Jazz2Online news for July 2006
JCSref - July 18th 2006
Source: JCSref news
From JCSref news:Here’s an article called Tile Cache which renders last year’s Trigger Scenery in Background Layers obsolete. Thanks to BlurredD and Neobeo for their work on identifying the cache structure.
Anyone who’s had trouble getting trigger scenery in background layers to work may want to check this new article out, as it does a better job of explaining how and why the technique works, as well as a few potential errors.
JCSref has not been very active lately, but it grows on new material. If you’re not busy, please feel free to submit an article or two. We can all contribute to making JCSref the one-stop resource for problems with JCS.
And another poll - July 17th 2006
Do you have the illegally-leaked Jazz Jackrabbit 3D Demo?
Yes, of course! – 60 Votes (38%)
Yes, unfortunately. – 13 Votes (8%)
No, unfortunately. – 44 Votes (28%)
No, of course not! – 20 Votes (13%)
Huh? – 21 Votes (13%)
Total votes: 158
Well… that’s more promising than it could be, I guess. Still well over half of voters see having the JJ3 demo as an unashamedly good thing. Am I the only one impressed by the fact that in a little over a month 158 people voted? Before Warren Schultz’s list server redirection we didn’t get anywhere near 100.
And that leads up to the topic of our next poll… when did you first become active in the JJ2 community? JJ2 period, not necessarily J2O or any other specific site.
Downloads section updates & some suggestions - July 12th 2006
Negativity in reviews
Please be reminded that the reviewing system we have in place on Jazz2Online is both for showing what is worth downloading to visitors, and for providing constructive criticism to the creators of uploads. The second part gets forgetten sometimes. Let us try to be constructive and polite, and not post reviews such as “I can’t believe I wasted 5 seconds of my life downloading this. This was TERRIBLE!!” and be constructive instead. Reviews are not for shooting down ideas and people, but for working together to create quality.
New download admin
Cooba has been promoted to downloads section admin. He will help and take care of keeping order in the downloads section and removing bad reviews and downloads. Hopefully, he can contribute to the quality level of the downloads section and encourage positivity. We’re off on a good start: the initial idea for the above message about negativity in reviews was his.
New algorithm for helpful reviews
The downloads section code has been adapted to use a new algorithm for calculating the helpfulness of reviews. Reviews that have no votes at all will now be listed above reviews that have gotten negative votes. These reviews will have a negative helpfulness rating from now on, and will move down the page. For quality reviews, the algorithm should work the same.
Macro uploads
Several macros have been uploaded to the downloads section recently. Macros are not really very special and might clutter the downloads section, so unless there’s very good reason to upload them, please do not.
Zips
Please make sure zip files you upload are valid, and can be opened with regular unzipping programs, like for example Windows XP’s zip functionality. If a file you upload does not have its contents displayed on Jazz2Online, it might be wise to try over or try another zipping program.
The other way around, it is suggested to use WinRAR to open up zips that you can not open properly. Some zips that people complain about are valid zips and can be opened.
WC2006 Final Information Announced - July 3rd 2006
Source: JCF
The yearly meeting of the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 minds from the United States and Canada has been confirmed and announce. West Coast 2006 will take place August 1st-7th in Seattle, Washington.
More information, including costs and activities discussion, is available on the JCF.