Jazz2Online news for August 2004
Jazz Swapper - August 14th 2004
ToxicBunny has uploaded a new utility, Jazz Swapper, that should be very useful for people who want to play Jazz Jackrabbit 1 levels. This first installment of Jazz Jackrabbit doesn’t support usermade levels. Thanks to JCS 94 you can now make levels though, but you would have to either overwrite or rename the official levels in the JJ1 directory. Thanks to this utility, which takes care of making sure you won’t lose your levels by adding new levels to the game as new packs instead, that’s a thing of the past.
Jazz art contest - August 14th 2004
I’m holding an art contest in which contestants can draw anything Jazz related and submit it. You can draw the thing by any means – whether it’s with a 3D art program, sketched on paper and scanned in, made with vectors, made with MSPaint, or even with the recently submitted program, “Jazz Paint.” All drawings should be emailed to me (labratkid at gmail.com) by the 25th (so that gives you a week).
Rather than judging all the drawings myself, I’ll make a poll on the art forum when the time comes. Because I can’t email every JCF user the pictures, it’d be prefered if you uploaded your drawing to the internet in some way or another. If there’s absolutely no way you can upload it, I will upload it temporarilly, then delete it when the poll expires.
Remember, you can draw anything Jazz related, and you can NOT steal anybody’s work. You must start from scratch. No tracing things or anything. Try to be original, too. Making Devan out of clay might score you some votes, for example.
Edit: I changed the deadline to the 25th.
Possible Trojan Horse in Uploaded File - August 14th 2004
Roughly an hour ago, an upload was posted to the J2O downloads section containing a file called jhacker.exe. It was suspected of being a cheating program, and as in all of these cases, was put through a scanning process. Of 12 scanners, one came back with a virus-positive result.
It is not definite that this file is malicious, but if you downloaded it, DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY. If you have executed it, please contact me as soon as possible. You may be infected.
This situation is being dealt with. Fortunately, the potential exposure to J2O users was low as only two downloads were made during this time.
Bash Radio - August 13th 2004
It was a huge success last time. And thus Shadow is doing it again: Bash Radio.
When it’s online, it can be found at Http://games-2.clanbase.com:8000/listen.pls.
To listen it, you need some audio program like Winamp, Quintessential Player or Windows Media Player. There are also various sound tools on Linux you should be able to listen to radio with.
Up status: DOWN.
Anniversary Bash - August 13th 2004
The Anniversary Bash, celebrating ten years of Jazz Jackrabbit, is still up, new site to distract people or not.
You might want to reinstall JJ2 and install the 1.23 and listserver patches in case you don’t have them installed anymore.
The bash CTF pack can be downloaded here.
For information on dates see the JJ anniversary site.
Anniversary Bash - August 12th 2004
A reminder: the main anniversary bash will begin tomorrow. Be sure to do what you can to be there, it will be great fun. You might want to reinstall JJ2 and install the 1.23 and listserver patches in case you don’t have them anymore.
For full details on the bash, see the anniversary site.
You can download the pack for today here.” target=”_blank”>http://homepage.ntlworld.com/snookieboy/bash10/”>here. please download it before playing to prevent lag.
[Error in post fixed]
Future of Jazz: Jazz weather forecast: Partly sunn - August 9th 2004
I believe Jazz will stil have a good community even after the majority of us grow up. As long as there are people intrested in the game, the game stays alive. Look at Commander Keen. The offical episodes were stopped in 1995 so the devolopers could work on Doom, yet the community is still strong.
That’s my opinion, and at the risk of sounding like a certain condiment wife, if you don’t agree, take your opinions and shove them, perferribly in the garbage disposal.
-ThO
-ThO_Odin314
Site Functions Suspended - August 9th 2004
We’ve suspended some functions of the site, such as reviewing and posting new levels, pending a reshuffling of the database. We should be back online within the week.
Future of Jazz: t3h JJ2 future =3 - June 4th 2003
What I think JJ will become in the next few years is another “cute” little fan game the JCF and other dedicated JJ players aim for. Soon, this fan game will be published on a market by a person on a developing team which happens to be a game publisher and JJ WILL BE POUPULAR AGAIN!!
Naw, i think JJ2 will stay around for a while, then, (as some are doing) creating a Jazz Jackrabbit arena. If this gets put on some websites as a demo, this may interest people who like intense fighting games, and also old dos games turned into modern fighting platforms.
This is my far-fetched~Dragoon aka KILLERRABBIT (on j2o)
Featured level - August 9th 2004
The first custom JJ1 level ever released is finally here. Violet CLM’s Escape from Nippius starts you out in a room with several other green rabbits with big guns. There are some extremely original things in this level. I’ve never seen anything like some of this. Walls that shoot blaster shots at you, birds that fly freely for eyecandy, teleporters, and more inhabit this level. There’s even a custom end boss, more specifically a snowman with jumping capabilities.
The gameplay plays a lot like the default JJ1 levels, so there aren’t too many problems here. The eyecandy is very nice as well. There are some very clever things done with it. I especially enjoyed the translucency effect with the ice crystals.
My only complaint with this level is that I would’ve liked if it were a little bit longer. I highly recommend this level to anyone with JJ1 whose looking for a new level to play. It’s well worth the download. I want to warn you, though, this level is extremely difficult. It might even be a little bit harder than Orbitus 2, or Raneforus 2. In any case, that’s the way JJ1 levels should be. The harder the better.
Here is a screenshot of the level:
Welcome to the new Jazz2Online - August 8th 2004
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!
More anniversary news - August 8th 2004
The J2O-endorsed site for the 10th Anniversary of Jazz can be found here.
Celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Jazz Jackrabbit brand - August 3rd 2004
Treasure Bash is up now! The pack – currently without all tilesets but with the most important ones, can be found here. [FQuist]
After 10 great years, Jazz Jackrabbit’s community is still alive, which is something. To celebrate, we bring you the celebrations for Jazz Jackrabbit’s 10th Anniversary. There will be a treasure server tonight, hosted by Nimrod, and in the following weeks, Battle and Capture the Flag levels. We’ll have a page, to be up soon, that asks people for their thoughts on the future of Jazz Jackrabbit. A thread in the JCF congratulating Jazz Jackrabbit on it’s 10th Anniversary can be found here.
We hope to see you all at the JJ2 server that will be hosted tonight, and hopefully also at the row of events we’re planning in the rest of August. Stay tuned for more information.
JJ2 Ladder Petition on ClanBase - August 2nd 2004
ClanBase, an online system for clans and players in many different games to compete against each other, currently has a petition up to add a Jazz2 ladder to its list of games.
In order to help get Jazz2 added, you’ll need to sign the petition here. Please do not sign it more than once, because they will be able to check for that. Please spread this petition around so that we can get as many signees as possible.
You can also discuss this on the JCF in this thread. Thanks!
Jazz Jackrabbit Turns 10 - August 1st 2004
Happy tenth birthday to our green rabbit, whose original game Jazz Jackrabbit debuted ten years ago today – and the community is still going strong!
R3ptile suggests that people celebrate by playing as Jazz, or, for the dedicated Spaz fans, just play a lot. Everyone should spend a while playing tomorrow, just for celebration’s sake.
See you there!