Jazz2Online news for April 2007
JJ2WC progresses to group stage 2 - April 30th 2007
Source: R3ptile
JJ2WC, the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 World Cup, has recently finished its first group stage and has now progressed to the second. A few highlights were the elimination of semi-idle, DM struggling against and surprisingly losing from newcomers MF, and one of CC’s teams, RL, progressing at the cost of VS being eliminated.
For the second group stage, quite a few interesting matches will be played. Cup favourites CC will have to play against DM and the surprising newcomers MF, 8D (which won all 3 preliminary matches) will have to play against FoR-TF allyship FoF and CC’s second warteam, RL. Matches will be played from next saturday onwards and live coverage in #jazzjackrabbit will be provided. But you can of course also check the recently revamped JJ2WC website.
Some really odd bug that I haven't been able to track had left every J2O user unable to post pictures, picture comments, or edit the J2O wiki. They would get a message that their permissions had been taken away. This has been fixed. Apologies for the trouble. A thank you for those who all messaged to report the bug.
(cooba adds: it's so totally not my fault!!)
Please limit the images in your Upload Descriptions to the size of 512x200 pixels. Otherwise they'll have to be removed.
Battery Check becomes freeware - April 25th 2007
Battery Check, a platform game using a slightly modified Jazz Jackrabbit 2 engine, was originally distributed as part of a promotional action and thus not legally available any more. There was still the demo version, but of course having the full game is always better.
Recently, Stibat (the original distributors of Battery Check) have uploaded the full game as freeware to their site. If you own Jazz Jackrabbit 2 version 1.10o, you’re even luckier, as the JCS coming with that version allows you to create your own levels for Battery Check.
Battery Check is available here. The site is in Dutch, but the download link is located at the bottom and says “Download Battery Check (12 Mb)”. An English translation of the readme (translated by yours truly) can be found here.
Unrelated, but still cool: at the moment, the 3 most recent recommended songs at ModArchive are all Jazz-related. #1 is a song from the Jazz Jackrabbit 3 soundtrack by Alexander Brandon, #2 and #3 are remixes of Jazz Jackrabbit 1 songs by Haze.
Improved RSS Feed - April 16th 2007
Our site news RSS feed is one of the buggier parts of the site. Half of the time, it does not work. It appears that currently, after some updates, it works a lot better. Do sign up to get even more up to date regarding site news. Please send me a PM if things are still not working for you.
Update: Apparently it doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, now. Go figure. Any other clients that give errors?
Update: Looks like it works in most major clients now, thanks to Stijn’s recode and BoggyB’s advice. Thanks!
Strange Tales of Blade weblog - April 16th 2007
Source: JCF Post
Popular tileset creator Blade, recently in the news with the announcement of his currently in progress 13th tileset, Castle of Cadavers, has started up a weblog dedicated to posting inside information on the design process of his new tileset and information on how the old tilesets came to be:
However, this blog is not all about Castle Of Cadavers. I plan to go through also my old tilesets one by one, and tell many interesting things about them you haven’t even imagined before. One upcoming topic will be the Blade tilesets before the Aztec set (It’s actually my third tileset! ;))If you intend to get started with tileset creation, or you already have, this new blog might be a good resource for learning how a professional does it. Otherwise, it might just be cool to read how some of your favourite tilesets have come into being. So, do drop by!
The deadline in R3ptile's Unusual CTF Level Contest has been extended to April 20th (next Friday).
Poll results ON FIRE - April 14th 2007
Source: pollpollpollpoll
Would you buy a new Jazz game on the XBLA?
_Of course, no doubt about it!_ – 42 Votes (42%)
Depends on who makes it and how is it done. – 41 Votes (41%)
no way die jazz >:( – 16 Votes (16%)
Total votes: 99
There was a lot of love in our last poll, about half of it unconditional, about half conditional. It looks good to see that many will support the character by buying whatever game comes out, and that many others would consider buying one, at least insofar they had a XBLA.
Some of you have actually used this poll to express your hatred for the Jazz character. If you are one of these vile traitors… your votes have been logged and your account has been permanently banned from using Jazz2Online and Jazz Jackrabbit 2!!! Thank you for visiting!
Anniversary! and two contests - April 9th 2007
Nine years ago, the demo version of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 was released.
Also, coincidentally enough, ten years ago today CliffyB revealed the presence of Trigger Scenery in JJ2. Go make a really complicated level using a lot of triggers now 
.
The Jazz2Online staff is happy that the game has lived for so long and wishes Jazz Jackrabbit 2 a happy birthday and of course hopes for many more to come!
In terms of celebration, you can also take part in some ongoing contests:
Battle level contest (deadline 1st May)
Unusual CTF contest (deadline 20 April)
Have fun, and go play JJ2 for another year at least!
Source code -- a possibility? - April 8th 2007
Source: JCF post
Nimrod, owner of the jazz.nimrod-online.com listserver (the one used by everybody now, be it directly or indirectly), has announced his efforts to obtain the Jazz 2 source code.
Theres only one person who I know of who still has the source code, thats Becky(formally known as Burger). She got licensed by Epic Games to port the PC game to Mac. Because of this, she got the full source code of the PC version (which is what we want) and also the Mac version which may be helpful to the Mac gaming community.
More information in the JCF thread.
#jj2 has been restored on QuakeNet after the overdrawn April Fools Day prank. We apologise for the confusion and drama. #jazzjackrabbit is still up and is suggested for use of JJ2WC discussion and alternative use for anyone else.
Solution for CTO problems - April 5th 2007
Source: JCF thread
BlurredD, known for his recently uploaded server tool Carrotade, has coded a fix for people who keep on getting connection timeouts after 30 seconds of playing JJ2 online.
This problem has been annoying players for about nine years now, but now it’s gone. For what it’s worth, it works great with the infamous Alcatel Speedtouch router, which couldn’t have been configured anyhow else.
(Forward all the feedback and questions in the JCF thread, please. Replies to that post are more likely to be read than comments for this.)
Featured Download for March - April 4th 2007
We’ve had a great month with great uploads. Definitely better than February and March. We have two level packs, 3 single levels and a Single Player episode.
A special mention goes to Snooze’s New Ages II. It’s an 8-level pack with high-quality CTF levels. It’s not the featured download, but it comes close. Another pack is my own pack, Impressions. It’s another CTF pack with 8 levels, and if you would download it that not be a problem ;p
Moving on, this month we have two standalone levels that are good, Toxin Twister by Cooba and Abandoned Sidewalks by Quickz. They’re both CTF levels. And then we have a Battle level by Purplejazz called Sub-Terrestrial, it’s his best Battle level so far.
So then we still have the episode, which is this month’s feature. It’s the third episode by EvilMike in a series, and it is set after The Invasion of Deserto and The Rebirth of Evil. This one is called The Battle for Carrotus.
One thing I’d like to tell beforehand is that Cooba’s review was an April Fools joke. It has been deleted, but you can still view it here.
The episode has a few big levels and some small levels or levels that are part of the story. The author said that the episode is pretty hard, and I have to agree. One of the first large levels is Holographic Training, and I have to say that the palette is very weird but it looks nice actually. Some events look very weird. Anyway, it’s one of my favourite levels in the episode. It has some nice puzzles in it and such, and it’s not too hard for me.
Then there is the largest level of the pack, SWS Fencer. That level is also pretty hard, but the skilled players should finish it easily. I like the idea with the coins at the start, it’s pretty original as well. The level has some original eye candy things that other levels with the tileset don’t have yet. Overall this level is probably my favourite of the pack.
SWS Anapsid is an interesting level that also has some nice puzzles and it also has a weird name. There is a coin warp where you need 10 coins for, and if you have 16 coins or more you die. The wind events might be irritating at first, but that gets better if you play the level more.
SWS Terrapin – Outer Sector is a level where you die if you fall, so be careful. It has a lot of warps and the eye candy in the level is a bit different compared to other Odyssey levels. It’s fun to go all the way up and such. SWS Terrapin – Central Shaft is a level with a long intro, but if you are going to play it then you will have a lot of fun. The 3D boll area(see screenshot) was questionable for me, I don’t know what I had to do but I still got up somehow.
The levels with a lot of text are interesting as well. It’s fun to see the text and it shows that there is a real story behind this. The overall eye candy might be not very good, but the author has focused on other things. Most levels had enough carrots and other pickups, so that’s no problem. Overall I suggest you all download this, this is a great episode and I hope the 2 other parts of the story will be as good as this one.
#jj2 changes servers - April 2nd 2007
Source: JCF Thread
#jj2, the main hub of the community on IRC, has changed IRC networks for unknown reasons, but most probably due to the increasing amount of Netsplits on QuakeNet (the given reason of “a lawsuit of the Dutch government” is obviously nonsense). It is now reachable via Slashnet instead of QuakeNet. All else apparently remains the same.
Might you prefer QuakeNet, you’d find out that #jj2 is currently unusable on that network. As an alternative #jazzjackrabbit has been set up, and several #jj2 regulars reside there at the moment.
