Star Wars: KotOR II M4-78EP Planet Restoration Mod Released

After releasing an excellent restoration content mod for Obsidian’s Knights of the Old Republic sequel, the Deadly Stream folks have gone ahead and did it again with a M4-78EP restoration mod for the title. Granted, calling it “restoration” is a bit of a misnomer, given that the planet was far from being fully designed before it was axed, and so the team had to design much of the content themselves, but I think many will agree with me that this mod is still very much welcome.

Here’s what the full mod offers:

M4-78EP offers an entire new planet, on your search for Master Vash.
Features:
* Brand new planet consisting of seven new, unique locations!
* Over two hours of additional gameplay!
* Explore the mysterious Droid’s Planet in a dialog-heavy adventure, with over 1000 lines of voiced dialogs!
* Your actions on M4-78 have impact on other planets, making it feel like a legitimate part of the game!
* Restored previously unavailable unique droid items for your party members!

A new version of the Restoration Content mod has also been released, containing plenty of bugfixes:

Fixes:
(all included mods are used with permission!)
* Includes 301NAR Txi fix by JCarter426
** Fixes window near Tienn not being see-through. Now you can see Tienn from the docks.
* Includes Zez-Kai Ell Revan Overlook fix by danil-ch
** Because, apparently, we overlooked one. Splicing was done well too.

* Main screen logo updated to 1.8.2, and it no longer inverts suddenly sometimes (thanks Darth_Sapiens). For the best effect remove the kotor2logo.txi 1.8.1 had if you patched up to version 1.8.2 from 1.8.1.
* A few addition grammar fixes.
* Bao-Dur can now use cyan and bronze crystals to create your first saber. Also fixes the issue where you’d get stuck if you only had a cyan crystal and no other. Vanilla issue, only became apparent now since a no-longer broken since 1.8 store on Telos has a fixed Cyan crystal.
* Fixes issues when you leave Adana in her cell, then talk to her again and tell her to run not updating the quest properly, potentially getting it stuck. (Thanks plyinglemon for getting said situation to our attention by suffering from it)
* The workbench will now use the skill of the user, instead of the PC when dismantling items for components.
* Updated modulesave.2da.
* Fixed broken questupdate with the sabotaged protocol droid on the Harbinger (thanks Josh D for finding this).
* Telos, thugs infront of the door to the Exchange compoud; Removed automatic Ithorian journal update, need to actually ask for Loppak and be refused for the journal to update.
* Nar Shaddaa, Pazaak Den; Fixed potential convo-break for males with Dahnis.
* The Security Spike Tunneler now uses the correct skin (it used to look just like the Security Spike, even if it had an unique icon).
* Onderon; Removed the “A Matter of Leadership” mission from your questlog if you leave the planet without finishing it.
* Several improvements to the Rebuild Jedi Enclave cutscene on Dantooine.
* Telos surface; Added lipsync to one of Atton’s line since it was missing.
* Updated Vash bodies’ lightsaber drop.
*** The following 2 fixes modify feat.2da. Be aware if you use mods overwriting this it will undo those fixes;
* The Jedi Weapon Master and Sith Maurader may purchase the Condition (+saving throw) line of feats.
* Restored the Mobility feat. The mobility feat gives a 10% increase in movement rate. (thanks to BarnzyBobble for his assistance in testing if it worked properly)

On top of that, the designer of the original area, Kevin D. Saunder, has given his endorsement to the mod on Formspring:

I haven’t played the mod (or thought much about KotOR2 over the last eight years!), but after reading your question (thanks for bringing it to my attention!), I watched the three YouTube playthrough videos made so far by JC (C842vids).

I love that people are passionate about some games, and interested enough in game development, to invest the time and energy to mod them, and this enhancement project is a great example. I thought the environment for M4-78 looked great, so particularly for that reason I’m excited that this project was undertaken it’s good to see that work be brought to light, while giving the modders a physical environment to work with so that they didn’t have to make it from scratch.

Some history: M4-78 was my first assignment when I began working at Obsidian Entertainment in April, 2004, as a senior game designer reporting to lead designer (and company creative director) Chris Avellone. A brief outline of the area had been written by Dave Maldonado that was a starting point, but Chris let me take it wherever I wanted and modify the previous plans as I saw fit. I don’t recall exactly, but perhaps I worked on the area for about a month all told before we wisely decided to cut it. There was just too much work to do to complete the game and we had to focus. Given the options, M4-78 was an obvious cut to make if I recall correctly, the contenders were M4-78 and Nar Shadda, and the latter was far more central to the plot. As has been noted by the community, I was able to repurpose some of the M4-78 content to allow G0T0’s yacht to be implemented more quickly later in the project it also might had to have been cut otherwise. (I remember Chris was talking with me about how, reluctantly, the yacht might need to go all of the art was done, but very little of the design and we were close to the end of the project. I committed to him that I could design and implement it in within a week. He trusted me to do so and, while it wasn’t our best area =), it felt great to deliver it for Chris and the game.)

Back to the M4-78 Enhancement Project it was definitely the right choice for the team to run with the design and craft their own experience. JC’s videos don’t yet cover the entire new planet, but I like the direction the team seems to have taken and (from what I’ve read in forums) how they’ve held true to Chris’s vision for KotOR2, while seizing ownership of this section of the game. That’s how you get the best gameplay experiences when the people implementing the actual content are empowered to do what they feel is best, while guided by a clear vision. I’m excited that community members took on and completed this ambitious undertaking I hope they are proud of their accomplishment (as they should be!).