Face to face, out in the heat, hanging tough, staying hungry, they stack the odds til we take to the street for we kill with the skill to survive, its the eye of the tiger, its the cream of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival and the last known surviver stalks his prey in the night and he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger

This probably isn't really newsworthy,--That's for sure.--but I thought I'd let you know anyway. Uh...cool. As ya'll may or may not have noticed, I started up a web page--Uh-oh.--to let people know about the progress on my levels. *shudder* It's called "Have Lightsaber Will Travel"--Is anyone else perplexed by this title?--(my long time sig... go figure) and it can be found at here. Cool. It's not very good,--No comment.--I know, but I'm still working on getting it to look better.

Anyway, what I really wanted to announce is that I have posted the background story for my next level, Stormtrooper:Vengeance, at the site.

Stomped: Why was the decision made to create a new engine for Obi-Wan, rather than update the Jedi Knight engine or license an engine from another company?

Bruner: The RenderDroid engine has served us well for many games (Jedi-Knight, MOTS, Grim Fandango and Jones3D) but was starting to really show it's age. It lacked a lot of the features that people expect from today's games. We needed an engine that could render lush Episode 1 worlds in great detail, support complex saber fighting animations, and allow for really cool force power interaction with stuff in the world. There wasn't an engine that supported everything well, so we decided to start fresh. We also try to leverage our technology across as many games. The Obi-Wan engine is very modular, and pieces of it are already getting used in other LucasArts games. I'd love for the Tanis engine to contribute to as many great games as RenderDroid has. Plus making a new engine is a lot of fun!

Stomped: What is your single favorite moment in the game?

Kaufman: There's currently a glyph that Obi-Wan can do which is very sneaky and probably not very honorable from a Jedi standpoint. He quickly drops down and sweeps the saber out with his wrist, cutting his hapless victim off at the ankles. It's a whole lot of fun. Also, most of the acrobatics and jumping stunts are in, so you can forward-flip and roll up to an enemy, who's just totally confused by these physics-defying Force leaps, and whack him on the head before he knows what's going on. It's a pretty good approximation of the wild choreography from the Maul versus Qui-Gon versus Obi-Wan fight, and it's also a whole lotta fun for the whole family.

And the coolest part is, there's MORE animation to come!

Schmitt: Honestly, its the saber combat. I have been reading a lot of posts about the glyphs and how they will be difficult to master these. Let me tell you this, it is not that hard to master, and when you do, they create some really satisfying moments in the game. I was watching one the LDs play his level and he was rushed by some Sith Agents. They started taunting him and before one agent had time to finish his taunt, he had executed a glyph that made Obi lunge his saber into the agents chest cutting his taunt off quick.

Millennium has finally got its counter and the poll started working again. Now I have a new poll for the site layout. I need the visitors' feedback.

On a side note, all the tutorials have been fixed for reads. I'll be adding more to the modification collection as time goes by. So check back.

A milestone in Rbots development. The all new redesigned alpha version of Rbots is now available for testing. This new version requires Mysteries of the Sith, although a Jedi Knight version is in the making.

New Features:

• Full lightsaber support
• Supports up to 30 bots per level
• Now runs much faster
• Easy creation of new bots (templates) - now uses standard mulitplayer models
• No restrictions on how many of each bot per level
• Easier to add Rbots to levels
• Different game play modes - sabers, guns, teams.
• Comes complete with all 55 multiplayer models included with MOTS

Head on over to the Rbots page for more information.

There has been an update on the SWTTC website (http://swttc.outpostd34.com). Not only is there a new Select pic, but we're announcing the fourth and final preview of the SWTTC, only this time, the fans get to choose which levels will be previewed! Go to the SWTTC website for more information.

We are also looking for new, talented editors to help put the finishing touches on the TC. Drop us an e-mail along with a sample of your work to be a part of this epic project!

Hello Son,

It seems you may be getting a little testy about incomplete level submissions. Take a deep breath and relax. Some people are unable to follow instructions or suggestions. Maybe you can invent a program that punishes the offenders physically.

Love Dad

What brought you to the gaming industry?

James : During my senior year of college I decided that creating Quake 2 single player levels was far more rewarding than going to class. Luckily this paid off as I got a job at a fledgling company a few months later, after which I landed my current gig at Legend where I worked extensively on Wheel of Time and now on Unreal 2.

Harvey : I applied for a test/QA position at Origin, almost 8 years ago.

A number of people have requested this COG from some unfinished work I did on a MotS SP level. This cog allows you to create the illusion of lava, with hissing sounds and spitting bits and smoke.

Simply define 5 things on your lava surface, placed randomly about, and assign these to the 5 things in the cog. Use the lava.wav for the sound and experiment with the timings to your liking. You can always use this cog more than once for a larger area.

Rbots is a project to create a "bot" for Jedi Knight. A bot is a computer controlled player for multiplayer games. It should react and play just like a human player - it has health, shields, limited ammo & weapons and when it dies it will 'respawn' to allow the game to continue. Multiple bots will battle amongst themselves as well as any number of human players.