Interesting you should say that...I was in BK and I was good friends with CoolBK too..until it happened. I was in SSB and BK at the same time, and one day I was informed by CoolBK that there was a war between SSB and BK, and I needed to quit SSB. But, I was more loyal to SSB, so our friendship kind of died. But now onto my story.

When I was about 6 or 7, I got into computers. My dad took me to Futureshop to get some games, and I picked out the Jazz Jackrabbit 1 demo and some other game from the $2 bin. I instantly loved it, but I was awful at it. One thing I remember though was that my babysitter was really good at it, and she always helped me through the hard parts. We always played it when she came over. When I beat the game I was very disappointed, because on the front of the diskette there were screenshots of all sorts of other levels which I never saw in the demo.

Eventually I forgot about it and went on with my life. One day though, I was at a family friend's house, and they had the full version of Jazz. I remembered back to what I had and instantly got excited. I borrowed it and copied it to my hard drive, and I was instantly hooked. But time passed, and about a year later I went to the same family friend's house, and they had JJ2! Again I "borrowed" it and was instantly hooked again.

This is where I can actually put in some timeline. I copied JJ2 in about spring 1998. However I didn't have the internet (though I wanted it desparately), so didn't discover online play until december, when my christmas present was internet access (on a 14.4 modem). I played for a bit, but just found that my computer (60MHz) and internet were too slow. I played on and off, but I never really considered myself part of the community. I had made one level, "Toiled Treasure", which was actually an edit of one of the official treasure hunt levels which I turned into a CTF level.

Friday December 17th, 1999: The day my life changed. I got cable internet finally, and at the same time I got a new computer (500MHz). I was instantly playing JJ2 online and met all sorts of people. I joined my first clan (SW) on the same day. Soon after that I found out about the JMMB, and I registered there, but I never really posted until later. (If anyone can remember back that far, I posted one topic "Annoying Parents", about being cut off from JJ2 for 2 months. It was in the wrong forum though, and I thought I would get banned for doing that [I had never had any experience with message boards before]).

I had the most fun on JJ2 in that first year after getting cable. I met lots of people, made lots of friends, and so on. I wasn't off at all when the list server went down permanently, because I immediately went to J2C and got the patch. After that there were a lot less people on, and many of my friends were gone. But I still played, and the number of people playing went up as more people found out about the patch.

I was also a frequenter of Dimension Jazz, and I liked the message board there because it was a smaller community and more friendly than the JMMB. When the JMMB went down, I can't remember where I heard of J2O (It was either DJ or the BlueBoards) but I registered as soon as I found out about it.

Then there was the fateful day that I found out about cheating online. I instantly liked doing it, and I found out a lot of stuff. I decided to make a program to simplify the position addresses, and to be able to quickly warp to other people. Unlike many people who learn VB so they can make a trainer, I already knew lots of VB and MegaWarp was suddenly born. I used it personally for a bit, but I needed to share it. I posted a message on a message board somewhere (can't remember if it was the JCF or the JMMB), and the first three people who replied got to be program testers. I never even thought that it would damage the community if it got out. The three people I sent it to liked it, but by then I decided I shouldn't release a cheat program. I sent it to one more person (you know who you are) and failed to tell him not to spread it. After that I left JJ2 for a while, and when I came back (after about a month) I was completely flabbergasted that my program was on the tip of everyone's tounge's. I joined a server one day and it was hosting a test level. One of the "rules" was "No MegaWarp". I was totally surprised and very shocked and upset.

Eventually J2HG was formed. It was originally not my idea, but I was the one who took the time to get it organized and set up the site and the board. A lot of the online cheaters turned good and became part of J2HG. MegaWarp actually had a bad side and a good side. I consider it the start of widespread cheating, and also the start of using memory for useful things. I think that if MegaWarp had never been made, J2HG would have never been formed.

So eventually things calmed down, and that is where I'm at now. I'm not great at the JJ2 game, but I like the JJ2 community and I like researching and helping for J2HG.

And that is my JJ2 story. Sorry if it is too long (probably nobody is going to read it all). I'm looking forward to my upcoming three-year-JJ2-anniversary this December 17th, 2002.