Sharing my experiences...

[envelope91]

Greetings great dear JK Hub community,

First and foremost I would offer my greatest of thanks for…existing, my country
is one of the many that filefront have declined, and so when I returned to play
some JKA, and needed some mods, I immediately found myself petrified and though
the servers were indeed down for everyone.
Who knows how long that will keep their servers up!

Therefore, thanks, thank you for keeping these legendary old mods alive and

available to the community.

 

Below i write a little bit about the game(s), and how i have come to experience them.

Most of these thoughts are meant for myself, as a way of

remembering what this game means to me, but I still feel that sharing
them could perhaps bring another soul into this crazy but amazing game that,
according to me, still got quite a few bullets left!

I tried to make this understandable to someone with only a limited knowledge of the game

I may have failed, though.

I would love to start with off with the thing I like the most…

The social factor in this game. It tends to be almost extreme, which can be
rare in a “fight and slice” sort of game. The only multiplayer games in which
you are usually quite social are MMOs or something similar. Nevertheless, it is
fun, to fight someone and then discuss his techniques makes it so much easier
(and fun) to learn, of course, you may as well talk about the weather or any
other fascinating subject, but the point remains, due to the depth of the game
itself, you rarely find yourself without  a subject of conversation.

A side-effect may of course be the quite inevitable drama in this game… This
might in some ways be the worst thing about the game, and some would argue as
to why I even mention it. Well, I believe that it have always had a strong
influence in this game, be it bad or good.

After being in quite a lot of clans back in the day, one realizes how much of a
power game it really becomes, one needs to understand that in this game, a lot
of people got their first chance at being a sort of authority, and I think that
could make any person a bit crazy. We can’t deny that most people whom play (or
played) this game are/were teenagers or even children, although recently it
feels more like most people are 20-30, that was not always the case, however.
Anyone in a position of power could “punish” and “sentence” others in quite
cruel ways. In fact, if someone would be to break a rule, others tend to get
quite exited(!), and look forward to see the scolding that follow. The person
whom broke it may be hindered to move, and quite a lot of people is usually
able to gather around the person, while he is being instructed of how to behave
and then usually warned. Personally I remember thinking that this was a quite
unprofessional way to handle things, perhaps some sort of private conversation
would be more fitting, rather than being hung out on display like that. But
then one comes back to the fact that most of us weren’t/aren’t grown adults
yet, and an admin usually needs to act fast, and there simply is no time to do
anything else at the moment.

But then again, such powers were merely a consequence of the inevitable strong
emotions that can arise within the game world. From the first day I started
playing, servers have been hacked, harassed and been filled quite nasty people.
It is really no mystery why the JA+ modification became such a huge success.
Ever since the game was released, it’s been under attack, and in some ways,
this gave people a fighting chance, with the slight risk of being horrendously
abused, of course. I suppose in many ways it was inevitable, it was not
uncommon that one person developed such a strong dislike for another individual
that eventually drove himself to attacking the server itself.

It should, however, be punishable not to mention Jedi Outcast in this boring rant.

It was released just one year before Jedi Academy, in 2003. It also shares the
same graphical engine. The demo that first arrived proved to be most successful, and the

game itself was no let down either.
I suppose one could see JK2 as the rope that swirled everyone into the loving arms of JKA.
After having such a blast through singleplayer, one quickly started to explore
the vast world of multiplayer, and what a ride it was. Eventually, one joined a
clan, had real battles, real enemies and real amusement! --- Although I quickly
went on to JKA, one should never forget that JK2 was the kicker that opened up
a whole new world.

But enough about that, if I may, I would like to speak more of the
aforementioned combat depth this game has to offer. The game offer three
different saber alternatives, a single hilt, two sabers, or a staff. Each with
its own strength and weaknesses, and each with a tremendous amount of
techniques and abilities available. What truly captures my fascination is how
long time you can spend perfecting your combat abilities, some people that have
played for over 10 years now will still feel that they have not learned everything
that there is to know, you need to hone your reflexes well and read your
opponent, one could say half the fight is fought on an unconscious level and a
single error makes the difference between life or death, every person you meet
will have a unique style, sometimes even reflecting their own personal traits,
a lot of training is often spent on changing fighting technique quickly, and in
a subtle manner, many consider good evasion techniques to be more valuable than
damaging the opponent itself. However, it would not be possible for me to
describe everything here, because I simply do not know it all! ---But I think
my point is made.

Because of the fact that one must learn so much to become a true foe in battle,
clans often utilized a sort of “Master and apprentice “ system, this was not
only very true to the movies and lore behind Star Wars, but also extremely fun.
When joining a clan, one often got assigned to master, a very experienced
player that makes it his mission to train a young padawan to the best of his
abilities.

 

So that one day, he may even be able to defeat his own master… (dramatic music)

 

But with the fear of this post becoming to long, i shall begin to round off.

I know that often, when starting a game that you

haven’t played for years, everything seems less of what you remember it to be,
but with a little tweaking, this game still looks great! --- And although the
game has dropped substantially in popularity, I truly hope that it will live
on, and you, great community, is a glowing example of what it means to be a
hardcore gamer, loyal not only to the game, but to the community at large, and
the willingness to keep helping each other in any situation, this is truly what
warms my hearth.

 

-envelope91

 

(PS. I apologize for the horrible formation of the text, i tend to write big texts in Office Word, which can have side-effects. should you break your scroll wheel, i am not to be held accountable!)

[Mog]

That's alot of text. Anyways...I'm glad you're very passionate about JKA.

[envelope91]

Hello Mog!

 

It is true that i wrote quite a alot of text, recently i''ve had a strong urge to write down my feelings, so that one can easily access them later! (If that makes sense.)

I'm quite sure (or at least i hope) i'm not the only one that is very passionate about JK2/JKA(3). It certanly is a game that is worth to be passionate of!

 

-envelope91