Lit Reading NJO...Again

I did and a lot of Jacen fans did

 

"a lot" and "Jacen fans" seems like an oxymoron

 

Unfortunately your right about that. Jacen fans aren't and never were particularly numerous

 

The irony is that Caedus is essentially what a lot of fans were arguing for and what Jacen was arguing against the NJO.

But it seems Caedus was wearing the wrong colored hat; if he was wearing the right one like Anakin at Centerpoint he would have been fine.

 

Fall of Coruscant, Liberation of Coruscant, Ganner's last stand, the Jedi Temple against Lord Nyax, Hapes, Fondor, Dubrillon, Ithor, Yag'Dhul, Bilbrinngi, Obroa-Skai, Yavin 4, Myrkr/Baanu Raas, N'Zoth, Borosk, Yaga Minor, Csilia, Zonama Sekot, Bakura, Esfandia, Calaalu Station and planet, Esfandia, Mandalore, the other planets the Mando's liberated, Garqi, Helska IV, Belkadan, Kalarba, Sernpidal, Ebaq 9, etc.

 

I was playing Jedi Outcast with NJO mods back in 2002 and 2003

 

Whaaaat? I should've played that on pc it seems.

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they had Anakin and Jacen Solo -- I don't remember a Jaina, which I find both depressing and unsurprising

As well as Yuuzhan Vong warriors with amphistaffs

That game has pretty much the whole gamut of characters through modding, you can use Kylo Ren in it now

 

you didn't miss much, they weren't anything super exciting. Just like a Vong model with an amphistaff instead of a lightsaber for multiplayer, thud bug blaster replacements, that sort of thing.

Anyway a "Battlefront: New Jedi Order" sounds like the most boring possible option tbh, like, not really leveraging the uniqueness of the era. A flight sim would be cool, though-- dovin basals and splinter shots and such would make for interesting gameplay. Bonus if they rethought flight mechanics and tried something pseudo-newtonian rather than sticking with the classic star wars feel to shake things up even more.

Since we're tossing around ideas-- I want a classic bioware-esque "Knights of the New Jedi Order" rpg (it writes itself!) or a Far Cry-alike open worlder where you play a mild mannered Jedi apprentice stuck on a Vong-occupied planet (which also pretty much writes itself).

 

Indeed what I am working on. The last year and half it's been in development. NJO is a large era to do so it takes a lot of planning and work. I will most likely have a thread on here for it when the first map gets done. Eventually I do plan on having material explicitly related to the story, possibly campaign modes that follow certain arcs of the books for a character or two (perhaps introducing an element of narrative choice to gameplay), but in general the purpose is to bring the era to life and to play as characters we all grew to love, in important moments from the series. I think through the right use of music, characters, and environments, some great moments can be captured. As a side note it may get some people interested in the series which is great considering the real deep stuff is in the books, and is much harder to translate to a video game. Generally I will try to capture as much of it as I can, though.

I have already had little moments that made me excited, working on it. My first flight in a coralskipper, or in a clawcraft, is something I won't soon forget. And fighting hordes of Yuuzhan Vong is kind of terrifying because they are kind of unpredictable to fight in the game. It makes the game a lot of fun though, as it adds some challenge. And the atmosphere of seeing a bunch of them coming at you, running, leaping, fighting, is quite menacing. Yuuzhan Vong can very certainly defeat a Jedi if you aren't careful with how you play.

Probably the coolest aspect I've discovered so far is something I didn't anticipate -- how different it makes gameplay, when compared to Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War. I think it's a refreshing, much-welcome addition after so much material in the other two eras.

I am in the middle of putting together the first major level but I can share something I've been working on lately. Very rough draft of the Tafanda Bay with a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser in the background, in the game editor (everything in this image is subject to a lot of change/expansion, since there's a lot of work still to be done on Ithor and Tafanda Bay, but just posting as a peek):

Spoiler

 

I look forward to seeing how you interpret Mediator-class battle cruisers, Ranger-class gunships and the assorted generic ship types in each mission.

 

It will certainly be cool, getting into all of those elements. Some of which are things I know what will be there and how, and other elements I either don't know or just can't do. The only thing I'd caution is that there is a certain amount of limit to some of it -- while I will try to stick somewhat closely to the stories, at some point I have to decide what to include and what not to include, otherwise including everything from NJO in exactly the way it's described would mean making a new game and it taking many, many years of development. If there's any story in SW that's close to unfilmable, it's NJO, simply due to its scope. It's just humongous. So overall I will do as much as I can do within the framework of what's possible and practical, but it may not be exactly the image in your head conveyed by the books... just as close as I can get to it.

 

But think how amazing it would be if we had a fully immersive NJO era game. And look up the YV War on the Wook. So many different battles that you can go crazy with.

 

It would be awesome, no doubt. And several of those I will be including. But as for a completely new, fully immersive NJO era game -- being that it will never happen, I have to just go for the best I can do -- which I think will definitely really get close in a lot of ways. One gains a very ground-level view of all the chaos of those events, which is where the epic scope of the NJO really becomes clear. The fact that I can do space-to-ground helps, the fact that I can add in a whole new area of music and locations and units adds a lot. It still operates off the original BFII engine, which I think allows for the most amount of moddability, immersion and fun in this type of thing (the full amount of the philosophizing in the series I won't be able to include). It's just that rather than dreaming about the ultimate could-be, my thinking at this time is to just make as great of a will-be as I can. I may not be able to reach 100% immersion, but I (and the other partner I have working on this) think that even if I could get 70% or 80% I would consider that a massive improvement to the roughly 0% we have right now in terms of completed NJO video game content. The fact that Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, Corran, or any of the rest haven't really been represented in full in any video game (beyond a random character model to "throw in" here or there on Jedi Academy or something) seems like it needs to really be rectified -- they are tied intimately to the amazing events of those books, some of the best in all of the EU, and those should be represented as well. I know the new LFL will never do it, so it's up to us ordinary people to do it. And honestly why not? We are the ones who have really invested in the characters and stories, and the modding tools were given to the people to use. If we won't bring it to life, then who will? So overall that's my thinking towards it at least.

 

Reading Recovery. For some reason i'm now picturing the Cinnabar Moon like Crait.

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Troy Denning's first prose in SW (barring maybe a vignette in WEG?)

 

He wrote Han and Leia really well. Trouble comes when he gets into creepy sexual innuendo in LOTF and FOTJ when Leia is pushing 70.

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I enjoy his prose, but not his Luke. It's weird that he's good with Han and Leia, I think Tatooine Ghost is my favorite of his, but he became overly focused on Jedi vs Sith. And Han and Leia are kind of an afterthought in that, see: Han and Jacen compared to Han and Ben.

Maybe it was a LucasFilm edict to have that focus.

Still, I think the way he writes Luke and the Jedi is problematic in many ways probably better left to the Jedi thread.

 

FOTJ is 40 ABY? So she's only 59.

 

FOTJ ends in 45 ABY and begins in 43 ABY.

So by the end of Crucible(a Denning novel) Leia would be 64. Luke would also be 64 and Han would be 74.

Jaina would be 37. Ben would be 19, Allana would be around 10. Vestara Khai would be 17 and a half or so. Seha would be 23. Jysella 29, etc...Jag would be 38.

Seems the median age for the NJO(based on the names I mentioned) and other characters is around 35 or so in this era.

Just some interesting character ages as they stand by the end of Crucible.

 

Wait. What? Is it possible to learn this power?

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He actually wrote a pair of choose-your-own adventure type novellas for WEG back in the late eighties-- one for Luke and one for Han. I read the Luke one a few months ago, it was actually pretty good. And recognizably Denning-y-- stuff like asteroid Jedi hideouts and all the laser bolts being blue for some reason (though no pillars of blue efflux yet).

 

what's the reference for blue blaster bolts

 

So things got a bit busy in RL here, but I am finally on Conquest. I enjoyed reading the books after Ruin, especially because I remembered so little of them, but Conquest is in anotger level. Great action with new characters and themes introduced. Lambent crystals, Shamed Ones and shapers make for fun reading

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yea Conquest was a good book, one of the better ones in NJO if you ask me, kept me really invested throughout