Surreal Engine - [Unreal Tournament (UT99) Engine Reimplementation]

[gargul2]

This project was already mentioned on several external websites:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41329505
https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealtourname ... mentation/
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/c ... mentation/

But not on ut99.org forum so far (as searching for "Surreal Engine" or"surrealengine" or "surreal" terms returns either nothing or unrelated comments/topics), therefore I think it's worth to mention about it, in case some of you that could be interested, have missed it: https://github.com/dpjudas/SurrealEngine

This is rather a hobby project, but is quite interesting.

By the way I wasn't sure which subforum is the most appropriate for such a kind of project, I was also considering "Modifications" or "Coding, Scripting" or even "General Discussions" subforums, feel free to move it there is if you think that the other subforums are more adequate.

[papercoffee]

Since this has nothing to to with UT or Unreal at all, I moved it into off-topic.

=MOVED=

[gargul2]

Wow, somebody's cranky today.

Since this has nothing to to with UT or Unreal at all, I moved it into off-topic.

=MOVED=

Must be a joke. One of the most stupid thing I ever heard, and a bit disrespectful towards this project.
You've almost thrown the topic into the trash, like you've done it on purpose to provoke/tease me.
But this testifies about you, have fun.

[SilverSound]

Yeah Surreal engine has nothing to do with Unreal or anything at all. He's just moving it to the correct section. The only person who seems to be cranky is you for reacting this way...

You can talk to the devs in the Unreal Multiplayer discord channels though if you really want to have candid discussion

[wallabra]

Maybe soon we'll need a Source Ports section, just like Doomworld... But I suspect those days of glory are still a wee bit off. (As is usual with everything old UT.)

[EvilGrins]

Wow, somebody's cranky today.

Now now, he's one of those in charge on this forum and should be treated with all due respect... or he may reach thru the screen and boop your nose.

[papercoffee]

I just got it explained by a friend.

Instead of explaining it gargul2 had to call me stupid, nice move.

So, even so I got it explained I'm still not convinced that this Surreal Engine is relevant to this forum.
And it isn't like this thread is now trashed, it's still open and everyone can add their 2 cents.

Then explain:
What are the advantages compared to patch 469?
Open source projects are not always good because of the fragmentation of the community.

[gargul2]

Yeah Surreal engine has nothing to do with Unreal or anything at all. He's just moving it to the correct section.

Yeah 2+2=5. Yeah Earth is flat. And so on. It would have been better if you hadn't advocated for your colleague papercofee by blindly and pointlessly repeating his opinions, like a broken CD. Your reply is weak and a bit desperate. None of you provided a single argument WHY it "has nothing to do with UT99", yet you keep defending your opinion, like knights defending their castle, but having no weapons. Rather weak.

Now now, he's one of those in charge on this forum and should be treated with all due respect... or he may reach thru the screen and boop your nose.

Not sure what are you exactly reffering to, but looks like a misguided argument, as it seems that you have a problem with reading comprehension, because you are trying to attribute what I wrote about respect to my person - I wrote "a bit disrespectful towards this project." not towards me, so word "disrespectful" was unrelated to my person.

Instead of explaining it gargul2 had to call me stupid, nice move.

So you are now playing a victim here and speaking about explaining, but instead of explaining why it was unrelated to ut99, papercoffee had to move it almost to trash. Nice move. Also I did not call you stupid, it seems that you, just like EvilGrins, have a problem as well with reading comprehension (or perhaps you are trying to play a victim here on purpose), because what I called stupid was your opinion, not you directly, especially given a fact you didn't provide a single argument for your opinion.

Then explain: What are the advantages compared to patch 469?
Open source projects are not always good because of the fragmentation of the community.

There is nothing to worry about, because like I already mentioned: "This is rather a hobby project, but is quite interesting." Also like already mentioned on the issue tracker in this comment: https://github.com/dpjudas/SurrealEngin ... 1725765939 - it doesn't aim to be a competetition/replacement to 469 project, but it's still quite interesting anyway, especially for programmers/coders.

[UnrealGGecko]

Your reply is weak and a bit desperate. None of you provided a single argument WHY it "has nothing to do with UT99"

It's not UT99, plain and simple: different engine, different application, different features. That's why it's off-topic. This forum is just about THE 1999 game from Epic Games, and not the 2025 fan-game. We would either need a new section (but then likely Total-Conversion mods such as Tactical Ops would also need them), or off-topic. That is not a knock to this project, it just legit doesn't fit any other section of this forum.

[wallabra]

Open source projects are not always good because of the fragmentation of the community.

I don't want this thread to turn into just another debate, but I don't think there is any relevance there as to whether a project is open source and how fragmented its community is.

All communities have their cliques, for example, in UT there are subgroups for those who play Bunnyhop, Siege, etc. Yet we don't complain about 'fragmentation'. That is because UT is a large-ish community, and has a common basis upon which all its cliques are formed. This is not unique to UT, there are many open source projects that are that way as well.

Open source projects make it easier for cliques to form because they give users more choice. This kind of freedom is at the core of open source philosophy. Open source communities seem more "fragmented" because they're often smaller, but this is not necessarily the case. A good example is the Linux kernel community - they make their own forks, sure, but they still contribute to, and critically interact with, the mainline kernel. Another example, which is quite fitting in this conversation, is the ZDoom community - it's an off-shoot of the broader 'classic Doom' community, sure, but it's a large and vivid one, which mingles and interacts with the broader community often, to the point of blurring any distinctions between them. Just as Doom is a common basis for the broader community, ZDoom is a common basis for its community, showing how much of a revolution it was.



Regardless, your value judgement on whether the project would be a net good or not, really should not factor into whether it's a fit for the forums. UT is old enough to warrant reimplementations now, just like Doom did decades ago, albeit delayed by Epic's historically unsatisfactory attitude on open source. In this vein, we should be welcoming to reverse-engineered versions of Unreal Tournament, which may lift further barriers when it comes to things like modding, portability, reliability, security, and so forth. UT's engine is a mess, it could use a do-over.

It's not UT99, plain and simple: different engine, different application, different features.

By that metric, there is no Doom 2 other than DOOM2.EXE, and all its community source ports are "fan games".

Hell, it might even be an internally logically consistent metric. I just don't think it's a good metric to use, from the perspective of someone who doesn't want this to stay a dying game.

[UnrealGGecko]

Difference there is ID did put the Doom games to open-source, Epic did not. Quite worried this could also get a cease and desist actually (Shadow's UTSDK project got it once which got rescinded later).

[wallabra]

Difference there is ID did put the Doom games to open-source, Epic did not. Quite worried this could also get a cease and desist actually (Shadow's UTSDK project got it once which got rescinded later).

Reverse engineering projects are not illegal in the United States, where Epic Games, Inc. is headquartered, precedent set in Sega v.Accolade. In this manner, cease and desist letters sent to projects which seek to reverse engineer software are illegal, except in the cases of patents, trade secrets, or pre-established contractual obligations (such as from an EULA), scenarios Unreal Tournament does not fall under.

This being said, the ruling in Sega v. Accolade does not give carte blanche for reverse engineering. Some kinds can be more legally risky, such as attempting to emulate the behavior of the original product, which may be a violation of trademark law or copyright law. Most source ports do not provide the original game's assets for that reason.

[gargul2]

It's not UT99

I don't get it really, it's called a reimplementation of UT99, means it's a rewritten UT99 from scratch, means it's still UT99, just rewritten, it even doesn't have it's own name, as "UT99" is still contained in its title/description. How can this be not UT99 anymore.

different engine

Why does it matter so much. Audi A6 Diesel and Audi A6 Petrol are still the same car: Audi A6.
Different engines doesn't make them not Audi A6 anymore, it's still Audi A6, just with a different engine.

different application

It's something invisible for an user, when an user plays it, he still visually see UT99 on his screen, regardless of who produced it or which exe file an user clicked to run the game.

different features.

Curious which ones, as the main purpose/feature of the reimplementation is (found on the project site): "The goal of this project is to reimplement enough of the original Unreal Engine to make the Unreal Tournament (UT99) maps playable". Feature seem to be simply the same: to play a game, even on same map.

[SilverSound]

You got that part wrong and is probably what has caused you confusion. It's a re-implementation of Unreal Engine NOT UT99.
All you have to do is go into the discord and talk to the devs directly instead of lashing out at us for correcting you.

No one is saying you can't talk about it. It's a cool project. We talk to the devs all the time. It's just not related to UT99 directly.

[wallabra]

You got that part wrong and is probably what has caused you confusion. It's a re-implementation of Unreal Engine NOT UT99.

...which could then be used to run UT99.

How is this not related to UT99.org? At least I suggest we make a section for engine reimplementations. (Not necessarily total conversions, but I think that would be nice too, to make the site into more of a hub, maybe we'd see a bit more intermingling and therefore activity that way.) It isn't illegal to reverse engineer UE1, as long as you don't redistribute the actual game assets, and I think this could be very beneficial for our community. We could use some revitalization. That's why I'm a strong proponent.