Life after Newnet?

[tigerclaw1987]

TL;DR newnet is good let's do it again

UT is an old game, people have trouble setting it up and making basic changes

I propose that an overhaul of the game's installation and UI will help players resolve problems more easily and in ways they are familliar with from other games(as opposed to editing ini files, for example)

an installer which;

installs base ut+updates
gives basic setup options such as screen resolution, bit rate and refresh rate(defaults to desktop settings?)
allows loading various pre-setup ut and user inis, with attached screens showing the differences

once in game, a remade UI which aims to be user friendly, but at the same time includes a mass of options such;

fov
netspeed
crosshair scale
frame rate
refresh rate
gamma settings
texture settings such as s3tc and 4444

and many more

for graphics settings, some games use a test screen or video, which can be played manually or seen on the screen, which shows how the changes you make will be displayed in game

having a visual aid to show how your changes will effect aspects of the graphics and HUD will make changing settings quick and easy

this combinied with whatever other changes people could think of would make installing a setting up UT a more friendly and welcoming experience

but that's just an idea

[TimTim]

Yeah, like I've been saying for a while now, it's going to take a lot more than NewNet to get this game back into action. I love every single one of you to death, but let's be real: a couple hundred active players (if that) isn't much.

When I began creating NewNet (before I even knew what GlobalUnreal was), it was part of a much bigger project aimed at reeling in thousands of gamers. People are getting tired of the same old shit first person shooters (you can only repackage COD so many times). If UT is brought up to modern standards with proper support by investors/sponsors and professional leadership, it has a real chance at seeing those kinds of numbers again.

A lot of the things you mentioned I've put some work into, but as soon as I heard Unreal Engine 4 was to be open sourced, I put it completely on halt. UE4 being open changes everything. I'll elaborate on this more later when I have the time, but long story short, I've joined a fairly large team of developers working on the next UT in UE4 (working name: OpenTournament) and a lot what I've been working on for UT99 should translate pretty easily. This isn't to say I'm leaving UT99 behind, because it's still hard to tell exactly how OT will play out; and I may even end up supporting both if it's feasible, but UE4 right now looks promising and will probably be the best route to take to achieve my original goal of bringing UT up to modern standards and making it relevant to mainstream gaming again.

Right now, however, (and the reason I've been absent this season) I've been focusing all of my efforts on non-gaming related endeavors since, well... it's a zillion times more important than some video game. All the time I've put in so far though? It's been a major investment which will pay me back tenfold in the future. I can't imagine gaining that amount of quality knowledge and experience anywhere else. Although, if these real life endeavors end up taking all of my time, I wish UT the very best.

[ph34r]

paint me like one of your french girls Tim

[RickJames]

Someone with the knowledge could probably easily make an installer that installed utdemo + 436 patch + updated renderers and some new inis all automatically.

The ui stuff would be way more trouble than it's worth. Don't really see any of this making a big impact tbh.

[medor]

That means that newnet shalt not finished?

[TimTim]

It's 99.9% finished. The remaining 0.1% of the mod should be pretty quick and easy, but it isn't at all top priority. All the really difficult things were completed a long time ago, so now that it's open source, if anyone wants to take a stab at the remainder of my todo list (included with the source package) they can.

[Sakura]

[dR3]

[tigerclaw1987]

it's only a repackaged installer you'd need, editing ut itself wouldn't be needed so i think it would be legal

you could actually create a 2nd installer which just brings ut upto scratch and gives ini options - the UI is another matter, you could mod in some more menus rather than replacing the UI, a cheap alternative i suppose

what tim has said about OT looks fairly interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=275drT5hHXY

from what i can see it's a long way away from being tested in multiplayer

afaik we have the largest and most collectively experienced UT community right here, i'd really recommend putting us forward for testing at all levels

even if it's only a single map with a single gun people will hammer that in pugs, with good feedback they might have a chance of creating a decent game, at the moment they'll probably just create ut2k4+

plus it's a big thing to show these guys that UT99 is still the most competitively active of ALL the ut titles

[Lineage]

I read a rumor on another forum about porting UT99 into UE4, glad it wasn't completely unfounded.

[RickJames]

It's not a ut99 port. It's more like 2k4 unfortunately, since the dev team is composed of 2k4 players. I tried to explain to them that they're bound to have more success by appealing to the ut99/ut3 crowd, but they insist on floaty dodgejumping instead of the more hardcore 99/ut3 movement. I don't have much hope for it, although I wish them the best.

[Hinata]

[RickJames]

That's totally ridiculous and false hinata.

[Hinata]

[Sonic|^]

[csnafk]

[Lineage]

[Miracle]

alright, I actively played ut99 and ut2004 competitively for quite a while. UT99 was defiantly higher and lasted longer hinata. The only think 2k4 had that was so vastly popular was a mod that wasn't even in the original set of mods for 2k4. and that was TAM team arena master. TAM was one of the most competitive game mods I've played and as far as I know is still going on in 2k4. But everything else, instagib, lowgrav insta, Reg wepons. Pretty easily died in less then 3-4 years where ut99's mods lasted over 5 years. I played lgi alone for over 11 years in ut99. where LGI died in 1 year in ut2004.

[Hinata]

I think, we aren't talking about the same thing. When I talk about competitive scene, I talk about Electronic Sports (E-Sport) big online tournament and LANs.
I see your point but since those mods aren't the "official competitive mod", i just call it Hardcore Gaming. I've never seen instagib @ WCG for example ; )

As sonic loves to mention every time, I'm certainly not a ut99 expert but I know ut2k4 competitive scene a bit which is duel and TDM nw like all UT's.

I can name few big e-sport LANs and tournament on ut2k* :
CPL 2002, 2004, WCG 2004, ESWC 2003, 2004, 2005, Clanbase EuroCups XII, XIII, XIV, XVI, ESL Major Series, DreamHack 2004...etc I bet there were a lot more...
UT99 wasn't even @ CPL...

[dev]

[fisk]

unreal tournament had to compete with q3 and had a bigger community then 2k4 ever had

and believe it or not, ut99 INSTA was played by progamers from mTw / ocrana / unmatched and shuuk/fnatic

obviously u remember 2k4 competitions/cups more because they came later and had more coverage, but dont be fooled, ut99 had some of the most amazing tournaments when it was in its prime

mTw organized a tournament(battle of the best or smth) to determine the best 4on4tdm clan in the world and had its sponsors paying the flight for an american team (dont remember the name) to germany just to play a best of 5 and fly back home

all of this in an age where player got no salaries or anything

[dev]

[tigerclaw1987]

The non esports community has been larger and more active for a very long time

What sponsor would hold a UT99 tournament if ut2k3 onwards was out?

If UT4 was released tomorrow, it wouldn't matter how crap it was or how many people played it, if they thought enough people would watch the tournament someone would organise it...

Your reasoning means nothing.

[RickJames]

hinata, you said you were talking about esports, and then you listed cb cups and other non-prize money tourneys?

Also, don't know where you got that list from dev, but it's very incomplete.

Regardless, whether you want to look at just esports or all competition, and no matter what mods you consider, there's no contest. The 99 community (competitive or otherwise) has always been much bigger than the other UTs and has had a much more successful competitive scene by pretty much any measure.

[kud]

the open tournament guys have the goal of making the settings very customizable, and the code will be/is open source. Changing dodge/run speed/gravity, or whatever, is not expected to be difficult if needed.

ps: lol@thread. topics: updated installer, open tournament, and the infamous ut99 vs 2k4 vs ut3 argument