jazz jackrabbit: then vs now

[Dermo]

Useful links:
Jazz 2 online's first recorded launch:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010722202332/http://jazz2online.com/

Full Jazz2online Archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jazz2online.com

Jazz Jackrabbit Daily Carrot:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jazzjackrabbit.com

Discuss.

[n00b]

then sucked.

now sucks too.

future awesum. playin jj5.

[Dermo]

I hope you're not being serious.

[n00b]

http://www.topatoco.com/graphics/00000001/qw-serious-big.gif

[Violet CLM]

You call that "then"? pffff
http://web.archive.org/web/*hh_/www.epicgames.com/jazz2.htm

[Stijn]

Discuss.
No.

[Vegito]

M�rtin Wednesday, November 7, 2001

HI Monolith kenn you speek German?

[Eigus]

actually that old j2o design looks nice ;o

[R3ptile]

yeah, simple and clean. i like it better than the current one.

[Nonomu198]

In an industry increasingly dominated by blood, gratuitous nudity and violence, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is a breath of fresh air for the computer-game-playing family.
hahaha

Within Jazz 2, there are blocks that can be shot by various weapons. If a block has a star on it, Jazz can destroy it with any weapon. But, there are other blocks in the game: blocks with an exclamation mark on them must be stomped by Jazz's butt in order to be broken open; blocks with an ammo type depicted on them can only be destroyed by the corresponding weapon. This introduces an element of strategy requiring ammo conservation and treasure hunting. Your success in solving various puzzles throughout the game, can determine exactly what parts of the each level you'll be able to see! Jazz 2 can rearrange levels "on the fly" which means parts of levels can appear or disappear before your very eyes...

In Jazz 2, Jazz has fire and ice weapons. Sometimes Jazz will encounter a spring that's frozen. Use a flaming weapon, and the spring will heat up and become usable. At other times, Jazz will encounter a spring that blocks his path, bouncing him back and preventing him from proceeding. Just freeze the spring with an ice weapon and Jazz will be able to walk across the resulting ice and continue on his way.

Jazz can ricochet bullets off of certain surfaces, performing some very interesting trick shots.
Did the designerss actually write this (-)?

]Using Jazz 2's super-smooth multiplayer code, you'll be left speechless by the amount of combinations and different options available for your Party Mode enjoyment.
hahaha

EvilMike Wednesday, July 4, 2001
Maybie every member can have their own page where they can give some information about themselves and what they are working on. A news section where the members can post would be good, for advertising levels and stuff.

It only took 5 years for Speeza to come and open the level thread, and 6 for n0 to open the introduction thread...

M�rtin Tuesday, November 6, 2001
HI!!!Iam MartinCT and M�rtin heheheheh

iam have a new hotel Patar mail mir




Heh... isn't the past just so funny. But, you know, we have fast internets now ):

[Sonyk]

Did the designerss actually write this (-)?
Aside from the obvious PR spin, that's pretty accurate.

[R3ptile]

Heh... isn't the past just so funny. But, you know, we have fast internets now ):
believe it or not, people had "fast internets" even in 2001.

[Nonomu198]

believe it or not, people had "fast internets" even in 2001.

Many people didn't.

[DanZeal]

I did :p

[Slaz]

I had dial up back then really..

[CrimiClown]

da past winz

[Unhit]

isdn ftw

[R3ptile]

speaking of "then" btw

http://web.archive.org/web/20041126231511/www.jj2wc.tk/

..such good times. :D


edit: FOR COOBA (http://jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=11669) (see posts #31 and #32)

[Vegito]

I had dial up too then =\

[cooba]

edit: FOR COOBA (http://jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=11669) (see posts #31 and #32)LOL

hahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHHhahahahahha

[DarkB]

That design of old J2o looks very cool ;)

[Slaz]

The new one is better.. Custom stylesheets.

You can easely use the 'J2Ov1' stylesheet and make sure the purple background texture is removed. Then you have it, simple and clean! :p

[cooba]

The new one is betterLies, all lies.

The J2Ov2 layout is archaic web stuff. The HTML code is horrible, it's all bloated tables with barely any CSS. A lot of the overhead when coding new J2O features comes from dealing with the layout.

Navigation wise it's a huge mess, when I'd first seen it I literally got lost, and some people still have trouble browsing J2Ov2 IIRC. The header itself is an 800x200 area of confusing links and images-as-links. The sidebar takes up 20% of the horizontal space, in exchange for a few links that have their counterparts in the main bulk of the page most of the time.

It's also a pain to get any new features visible to the new user. The header is images-as-links, which makes it practically impossible to add any new buttons. We had to resort to putting a dropdown menu on the button that reads "Other", that's how horrible it is.

You say that J2Ov2's layout is better because it has custom stylesheets? They don't even <em>work</em> most of the time because the layout is so reliant on images.

[Slaz]

Nah, that was merely related to the 'cleaner' look those custom stylesheets can give, as long as the white background outside of the main tables remains white, you can create a cleaner look than the J2Ov1 layout. I haven't looked at the HTML code produced by J2O's layout though, it looks alright on IE6, 7, 8b, Firefox1, 2, 3, and all related browsers.. I agree that the old version1 interface and header was better organized for easier access, but the new one does clearly look more clean to my eyes (not that it seriously matters..) after a short exploration in 2004. But yeah, real web designers should consider this a mess.. :p

[Stijn]

It's hell to really customize the layout with CSS though. It's all tables without classes or id's so if you want to target a specific part of the layout you end up with selectors like <code>body table tr td table > td[colspan=2] table[border=3] td</code> which breaks easily and is a pain to use and even then there's some things that are impossible to customize.

I've been rewriting parts of the site recently (compare http://jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/pictures/index.php with http://jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/pictures/index_old.php, HTML-wise) but the current layout does have a lot of flaws that are not fixable by just having it use CSS/HTML instead of tables.