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Red Orchestra, UT2003 Mod, Released
Neophytus writes "The first public edition of the long awaited Red Orchestra mod for Unreal Tournament 2003 has been released. 'Red Orchestra brings you in-depth infantry combat on the Eastern Front of WWII. With the emphasis on realism and authenticity, the Soviet Red Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real weapons. Real battles. Real soldiers.' Download from FilePlanet (free reg. req.), FasterFiles, more."
yay, another ww2 shooter...
In Soviet Red Army Russia we don't need video games to kill!
While I can respect a free Unreal Tourney mod set in the WW2 universe, I must ask this:
Doesnt this add to an already overblown selection of World War 2 based FPS's?
Heck the best thing about the Desert Combat mod for 1942 is that its NOT about WW2!
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The single biggest complaint I hear about Unreal II is the unbelievable weapons and non-traditional sci-fi style maps. Now with this mod maybe people will give the Unreal engine another chance. .
Try my new smokable Sig,
That Faster Files link, won't have faster files anymore...
The /. article says 2k3, the site says 2k4. You got my hopes up.
If you kill enough commies does it say Fuhrer Kill!?
Don't you dare post another damned fileplanet link ever again.
Sheesh. I'll go to kazaa before I go to fileplanet.
Not that I find another WWII game all that enticing in the first place.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I personally don't like war games. This one is special. Stalin or Hitler? Whom do you prefer? ;->
is that Quake 3 engine does a better job of being used in a WWII game such as Return To Castle Wolfenstein and Wolf: E.T.
:p
Becides I've played America's Army Operations v1.90 and it just sucked horribly. I prefer engines that use OpenGL anyway.
This space is not for rent.
Thank god I was aware of this before it got slashdotted. Also that I decided to risk a warning from the network admin and d/l it at work. All the mirrors are going to be swamped now.
Is slashdot running like molasses or is my ISP sabotaging slashdot?
Only 5% of my http requests work. The timeouts drive me crazy!
I just checked the filesize on this mod: 277 mebibytes. WTF?? I have a fairly fat pipe going to my house, but since when did it become a good idea to create demos and/or mods regularly exceeding 100 megs?
I recently downloaded the demo for Tron 2.0, weighing in at about 200 megs. Now, I might almost think this reasonable if it weren't for a few crucial facts:
Yet, despite this, the download was 200 megs. It should have been no more than half that.
There has to be more efficient ways to handle this stuff.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
nt
In Soviet Russia...FilePlanet still sucks!
Huh.. same thing's been happening here all day (Calgary, AB).. and it's more than just Slashdot. I thought it just just me, but perhaps it's a big DDOS or new virus spreading or something?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Can you be a camp survivor? Maybe working for the German team or running from them?
You can't call it realistic until you spend the majority of your time waiting in the cold, hoping not to die.
You can't call it realistic if you can play after you've died once.
You can't call it realistic until the credit for every action you take is given to your superior officer.
WWII was a terrible event. I have no problem with FPS, but to make a mockery of WWII while the survivors are still alive seems disrespectful to me. Play all you want in a Sci-fi setting. Make mods "simulating" the america civil war. But I think it would be nice to show some respect for the still-living vets of WWII.
vi is my shepard, I shall not font.
Wow. Anyone who says "mebibytes" and includes a link is so cool that they should be moderated up to Score 5 Insightful posthaste. Even though their post was basically just a bunch of whiny bitching.
Stalingrad
Enemy At the Gates came close, maybe in it's first 10 minutes. After that, Hollywood falls far short of the horror and what really happened (as much as I can tell from reading this fascinating retelling of the battle for Stalingrad)...
There's been an ongoing debate among us about which is the better history. On the one side Dave, Rick, and others favor the dry academic 'cause and effect' of macroeconomics and political philosophy that lead to the World War 1914-1945. Others among us push for the 'real story', the oral tradition of the grunt soldier's pains and trials from the trench in the actual battle-- it doesn't matter how the forces got there, the drama of the day comes from a baker holding a rifle.
Stalingrad mixes both, but in an acceptable fashion: Beevor rightly frames his story around the causes and impetus behind Hitler's folly and Stalin's incompetence, but then follows those mishaps all the way down to how they drew 500,000 men in the German 6th army to starvation and death in the steppes of the Volga.
This is not an easy read. Do not try it if you have a fear of lice, rot, cold, or desparate hopelessness-- you will feel them as you read.
Beevor's foreshadowing was sometimes distracting, but then, as the reader, I had to tell myself that it was only foreshadowing because I didn't know the details of the battle-- this is history, not fiction. The author draws us to seminal mistakes in judgement, crucial firefights that end up dooming thousands later on, the chaos of war that brings entropy-- and death-- to millions.
I highly recommend this book.
(review originally appeared here
davejenkins.com |
Because you have to download the entire Unreal Warfare engine to play the demo. That is 127MiB by itself.
640k ought to be enough for anybody.
FilePlanet absolutely sucks. It's one of the most cluttered websites I've ever seen. More banner ads & crap than most porn sites.
BitTorrent/p2p is an *excellent* way (and legitimate way) to get game demos out.
Why don't more companies announce "Hey, we've thrown this up on Kazaa too! Go get it!" instead?
INstead, we get ad-laden crap like FilePlanet/etc.
http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=3832
The stick grenades aren't stuck in the Wehrmacht soldiers' belts. (Disclaimer: clips on grenade heads were pretty uncommon). Other than that, they have done an incredible job modelling the gear. I did WWII re-enacting during my high school and college years, and have most of the gear seen in the screenshots sitting in my closet. The Kar98k, Moisin Nagant, P-38, PPSh-41, and MP-38 all get high marks, with the possible except of the G43, which looks like they modelled it with a bayonet lug it never had.
This is why I invented the Internet.
in-depth infantry combat on the Eastern Front of WWII. With the emphasis on realism and authenticity, the Soviet Red Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real weapons. Real battles. Real soldiers.'
With all this emphasis on "reality" and taking from real battles, I wonder what percentage of kids get their knowlege of historical events from video games? Is that a bad thing?
Could not load OpenGL library
History:
Exiting due to error
The nonobvious but simple fix is to modify your 'ut2003-demo' or 'ut2003' startup script by adding "unset LD_ASSUME_KERNEL" at the beginning, and adding it "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5" back at the end (so RPM will work again).
Google couldn't help me out with this problem, so I wasted an hour messing around with libraries and linker crap before stumbling upon the fix (and google will eventually index this post for someone else... looking for candle trucks to rent.)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Why don't more companies announce "Hey, we've thrown this up on Kazaa too!
Because whenever you download an executable from Kazaa, it contains at least one, possibly two trojans. With file planet, you can at least insure that the files are not being tampered with.
BitTorrent is an exception, because it hasn't taken off yet (lil billy teh h4xxor isn't using it)
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Artful, actually. But strange to someone with a usa viewpoint.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Not only did my country, the USA, invade France and get bombed at Hawaii, but as part of a coalition they entered North Africa and Italy and attacked Japanese-held islands. But there are plenty of games about the USA fighting WW2, even though there was no fighting on the US mainland and much fighting did not involve US forces.
I've never tried "Red Orchestra", but if it really is a game about the eastern European front, then it is a game about one of the most important but overlooked parts of WW2. The "Great Patriotic War" was fought between Germany and the USSR. Germany had captured many states, several entire Soviet Socialist Republics, and had its front line deep to the east in the Russian SSR. But Russia was too big, allowing the Soviets to gain strength with aid from certain other countries. The city of Stalingrad saw urban war. The German army could not hold that Russian town and also defend Tunisia (in Northern Africa near Italy), and lost both. Then the Soviets advanced west and some other troops went north into Italy.
Of the southern and eastern fronts, the eastern saw more action, if action is measured by the amount of land taken. It was the Red Army that took Berlin, the German capital. The Soviets won the Great Patriotic War, though they would also see action in eastern Asia.
In Asia was another of the great overlooked fronts, the War of Resistance Against Japan, fought by the Chinese Guomintang/Kuomintang (depending on which desktop environment you prefer) and the Chinese Communists against Japan. Could this be the sequel to "Red Orchestra"? Or what if someone plays "Red Orchestra" as Germany and captures all Siberia (eastern Russia)?
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There are two types of people: those who are in the world, and those who aren't.
Make sure you check your filesystems so you don't lose that huge file you just downloaded! (I know it is a bad joke because fsck starts with a lowercase f. If "mebi" was not hyperlinked I would be very confused now.)
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There are two types of people: those who are in the world, and those who aren't.
The soviet front was horifically bloody in not-your-typical-war ways... the fighting was not the part you learn about in history class
Something that has really been bothering me lately. I don't know about this mod, but in games and movies lately, there seems to be an obvious lack of Nazis. In games like Battlefield 1942, movies like Enemies at the Gate, and the Pianist, just to name a few, the Nazi foe has been reduced to nothing but German. You won't find them referred to as Nazis, or see a single swastika. In the Wolfenstein games, and older movies, you cant go two feet without seeing that broken cross, but now they opt for the Teutonic knights symbols, and the Falcon, avoiding labeling the German menace as Nazi's at all. In Battlefield 1942, they do the same with the symbol of the rising sun. Come to think of it, in my high-school history classes, when learning about world war two, I cant recall Nazi ever being said, and the death/labor camps only being mentioned in passing. No matter how offensive it is, it did happen, and we can't just forget it and act like Nazis never existed.
The first public edition of the long awaited Red Orchestra mod for Unreal Tournament 2003 has been released. 'Red Orchestra brings you in-depth infantry combat on the Eastern Front of WWII. With the emphasis on realism and authenticity; Germains being the well equiped nazi's they are, and the soviets being equiped to fight with sticks and dig trenches with their bare hands. The Soviet Red Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real battles. Real soldiers. Real Sticks
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I can think of a few demos that are over a gig in size. Anarchy Online: Shadowlands, Sims Online. 200 megs is pretty small for a game demo these days...
There's a bit torrent download link for this at Filerush.com: Red Orchestra Beta 1 BT link
There's a bit torrent download link for this at Filerush.com: Red Orchestra Beta 1 BT link
finally a torrent link mod up....
Where the Music Matters
So, will it? I'm already downloading the torrent, but I figured the answer might help others decide if it's worth the bandwidth...
I'll stick to Call of Duty demos.
It's a pity to see war celebrated in this manner. Let those who exalt such stuff pray war never sweeps away their homes and/or loved ones.
Personally, yes, I tend to agree with you. But I also realize I'm one of those people who got sick and tired of all the wargame strategy simulations in the late 80's and early 90's. (Remember when it seems like TSR and others released one of these things every month or so?)
There's obviously a BIG market for re-enacting/simulating real wars, and WWII in particular. (Probably because it had the most interesting variety of weapons used in it?)
FPS games have also divided themselves into 2 different factions: those demanding realism, and those demanding fast action and "if it moves, shoot it!" gameplay.
I find the whole FPS genre to be best for "mindless killing", myself. Any FPS that makes me use a lot of strategy quickly gets more "tedious" than fun to me, and I quit playing it. (EG. Theif and Theif 2, where stealth was more important than shooting.) Therefore, I like futuristic weapons with gratifying special effects, and lots of fast action.
I can understand the interest in the other type (EG. Counterstrike fanatics, who love the "once you're dead, you're out of the game" realism and realistic weapons with very limited ammo.) too. Different people want different things is all.
In Soviet Russia, Slashdot Anals or Orals YOU!
I guess they're trying to change up the ol' Allies vs. Axis standard by not including an American European force, but really.... Now you can play for one mass murder or the other mass murderer! Whoo hoo! I guess this sorta falls in line with promoting those Anakin Skywalker coloring books... You know, the kid that grows up to be the mass murdering second in command? I just love what we're teaching our kids ^__^
You need a FREE iPod Nano
No, there isn't more efficient ways.
Games are getting larger: Textures, maps, skins, models, animations, physics, everything. They are growing bigger and bigger, and expect them to only accelerate in size. If you want a game to look better and have more feature, you can expect it to take more room on your hard disk.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
>With the emphasis on realism and authenticity, the Soviet Red
>Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from
>Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real
>weapons. Real battles. Real soldiers.' Download from FilePlanet (free
>reg. req.), FasterFiles, more."
>
>
The Red Army. They kicked German Butt Real Good with a little help from Mother Nature. Quit playing these *LAME-ASSED FPS SHOOTERS* and read a fucking *HISTORY BOOK*
Yeah it is. It does sort of make sense, but first you have to stand on your head for a while so all the blood rushes to it... then turn over really fast and exhale as rapidly as possible. If you do it right, then just before you pass out, it will begin to make sense. When you later regain consciousness, it won't anymore. Ben Kenobi would understand.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
What I, and many quake3 players with me, need is a solid new game engine that is geared towards a serious multiplayer environment. I find all the recent realism games lacking any real DM skills. With fear of sounding like a total q3 fanboy some points of the q3 engine makes it more suited for brute skill (as opposed to the skill of strategy and communication which are to be found in the faster moving game of q3 as well).
1- strafejumping makes the actual movement something which takes skill. even after playing quake3 for years with a clan my strafejumping skills still dont come near the movement skills of some of the top players. it just adds another element of skill to the game.
2- aim. realism ruins this element of the game by actually adding code to introduce an element of luck to actually hitting people. Also the slow speed of the game makes hitting people much easier. And finally the gamecode which in turn makes people stop, crouch down and then hit fire might be more "realistic" but it also makes for even less moving targets and of course aiming at somebody when you're not moving yourself is much easier.
3. i miss the hitsound :)
with doom3, half life 2 and quake4 (according to an interview at quakecon done by gamespy) all being focused on the single player game, there really is no game out on the horizon which i can consider an heir to the quake3 throne.
will some game company please just step up and make a worthy follow up to osp q3?
PjotrP
because you can play this on Linux?
I always thought it would be cool to have a really well done game based on Homer's Iliad. There is certainly enough violence in that epic to make it fit right in with the deathmatch crowd. As for weapons, there would need to be swords, spears, archery, and throwing of boulders, as well as the ability to ride in chariots.
With folks like you who bitch about everything, game developers are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
I'm sorry to say, but 3 levels of a game, plus engine, plus textures, plus audio is a few hundred megs. Check your disk usage after installing, I am sure those textures were compressed really well, it's probably around 700MB, right?
Should they have made the download 500MB and included 4 maps?
I think the 100MB limit is hogwash. I would rather wait 45 minutes to play a true technical demonstration of a game than an incomplete, unrealistic demo that took 10 minutes to download.
Perhaps you should just give up your broadband since you whine when you actually need to use it. Nancy boy.
With the emphasis on realism and authenticity, the Soviet Red Army meets the German Army on the ground across battlefields from Kiev through Stalingrad and on to the Reichstag in Berlin. Real weapons. Real battles. Real soldiers
/. while Desert Combat for BF1942 was ignored. No vehicles? Even Counter-Strike had those on some maps. BF1942, by far, is the best combat game engine out now, IMO. That EA vehicle code really makes a difference.
Realistic? How is this realistic at all? That is, unless our grandfathers fought WW2 with a mouse and keyboard.
The use of 'realism' and 'real' is bothersome. I remember hearing countless times during a counter-strike match about how 'realistic' the game was. This was usually a comment made by a 14 year old who had never fired an AK47, or been shot at in real life. Not to mention get shot 4 times and still remain focused enough to run around, bunny hop a corner, take down 4 people with an MP5, then save the hostages.
These games may be exciting, battles of avatars dressed up in WW2 or modern military skins, but they are far from a simulation of anything real.
These are the words spoken by an avid FPS gamer since wolf3d. Just so you know I'm not bashing. Though, this mod deserves some bashing for getting posted on
I can't think of a better way to learn about how something happened than to actually live through it (well, play through it..) Put a bit more emphasis on the tactical and planning side and it's a good teaching aid.
Of course these materials would have to be specifically designed for schools/kids etc. and be accurate, but it would make me interested in history.
For example, the BBC is currently running a program where a team commands a battle (usually romans vs. someone) within a computer game. I think their opponent is controlled by a human, but even using game engines as a way of re-enacting battles in a non-interactive (or semi-interactive) way might be useful, certainly better that film (view from any angle, zoom in/out, follow one cohort etc)
i don't know how much "battle history" there is in school at the moment, but it would have certainly made history more interesting for me. (maybe it would sway me to choose to study it at 16 rather than map colouring, which was the other option)
Realism and Unreal Tournament - those are words you rarely hear in the same sentence!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Why aren't both the parent and the grandparent modded up already? They deserve it.
Imagine a beowolf cluster of Gay Hot Natlie Portman Grits poured down your pants.....
Mmmmmm, Slashdot....
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
... especially the part about waiting in the cold, hoping to die.
Nobody wants a game where we use 'realistic' muskets; we want autoloading RPGs and instant-shot railguns, and fuck anyone who gets in there with us.
WWII was a bitch, yeah, but I don't feel guilty about it, because, I didn't kill any jews, russians, or anybody else, for that matter. And I don't owe them any guilt, either.
Want people to respect jews? Don't be an asshole. It's that easy.
These are games. Get over it. If I want to spend my time off chasing my friends across some terrain with an RPG, saying "Stand still! This will only hurt for a minute!!!" , then, by god, I will.
All your bitching makes me want to do is puke, because you represent the part of humanity that would be fixed by evolution, IF we would stop protecting it.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
As any level builder can attest to, some of the largest components of a level pack are the textures and sounds. The Unreal Tournament engine can handle extremely detailed textures, most 1024x1024 in size, in a fairly uncompressed format. Moreover, all of the sounds are also generally uncompressed wave files. You couple those two things together and you end up with a lot of "bloat." However, performance is improved since the game doesn't have to work at uncompressing a dozen files at runtime. I'd hate to waltz through a world of overcompressed JPEGs, know what I mean?
I'm on dial-up, you insensitive clod!
*slaps forehead* this is probably the worst thing they could have done with the game... i'm a fan of the 2k3 engine and all, but i'm getting just about sick and tired of WW type shooters
For those of you wondering about using it with the LINUX version of UT2003. Of the three mirrors that the site page has listed, fileplanet and the other one have a corrupted .gz file that that dies when decompressing with an unexpected EOF error. The offical site has taken the LINUX client off of their ftp server. So it looks for now that there is'nt a version ready for the LINUX version of UT2003.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
This is the first full mod I've downloaded for UT2K3 (due to the lack of high-quality attemps). I'm a little curious why they use an .exe to front the game? Is this a normal UScript/Package concept when the menuing structure changes? If so, must they use UCC to compile this .exe or are they simply using it like a batch file to throw cmdline options on?
Thanks.
You'll be Okay. I'll sell you a DVD+R with all the latest demos and popular shareware applications for $19.99 + 6.95 s&h. That'll save you weeks of downloading!