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Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

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Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#151

Post by Fuzzwah »

satertek wrote: post #147
pietmichal wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-Strike 1.6 (and other Goldsrc based games) greatly benefited from AMX Mod X's scripting capabilities. I miss the days where people were playing modded servers. Obscuring server browser and/or not allowing self-hosting dedicated servers killed modding in modern games. A real shame. https://www.amxmodx.org/

Not only killed modding, but also killed the way those unique communities developed. I suppose it's possible you can find people on community Discord servers nowadays for pick up games, but not in the same way as just seeing and talking to the same people all the time on your favorite modded server.

For four great years in my career I ran game servers for an Australian ISP. I really enjoyed tossing up servers for new HL2 / UT / Quakeworld mods and seeing what picked up a community, chipping in on a cyberpunk HL2 mod in the same period.

I have such rose coloured glasses of that time.

Looking back, most of the dedicated server software felt like it was just tossed over the wall. Some of the stuff we used to have to do to get things running happily on headless linux servers was very hacky. Others simply HAD to run on windows hosts.

I feel like the entire industry died as games became "live" services.

Nearly 2 decades later when my kids got into Minecraft, I stumbled into the hosted MC server world and was just amazed by the size of the industry around it.

It was a real "arrrh this is where that same spirit ended up" moment.

And now of course there's huge servers funded by getting kids into gambling and pay to win.... Gross.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#152

Post by embedding-shape »

0xC0ncord wrote: post #62
klaussilveira wrote: post #49

I honestly can't understand why Epic Games refuses to open-source Unreal 1 and UT99. They insist on licensing individual developers, instead of opening up the source so community forks can thrive. Look at the id tech community, with all the Doom and Quake forks, and all the amazing projects that spawned off of them. The topic of "middleware" often comes up, as an excuse for them not being able to open the source. Wel…

One explanation that was brought up before about this was licensing. A lot of the source code has been touched by other entities like Digital Extremes who may feel differently about releasing the source. That's even more true for UT2k4 which was worked on by many more companies behind the scenes, some of which are now defunct.

> may feel differently about releasing the source

Still sounds like something someone would change their mind about if enough money was involved, if only Epic had enough profits.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#153

Post by Fuzzwah »

bombcar wrote: post #99
mhitza wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Quake with the DeFrag mode "sub-game", but also gameplay available in Quake Live in which you could have a Railgun only match, but they could also behave like Rocket Launchers for rocket jumps. Also allowing players to change the configuration of their game through the dev console was cool. My favorite visual change was to configure the railgun trails to persist for multiple seconds.

We modified Action Quake II (somehow, I forget how) to change gravity (I think it was in the map itself) and we would bounce around Cheyenne in a completely different playstyle - and everything would send you flying.

sv_gravity console command.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#154

Post by int_19h »

magicalhippo wrote: post #5

One thing I missed from Unreal Tournament, which too few other games adopted IMHO, was the concept of mutators. Effectively server-level mods which, as the name implied, mutated the gameplay in some way. There were silly ones like the one making your characters head larger for each kill, and those which made it just different like low gravity, and so on. It was also relatively easy to make your own, thanks to UnrealS…

The entire extensibility story in Unreal series has been amazing from the get go. Where QuakeC was really more of a scripting language "on the side", with UT it felt more like the entire game is written in UnrealScript, with some native bits here and there for performance. The language was interesting too, incorporating things such as first-class support for various states (you could define different implementations for a function depending on which state the object is, and derived classes could extend that).

No wonder the mutator scene in UT was crazy. My favorite mod for the original UT99 was Dr Strangelove, which modded the Redeemer gun (the one that shoots huge nuclear missiles) to allow you to ride them.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#155

Post by int_19h »

manuelmoreale wrote: post #83
joefarish wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facing Worlds was absolutely peak.

Hell yeah! So many runs on that map. It’s so funny how it was basically a strategy-less map since there wasn’t much you could do other than trying your best avoid incoming fire while running like a madman up the slope in the middle of the map.

Once you do get past it, though, there are some options. Including climbing the tower from the outside with the translocator.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#156

Post by manuelmoreale »

some-guy wrote: post #130
jerf wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a terrible map by almost every metric... ... except fun. But guess what metric matters most?

I was going to say this. It's not a well-balanced map gameplay-wise, but the grand scale of it back in the day was very awe-inspiring.

I think most UT99 maps were balanced for chaos. Different types of chaos depending on the mode and the map. But they were genuinely all great. I don't remember hating any map in particular.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#157

Post by manuelmoreale »

int_19h wrote: post #155
manuelmoreale wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell yeah! So many runs on that map. It’s so funny how it was basically a strategy-less map since there wasn’t much you could do other than trying your best avoid incoming fire while running like a madman up the slope in the middle of the map.

Once you do get past it, though, there are some options. Including climbing the tower from the outside with the translocator.

Oh yes totally. But getting to the enemy side was the fun part. Also, how cool was that the translocator could be used as a weapon.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#158

Post by manuelmoreale »

smazga wrote: post #114
bitwize wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Camp out in the upper chamber, wait for Redeemer to spawn, grab it and nuke 'em all. Great for taking out snipers posted on the opposing tower who are preventing your guys from crossing. Fuck, CTF-Face was a vibe.

UT99 was the first real FPS experience I had. My friend invited me to a LAN party (also first time), and the whole thing was mind blowing. People all over the house shouting and laughing. I have a distinct memory of someone attempting what you just described, but my friend just happened to be ready and he sniped the redeemer right as it was shot. Big explosion and nothing left of the player but a scorch mark on the b…

I'd be so down to set up a lan again to play UT99. I still have a copy ready to go I bought on GOG ages ago.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#160

Post by forgetfreeman »

superxpro12 wrote: post #104
magicalhippo wrote: post #5

One thing I missed from Unreal Tournament, which too few other games adopted IMHO, was the concept of mutators. Effectively server-level mods which, as the name implied, mutated the gameplay in some way. There were silly ones like the one making your characters head larger for each kill, and those which made it just different like low gravity, and so on. It was also relatively easy to make your own, thanks to UnrealS…

those ant-sized man in house maps were the best. i dont think ive ever seen anything like it since.

Having a match grind to a halt because literally everyone on the server was standing in the livingroom staring at the tv...
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