How do you see the future of the codjumping community?

  • Yoyo,


    I don't come alot to say hello but this subject is really something that interest me, as I also feel less and less "entertained" (due to the lack of new map and seeing people quit mainly ) . This game is just a really great experience with a lot of depth and pretty nice community overall.
    I also still enjoy watching CJ videos as the quallity have improved alot over the years and even recently, the YWCD is insane imo (Bunny's ep was sick btw).


    On the topic, I feel like the "overplayed map" like Race, Galaxy, Descent_v3 are killing the server right now. Don't Get me wrong Race and Galaxy are probably the best maps overall imo (good balance for low and high player / for fun player and speedrunner) and Descent_v3 is one of my Favorite map but i think limiting the time per day or per week for these map could be a start.


    Also I was interested on how the movement system works so I've investigate a bit on that thing that define our so loved game and managed to understand and "recreate" a good part of it on UE4 for fun (pretty interrsting indeed). UE4 as a lot to offer for exemple I made it so you can play all with normal fps (Good for lower PCs). Its beautiful, free and easy to learn as there is so many info on internet compared to radiant and I could even add new feature to ehance the gameplay.


    To clarify im just experimenting and i will not fully recreate the game myself as its time consuming and im not a game designer (and im a big noob at scripting) . But its an option out there and if that can restore a bit of motivation (for player, movie-maker, Modder, and Map maker) that can be discussed.


    Let me know what you think.

  • Well, it is true that codjumper’s player base is dwindling. And fre4kz highlighted a few of the major reasons why. Less competition, less maps and the general monotonous design you see in the majority of new maps published. Players will slowly move to other games and activities simply because a game is ageing, but add in those elements to a game and people begin to move on faster. I think it is possible to fix a lot of the issues however it is by no means easy.


    When I started playing, servers were full constantly, 16+ people on an Australian server was common then. I would play a lot and learning how to abuse the physics and movement was really enjoyable. The game continued like this for some years. In that time I made some maps and helped (tried to) with mods such as AusCj and JH.


    So what went wrong?


    The first time I saw people speaking about this problem was around 2012, people began moving on. For those of you that remember Xenon, he made a post on codjumper.com about it after some of the admins lambasted a new mappers map that came out. He has a good point I think, particularly with “It’s a bitch fest over who can make the best servers… The last thing new mappers and players want is idiots in this community arguing and not helping… The admins on this site used to be okay, now they just troll and argue”. I really think the core of the community back then was the original cj.com website and youtube channel, and there was very little support from the core cj.com staff to the community. The leaders had lost interest in the game, they did not enjoy the “new meta” of the game with custom maps as much as we did and so criticized new ones that came out. And because of their lost interest there were no more mod releases, the official codjumper servers shut down, and there was no combined community left.


    There was a kind of fragmentation because of this. People weren’t happy with how the mod was so they began working on it themselves, but instead of a mod for the whole community it was developed for a specific server or clan, and for good reasons too. New smaller communities formed in these servers and simply because of their size there was less support for mappers and players alike. Dissatisfied with lack of progress and player base most of these communities died as they were losing motivation, the community was just too small. The bigger ones lasted longer, and till this day we have 6 or so separate mods, all with their own little community of modders, mappers and a player base. I think they will likely last for a good while longer in their current state.


    People's suggestions:


    More maps:


    The more maps is a great idea, but creating well designed enjoyable maps isn’t easy for most people and publishing one every month is a huge amount of work. When you are building a map for an ever diminishing community and can be difficult to continue.


    More videos:


    More videos is also a cool idea but I’m not sure what more can be done, not really my area. Walkthroughs, montages, speedruns are about all there is to work with right?


    Just 3xp working on codjumper?


    I also don’t believe 3xp is the only group working on codjumping, just the largest. I know if people knew the amount of collective work put into JH for example no one would think that. 3xp makes great videos that promote codjumper in a fun way but that isn’t the only work being done in this community, just the most obvious and visible.


    I really think one of the best things that could be done is a more integrated community, because it really is bigger than it seems. There’s hundreds of players for sure but no one ever hears from them as they are all divided into their own separate communities. I think the best thing would be to have a merger of the community, this was attempted with JH, it succeeded in some ways but in other ways it didn’t quite make it, the project is by no means dead though.

  • Zitat

    managed to understand and "recreate" a good part of it on UE4 for fun


    that's what i was searching as radiant alternative



    More maps:The more maps is a great idea, but creating well designed enjoyable maps isn’t easy for most people and publishing one every month is a huge amount of work. When you are building a map for an ever diminishing community and can be difficult to continue.


    What i meant when i wrote that is, if u think about it astral,neverland,spirits,freedom have been released about every month. imo it was a perfect time to finish it, find some cuts ,speedrun it etc and move to the next one.
    being stuck in the same 3 maps is not good for new players cuz they cant see different style of maps and learn new techs , so they perpetually play the map they used to, ofc its not good even for other players that will move to other servers or just quit for a while. ik the work behing a map per month right now is impossible but if we start fixing things and people start coming back playing, more people are motivated to map (also why dont create a big mapping team so people are supported in their work and dont stop mapping)


    Zitat

    More videos:More videos is also a cool idea but I’m not sure what more can be done, not really my area. Walkthroughs, montages, speedruns are about all there is to work with right?Just 3xp working on codjumper?I also don’t believe 3xp is the only group working on codjumping, just the largest. I know if people knew the amount of collective work put into JH for example no one would think that. 3xp makes great videos that promote codjumper in a fun way but that isn’t the only work being done in this community, just the most obvious and visible.I really think one of the best things that could be done is a more integrated community, because it really is bigger than it seems. There’s hundreds of players for sure but no one ever hears from them as they are all divided into their own separate communities. I think the best thing would be to have a merger of the community, this was attempted with JH, it succeeded in some ways but in other ways it didn’t quite make it, the project is by no means dead though.


    Well yes there are many things that can be done to integrate the community but these are all choices of the clan leadersAlso right now in youtube the biggest channel of codjumping is this https://www.youtube.com/user/CoDJumper , just imagine 1/3 of the people subscribed to that channel came back just watching videos. if u watch the videos that came out 70% of them are console videos 27% pc montages,trailers,even frags(??) coming from other channels 3% new content, right now is a featuring channel (which is not that bad but it cant be only that)

  • offtopic:


    Jackop check out the game Battalion 1944, they do exactly what you described (recreating cod4 movement in cod2 setting in UE4)

  • I would love to see the GitHub Link of this project


    Oh no you wouldn't! ^^ I never properly learned to code so its a big mess. I left the project away for a bit, im just coming back to it and don't understand shit now :D.
    To be fair i totally stole some code from this guy: Zinglish (that made a project on UE4 with Quake3 movement) and basicly modified it from A to Z and filled it with stuff out from my logic. I'll probably make it cleaner some day then why not. I can try to explain what cause those movement bug though.

  • Zitat

    What i meant when i wrote that is, if u think about it astral,neverland,spirits,freedom have been released about every month. imo it was a perfect time to finish it, find some cuts ,speedrun it etc and move to the next one.


    I better understand what you mean now, thanks. One new map for the community a month is possible I would say, even with the small amount of mappers it wouldn't be too hard would just need coordination. More mappers would make the job easier but getting people involved with map making is difficult, bounce builder certainly helped but the amount of people I see with maps made in bounce builder that never make it to radiant is a tiny bit disheartening. A mapping team or video tutorials might be ideas worth looking into though.


    Zitat

    Also right now in youtube the biggest channel of codjumping is this youtube.com/user/CoDJumper


    As far as I know Xpayne manages the youtube channel for the most part, more quality measures with it would be nice, to me having a 50 second frag movie with a bounce in it is completely irrelevant to codjumping. If I could have a say it would be limit the channel to montages, walkthroughs, tutorials and new bounces/finds, sort of how it was run 5 years ago before it was opened up to everyone completely. I would think higher quality more rhythmic content would draw more attention than spamming twenty different 1 minute clips. Not my channel though, so I wouldn't have a clue :whistling: