Week of March 10, 2002

Mod Madness ChrisC3po Saturday, Mar 16 - 10:03 PM

After several months of down time, Wired Lamp’s website has been reopened with a brand new design. Along with the re-launch comes the reopening of Wired Lamp’s Dark Horizon web site. In other mod news, our hosted site Mod Central has launched its first hosted site, Rebel Strike. Rebel Strike is the home page for another mod team. Not much is known about their current project but I’m sure we’ll be seeing promising things from this group.

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New Screens @ Official Site GonkH8er Saturday, Mar 16 - 1:28 AM

LucasArts have updated their official JKII page with 14 delicious new screenshots. A few of them are from the 3rd screensaver featured on the site and some are from the PCGamer US preview, but many of them are new. Go check them out here.
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New Screenshots Roger Friday, Mar 15 - 6:04 PM

We got an e-mail from Erik in which he points us to some new screenshots at ToTheGame.com. Have a look.
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Hoekstra Interview ChrisC3po Friday, Mar 15 - 4:09 PM

And the interviews keep on coming… ELiTeD has posted a brand new interview with Kenn Hoekstra. Kenn answers a few more questions about the game, including some interesting information about lightsaber combat. Source: Shacknews.com.

Maybe I’ve missed something, but I haven’t seen any mention of Jan Ors or Katarn’s personal ship, the Moldy Crow - do they still play significant roles in Jedi Outcast?

"In the Jedi Outcast timeline, Kyle has retired the Moldy Crow in favor of his new ship, the Raven’s Claw, a fast and powerful light carrier."

I wonder how they ever came up with that ship name. =)
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Chris Foster Interview Roger Friday, Mar 15 - 12:14 PM

Jedi Outcast Mod Central interviewed Christopher Foster, Design Lead on Jedi Knight II at Raven. You can find the interview here. Here's a snip:

JOMC: Did you use the first two parts in the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series for level design inspiration? Are there any specific "old" levels we might see again in Jedi Knight II?

CF: I had played both games (as well as MOTS) a number of times before we had even begun the project, so I had a good grasp of how they felt. When we began to plan, we encouraged others to make sure to play them as well, so our references would make sense to them. While we didn't take any specific cue from those games, we did want to keep the grand, sprawling feel many of their levels had.
And as far as seeing areas of the previous games in Outcast, …I can't tell you. :)

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Gone Gold! Swoosh Thursday, Mar 14 - 7:24 PM

LucasArts announced today that Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has officially GONE GOLD.

Now, we already assumed that the game would be gold today or tomorrow since the retail release is March 29th, but it's good to know confirmation from the source. But in any matter, the developers at RAVEN and LucasArts are officially done working on JKII, and I would like to extend a huge thank you from the staff here and the community for a job well done. Everything we've seen is nothing short of impressive and we'd like to commend you on for keeping the Star Wars and Jedi Knight tradition alive. Thank you RAVEN & LUCASARTS and we'll see you on the battlefield. =)
Thanks Rancor and Kurgan (we actually posted about this news at the same exact time we were so excited)
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Official Date: March 29th Swoosh Wednesday, Mar 13 - 9:41 PM

On the tail end of the new trailer that was released tonight, we learned that the game will be in stores on March 29th. This official release date means that in just over two weeks we'll be taking the hilt of a lightsaber once again.

Make sure to check out the new trailer as it shows many multiplayer modes, new acrobatic moves, and tons of force powers. It's very exciting and shows us the pace of the game that we've been looking forward to for a long time. There are two versions available: 320x240, and a huge 640x480. Remember, you must be a member to view the trailer tonight, or else you will have to wait until tomorrow. But in any case, the wait is almost over!
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New JKII Trailer released Kurgan Wednesday, Mar 13 - 9:36 PM

That's right, the wait is over... LEC has released the "sneak peak" trailer for registered members.

Their servers are getting hit hard though, so please be patient. It will be available to non-members tomorrow.

Head on over to the official site for details.
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Last Minute Pre-Release Chat! Aristotle Wednesday, Mar 13 - 8:01 PM

It might be last minute, but we're going to try it anyway. JediKnightII.Net is throwing a Trailer release chat gathering in #jediknight on IRC Chat tonight at 8PM EDT. Make sure you're all logged into #JediKnight on irc.gamesnet.net tonight at 8PM EDT! ( here's a full list of GamesNet servers to connect through), where we'll be discussing Jedi Knight II, and then engaging in comments/feedback/debates about the 2nd Video Trailer once it's released tonight at 9PM EDT over on LucasArts.com. If you are unfamiliar with IRC, you can use our live chat on JKII.net to access the discussion.

Head on over and join the discussion!

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Gone Gold... Almost! Kurgan Wednesday, Mar 13 - 6:20 PM

GoneGold.com recently posted this exciting announcement:

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

You may as well call this one "gold" folks, although LucasArts is actually saying... "Not just yet.". According to Tom Sarris, the game will not go gold today, but will indeed finish up either tomorrow or Friday the latest. When will we see it on shelves? March 28th Tom says. :D Super news.

Special thanks to Daedelus for bringing this to our attention!
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Trailer 2 Tonight! Swoosh Wednesday, Mar 13 - 4:48 PM

Just a reminder that LucasArts will be releasing the second trailer for Jedi Knight II this evening at 9pm EST/6pm PST for those of you who are LucasArts members. If you're not a member, register at LucasArts.com. People are speculating that this trailer will reveal the release date and/or a "Gone Gold" announcement. Check this page later tonight and see what LEC has in store! While you wait, head over to the Premier Jedi Outcast forums and discuss with your fellow community members.
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Also Available @ Aristotle Wednesday, Mar 13 - 10:13 AM

Just an FYI for our readers. JediKnightII.Net is also now available at http://www.jediknight2.com and http://www.jediknightii.com ... so now it's fairly tough to somehow confuse where we're located on the web.
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Gold Update ChrisC3po Tuesday, Mar 12 - 9:46 PM

GameSpot has gotten to the bottom of all the reports of Jedi Knight II going Gold today. Here’s what they had to say:

Dismissing a gold announcement posted today on the Web site of online retailer EB Games as premature, a LucasArts representative said today that Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, its upcoming Star Wars action game, is on track to go gold later this week.

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EB Reports Gold Swoosh Tuesday, Mar 12 - 6:37 PM

B0MBER II posted an interesting thread on the Premier Forums, apparently EBGames.com announced that Jedi Knight II has gone gold. However, LucasArts has released no official statement as to whether this is true or not, so take it with a grain of salt. For those of you curious as to what the term, "gone gold" means, here's a description thanks to Kurgan:

"Gone Gold" when referring to a video game, refers to when the game is finished and a master (or "gold") copy has been made that is being sent to be copied, to get ready for distribution.
Also, VoodooExtreme sent an email to Kenn Hoekstra about the EB update. Here's his reply:

"Well, I hate to do this to you but any "Gold" announcement has to come from LucasArts PR people" said Hoekstra. "Mum's the word from here, I'm afraid." If the report is indeed true, we should see that by Friday at the latest.
Hopefull we will be recieving the official word shortly. But in the meantime, be sure to head over to the Jedi Knight II Premier Forums and participate in the discussions!
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Trailer II on Wednesday Swoosh Monday, Mar 11 - 11:46 PM

BuRn notified us via the Premier Jedi Knight II Forums that LucasArts plans on releasing the second Jedi Outcast Trailer on Wednesday, March 13th. Here is the email that LEC sent out to the Insiders.

http://www.lucasarts.com/exclusive/jedioutcast

http://jediknight2.lucasarts.com

Thanks for the heads up BuRn!

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AnotherJKII Trailer Mirror Kurgan Monday, Mar 11 - 12:41 PM

I've been notified of another download site for the recent 14mb divx format Jedi Outcast trailer (that was featured in the PCGamer UK magazine).

If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to take a look at the following site.

Thanks to Mephisto for putting up the link.
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PCGamer US JKII preview Kurgan Monday, Mar 11 - 12:29 AM

This may be old news to those with subscriptions to the US version of PCGamer, and I won't be posting any scans of the article (out of respect for their magazine), but there were a few interesting tidbits in their "hands on" 1 page article covering a "late beta build" of Jedi Outcast.

Here's a snippet:
As jazzed as we were, we had one immediate concern: the Quake III engine just can't do the enormous environments we enjoyed in Jedi Knight. The producer promised us that the game will have some pretty big spaces, but the emphasis in level design is on action rather than grand vistas.

The rest of the preview is fairly positive, and they list a current release date of "April 2002" as well as mentioning that the Jedi Mind Trick "makes you invisible" in multiplayer. There was also a set of five screenshots, most of which I hadn't seen before. One thing that puzzled me was how the article described Force Choke as being a "new" force power (perhaps they meant how its effects at the higher levels will differ significantly from the original JK?).

Be sure to check out the current issue and see for yourself!
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AOTC Trailer Released Swoosh Sunday, Mar 10 - 10:34 PM

Although not Jedi Knight news, we all should be interested in the fact that StarWars.com released the new Attack of the Clones full trailer tonight. If you didn't get a chance to catch it on FOX (or it hasn't come on yet), head over there right now! If nothing else, it's a very good display of how far computer graphics have come along (and how much farther they need to go :). In all seriousness though, the trailer is simply amazing and this film continues to look better and better.
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Level Converter ChrisC3po Sunday, Mar 10 - 11:51 AM

Brian from Massassi.net was kind enough to point us to an interesting article on Massassi.net’s forums. The article, posted by dr0id, reveals that work is underway to make a program that will partially convert the hundreds of classic fan made Jedi Knight Levels into Q3 compatible levels, and eventually Jedi Knight II levels. For the full story, click here.
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Q3 Stormtrooper (follow-up) Kurgan Sunday, Mar 10 - 12:56 AM

After Raven's recent release of the Q3 compatible Stormtrooper model (see news item below), one of our forum users was kind enough to post a bot file for use with it.

I have not been able to test it myself yet, but hopefully Q3 users will be able to figure that out in short order.

You can download a mirror of the bot file here (note: you'll need the original model file, downloadable from the Official JK2 page.

Special thanks to Executor32 of the JK2 forums for creating this bot to share with the community! And of course a big thank-you to Raven/LEC for the original model. ; )

[Update: Metallus sends word that he has made a fix for the above bot file. If you were having problems before, give this file a try.]
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More Screensaver tidbits Kurgan Sunday, Mar 10 - 12:44 AM

A few alert readers have pointed out that there are more than just one or two new JK2 pictures in the third screensaver posted on the official Jedi Outcast page.

To save on bandwidth, some captures of these new screenshots (which can be viewed in full quality in the downloaded screensaver) have been put into a zip file for offline viewing.

Download the file here.

Special thanks to sithuser for sending this one in.
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