new UED 2.2 !

[Feralidragon]

Personally I got over it already, although the joke was rather distasteful. But since I have been thinking lately how awesome would it be to have the U227 features in UT and then you come up with that, I got carried away like the rest. But no matter, I guess I will have really to learn about renders and stuff lol (it doesn't seem that hard, at least to modify existing open source ones that is)

Since the Creavion/UT/Smirftsch issue I'm very cautious about such announcements and celebrate only when I see the actual product.

Care to enlighten me about the "Creavion/UT/Smirftsch" issue? I remember Creavion leaving our community with rather notorious opinions, so I'm curious about what happened between him and the 227 dev team that could influence opinions like that.

I don't want to go into much detail since I don't want dig into an old story, but basically when the best version of U227 was released (with particles, static meshes, and other extremely good stuff), Creavion was apparently told from Smirftsch directly that the same things could be implemented in UT as well, and that he was going to do so (as the engines are very very similar to each other, and well, why not?).

Creavion was a beta-tester back then, and you can imagine based on his known maps what was going in his head and what kind of new stuff he was already imagining to do... such as a CMP3 (a sequel to our CMP2), where he along other mappers would do a series of quality maps, I, Paper and Gen would remake some UT pickups and all the UT weapons, and all using Smirftsch's stuff to promote it, test it, showcase it and try to input some life back into the game, given that at least as Unreal-only material there aren't many people using it or even aware of it. And we actually started to work on it for the first weeks (Creavion was doing an awesome terrain as you can imagine, Paper and Gen did an awesome armor pickup along with other things, and I didn't start anything since back then I was still to occupied with something else, but I promised to help out).

... however it was canceled before any more work because there was no further sign of Smirftsch's willing to provide something to UT and it seems he backed off from it for the time being, leaving UT in the dust that is v451. Creavion was obviously disappointed at it since plans were already being made to use Smirftsch's stuff the way they were meant to be used.

Now, this is what I have been told (more or less), and regardless what went on, I can understand Smirftsch's reasons for it, as he's not obligated to do anything at all even if he has potentially the power to (and the only one to boot), and the guys at OldUnreal are very lucky to have someone like him with the source and still working actively on it. If I was in his place, probably I would do something similar but in the opposite direction (making the patches for UT and not Unreal, as UT is the game I am interested in and the one that for me still holds most potential if well used, to not mention that I don't own an Unreal copy in the first place), so I understand him in that regard.

But, fact is, we were expecting something and support Smirftsch with it, and we were left hanging there. Note that Smirftsch never told us anything directly, only Creavion did, but he was a beta-tester for U227 (and a good one at it), testing things that were not even out before, so there was no reason for him to lie about something like this, so I trust his version of the story.
Hence even his topic about how UT could get the patch of its lifetime and the potential of it.

That's probably why I also believed in this topic at first ("maybe Smirftsch did find some time and liking to dedicate to UT to level it up to the same level as Unreal?" - that's what I thought when I first read it), due to that event, and the fact that Dots contributed a lot to it and almost always made the same things working with UT and the fact that a UEd2.1 effectively exists with tons of good stuff in it.

Having that said, it's best if no one toys with this sort of thing again. As someone mentioned, it's not April 1st, and waving a candy no one can really consume I dare to say that is quite heart-breaking. For me it was at least, since for me it was a light at the end of the tunnel to pull my own things through a lot quicker and probably in a much better platform, and now I got in the state of "well, I guess this would be all good and stuff, but as long it's secluded to Unreal alone it's useless to me..., so I will have to implement my own things in full after all, oh well...".

[papercoffee]

Since the Creavion/UT/Smirftsch issue I'm very cautious about such announcements and celebrate only when I see the actual product.

Care to enlighten me about the "Creavion/UT/Smirftsch" issue? I remember Creavion leaving our community with rather notorious opinions, so I'm curious about what happened between him and the 227 dev team that could influence opinions like that.

*Damn Ferali was faster*

But anyway...
Since then I have again the maxim "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched."

[ividyon]

Despite the danger of opening an old can of worms, I'd like to add my 2 cents to this story, since I've heard it from several perspectives since writing that post. However, please keep in mind that I barely ever visit this site, and so I'm not actually aware of what the community thinks, or what kind of opinions have formed over 227.

While I don't want to go into full detail, I want you to know that it's not a case of Smirftsch simply dropping the UT community like a hot potato. There was hesitation to begin work on a UT patch due to the nature of his NDA agreement with Epic Games, and the nature of his UTPG membership, which made it risky to release any UT work, and just when he was finally convinced and started doing some work on a UT version of the patch, there was an argument between him and Creavion - in which Crev accused him of lying and never working on a UT version - which caused him to lose trust and withdraw from the UT community. It's a kinda sad story and it wasn't a petty decision made out of spite, for sure, but tensions with Crev have simply robbed him of the motivation to keep going, and having known Smirftsch for a while now, I can fully understand his decision.

While I don't want to shift any blame, I must admit that I've experienced Creavion's love for drama when he forever quit UnrealSP.org because his projects were not given enough praise and attention (when they were, in fact, given the most of all in our incredibly tiny community). Taking that into consideration, I hope this whole thing hasn't opened a rift between the UT99 and Unreal communities, and if it has, I hope that I can convince you to consider the other side. Creavion is, of course, an awesome contributor and, overall, a great guy, so there's nothing wrong with taking his side... but so is Smirftsch, and there's 2 sides to the story, so any feelings of disappointment and/or betrayal that people may have are misplaced. I hope you can continue to appreciate the 227 project for what it is - the work of several talented players who poured their heart into the game they love (U1) - rather than viewing it with disappointment because it did not expand to cover UT99.

[KingJosh]

oh this was joke thread. i guess i no longer have to worry about planning kingjoshcity2

[Red_Fist]

node limit disabled, basically on benchmark map with 2,564,288,979,789,110,234.00 nodes, everything working nicely.

I think Fragnbrag made the test map

[Spectra]

That's why I was thinking why this topic is under "Misc ¦Off Topic".....:O

[TheDane]

You all need to lighten up a bit, you take this way to serious! This is a game, and though UT99 beeing the best version ever released in the serie (Forget all your arguments about other versions, they will drop to the ground for me, you can't convince me otherwise - so don't try please), UT99 is also the version that seems to attract the biggest Jerks.... so ... take a step back all, try to stand on neutral ground for just a second...... Radi fooled you, ha, it was just a joke - adults would just laugh at it and move on.. and then .... can you actualy blame Smirftsch for not wanting to be a part of this community? It is, weather you like it or not, attached to great risk to get involved with anything high-level Development in the UT99 community.

I like this thread .... it's a very good showcase!

[UnrealGGecko]

Too bad that it was only an pre-April Fools joke, would have liked all those features.
But Radi sure put a good one Rotten Bastard! That new logo sure fooled me .

[Feralidragon]

@sana: Don't misunderstand, I don't have anything against Unreal or their community or even Smirftsch.
Regardless of what went on, there are some facts (and some more details to add into it):
1 - Smirftsch even PMed me back then to ask my help for it (mostly in the mod testing department for it, which I replied to and he didn't reply back);
2 - He backed off from it.

And I know all about that NDA stuff, the tension between them and all, so that version matches somewhat what I got from Creavion.
So, independently of what went on between him and Creavion, the fact remains that he did drop it before he really started into it. He filled a few people with hopes, and dropped them afterwards, as there were some more people involved than Creavion by then and he knew it. So if Creavion was the reason he dropped it, then it means that he labeled *us* as "Creavion" as well, as the entire UT community along with it, which wasn't nice imho.
Furthermore, I have seen some people within Unreal itself pretty much bashing and under-appreciating U227, yet he keeps going, so it's not like he cares much about any dramas, even because he would have a much greater and wider appreciation in the UT-side (since it's a lot more popular, used and has more active developers than Unreal ever had), so it seems to me that in the end he's just not interested to work with UT at all and dropped it.

Having that said however, although I got rather disappointed on him back then for the drop (years ago), I don't resent him at all and I continue to respect him a lot for his work and always have, along with the rest of the Unreal community which even nowadays do some awesome stuff, and thus this entire Unreal vs UT is just silly for me, and as I said previously (here, to Creavion and other people), Smirftsch is free to do whatever he wants of course, he's not obligated to do anything at all for anyone just like I or any other developer is not obligated to develop anything that we have been doing so far, as this is after all just a hobby to everyone, and not something to stress about.

In fact, nowadays I kinda feel relieved that he dropped it when he did rather than drop it once we got too advanced in our own work, and it only reinforced my own sense of full development independence and to do everything myself (in all the fields: code, artistic, etc) since it was clear that I couldn't really rely on other people to get things done, and since there was only perhaps 1 month of wasted time and effort and not more than that, and I *hate* time waste.

I can't really appreciate U227 beyond what I see from videos, image, wiki and whatnot because I *can't* toy with it myself to do anything at all (not having Unreal being a big reason, and not existing a demo being the other so I cannot even share my work with someone else even if I got Unreal and started to use U227). The technological difference between UT and Unreal could be hindered to the point that porting things back and forth would be easy and add strength to both games, and fact is: it wasn't so far.

I appreciate its existence and all the hard work put into it though, as it proves that there are lots of possible things to do with UEngine1 along with the confirmation that many bugs "could" get fixed or at least avoided in the case of UT.
All I can do is to try to do a couple of things myself in my own way for my own project, except that I will have to make "shots in the dark" and "hear the ricochet" to know what I hit to know how everything works out, which will just take a lot more time to get something done, and some of it won't ever be as good since I can't really see how it all works internally, but at least I will be able to learn more about how certain things work so it's not a time waste for me.

So, getting back at the topic at hand, the sheer possibility of having it did get the reaction we all saw which shows that people are greatly interested in it, so again, regardless of what happened between Smirftsch and others, the interest is there and his work would be greatly appreciated, beyond anything else most likely. So it all goes down to whether or not Smirftsch himself would be up to do it nowadays, and as time passes, the gap between the 2 games only gets bigger making harder and harder for there to have more people developing for *both* games, to not mention that the overall interest goes down as well in *both* games by the same order of magnitude (one because it's not that much used, the other because it hasn't the technology available).

[Hellkeeper]

So it all goes down to whether or not Smirftsch himself would be up to do it nowadays

It does not. Really, there's much more. The amount of work that this entails, and the limited time one has, the potential legal ramifications with Epic, the fact that Unreal is already split 50/50 for and against 227 and that an UT version would probably have the same effect. It's not just a question of whether he'll finally move out of his comfort zone.

The fact that Smirftsch, his team and their work is still so debated and controversial to this day after years of hard and unrewarded work boggles my mind.

[Feralidragon]

"being up to it" = "be willing to do it"
which implies knowing all the work and limited time, and still wanting to do it or not, I did not meant that it would be easy of course.
I have limited time myself, but I still did what I did because I wanted to do so, and I am still going to work in new things (in the native side), and I am well aware of the tremendous work and the limited time I still have, so those reasons do not add much to what I just said nor detour my opinion in that regard.
As I said, and repeat, he's free to do whatever he wants of course and doesn't really have to justify anything to anyone, just like everyone else.

As for the legal ramifications however, that's a good point, but weren't those sorted out already? Or did we misunderstand something in the process?

And as for the 50/50, how many exactly are those 50/50? Because the Unreal population is not comparable to the UT one in terms of numbers even nowadays (which says a lot considering that UT doesn't have that many people around anymore), so that assessment doesn't really say anything imho. Of course, there are always going to be people who won't like it, but then again, the like-ability of a patch or a whole new platform comes with what people actually do with it in the end or what it already comes with.
There are always going to be "purists", but then again U227 wasn't thought out to be used by said "purists" anyway, otherwise it wouldn't bring the new stuff it brought, or am I wrong?

[papercoffee]

As for the legal ramifications however, that's a good point, but weren't those sorted out already?

Well ...not really.

[Hellkeeper]

As for the legal ramifications however, that's a good point, but weren't those sorted out already? Or did we misunderstand something in the process?

Unfortunately no, and I can't give much details because only Smirftsch knows precisely how thin this line is, and because there are many factors to take into account. From what we understood in a few talks with him, his authorization to work on UT is an extremely grey area. Basically, things are fuzzy as hell, and because Epic has taken their distance with Smirftsch, it would be very hard to get a definitive answer. As for getting a new NDA, it's out of the question, Epic has said that this would no longer happen; only the ones curently ongoing are allowed, no new ones are planned in forever.

The possibility of doing something wrong is a scary one because it would probably cost him his current agreement with Epic and thus kill development efforts for Unreal. Which would mean still no UT stuff, but now we wouldn't even have U1.

As for the 50/50 stuff, I have no numbers to give (does anyone, really). The fact remains that it hasn't been a unanimous adoption. One more split in a tiny community.

[Feralidragon]

I was under the impression that although Epic wasn't clear, that something in his NDA allowed him to do it.
Well, in that case there's really nothing to do about it anyway.
Thanks for the clarification.

[Higor]

I never believed a word of what was written, mainly because I'm actually aware of how some things work.
Since everyone's giving their opinions, I'll do so myself:

- How does someone in his right mind bash Smirftsch for what's he's done on Unreal?
It's a common issue with immature community members in contact with developers, to the developer: "deal with it" and to the brat: "watch me do stuff you don't like", there's countless times where it's better to simply disregard suggestions/opinions from the community when they are unreasonable, stupid or unbalanced (gameplay-wise) and it's on the developer not to lose motivation over loudest, lowest common denominator criticizing your work.
Only abandon a project if the problem involves disagreement with someone with actual authority, or a high degree of trust being broken with other key members.

- About the patch on UT.
Sometimes it's just better to admit one has little motivation to work on something rather than keep everyone in the limbo by not saying a thing over the years.
And seriously, UT can be enhanced without even working on UT itself, just adapt the 227 engine to have the capability to load UT's content, just like UT can load Unreal stuff.


I've constantly had to deal with biased retards sh***ing opinions left and right and never broke, and when trust was broken I made a good point by not being exclusive to a certain party and allowing anyone to use the stuff I was making and even helping them setup their servers with them on, so I think there was major bull***t on the whole UT patch thing on all sides (with the biggest of them all from Ep*c, which in fact has a lot to learn from V*lve when it comes to caring about what they created, and killed with their own hands).