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Cube 2 missed an opportunity, I think. I loved that octree-based map engine. Here was an accessible and powerful cube based engine from before Minecraft was a twinkle in Notch's eye. To this day, I don't know of any other engine that lets you collaborate with multiple people in real time as though it were part of the game - and with level editing so easy, it could have fostered the kind of mapping community not seen since the days of Doom, Quake, and Unreal (1/UT/2004).

Now everything is "model it in 3DSMax, Maya, or Blender." Complicated tools, meandering workflows, just a time consuming process in general. Even Unreal is like that now. Why use the shape editor when you can just import your model? Does the new engine even have that tool anymore? No it doesn't. Just import or use an existing mesh for your complex details. Want to make your own but don't know how? Time to learn this other tool over here.

I'm not complaining exactly. I'm pretty good with Max and Blender. I'm just reflecting (as an amateur) on what mapping felt like in the past, and how it compares to today. It was pretty straight forward back then. There was probably a lot of pent up creativity from people who didn't have the time to learn multiple tools. Minecraft quenched their thirst, but the Cube 2 engine could have been the thing to do that. If only it were better documented, and positioned better as an engine for hobbyists.

The farthest I got with it was map editing and compiling it from the source. So I know what you mean. It's been a while, but I doubt anything has changed. Sorry to hear about the state of your game.

They did? Duke Nukem 3D had levels that looked like real places. Half-Life looked like some hodge-podge of hastily thrown together empty box rooms and random stuff with signs tacked on afterwards.

It's called early 3D. Things were blocky due to hardware limitations of the day, at least Half Life was fully 3D and not using sprites like Duke 3D and HL supported TCPIP out of the box (Quake came out around the same time ('96) and supported TCPIP). Duke was dated when it came out (see Quake).

You keep mentioning sales figures and accolades, which have absolutely nothing to do with how good a game is.

Yes, to back up the fact that it sold well because people liked it. Because it was (arguably) better than the other games (Why would you buy something that sucked compared to what was out there at the time?).More so than any of the offerings you've mentioned. You also switch between using good and fun like they're synonyms, they're not. Don't discount that people may buy multiplayer games because of their friends.

Unreal set the benchmark for game visuals for years to come and featured an absolutely awesome, dynamic soundtrack composed by ex-demoscene musicians. The game was overall one of the best ever made.

The same Unreal which used a software renderer, advanced visuals that only performed well in Glide? Unreal was overshadowed by Unreal Tournement which came out in 1999, which is still played to this day. Quake II beat them to the punch as far as engine tech in many regards. Also in 1999 Quake 3 was released which was the big engine of its day and also supported curves (1999 thread about it). A comparison of vintage screenshots: UT screenshot circa Sept 1999 Quake 3 circa Feb 2000. I'm a fan of the demoscene btw and happen to like 'chiptunes' so while I think this is awesome, in 1996 Quake had CD audio made by none other than Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. Perhaps you know of GL Quake (or the Quakeworld client) which is responsible for many mods, such as Team Fortress. The Quake engines featured many impressive things from lighting to OpenGL support. Unreal featured some really cool texture technology but it only worked well in Glide (remember that?). As for the "The game was overall one of the best ever made" claim I think Mario takes that cake.

I don't know, hype probably.Why don't other desktop operating systems sell as well as Windows?

I know you're half serious but I'll bite. Because none of the other OS run as many applications (games are applications) as Windows does. Love it or hate it Windows is the first operating system to have an 3D sound API made specifically for games. It runs most hardware, especially high end stuff with little fuss. It's what people know and it has a large well documented API and development tools aplenty.

As I said before, I don't place much value in awards and popularity because I am able to form my own opinions without outside help.

Perhaps you've forgotten what its like to be young? Many people buy things their friends have to play with them. Online gaming has grown exponentially and so has the culture around it. These multiplayer games made it so that you didn't need a LAN party to have fun, but you could meet someone online and jump directly into the action, this was a relatively new thing for many people at the time and there was the whole modding thing empowering creativity in the community. These factors were also responsible for the popularity - not simply so

A lovely collection of baseless prejudices you have there. I'll just point at sites like this one as a counter point. Piles upon piles of assets for videogames, all free. Yeah, not all good but that's life.

Coincidentally, I believe most people share the same sentiment about Lightning Guns in general.

Not sarcasm, just plain understanding among the game fans. You left one more important information about the system requirements: UT3 does NOT require Pixel Shader 3.0. Source: http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2101099

In careful study after doing the post (who has time to do research before posting anyway!), I found out that wicked sick only belongs to the killing sprees, which of course can't be the case here. Still "wicked sick" is such an awesome thing to say, that it should be mentioned as much as possible.

If so...

1) An open source WoW server emulator. I could do a number of things with that; tweak the AI and make bots for WSG/partying, migrate it to postgresql if that's never been done, (I don't think WoW does run on postgres) and maybe make some new material if I had 3d studio max. Someone else said the Diablo Battle Chest; I'd *maybe* go with D1, but WoW is everything D2 is and more.

2) UT 99 with level editor, and offline copies of this, this, and this site.

3) GTA: San Andreas.

4) Another interesting game-related project if I could learn enough would be a truly decent 3D front end for Nethack. This could possibly serve as a base, but I'd make a lot of graphical alterations.

If so...

1) An open source WoW server emulator. I could do a number of things with that; tweak the AI and make bots for WSG/partying, migrate it to postgresql if that's never been done, (I don't think WoW does run on postgres) and maybe make some new material if I had 3d studio max. Someone else said the Diablo Battle Chest; I'd *maybe* go with D1, but WoW is everything D2 is and more.

2) UT 99 with level editor, and offline copies of this, this, and this site.

3) GTA: San Andreas.

4) Another interesting game-related project if I could learn enough would be a truly decent 3D front end for Nethack. This could possibly serve as a base, but I'd make a lot of graphical alterations.

If so...

1) An open source WoW server emulator. I could do a number of things with that; tweak the AI and make bots for WSG/partying, migrate it to postgresql if that's never been done, (I don't think WoW does run on postgres) and maybe make some new material if I had 3d studio max. Someone else said the Diablo Battle Chest; I'd *maybe* go with D1, but WoW is everything D2 is and more.

2) UT 99 with level editor, and offline copies of this, this, and this site.

3) GTA: San Andreas.

4) Another interesting game-related project if I could learn enough would be a truly decent 3D front end for Nethack. This could possibly serve as a base, but I'd make a lot of graphical alterations.

Although I haven't played Gears of War, I am a very happy owner of boxed copies of Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Unreal Tournament 2004. The games are fantastic, the editor is even better, and they're produced by a group of extremely creative, intelligent, and generally wonderful human beings.

If you don't have a copy of any of the UT series, I strongly recommend them...the original UT is probably the best of the lot, but UT 2004 is also very enjoyable. If you get the original UT, I also like the Bullet Time and Unreal4Ever modifications, both of which were still available from FilePlanet last time I checked. There are also some fantastic user-made maps here, and the community there are interesting and very talented people.

If so, then for sure CTF-OSR-ZombieJuice would win hands down. Screenshot and download link.

And not only that, but the VooDoo3 wouldn't do 800x600x32bpp at any framerate. It was 16bpp only iirc.

I got a 6800GT on ebay for £120, and another one a month or so later for same price, but the adaptor on my scsi disk is getting in the way so can't use two yet till I get a bigger case. UT2k4 is very enjoyable at 1600x1200 with just the one card, and am spending way to much time playing it. Am really looking forward to the new one see here, but I'm pretty certain even with both cards its going to be slow as hell :-(

Unreal Tournament and its sequels seem to be good examples as well. And that site just has maps, not mods.

Sorry... the pun was to hard to resist.

Unreal Tournament 2007:
http://www.beyondunreal.com/main/ut2007/about.php

For ut2k4, stop by http://www.prounreal.com/ It's part of the "competitive" community for that game, and a good way to find server info for some of the servers that a lot of these guys play on.

If you aren't up to the skill level there, stop by http://forums.beyondunreal.com/ and find some more casual guys there.

And let me be the first to tell you that just because you can beat the piss out of bots, doesn't mean you will be good at all online. Online players don't think like bots, don't move like bots, don't shoot like bots.

Agreed, but check out the free Streaming Video of the game Killzone 2. Also, Tim Sweeney said about some upcoming console vs pc:

"Well, the PC is a more scalable platform, so it'll run on $500 PCs and it'll scale down to the Xbox 360 ".

82% Rating? These guys are on the take.

Don't be ridiculous. It's not the card's fault that it costs what it does, which is probably why the site didn't tank the score. They understand that some games will require 512MB of video RAM (as Tim Sweeney said of UE3-based games, in an interview he did a year ago). It's still a fine card--just way overpriced, even by enthusiast standards. And the price is determined by the marketing/sales department, not the R&D guys.

PC Gamer reviews ridiculously expensive--but highly-rated--systems all the time, and no one accuses them of taking bribes.

Just fyi, the beyondunreal site linked in the parent 's post also has an *extremely* interesting tech demo of the Unreal 3.0 engine.

The demo video is a bit on the heavy site (161 MB zipped Quicktime .mov) and is around 7 minutes long, but it goes into a lot of the details that will differentiate Unreal 2007 from Unreal 2k4 -- n-chain bump mapping, immissive channels for textures, exponentially increased polycounts for high-resolution character meshes, etc. etc.

Well worth a look for the technically inclined.

is available here.

Not only will there be a Linux and Mac version again, but this time UnrealEd has been ported to the wxWindows toolkit, so we should see that as well for teh first time.

Anm

Epic announced the next UT days before. Those diappointed today will still get their next Unreal game.

Many games provide you with the tools to build new levels and even modify the game out of recognition. I've done a fair amount of work-related coding and mapping using the Unreal engines and it's pretty easy to pick up, with a lot of resources online. Unrealwiki and UDN are good places to start. You don't even need to buy the game, as they have released a free cut down version for exactly your kind of project. This has the advantage of not having tons of someone elses code in it so it's easier to get started.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun.

Epic Games announces the finalists for the Mod category for Grand Finals of the NVIDIA $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal Contest. To even make it to the Grand Finals is an amazing accomplishment for these dedicated and creative teams. To be selected as a finalist for the Grand Finals is to be the cream of the crop. Each and every one of these mods are the best of the best and worthy of play by all.

Deathball
Domain 2049
Frag.Ops
Strike Force
Troopers: Dawn of Destiny
Red Orchestra
Metaball
Alien Swarm
Air Buccaneers
Damnation
Robin Hood
Chaos UT2
UnWheel

The explaination posted on Beyond Unreal is pretty much saying that Epic didn't pay the CPL enough. AFAIK the same reason was given for dropping Doom 3.

Note that DreamCatcher is just the publisher of Painkiller, the game was made by People Can Fly.

I'm sure a similar Linux workaround can happen as well before the Linux version is released, but I don;t know exactly how it would work on Linux.

2. The ECE update does NOT contain any mods that will ship with the retail version; just the maps, models, vehicles and engine tweaks. If you want the mods that are shipping with the retail version you can download them from their respective sites:

Air Buccaneers
Alien Swarm
Chaos UT2
Clone Bandits
Deathball
Domain 2049
Frag.Ops
Jailbreak
Red Orchestra
UnWheel

Most of these mods come with installers (.exe), or are UT4 files (UMod), while I know Red Orchestra has a Mac OS X installer and others can be downloaded as zip archives for manual instilation for OS X and Linux users..

The ECE torrent is available, alongside direct downloads provided by BeyondUnreal.

Not clear enough? How about this from Blue's News?

The pack is an 84 MB download, available on 3D Gamers, FileFront, and GameSpot DLX (registration required), Gameguru Mania, Gamer's Hell, Game's Fusion, Tiscali Games, and Worthplaying.

I nicked my brother's UT GOTY CD which came with his new system, and used the Linux installer - it all installed fine after I un-uzd the files; what's on CD 2 that you need? (This version of UT GOTY didn't have a CD 2 :P).

Methinks someone's been playing too much Unreal Tournament....

With Natural Selection, Uskaarj, Unreal Annihilation, Warcraft III FPS mod, and Empires all blending or totally converting between game genres and/or engines, there seems to be an interesting trend of "breaking the rules" or using a game very differently than it was originally intended. Is this a gimmick, first notably commercialized by Savage or do you think it will keep its place on the game-store shelves?

BTW it might just be a bug in UT2004. See here.

Jaysyn

http://download.beyondunreal.com/fileworks.php/dem os/unreal3_0002.wmv

Whoa... Pretty...

AFAIK, an UT engine license runs around $350,000 with you paying royalties, or 750,000 for a no-strings-attatched copy. So yes, Epic can make VERY good money by selling the engine. Especially considering its so darn popular.


Oh, and about Uscript... you actually have to compile it too. Luckilly, the compiler (UCC) and everything else you need is all included in the box, and compiling individual scripts usually doesn't take very long.
The thing to understand is that UScript is basically a language (C++/Java-ish, OOP) of its own. Practically all of the game content is handled through UScript and then run by a virtual machine created by the game. Most of the actual C++ native stuff that's hidden away (the VM, renderer, sound, networking, etc) isn't something most modders need to touch anyways, since all the real meat of the "game" is totally exposed. Anyone can just dive in and start mucking away with the scripts, its kinda cool. I'm not very good at it, but I know its there :)

If you're still curious (or my non-programmer explanation just sucks), you can head on over to a nice little Wiki page with an article written by Epics lead programmer (Tim Sweeny) that gives a good intro to the language. Ok, so 9 pages isn't exactly little. But it is pretty cool if you ever wanted to know where UScript came from and how she works. :)

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some of the latest enteries:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some highlites:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

And that URL is:
http://www.beyondunreal.com/content/articles/74_1. php

If you like the multiplayer team aspects of UT2k4, be sure and check out Unreal 2 eXpanded MultiPlayer. It's also based on the Unreal engine, but is completely team oriented. 3 classes of players, multiple weapons, multiple vehicles, power generators, auto-turrets, manned turrets and artifacts (think capture the flag with 4 flags). Best Unreal-based game yet, IMO.

Official Unofficial Site

Some Decent Player Guides

The demo is free (just patch your server list). The full version requires Unreal 2, which can be found for as little as $8 (Target Clearance)

Atari has already started something like that. Its over at Betatests.net. The basic idea is that you register an account, and then apply to various games to undergo beta testing. As you report bugs (though BetaTests.net) and generally be a good little tester, you gain 'points' and go up in 'rank'. The more points you have, and the higher rank you get, the more likely you are to be chosen for other tests by the developers surfing through your profile.

Unfortunatly, its off to a bit of a rocky start. For one, there are a grand total of three things to test. And one isn't even a friggin game! There was a fourth game, Unreal 2: XMP (eXpanded MultiPlayer), but that test is now closed. The game/free addon was released publicly, and the existing crew of testers are being kept onboard to test future patches. Speaking of which, we're (yeah, i'm one) in the middle of testing a patch right now.
In addition to the severe lack of games, the system doesn't even work properly. Bugs submitted through the website are generally ignored, or horribly delayed as they shuffle from Tester -> Publisher -> Developer and back. During the U2XMP test, we found it was *MUCH* faster, easier, and simpler to just use the forums to directly contact the devs. (And speaking of forums, BetaTests.net is supposed to provide forums for each test, but those were broken at the time of the XMP test too. So we wound up using a well respected fansite's forums instead). And to top it all off, due to the horribly inefficient reporting scheme, none of the developers seem to be taking (more like wasting) the time to actually give people 'points' to move up in rank.

So all in all... good concept, but excecution is decidedly more difficult. Hopefully Atari can get things turned around in short order, but the system just isn't sustainable in its current state. Maybe once Atari figures out how to plow through this mess, other publishing groups will start similar projects. And who knows, maybe someone will eventually propose a universal database of testers?

Anyways... just FYI, it does exist, albet tenuously

I think if Epic were really serious about promoting modding their engine, they'd release some documentation for it. The only useful documentation I could find is the Unreal Wiki, provided by frustrated mod developers. That plus the source scripts for the UT2003 games is enough to get started, but only for the dedicated. A few focused and annotated source examples would go a long way, and some reference documentation would be gold. Why not put more content on the UDN technical wiki that isn't for engine licensees only?

I seem to recall that the Epic said that they had improved their engine so that it would now take less horsepower--they even included a software renderer for those without the graphics card.

The minimum specs for UT2003 were
CPU: Pentium III or AMD Athlon 733MHz processor (*Pentium(R) or AMD 1.0 GHz or greater RECOMMENDED)
Memory: 128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM or greater RECOMMENDED)

But I think the requirements are still the same, but with DirectX 9, according to this thread in the BeyondUnreal forums:

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t= 11 2165&highlight=requirements

LOL america's army uses the original unreal engine. Not unreal 2003. you FUCKING MORON.

BZZZT Wrong, little dickless AC.

Unreal wiki website, 3rd gen engine (aka 2003) games are listed below.

Third Generation Builds
Announced
[Deux Ex 2] - ION Storm Austin (build number unknown. is known that they gutted the renderer completely and integrated Havok physics instead of Karma)
[Lineage II] - NCSoft
[Postal 2] - Running with Scissors (927 or 2110)
[Loophole] - Hidden Dinosaur
[The Lost] - Irrational Games (PS2)
[Thief III] - ION Storm Austin (build number unknown. is known that they gutted the renderer completely and integrated Havok physics instead of Karma)
[XIII] - Ubi Soft
Vampire Hunter - Psyonix
Released
[America's Army] - US Army (927)
[Devastation] - [ARush Entertainment], [Digitalo], [Groove]
[Raven Shield] - [Red Storm Entertainment]
[Splinter Cell] - Ubi Soft
[Unreal II] - Legend Entertainment
[Unreal Championship] - Digital Extremes - Xbox only
[Unreal Tournament 2003] - Epic Games and [Digital Extremes]

The Unreal Wiki
The Editing Forums at Beyondunreal
Chimeric

Like I said, those are just a few of the places to go - you'll undoubtedly find more :)

The Unreal Wiki
The Editing Forums at Beyondunreal
Chimeric

Like I said, those are just a few of the places to go - you'll undoubtedly find more :)

The Unreal Wiki
The Editing Forums at Beyondunreal
Chimeric

Like I said, those are just a few of the places to go - you'll undoubtedly find more :)

...described here. They can be used as gates to different parts of the level(like the common-or-garden usage), or to another server(using the unreal:// url pattern).
In contrary to the other posts in the thread, the functionality is in both UT and UT2k3. It's just that nobody really goes to the trouble of setting them up.

Incidentally, there is an SG1-flavored UT2k3 mod in development, Atlantis.

...described here. They can be used as gates to different parts of the level(like the common-or-garden usage), or to another server(using the unreal:// url pattern).
In contrary to the other posts in the thread, the functionality is in both UT and UT2k3. It's just that nobody really goes to the trouble of setting them up.

Incidentally, there is an SG1-flavored UT2k3 mod in development, Atlantis.

Also, it was quiet interesting Americas Army came out before UT2K3 using the UT2K3 engine. So the engine does look good on other non-bouncy fps games. (Any other U2K3 engine based games out?)

From the Unreal Wiki, released UT2k3 engine games:

America's Army
Devastation
Raven Shield
Splinter Cell
Unreal 2
Unreal Championship
Postal 2 ...and of course itself, and any others I have forgotten.

Notable upcoming Unreal Engine games include:
Deus Ex 2
Thief 3
XIII

Unreal Warfare, Epic's worst-kept secret, is next-generation (from UT2003's engine) and is said to rival Doom 3s and Half Life 2s. Speculation I have heard is that is seems to be a large scale combat game (either that or i'm getting this confuesd with Digital Extreme's Stargate game), perhaps in the style of BF1942 or PlanetSide (yes, there are games in development (unannounced) that are using the Unreal Engine as a platform for a MMORPG, so it is a possibilty).

Try the Unreal Wiki.

I've also been playing the game for a few days with a Geforce 3,Athlon 1.3, 256 DDR and platinum sound card. This guide was very interesting to me, because my fps keeps dropping to unbearably low levels any time things are happening which makes it impossible to play. When I turn textures and particles all the way up I get a whopping 2-5 fps, but otherwise usually get around 15 fps which is still pretty weak. And, yes I have all the latest drivers and patches.

For my two cents on the game.. the downside is that the gameplay is very linear and the level load times are extremely unbearable--'quick' load takes about two minutes. EAX is also buggy as hell. However, the eye candy is definitely incredible. There are very realistic volumetric particle affects like rain, flame, and billowing smoke and dust, incredibly detailed alien landscapes and actual realistic fingers on hands instead of square blobs.

Here's one positive review and a great screenshot of the bad guys.

BeyondUnreal.com will be happy to let you mirror all their files (currently 20GB, always growing) so long as you sacrafice your upload bandwidth to the rabid BU visitors (they get alot) and allow them updates whenever necessary.