Archived News:
Meanstryk sends along the reply Epic's Mark Rein made to a post he made to
GT's Unreal messageboard to a thread called What's really new in UT,
where he asked what is fundamentally different between the Unreal Tournament
engine and Unreal. Here is Mark's reply: I'm glad you asked!
We've downplayed the technical improvements in the engine because what we're
really pushing with UT is gloriously frenetic gameplay and all the great
content, AI, weapons and game types. But here are a few (the ones I can remember
off the top of my head) of the feature improvements we've made in turning the
Unreal Engine into the Unreal Tournament Engine:
1. Skins are 4x more detailed.
2. New completely integrated Graphical User Interface.
3. Full Unicode support throughout means the engine can handle double-byte fonts
like Japanese and Hebrew. We hope to ship the Japanese version of UT
simultaneously with the French, English, Spanish, German and Italian versions.
4. Linux is now supported from the exact same codebase as Windows 95/98/NT.
5. Greatly improved netcode.
6. UnrealScript language improvements.
7. Decals.
8. Vastly improved D3D support (further OpenGL improvements are also planned).
9. New installer that helps optimize your setup and install mods.
10. New MOD format for packaged mods.
11. Better memory usage.
12. Sound code improvements (A3D 2.0 and latest EAX version support)
13. Server browser
14. Variable level of detail support for meshes
15. Support for S3TC and DXTC texture compression
16. TrueType font support
...and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting to include. Some of these, and other
improvements, were delivered throughout UT development in patches for Unreal.
In addition all Unreal Engine licenses will be freely entitled to use the Unreal
Tournament Engine once UT ships.
Erik DeNeve, who programmed the fire engine and CPU optimizations on Unreal1,
arrives TODAY in Raleigh, NC from Holland on a 3-year work VISA. For most of the
past year he has been working on an incredibly powerful new animation system
that will be integrated into to the Unreal Tournament Engine after UT goes final
in a few weeks. In addition we're planning on a new particle system, some AI
infrastructure improvements and hardware transform & lighting support. These
things won't ship in the box (too close to finished to add major new features)
with Unreal Tournament but are geared toward other projects we'll be working on
after UT ships, including Unreal2. Tim has also been rewriting the editor in his
spare time and that, along with an exciting new next-generation renderer, will
take priority once UT ships.
id Software's Graeme "Zaphod" Devine updated
his .plan with an explanation of what that little message of the day number
is in Q3Test: A few of you have asked about the message of the day text.
It’s giving you your exe startup number since last Monday. So basically,
we’ve had over 2 million Quake 3 Arena games start worldwide since 9/20/99.
That works out to around 4 games every second.
There are some new
Swat 3 screenshots on 360 Degrees showing off action from this upcoming game
of strategic law enforcement action.
The Adrenaline Vault News
has a post up quoting Epic's Steven Polge on the subject of AI in Unreal
Tournament, describing changes in the bots' behavior at higher difficulty
levels, describing the highest level bots like this: High level bots will
also occasionally try to predict respawns of valuable items, such as armor. They
also do a better job of using sound to guess where opponents might be. Polge
says he is continuing to adjust and improve the AI, so there will be more
differences by the time the game ships.
There are more Thief Gold
screenshots on Avault as well, but they're the same as the ones linked earlier
elsewhere.
Power Gamerz
(GameWeek's) interview with Doug Littlejohns Part II is the second part of
the interview with Doug Littlejohns of Red Storm Entertainment reprinted with
permission from GameWeek's print magazine. If you missed it, here's Power Gamerz
GameWeek interview with Doug Littlejohns Part I.
The Æstats Page has a new
version of the Æstats log file parser for 3D shooter games. The new release
adds Unreal Tournament Demo support (via AEstatsMutator.u), Counter Strike for
Half-Life beta 3 Support, Hexen II support has been updated, and the program has
been newly optimized, and is said to be up to four times faster now.
An update to Kevin Bentley's Developer Notes
on Outrage's Site has a beta of the version 1.2 patch for Descent 3. Thanks
Karash. Word from the Outrage senior programmer on the new code is this: In
this build, the two major changes are to the input controls and to the network
performance. Both changes should restore 1.0 functionality. There have been some
server side bandwidth reductions in this build as well, which should really
improve network performance.
Again, this is a beta test of the patch,
not the final version.
The newly opened Lead Pipe Studio
has posted a 6 meg ZIP file containing a bunch of textures created by Xatrix
for Kingpin, but that didn't make it into the game for various reasons.
The StarLancer Weekly Screenshots
page on GameRush has been updated with a new shot showing off gameplay from
Microsoft and Digital Anvil and Warthog's
upcoming space sim. The new shot is taken from a mission briefing aboard your ship, the ANS Reliant.
FvF QW Headquarters has version 5.0 of
the cult-classic Future versus Fantasy mod for QuakeWorld. FvFQW 5.0 sports adds
new maps, sounds, models, and a new mode of play—Purge the Alien to this Quake
mod that features a "whopping" 80 weapons.
When the Fatboy Mutator mod for the Unreal Tournament demo surfaced this week ( story),
we were worried Epic didn't want modifications to the demo published, so we
contacted Mark Rein, who said that new mutators were okay, it was add-on maps
they were prohibiting. Apparently we were not the only ones confused by this,
as a thread called UT demo mods
on Mod Central's Unreal Forums has inspired a reply by epic Programmer Tim
Sweeney explaining that this indeed represented a change in policy: FYI,
we had a big old argument about this topic here. That was the reason for the
initial ambiguity. In the end we concluded that allowing mods for the demo is a
good thing.
-Tim
There's a new Messiah screenshot on Voodoo Extreme
showing off gameplay from Shiny's upcoming third-person action game chronicling
the adventures of Bob, the diaper-clad cherub. Word is to expect another shot
tomorrow, and some sort of VE/Messiah contest on Monday. Also on the screenshot
front, Nice One
has posted five new screenshots showing off gameplay from Grand Theft Auto 2.
Turns out the link to the chat log with WXP posted last night was to a version
that was kind of ganked from the original source, so I yoinked the story (I love
using "gank" and "yoink" in the same post). The official
chat with WXP is
here on Planet RIVA talking about their upcoming shooter, Experience, their
upcoming GeForce demo, and more. Also, turns out even that last familiar-looking
F.A.K.K.2 screenshot mentioned yesterday was also previously published, so for
the record, none of them were really new. Thanks to the many who spotted that
and wrote in.
BW.Wire sends word they've posted a trailer
with gameplay footage from LionHead's upcoming god-game Black & White. The
trailer is in QuickTime 4.0 format, and
is described like this: "The trailer will give you an impression on the
things to come, featuring exclusive never before seen in-game scenes and the
Lionhead staff including Peter Molyneux talking about the game."
Word on Computer Games Online
is that a new beta of Roger Wilco's
upcoming Mark Ic release is now available. RW is a program that allows
real-time voice communication during multiplayer games, even over a modem. The
new beta is said to have a "few simple bug fixes and is a better version
for using with games that support (their) 'Easy Bake' integration."
Dreamcast.IGN has
posted a preview of Third Law's upcoming LithTech powered shooter, KISS: Psycho
Circus. While this is a Dreamcast site, there's no word whether or not the screenshots
posted (and there are quite a few) are from a DC version of the game, or the
original PC build. Just guessing, I'd wager dollars for donuts that these are
PC screenshots. Swing over and see
for yourself.
Epic's Brandon "BlueFan" Reinhart updated
his .plan with a progress report on the Unreal Tournament Linux server,
adding that once the next UT client is released he'll work on a release-able
Linux client. He also offer's the explanation for yesterday's odd update ( story).
Here's the part about the Linux client: Oooh, the Linux server ran all
night with some bots running around shooting each other. No memory leaks
and it didn't crash. Rock. I did some play testing with it yesterday and it
seems ready to go.
I suppose after the final demo is released I'll make the final push to finish
the client. (Its a bunch of crappy little boring long painful things to get the
performance up. Like figure out why PGCC gives me an internal compiler error.
Stuff that is great to procrastinate about!!)
An email from Jay "Shade" Wilson, formerly of Monolith (and now, apparently fomerly of Cavedog), gives the news that the designers working on Amen: The Awakening, Cavedog's upcoming
first-person shooter, are now available for work (as he put it: "All the
level designers were let go from the Amen project. It wasn't a performance
related issue, they are still working on their engine technology, and simply
didn't have work for us. But in the mean time we need jobs."). If you are
interested in contacting Shade, or any of the other designers on the project
(with whom Shade is in touch), you can email him at this
address.
The Terror Quake2 site has a new version
1.10 of the Terror Quake 2 modification (for Quake II). The update is available
as a patch to update TQ2 version 1.04, as well as a full installer for Terror
Quake 2 virgins. The new release features new skins for nearly all models, newly
improved and optimized models (said to reduce lag by 100% making the mod very
suitable for Internet play), new sounds for all the weapons, a new weapon, and
more.
The newly-relocated Future Technologies
page has a new version 0.8 (the debut release) of this deathmatch mod for
Quake II. The idea of the mod is to make Quake II more "realistic and
futuristic," and includes 11 new or modified weapons, and three new usable
items (with more to follow in future versions).
Unreal Universe has posted eight
new screenshots from Legend entertainment's upcoming 'Unreal-engine
action/strategy/adventure, etc. offering, The Wheel of Time, based on the
terribly popular series of fantasy books by Robert Jordan.
Version 0.8 of the Jumbot artificial intelligence opponent for Half-Life is now
available on Rich's Project Warehouse.
The new release fixes the crashing problem from the last release, and adds
enough new stuff to warrant being describes as a "major release,"
adding the option to have the bot's skill in the bots.cfg, improved underwater
weapon logic, and a cvar that allows the bots to cheat when cheats are on, among
other things.
PC.IGN has posted a hands-on
preview of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen, a third person Unreal engine
game in the works at The Collective. The preview is very much in-depth, and
illustrated with a boatload of screenshots.
The Mutation Device has
posted two more mutators for the Unreal Tournament demo: Bounty Hunt, where,
"killing sprees augment your damage potential" and the Movement Mutator,
which modifies the player speeds. Just a reminder, that these are kosher with
Epic, so download and enjoy. Thanks to PlanetUnreal
for the tip.
Pandemic's official Battlezone
II site has been updated with this week's new Battlezone II shot of the
week, as well as two new units: the ISDF and Scion scavengers (thanks PlanetBattlezone).
Gamer's Voice
has posted an interview with Battlecruiser 3000 AD creator Derek Smart, talking
to the always outspoken designer about his decade-in-the-making space sim, and
the surrounding controversies.
A new version of MilkShape
3D, a low-count polygon modeller that can import and export Half-Life, Quake
2 and Genesis 3D models has been released (thanks Billy
"snuh?" Wilson). Quake III: Arena support is promised once the
game is released.
Thanks, as usual, to Frans for most of
these.
PlanetYahoo, er, GameSpyder
has undergone a swanky redesign, and now boasts over 5,000 sites listed.- A playable demo of Age of Wonders, Triumph Studios and Epic Games' turn
based roleplaying strategy game, has been released, and is available for download
at PC.IGN (thanks Ant).
- Chaotic
Dreams has released a CTF enhancement pack for their CHAOS mod for Quake
2.
- Exxtreme3D
has posted their preview of Asheron's Call, based on the current beta test
(thanks Frans).
- A new edition of Dear
Mynx is up, answering all kinds of questions that are sure to make you
blush (the column is, of course, for mature readers only).
The other day, feeling somewhat brainy, I decided to crack into my shiny new
copy of Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear (sorry, I can't help typing the Clancy in there...I'm
easily amused, what can I say). Like I said, I was in an intelligent mood, so
I figured I'd give it a shot. I wasn't terrible at Rainbow Six, but I was hardly
very good...I at least was able to get the job done. In Rogue Spear, however,
I've discovered that I'm a complete moron. I decided to start easy, and I went
with HQ's plan for the first mission. Naturally, I killed a hostage. So I tried
my own plan - no luck. So again, I went with HQ's plan, this time taking things
really slowly. Dead hostage. Figuring that I'm obviously the part of the equation
that's faulty, I started the first mission, using HQ's plan, in observer mode,
leaving the AI to carry out the mission. And what do you know...they killed
a hostage. It's good to know that the AI in the game is as clumsy as I am. It
makes me feel a little bit better.
Link of the Day: Guess
the Evil Dictator or Television Sit-Com Character (I recommend confusing
it, that's when it gets really fun).
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