For what purpose is unclear, but speculation on what the domain portends ranges from an Ewok action playset to a social game.
Whatever it is, be excited.
Source: Fusible
Articles
Develop reports that the "3D digital paint tool" Mari has received a new update with version 1.5. The features include "improved overlapping UV support, games shaders, a Maya texture export feature, shadow support and DDS Cubemap support."
The relevance is that LucasArts is using the tool for Star Wars 1313.
“Integrating Mari at LucasArts for Star Wars 1313 helped us work a lot more efficiently and contributed to making the game visually stunning,” said LucasArts visual effects supervisor Kim Libreri.
Source: Develop
A few weeks ago Eurogamer posted a comprehensive look at the world's first MMO, LucasFilm Games' Habitat, we missed it due to being preoccupied with dissecting the Star Wars: 1313 trailer. The story brings up many traits and issues that occur in MMOs to this day.
While Habitat's first economic hiccup caused the in-game currency to be diluted by a factor of five, the team still took a valuable lesson about player negotiation from the experience - one that would come in handy for Habitat's biggest event, the Dungeons of Death.
Prefaced for weeks by adverts in Habitat's user-made newspaper, The Weekly Rant, the Dungeon was supposedly a colossal maze inhabited by the Grim Reaper himself. In reality the role of the Reaper fell to a series of staffers who took turns to patrol the maze with two unique items; one for healing themselves of damage, the other for instantly killing players.
After weeks of planning the Dungeon opened and became an immediate sensation; excited players would dash through, firing in useless terror whenever the Reaper appeared and trying to map a way to victory as they went. It worked perfectly...until someone managed to kill the Reaper and take his weapon from him. Twice.Quite a fascinating article, all in all.
Source: Eurogamer
El33tonline came back from Gamescom 2012 with a lot of impressions of Star Wars 1313 after witnessing a live demo emceed by Craig Derrick. To these eager journalists, the producer of the Monkey Island special editions hilariously described the title as the first mature-themed game made by his near thirty year old studio of employ. How so? Because it's "about what it means to be a bounty hunter, it’s about surviving this dangerous world." (Aka your standard issue adolescent wish-fulfillment game.)
Perhaps even more encouragingly, LucasArts is proving that they have nothing to conceal when it comes to Star Wars 1313's framerate:
Our live demo of Star Wars 1313 was running on what appeared to be a PC of epic proportions, and I soon discovered why there was so much power necessary – visually, the game is quite simply jaw-dropping. Within the very first few split-seconds of the real-time demo beginning, the first question I had on my mind was ‘Is this a pre-rendered cut-scene?’
The developers have chosen to put a framerate counter in the corner of the screen for demonstration purposes to let those watching know it is indeed real-time, and the counter was (for the most part) locked at 33.22 frames (with a few tiny drops and increases here and there). In previous demos, the framerate counter wasn’t there, which lead to too many questions about the nature of the presentation, so they thought it was a good idea to clear up any misconceptions and put it back in.
Read the whole interview to learn about the content of the demo as well as check out some new screenshots. It was noted that the game remains in early development so no release window is being made public yet.
Finally, enjoy this brand new trailer from Gamescom. I'll be savoring it particularly because I'm beginning to have my doubts that Mom is going to let me buy a game this freaking mature!
Source: El33tonline
Between watching and commenting on German TV, Craig Derrick takes the time to answer questions from ex-Mojoers such as Narrative Web Squirrel:
@craigderrick please please plz return to making non-star wars games using your adventure games licences. The world misses games with story.
@WebSquirrel The Special Editions were always just the beginning so as long as I'm there you can count on me pushing for new adventure games
Keep pushing, Craig!
Remember a few years ago when LEC started putting just enough of its classic SNES games on Nintendo's Virtual Console service to trick us into loving again and actually believe that it signaled routine?
Boy, they sure got us good! But the tease did result in something other than heartbreak; our excitement at the time translated to my (even then) way belated reviews of Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Ghoul Patrol. Like the majority of Mojo's content it all got waxed by MojoX's scorched earth policy, but they're back now after some diligent shoveling and careful HTML-to-BBCode surgery, which should never be attempted without safety goggles. Enjoy:
Indiana Jones' Greatest AdventuresZombies Ate My Neighbors
Ghoul Patrol
Something this recovery effort puts into sharp relief for me is the woeful lack of reviews (not counting the ones awaiting re-publication) Mojo has of LucasArts' largely incredible back catalogue. You know, that bevy of non-adventure stuff that was really good? Any of you guys wanting to help us out there really ought to drop us a line.
A really good article appeared on 1up today. It is apparently a summary or reaction to David Fox's recent talk at Classic Gaming Expo and recollects the "bold experiment" of Lucasfilm Games back in its earliest days, days characterized by a ton of freedom for the developers, a non-Star Wars mandate, and even input from George Lucas that was slightly greater than zero percent. It's suggested that the studio's uniquely fertile situation (read: a small team of tech geniuses operating autonomously under basically no deadlines) is what resulted in its ambitious early successes and what paved the way for its peak years. You know, the ones that are miles behind us.
It's a preaching-to-the-choir kinda article, but it's nice to be pandered to on occasion and it's always lovely to see the studio's formative years get some appreciation. Also, there's a throwaway reference to Fox currently working on an "official Rube Goldberg game." I wonder what all that's about?
Update by Zaarin: Check out the Rube Golderg Game's Twitter account for the latest updates.
Source: 1up
The presidency at LucasArts has a very short shelf life these days. LucasArts president Paul Meegan has stepped down from his position at LucasArts.
Mich Chau, President and Chief Operating Officer for Lucasfilm had the following to say:
Paul has been a valuable member of the Lucasfilm leadership team and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. We remain committed to our current projects and will be re-evaluating LucasArts’ leadership needs to ensure that we make the right decisions to keep the studio focused.
The decisions of every LucasArts president since Jim Ward has been to make massive layoffs and cancel projects upon their arrival. It remains to be seen if this vicious cycle continues, but history has shown us that it probably will.
Update: The Verge reports that there's two people filling in to co-lead the company, Kevin Parker as interim head of business operations and Gio Corsi as interim head of studio production.
The idea of having two people run the company seems like a sensible one, keeping the business side and the creative side separate. It's unlikely that structure will continue when a permanent president is chosen, however.
Source: Threepwood4life
As was announced earlier this year, LucasArts is following up its two years of absolute stasis with - I can't believe they're taking this gamble - a new Star Wars game, one that impressed so much at E3 that a number of people, including this guy, are completely sold on LucasArts as a developer. Jesus is a grudge-bearing asshole compared to the attitude of forgiveness fans of ubiquitous franchises catch when you open the spigot back up.
The full article on Digital Trends features many quotes from Star Wars 1313's creative director Dominic Robilliard, who discusses the ninety-seventh internal reorganization that led to the fructifying environment the development team enjoys today, until oppportunistic hindsight decides ten years from now that this was actually another big mess that we've now totally fixed for real this time.
Much is implied by the author about how the new guard has ostensibly turned the studio around and put it back on track or something, but I couldn't help but focus on this part:
Robilliard joined LucasArts a little more than four years ago, coming from Sony where he worked on the Getaway franchise and the “on hold” action game, Eight Days. Since he came on board, he’s worked on the Special Edition re-release of The Secret of Monkey Island and the puzzle-platformer Lucidity. He originally signed up with LucasArts to work on a game that was apparently canceled after the studio’s administration changed in 2010, so 1313 marks his first crack at Star Wars that we know of.
It's certainly a relief to know that LEC is taking developers who were originally being put on smaller, interesting projects before getting their heads on straight and just assigning them to additional Star Wars. It is sensible to be delighted by this because this is after all going to be Competent Additional Star Wars instead of Mediocre Additional Star Wars, and why would you possibly want something other than Competent Additional Star Wars from the company that once did this?
Source: Digital Trends
So you picked up the Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords in the bundle that has just been released with the original Knights of the Old Republic for PC by LucasArts. You may be wondering why The Sith Lords feels unfinished. That's because it was. LucasArts had Obsidian rush the game to make a Christmas 2004 release. That meant they had to delete or truncate a lot of content that was meant for the game, including the ending. Obsidian reportedly requested that LucasArts release an official update to the game to restore the game to Obsidian's original vision, but LucasArts denied the request.
Luckily, Obsidian included the cut content in the game's data files, and fans have gone to work restoring it. There was a fan project called The Sith Lords Restoration Project, but that project was uncompleted and the team disbanded in 2010. The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod has been filling that void. The newest release, 1.8, was released a few days ago. This release fixes many of the bugs from the official release and adds all of the deleted content that The Sith Lords Restoration Project did, as well as the rest of the cut content that the former mod intended to incorporate (which is all of the deleted content with the exception of the cut planet M4-78). You can view the full list of content the mod includes here.
ScummVM, the Sentimental Community Undertaking Maintaining Marvelous Visionary Masterpieces, is now at 1.5.0 with the release of "Picnic Basket".
Along with the 2D LucasArts adventure games, most 2D Humongous Entertainment games, and countless others, the new release supports another Humongous Entertainment game: Backyard Baseball 2003.
It also has new support for other games that don't fall under the Mojo banner: Blue Force, Dreamweb, Geisha, Soltys (including an English translation for the first time), and the children's games Gregory and the Hot Air Balloon, Magic Tales: Liam Finds a Story, Sleeping Cub's Test of Courage, and The Princess and the Crab.
With Valve recently releasing the software they used to produce the incredible 'Meet the team' videos for Team Fortress 2, it was only a matter of time before fans start utilising what is probably the most sophisticated machinima tool ever created to put together fantastic works of fiction, taking game fan videos to whole new levels of drama and intensity.
Oh, yeah. And to make stuff like this:
LucasArts is hiring for multiple positions relating to an unannounced first person shooter project. The job listings give a little bit of information about the project, especially the position of Gameplay Engineer, which requires proficiency in Unreal Engine 3 and UnrealScript.
It's unknown what this project is about (although I don't think it's a stretch to say it probably has to do with Star Wars), but it would seem that LucasArts still intends to put its contract for the Unreal Engine 3 to use. The project Clint Hocking was working on before he left LucasArts was said to use the Unreal Engine 3, but it's unknown whether or not this is the same project.
Source: Joystiq
It is being widely reported that high-profile LucasArts employee Clint Hocking (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2) has left LucasArts.
Clint Hocking is no longer working at LucasArts. The man behind the original Splinter Cell, Chaos Theory, and Far Cry 2 was working on an unannounced project for LucasArts (said to be something other than Star Wars 1313) as creative lead. In his surprisingly concise announcement post (Hocking's known for his verbosity), he said, "I recently left my job at LucasArts and am moving on to something new."
What this means for the unannounced project he was working on is anyone's guess, but given LucasArts' track record we can probably expect a wave of redundancies to follow.
1up has published an exaltation of the iMUSE system, particular its pioneering use in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. And it's hard to discount the truth the writer arrives at with this statement:
Needless to say, it's hard to think of any games outside the LucasArts oeuvre where the music is just so important and organic in the overall product.
You probably don't need any education about iMUSE, but read the article anyway.
Source: 1up
... and it has the potential not to suck? Maybe?
More news will be released at E3, but with keywords like "bounty hunter", "mature", and "action adventure" we will give 1313 the benefit of the doubt. For now. Go read the press release and make up your own mind.
Based on an invitation they extended to EGM, LucasArts will have at least one new game to show off at E3 this year. So what will it be? The perennially greenlit-and-then-cancelled Battlefront III? The aerial combat game implied by some job listings some time ago? Might we finally begin seeing some sort of video game shaped consequences of the "We hired Clint Hocking" and "We've licensed the Unreal 3 engine" announcements from like, well over a year ago?
I dunno, but even money says whatever it is will be unworthy of my time Star Wars-related. Not that it's the only thing you have to look forward to from LEC; as we told you a few weeks back, they're planning on issuing a re-release of the first two Knights of the Old Republic games sometime this year. And thank goodness, right? God knows there aren't oodles of less readily available games from their prestigious catalog that people would care to see back in circulation over a hidden gem like KOTOR.
JP Update: Gamezone is reporting that a 'first look' of this new Star Wars franchise will screen on GTTV on May 31, with gameplay footage to be shown on June 6th.
Source: EGM