Nozyspy

Absolutely fantastic to see you again old friend. Reviewing your maps was always one of the highlights of working at JKFiles!

I think these are for the Alpha, so they may Increase for full release, but it gives you an idea anyway.

Ohhh the tomb! Blimey I had forgotten about that, I think I need to go back and re explore some of my own maps lol!

Ahh you found the secret then, awesome! I'm so happy you liked my maps!

Intriguing... it looks similar to JK Combat, but too many fancy weird jerky movements. Still, it is tempting to try though.

Greetingsh friend. Welcome!

Tsk tsk, you will no doubt now be assassinated by EA goons for that! Typical EA, all mouth no trousers!

Graeme!? o.o Blimey I remember you! Nice to see you hear mate!

I'm not sure I have ever come across someone who doesn't hate EA!

Ok, so i have been out of the loop for quite a while about JKA's source code release, so you will have to bear with me. I am guessing this is a kind of post processing shader system, similar to the GLSL shaders for Minecraft? In which case, would setting one of these shaders in your shaders file (presumably) for a map then render that map unplayable in Base JKA? Or are these parameters simply an addition to the default shader which causes these new shaders to override the default ones when this shader system is installed in JKA? Again, i'm really not up to speed on all this so forgive me!

I can imagine, the Base JKA Korriban textures contain a surprising amount of different colours!

Haha yes, its a shame they even considered changing the aesthetic design completely, rather than just making it cleaner and more modern, it really worked quite efficiently on that site. Jeff 'noe' is actually still around by the way, I don't know how he hasn't been driven to madness by now!

I cant quite remember now since it was so long ago, but I may well have left you and a couple of others on the staff list. I seem to remember when I was made aware of the login bug I left any retiring staff on the list just in case, since removing and re-adding them later on would have stopped their login from working. I remember at the time you said you were pressed for time, a few other staffers left for similar reasons so its nothing to worry about! You were one of my best staffers, in fact, didn't you do some HTML stuff on some of the pages on the site like the rules page to spruce them up? I ended up kitbashing that on several other pages in an effort to make things look a little prettier!

I've never been particularly enamored with the Base JKA Korriban textures, I much prefer KOTOR's texture and colour scheme over JKA's rendition of the planet. However your map looks great so far! You have plenty of solid architectural detail in there, and good cohesive architecture can really make a map. Keep up the good work!

I hope you'll forgive me. For many years I was used to just getting things done. For years at FileFront the higher ups talked about 'new network sites' and this 'big redesign' where everything would be modernized. People spent a long time discussing it and throwing around ideas, but in the end it all came to naught, all the while I had learned to make the best with what I had. I trust Caelum don't worry, he was an excellent staffer back in the day. But as always with aiming high, there is always the worry of things falling short of increasingly building expectations, I just wanted to provide some suggestions on how the current site could be spruced up a bit without having to expend too much time, energy or indeed money on it. I look forward to seeing what Caelum has in mind, but i'm still convinced the site as it currently is, aesthetically speaking, only needs a bit of spit and polish! Like i said above, i've been through a similar situation before, and what they were coming up with was terrifying! It would have seen JKFiles turned into something that looked like a glorified blog!

You are too kind sir. Thank you for your kind words, you don't know how much that means to me. Oh yeah, that's why it ended up basically just being me by the end. I could add the persons name to the staff list, and they would get the email for their OPS login, but the login would not work. The only work around was a Network Admin account that was kept spare, that trusted members could use to log in if necessary, however despite my requests they would not allow any new staffers to use this account. It makes sense really, for obvious security reasons, giving a completely new staff member Network Administrator access. However i seem to remember they were reluctant to allow returning previous staff members to use it also, unless they had been staff previously for quite some time. Unfortunately a lot of the longest serving and most trusted staffers had long since moved on or were not contactable.

Hmmm, I take your point, but one has to be careful about trying to be all things to all people. Very few things, and very few people can be good at everything. You can either be exceptional at one thing, or mediocre at many. And I am worried that focusing on too many things simultaneously will be detrimental overall. You guys have a great thing going here, this really is one of the last bastions of JK Modding and I would hate to see that supplanted by using the site to replicate something that many clans are probably already doing well enough on their own sites. One of the issues I see is that the site is currently very well in tune with the modding community, but there is very little here to do with the competitive community, aside from the site and clan links at the top of the page. I can completely understand where you are coming from and what you want to do Ping, really. The problem is, what incentive would those competitive or clan players have in coming here over simply socializing on their own websites? How would you organize such a disparate group of people around tournaments and competitive play here as opposed to ones that they will run internally? To integrate and organize that here on the site, and indeed to change the sites current primary purpose would require a huge amount of effort and maintenance. Yeah I did actually have a look at that thread before I made this one, but Eez said I should make a new thread if I had any suggestions. I wasn't intending to step on your toes i'm quite looking forward to what you have in mind, in fact, I just thought I could offer some suggestions. Really I was thinking that since there didn't seem to be any firm idea of when this new software was being released there could be some simple aesthetic changes made that could spruce the already decent theme a bit while we wait and also to provide an alternate to a full site redesign which of course would take a considerable amount of your time and energy I am sure. You already also have my donation, and more will be forthcoming, everyone needs to work together to keep the community going strong! Oh and also, you never truly retire. I tried doing that once and i couldn't stay away. Ahh i'm only trying to help, but maybe i'm outstaying my welcome already eh? :/ I just... I feel guilty that I was once custodian of a large part of this community, and despite my best efforts was unable to protect it in the end, I would like to make amends.

Thats EA for you.

GIVE ME YOUR SOUL! That is deeply terrifying!

One has to be careful not to have a site that is too cramped. As well as that, large vibrant images and lots of transparencies are important parts of that 'modern' look. JKHub seems primarily to be a modding and file hosting site, with the competitive community as an additional part, it makes more sense to keep the design close to the sites roots. There are issues with what you suggested, for starters, does JKHub have its own organized tournaments and ladders? If not then who's tourneys and ladders exactly would you feature on the front page? Another issue is having to keep this information updated, as it would need to be entered manually no doubt. I believe it would be more practical for such things to have their own dedicated 'Competitive Play' page where all the relevent information can be kept in one easy to find place. I will give that a go tomorrow for you! Though i am dubious as to whether that would look a little odd or not.

Intriguing. What type/theme of map are you planning to make with this layout?

This looks strangely like one of the levels from Republic Commando...