Knights Reborn

Hello, I'm Stickman Sham and I've been playing on KR for a couple years now. I once went by the name [TNA]Samurai, and across three years, I have 160 hours of playtime on the server. Lately, I've been convinced that both the KR server and the entire NA playerbase would greatly benefit from switching KR server to JApro.

As we all know, KR currently runs JA+, a legacy mod made back in 2004 and supported until 2011. This mod allowed servers to run with advanced admin abilities, ideal for clan servers and overall skirmish servers like KR, Jawa, and countless others across the years. This mod has been endured the test of time as shown by KR's endurance as the most popular NA server across the years thanks to this style of play. JA+ also featured an overhaul of the saber, attempting to make duels play more like JK2 1.04 rather than use single player saber damages that base uses. However, in the current climate of Jedi Academy, high level play is relegated to base servers while JA+ endures with a greatly altered saber. As many high level players have noted, JA+ upsets the balance of medium style and especially staff style, while nerfing the effectiveness of strong style as it can be idle blocked indefinitely as long as the opponent holds up strong style in return. Additionally, red style can no longer get extra damage through poking, making it significantly less threatening against yellow. This has made the mod undesirable for competitive play and either turns players away or forces them to duel on a worse version of the game.

However, JApro has been shaping up to be a superior alternative to JA+, as it boasts the same admin features as JA+ while adding numerous more, such as the ability to request full force duels or even gun duels. Additionally, it rebalances the saber to be more like base, except with location based damages, so the quality/aim of your hits matter more. With this feature, KR would be able to host base, ja+, and full force players, as well as allow newer players to experience the game with force. Since the force is such a staple of Star Wars, many new players are disappointed to find that not many populated servers have it enabled in any capacity, but with JApro, it would open up the game to both new players seeking the full Jedi Academy multiplayer experience as well as seasoned players who have duelled on full force for years. Essentially, KR would be expanding its player accommodations greatly by unifying multiple communities into a single server environment. Previously, if you wanted to full force or even fight with guns, you'd have to join either a full force or lugormod server, but as those have fallen out of favor due to declining playerbases, it's currently impossible without arranging a match externally. To clarify, this feature does not bleed into the free for all, it simply allows players to enable force or guns in a closed-off duel shell. Switching to JApro would do a great deal for these communities and help shake up the server in a positive way and allow the more competitive side of the playerbase hang around the same server as the ones who don't mind either way. If your personal opinion about the JA+ saber is "the saber doesnt really affect me" or "I wouldn't mind either way" or even "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", please note that a significant percent of the KR population doesn't see things the same way, and are disgruntled about JA+.

JApro is also designed to be compatible with OpenJK servers like KR, and it also doesn't require users to download a plugin similar to how JA+ servers don't require the JA+ client in order to play. However, if players do choose to download the JApro client, they will get access to the same JA+ features and more. In fact, the mod is so robust that admins can even change settings to simulate Jedi Outcast 1.02's combat on the fly if they wanted to. I find it hard to consider a change like this a bad thing, since players will either agree vehemently for KR to switch to JApro, or they'll have no opinion/say they don't mind either way. Many have expressed their frustration with JA+, and while it has worked for all these years, JApro greatly improves upon it, and its features would do a great deal to shake up the current stagnation in Jedi Academy. KR has endured as the most active NA server, and I believe it has an obligation to do everything in its power to accommodate and unify the enduring playerbase.

You make strong arguments, and the only actual defense we have is that we are a "japlus" clan, which is a lame comeback!

So I'll would like to hear other comments, obviously what the KR members say & feel has, well, the only input we would care about, as it's their clan, their server.

I’m really glad that Jawfin is open for a discussion about that and doesn’t decline it

Lately, i have been experimenting with jaPRO on a closed server and gotta say it’s awesome because of the feature Stickman mentioned. I do think, that with a mod like that the community can grow a lot more together and have fun together there, regardless it’s just someone who does base / FF or what so ever.

What I wanted to add is , that you guys have a open source server mod which gets actively maintained by Bucky . Obv if he sees that servers start to use it, he will maintain it even more active. (If you guys even want that, since you Jawfin and probably others are really experienced in programming and even do that as a living).

Ah and, most exploits which still work on KR from the lag exploit to speed hack to even that fast saber style switch got fixed there. And they also added a nice Anti HP teller, which works nicely.

If anyone is curious as to what japro has, documentation can be found here: https://github.com/videoP/jaPRO/blob/ma ... ro_docs.md

It is actively maintained, and other ja+ features could potentially be added if crucial things are missing. Maybe get it configged like you want and try it for a week, y'all can always switch back if it just doesn't work out. :D

I don't know much about this mod, but judging from the stuff mentioned in the OP, I'd be open to implementing it for a trial period on the server. I think it's a good idea to try new things and see if there are other ways to improve the server.

Thanks for reaching out!

Yeah I think that it's pretty cool. Like Uscari said, I definitely wouldn't be against using it for a while to see how things go. The more opportunities for people to have fun the better in my opinion.

As long as JApro doesn't ever require a client-side download to access the server, then I would be ok with it. One question, is there a "backwards compatibility" of any kind with JA+? Like for example if a JA+ user logs on for the first time in a long time after a potential switch, will they be confused?

I don't even think that's an issue that should prevent us switching if that's the route people want to go, but we should make sure to heavily publicize the switch if it happens.

A factor also is I think the staff dfa, the glitch move where kicking in the air give the saber kata level damage. I appreciate this is an unintended glitch from Slider, but nevertheless we do use and teach this move. It's not a game changer (hehe pun), but something staffers will need to be aware that this will no longer work (to my understanding anyway).

I like the idea of giving it a trial run

MasterM wrote:As long as JApro doesn't ever require a client-side download to access the server, then I would be ok with it. One question, is there a "backwards compatibility" of any kind with JA+? Like for example if a JA+ user logs on for the first time in a long time after a potential switch, will they be confused?

I don't even think that's an issue that should prevent us switching if that's the route people want to go, but we should make sure to heavily publicize the switch if it happens.

It doesn't require you to download JApro client side, would be recommend tho.
The only issue i see here with "backwards compatibillity" is the grapple, since it would be just the normal "+button12" look. Dunno if that can be changed in the code. Beside that, everything should be fine...

Jawfin wrote:A factor also is I think the staff dfa, the glitch move where kicking in the air give the saber kata level damage. I appreciate this is an unintended glitch from Slider, but nevertheless we do use and teach this move. It's not a game changer (hehe pun), but something staffers will need to be aware that this will no longer work (to my understanding anyway).

Im not 100% sure if that can't be tweaked somehow... The best guess for any issue would be if someone in your clan, who is still active and also on Discord, contacts Bucky with everything you guys would love to see. Im pretty sure he would be up to implent / fix it. His Discord is: Bucky#8213

I would also say it would be cool to get a trial run on this. I don't see why not! It looks and sounds like a fun.

I like the idea of bringing something fresh to the server we can test out

A Trial Run Would Be Good. Sounds Interesting.

It definitely wouldn’t do any harm to give it a trial run. Staff and medium single are horribly imbalanced. I’d welcome a more traditional duelling experience.

SURE, i'll try it...

Hi guys, thanks for all your interest and ideas. Personally I am not opposed to this, but there is a significant factor here which needs to be stated.

Our server has a reasonable amount of custom code which would need to be ported to this version. There are routines which handle software and DOS attacks, which are closed-source (because if people knew how simply we were blocking these they could easily compensate in their attack software). Also, there is specific code which handles a variety of extra custom rcon commands, which are interfaced by other servers for different purposes.

This means I am the bottleneck in this operation, in that I would have to do the programming port, compiling and testing - and as it is I am already working 10 - 14 hour days, including weekends, meaning free time for games is minimal. I would like to do this, but my commitments means there's no set time period for achieving it.

Could someone please post a link to the github or repository which should be used for this project?

Cheers

Here's the EternalJK repo, the ideal for JA Pro. Bucky said he can make it work without engine modifications and already has server code he wrote for Cael (JKHub) which he has offered for you to run. If you have any more questions, let me know and I'll contact him right away

https://github.com/eternalcodes/EternalJK

I'm a little late here but I just wanna say it could be interesting to try something new
I know how hard it could be for Jaw (I do some programing too) and my suggestion is to test on our private server small implementations, little by little, no stress involved and see the feedback from the members
I don't know if this makes sense but I wanna help easy the process. My programming background is not web based but if I can help anyhow, count me in.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but reading through this, I would be on-board to try something new out as well.

Yeah, I'm open to it too

Would be neat to experience something new like that in my view, even if it takes a while to get into place I would be agreeable to a trial period as well.

And what about Lugormod ?

...

I'm out.