving, also things like stims or grenades suddenly becoming essential). 

So, with weapon stats like in the SEM the game & everything set to realtime the game  should be already quite balanced i think, quite sure there are mostly minor tweaks to be necessary afterwards.

 

EDIT: btw, sent you a PM.

 

[backagain 0]

 

 

Is this project dead?

Is this project dead?

 

[th3w1zard1 30]

On 3/5/2024 at 11:52 AM, backagain said:

Is this project dead?

 

No, look at the recent commits to the repo..

Commits · seedhartha/reone (github.com)

[Hobie 0]

"3096 commits" — Wow! And, on the Roadmap, it honestly looks like you don't have too much left for the first module. Just wanted to say that this project is amazing, Seedhartha! Keep up the good work

[Zombiewells 7]

keep me posted! looks great when does all this come out?