Well, there are all sorts of games out there with mods. How could Jazz 2 be any different? We can't edit the ANIMS files YET, but that's exactly why we want the scorcecode - to do things with Jazz 2 we can't do right now. And I certainly don't want Sega to sell Sonic to us! If you've ever played FPS online you can see recognisable characters that people have made and downloaded: Sonic, Homer, Snoopy, etc online. Those franchise weren't sold out, and those people haven't been told to get those models off the websites they were on. It's just fans putting some of their other favouite characters in a new game.

Also I would hope I could make Sonic available for download so others could play as him too - or so that they could see him atleast when I play as him. Or maybe there would be a way to let others see him without them downloading it. I know it uses the local animation file - and that makes sense. I think it would work just like models work on FPS. If the server has the download and it's in use, all other players will download it automatically and see the person being that character. Just because Jazz 2 is a side-scroller doesn't mean it won't work in similar ways to how FPS work when it comes to downloads and mods.

I guess I just have a hard time believing that the animation can't be changed. Look at Duke Nukem 3D - which uses flat sprites for the characters. It doesn't exactly come with a user-friendly character editor, but you can make your own enemies or playable characters for it. Whether it always has to REPLACE existing characters, or if it ADDS them is unknown to me. I just hope we do get that sourcecode, and then we can work something out. Just let me handle the animations.