Remake of UT99?

[brazzjazz]

Have there ever been any attempts to update UT99 graphically, besides hi-res textures? At least the original Half-Life is so popular that there's a remake 'Black Mesa' in the make - the original game remade in the current Source engine - wonderful, I couldn't think of a better way to treat our classics. As to UT99, theoretically there could be added T&L support, some new graphic effects and updated levels with higher polygon counts. It rather seems a question of manpower, but I thought since UT99 is one of the most popular first-person shooters, it's not impossible, especially when you think of Black Mesa. I'm quite disappointed with the newest UT3 (which differs greatly from UT99), I'd rather see UT99 updated. I think that compared to its increasingly console-like and crude successors, UT99 is incredibly mature - which is one reason why I value it so much to this day.

[Darkness]

Have there ever been any attempts to update UT99 graphically, besides hi-res textures? At least the original Half-Life is so popular that there's a remake 'Black Mesa' in the make - the original game remade in the current Source engine - wonderful, I couldn't think of a better way to treat our classics. As to UT99, theoretically there could be added T&L support, some new graphic effects and updated levels with higher polygon counts. It rather seems a question of manpower, but I thought since UT99 is one of the most popular first-person shooters, it's not impossible, especially when you think of Black Mesa. I'm quite disappointed with the newest UT3 (which differs greatly from UT99), I'd rather see UT99 updated. I think that compared to its increasingly console-like and crude successors, UT99 is incredibly mature - which is one reason why I value it so much to this day.

The only things I really miss in UT99 are the ragdolls, coupled with the physics, specially for modmaking.

Higher polly models could also be there, but what harms the graphics to me are the inconsistent model animations (it's ugly when you dodge forward and land. VERY ugly, imo).

[gopostal]

It'll (sadly) never happen.

At the core of the UT game is the unreal engine. The netcode needs a very serious upgrade, as well as numerous problems fixed before any of this is possible. Epic protects the ucc part quite seriously so a true upgrade just won't happen.

[Creavion]

It'll (sadly) never happen.

[gopostal]

Lets not even mention the debacle that v451 was (is). My guess is that 451 proved to Epic to *never* let the community do this sort of thing again.

[Creavion]

Lets not even mention the debacle that v451 was (is). My guess is that 451 proved to Epic to *never* let the community do this sort of thing again.

Well.. Unreal 1 Patch 227f and the current development version of 227g ist also community made, the editor is e.g working very well. Its really great to use D3D9 or Open GL in the UnrealEd. DXT Texture, Real Time Emitter and Distance Fog. Overall the error-proneness has been reduced/improved a lot. Excessive use of Bright Corners does not cause those "error random shadows" anymore, you can move un-rendered lights (you can even add lights without any radius limit, so you could really light out bluff with one single light, .. ok not perfectly) through the ed, it will not crash, from what I have seen so far, no matter how detailed the map might be etc etc etc. Just to mention some examples. Oldunreal has a lot of ut-hater, so they dont give a shit if people are whining that they want this engine upgrade for ut as well. Its not that the Oldunreal Development team does not want to develop this update for ut.. its just.. epic does not allow it. Its really sad. I really would like to use those features for ut as well. So overall its very weired, map some time with the UnrealEd 2.1 and then switch back to ut and just have this strange feeling that you miss something...
To put it in a nutshell: Yes, 451 is bullshit.. for clients at least, it was sever made anyway (no working Editor e.g).
Oldunreal on the other hand is doing a great job with the current patch development.

[gopostal]

Word.

I don't post over there but I do keep up with things. It's a shame that level of commitment is missing in UT now.

[Creavion]

That this will never come for ut.. well, all I can say atm is: Thats not set in stone^^

That not anybody misunderstand me now, it will not come tomorrow or next week. But I dont think, that epic will care about that to long anymore. Some day.. I am pretty sure, it will come for ut as well (at least I hope that)

[Shadow]

There'll never be something like what you requested, there simply won't be enough developers and it's not worth the effort.
RoninMastaFX talked with me about a community-based UT Patch that bases on the Unreal Tournament SDK, but I'm not seeing that happening.

[brazzjazz]

Lets not even mention the debacle that v451 was (is). My guess is that 451 proved to Epic to *never* let the community do this sort of thing again.

What to you mean by that? I'm not familiar with all those stories behind UT. And as to OldUnreal, I thought UT99 and OldUnreal were in the same boat?

[Shadow]

UT Build 451 was a community Patch from 436 (Retail Build !) to 451, it broke compatibility with UnrealED, and since the majority of users of UT enjoy using UED, even of only being a player, this patch was crapload, it was only recommend for admins running a server, since the netcode was optimized.. I do not know who coded 451 in the community, but looking at the result, it was a debacle, breaking a game's beloved core feature doesn't lead to victory..

Regarding OldUnreal: It's a niche community only related to Unreal-specific terms, they do not care anything related to UT

[gopostal]

For me (and many others who played since the Unreal coop days) it wasn't so much that 451 broke things, it was that the guys who did it were given access by Epic to core things and yet they didn't finish it up. They had a responsibility to either do it all the way or not commit to such a project. Now none of them will even answer current questions about Linux and redirects , as there was a long thread at UA about it a bit back.

It pisses me off because they had to *know* they represented the entire mod community and by dropping the ball it ensured Ferali would never get access to the news page, ucc's code would always stay hidden, modders would always be supported but only to a point, and Epic will never again allow deep access. I don't think the average coder/developer realizes what could have been. From UTPG's front page:

We are a group of programmers and server admins from the UT community who got together and approached Epic about the possibility of maintaining the Unreal Tournament code base. Since our goal of maintaining the game and fixing obvious problems, while keeping all the major game-play systems 100% intact, were right along with Epic's goals, Epic granted us access to the source which allows us to undertake this project. Our focus is general maintenance with some of our time spent dealing with security issues in the Unreal Tournament engine.

Special thanks to Epic and specifically Joe (Dr. Sin) and Ryan (Linux guru) for the support and assistance they have given to this project.

Thanks UTPG. Way to go.

[Creavion]

Regarding OldUnreal: It's a niche community only related to Unreal-specific terms, they do not care anything related to UT

You can not say that on this way, Epic would send them to hell if they would release that engine update for ut. Don`t fault OU.

[papercoffee]

I don't understand....

Epic doesn't care about the game UT, but care about the UT source?
You can't buy UT anymore. So why?

[gopostal]

An educated guess is that the ucc is probably the same from Unreal through U3. If you got the source to one, you could probably open the others. I'm sure there has been improvements, since compression time is way faster from UT to 2K4, but if you look at source code for the game, you can clearly see they build upon existing things. There is no reason to think ucc was done otherwise. They have effectively locked themselves out from ever releasing the code.