Epic Wants to Develop Unreal Tournament 4 With You
Epic wants to develop Unreal Tournament 4 with you.
Epic senior programmer and UT project lead Steve Polge updated the company's blog on Thursday, reporting that development of a new Unreal Tournament installment has begun. While fans like myself will be jumping up and clicking their heels in glee, the announcement comes with an interesting twist; fans will also be involved in the development process.
"We're happy to announce that we're going to do this together, with you," Polge writes. "We know that fans of the game are as passionate about Unreal Tournament as we are. We know that you have great ideas and strong opinions about where the game should go and what it should be. So let's do something radical and make this game together, in the open, and for all of us."
According to Polge, Epic has already created a small team of Unreal Tournament veterans who are now working on the project. As he stated, development will be out in the open so that Epic, Unreal Engine 4 developers and UT fans can properly collaborate on the game. Twitch streams and forums will be used for discussion and regular updates.
"A lot of this is brand new for Epic, and we don't yet have everything figured out," he writes. "Things will probably definitely go wrong from time to time, and when they do, we'll have to work through them together. There will be a lot of tough decisions to make, and not every feature will make it into the game. But if you're a fan of Unreal Tournament, a UE4 developer, or a future modder – or if you just want to learn how we make games – we hope you'll join us. It's going to be fun."
Polge confirms that the new installment will stay true to the Unreal Tournament roots as a "competitive FPS," and development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux. UE4 developers will have access to all code and content stored on GitHub.
So when will gamers get a first taste of Unreal Tournament (4 or 2014)? Polge says development will take "many months" before it becomes playable, as Epic is starting from scratch with this installment. However, when it does become available, it will be free. Polge emphasizes that the game will be free period, and not free-to-play.
Now here's the catch; the game will be financed by a marketplace. Here gamers, modders, developers and whatnot can purchase and sell content and mods. Sales stemming from the marketplace products will be split between the modder/creator and Epic.
Additional information regarding the Unreal Tournament game can be found here in the Wiki. Sounds like now would be a good time to get re-acquainted with the Flak Cannon!
The weapons and game modes and also the mods and home brew maps made it awesome , I especially enjoyed the RPG versions of Invasion, they were a lot of fun.
UT3 looked great but lost it with playability and the weapons weren't as good, I did like the physics tho , looked really good!
Good for EPIC if they can rall this and make it work.
It is risky for the company anyway. Can create a lot of oposing sides in terms of what the game should be about.
I still play UT2004 which Vehicles... there are game styles with and without. Plenty for all to enjoy.
You could have released UT4 back in 2009/2010 with the corrections below and people would be playing it today, rather than UT2004 such as myself.
UT3 has a great game engine, its stable, smooth... but a disappointment, and frustrating (not fun). An important example was the VEHICLES. In UT2004, the MOUSE wheel allowed the player to ZOOM IN (cock pit POV) or ZOOM OUT to a wide view to see your VEHICLE and the world around it. But in UT3, this function was not USED! Instead, your vehicle sucked up 1/3 of the screen! You couldn't see what you were shooting at with a Raptor. One of the IMPORTANT features of UT3 was the hooverboard in which players COULD hitch a ride behind a Vehicle - being pulled... even in the air. BUT since your Raptor (Jet fighter) filled up the screen, you COULD NOT see if you had hitchhikers or see if they were trying to grab on... or if they fell off, etc. UGH
Someone made a 16K mod, which RESTORED this zoom function, that even worked better than UT2004! A 16K file made the game *FUN*... but since its a mod and not standard with UT3, only a few servers used it. Empty servers = death.
So, the faults of UT3:
1 - The Menu UI sucked. Worse ever! Console based. Still prefer UT99 the best... but UT2004 style is acceptable.
2 - VEHICLE ZOOM, the lack of. This is a MUST feature.
3 - MAPS - only came with about 35 maps for 5 game types... in which only about 10 were any good... so we got BORED before gamers made good maps.
(Maps with Vehicles require a bit more space to move)
4 - MAPS part2: Make it like UT2004. When people buy the DVD or blu-ray disc, it comes with at least 100 maps!
5 - Dump WAR, get back the original ONS. The orbs, they were a good and bad thing... more bad than good.
6 - Bring back Assault.
7 - Requiring Gamespy to log-on and save your settings = SUCK ASS. PS: Gamespy is dead.
8 - Saving custom maps is a BITCH compare to UT2004. Things were way more complicated than they should ever be. Include a Cache>Map converter tool to manage the maps. Make so the user can't accidentally uninstall core maps.
9 - UT is a Tournament. Not a personal war... it was weak and lame.
10 - some of the Alien vehicles sucked... simply not needed. Still should have the WALKER. But the rest... Meh.
That's about it.
So: Make it more like UT2004, but even easier to add MAPS, manage maps and servers, download content. If possible, make it handle 64 humans.
(Map servers) ie: no fake populated servers. Include lots of maps to start with.
Make it FUN to PLAY. I can honestly say, I am EXCITED by the direction EPIC is going... I've been BUYING Unreal since the first game.