Epic has ended Master Server Support for all Unreal Tournament Titles - How to play Online

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

The f does that have to do with anything? Of course it will be...why wouldn't it? They are not fucking dictators and if they'd try to pull something like that, good luck. theyre just pulling shit off their virtual shelves and stopping the master server..like wtf really...this game was made back in the fucking day without content locking bullshit...

[Buggie]

I answer what I only know.

2. Work on patches not stopped.

3. With patches UT can live long enough. Big breakable changes for Windows I hope in past. So what now work on Windows 7/10/11 will work for years. Very doubtful it will be break in close future.

It is like with phones. On early times exists many form-factors of phones: sliders, flippers and so on. Now all gone, except few.
With Windows we pass this stage. Switch from 16-bit to 32-bit and 64-bit. Which good enough for long time. I not expect appearance 128-bit OS soon enough.
SDK published so other authors can make renders, which support new API like done for Vulcan. This make good base for long live. OFC with patches.

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Lol the notion of them stopping sites to host mods would be ridiculous and too much. Like...what? I hope people really don't think that can be the case lmao.

[TankBeef]

Thank you Buggie. Now...

The f does that have to do with anything?

It has to do with the fact that lots of people are saying that Epic finally killed UT. Now, if we still have the mods, and the maps, and patch, and Epic does not come for them, then at least we have the game working, right? Even if it will be harder for newcomers to find it and set it up. But at least it won't be shut down.

[OjitroC]

It has to do with the fact that lots of people are saying that Epic finally killed UT. Now, if we still have the mods, and the maps, and patch, and Epic does not come for them, then at least we have the game working, right? Even if it will be harder for newcomers to find it and set it up. But at least it won't be shut down.

No, Epic hasn't killed UT99. All they have done is (a) stopped selling it in their digital storefronts (and Steam) and (b) shut down their masterserver. They have no interest in killing off UT99 and, indeed, were happy enough to allow anth and his group to have access to the code to update the game.

It has been possible for a number of years now, thanks to the community's masterservers, to be unaware that the Epic masterserver even exists (provided one has the right settings in one's UT.ini). The same goes for Unreal. These games will continue to work, people will still play on-line, people will still make new 'assets' for the game - in short, the game will continue to be played by a small but 'loyal' player base.

It will be harder for new people to get hold of the game indeed - that is the other downside.

It should be pointed out that the game is 22 years old - at present the number of concurrent players on-line in public servers is in the range of 60 - 200 (I would estimate that possibly 20% of those. and possibly more, are bots masquerading as players/humans) and that number has declined in the past couple of years (as has the number of servers) - so the on-line playerbase is small (miniscule compared to the 100,000s of concurrent players for modern games). What suprises me is not that Epic are shutting down their masterserver but that they have kept it going for so long - well after GameSpy ceased - when there was little reason for them to do so.

No, the game won't be shut down - people will continue to play off-line, and online as long as the community masterservers continue to function - and the game will remain as vibrant as a 22 year old game can as long as this forum continues to function.

[BloodyMess]

Not to take away from what other people are mentioning. I hope you make your voices heard to Epic and write them.

Epic if you are listening finish the new UT and keep the master server online for UT99

[Dr.Flay]

I emailed Tim Sweeney to ask about the legal status we have been left with.
Is it now officially abandonware and anything allowed, or will distributing full copies and continuing to host the network be a problem ?

I'm not holding my breath for an answer but we can hope for some idea of what we are allowed.

I put it to Tim that if we can do what we like, it worries me that we will see lots of malware and exploit infested copies being downloaded.
I suggested that it may be wise to at least give OldUnreal the status of being its official retirement home, seeing as they already have official licence to release patches.
We could finally have a remake of the GOTY CDs with everything updated, and distributed via a trusted source.

[Red_Fist]

I called Epic, and said I will sue them until I finish two maps, might take me 5 years.

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I called Epic, and said I will sue them until I finish two maps, might take me 5 years.

???
Until you finish two maps?

[Dennis]

I called Epic, and said I will sue them until I finish two maps, might take me 5 years.

???
Until you finish two maps?

You need to learn to see when people are using humor

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I called Epic, and said I will sue them until I finish two maps, might take me 5 years.

???
Until you finish two maps?

You need to learn to see when people are using humor

Funny the same way can be said with me because many people are taking my humor sometimes way too seriously. Its just I am not sure, with him specificaly that it was meant as humor.

[Red_Fist]

I called Epic, and said I will sue them until I finish two maps, might take me 5 years.

???
Until you finish two maps?

You need to learn to see when people are using humor

Thank you, I grew up with "yo mamma" jokes,,,,still funny.
Matter of fact, the worse it was, the better the joke, lol.

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I still don't get the punchline of the two maps joke. Like is that referring to something or some practice specificaly?
Or is it just random? In that case it is..pretty stupid.

[sektor2111]

Me one I don't get the point of this topic in UT99 stage, it's a "deja vu" happened when GameSpy went out, which was the main engine for propagating UT servers in browsers. When GameSpy was turned off, more issues were showing out because EPIC was very often OFF-Line - exactly, not once. Let's see the simple logic:
2015 Epic was out randomly -> 2023 Epic will be out completely - except the numbers what exactly is the problem/different ? - out means OUT. We do have 333Networks and maybe others in future. When plain player doesn't read anything on Internet, it's not like will see this topic, as was always a question coming from random new comers related to the problem and not searching forum/Internet for information. But you can keep the flame burning here, new comers will have the post probably in first page...
For question: What to do ?
Go and read information at 333Networks and learn how to Edit some INI files, is really that simple. UT2k4 ? = OFF-TOPIC, this is UT99.org.
Players can quickly figure "what to do" here:
https://333networks.com/instructions/ut/c
Yes, it's needed reading all page.
Administrators of UT servers will need to read here:
https://333networks.com/instructions/ut/s
Once again, reading is needed. In other hand I'll quote a little bit from said page...

Remove the line containing master0.gamespy.com. GameSpy ceased their services in 2014 and the domain no longer resolves to a masterserver. Older configurations may also hold entries for Telefragged, which may be removed as well.
...
It may take up to 15 minutes before your gameserver shows up on master.333networks.com or the other masterserver of choice.
...

[The_Cowboy]

Me one I don't get the point of this topic in UT99 stage, it's a "deja vu" happened when GameSpy went out, which was the main engine for propagating UT servers in browsers. When GameSpy was turned off, more issues were showing out because EPIC was very often OFF-Line - exactly, not once. Let's see the simple logic:
2015 Epic was out randomly -> 2023 Epic will be out completely - except the numbers what exactly is the problem/different ? - out means OUT. We do have 333Networks and maybe others in future. When plain player doesn't read anything on Internet, it's not like will see this topic, as was always a question coming from random new comers related to the problem and not searching forum/Internet for information. But you can keep the flame burning here, new comers will have the post probably in first page...
For question: What to do ?
Go and read information at 333Networks and learn how to Edit some INI files, is really that simple. UT2k4 ? = OFF-TOPIC, this is UT99.org.
Players can quickly figure "what to do" here:
https://333networks.com/instructions/ut/c
Yes, it's needed reading all page.
Administrators of UT servers will need to read here:
https://333networks.com/instructions/ut/s
Once again, reading is needed. In other hand I'll quote a little bit from said page...

Remove the line containing master0.gamespy.com. GameSpy ceased their services in 2014 and the domain no longer resolves to a masterserver. Older configurations may also hold entries for Telefragged, which may be removed as well.
...
It may take up to 15 minutes before your gameserver shows up on master.333networks.com or the other masterserver of choice.
...

Finally, someone who speaks English and understands version control!