The power company here in Burnaby, BC are performing upgrades to their service on October 24. I will be powering down the computers that host the JDRGaming web site and all the JDRGaming game servers at about 8am Pacific time. Hopefully everything will be back online by 5pm Pacific the same day.
I took the JDRGaming site offline on August 9, due to some technical issues. Those issues have now been resolved, and the site is back up.
The site is now running on a different software platform, so you’ll notice some changes. Some of the features and content are missing, but all the critical stuff is here. I will gradually add back much of the missing content, but some of it will be in a slightly different form.
For example, there won’t be a forum here, because it was never used very much, and we have Discord now. Critical forum posts, such as the TPU rules post, were republished as pages on this new site.
The blog will remain, and I will continue to use it for announcements, but only a small selection of older posts were republished here.
While the site’s main URL is still the same (jdrgaming.com), old links to blog posts, pages, and forum posts will no longer work.
User accounts for TPU admins will be recreated on this site, and you will retain access to admins-only content. You will be asked to set your password. Non-admins who had user accounts on the old site and who want to be able to comment on posts will need to re-register.
I apologize for this lengthy outage. Several personal issues delayed things. The last few weeks have been a bad time for me.
Note: the following content is based on a brilliant post on rpg.net published not long after Trump’s election in 2016. I hereby credit the authors of that post for both the inspiration of this post and much of its wording. Thank you.
New rule: Do not post, act, speak, or otherwise communicate in support of Musk, Trump or their administration. Doing so on the JDRGaming web site, in JDRGaming Discord, in JDRGaming Gametracker server chat, in chat on any JDRGaming game server, or in the form of player names, will result in an immediate and permanent ban and possible network blocking.
This policy announcement is the result of careful consideration. The decision is final. It will not be the subject of further debate. I have considered the possible downsides and ultimately decided I have to stay true to my values. I will not pretend that evil isn’t evil, or that it becomes a legitimate difference of political opinion if you put a suit and tie on it.
I am banning support of Donald Trump and his administration on JDRGaming sites, servers, and services. This is because his public comments, policies, and the makeup of his administration are so wholly incompatible with my values that formal political neutrality is not tenable.
We can be welcoming to (for example) persons of every ethnicity who want to talk about games, or we can allow support for open white supremacy. Not both.
Support for elected hate groups is not welcome here. We can’t save the world, but we can protect and care for the small patch that is JDRGaming.
You might object to this new policy. You might be thinking along these lines: “The problem I find with a lot of people who call themselves ‘progressives’ online is that they seem to think the only strategy worth doing is to ‘ostracise people whose values are antithetical to their own’ rather than discuss it with them or accept that some people just have different viewpoints. Sure, in some cases there’s not much hope for changing anyone’s minds, but to default at ‘ostracise, humiliate, shun and berate’ is not a good approach IMO.”
To which my response is: “No. You know what? Fuck that noise. Ethnic cleansing is not a ‘different viewpoint.’ Racism is not a ‘different viewpoint.’ White nationalism is not a ‘different viewpoint.’ Dogwhistling that attacks against your political enemies will continue if the media doesn’t stop saying things you don’t like is not a ‘different viewpoint.’ Putting children in cages is not a ‘different viewpoint.’ A nazi salute is not a legitimate political expression. Misogyny is not a viewpoint, it’s hatred. All bigotry is irrational and evil.
This is not an argument over tax rates or the proper role of government in education. This is an argument about who will be allowed to exist in America and beyond. If you don’t like it, get the fuck off JDRGaming. And don’t come back until you learn the meanings of words like compassion, empathy, fairness, and equality.
(In effect starting February 14, 2025; not retroactive.)
JDRGaming sites, servers, and related services remain no-fly zones for political and religious discussion, with one exception: the #general channel on JDRGaming Discord.
It recently occurred to me that I could repurpose an old Windows PC as a Windows game server and run the Forgotten Hope 2 server on it. Testing confirmed that the current FH2 server runs fine in coop mode on Windows.
So the JDRGaming BF2 server is once again running FH2, albeit on a different physical computer.
It’s still possible that whatever prevents the FH2 Linux server from running in coop mode will be fixed, in which case I’ll move the JDRGaming FH2 server back to the main Linux server. That doesn’t make any difference to players, of course.
As usual with FH2 releases, some of the maps have problems when running in coop mode. Please let me know if you encounter any problems running a particular map.
The latest version of FH2 has loads of improvements, most noticeably in the user interface.
If you’ve never tried FH2, I encourage you to check it out. It’s more resource-hungry than BF1942, but if you can run it, you’ll be amazed at the visual and audio improvements over BF1942. I particularly enjoy the much more realistic and diverse sounds of vehicles and weapons.
Here’s a link to the official FH2 download page.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been evaluating a Battlefield 1942 client tool called bf1942plus.
bf42plus inserts itself into the BF1942 process during startup, and its features can be controlled with a config file or using client console commands.
Here are a few of the features of bf42plus:
There’s now a link to bf42plus on the Files page on this site.
NOTE: this mod has some features that are considered cheats on some servers. I currently don’t see any reason to ban its use on TPU.
Take a look! I’m finding the player name colour function to be particularly useful.
I just discovered a wealth of useful resources on the Battlefield 1942 Information web pages maintained by Eric Haines.
These pages in particular are extremely informative, and if you play BF1942, you should take a look:
There’s now a link to Eric’s BF1942 pages on the How To page on this site. There’s also a link to a local copy of Eric’s pages on the JDRGaming server, because Battlefield 1942 is an ‘old’ game, and web sites about BF1942 tend to disappear.
As of May 29, 2022, the JDRGaming Minecraft server is running Paper instead of Spigot. Paper has several advantages over Spigot in terms of performance. The version of Paper we’re running is based on Minecraft 1.18.2.
NEW WORLD! The old world had a lot of ugly block transition issues, the cumulative effect of years of Minecraft server updates. There was also a lot of old mess caused by griefers. So I decided to start fresh with a new world. My apologies to anyone who had done any building in the old world.
Access via whitelist is now strictly enforced. I was able to identify a handful of players from the old server who were good citizens, and I’ve added them to the whitelist already. If you try to join but are told you’re not on the whitelist, please fill out the access request form, and I’ll start the process of adding you.
Because access to the server is now limited to whitelisted players, I’ve removed the requirement for making claims before building.
As always, if you notice any problems with the server, please use the About/contact link in the menu to let me know.
Thanks to a group of dedicated fans on various sites and Discord channels, there’s a new master server for Battlefield 1942: master.bf1942.org.
If you don’t use the in-game server browser, you don’t need to make any changes, and you can still connect directly to your favourite servers directly via IP address, or indirectly from web-based server lists.
However, if you depend on the in-game server list, you’ll need to replace your Battlefield 1942 client binary with a new one that looks at the new master browser instead of the old, defunct one.
Here’s a link to the new BF1942 client files: https://www.moddb.com/games/battlefield-1942/downloads/bf1942-masterbf1942org-patch. Extract the contents of the ZIP file into your Battlefield 1942 folder. You might want to consider making a backup first.
I’ve tested the new server and the new client, joining and playing on TPU successfully.
The new client binary provides the master server fix, but also includes some other useful fixes:
Battlefield 1942 v1.612 Retail patched by henk on 23-2-2022 version 2.1 Fixes: ~~~~~~ * No CD * Portable * Widescreen support - In game * Widescreen support - In menu * master.gamespy.com replaced with master.bf1942.org * Increased accessible ram from 2gb to 4gb * Removed this message from console: Error: failed to add playerto buddylist. Couldn't locate player.
The Tanks ‘n Planes Unlimited server is now running a new version of the BF1942 server binary, which allows the server to report its status to the new master server. The new server binary includes several other useful fixes. Here’s the full list:
Linux Binary version 23-2-2022 by henk Modified to include: - master.bf1942.org replacement for gamespy master - Ignore client version and checksum (allow 1.61b and 1.612) - Ignore CD key checks - No longer sends player keyhashes to public queries - Allows all console commands on remote and local console - Fix assaultTeam typo. Defending team now wins if timer expires - Allow 128 players - Fix armor zombies generated by death bubble - Fixes IP bans not taking effect - Fixes segfault in dice::ref2::io::NetworkManager::getNetUpdate - Fixes segfault in dice::ref2::world::ObjectManager::checkMessages - Fixes segfault in dice::ref2::world::FireArms::Fire - Fixes segfault in dice::ref2::io::NetworkManager::getNetUpdateDelta - Fixes segfault in dice::ref2::world::BFSoldier::handleUpdate Addresses the following vulnerabilities: - BFE-200806.01 - BFE-201107.01 - BFE-201111.01 - BFE-201211.01 - BFE-201611.01 - BFE-201611.02 - BFE-201710.01 - BFE-201804.01
I was poking around in some old data folders and found a couple of Haikus, which I wrote back when I was having a lot of problems with a series of XBox 360s.
I play my XBox
Across the street, someone farts
My disc is destroyed
An autumn session
The red ring destroys my calm
My screams deafen me
