Unreal Engine's Mastermind Headed into AIAS Hall of Fame

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I remember back in the day when the only thing was Unreal vs. Quake. Which is better, more appealing, etc.
I guess this have been settled, finally.
Unreal Gold was the first FPS where I felt an actual immersion in that world. Not only the graphics, but also the soundtrack and the story. I could never forget the feeling when the player emerges from the wrecked spaceship into the outside world.
 

rantoc

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Speaking about Unreal, still remember the part where you were about to enter a huge spire after exiting the ship... That huge level with full sight range was awesome compared to quakes 5x5 inches view range (it was suitable to the game thoo, adding to the claustrofobic feel!). Then unreal tournament came and it was great, after that i think Epic started to go down the drain...
 

lasaldude

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"into the console scene with Gear of War for the Xbox 360 in 2006"

I've never heard of that game "Gear of war" before???
 

happyballz

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[citation][nom]Rantoc[/nom]Speaking about Unreal, still remember the part where you were about to enter a huge spire after exiting the ship... That huge level with full sight range was awesome compared to quakes 5x5 inches view range (it was suitable to the game thoo, adding to the claustrofobic feel!). Then unreal tournament came and it was great, after that i think Epic started to go down the drain...[/citation]
Thats exactly how I feel about it, OG unreal - fantastic, OG-UT and the first development of mods (tactical ops etc.) and then its all trash since that.
 

belardo

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Yeah, I remember when I first saw Unreal... going from inside to outside, the music, the colors. Unreal was a major reason I bought a $150 Voodoo1 card back in 1998 to run in my PII-300mhz system.

I still have that game, playable on Win7. UT was a great multi-player platform with some of the best maps - still only for UT. The fun of being blasted by rockets as it throws your body up against walls, etc. Looking over the edge to see a planet down below. At one point, there were 500 very active servers. Nowadays, there are about 10~15 UT2004 servers and about 5 UT3 servers. Guess you won't see me on UT3.

Too bad Tim Sweeney forgot where he started from... We had high hopes for UT3, and Epic/Sweeney ruined it. The game engine itself is solid and ran great. But they made UT3... un-fun. It came with mostly beautiful-but crappy maps... that were somewhat small, yet came with huge and fast vehicles.

They took out the view-zoom feature, so you can see behind you when flying - an IMPORTANT feature if you're going to be giving other people "rides" with grappling hooks. The Game Menu interface was crap crap, storage of custom maps is a severe pain in the butt. So yeah, out of the 32 or so maps it came with, only 12 or playable. It took over a year before the players could make good and better maps, and there are some AWESOME UT3 maps out there now... but there is a problem.
1 - maps are huge (25~50mb each), okay. but the downloading system sucks.
2 - By the time good maps came out, most people have gotten bored playing the same 2-3 maps (per game type - that are GOOD) and have moved on.
3 - because of map download issues and huge file size, most servers only run the standard maps! That nobody wants to play... and at the same time, many of the few remaining players want to spend the time DL the new maps.

UT3 is completely fixable. Just like UT2003 kind of sucked... With UT4, they threw in 100 extra maps (130+ total), fixed the scaling and play issues and made it... FUN. I migrated off of UT-classic in 2 weeks.

So the same this is what UT3 needs... turned into UT4. Include 125~150 AWESOME maps. Fix the functions that are need (Zoom) toss in some cool mods for people to play with. Sell it for $30 and perhaps WE WILL FORGIVE YOU. I have added 100 maps to my collection, most of them better than anything than Epic included in UT3.

I guess I need to move on to modern warfare games... which are not the custom map/fantasy type maps of the UT universe. ugh.

Thanks Epic, for killing our inner child.
 

Granter

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as a graphic designer i'm looking forward for unreal engine 4.0, even tho as for now it looks like it wont be out for the next 10years. But whenever the releass i will hopefully have gotten my hand into epic studio so i can make unreal tournament the way it should be.
 
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Ooo-ba Da!!! Congrats Mr Sweeney - you the FUCKING man my friend! Watching those Skaarg wandering around and tormenting those pacifistic Nali on my old VooDoo3 3500TV - those were the days! They gave UNREAL away back then with the 3dFX video cards . . .

Damn - I'm being swept upin a wave of nostalgia . . . time for lunch! Congrats!!!
 

Goldengoose

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I haven't played a game since that required you to slam your space and ctrl buttons so much. I'm tired of this COD business of all realistic - i wanna jump around like an idiot and have bouncy castle fights.
 

NightLight

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I could never forget the feeling when the player emerges from the wrecked spaceship into the outside world.
I too remeber it well... and the music made it complete. Reminds me a bit of crysis, when you look over the mountain top and the sun rises :)
 

shin0bi272

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Man Unreal tournament 99 was the entire reason I got broadband. Started playing UT after class with my MCSE teacher and some other students ... when my girlfriend started playing with us she finally said we should get broadband... so I have to thank the unreal games / engine for yanking me out of the dialup hell I was in. Also have to thank them for supporting physx and being the engine behind mass effect 1 and 2 (and maybe 3).
 

beardguy

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The unreal engine is the shit! Many of the best games have come from it.

Not only can it pump out some amazing graphics, but it runs amazing too.

I can't wait for the next Unreal engine to come out ... props to Tim!
 

giovanni86

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I'm actually having a UT tournament next month hahah. Awesome game, i still to this day play the UT99 n UT2004. I tried UT3 but it didn't have that awesome feel like the other two. Felt as if they were heading in Gears of War direction, the menu felt like a console port. I'm still waiting for a new UT game made by them specifically made only for the "PC"
 

SmileyTPB1

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Couldn't think of more deserving person to put in the AIAS Hall of Fame. Tim definitely has changed the industry for the better more than any other one person.

Congratulations Tim.
 
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I'll never forget the day when PC Gamer or a similar print magazine published an article in the late 90s called "Game Gods" (or similar) and they took John Carmack and like 9 other senior level game developers in the industry together in a photo shoot, and I was ABSOLUTELY MORTIFIED that Tim Sweeney was not in the shoot! Perhaps Tim had turned them down, I don't know, all I know is that he belonged there and deserved the recognition as a game god that these other fellows were enjoying. Instead it was the level designer Cliff Blezinsky. who was heralded, but Cliff was tooled up entirely by Tim's hand and leadership.

People have a lot of catching up to do, giving proper credit where credit is due.
 
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