help a noob get started.

[No-Puhi]

Hello. From the title its obvious that i am somewhat new to this game. I played the vanilla version of Jedi Academy at a friends house a couple of times. Quite enjoyed it so i decided to buy myself a copy through steam.

I played a couple of multiplayer matches and played on a couple of modded servers, got rekt by experienced players...

I saw a couple of steam guides related to the game and one of them was a guide for new people to get into the game.

That where i found out about this site

What troubles me is, the guide recommended a lot of things to download and put into my game directory such as OpenJA, JA++ and some demos that are lessons/tutorials for newbies 

Half way through the process i got confused and realised i didnt even know what i was downloading. There was little explanation to what im doing or why im doing it.

So id like to hear some of the things the more experienced players would recommend a new player to do. I taught of going through the singleplayer since i discovered there was more to lightsaber fights than spamming LMB, so i can get a grasp on the controls and moves.

As for the mods like OpenJA and JA++, i have no idea what they are. I saw a forum thread here where a guy recommended new players stay away from JA++. Dont know why...

In summary: Im kinda lost in this new world and would like some guidance.

 

[Circa]

I recommend relying on the least amount of mods as possible when you're starting out, if you're wanting to learn how to play the game. If you saw a guide that gives a bunch of stuff to download, I'd avoid it.

 

Guides to learn the game would be great, however, there's really not much you can learn by reading or watching videos. The best way to learn is by playing a lot and practicing.

 

Make some friends that know what they're doing. A good way to learn is to have people teach you some basics and help you practice at getting good. Maybe even join a clan and attend classes that some clans provide.

 

To answer your question about mods though:

 

OpenJK isn't a mod, it's a patched version of the game, created by people in the JKA community. The game is open source, which means we have access to the code that makes up the game. This has led to the OpenJK project that aims to fix the game where needed. It's recommended to use, but not required by any means. It won't help you or add anything that you need to the game. Just fixes various things.

 

JA+ (or JA++) is the most popular mod that a lot of servers use. There's a lot of controversy and split between the JA+ community and the base/vanilla community, due to the environment that most JA+ servers create. They are generally focused a lot on chatting and social atmospheres, whereas the base community is usually focused on playing. JA+ also adds a lot of features, which is a big reason people use it. It adds RGB sabers, grapple hook, emotes, etc.

 

I recommend staying away from JA+, but that's my personal opinion. You can still play on JA+ servers without it if you want.

[eezstreet]

I think the guy who told you to stay away from OpenJK and JA++ is a bit off his rocker, honestly.

A bit of background first: In April 2013 Raven Software released the source code to the game. OpenJK is the community effort to provide a stable base for players to use. It works on Windows and Mac, but also Linux (where the game was not available before). Some mods (such as the singleplayer mod Jedi Knight: Enhanced and multiplayer Jedi Knight Galaxies) are based on it also.

There was a mod called JA+ which was released a long time ago. It requires a clientside plugin in order to use all features properly. The author has long since moved on, and @@Raz0r has made a new mod to replace it, called JA++ which has additional features and also some bugfixes to the mod. A large portion of the online community uses JA+, but some people play with the vanilla (base) game. There aren't too many differences between that mod and the base game, it's just sort of an extension to it really. There are also niche communities for specific mods, like Makermod and Jedi Knight Galaxies, which have their own forum here. The largest is Moviebattles II, which you can find here.

 

JA++ is relatively painless to install and can be used with either the base game or OpenJK. You can find it here.

OpenJK doesn't really have a website, but there are instructions included with the builds. You can find those here. Make sure that you get the right one for your platform.