http://www.kotf.com/
For those who don't know. It's a TC for JKA that looks quite impressive (all major battles from the SW Saga being playable in single player, new features, etc.)
For those who are familiar with this mod: What do you think?
Anyway, apparently there's a debate going on in the JKA modding community dealing with whether it's a real mod or fake.
It was summed up on the Filefront forums by a moderator there pretty well:
Personally, I hope the mod is real because I think it looks pretty good. There's even a demo for it, but unfortunately it seems that there is quite a lot of evidence that shows that it could be fake.
For those who don't know. It's a TC for JKA that looks quite impressive (all major battles from the SW Saga being playable in single player, new features, etc.)
For those who are familiar with this mod: What do you think?
Anyway, apparently there's a debate going on in the JKA modding community dealing with whether it's a real mod or fake.
It was summed up on the Filefront forums by a moderator there pretty well:
Quote:
Points presented by those who believe KotF is not real:
- Many of the things the mod claims to do (AI modification; non-humanoid player character types; higher NPC/saber/vehicle/map limits than baseJKA; playing as multiple characters on one stage and switching between them; etc) are simply not possible, as you cannot do them without the singleplayer source code - which has never been released to anyone outside of Raven Software or LucasArts' dev teams.
- There's no irrefutable evidence to prove that KotF is real, and what evidence has been given doesn't show anything that couldn't have been faked.
- The concerns of those dubious over the mod's existence have not been dispelled by KotF's supporters, and in many cases they merely avoid the question entirely. KotF's forums are moderated in a way where it is not allowed for anyone to express these doubts and ask for a resolution to them, even if they do it in the most polite way possible. This leads some people to believe that these questions/concerns are avoided because they cannot be resolved.
- Materials provided (demo, screenshots and trailer) do not provide any definitive proof, as they could easily be reproduced by many people within the community with no modding done at all (using baseJKA).
- While the demo does things baseJKA never did, it did not utilise any features which weren't present and entirely usable in baseJKA. The only difference is that Raven Software did not use them, rather than that they did not exist until KotF came along.
- Regardless of the length of the trailer, it still doesn't show anything that isn't perfectly possible within baseJKA or that would need modding in.
- The screenshots again could easily have been made in baseJKA. People make screenshots like that for JKFiles PotD every day! The ones that weren't taken from baseJKA could have easily been Photoshopped. Screenshots are never good proof of anything.
- "If the mod really is real, why are the KotF supporters acting like desperate fanatics, making a drama out of this to convince everyone?" {Quoted from a deleted post earlier in the thread.}
Points presented by KotF supporters:
- The mod has gained extensive media coverage.
- The demo does stuff baseJKA doesn't do.
- The trailer is 37 minutes long.
- What about all those screenshots?
- Permissions were gained for all of the resources used in KotF.
On the issue of "Is it a scam?":
NO - Without those donations Tim wouldn't have had a good enough PC to finish KotF, he improved the engine that much!
YES - He did not improve the engine at all, simply because it is not possible to do so. Singleplayer source code was never released, and the Multiplayer SDK does not give the ability to modify the game engine, only basic mechanics.
NO - His older PC couldn't run 3DS Max or GtkRadiant. He needed to upgrade so that we could get the mod?
YES - 3DS Max 8 and GtkRadiant 1.5.0 have incredibly low system requirements. Also, since Tim didn't make any of the maps or models or skins included, he didn't even need to use Radiant, 3DS Max or Photoshop.
NO - The donations kept the website online. Without them he wouldn't have been able to afford it!
YES - That's just an excuse. Web hosting on average costs less than $10 a month for premium plans, even in Turkey.
Reasons why this mod is now considered a violation of network policies:
- Profit has been made from it. As much as KotF supporters like to argue that "it's not illegal because it's optional and he's not selling the mod", they are sadly incorrect. Money may not be made from any element of a mod project in any way shape or form - be it the website, game servers, computer upgrades, or anything else. It's clearly stated in LucasArt's policies.
- If the mod is indeed real, then it has been made using illegally reverse-engineered components of the game engine, as that is the only way Tim could have possibly gotten the source code needed to do many of the things this mod claims to have done. Hence why I labelled it "warez", since decompilation of software is a warez topic, something expressly forbidden under our forum guidelines and the FileFront Acceptable Use Policy.
- I've emailed the creators of a good percentage of the resources used for KotF, and according to them permissions have not been obtained, and no attempt was ever made to get permissions. This makes it outright theft - a violation of the Plagiarism Policy which we enforce in order to protect the rights of modders.
- It is also theft of intellectual property, as labelled under the FileFront Acceptable Use Policy.
- If KotF is real and it's claim to "run seperately from Jedi Academy" is true, then it is in direct violation of not only the End User License Agreement but also the LucasArts Modding Policy.
Reasons why I am now closing this thread:
- Everything under the "Reasons why this mod is now considered a violation of network policy" heading.
- Nothing new is being added to the discussion, we're just retreading the same old points and it's doing nothing more than adding people's post counts.
- This project has been confirmed to be in violation of several United States laws in correspondence with LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC's legal affairs department. Whether they will carry out legal proceedings or not, I do not know, and will not know as they are forbidden to tell us under some inane privacy act I've never even heard of. However, these forums follow United States law just as much as they follow the word of the administrators.
- It's beginning to create a sort of "civil war" within the community because some individuals are beginning to create a soap opera out of it. I really should have expected people to dramatise such a trivial matter, but I guess I trusted the better judgement of the human species on this one.
I've referenced several documents, which you can read by clicking the following links:
FileFront Acceptable Use Policy
Ziff Davis Media Terms of Use
LucasArts Modding Policy (JKFiles)
FileFront Forum Guidelines
Copies of the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy End User License Agreement are available on request, by emailing me. Alternately, you can find it in the back page of the manual (if your copy of the game came with one). I'll add the EULA into a document on JKFiles tomorrow for reference.
I can assure everyone that this is not a crusade, and none of us have anything against the KotF supporters on a personal level.
I'd also rather like to address some of the personal comments directed at me from the KotF forums, but I shall refrain as it obviously won't get through. However, for those people who did aim comments at me, let me say the following:
I will gracefully concede on any topic, if you can back up your words with enough evidence to prove that I am wrong.
Remember one thing, everyone. Your opinion is yours, and yours alone. Take whichever side of the debate you believe to be right, however I ask only one thing before you do: don't go purely by what is said. Even in a court of law, words are not enough to make a conviction stand.
Before deciding who is right and who is wrong, I ask that you look at the evidence (or in some cases the lack of it), and the crediting/discrediting of any evidence, presented by both sides of the debate.
Anyway, I'm now locking this thread after deliberation between (and advice from) several other forum/network staff members and myself. Consensus was that the topic has pretty much gone full circle and is now running over it's own tail repeatedly, and could get nasty if allowed to continue. This was not a decision I took myself - I consulted several other staff members unaffiliated with JKFiles to have a look and give me their feedback.
If you believe I am acting wrongfully in locking the topic, then please contact n0e and ask him to discuss this matter with me so that I may present him with all the information from both sides of the debate and allow him to make the final judgement.
- Many of the things the mod claims to do (AI modification; non-humanoid player character types; higher NPC/saber/vehicle/map limits than baseJKA; playing as multiple characters on one stage and switching between them; etc) are simply not possible, as you cannot do them without the singleplayer source code - which has never been released to anyone outside of Raven Software or LucasArts' dev teams.
- There's no irrefutable evidence to prove that KotF is real, and what evidence has been given doesn't show anything that couldn't have been faked.
- The concerns of those dubious over the mod's existence have not been dispelled by KotF's supporters, and in many cases they merely avoid the question entirely. KotF's forums are moderated in a way where it is not allowed for anyone to express these doubts and ask for a resolution to them, even if they do it in the most polite way possible. This leads some people to believe that these questions/concerns are avoided because they cannot be resolved.
- Materials provided (demo, screenshots and trailer) do not provide any definitive proof, as they could easily be reproduced by many people within the community with no modding done at all (using baseJKA).
- While the demo does things baseJKA never did, it did not utilise any features which weren't present and entirely usable in baseJKA. The only difference is that Raven Software did not use them, rather than that they did not exist until KotF came along.
- Regardless of the length of the trailer, it still doesn't show anything that isn't perfectly possible within baseJKA or that would need modding in.
- The screenshots again could easily have been made in baseJKA. People make screenshots like that for JKFiles PotD every day! The ones that weren't taken from baseJKA could have easily been Photoshopped. Screenshots are never good proof of anything.
- "If the mod really is real, why are the KotF supporters acting like desperate fanatics, making a drama out of this to convince everyone?" {Quoted from a deleted post earlier in the thread.}
Points presented by KotF supporters:
- The mod has gained extensive media coverage.
- The demo does stuff baseJKA doesn't do.
- The trailer is 37 minutes long.
- What about all those screenshots?
- Permissions were gained for all of the resources used in KotF.
On the issue of "Is it a scam?":
NO - Without those donations Tim wouldn't have had a good enough PC to finish KotF, he improved the engine that much!
YES - He did not improve the engine at all, simply because it is not possible to do so. Singleplayer source code was never released, and the Multiplayer SDK does not give the ability to modify the game engine, only basic mechanics.
NO - His older PC couldn't run 3DS Max or GtkRadiant. He needed to upgrade so that we could get the mod?
YES - 3DS Max 8 and GtkRadiant 1.5.0 have incredibly low system requirements. Also, since Tim didn't make any of the maps or models or skins included, he didn't even need to use Radiant, 3DS Max or Photoshop.
NO - The donations kept the website online. Without them he wouldn't have been able to afford it!
YES - That's just an excuse. Web hosting on average costs less than $10 a month for premium plans, even in Turkey.
Reasons why this mod is now considered a violation of network policies:
- Profit has been made from it. As much as KotF supporters like to argue that "it's not illegal because it's optional and he's not selling the mod", they are sadly incorrect. Money may not be made from any element of a mod project in any way shape or form - be it the website, game servers, computer upgrades, or anything else. It's clearly stated in LucasArt's policies.
- If the mod is indeed real, then it has been made using illegally reverse-engineered components of the game engine, as that is the only way Tim could have possibly gotten the source code needed to do many of the things this mod claims to have done. Hence why I labelled it "warez", since decompilation of software is a warez topic, something expressly forbidden under our forum guidelines and the FileFront Acceptable Use Policy.
- I've emailed the creators of a good percentage of the resources used for KotF, and according to them permissions have not been obtained, and no attempt was ever made to get permissions. This makes it outright theft - a violation of the Plagiarism Policy which we enforce in order to protect the rights of modders.
- It is also theft of intellectual property, as labelled under the FileFront Acceptable Use Policy.
- If KotF is real and it's claim to "run seperately from Jedi Academy" is true, then it is in direct violation of not only the End User License Agreement but also the LucasArts Modding Policy.
Reasons why I am now closing this thread:
- Everything under the "Reasons why this mod is now considered a violation of network policy" heading.
- Nothing new is being added to the discussion, we're just retreading the same old points and it's doing nothing more than adding people's post counts.
- This project has been confirmed to be in violation of several United States laws in correspondence with LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC's legal affairs department. Whether they will carry out legal proceedings or not, I do not know, and will not know as they are forbidden to tell us under some inane privacy act I've never even heard of. However, these forums follow United States law just as much as they follow the word of the administrators.
- It's beginning to create a sort of "civil war" within the community because some individuals are beginning to create a soap opera out of it. I really should have expected people to dramatise such a trivial matter, but I guess I trusted the better judgement of the human species on this one.
I've referenced several documents, which you can read by clicking the following links:
FileFront Acceptable Use Policy
Ziff Davis Media Terms of Use
LucasArts Modding Policy (JKFiles)
FileFront Forum Guidelines
Copies of the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy End User License Agreement are available on request, by emailing me. Alternately, you can find it in the back page of the manual (if your copy of the game came with one). I'll add the EULA into a document on JKFiles tomorrow for reference.
I can assure everyone that this is not a crusade, and none of us have anything against the KotF supporters on a personal level.
I'd also rather like to address some of the personal comments directed at me from the KotF forums, but I shall refrain as it obviously won't get through. However, for those people who did aim comments at me, let me say the following:
I will gracefully concede on any topic, if you can back up your words with enough evidence to prove that I am wrong.
Remember one thing, everyone. Your opinion is yours, and yours alone. Take whichever side of the debate you believe to be right, however I ask only one thing before you do: don't go purely by what is said. Even in a court of law, words are not enough to make a conviction stand.
Before deciding who is right and who is wrong, I ask that you look at the evidence (or in some cases the lack of it), and the crediting/discrediting of any evidence, presented by both sides of the debate.
Anyway, I'm now locking this thread after deliberation between (and advice from) several other forum/network staff members and myself. Consensus was that the topic has pretty much gone full circle and is now running over it's own tail repeatedly, and could get nasty if allowed to continue. This was not a decision I took myself - I consulted several other staff members unaffiliated with JKFiles to have a look and give me their feedback.
If you believe I am acting wrongfully in locking the topic, then please contact n0e and ask him to discuss this matter with me so that I may present him with all the information from both sides of the debate and allow him to make the final judgement.
Personally, I hope the mod is real because I think it looks pretty good. There's even a demo for it, but unfortunately it seems that there is quite a lot of evidence that shows that it could be fake.
