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Jedi Academy turned 20 this year! We celebrated in a ton of different ways: mod contest, server event, podcast, etc. Thank you to all who have been a part of this game for the last two decades. Check out the anniversary content!

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Welcome to JKHub

This community is dedicated to the games Star Wars: Jedi Outcast (2002) and Jedi Academy (2003). We host over 3,000 mods created by passionate fans around the world, and thousands of threads of people showcasing their works in progress and asking for assistance. From mods to art to troubleshooting help, we probably have it. If we don't, request or contribute!

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This game turned 20 years old this year, and it is still one of the greatest Star Wars games of all time. If you're new or returning from a long hiatus, here are the basics of getting started with Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy in 2023.

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JK3Files Shuts Down


If you have been around the Jedi Knight community for very long, no doubt you have heard of and have visited jk3files.com. It was the center of the JK modding scene. JK3Files.com was a "Network Site" of the FileFront community. They hosted many modding related sites, as well as a central forum. Eventually, they were picked up by Break Media, and FileFront became GameFront. Because of the turnover, the creators of the network sites weren't around to maintain them, and the new staff didn't know how or had time to learn how to maintain and repair the sites. Over time this became more of a burden than it was worth, and this week Break Media and GameFront have terminated the network sites.

 

What does this mean? JK3Files.com is gone. According to the GameFront staff, the files that were hosted are still intact in their file archive system, but not for long. Those too will be removed soon, and only the most popular ones will remain, most likely.

 

Bad news for us, because the most popular mods are already hosted here. One of the main missions of JKHub was to create a safe and functional place for those mods to remain, but we could only host them if the creators had given us permission to do so. We are slowly trying again in some cases but many mod authors are nowhere to be found with what little contact info we get in a readme file from 10 years ago.

 

It's sad to see the network sites like JK3Files go, but at least the Wayback Machine has them preserved for us to return to any time we like. You can access that here.

 

You can read the official announcement from the GameFront staff below or at this link.

 

 

Hey all,

 

While the fact that the Network Sites are now, suddenly, offline may come as a surprise to many, we all knew this day would come.

 

Of course, the websites were a big part of the history and overall contribution to GameFront for a lengthy period of time. They brought with them a thriving community based around popular titles of the time and files that couldn't be found anywhere else on the internet. (literally) Of course, we had our spats and occasional turbulent times, but in the end we all came together as one big family.

 

The problem is, the house we lived in wasn't built in a way that could allow those who didn't create it, to fix its issues properly. When you try to fix one thing, several other sections would break down. Of course, when you bring in a team that has never seen the network site code before and ask them to repair the issues, you're going to find that it's as daunting a task as asking a toddler to stop saying "no".

 

So, because of the difficulty and amount of work it would take to even learn how everything operated before anything could be fixed, it was pushed to the back burner to fix other portions of GameFront.

 

Now, I would like to say in the defense of our corporate overlords that they did return to the network sites to look into them when they could, but, as I said above about not knowing what made what work, they ended up not doing much of anything to fix the issues. It's not their fault, the way the sites were coded were never really meant to make sense to those who created it as they never expected others to ever look at it.

 

So here we are, a large portion of GameFront that hasn't been able to be updated in years, mixed with random issues that plague it such as screenshots randomly not loading even when they're physically there or the load balance issue that forced you to refresh the page until you were given a valid link to download a file from. It went from a symbol of gaming quality to a blotch on GameFront that made us look broken.

 

The sites were taken offline and will not return. Right now, we're working on getting the domains to redirect to their respective GameFront counterparts. But, the network sites as you knew them are gone.

 

I apologize to those who still used them and throughout the years of their use, I thank the volunteers that participated in making them work. Without your support, they wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as they have.

 

Thanks,

Jeff Mills

GameFront Site/Community/All-of-the-above Manager


By Circa, in Community News,





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I'm glad to see so many of you are still around! Didn't you use the name Dretzel for a while on JKFiles? Or am i getting mixed up with someone else?

 

I do seem to remember that you helped me spruce up many of the pages there with some fancy HTML!

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Yes, that was me, although I didn't talk about it much within the community. I'm not entirely sure why, I guess I just didn't want attention.

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Just found out about this. This is a gut punch; Jedi Academy was the first game that I recall pumping mod after mod into, until any given bot match was an utter frankenstein of a crossover brawl. Sites like JK3Files and PCGameMods enabled this, and I always loved using them. I even submitted a few files back when I went under the name Cuckoo Man, and made more that I've never submitted anywhere. I'd come back to JK3Files every so often, whether for more mods when I became inclined to play a bit more or just to revisit it. While I knew the site could go under easily, and was always surprised to see it still up, eventually it felt like it'd never actually happen. Now that it's gone, I feel like I've lost a part of my childhood. Though Gamefront still seems to host at least most of the old files, I have no idea how long they'll be up, and the lack of images or proper descriptions on certain files makes it hard to really judge something before using it. I'll never be able to look back on pics of the day or any of the other community content, and that just sucks (even if I know full well I never would've thought about doing such a thing had it survived). Rest in peace, you lovable cobbled together mess; I'll always remember your selection of terrible Reborn, Cultist and Jawa reskins and copyrighted duel music. Thanks for all the years of fun.

 

If it hasn't already been implemented, that Orphaned Files suggestion sounds great; should it happen (or have happened), I might have some files to contribute, possibly a couple stragglers from PCGameMods (though I'm still kicking myself for somehow losing one or two files, such as a Squidward player model that managed to disappear at some point while the accompanying Spongebob model survived).

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Though Gamefront still seems to host at least most of the old files, I have no idea how long they'll be up, and the lack of images or proper descriptions on certain files makes it hard to really judge something before using it.

Not sure if you noticed, but I've got a mirror of the files (with a dozen or so exceptions).
DoctorJones likes this
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I feel like the mirror should be advertised more. There might be a lot of people out there that don't use this forum and don't know that there's a JK3files mirror here, like my friend above.

therfiles likes this
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I know it is very difficult legally (with the whole "didn't really get permission to re-upload thing") but I think it would be worth JKHub sponsoring it officially (a news post, on the bar, etc).

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I know it is very difficult legally (with the whole "didn't really get permission to re-upload thing")

And that's why I'd rather not take that risk.
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I can't imagine someone in a thousand years suing JKHub to take a mod down, that's kind of ridiculous. All they need to do is ask nicely to have it removed and you can do so. It doesn't need to be sponsored by JKHub or anything, just a link to the mirror on the top bar would suffice. You could say something like "this mirror is not supported or sponsored by JKHub" on it. The mirror already exists. All you are doing is making it slightly easier for people to find.

 

Also, creating mods for a Star Wars game is already a legal gray area. Disney owns the rights for hundreds of characters, worlds and stories that other people have built off of, it's not like JKHub has to ask Disney for permission to have the site called Jedi Knight Hub.

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I've had my mirror operating for over a year and a half and I only got 1 request to take something down which I did. I don't think that's going to be much of an issue. If they don't want the mod in the mirror, they can request it to be taken down. It's that simple.

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I've had my mirror operating for over a year and a half and I only got 1 request to take something down which I did. I don't think that's going to be much of an issue. If they don't want the mod in the mirror, they can request it to be taken down. It's that simple.

It's more of a risk from GameFront. When there was talk of a mirror on the announcement thread on GameFront, a bunch of ex-staff got mad that we would host it without asking them first. But since the reviews are the only thing they have the rights to, they can't really get that mad about it, in my opinion. Its about preserving the content, not taking credit for their stuff.

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Well, there is little I used out of those files that wasn't a popular mod to begin with. Maps may be the biggest loss.

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Is there NO WAY at all to save those files, all that hard work, from being totally destroyed??

headdesk.gif

 

Read below.

 

Not sure if you noticed, but I've got a mirror of the files (with a dozen or so exceptions).

Nothing against you, we've just been giving this link over and over.

 

I went ahead and added the link to the original post, but since I'm not staff, it didn't edit the article. I think it may be time to advertise @@mrwonko's mirror a little more obviously. i.e. in the JKH bar.

TheWhitePhoenix and Scorpion like this
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headdesk.gif

 

Read below.

 

 

Nothing against you, we've just been giving this link over and over.

 

I went ahead and added the link to the original post, but since I'm not staff, it didn't edit the article. I think it may be time to advertise @@mrwonko's mirror a little more obviously. i.e. in the JKH bar.&&0

 

Apologies! I read the article and responded quickly without checking the comments or forums. Thanks for the link!

Circa likes this
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