Originally Posted by Cataphract

Hum? Obstacles? The only valid reasons I can think right now for making a program not free is if 1) one has licensed code from a third party and wasn't given permission to disclose it or 2) the business model depends upon it.

"Free" does not necessarily mean "open source".

Originally Posted by Torkell

"Free" does not necessarily mean "open source".

Sure, words have several meanings, but clearly I was using "free" to refer to freedom, not price. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Well one thing is clear already. It definitely won't go commercial

LOL I could see that now! Amazon.com:

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Dedicated Server
description: host your own jj2 dedicated server with this program!!!
price: $19.95 FREE SHIPPING

comments:
somebody: What the heck is jazz jackrabbit 2?
somebody else: ???
somebody else: I bought this program and it says i need to download levels for jazz jackrabbit 2. what the hell??

Whahahah It's price is even a lot more than the one of JJ2 itself ;p

Awww but that's no fun! It's funny when the animations get screwed up from a 1.24 person joining a 1.23 server! XD

But still it's better if they don't.

how so?

The animations can be fixed easily. Depending on what version a client uses, we can then align the anims to fit the given characters.

Give moo a checkbox to disable it

Thank you, Jerry!

I personally believe it should be command line. Servers tend to be command line only.

BTW sorry for bump.

Bump is good. I wonder if this is still being worked on ^^ Did moo get his checkbox yet?

Check my signature.
The forum has just opened.

Aye I'm there

...only I'm not recieving the activation mail. Manual activation please

The activation is a bit bugged as it does not send from a valid email address. Check your spam for the activation email. I'll eventually have to setup a proper email client.

EDIT: Activated

Just a question.
Is the community still interested in this project? I see certain people talk about it every once a while, but nobody seems to be interesting in coding or at least helping to code it. Unfortunately I don't have much time to keep coding it on my own.

I am its just I don't hear much news about it.

The lack of interest in coding this might be an effect of both the lack of coders in this community (#1) and the mysteries and secrecies J2NSM tends to surround its projects with.

I cant even code soo...

Each second I'm waiting for this kills one of my cells. You'd better make time before I'm gone ;p


I'd love to help but I wouldn't know how. Still, I'm really one of those people who are really waiting for this to come out. BTW... Is the project still called Azure Moon?

if this project isnt running maybe some coders can begin there own project.
since a few months i started learning java and C# so maybe we can team up.

if the project is still running i will gladly help

Azure moon was Neobeo's prototype. It had a number of networking capabilities plus a built in LUA support. Although I only have an older version of it with no LUA support

It would be nice if this project was picked up again. I despise hosting jj2 servers because the game can be so unstable, but with a dedicated server I would probably host a lot.

Most interesting, this would be a huge, late leap forward.
Do carry on with the project, for the community's sake.

Bump , any news ?

Why would there be? No one is actively working on this project at the moment.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

Why would there be? No one is actively working on this project at the moment.

again i say who wants to start a new project. we will re state the goals to a minimum for the first release. (i should say no exta funcs only basic jj2 behavior without extra game modes).

i think java is a good choice becouse of its cross platformness.

Also java is slow

Originally Posted by Erik

Also java is slow

as a desktop app it might seem slow and at initial startup it will be a bit slower then native apps. but when its running it will be fast enough to do its job.

correct me if i am wrong but thats what a java programmer told me.

Why would you want to restart this? It makes no sense. There has already been a lot of work put into this, even though it is not finished yet. I have even seen severs being hosted using this, it just has quite limited functionality. For example, last I saw, it was possible to move around and chat, but impossible to shoot or damage other players.

If anyone is really willing to put work into this project, just ask for the source code. Don't do off and start something new, it's unproductive.

Originally Posted by EvilMike

Why would you want to restart this? It makes no sense. There has already been a lot of work put into this, even though it is not finished yet. I have even seen severs being hosted using this, it just has quite limited functionality. For example, last I saw, it was possible to move around and chat, but impossible to shoot or damage other players.

If anyone is really willing to put work into this project, just ask for the source code. Don't do off and start something new, it's unproductive.

good point!

someone could upload the source to some repository like google code, perhaps. Imho one of the reasons most projects aren't finished is the veil of secrecy surrounding them. not that they would otherwise be finished, i doubt it, but the chance might be higher.

Originally Posted by Fquist

someone could upload the source to some repository like google code, perhaps. Imho one of the reasons most projects aren't finished is the veil of secrecy surrounding them. not that they would otherwise be finished, i doubt it, but the chance might be higher.

if its on google code i would gladly take a look at it. dont know if i could do the coding but i can lead the project and bring some structure to it with a forum a dev site and code hosting (subversion repository).

On-topic:
I was thinking about setting up a svn on my own personal server, but I guess it's possible to use 3rd party repos as well. We have already documented much of jj2's internals and there have been a number of prototypes to date. Unfortunately the project got stuck a while ago because there didn't seem to be much interest to keep it going. I've worked on the docs for a while later tho. The project's dev forum is here (not much content on it): http://dev.lordprime.com


Off-topic:
Recently I spoke with Pyromanus and he brought a rather big question to my attention. I would like to share this question with outside world to see the response. There have been discussions about a number of different projects and I am rather curious to see which one of them is most desirable and which is most probable. To list a few:

Dedicated server
A server for the current game (1.23, 1.24) with new features, scripting and plugin support. Should use portable code and run at least on linux and windows. This project is probable because we've already documented all jj2 file formats as well as network protocols. The main challenge here is to create a robust internal structure and recode certain parts of jj2 like the engine itself. For such project, I'd likely require some help from experienced programmers (I dare not say any names) to discuss the blueprints and portability (possibly to work on the code as well).

JCS+
Neobeo has worked on this project since forever and the project is currently dead indefinitely postponed. Basically, it's a rewritten Jazz Creation Station with a number of new features. Unfortunately Neobeo doesn't seem to have much time to work on it any more.

OpenJazz2
Like OpenJazz1. A portable, completely rewritten and reverse-engineered version of jj2. Has to support current jj2 standards (networking protocols, file formats and the like). This is basically the same as the dedicated server, but without scripting support and added multimedia (gfx, sound, ui, etc).

New game (1.25)
This project basically gives us the ability to write our own jazz game from scratch. Since this is a new game, it does not have to stick to current jj2 standards. We can implement a number of features that the current game lacks (see the 1.25 thread). While this project presents the greatest reward, it also requires the most work to pull off.

Openjazz2 is definitely the best idea, and the most useful.

These ideas are all interesting but I personally doubt the feasibility of nearly all of them with the possible exception of JCS+.

robust internal structure and recode certain parts of jj2 like the engine itself

I personally don't see how we can actually expect to produce a spot on replication of the JJ2 engine itself when all we have is the binary. I can easily think of a number of subtle issues that would be extremely time consuming to reverse engineer (for example, how do bouncers actually bounce? The server is responsible for this calculation.). It might be possible to get a JJ2 engine that is 90% of the way to being accurate but I don't think we'd ever be able to get that last 10% perfect.

Originally Posted by Bobby aka Dizzy

I personally don't see how we can actually expect to produce a spot on replication of the JJ2 engine itself when all we have is the binary. I can easily think of a number of subtle issues that would be extremely time consuming to reverse engineer (for example, how do bouncers actually bounce? The server is responsible for this calculation.). It might be possible to get a JJ2 engine that is 90% of the way to being accurate but I don't think we'd ever be able to get that last 10% perfect.

Trust me! That's a minor problem

It's this kind of attitude I'm sort of tired of, Cpp. You could as well just explain why that is a minor problem so we aren't left to guess.

For the record, Neobeo has already done work on calculating weapon trajectories, though I'm not sure exactly how much he progressed.

Out of all those projects, the dedicated server should be focused on the most, followed by jcs+. The reason for this is simply pragmatic: both of those projects have had work on them, and both of them show the highest probability of being finished. Particularly the dedicated server.

OpenJazz2 is a good idea but too complicated at the moment, and feels like a bit of a pipe dream.

Originally Posted by Stijn

It's this kind of attitude I'm sort of tired of, Cpp. You could as well just explain why that is a minor problem so we aren't left to guess.

I'm pretty sure he was joking if the is any indication. He's saying that even though it's tricky, that stuff can be figured out. Difficult, but not impossible. No need to lash out against him.

Originally Posted by Bobby aka Dizzy

I personally don't see how we can actually expect to produce a spot on replication of the JJ2 engine itself when all we have is the binary. I can easily think of a number of subtle issues that would be extremely time consuming to reverse engineer (for example, how do bouncers actually bounce? The server is responsible for this calculation.). It might be possible to get a JJ2 engine that is 90% of the way to being accurate but I don't think we'd ever be able to get that last 10% perfect.

You'd be surprised how much of the weird tiny details can be figured out with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of spare time. I think weapon trajectories could be figured out with enough effort. Maybe they would still be a bit off, but most likely less than 10%.