About Us
Note: this was written a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
The Massassi Temple was started by Brian Lozier (that's who's writing this, so from now on, I'll be typing in the first person perspective) on March 27, 1998. At the time, I was struggling with Jed, trying to make an outdoors type level. The only help available were a few tutorials over at Darkness Falls (now defunct), and the message board over at The Code Alliance (Darkjedi.com, now defunct).
As I said, I was really struggling, I couldn't grasp the concept of negative space. My first level (unreleased) had a bunch of sectors inside sectors (which won't work). Anyway, a really good guy, GMS_Slug came along, answered all my questions, and basically walked me through creating a building.
After a while, I noticed that people were asking the same questions over and over on the forums. I had recently learned some html (just before I got JK, as a matter of fact), and decided to write a few tutorials. Rather than just releasing a zipped tutorial, however, I got this grand idea to start an editing site. I wrote up my first tutorials (which can still be found in the tutorials section) about creating outdoor type buildings, created a main page, uploaded it to my ISP, and went off to find some hosting.
The Massassi Temple was what I chose as a name because of the significance the Massassi Temple's had in the Star Wars movies and novels. Basically, the Massassi were a race that were eventually enslaved by a Sith called Exar Kun. By the time of the first movie, the race had long been extinct, but their temples were used as a rebel base (you know, the one the deathstar almost took out). Later on, Luke Skywalker started a Jedi Academy in the temples to instruct people in the ways of the force. Since the main idea was to teach people how to create levels/mods, I figured the name was fitting (plus, just about every other Star Wars name was taken by other sites).
First, I applied over at JediKnight.net (now defunct), but they felt we didn't have enough content yet, so turned us down. Not to be dissuaded, I went to Spart over at Jedi Nights (now defunct). I received a response the same day, and had my account set up within a few hours. We were with Jedi Nights for well over a year.
Eventually, we got our own forum, recruited some more help, and the ball got rolling. Newer and better editors and utilities were released, and mods started getting better and better. One day, I got this idea that we should be a place where editors can not only learn to create levels, but also a place where they can distribute them.
With the success of our new levels section, we thought that Massassi should no longer be a place for editors only, but a place for anyone who played the game (and future shooters, as a matter of fact), so we expanded into Jedi Knight news.
What you see now is the product of a lot of hard work contributed by a lot of very dedicated and talented people. We have gone through a couple of re-designs, but have settled on a design that is very similar to our original design, with a little bit of new artwork and a different font. A new design isn't in the plans;
That's pretty much the story, we outgrew Jedi Nights and are now at our own server, hosting sites and generally staying excited about all things new in the Star Wars gaming, and specifically, first person shooter, scene.