Happy to be here

Hi yall,

my name is George. I have collected and played the Delta Force series from the day they came out.
After seeing ‘12 strong’ I realized I wasn’t quite done mapping yet and was lucky enough to obtain a copy of JO.
With servers and sites down after Novalogic being sold, I had nowhere to go and nothing to install after JO:E ( except Black Hawk Down, Team Sabre and Task Force Dagger on the side).

Initially I focussed on creating animated action/walkthrough hybrid videos, both with and without music, both based on Task Force Dagger campaign missions and real life events such as Operation Enduring Freedom. It seemed like a great alternative creating animated cinema with the mission editor, although I knew it would never replace mapmaking, sharing and playing.

Then I ran into this forum and managed to install AW2 and am now officially hooked. I also actively started reading again about military history; partially interest, partially source material for future maps.

My latest video (and a future AW2 map) will be about Operation Eagle Claw 1980, except in this timeline the third helo never breaks down and subsequently the mission is (still) a ‘go’. I’m about 1/4 into creating the (Game Music) Video; the AW2 map will start at infill by truck because of the memory limit in JO. With the video making business I can do a bit more because I create separate scenes that together form a longer story that isn’t limited by memory.

Above all grateful to hook up with other fans and mapmakers. Thank you all for having me. I will do my very best to entertain with some decent AW maps to come, ranging from Command & Conquer: Red Alert adaptations, Metal Gear Solid 1 for PS1, Task Force Dagger adaptations, Operation Enduring Freedom/Anaconda, Operation Gothic Serpent, etc.

Kudos for Captain for his patience and helping me register.

Very happy to welcome you here, Just George.

It sounds amazing what you are up to and can’t wait to play and see some of your releases soon 🙂

All the best
Captain

Thank you,sir. It’s been a while since I came across a place to hang out I could call ‘home’.

Insomnia is a funny thing, but then again: so is inspiration. For example: right now I can’t sleep, but as I’m awake I think of new ideas for my video which is slowly taking shape, so I guess even when you lose, you win…I can always hit the sack again when I start to nod off.

Creativity in whatever form has always been a great help to me in every stage of my life. Mapmaking is just one form, but the one I enjoy the most at the moment. Without wanting to get all serious (which is not what AW2 is about – I know…), I predominantly like the covert/stealth/black op stuff, but I also remember a time when I played the snot out of Command&Conquer:Red Alert which involved all branches of the military and often was pretty straight forward warfare, so that’s good mapmaking material as well.

I can’t think of any game thusfar that has a map editor and so many possibilities like JO has had, eventhough some would call the graphics dated compared to Medal of Honor for example, the game is nevertheless still played 20 years later and I prefer it over anything else.

Thanks again for your help and a chat, Captain.

My (JO dedicated) youtube channel for anyone who’s interested:

https://www.youtube.com/@_Just_George

Thusfar I’ve created both Game Music Videos or GMVs (JO content accompanied by music) and hybrid walkthrough/action movie videos.
The videos with music are related to military history such as Operation Enduring Freedom. More to come…

So I’m a bit of a disaster/dinosaur when it comes to social media, but luckily I can handle a forum.

I also remembered the link to AWMOD Facebook to at least read the comments for my maps.

I understand that comments for specific maps belong to the appropriate section below the map itself, but if people have general comments/suggestions/constructive criticism, or heck: even a shoutout, you can leave those here if the staff/admin is okay with that.

Wirh regard to the maps released so far:

-my hope was that the dark sky/environment file would make players resort to their night vision goggles, since the nighttime maps are meant that way. If the night vision goggles fail even in the highest setting, I can modify the map if desired.

-the thought process behind the civilians inside whatever structure was that the player would resort to flashbangs when they notice the civilians mixed with hostiles, and prevent blue-on-green that way.

Again, if this theory is wrong or impractical, I would offer to modify the concept.

I have already made notes for future maps and I am most certainly open for suggestions. My goal is to make fun stuff and challenges, not to make you all miserable…

So please: feel free to share your general thoughts here (again: if that’s okay with the admin/staff).

I would love to hear what you think of my maps so far; the pros and cons.

Thank you all for your enthusiasm and support so far. It means a lot to me. More projects to come!

P.s.: it seems to be a side-effect for desert terrain to turn purple when used in nighttime?!

Is this an AW2 issue or is that my doing? Or perhaps even a JO issue for any mod?

I didn’t use any specific settings to make this happen, and yet there it is…

Just wondering…

P.p.s: @CmdrKaBoom , did you have better luck with BHD-Diplomatic Immunity after we spoke?

Were you able to finish the mission eventually? I sincerely hope so

We will have to retry the map, BHD-Diplomatic Immunity, we did get to the end and the convoy arrived so we’ll need to retry and make sure all the bgs are taken out and see if it ends.  Regarding the recent maps, night vision concept is good but us “seniors” have a tough time with the darkness and using the nvgs.  It is frustrating to get almost to the end and have a bg kill a civilian and have the mission fail.

AW2 – TFD Khwaja Mastoon Ghundai  – tried this map a couple of times and I get a sysdump when hosting it.  The first time the sysdump happened just after spawning in – the next time we were able to get on the chinook almost got to the first spawn point, got hit, died and got a sysdump. The last time we made it to the spawn point and were moving forward and received the sysdump.

AW2 – TFD Hada Farm – we never found the Taliban Leader Mullah Ashad Rhir so he didn’t follow us and again we played this one a couple times because of the civilian kills by the bgs.

Just George – I think we may have gotten too soft and need to act more like Special Forces lol. We will take another try at these maps in the future and hopefully we will be more successful.

Thanks for all your hard work on these maps for the community!

-Cmdr KaBoom

@CmdrKaBoom It’s been an adventure ever since I rediscovered AW2 and was able to register, but certainly not a bumpless ride. Now if only I can find the right balance between the public’s needs and my own style of mapmaking.

A slightly brighter night sky shouldn’t be a problem, setting helos and civilians to indestructible when circumstances are tricky is manageable, but what in the name of ….. caused a sysdump? I have never had/caused that before. Is it due to the WAC file? Too many items sunk into the terrain?

Taliban leader (looking like a civilian) was at waypoint 2 : blow up the double doors, clear compound, move into the L-shaped building and stand close to civilian. He will then follow you to exfil. I hope that info helps you finish the map.

I am working diligently on an upgrade of the Osman Atto arrest scene from Black Hawk Down, as well as TFD remakes ‘Sati Kundao’ and ‘Tora Bora’, and I have a first sketch of a Command&Conquer:Red Alert adaptation for AW2, so definitely more to come and hopefully playable for all.

Please keep the suggestions/constructive criticism coming

Hi Just George – I’ve sent the map to another AW2 player and he will see if he gets the sysdump with that map.

-Cmdr KaBoom

Thank you. If the map keeps acting up, keep if for password/host-present sessions only. I am not technical enough to fix sysdumps, so that way you still have a way of playing it.

Okay, so it seems multiple issues in my maps keep showing and acting up in a way that it prevents people from having a decent session in public. I have spoken to Captain about it and I am more than willing to fix the situation so that everybody can have a good time. In the coming weeks I will:

-brighten the night sky a bit

-set the civilians and helos to indesctructible in maps where there’s just too much of a risk to lose the map with them in it as a lose condition

-remove spawn points from inside walls to prevent erratic spawning

-remove host triggered events so maps can be played on dedicated servers

-info in bin file about presence of civilians (eventhough they will now be indestructible ^_^)

I think that about sums it up. Adapt maps more to public hosting. I am sorry I didn’t see and apply this earlier, and I hope you all don’t mind the updates. Thank you all

Just George, thank you for taking your time to make these maps and updates. I wonder if the “-remove host triggered events so maps can be played on dedicated servers” was the problem with the map that I kept getting the sysdump.  Still waiting to see if another player gets the sysdump as well.

We truly appreciate having new maps and I know it’s not easy making them. Keep up the great work!

-Cmdr KaBoom

My pleasure, ma’am.
I’ve made a good start and progress today weeding out the flaws. It will take a few days

Update 17-06-25:
Four out of ten maps repaired, updated and adjusted for public use/hosting (without host triggers or liabilities/vulnerabilities):
-AW2 TFD Lion
-AW2 TFD Bear
-AW2 TFD Tiger
-AW2 TFD Khalid Bin Waleed

*AW2 BHD Diplomatic Immunity is functional, and aside from that a public and a password version, so I will leave that alone.

Again: my apologies for the bugs in my released material, my gratitude for your patience and enthusiasm, and certainly many thanks to Captain for helping me fix the situation and maps. This community is golden.
(6) More to come…stay tuned

You are truly amazing! Thank you so much for updating the maps – my friends and I will test them out this coming weekend. Look forward to your future maps.

-CmdrKaBoom

@CmdrKaBoom You are too kind, ma’am. More like enthusiastic and plenty of ideas. I’m just glad I found this mod+website.

Above all Kudos for Captain and his time/efforts, helping me post and update and correct my mapmaking mistakes. Another four missions are updated now,so everything I made thusfar except the TFD Khwaja mission and TFR Raid 1. I apologize to the public for my mistakes, and will commit to making maps more public-suitable.

For the Raid 1 mission and other specific missions I will make 2 versions because I don’t want to throw out the hard work I invested in that map, with the fastrope sequence and all, so people still can play that mission with greater ease, while others who want a little extra can download the password version for private hosting sessions where the host is required to be there.

More to come soon. Please have a great weekend everybody

@CmdrKaBoom , did you happen to test out some of my maps last weekend, hopefully among them TFD Khwaja, and did it produce a sysdump for you/players again or not? I’m trying to figure out how to fix this map and/or how to re-release it once repaired.
Any suggestions by anyone are welcome ofcourse. Please and thank you

P.s.: I’m currently modifying TFR Raid I to be released as a public version aside from the password version
After these two repairs/re-releases I will happily resume working on new material

Hi George – one of my teammates had no problem running Khwaja – no sysdumps. I am assuming it is something in my setup of the game.

Last weekend none of my teammates could access my “Lan” server. I am not sure if it’s a recent Window 11 update or something else causing it. Even when I tried hosting directly on Novaworld – they would get “enumerating” session and not be able to join. Did the port forward change? I have 32768 (TCP/UDP). I rebooted my gateway (router) today and will test it and see if the group still has issues connecting with me. Any thoughts would be helpful.

-KaBoom

@CmdrKaBoom Ma’am, I do not run host sessions (anymore), so I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
I did correct the bin file, so maybe that will fix the sysdump. I wonder whether that is enough change and guarantee to justify an upload/update to the website. I don’t want to give false hope

Thanks, George. I will test it out hopefully tomorrow or this weekend. I appreciate all the work you do on the maps !!!

@CmdrKaBoom my pleasure, but like I said: the new bin file is not in the download section yet. I have to send it to the staff and hope it will be on the website before you and your friends get together. I don’t know when that will be.

I did send a repair/update for TFR Raid I already, as well as 2 versions (password and public) for this particular map, so that might be updated some time soon. I’m relieved to then have updated almost all maps that I ever released that had flaws in them.

Correct, I will be testing the other updated maps this weekend because I was unable to host the maps on my Lan. Just let me know when the updated maps are approved and available for download. Thanks!

@CmdrKaBoom Absolutely. I hope you all will enjoy them.
Just got word from Captain that the TFR Raid map (2 versions) have been uploaded ~ thank you,sir. So everything except the sysdump map has been updated and is available.

I will send the repaired bin file for TFD Khwaja for upload this weekend. If the sysdump remains, I will convert the map to single player, as it works just fine on my end. That way everybody will still be able to try it out on their terms without having to throw away hard work.

Update 29-06-25:
TFD Khwaja revised and sent to staff for approval. I hope that took care of the sysdump, yall please let me know.
All my uploads in the download section have now been repaired, kudos for the staff.
New projects await, so hold on to something and brace yourselves for new adventures. Have a great weekend all

Update 05-07-25:
Update for TFD Khwaja was uploaded to download section today (thank you, Captain/staff). It contains a repaired bin file and several fixes, so I recommend anyone who downloaded it to update it. Functionality has been confirmed to me by Captain. Very happy to announce all the maps I ever posted have been repaired and updated.

More (functional) maps to come…

Thanks Just George! Again, I truly appreciate all your efforts. On to the trenches!!!

@CmndrKaBoom I owe it to the community. I can’t release flawed material.

Funny you mention trenches though…I happen to be working on the first of a series about the first 49 days Operation Enduring Freedom; trenches and Urban Warfare. Kind of like ‘12 Strong’, but more historically accurate/chronological and actual satellite imagery converted to map editor.

That is funny! The map idea sounds great – looking forward to it!