LucasArts looking for Devs with FPS experience...RepComm II likley...

[FDOIRex]

A couple months back, you may recall that Lucasarts liscensed the Unreal Engune, the one used to make the original Republic Commando(Link http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/26/lucasarts-licenses-unreal-engine-3-for-long-term-multi-project/) Now it's getting more intense. I'll let you see for yourself:

http://shogungamer.com/news/lucasarts-now-looking-devs-fps-experience-could-franchise-revival-be-inbound

This is after a rep at LA said they would "Look into older properties if TOR did well", and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 3 was cancelled (thankfully). LA has a ton of bored devs, so what could they be working on?

[Drake Vhett]

With FPS devs? Battlefront and Jedi Academy both featured shooting as a form of combat, to varying degrees of importance.

[Rune]

And Battlefront was a good game.

So if we include RC in the FPS list, we've got a 2-in-3 chance of this turning out well, if it turns out at all. I'll take those odds. Especially considering I have nothing invested in the result.

[Jaig]

And while Battlefront and RC were fantastic games, my overall favorite SW game was Jedi Knight II.  I may get jumped on for this, but with incredible weapon variety, Force powers that were actually useful, and non-linear lightsaber combat that was downright fun, I thought it a lot more fun and innovative than RC was. While RC was awesome with its weapons and its acting and its level design, I will admit, it never really made me feel like a badass clone commando, it really just made me feel like a grunt with more health than usual. While RC failed to make me feel like a clone, JK2 definitely made me feel like a Jedi. So if you add that and TOR, that's a three out of four. Again, good odds.

[Delta 42]

But was Jedi Knight made with the Unreal engine?

[flyboy424]

According to Wikipedia JKII and JA both use the Quake engine.  Both were also not developed by LA in-house, instead they were made by Raven Software and simply published by LA (in association with Activision).

Doesn't really matter who is developing it though or what engine they're using, LA should have the rights for the franchise and so its their decision what to make.

[FDOIRex]

For the record, Battlefront is a Third-person shooter, thus making the options for this being:

1) RepComm
2) Jedi Knight
3) New IP

I doubt JK for two reasons:
1) Branding - If you were an eight-year-old who bought a game called Jedi Knight and got a FPS, would you be confused? I think LA wouldn't want to risk something like that.
2) Engine - LA has it's own engine from TFU, one which already has all the wacky force powers in it.That things literally made for force-based games, and I feel LA would use that for a new JK

This leaves a new RepComm and a new IP as the most likley options.

[Delta 42]

Battlefront can switch between FPS and TPS.

[FDOIRex]

Battlefront can switch between FPS and TPS.

I know, but it's a TPS with a bonus FPS mode. The FPS part was made as an extension. It's nothing to bring in a dev over.

[H-BOMB]

A current gen remake of the original Dark Forces game would be epic.

[Drake Vhett]

It's nothing to bring in a dev over.

You don't have "Third-Person Shooter" developers. Well, unless that make a Third-Person game. Developers can be independent of their genre. The developers brought in are called "First-Person-Shooter" developers because they worked on First Person games.

I know, but it's a TPS with a bonus FPS mode. The FPS part was made as an extension.

And I think that's just a load of bull. It was simply a good choice on the developer's part to allow players to choose. That way people familiar with both First-Person and Third-Person shooters will buy and play.

I doubt JK for two reasons:
1) Branding - If you were an eight-year-old who bought a game called Jedi Knight and got a FPS, would you be confused? I think LA wouldn't want to risk something like that.

So they can't just be hiring specialists to work on the First-Person part of the game(ie. when you hold a firearm) and hire/have other specialists to work on the Third-Person (ie. light-saber) part?

2) Engine - LA has it's own engine from TFU, one which already has all the wacky force powers in it.That things literally made for force-based games, and I feel LA would use that for a new JK

Oh, you mean the Havok Engine, which in no way, shape, or form was developed for the sole purpose of allowing force-powers to be in a video game, and was instead used so the developers could poorly utilize it's destructible object aspects, and is not a Lucas Arts developed system but rather made by an Irish company also called Havok? Which since the release of The Force Unleashed has been handily replaced by the Frostbite 2.0 Engine, with the Unreal Engine being in second place?

[FDOIRex]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphoria_(software)

Due it it's destructiave enviroments and effort at making better NPC ragdolls,I'd say it's better for the force than Unreal.

[flyboy424]

Well, considering its a dedicated physics engine rather then Unreal which is an all-in-one solution it goes without saying that it will be a better system.

Ultimately though, Unreal can still be augmented with your own code so LA could easily write their own force-physics system to work with Unreal and use that for a new JK/force-using game.

[Drake Vhett]

I never said the Unreal Engine was better for showcasing the force, I said it bypassed the Havok engine. In quality. Because it is a all-in-one system. Which is good for an all-in-on game system like Jedi Knight. You know, with the shooting, stabbing, vehicle driving, etc. Opposed to the stab, push, stab, push, shock gameplay of The Force Unleashed.

[FDOIRex]

Look, It's nit that LA can't adapt Unreal, but I am saying a new JK be made quicker/better with the Euphoria/Havok engines, with a little bit of tweaking.

As for Battlefront, hiring a person with FPS experience is only nessasary for level design, because that's where the big deal is. In TPS, the player can see behind themselves whenever, without ceasing moving. FPS doesn't have this. Thus, level design would be much different.

[Drake Vhett]

Did you play The Force Unleashed, and witness the same four breaking patterns for each material type? I did. Someone at Lucas Arts realized that they're in-house workers can't use Havok engine, so they decided to have a go at the Unreal Engine. Or it was cheaper. Or maybe they just felt like it. It really doesn't matter.

Assuming that a Battlefront game would be in Third-Person. The fact that I originally typed "Battlefield", a First-Person Shooter is just an example of one of the many First-Person Shooters in the market. The booming, multi-million dollar market. I can think of three Third-Person Shooters off the top of my head, and one still has you in First-Person mode when not in cover.

As for level design being different, not necessarily. Battlefront games have always been the large, sprawling maps that you can get lost in. Which managed to pull of First-, and Third-Person Shooting styles simultaneously. If you are hiring someone with First-Person experience, that can mean a wide variety of things. Someone who worked level design, gameplay, or even environment design could be called "First-Person Shooter" developers if they worked on a First-Person Shooter in the past.

A guy who worked on Unreal Tournament 3(First-Person) worked on Gears of War 2(Third-Person) and, for example, could be called both a First- and Third-Person developer.

[flyboy424]

As for Battlefront, hiring a person with FPS experience is only nessasary for level design, because that's where the big deal is. In TPS, the player can see behind themselves whenever, without ceasing moving. FPS doesn't have this. Thus, level design would be much different.

Actually, I'd say that level design is one of the least different areas between TPS and FPS games as the only real difference to take into account is that you have more peripheral vision in third person, otherwise the shooting mechanics are the same.  In actuality there is a big technical difference between first- and third-person mechanics.

First, you have the camera.  In a FPS the camera in a fixed position relative to the player's body.  In a TPS it moves around a fixed position relative to the player's body.  This little difference completely changes logic in the algorithm necessery to make the camera work.

Another one is what the player sees in terms of their character.  In a TPS the characters full body is rendered, wheras in an FPS only the arms and weapon(s) need to be rendered.

I could go on, but hopefully you can see that game programming is far from being as simple as most people think.