RIP LucasArts

[Vibe]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/03/disney-shutters-lucasarts/

my hopes for a new Jedi Knight game are crushed, 10 years of waiting disintegrated, my dreams are destroyed, my life is nil

leave me alone
let me cry myself to sleep

EDIT: actually, come to think of it, this might actually be a good change

[Tibe]

[Molly]

Just read it this morning and this is a sad news. Another Legend biting the dust...

[Vibe]

Actually I'm more and more on the side of this being a good move here. Just take a look at the past few years of what these guys put out - it's mostly utter crap.

From the Jedi Knight series beyond Dark Forces II, meaning Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, wasn't even developed by LucasArts, only published.

The good stuff LucasArts themselves developed was long ago, and by now probably 90% of the team was different people. This good stuff includes:

Full Throttle

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Loom

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Grim Fandango

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Monkey Island

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


X-Wing Series

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

visitors can't see pics , please register or login



Other ones were either only published by them or shite. So this change to licensing model gives other game development studios a chance to make their own Star Wars games. I mean, let's be honest: even if they kept LucasArts, it would still be goddamn Disney calling the shots - my expectations for any proper game were close to null when I saw Disney take over.

[Molly]

Yea, maybe you're right.

The last remakes of Monkey Island 1 and 2 were actually pretty good and already done by outsourcing them to another studio.

Here is hope to remakes of Maniac Mansion, Zac McKracken and Indiana Jones.

...cuz when I think about it, the cult of LucasArts - at least for me, just personal opinion - comes from those gorgeous adventures they made. Never cared much about StarWars myself...

[Vibe]

Yea, maybe you're right.

The last remakes of Monkey Island 1 and 2 were actually pretty good and already done by outsourcing them to another studio.

Here is hope to remakes of Maniac Mansion, Zac McKracken and Indiana Jones.

...cuz when I think about it, the cult of LucasArts - at least for me, just personal opinion - comes from those gorgeous adventures they made. Never cared much about StarWars myself...

Yeah, the adventure games were amazing. I enjoyed Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Monkey Island a lot.

[Bjord]

IMO, this was to be expected after The Farce Unleashed.

Shame they had to pack up the bags and close down their Star Wars: 1313 project though, looked kinda cool.

[Molly]

How could I forget this one 

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


A nice remake with the same love to detail as the original? Insta-buy for me! I loved Day of the Tentacle...

[okiN]

Yeah, I definitely won't miss LucasArts, at least not how they were now. They haven't made anything good in so many years that they were just living on borrowed time. The LucasArts we all loved died a long time ago.

[Grumbs]

I was kind of disappointed to start with, but then i'm with Vibe and others after thinking about it. My interest in Lucasarts pretty much only extends to the old adventure games, and that is like 10+ years ago. Maybe they will look at the old IP's and see what they can do with them, but i'm not holding my breath. Its not like Lucasarts cared about them either

[IR_Kuoin]

This means no Republic commando 2, the game I've been waiting for since it had a cliff ending, its been 8 years since it came out and it still got enough players for full quite a few 32 matches.

[Vibe]

Raven releases Jedi Knight II source code

http://kotaku.com/lucasarts-closure-convinces-developers-to-release-awes-468994505

Hope something good comes out of it.

Here's a few funny comments people found in the code:

Code: [Select]

// there has to be a better way than this...
//We can do this, we have the memory
// if we don't call OTLook, things wedge
// don't spew tons of messages

Code: [Select]

// Do I Have A Leader?
// AM I A Leader?
// If Our Leader Is Dead, Clear Him Out
// If My Leader Isn't His Own Leader, Then, Use His Leader
// Eh. Can this get more confusing?

Code: [Select]

//FIXME: just make a flag, dude!
//never taunt these mindless creatures (Found under the code for the Rancor)
//hmm, bosses should do this less against the player
//FIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXMEFIXME
//desann doesn't do these kind of frilly acrobatics
//boss-level guys can multitask, the rest need to chill out during special moves

Code: [Select]

//I'm to his right
{enemy jump code}
//fuck, jump instead
{enemy roll code}
//fuck it, just force it

Code: [Select]

//on ground and not moving and on level ground, no reason to do stupid fucking gravity with the clipvelocity!!!!
//SIGH... fucks him up BAD
//SIGH... spine wiggles fuck all this shit
//just get the fuck out
//FUCK IT, always check for do not enter...
//ask them what the fuck they're doing
// Need to extern these. We can't #include qcommon.h because some fuckwit used LS_NONE to mean both a lightstyle and a sabermove.

[Bjord]

Why? There are plenty of total conversion mods for JKA, one which was really fun. Doubt anything will come of it.

[[ptx]]

Because source code > modding tools. A fuckton more can be done, way past total conversion mods

[Bjord]

Well, I'm referring to Moviebattles 2 for JKA. It pretty much feels like they bypassed everything that was hardcoded. Plus the game itself had great mod support.

To be more precise, I don't know what else they could possibly code to considerably improve the immersion. Perhaps improve the code for JKA itself and create a stabler client etc, but beyond that I'm clueless.

Only time will tell anyway.