5 ms·

I'm still sad Epic abandoned UT4 for Fortnite. UT is such a better game.

by snarfy 4y ago

smcl 4y ago
I had no idea about this until my friend - who's still active at the top level in UT99 in a couple of game modes - gave me the lowdown a year or so ago. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about - a sequel to Unreal Tournament was announced in the mid-2010s. But it was to be developed relatively openly and in collaboration with the existing UT community. There are builds available that are very playable (including source code[0]) and as far as I know it was shaping up to be a great arena shooter. Then Fortnite exploded in popularity - and UT4 (or just "UT"?) was quietly de-prioritized, and has set in limbo ever since. It's a shame. I still have some hope that it'll get dusted off, polished and given the attention it deserves at some point. A few people in the community feel quite hostile towards Epic, though, so they may have to work extra hard to regain that following. Edit: ALSO I figured I'd add something interesting. The UT99 unrealscript source was semi-officially released and Epic did permit the community to release patches ... on the condition that they didn't break compatibility with the released version. That is, if I went back to my parents' house, dug out my old CD copy from 23 years ago, installed it and tried to play on one of the community servers, it would still work. Which is a shame since there are a handful of updates and quality-of-life improvements (for example, net code is supposed to be a bit janky) they would like to do but simply can't. Another missed opportunity :-/
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Could that source code, in theory, be ported to UE5? So basically, it looks and feels like UT99 but maybe with upscaled assets and better rendering quality?
  - smcl 4y ago
    I think that would require a pretty substantial overhaul - the models + textures for players and items are accessible and in a relatively readable format, I'm not an expert but I guess they could be ported. Maybe some conversion is possible for the UI, levels, music, sounds too. However a lot of the game logic is implemented in UnrealScript, and it'd need to be entirely rewritten in (I think) C++ for UT5. I suspect that would be a fairly in-depth task, and at the end of it all you'd have a slightly shinier version that nobody plays because they're happy enough with UT99 despite its faults. Might be fun as a technical exercise if you're bored, though :D The UT99 UnrealScript sources are here if you ever want to play around - text editor support for UnrealScript files isn't great but if you can move past that, it's really quite moddable and extensible, I really wish I made the effort to dig into it earlier when the game was more current: https://github.com/Slipyx/UT99 https://github.com/Slipyx/UT99
  - snarfy 4y ago
    Not really. UE4 (and thus UT4) abandoned UnrealScript entirely in favor of Blueprints and C++. The majority of code from the previous games (including base engine code) is all UnrealScript. It would be more feasible to take UT4 source and add features of the old games. One of the main benefits of the older games is the mod community, but without UnrealScript it's not really doable in the new engine. Mods would have to be DLLs which are not really safe to distribute. It really needs Epic's support to either add back unrealscript or host a distribution hub where the game can download the DLL mods. I have a tiny glimmer of hope that the yet to be released versescript will allow a new UT with scripting support, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm still sad Epic abandoned UT4 for Fortnite. UT is such a better game.

by snarfy 4y ago

I'm still sad Epic abandoned UT4 for Fortnite. UT is such a better game.

smcl 4y ago

I had no idea about this until my friend - who's still active at the top level in UT99 in a couple of game modes - gave me the lowdown a year or so ago. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about - a sequel to Unreal Tournament was announced in the mid-2010s. But it was to be developed relatively openly and in collaboration with the existing UT community. There are builds available that are very playable (including source code[0]) and as far as I know it was shaping up to be a great arena shooter. Then Fortnite exploded in popularity - and UT4 (or just "UT"?) was quietly de-prioritized, and has set in limbo ever since. It's a shame. I still have some hope that it'll get dusted off, polished and given the attention it deserves at some point. A few people in the community feel quite hostile towards Epic, though, so they may have to work extra hard to regain that following. Edit: ALSO I figured I'd add something interesting. The UT99 unrealscript source was semi-officially released and Epic did permit the community to release patches ... on the condition that they didn't break compatibility with the released version. That is, if I went back to my parents' house, dug out my old CD copy from 23 years ago, installed it and tried to play on one of the community servers, it would still work. Which is a shame since there are a handful of updates and quality-of-life improvements (for example, net code is supposed to be a bit janky) they would like to do but simply can't. Another missed opportunity :-/

mschuster91 4y ago
Could that source code, in theory, be ported to UE5? So basically, it looks and feels like UT99 but maybe with upscaled assets and better rendering quality?
- smcl 4y ago
  I think that would require a pretty substantial overhaul - the models + textures for players and items are accessible and in a relatively readable format, I'm not an expert but I guess they could be ported. Maybe some conversion is possible for the UI, levels, music, sounds too. However a lot of the game logic is implemented in UnrealScript, and it'd need to be entirely rewritten in (I think) C++ for UT5. I suspect that would be a fairly in-depth task, and at the end of it all you'd have a slightly shinier version that nobody plays because they're happy enough with UT99 despite its faults. Might be fun as a technical exercise if you're bored, though :D The UT99 UnrealScript sources are here if you ever want to play around - text editor support for UnrealScript files isn't great but if you can move past that, it's really quite moddable and extensible, I really wish I made the effort to dig into it earlier when the game was more current: https://github.com/Slipyx/UT99 https://github.com/Slipyx/UT99
- snarfy 4y ago
  Not really. UE4 (and thus UT4) abandoned UnrealScript entirely in favor of Blueprints and C++. The majority of code from the previous games (including base engine code) is all UnrealScript. It would be more feasible to take UT4 source and add features of the old games. One of the main benefits of the older games is the mod community, but without UnrealScript it's not really doable in the new engine. Mods would have to be DLLs which are not really safe to distribute. It really needs Epic's support to either add back unrealscript or host a distribution hub where the game can download the DLL mods. I have a tiny glimmer of hope that the yet to be released versescript will allow a new UT with scripting support, but I'm not holding my breath.