Welcome to the new Jazz2Online

Posted:: 8 Aug 2004 at 20:38

When two committed Jazz players met each other in an Anniversary Bash server a long time ago, exchanging their ideas for what sort of a site could improve the community, they didn’t know yet what they had started. They worked on that website, to live alongside the since-deceased Universe Jazz, that would be a welcome addition to the community. It turned out to be more. Universe Jazz was shut down by its owner, Alienator, and soon replaced by the new site, which was rushed to completion. Starting off as a side project, Jazz2Online became the biggest site for Jazz Jackrabbit 2.

It had something the community hadn’t seen before in previous sites: interactivity. Downloads could be reviewed and uploaded by all and news could be commented upon.

The shiny site’s code, sadly, had been created by amateurs, who barely knew anything about programming at that time. Thus the site was full of errors and bugs, which have all reared their ugly heads over the past three years.

Not so very long after the release of the first edition of Jazz2Online, dissatisfied with how it was made, these programmers set out to make the sequel. It was to be made all over again, from the very ground up, and thus it was a huge project. Huge, and now finally finished.

You’re looking at it now.

Some of the new features are:

Helpful ratings for reviews
Download reviews now have helpful ratings. You can select whether you think a review is helpful or not, and the results are used to sort the reviews on the page and automatically select a featured review for that download. The reviews are sorted by a Helpful Index (HI), which takes the total number of votes into account. The system requires participation to work; if nobody rates reviews, the benefits of featured reviews and sorting will not be present. If this turns out to be popular, though, more features could be added such as “featured reviewer” awards and icons.

All new content section
When J2O v1 was made, there were 5 content sections: About, Characters, Levels, Party Mode and JCS. We finished About, but left the other sections with a “coming soon” text. A text to be left there for about three years. Now the sections have been finished, containing a huge amount of fresh content. Thanks to Newspaz who led the content team.

RabbitJournal
Have original thoughts about the future of Jazz Jackrabbit? Think people should play more? You have a neat idea for a level and want to share it with others? Announce it on RabbitJournal, the first community weblog!

Login works over the entire site
On J2Ov1, you were forced to enter your username and password on the majority of the places. Not anymore. When you’re logged in to this site now, you will not be forced to enter your username and password, except in some sections that need extra security.

View inside downloads
Want to know what you download before clicking the download button? Now you can see the contents of the zip, even the names of the tilesets and levels.

Memberlist
Finally you can quickly find a member of this site, using the memberlist.

Forgot Password
Forgot your password? There’s now a function to retreive it.

Review Ideas
Lost for ideas on what file to review? Check the review ideas page. Some files have barely had good reviews. We intend to make a list of those, so that files that were ignored after release still get reviews.

Additionally, you can now also search downloads easier, browse through news archives and see thumbnails in the pictures section, along with other things.

This site could not have been made without some great people.

FQuist organized the project and more or less kept the entire team together, in addition to providing a ton of code and some content as well. The entire team would like to give him their special thanks. Go Quisty!
Newspaz, who took up the huge task to make the content section, which was almost entirely made under his supervision. He provided much of the content.
Nebula, who created the core of this site and made it work. A lot of this site runs on the basic functions he has written. Nebula r0x0rz!
Link arrived at the scene late, but has since contributed a huge ton to the site, like the articles section, the new implementation of the Textile system and the new review rating system. Without mainly him and Newspaz this site wouldn’t be how it was now.
Bobby, who has contributed the form functions, general coding like the pictures section, many good suggestions and pays for stuff.
GraphixJJF has contributed the great new layout and part of the content graphics. Mirrow and Disguise have provided assorted extra graphics, betatesting and other various work.
Spazzyman made the new GIP script together with Nimrod – the latter also generously provides the script’s hosting. Nebula provided the design for the GIP script.
EvilMike, Gummi and BlurredD have provided in-depth content for the content section. Mirrow has given us cool images and many good ideas. Trafton has taken care of the JJ2 and site FAQS and has checked the content section for errors. Derby spent about seven hours doing this, as well, and should move to Wisconsin.
Cmdr Dats, iCeD have done additional coding on various sections which has greatly helped.
Trafton, Violet/Unknown Rabbit, Spaztic, ElectroPiZZa, and Ice M A N have helped betatest the site and give many ideas.
And of course all the users of Jazz2online who have given us many suggestions.

Also welcome Labratkid, who is our community organizer for the month August. This position was created to put more content on J2O, and Labratkid will be having this position the entirety of August. Next month, you’ll see someone else.

In the meantime, there might still be some loose edges on the site. Many we know of. Things you find to be wrong can be reported in the feedback forum (you are also allowed to praise us, if you like – which you should. We rule.)

If you have trouble logging in, you can file a help request. All user accounts (except some duplicate ones) have been converted and you should be able to log in fine.

Have a good time and we hope you enjoy the new site!

- The Jazz2Online Admin Team