LotOR Dev Diary #7 - Beta and the road ahead
Published on November 13, 2021 by The24thDS
DISCLAIMER: The following images have been taken from a Work In Progress version of the mod and don't represent the final product.
Greetings and welcome to Developer Diary 7 for Legacy of the Old Republic! Today we will be discussing the current state of the mod, what to expect upon public release, and beta testing.
Greetings and welcome to Developer Diary 7 for Legacy of the Old Republic! Today we will be discussing the current state of the mod, what to expect upon public release, and beta testing.
State of the Mod
Work on Legacy of the Old Republic has been going on for roughly 14 months now. We managed a lot in that time and had a lot of concept changes. As usual these mostly manifested in additional things we wanted to include in the mod as well as a few scrapped ideas. These range from mechanics to events to other features.
One example of a scrapped idea is the way how the manpower resource is produced. We planned for it to come from pops directly which seemed to work fine but in the end the game's AI was too confused by this process despite it being nearly identical to the Lithoid traits. This meant that we needed to switch it to being produced by military and administrative buildings.
One example of a scrapped idea is the way how the manpower resource is produced. We planned for it to come from pops directly which seemed to work fine but in the end the game's AI was too confused by this process despite it being nearly identical to the Lithoid traits. This meant that we needed to switch it to being produced by military and administrative buildings.
It is a bit hard to evaluate the progress of a rather complex mod like a total conversion but for the past three to four months, our mod has been in stable and playable state. All that remains now is weapon balance as it isn’t easy to gather data from watching the AI fight each other. Another area that will need some work is the Outer Rim ships which need their locators and engine particles added.
Additionally, we are currently adding flavor, events, and new ways to use certain resources as well as revising smaller 2D assets to help enhance the experience.
What To Expect On Release
We plan to release the mod with version 0.9 which means that most of the planned features are implemented. Upon release of our initial version, you should expect a completely playable version of our mod that has the following features:
- A vanilla-like gameplay set in the Old Republic era of galactic history
- a vanilla like economy with a few new era appropriate resources
- Revamped visuals for tradition trees, districts, buildings
- Revamped but vanilla like technologies
- A new galaxy map
- Roughly 30ish Star Wars empires with their own portraits, rooms, civics, etc.
- Shipsets for the Sith Empire, Republic, Hutts, Kuat, Outer Rim, Mandalorians, and generic empires.
- Era appropriate music i.e. none of John Williams score from the prequel/original/sequel trilogies
- New traditions for specific empires or paths (Jedi/Sith)
- A variety of generic events to make the galaxy more immersive
- Planet State system for smaller empires such as Manaan and Kuat
- an adaption of the Dark UI - OrangeGold
- and more.
With that being said, it's important to remember that version 0.9 is not our complete vision for the project, acting merely as the foundation and only covers the period from the end of the Great Hyperspace War through the Mandalorian Wars. This means that on release, there will be no events or scenarios related to the Jedi Civil War, the Great Galactic War, Zakuul, or the Nihil. These periods will be addressed in themed updates post-release.
Example of a story event
Example of a new tradition
Beta Application
To avoid having the mod leaked, we decided on a rather small closed beta (roughly 5 people). If you wish to participate, join the Renegade Modding Community Discord and search for the #lotor_talk channel under the incubator section.
Based on feedback from our testers, we will determine if everything is on track for a December 2021 release of 0.9 or if it will be delayed until early 2022.
This is everything for now, the next dev diary is not planned yet but will most likely focus on our findings from the beta as well as an announcement of a release date or delay.