Knights Of The Force
Star Wars: Jedi Academy
- Single & Multiplayer First Person Shooter
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Knights of the Farce: We've Had Enough
Mod DB has finally had enough of the once-popular mod for Jedi Academy, and have decided to formally ban it. Here is our explanation.
Posted by jacksonj04 on Mar 9th, 2008 digg this super bookmark
Archiving mods isn't something we like doing. We dislike banning mods even more. However, Knights of the Force has finally reached the point where - despite numerous chances at redemption and erring on the side of goodwill - we have decided to add it to our small list of "Don't touch this with a very long stick" mods.
As some of you may be aware, KotF has long had a reputation of being a sham mod with no original content, never delivering what was promised when it was promised. This was compounded by allegations of attempting to charge for the mod, misappropriation of donations and various other stuff. Mod DB's policy of not getting involved with the politics of individual mods was rolled out time and time again in response to various users asking (And in some cases demanding) that we ban the mod, TimFx, and anybody else who happened to say that perhaps the mod might be legitimate.
Months passed and it all faded away, only to be brought back to the forefront a couple of days ago with the advent of Knights of the Force 2.0 (Part 1). We duly downloaded the file, read the readme, noticed the mentions of the virus alert, checked the checksums and decided that at least one part of the mod was as described - there was no virus in cmdow.exe. The rest of the mod looked to be vaguely correct to our non-Jedi-Academy-playing eyes, so we tentatively authed the download.
Two days later, we've been getting allegations of trojans of varying degrees, pointless file bulking, distribution of LucasArts' original content, non-attribution of some content and various other stuff. Some of this is verified, other is scaremongering. Either way this adds up to what is, in the eyes of some of Mod DB's core staff, a simple verdict:
Pull it. We've given enough chances for the mod's reputation to be restored.
For legal reasons and to avoid the subsequent headaches I'm not going to make or repeat specific accusations against the mod or say which of the above we believe to be true, but suffice to say we believe it has broken several of Mod DB's terms of use, and just goes against the spirit of the entire modding community. We have pulled the 2.0 (Part 1) download completely and banned the mod, although you may find the changes haven't rippled out to you by the time you read this.
Any questions you have we'll do our best to answer in here if you post a comment, or if you'd rather not say something publically then fire me a PM.
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(buried)
omg drama lolololololololololololololo lolololololololololololololol
-27 has got to be a new record.
-30
wow, take a picture, honey!
-32
that's a record
-52
- 56 Haha.
HAHA -61 EVEN NEWER RECORD
about time!
Indeed. I'm sick of hearing about this mod. Same with a lot of other people.
Yeah... this ended and that is good
Why did you feel you owe them an explanation? If this is all true, why even give them the time of day?
We're not explaining to the mod team, we're clarifying for the people on Mod DB who'll wonder where everything suddenly went.
That's what I was thinking...why not just lay down the banhammer, why the epic explanation?
if he learns from his mistakes there will be something to gain from all this
He won't learn anything. This whole idea to get back onto the modding sites, was his last straw ro re-gain credibility; so he must have thought at least.
ModdB staff took the only responsible decision. We can't allow people to take advantage of the great open community of modders to augment their own riches! Well done and thanks for doing this!
ehm...
Hi
i have downloaded it installed and played
so can anyone say me in primitiv englisch(mine isint good)
if i will get a virus i have deinstalled erveryrhing
thx for answer
you will still have it if it had one
Get a free antivirus program like AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/downloads-products/us/frt/0?prd=aff) and run it on your system. That should find and remove anything dangerous.
You should be running a virus scanner anyway, so leave AVG installed afterwards.
i have tried to dowload it and to be honest there is problems and im not shocked or angry that they did it~ good job moddb!
I installed this mod yesterday, and my anti-virus program ran its anti-spyware scan during the night, and it quarantined two items:
(1) Pigeon PP and
(2) CMDOW
Out of the two, I removed the quarantine on CMDOW since Knights of the Force isn't the first Jedi Academy mod to have such an "error" associated with it, even though there's a reasonable probability that such "errors" cause no actual harm to one's system. It might also explain why the menu interactions were behaving so strangely yesterday: my anti-spyware program MAY have quarantined it as soon as the program was installed without telling me immediately about it (it's done this before, particularly with totally legitimate mods for Operation Flashpoint).
That said, I am concerned about the Pigeon PP infection, as it's a particularly tough bugger to get rid of. I've encountered in on my system before, and my anti-spyware program quarantined it then, without it popping up again. The fact that it's been redetected, and only after I installed KotF, makes me highly suspicious that this latest detection of Pigeon PP is due to the mod's installation.
I'd GREATLY appreciate it if anybody here could confirm whether or not they've also had such an experience. Without doubt, it'd be useful for the members of the moddb community who've downloaded/installed it to verify if this mod was the culprit.
Had I only known just how much controversy was wrapped up in this mod...
Thanks in advance!
Bah the mod is just a big pack of mods. Imo he been delaying work that could be done in 1-2 months.
That Tim guy is going to be pissed.
In his pants
Here Here good move moddb :D...if the mod was a truly epic experience i think the community reaction to his stolen content and possible trojan virus installers may have been slightly softer. However this truly shows the lowest form of this amature industry i applaud you guys for this move and helping take a little bit of respect back from people like this.
Two thumbs up for ModDB. That's the best decision they could make. Unfortunately it won't bring back the money to the people that have been scammed, but it will help to prevent further of these events.
It's a real shame things like this have to happen. Not only has it angered many, many people, but it detracts from the legitimate, hard-working mod community.
Just what I was going to say. It really is a shame that something like this happens, esspecially when they were given every oppourtunity to change.
Lol, he said "legitimate". Look that up, read this, Mikejkelley.com and then look up "ironic".
Well, legitimate in the sense that the developers of either the mod content or game don't have an issues with it.
About time. Good work guys.
Right decision. Alone for creating the hope of a mod that he never intended to create by himself he deserves banning. Maybe the whole thing just sounded too good to be true :(
Nevertheless, Knights of the Farce... a nice pun :D
thank god. It was about time someone banned his sorry ass and taugh him a lesson
(buried)
Well i can play it and it is fun.
And the virus is a mis warning...
Dunno ppl
Ding dong the mod is dead!
HORRAY!!!!!!!!
Can someone explain something to me? What was this mod about? I saw it occasionally on the site, but did not bother to even look at it, since I do not have the actual game.
So he was distributing someone else's content for a fee or donation money, and in return, gives you an installer with virus' attached? Is this correct?
If so, then congrats moddb for taking effect and protecting others. And I am sorry to hear about those who got scammed.
Oh stupid me, I actually decided to read what this mod was about *claps hands knowing he can read*
Noob's You all noobs ...
It's (as the author would claim), a total conversion of Jedi Academy that would span the storylines of all six films, and has reportedly been in production for four to five years now.
However, it has been skipping it's own release deadlines for at least two years, and has apparently never shown any content that was not produced by someone else and made freely available. There are many instances of claims that the author has been taking donations or otherwise asking for money in exchange for progress on a purportedly non-existent project - every deadline he sets, it goes overdue for a few weeks or months with some excuse, then that news is erased, a new deadline is given, and it starts again.
It's a shame that action has had to be taken, but having been watching KoTF for well over a year personally, I believe it was in ModDBs best interests to do so, rather than continue with the drama that it has been creating for so long.
The worst thing is, TimFX never gave a damn about the community following this mod. This thing could have worked out, since KOTF has/had a huge fanbase, but instead of listening to complains and looking for solutions, the creator just erased threads and deleted unpleasant answers on the forum.
I still believe he had the best intentions when he started the project, however these didn't work out and in the end it was just a hoax-project, releasing no real "new" content. Perhaps he should have just made the Star Wars Encyclopaedia. We would have credited this effort for what it is: a small fanbase contribution. KOTF was big, too big in ambition, but if Tim had told the truth about it at some point, he would have been shown mercy. Going on pretending like that wasn't advisable...
Absolutely. If the mod had been released as a simple compendium of content (With creators' permissions) and perhaps a nicer menu system for selecting that content (Jedi Academy never had a good selection method for large volumes of content) we would have supported it.
well said sinking...the thing that bugs me is the guy clearly has no modding skills but he never asked for help and constantly lied and stole. The money thing well thats just lower than low. All i can say now is moddb made the 1st step but there are probably 100 other sites out there fueling this guys ego and ripping off legit fans. There has to be something more that can be done.
I think ModDB was actually one of the later sites to act (and I think that they were right to stay detached until there was irrefutable proof/weight of evidence against the mod). I know sites like FileFront and such banned the mod a fair while ago because, based on the content shown and discussed (by TimFX), the mod would have breached the End User License Agreement, in so far as Tim claimed to have "hacked" the source code and had derived money from producing the mod.
All this being said, the mod, had it ever come out in the intended form, would have been great. A proper Star Wars game spanning all the films has never been attempted, and heaven knows Lucasarts weren't going to do anything about that state of affairs.
The thing which should have really given it away was Tim's attitude to the community - what with the deleting of threads, banning of users etc. No self-respecting modder would do that sort of thing. If the community doesn't understand something, or criticises something, it's pretty much your "job", or the job of the PR manager, to sort that out.
The best thing could be done so far by Moddb.
Everyody gets what he deserves.
Good thing to archive this piece of trash. All Tim wanted to do was making money out of his "awesome mod".
Excuse me guys, but I don't get it, I'm quite noob. I'm playing now a nice mod downloaded by kotf.com, I don't understand all the mess you talking about. You mean that mod won't never be completed?
Thanks
It's crap. Only three missions and it took him 5 years and 40 missed release dates to make them. He promised to release more missions but it will probably take him another 5 years to release the next three missions. The downloaed game contains virues and trojans plus over 1 Gigabyte of base JKA files that are completely unnecessary. He put them in only to make the game bigger than it relly is. And he sold that pile of crap for $ 100 to his fanboys when it wasn't even finished yet. Bottom line: Timbo is the biggest f*cktard in the history of game mods and his mod is a big steaming pile of sh*t.
And yeah, it will never be completed. The next three missions will be released in five years.
Ok, i got it. Really shitty story. By the way the three levels aren't so bad..
-51 Haha good one
www.kotf.snadno.eu Jedi Academy KotF, MB II and 10 mods