Battlefront Classic Collection General Purpose Thread

[ChickenTendy]

What incredible news to see our beloved games being brought back to life!

I decided to create this thread to serve a few purposes.

1. Discuss Modding potential with the polished engine. i.e. PC online Galactic Conquest

2. Discuss console integration of mod support with it coming to Next Gen consoles.

To start, I'm curious if our modtools will work as normal with the new packaged content or if we will need to make a workaround. I suppose we shall see.

[Sporadia]

Prerelease speculation:

Hidden/Spoiler:

It's weird that they're bringing it to steam when BF2 (and possibly 1, idk) is already on steam. That's very much In the realm of we'll see if/how mods break next update. Everything else looks like a port to a new console so that's cool. (Correction: There shouldn't be a steam update. See edit 2. Also BF1 is on steam)

The mod tools ought to work (in the sense of being able to munge lua/msh to useful places) unless they actually have made meaningful changes to the engine. I don't think there's anything in the advert to suggest they have, though. Presumably online support can be done with tools that were in the engine before, and the bonus content could all be handled like an addon.

Remaster bingo suggestion (because I know they'll be tempted):
[list][*]Kit Fisto's force bubble uses the droideka shield as a hud icon[/list]

Edit: Is it just me, or does the trailer look like they've made some changes to the lighting? Maybe there is a bit more going on.

Edit 2: It also looks like this is coming out as it's own release, so there may not even be an update to the old versions of the games. In which case there's no impact on modding. I just hope they don't take the old games down to promote sales of the remaster, or change their stance on what modders are allowed to do (at the moment, there's nothing to worry about).

Also the first thing I would do, if I wanted to make a switch mod for example, is I would try to determine what the sound memory limit is. If we're lucky, all the ports will have the larger memory limits that the pc version has because modern consoles should be able to handle it. That depends on how it's been ported.

Edit 3: I'm curious about the animation memory now. They say they've added Hero Assault to every map. Whenever modders put Kit Fisto or Asajj Ventress in a Hero Assault, we switch them to basic stock animations because we can't fit their normal animations alongside all the other jedi animations in memory. If this remaster puts Kit Fisto and Ventress in Hero Assault with their normal animations, that would be legitimately impressive.

Edit 4: (Ignore this. See edit 5) It's been a few days. First update is that the Kit Fisto/Asajj Ventress original animations probably aren't in the pc Hero Assault missions. People have freeze-framed trailer footage of Ventress using Aayla Secura's animations, so I guess Aspyr ran into the same memory limitation that modders always do. There are also freeze-frames of Ventress where she does have her original animations (also in Hero Assault), which I have a hunch is xbox footage. It would make sense for the new xbox ports to be built on the old xbox version (which I guess had a higher animation memory limit? I don't know why it was possible to fit the animations in the original xbox version. But a lot of these memory limits are defined by the game engine, rather than an actual hardware limitation). I found these freeze-frames through IGN, but I won't comment on that. (Ignore this. See edit 5)

This increases my suspicion that the pc version of the remaster doesn't involve any changes to the game engine. The online is new (I think, I've never taken an interest in online before. Certainly Aspyr will be running new servers). Other than that, I'm not currently expecting the pc remaster to have any technical/modding potential that the old games don't. That's maybe even an unfair expectation, because these games have been modded for years. I think I'd understand the remaster a lot more, if it wasn't handled on steam as a rerelease, because I just don't get what sets it apart from mods that already exist (other than online), and I find that a bit awkward. (Updated in edit 5)

I stand by the fact that any port to a new console is a good thing, in case this post was a bit too critical.

(Ignore this. See edit 6) My second update - I'd be hesitant to mod the new Aspyr stuff until I'm more familiar with their EULA. They're definitely accepting of mods, so that's a good sign. I just don't know how to interpret their paragraph where sending them mods would give Aspyr complete license to reproduce, sell, create derivate works etc. It may be stuff that's in every EULA, just written more clearly here, but I find it a bit off-putting at the moment. (Ignore this. See edit 6)

Edit 5: Well now Aspire have told IGN that the trailer is made with old footage from before development was finished. So I've actually got no idea if the engine on pc has been modified or not, or how different the new release of the game will be. (Though currently, I see no evidence of any engine alterations on the pc version)

Edit 6: Follow up to my concerns about the EULA: The battlefront modtools already give lucasarts (or whoever owns it all now) the right to sell, distribute or alter any mods which are made. So actually there isn't anything interesting in the Aspyr EULA. I've always taken for granted that mods we make won't be sold by lucasarts/disney, just on the basis that they've never done it before. There's no reason to believe that they'll start doing it now. (I'm the last person it would affect either way, because I never release anything apart from the occasional asset)

Edit 7: It's been a while since my laat edit and now the classic collection will be released in 2 days. The more time that's passed, the more I've realised that I'm not that impressed by it (just talking about the pc version). But nonetheless, I have another update to this thread for anyone that is interested.

First of all, there's been an extended trailer released and a lot of the new scenes look visually better than the stuff that was there before. I don't know if that's an indication that the new scenes were recorded later in development, or if it's just a coincidence. Definitely worth a look.

Second, and this news has been around for a while, the classic collection has a significantly larger file size than the original games. Couldn't tell you why; lead theory is that it's due to the ai upscaled textures/videos. (In my case this means I couldn't get it even if I wanted to; I tend to play old games because they're low file size, low performance requirements. This might not matter to anyone else though).

I'll keep an eye on this thread in case it turns out that the classic collection contains something surprising, that makes it possible to make mods that weren't possible before (a tall order). Otherwise, I think all the real potential is in the new console ports.

Release day thoughts:

Hidden/Spoiler:

I still don't own the classic collection so I've really been looking at this out of curiosity. But now that the game's been released and there's some proper footage out, I can see the classic collection is very different on a technical level than what I guessed.

[list=]
[*] I predicted that all the mods and modtools would work the same way in the classic collection, but now I bet that they don't because...
[*] The pc version of SWBF2 in the classic collection is clearly built from a console version of the game. I can tell from the character select screen, and some of the specific complaints I've seen in steam reviews about settings being different that no one would ever choose to change deliberately. What a fool I was for thinking they would use the pc version of the original game as a base.
[*] I can neither confirm nor deny that Ventress and Kit Fisto are in Hero Assault on pc. I haven't seen anything about it so far. Because I haven't seen anything, and people online like to complain, I assume that means that they're both working correctly and have their original animations. If true, then my guess would be that the pc BF2 is a port of the xbox version (because that's the easiest way around the animation memory limit, given the point above).
[*] Some of the reasons why I wasn't excited about the steam release are, sadly, yet to be disproven. Because it's a port from console, there are now things that set the classic collection version apart from the other version in terms of what it can do. Unfortunately, this seems to cover all differences between the console and pc versions, both good and bad. The file size is also very large but that was confirmed before release (I can't say I understand the decision to upscale textures any more than I understand the decision to release this on steam. But it's a steam top seller so that shows what I know).
[*] I guess porting by nature involves engine modding. So I was wrong about that. I'd still be interested to know if the classic collection versions contain anything that sets them apart from all previous versions of the game engine.
[*] There are currently a lot of criticisms about the online servers which I wasn't expecting. But, it's day 1 so that's fixable.
[/list]

[Marth8880]

spoiler: it's terrible

[Teancum]

Yep. Don't go out and buy it unless it's on consoles and there's a feature you really want. PC players are fine with the originals until this either gets fixed or dies out.

[ChickenTendy]

Yep. Don't go out and buy it unless it's on consoles and there's a feature you really want. PC players are fine with the originals until this either gets fixed or dies out.

I'm more intrigued by the lighting updates they've done and higher resolution. I wonder if the increased file size would allow for bore detailed models as well as more advanced lighting solutions. How great would it be to be able to import better models such as the ones used in the new Battlefront 2 game.

Also do our current mod tools even work with the classic collection?

[Sporadia]

Old posts (sort of opinion posts: lots of text):

Hidden/Spoiler:

Correction: I can't be sure that this is what they did. I didn't realise when I wrote this that ai upscaling is still a rumour. Though it's still true that an increased file size doesn't indicate that the engine's more powerful.

[quote=ChickenTendy post_id=539146 time=1710444922 user_id=11553]
I wonder if the increased file size would allow for [more] detailed models as well as more advanced lighting solutions. How great would it be to be able to import better models such as the ones used in the new Battlefront 2 game.
[/quote]

The increased file size doesn't indicate that the classic collection engine can cope any better with high resolutions than the other version. Basically, they've run every texture/video in the game through an ai upscaler which increases the amount of space it takes up in memory. But they haven't increased the poly count of any models, or added any fine details to the textures that weren't included in the original versions (ie the original artists won't have included details that weren't visible at the original resolution, and this upscale doesn't account for that by adding any more). If I were to judge it against today's standard of ai art, it's been done really thoughtlessly (but there are so many textures, it would take forever to upscale properly. I don't understand why they chose to upscale textures at all). But the act of doing all this doesn't make the engine any more powerful.

As for the lighting, I agree it could be cool. Although I remember playing with the bloom mod a long time ago, and I've seen the Battlefront 3 Legacy mod does a lot with the lighting, all built on the engine of the original version of BF2. So that stuff might always have been possible (though maybe very difficult), unless there's something the xbox engine could originally do better than the pc one (since BF2 in the collection looks like a port). I couldn't really say because I've never tried to mod the lighting before.

I'm being polite and not telling people whether to buy the collection.
(But I will be open about the fact that I won't be playing it.)

Edit: As for the modtools, how do they work for console modders? I imagine that will shine some light on how they work with the collection.

Correction: I've made a mistake. I got mixed up and thought ai upscaling was mentioned in the advert for the collection, but actually it wasn't, and the use of ai is not confirmed. There's been a rumour that they used ai based on artefacting in the texture files, some of which must have been visible in the trailer before release. If the increased file size isn't caused by texture/video upscaling, or if the updated textures were done by hand, that raises even more questions than it answers. But it's technically possible.

Update (16th March):
Iamashaymin has some videos on their youtube channel explaining how to get BF2 mods working to the best of one's ability. So that's the best answer to ChickenTendy's question about the modtools. I'll defer to the wisdom of the people who are actually modding the classic collection because there's not much I can figure out without owning it. I notice that the things which still reportedly don't work (the era mods, and galactic conquest mods) are things that I associate with Zerted's patch (but maybe that's obvious to the people working on it).

Now that I've seen (footage of) the layout of all the files in the classic collection, I'm slightly fascinated by it. For one thing, I haven't given Aspyr enough credit because they've clearly made a bunch of actual changes, and put more work into this than you'd think, given the final result. I keep seeing things which make me ask "Why would anyone do that?" Why did they change the lua version of the BF1 interpreter for example? If they did this so BF1 and BF2 could share resources, why don't BF1 and BF2 share the same all.lvl?

They've made a bunch of complicated alterations to the games (eg adding their own launcher, changing the fonts, adding the photosensitive epilepsy warning to the interface, making ultrawide huds, trying to add a profanity filter, removing the career stats card from the endgame, adding a chat log), so they've put more work into making this than they would avoid by porting from xbox. But then I think "Surely the problems around mouse sensitivity and missing settings are caused by it being a port. They wouldn't choose to change that stuff or switch the pc mission/spawn select for the console versions, would they?" It has me a bit bewildered because updating the animation limit of the pc engine has got to be easier than what they've already done, but nothing will surprise me any more.

A question I have for people who can check: Has anyone figured out whether the broken bump maps, dirt maps, specular maps etc are a texture issue, or an engine issue? When I see the symptom of 'everything is super shiny' my instinct says that the texture upscaling has messed up all the alpha channels. But the classic collection is complicated and crazy enough that it might be a change to the engine. (Why, though?)

Last minute update:
Anyway, since I've read an excessive number of reviews and not come across any cool features, I think I'm just going to forget that this collection exists after today. (Although I have come across plenty of things that are unique to the collection, that make no sense at all. Like I've read multiple bug reports that I wouldn't have the modding knowledge to replicate. The left and right sound channels are flipped? What? They weren't even trying to add custom sounds, so how did they ever get so deep into engine modding that they accidentally flipped the sound channels?) So like I've already said, it's been fascinating to hear about but all the interesting changes seem a little bit useless.

Update (19th March): There's an official patch available now that deals with a lot of the bugs. I don't see it mention a few things like the droideka roll breaking when the control scheme is changed. So that might still be a problem. But it does patch an awful lot. So now, I guess the game should be working well enough for singleplayer and Aspyr can just say they've made the most technical and complicated xbox dlc/hero assault mod known to mankind.

Switching to rumours, there are people claiming that the classic collection was a conversion from 32bit to 64bit for sake of better compatibility with modern operating systems. That would explain a lot of the changes that I have previously believed to be "unnecessary and counterintuitive", "high tech acts of madness" or "the highest iq bugs I've ever seen, how do you even make the game do that?" Though I still have no idea why they would change the lua version of the BF1 interpreter.

No idea what the state of multiplayer is. It might have been steadily improving over the last few days, if the reviews I've read are honest. It is region locked though so experiences vary largely depending on where people are. It also might be a bit dead at the moment, given the state that the game released in.

It feels like they should have called the release an open beta.

Update (22 March): The technical tldr
I don't expect anyone to dig through everything I've written if they come onto this thread looking for technical information about the classic collection. Particularly with the number corrections I've made as I've learnt more about the game. So here's a summary of the technical upgrades/downgrades made to the classic collection.

Changes With Positive Potential:

• The animation memory limit on BF2 is large enough to fit the original Kit Fisto animations and the original Ventress animations into a hero assault (This has been successfully modded into the original version before, but it's not simple to do)
• The game engines have been converted from 32bit to 64bit (rumoured)
• When all the specular maps, bump maps, vertex colour maps etc are bug fixed, then some surfaces in BF2 could end up looking better than the original version

Meaningless Changes:

• All the textures and videos have been upscaled through some automatic process (rumoured to be ai but that's not important). No care was taken to make the textures look any better or more detailed than they did before. Nor was the resolution of the models increased. This may be the cause of the excessive file size
• There's a little bit of bonus content. In the original versions of the games, the dlc maps have been recreated in mods before. Adding hero assault scripts, while tedious, is not difficult at all
• Some users report steam deck, widescreen and controller support quality of life improvements. This is dependent on all the bugs being fixed, and I doubt it matters for mods

Controversial Changes:

• On pc, the spawn select, mission select and other ui features are based on the console ui, not the original pc ui.
• In BF2, the default lighting has more bloom and bolder colours than the original version

Bad Changes:

• The default file paths for mods are different. I recommend looking at Iamashaymin's youtube channel for more information
• BF1 no longer has a lua 4 interpreter, and instead uses a lua 5.0 interpreter
• The file size on pc is somewhere between 60GB and 75GB

'Temporary' Problems:

• There are a bunch of bugs which weren't present in the original games which hopefully will be fixed. Many were fixed in the official Update 1 patch. Some of these bugs look very weird at first but they seemingly have come from Aspyr's attempts at low level programming (during the 64bit conversion maybe)
• Aspyr are hosting region locked multiplayer servers which were received really badly on release due to a number of issues. I have no idea how much of this has been fixed

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I'm sorry to hear that there were some day 1 releases that had part of an iamashaymin mod without credit. I know it's legal, and was patched out, but that's still wild. I didn't want to say anything without being sure before, but the force bubble is beyond doubt. No courtesy at all.