20 ms·

Epic is turning off online services and servers for some older games

308 points by mariuz 4y ago

nicolaslem 4y ago
Remember the days when the server component was included with the base game? Anyone could launch a server and play with friends and strangers online. I miss those days. Now we get a company deciding it is not worth maintaining the infrastructure and an entire part of a game is gone forever.
- georgeecollins 4y ago
  Yeah, I made multiplayer games in those days. Very few people played relative today and you had so much lag. You really had to build your game to accept 0.5 sec lag. There is a lot to be said for today.
- pndy 4y ago
  I miss days where gaming magazines had CDs filled with demos which you could test before the purchase - tho it was more possible that friend of friend had pirated full version you could borrow.
- danuker 4y ago
  It seems DRM is not the issue, and my comment was irrelevant. ~~You can only buy from DRM-free suppliers, like GOG.com.~~
  - suumcuique 4y ago
    Some of the games being shut down were/are also being sold on GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/unreal_tournament_2004_ece https://www.gog.com/en/game/unreal_tournament_2004_ece
    - danuker 4y ago
      Wow. I did not expect this. I apologize for my unresearched opinion.
      - nix23 4y ago
        The dedicated server is included in the game...
- izacus 4y ago
  Some games from that are are on the list (e.g. UT) so I'm wondering what's going on there.
  - doikor 4y ago
    For those the service used for searching/listing the servers is being taken down. If you know the ip address of a server you can still play.
    - dark-star 4y ago
      No need to remember IP addresses, we have DNS now ;-)
    - RobotToaster 4y ago
      You have to wonder just how little hosting a lobby server must cost a company the size of epic. Collating a list of server IPs and names seems fairly trivial.
      - ohyes 4y ago
        It probably has more to do with paying someone to keep it patched and running happily.
  - suumcuique 4y ago
    You can host your own game server in UT but you're still depending on Epic services for the server listings and license (CD key) validation.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- theclansman 4y ago
  Private servers were so much better than matchmaking in my opinion, there was a sense of community to the game and you would make friends. Now playing with randoms (all of them in their own private discord parties) feels like playing with NPCs.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    whynotboth.jpeg Team Fortress matchmaking will match you to their official servers, and sometimes even on third party servers. TF also has a server browser where you can select which third or first party servers to join. You can also join directly via IP, if the matchmaking service ever goes offline.
    - knome 4y ago
      TF2 hasn't matched to 3rd party servers or allowed directly connecting to Valve servers in 6 years, since the introduction of a matchmaking service. They did, however, let a bot flood on official servers get so bad for so a few years that community servers took off and became popular again. It's only been this year that they finally started to effectively fight back against the bots, making casual usable again.
      - tpxl 4y ago
        I have recently joined a modded server using matchmaking in the MvM mode, so either Valve allows that, or they run modded servers. As far as botting goes, it's still not fixed. There was an obvious aimbotter named 'Vinesauce' that went about for 2 weeks getting kicked out of every match (and sometimes rejoining). I can't fathom having this little moderation/development on a game that still must be making millions per year.
        knome 4y ago
        Ah, fair enough, I generally don't play the MvM mode. Strange that they allow community servers for the matchmaking service on that after pulling it from the standard mode. In my experience with Valve's servers in the eastern north american region, while the bots aren't completely gone, there are far fewer of them. Online discussion has indicated this isn't necessarily the case for non-NA regions. I saw the vinesauce bots. It's my understanding that Valve bans any account kicked from an official server from rejoining that server for half an hour or so. Game harassers run small fleets of their bots. It's likely just another same-named bot joining rather than the same one rejoining, no?
- samstr 4y ago
- xnorswap 4y ago
  I remember, but I also remember the downside - that as the game got older joining a server became a shit-show. By the end there was literally one CS server I trusted to be friendly and busy and not running "rpg-mod" or "zombie-mod" or a thousand other adjustments I didn't like, such as "no-awp", "price adjusted" etc. Just finding a vanilla experience became difficult, doubly so if you wanted more than "dust/dust2 only". Add in the fact that these servers could send your computer files (in theory just maps, sounds and decals, but difficult to secure of course), and you can see why companies shy away, not just to have greater control of the experience.
  - mt_ 4y ago
    You can still have official and community servers by packaging the server alongside the client.
  - snemvalts 4y ago
    Not to mention malware, there have been quite a few exploits for CSGO regarding this.
  - rajamaka 4y ago
    Brings back memories of being an admin on a CS 1.6 server and having the ability to send a command that would open a person's CD Drive
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      We had "local build servers" at one of my previous jobs. Those servers - normal towers, not racks - would communicate they are working on some job by opening CD Drives.
      - xwkd 4y ago
        Brilliant. I love this. Thank you for sharing.
    - candiddevmike 4y ago
      CS 1.6 private servers were great. roll the dice, starwars maps, iceworld...
- lynx23 4y ago
  If it were only games. I remember an assistive technology product, roughly 6 years ago, which was a barcode reader plus online DB. Until the company went bust, and the device magically transformed into a brick.
  - donkeyd 4y ago
    This may be the one of the few true benefits of Web3/decentralization. As long as people see value in the network, it will stay online. Even if it's just a few people.
    - xnorswap 4y ago
      That's just as true as pre-web internet 1.0 though, what benefit does putting it on a blockchain add?
      - lynx23 4y ago
        I am guessing they imply that blockchain hosted IoT infrastructure wouldn't simply go away, because, you know, its part of the blockchain.
        deadbunny 4y ago
        Micro transactions to turn my lights on and off? Not thanks. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
        gpderetta 4y ago
        It also reminds me of the coin operated door in Ubik: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1615 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1615
        deadbunny 4y ago
- smcl 4y ago
  They still are sometimes - I was fiddling around with Steam and in my "Library" I accidentally clicked a dropdown which displayed "GAMES" and "TOOLS" as options - clicking "TOOLS" filtered on a bunch of interesting SDKs and Dedicated Servers (DayZ, Arma 3, Half-Life, Just Cause 2, and such - loads of which I don't even own or play). It's not perfect and it's far from comprehensive, but there are some games which offer this still
  - dividuum 4y ago
    There's also the SteamCMD tool that makes running dedicated server easier: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- esskay 4y ago
  Yep I remember having to run a fleet of Windows XP servers to host Joint Operations servers. Fun times!
- winReInstall 4y ago
  Worser still, some actively patch_destroy their own older games that have a more active community (due to superior game balance, less monetization etc.) to drive growth towards the new game.
- rekoil 4y ago
  I think they should be legally required to provide it honestly. The support period for games is getting shorter every year. I mean Unreal Tournament is from 1999, so 23 years old, hats off they were still running servers for it, that's honestly very good. But take Overwatch for example instead, people paid what, $50 for it? That's a game that's online only and is no longer possible to play since Overwatch 2 was released. It was only 6 years old and I'm sure many people prefer it over Overwatch 2, but they can't play it even though they paid for it. I honestly think it's kinda fucked up that this is legal. It shouldn't be.
  - t-sauer 4y ago
    This wouldn't work with games nowadays. Or let's rephrase is: it would discourage game developers to develop these type of games. If Blizzard would make private servers for Overwatch available, that would mean people wouldn't care about buying cosmetics from Blizzard. Same goes for games like League of Legends, Fortnite and even Call of Duty nowadays. If you can have your own private servers, you just unlock everything. I see that as a consumer you would want that to be a thing, but from a developers point of view other ventures get more attractive and we wouldn't have those games anymore.
    - sbarre 4y ago
      I think this is a fallacy. Maybe the big developers wouldn't have incentive to develop billion-dollar cosmetic-powered games anymore, but someone would make it work financially. You'd still have hugely popular multiplayer games, and maybe they would be somewhat less ambitious in scope and features (i.e. dev cost), but they would still be fun, and have strong communities built around them. Maybe they sell DLC map packs (which would not have the "community fragmentation" problem from today's centralized matchmaking if private servers exist), or figure out other ways to generate incremental revenue. Or maybe they don't, and just sell the base game, and are still successful because it's not a 5,000 person team and a nine-figure budget. Today's games don't exist because of the business model, it's the other way around.
    - ohyes 4y ago
      It’s interesting to me that entire genres of games were created because private dedicated servers were available and bored teenagers could create a TC and play with their friends. Also the technology was such that assets and game scripting were accessible Team fortress, counter strike, Dota, plenty of examples. You bought half-life so you could download and play the mods. I guess that niche is filled by Roblox now? Or maybe Minecraft?
- RGamma 4y ago
  These days aren't gone for good though. Look on Steam how many games offer LAN support or dedicated servers for instance (server browsers are a different topic unfortunately) It's just that gamers in the past have voted too weakly against the managed MP infrastructure in some subgenres and triple A moats... Don't know whether anyone is still protesting this or whether newer generations don't even know what's happened here.
  - ajnin 4y ago
    I don't really buy that "vote with your wallet" argument. It's not like you really have a choice. People can't decide to buy their favorite game with our without an open infrastructure. For example of you want to play StarCraft 2 on LAN with your friends or even only a similar game you just can't. It does not exist. If there is only one candidate then it's not really a vote, is it?
    - RGamma 4y ago
      Well, more generally you want to hold the (usually big) devs/publishers accountable to the shit they pull to select against bad stewards of the art form. One way is withholding purchases. Unfortunately a big chunk of unopinionated consumers will eat what they're served (FIFA, BF lol) and this encourages publishers to push P2W, gambling or fast iteration, which splits communities. And long-lived community-owned MP infrastructure is not particularly profitable either... That said, a more major driver of not offering dedicated servers may simply be the lack of necessity because using cloud infrastructure is pretty sophisticated nowadays and controlling it yourself simplifies development and deployment. Luckily the market is diverse, so overall I'm not too worried. I trust that organic discovery and good stewards keep MP gaming (and modded gaming) as I have known it alive.
- RektBoy 4y ago
  That's why I play games, which are running on private servers for years. Like ultima online.
- philippejara 4y ago
  Honestly the saddest part is how you could have both the private servers and matchmaking almost seamlessly, have official servers flagged for matchmaking and allow for a server browser like csgo, team fortress 2, etc, and yet so many act as if it was exclusively one or the other. As a big titanfall2 fan this is just infuriating since the game has been unplayable pretty much due to years long dos attacks on the servers that the company doesn't give a shit to fix, nor releases some form of dedicated servers for players to host themselves. The game is even in a modified source engine iirc.
  - bakugo 4y ago
    > Honestly the saddest part is how you could have both the private servers and matchmaking almost seamlessly Not true, having to pick a server to join by yourself out of a list was an essential part of the classic online experience and the existence of any kind of matchmaking system harms it. Team Fortress 2 is a prime example of this, originally it only had a server browser and the community felt most "alive" during this time. Then they added a basic matchmaking system that could place you on community servers, but only if they ran stock maps and settings, which heavily discouraged running any kind of modded or customized server, and significantly harmed any servers with a strong sense of community since you had random players, often fresh F2P installs that were barely distinguishable from bots, joining servers with no intention of ever playing on them more than once. Then they replaced that with the full official-only matchmaking we have today, which killed most of the remaining servers and associated communities.
    - philippejara 4y ago
      I don't disagree that dedicated servers only would be better, much to the contrary, but sadly matchmaking is here to stay and there's nothing we can do about it. You can have parallel dedicated servers that have no impact at all on the matchmaking experience, that's my point, not that matchmaking would put you into community servers, seamlessly was probably the wrong word for it. I wouldn't dislike official dedicated servers being accessible by both the browser and matchmaking however.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I find the concept of "esports" without dedicated servers to be a farce. The "sport" dies as soon as the profit incentive dies.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Remember the days when the server component was included with the base game? Anyone could launch a server and play with friends and strangers online. I miss those days. I hear you, but several of the games in this particular announcement seem like they're from that era: * Unreal Gold * Unreal II: The Awakening * Unreal Tournament 2003 * Unreal Tournament 2004 * Unreal Tournament 3 * Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition IIRC, back then the games usually shipped with the server component and all servers were run by players, and the publisher only ran a simple directory server. Since those directory servers were so simple, I think I seen cases where someone cloned them, then batched the binary to just to go a different address for the directory.
- Sxubas 4y ago
  I think battlefield 4 (pc) has the best of both worlds: official servers and community hosted ones. It had its drawbacks, however: community servers often spoofed player count and you would end up joining almost empty lobbies when you thought it was a full server. Also, when the playerbase was declining, it felt harder to find servers that you enjoyed to play on. Overall I felt it was a great experience. I hope more games take this approach in the future.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  "A" company? Surely you mean "every" company.
- neogodless 4y ago
  I still (mostly) limit my multiplayer gaming to games with that available via Steam. ARK, Valheim, etc. If games come out and I have to rely on their server or rent one, it's a pass for me, especially if I can't play privately with my group of friends. I've been using Battle.net though... for about 15 years, I'd only do LAN, or LAN over VPN (Hamachi), but the ease of use was, of course, much better on Battle.net.
- Pr0ject217 4y ago
  I hope that we see a comeback.
- modshatereality 4y ago
  >gone forever yeah, lazy devs or they're just herding everyone to their own servers where they can mine data for more profits? Either way, looks like a prime business opportunity to test out a recent addition to DMCA exemptions to allow supporting "abandoned" servers. If the users are there and willing to pay.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mdrzn 4y ago
Damn, I'll miss Unreal Tournament 2004 and UT:GOTY online multiplayer matches.
- smcl 4y ago
  UT99 is already managed by the community, so it'll be fine. They'd need to update some master server list possibly, but I don't think that's impossible. I wonder if this opens up some interesting opportunities though. Supposedly some members of the community have sufficient access to source code to issue (unofficial?) patches, but were instructed by Epic to only make changes that don't break vanilla, out-of-the-box UT99 - I guess so that you could buy the game on GoG and start playing using the official servers. If they're cutting it loose, this might free the community up to make some changes they've been keen to do - for example apparently the netcode is pretty janky but has been off-limits so far. Will need to pester my friend who knows about this better than me, but in short: UT99 isn't going away any time soon.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Low gravity instakill is awesome.
izacus 4y ago
Uhh, why are UT, UT2003 and UT2004 on the list? Are they shutting down server browsers for them?
- boppo1 4y ago
  Yep. No idea why. Cost cutting, even if costs are minimal? Open source them ffs if you're not going to sell them.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    The community will figure it out. If it still exists, that is. If not, perhaps it deserves to die. Would be a pity though, I really liked UT2004, better than UT3.
  - blueboo 4y ago
    May not be minimal to maintain and patch legacy C++ code against various security vulnerabilities. The risk/benefit of doing imperfect patching might obviously indicate shutting it down. Meanwhile, open-sourcing is usually inhibited by 1) licenses of middleware in the tech stack and 2) sketchy code that's not ready for public sharing. It truly is a ton of work to open source commercial code!
    - BatteryMountain 4y ago
      If they opensource the older server code, someone else can build a new compatible version with say, golang or rust, that can end up leaner & faster but also a bit more secure as it can be updated.
    - schemescape 4y ago
      I’m sure that’s a big consideration, but they really could just dump whatever code they own the rights to, in whatever state it’s in, and people would be thrilled. Although, now that I write that out, I bet determining the code they have rights to is, sadly, more work than they’re willing to put in. Edit: also, if some of the code is used elsewhere in current games, this could inadvertently reveal security bugs in them.
bonzini 4y ago
So 4 games will be completely unusable, while the others "will have all online services disabled on January 24, after which players can continue playing single or local multiplayer modes offline".
angelmm 4y ago
This is sad. I would love that every company running multiplayer game servers publish the server code / binary so anyone can host it. Some of those games still have big communities and now they will be unusable. Also, this issue is even worse with game updates. You cannot even play single-player games when critical updates are no longer available. Now that games are sold without finishing them, game updates are required unfortunately.
xena 4y ago
Wow I'm surprised they're pulling Hatoful Boyfriend too. That is a great philosophy simulator disguised as a dating simulator where you try to court birds.
- djmips 4y ago
  just Mac and Linux? Tim Sweeney IIRC hates everything not PC
  - SSLy 4y ago
    Let's not succumb to the redmondian propaganda that Linux isn't PC.
    - hbn 4y ago
      I thought the Windows=PC "othering" was more of an Apple initiative, like in the "Get a Mac" campaigns
    - djmips 4y ago
      Should have said 'not Windows'
  - haunter 4y ago
    I meant the Mac and Linux version was removed from Steam too The game haven't had any meaningful update for years and it was unplayable on modern Mac since they moved to 64bit only https://steamdb.info/app/310080/patchnotes/ https://steamdb.info/app/310080/patchnotes/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- npteljes 4y ago
  They just pull out of date downloads. There's not much info on Proton and Wine compatibility, because of the originally existing Linux version I guess, but I think there's a good chance that it will run fine.
flyinghamster 4y ago
Can't run your own server? I don't want the game, no matter how great it is. Nothing like having your game and DLC go poof when the servers get the old rug pull.
boppo1 4y ago
Just wish they'd open source UT2k4. Why wouldn't they at this point?
- gambiting 4y ago
  As a game developer working for a large AAA studio myself - it's usually not because people don't want to, it's because companies are usually opposed to spending any money on things which aren't strictly necessary. The topic of open sourcing some of our older games(and I really do mean older, like 20 years plus) keeps coming up every now and then, but each time it's shut down because legal would need to do full assessment of everything surrounding it, like maybe we could release the code but not the assets like music or models used, in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't cost a lot or money or time, but in general anything above 0 on a project that won't bring any money in is too much(as sad as that is). And even the code itself might need cleaning up, 20 years ago the programming culture was very different and there is plenty of plainly inappropriate comments in the code and you'd want someone to make a full pass on the code and clean this up first. And finally - after 20 years we might not even have the code and/or full assets available. I spent a long time trying to find the source files used to render the cutscenes in the game but they are all gone. And we are 99% sure that the code we have for one of our games is not actually for the master version that shipped, but for a revision just before. So you could open source that, but it wouldn't build the same game that people are playing right now. I can't speak for Epic here of course, but I imagine the reasoning here is somewhat similar - any developer put on this project is a developer not working on something else.
  - consp 4y ago
    > won't bring any money in is too much(as sad as that is) Depends on what your measure is: capitalistic -profit and shareholders above everything else- then yes, if you take a "good for society as a whole" into account not so much.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    You should consider it to have free PR value. Its not just cost unless you lack imagination.
GlacierFox 4y ago
Developers should be required to develop a mechanism to run a server outside their networks after the game has been discontinued.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
  The publishers should put the source code for the server into escrow under the condition that the code gets released with appropriate open source licensing if the company no longer runs any available servers.
  - spyremeown 4y ago
    I'd really like to run my own servers for some of the MMOs I played as a kid. But they're mostly from Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese companies... Does anybody have some resources on running your own custom servers? For example, how private WoW servers work, were they reverse engineering?
    - jefozabuss 4y ago
      https://www.getmangos.eu/forums/topic/9974-how-did-the-dev-team-do-it/ https://www.getmangos.eu/forums/topic/9974-how-did-the-dev-t...
    - mdrzn 4y ago
      I've been following this community [0] which has unofficially relaunched a Korean online game which originally only lasted from 2003 to 2007 [1] and I played when I was a kid. It's amazing to be able to login into the same UI/UX and play the same game almost 15 years later. [0] https://www.spgenerations.com/ https://www.spgenerations.com/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Project
  - plastiquebeech 4y ago
    The publishers usually can't publish their games' source code, because of various library and middleware dependencies which are not free or open-source. Same issue with cheap IoT gizmos. Even if the retailers wanted to publish an implementation of their backend servers, they probably bought (rented) much of the functionality from a third party, under a license which forbids redistribution of the third party's IP.
turing_complete 4y ago
Unreal tournament 2003 is still online? Didn't expect that.
johnchristopher 4y ago
> Unreal Tournament 2004 Ow :(
infinitezest 4y ago
If I buy a game and a company effectively breaks it by turning off my ability to play it, is that not theft?
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
  I don't think it would count as theft, but if the original advertising/product information included the online components as a feature, then they could be sued for that. I remember when Sony pulled the Linux support from PS3 as that was a similar situation although even more anti-consumer.
- chess_buster 4y ago
  If unlicensed copying is theft, than switching off a required server is murder, I guess.
  - LightHugger 4y ago
    When do we get to put companies on trial for gameslaughter?
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Probably only after we elect Ross Scott for president.
- wil421 4y ago
  I guaranteed whatever license you never agreed to doesn’t actually say you bought the game. More like a license to play the game as long as parent company sees fit.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    I guarantee the marketing says "buy". In any case, you can't commit fraud in your marketing then 'correct' it in obscure clickwrap license terms.
ronjouch 4y ago
Mandatory link to the excellent "Dead Game News" series from Ross Scott: https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/dead-game-news https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/dead-game-news Ross's exhaustive reporting & ideas on the topic are both grounded AND funny. For a TL;DR of the main ideas and potential legal paths, see his "'Games as a service' is fraud" video: https://www.accursedfarms.com/posts/other-videos/gaasfraud https://www.accursedfarms.com/posts/other-videos/gaasfraud
thinkmcfly 4y ago
It's not worth buying pc games if they have to launch through epic
2Pacalypse- 4y ago
While not that unexpected, I'm curious to see if this will start a trend that other game publishers might follow. I'm mainly curious about when Blizzard will deem the cost-benefit analysis to swing in favor of shutting down their old battle.net service which hosts games like StarCraft 1, Diablo 2, and WarCraft 3. For StarCraft 1 specifically (and its Remastered version), a few us have been building a custom server/launcher[0] which should at least ensure that the game/community doesn't completely die out. However, we still rely on Blizzard's online services to verify the in-game purchases, like HD graphics (the game will automatically stop rendering the HD graphics if you didn't log into Blizzard's services in the last 30 days). It remains to be seen how this will be handled by Blizzard if (when?) the time comes. [0] - https://github.com/ShieldBattery/ShieldBattery https://github.com/ShieldBattery/ShieldBattery
- wil421 4y ago
  Diablo 2 resurrected is supposed to use the old code with a “graphics” uplift. When it first hit they were having some battle.net issues, on the blog they spoke about dealing with legacy code and challenges. Hopefully, for D2 this means a lot longer life.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  >>I'm mainly curious about when Blizzard will deem the cost-benefit analysis 3-6mos after the MS deals closes will be my prediction, or 2mos after the deal is blown up by the US Government and Activision starts massive cost-cutting
  - t-sauer 4y ago
    This acquisition is such a hot topic, I doubt that Microsoft is going to do anything controversial in the first 2-3 years.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  >how this will be handled by Blizzard I'm going to guess 'in the most used hostile way possible'.
shanebellone 4y ago
I have an idea for "Sunset Matchmaking". The concept benefits companies by reducing their costs and benefits players by allowing them to find a game provided another person (somewhere in the world) wants to play too. I'm not convinced it would be a viable SaaS but might work as an opensource project.
BatteryMountain 4y ago
We need legislation/conventions/culture of opensourcing server software if a game/service is abandoned, to easily self-host or if a third party platform wants to take over stewardship of hosting a specific service. Just update a url in your game config to point to the new provider/server.
- klntsky 4y ago
  > legislation It's not even an option in most of the developed world, it's equivalent to property expropriation.
  - Double_a_92 4y ago
    Just add a requirement to declare for how long the online part of the game will continue to work. With the loophole of it being "infinite" if you allow community servers.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    Requiring open protocols and guaranteed interop are feasible though.
    - moonchild 4y ago
      Distributing implementations of closed protocols is speech. I don't see why such restrictions would be desirable. If you don't want to play games that use closed protocols, you're under no obligation to do so.
      - LadyCailin 4y ago
        This is an absurd stretch. The definition is already stretched too far without additional stretching.
  - asddubs 4y ago
    you could probably require it to be included on sale, though.
fergie 4y ago
Its strange that Unreal Tournament was kind of abandoned by Epic. It was such a great game in every way- so far ahead of its time. Even today Unreal Engine is probably the best off the shelf 3D game engine available. I am surprised that they dont make more of the franchise. If they repackaged UT2004 with the new engine (UT2023) I would play the hell out of it.
- williamscales 4y ago
  Epic was working on a new UT which has been in early release. It's quite fun but I believe development stopped some time ago.
  - billyjobob 4y ago
    It was killed due to the success of Fortnite.
    - t-sauer 4y ago
      That's just one side of the story. While the success of Fortnite definitely played a part of the cancellation, no one really cared about the Unreal Tournament reboot. It got no traction at all. The game was playable but had no players. And while there was a big interest of a small group, it got no interest outside of that group. I think that even if Fortnite wouldn't have been as big as it is, Unreal had no chance because the gaming demographic changed and there is no demand for a game like UT anymore.
      - tapoxi 4y ago
        Arena shooters in general are kind of a dead genre. Quake Champions, Diabolical, and a few others all collapsed. Even Halo Infinite couldn't sustain a player base.
        thereddaikon 4y ago
        Halo Infinite died because Microsoft mismanaged it. They had huge player numbers at launch but they failed to keep the content going and people moved on. They couldn't even manage a tie in with the stupid halo show when it launched.
lakomen 4y ago
I don't see epic being a better alternative to Steam. Steam sucks, is anti consumer but Epic is even worse. They don't even allow communication or rating. Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned? And their constant pushing that I should install and run their service all the time, even try to trick me into installing it is also very suspicious. I will not run some game selling platform's service in the background all the time, even if it's just on a gaming machine. Bad enough my graphics drivers run harmful spyware in the background (nvidia). Then their return policy is the same as Valve's 2h and I have to waive my 14 day right of withdrawal from the purchase. Replace shit with more smelly shit.
- t3rabytes 4y ago
  Tencent has a minority stake, Tim Sweeney is still majority shareholder.
- est 4y ago
  > Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned? By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned.
  - Quikinterp 4y ago
    Tencent is Chinese and has its hq in China.
  - imchillyb 4y ago
    > By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned. @est > Founded in 1998 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China,... > ...Tencent has been listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 2004. > https://www.tencent.com/en-us/about.html#about-con-1 https://www.tencent.com/en-us/about.html#about-con-1
    - est 4y ago
      Since we are talking about how Epic was invested by Tencent, the same rule applies here: https://www.ft.com/content/1270c7e4-95e4-406f-b712-c3234152437f https://www.ft.com/content/1270c7e4-95e4-406f-b712-c32341524... South African internet group Naspers, Tencent’s biggest shareholder
richardjam73 4y ago
The address for the master server in UT2004 is set in the ut2004.ini file and can be replaced. http://beta.openspy.net/en/howto/ut2k-engine/ut2004 http://beta.openspy.net/en/howto/ut2k-engine/ut2004 OpenSpy has similar options for the other Unreal games. Some require patching. Their code is open source and on Github. https://github.com/chc/openspy-core-v2 https://github.com/chc/openspy-core-v2 The latest Unreal Tournament will soon be gone however, it may never return as it was never finished.
shapefrog 4y ago
If I buy (licence) a game from epic that requires servers they maintain to function ... so they have to give me back the money now that they have rendered the game non-functional?
- ohyes 4y ago
  You don’t have a perpetual license, so no.
  - thih9 4y ago
    Is there any minimal duration requirement? Or is the developer allowed to publish the game and shut down the servers, say, a month later?
  - bakugo 4y ago
    If you bought the game, and the seller didn't make it exceedingly clear that you were renting instead of buying, then yes, you do own a perpetual license. Just because the developers write "actually you didn't buy it even though we said you did, tough shit" in the EULA doesn't make it true.
CivBase 4y ago
Man, I bought a dozen songs for Rock Band just a year ago because I brought it out to play with friends. Guess I'll never get to play those again :/ I know it's not reasonable to expect companies to keep their online infrastructure up forever, but I wonder what the actual operating costs of most of these servers are. I can't imagine most of them are operating at a scale much larger than my personal home server at this point.
neilv 4y ago
I don't care about Epic specifically, but I do care about some other games that have been made dependent on central servers. I don't want to the publishers of those other games seeing Epic get away with this, and thinking that they too can shut down necessary central servers. How costly does the expected legal and PR fallout have to be, that publishers won't try to do this?
tiahura 4y ago
I remember when Unreal 1 out. Network play sucked - contrary to what they had been hyping. Mark Rein did a chat event ( was it planetunreal?) and I asked him to promise that Epic would fix it and not roll the fixes into a new game. About 2 months later Unreal Tournament was announced. Full circle.
FredPret 4y ago
Years ago I bought a great new PC. “But does it play Crysis” I thought. So I bought Crysis 1 on Steam on a big special, daydreaming about finally maxing out those settings. Turns out it doesn’t play Crysis, because there’s some mandatory anti cheating thing that phones home, but that company no longer exists.
- AustinDev 4y ago
  This is why I'll never be against piracy especially in gaming. I personally buy all the games I play but, I've run into situations similar to the one you just described with Crysis 1.
drvdevd 4y ago
In the cloud era, why not spin these servers up on-demand?
- oblio 4y ago
  Because you still need a human to take care of operational stuff.
ChoGGi 4y ago
And there goes unreal master servers
DocTomoe 4y ago
And this, kids, is why you don't buy anything that has been touched by Epic.
dawnerd 4y ago
I wish we had some kind of regulation that required companies to release something to keep old games up even if it's just technical details if someone wanted to create their own.
falcolas 4y ago
Tough love time. If you buy a game that depends on someone else's servers in any fashion (even just a server browser), you are accepting that it will be shut down at some point. This has been shown to be the operating model of modern games for over a decade now. Even if it costs a penny to keep running, they will eventually shut it down. The outliers - those who will keep them up - are exactly that: outliers. I wish it were otherwise, but this is a purely capitalistic move that will never get enough support to be regulated; and so it will never change.
Blackthorn 4y ago
Oh FFS! How much does it really cost them to keep the Unreal Tournament servers running?
danielodievich 4y ago
Back in 2015 when I was at AppDynamics, we sold a bunch of APM into Xbox. The Autopilot-based IaaS there (NOT Azure), their own web server (NOT IIS) and a huge mess of interconnected services proved to be a really steep climb for us but we sure had fun. One of the use cases that we explored was how to enable the minimum level of care and feeding for all the services for the games that are still out but no longer hot, like something that's 5, 10, 15 years old. Nobody there wanted to touch those AT ALL, but it had to be maintained for contractual reasons. Operating in this proverbially dusty and cobwebbed areas of the code was very interesting. You had to move really carefully to not disturb anything, because often there was no original engineers left anymore who could fix things if they broke. So I am not surprised that Epic turns old stuff.
AndrewOMartin 4y ago
FTA: The following titles will have all online services disabled on January 24, after which players can continue playing single or local multiplayer modes offline: - 1000 Tiny Claws - Dance Central 1-3 (Note: Dance Central VR online multiplayer will remain available) - Green Day: Rock Band - Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess - Rock Band 1-3 (Note: Rock Band 4 online multiplayer will remain available) - The Beatles: Rock Band - Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars - Unreal Gold - Unreal II: The Awakening - Unreal Tournament 2003 - Unreal Tournament 2004 - Unreal Tournament 3 (Note: We have plans to bring back online features via Epic Online Services in the future.) - Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
nhunter 4y ago
This was a regular practice when I worked on services at EA. Old games had online components shut down or de-registered. The utilization of the game was always a factor, but games that were 2-3 years old, particularly in sports, got discontinued regularly - with player communication involved.
footlose_3815 4y ago
[dead]
deafpolygon 4y ago
Sad. First they kill the new Unreal Tournament. Now they're killing off the rest of it. Unreal Gold Unreal II: The Awakening Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal Tournament 2004 Unreal Tournament 3 Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition

308 points by mariuz 4y ago

Remember the days when the server component was included with the base game? Anyone could launch a server and play with friends and strangers online. I miss those days. Now we get a company deciding it is not worth maintaining the infrastructure and an entire part of a game is gone forever.

georgeecollins 4y ago
Yeah, I made multiplayer games in those days. Very few people played relative today and you had so much lag. You really had to build your game to accept 0.5 sec lag. There is a lot to be said for today.
pndy 4y ago
I miss days where gaming magazines had CDs filled with demos which you could test before the purchase - tho it was more possible that friend of friend had pirated full version you could borrow.
danuker 4y ago
It seems DRM is not the issue, and my comment was irrelevant. ~~You can only buy from DRM-free suppliers, like GOG.com.~~
- suumcuique 4y ago
  Some of the games being shut down were/are also being sold on GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/unreal_tournament_2004_ece https://www.gog.com/en/game/unreal_tournament_2004_ece
  - danuker 4y ago
    Wow. I did not expect this. I apologize for my unresearched opinion.
    - nix23 4y ago
      The dedicated server is included in the game...
izacus 4y ago
Some games from that are are on the list (e.g. UT) so I'm wondering what's going on there.
- doikor 4y ago
  For those the service used for searching/listing the servers is being taken down. If you know the ip address of a server you can still play.
  - dark-star 4y ago
    No need to remember IP addresses, we have DNS now ;-)
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    You have to wonder just how little hosting a lobby server must cost a company the size of epic. Collating a list of server IPs and names seems fairly trivial.
    - ohyes 4y ago
      It probably has more to do with paying someone to keep it patched and running happily.
- suumcuique 4y ago
  You can host your own game server in UT but you're still depending on Epic services for the server listings and license (CD key) validation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
theclansman 4y ago
Private servers were so much better than matchmaking in my opinion, there was a sense of community to the game and you would make friends. Now playing with randoms (all of them in their own private discord parties) feels like playing with NPCs.
- tpxl 4y ago
  whynotboth.jpeg Team Fortress matchmaking will match you to their official servers, and sometimes even on third party servers. TF also has a server browser where you can select which third or first party servers to join. You can also join directly via IP, if the matchmaking service ever goes offline.
  - knome 4y ago
    TF2 hasn't matched to 3rd party servers or allowed directly connecting to Valve servers in 6 years, since the introduction of a matchmaking service. They did, however, let a bot flood on official servers get so bad for so a few years that community servers took off and became popular again. It's only been this year that they finally started to effectively fight back against the bots, making casual usable again.
    - tpxl 4y ago
      I have recently joined a modded server using matchmaking in the MvM mode, so either Valve allows that, or they run modded servers. As far as botting goes, it's still not fixed. There was an obvious aimbotter named 'Vinesauce' that went about for 2 weeks getting kicked out of every match (and sometimes rejoining). I can't fathom having this little moderation/development on a game that still must be making millions per year.
      - knome 4y ago
        Ah, fair enough, I generally don't play the MvM mode. Strange that they allow community servers for the matchmaking service on that after pulling it from the standard mode. In my experience with Valve's servers in the eastern north american region, while the bots aren't completely gone, there are far fewer of them. Online discussion has indicated this isn't necessarily the case for non-NA regions. I saw the vinesauce bots. It's my understanding that Valve bans any account kicked from an official server from rejoining that server for half an hour or so. Game harassers run small fleets of their bots. It's likely just another same-named bot joining rather than the same one rejoining, no?
samstr 4y ago
xnorswap 4y ago
I remember, but I also remember the downside - that as the game got older joining a server became a shit-show. By the end there was literally one CS server I trusted to be friendly and busy and not running "rpg-mod" or "zombie-mod" or a thousand other adjustments I didn't like, such as "no-awp", "price adjusted" etc. Just finding a vanilla experience became difficult, doubly so if you wanted more than "dust/dust2 only". Add in the fact that these servers could send your computer files (in theory just maps, sounds and decals, but difficult to secure of course), and you can see why companies shy away, not just to have greater control of the experience.
- mt_ 4y ago
  You can still have official and community servers by packaging the server alongside the client.
- snemvalts 4y ago
  Not to mention malware, there have been quite a few exploits for CSGO regarding this.
- rajamaka 4y ago
  Brings back memories of being an admin on a CS 1.6 server and having the ability to send a command that would open a person's CD Drive
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    We had "local build servers" at one of my previous jobs. Those servers - normal towers, not racks - would communicate they are working on some job by opening CD Drives.
    - xwkd 4y ago
      Brilliant. I love this. Thank you for sharing.
  - candiddevmike 4y ago
    CS 1.6 private servers were great. roll the dice, starwars maps, iceworld...
lynx23 4y ago
If it were only games. I remember an assistive technology product, roughly 6 years ago, which was a barcode reader plus online DB. Until the company went bust, and the device magically transformed into a brick.
- donkeyd 4y ago
  This may be the one of the few true benefits of Web3/decentralization. As long as people see value in the network, it will stay online. Even if it's just a few people.
  - xnorswap 4y ago
    That's just as true as pre-web internet 1.0 though, what benefit does putting it on a blockchain add?
    - lynx23 4y ago
      I am guessing they imply that blockchain hosted IoT infrastructure wouldn't simply go away, because, you know, its part of the blockchain.
      - deadbunny 4y ago
        Micro transactions to turn my lights on and off? Not thanks. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
        gpderetta 4y ago
        It also reminds me of the coin operated door in Ubik: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1615 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1615
        deadbunny 4y ago
smcl 4y ago
They still are sometimes - I was fiddling around with Steam and in my "Library" I accidentally clicked a dropdown which displayed "GAMES" and "TOOLS" as options - clicking "TOOLS" filtered on a bunch of interesting SDKs and Dedicated Servers (DayZ, Arma 3, Half-Life, Just Cause 2, and such - loads of which I don't even own or play). It's not perfect and it's far from comprehensive, but there are some games which offer this still
- dividuum 4y ago
  There's also the SteamCMD tool that makes running dedicated server easier: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
esskay 4y ago
Yep I remember having to run a fleet of Windows XP servers to host Joint Operations servers. Fun times!
winReInstall 4y ago
Worser still, some actively patch_destroy their own older games that have a more active community (due to superior game balance, less monetization etc.) to drive growth towards the new game.
rekoil 4y ago
I think they should be legally required to provide it honestly. The support period for games is getting shorter every year. I mean Unreal Tournament is from 1999, so 23 years old, hats off they were still running servers for it, that's honestly very good. But take Overwatch for example instead, people paid what, $50 for it? That's a game that's online only and is no longer possible to play since Overwatch 2 was released. It was only 6 years old and I'm sure many people prefer it over Overwatch 2, but they can't play it even though they paid for it. I honestly think it's kinda fucked up that this is legal. It shouldn't be.
- t-sauer 4y ago
  This wouldn't work with games nowadays. Or let's rephrase is: it would discourage game developers to develop these type of games. If Blizzard would make private servers for Overwatch available, that would mean people wouldn't care about buying cosmetics from Blizzard. Same goes for games like League of Legends, Fortnite and even Call of Duty nowadays. If you can have your own private servers, you just unlock everything. I see that as a consumer you would want that to be a thing, but from a developers point of view other ventures get more attractive and we wouldn't have those games anymore.
  - sbarre 4y ago
    I think this is a fallacy. Maybe the big developers wouldn't have incentive to develop billion-dollar cosmetic-powered games anymore, but someone would make it work financially. You'd still have hugely popular multiplayer games, and maybe they would be somewhat less ambitious in scope and features (i.e. dev cost), but they would still be fun, and have strong communities built around them. Maybe they sell DLC map packs (which would not have the "community fragmentation" problem from today's centralized matchmaking if private servers exist), or figure out other ways to generate incremental revenue. Or maybe they don't, and just sell the base game, and are still successful because it's not a 5,000 person team and a nine-figure budget. Today's games don't exist because of the business model, it's the other way around.
  - ohyes 4y ago
    It’s interesting to me that entire genres of games were created because private dedicated servers were available and bored teenagers could create a TC and play with their friends. Also the technology was such that assets and game scripting were accessible Team fortress, counter strike, Dota, plenty of examples. You bought half-life so you could download and play the mods. I guess that niche is filled by Roblox now? Or maybe Minecraft?
RGamma 4y ago
These days aren't gone for good though. Look on Steam how many games offer LAN support or dedicated servers for instance (server browsers are a different topic unfortunately) It's just that gamers in the past have voted too weakly against the managed MP infrastructure in some subgenres and triple A moats... Don't know whether anyone is still protesting this or whether newer generations don't even know what's happened here.
- ajnin 4y ago
  I don't really buy that "vote with your wallet" argument. It's not like you really have a choice. People can't decide to buy their favorite game with our without an open infrastructure. For example of you want to play StarCraft 2 on LAN with your friends or even only a similar game you just can't. It does not exist. If there is only one candidate then it's not really a vote, is it?
  - RGamma 4y ago
    Well, more generally you want to hold the (usually big) devs/publishers accountable to the shit they pull to select against bad stewards of the art form. One way is withholding purchases. Unfortunately a big chunk of unopinionated consumers will eat what they're served (FIFA, BF lol) and this encourages publishers to push P2W, gambling or fast iteration, which splits communities. And long-lived community-owned MP infrastructure is not particularly profitable either... That said, a more major driver of not offering dedicated servers may simply be the lack of necessity because using cloud infrastructure is pretty sophisticated nowadays and controlling it yourself simplifies development and deployment. Luckily the market is diverse, so overall I'm not too worried. I trust that organic discovery and good stewards keep MP gaming (and modded gaming) as I have known it alive.
RektBoy 4y ago
That's why I play games, which are running on private servers for years. Like ultima online.
philippejara 4y ago
Honestly the saddest part is how you could have both the private servers and matchmaking almost seamlessly, have official servers flagged for matchmaking and allow for a server browser like csgo, team fortress 2, etc, and yet so many act as if it was exclusively one or the other. As a big titanfall2 fan this is just infuriating since the game has been unplayable pretty much due to years long dos attacks on the servers that the company doesn't give a shit to fix, nor releases some form of dedicated servers for players to host themselves. The game is even in a modified source engine iirc.
- bakugo 4y ago
  > Honestly the saddest part is how you could have both the private servers and matchmaking almost seamlessly Not true, having to pick a server to join by yourself out of a list was an essential part of the classic online experience and the existence of any kind of matchmaking system harms it. Team Fortress 2 is a prime example of this, originally it only had a server browser and the community felt most "alive" during this time. Then they added a basic matchmaking system that could place you on community servers, but only if they ran stock maps and settings, which heavily discouraged running any kind of modded or customized server, and significantly harmed any servers with a strong sense of community since you had random players, often fresh F2P installs that were barely distinguishable from bots, joining servers with no intention of ever playing on them more than once. Then they replaced that with the full official-only matchmaking we have today, which killed most of the remaining servers and associated communities.
  - philippejara 4y ago
    I don't disagree that dedicated servers only would be better, much to the contrary, but sadly matchmaking is here to stay and there's nothing we can do about it. You can have parallel dedicated servers that have no impact at all on the matchmaking experience, that's my point, not that matchmaking would put you into community servers, seamlessly was probably the wrong word for it. I wouldn't dislike official dedicated servers being accessible by both the browser and matchmaking however.
faeriechangling 4y ago
I find the concept of "esports" without dedicated servers to be a farce. The "sport" dies as soon as the profit incentive dies.
tablespoon 4y ago
> Remember the days when the server component was included with the base game? Anyone could launch a server and play with friends and strangers online. I miss those days. I hear you, but several of the games in this particular announcement seem like they're from that era: * Unreal Gold * Unreal II: The Awakening * Unreal Tournament 2003 * Unreal Tournament 2004 * Unreal Tournament 3 * Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition IIRC, back then the games usually shipped with the server component and all servers were run by players, and the publisher only ran a simple directory server. Since those directory servers were so simple, I think I seen cases where someone cloned them, then batched the binary to just to go a different address for the directory.
Sxubas 4y ago
I think battlefield 4 (pc) has the best of both worlds: official servers and community hosted ones. It had its drawbacks, however: community servers often spoofed player count and you would end up joining almost empty lobbies when you thought it was a full server. Also, when the playerbase was declining, it felt harder to find servers that you enjoyed to play on. Overall I felt it was a great experience. I hope more games take this approach in the future.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
"A" company? Surely you mean "every" company.
neogodless 4y ago
I still (mostly) limit my multiplayer gaming to games with that available via Steam. ARK, Valheim, etc. If games come out and I have to rely on their server or rent one, it's a pass for me, especially if I can't play privately with my group of friends. I've been using Battle.net though... for about 15 years, I'd only do LAN, or LAN over VPN (Hamachi), but the ease of use was, of course, much better on Battle.net.
Pr0ject217 4y ago
I hope that we see a comeback.
modshatereality 4y ago
>gone forever yeah, lazy devs or they're just herding everyone to their own servers where they can mine data for more profits? Either way, looks like a prime business opportunity to test out a recent addition to DMCA exemptions to allow supporting "abandoned" servers. If the users are there and willing to pay.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mdrzn 4y ago

Damn, I'll miss Unreal Tournament 2004 and UT:GOTY online multiplayer matches.

smcl 4y ago
UT99 is already managed by the community, so it'll be fine. They'd need to update some master server list possibly, but I don't think that's impossible. I wonder if this opens up some interesting opportunities though. Supposedly some members of the community have sufficient access to source code to issue (unofficial?) patches, but were instructed by Epic to only make changes that don't break vanilla, out-of-the-box UT99 - I guess so that you could buy the game on GoG and start playing using the official servers. If they're cutting it loose, this might free the community up to make some changes they've been keen to do - for example apparently the netcode is pretty janky but has been off-limits so far. Will need to pester my friend who knows about this better than me, but in short: UT99 isn't going away any time soon.
robertlagrant 4y ago
Low gravity instakill is awesome.

izacus 4y ago

Uhh, why are UT, UT2003 and UT2004 on the list? Are they shutting down server browsers for them?

boppo1 4y ago
Yep. No idea why. Cost cutting, even if costs are minimal? Open source them ffs if you're not going to sell them.
- incrudible 4y ago
  The community will figure it out. If it still exists, that is. If not, perhaps it deserves to die. Would be a pity though, I really liked UT2004, better than UT3.
- blueboo 4y ago
  May not be minimal to maintain and patch legacy C++ code against various security vulnerabilities. The risk/benefit of doing imperfect patching might obviously indicate shutting it down. Meanwhile, open-sourcing is usually inhibited by 1) licenses of middleware in the tech stack and 2) sketchy code that's not ready for public sharing. It truly is a ton of work to open source commercial code!
  - BatteryMountain 4y ago
    If they opensource the older server code, someone else can build a new compatible version with say, golang or rust, that can end up leaner & faster but also a bit more secure as it can be updated.
  - schemescape 4y ago
    I’m sure that’s a big consideration, but they really could just dump whatever code they own the rights to, in whatever state it’s in, and people would be thrilled. Although, now that I write that out, I bet determining the code they have rights to is, sadly, more work than they’re willing to put in. Edit: also, if some of the code is used elsewhere in current games, this could inadvertently reveal security bugs in them.

bonzini 4y ago

So 4 games will be completely unusable, while the others "will have all online services disabled on January 24, after which players can continue playing single or local multiplayer modes offline".

angelmm 4y ago

This is sad. I would love that every company running multiplayer game servers publish the server code / binary so anyone can host it. Some of those games still have big communities and now they will be unusable. Also, this issue is even worse with game updates. You cannot even play single-player games when critical updates are no longer available. Now that games are sold without finishing them, game updates are required unfortunately.

xena 4y ago

Wow I'm surprised they're pulling Hatoful Boyfriend too. That is a great philosophy simulator disguised as a dating simulator where you try to court birds.

djmips 4y ago
just Mac and Linux? Tim Sweeney IIRC hates everything not PC
- SSLy 4y ago
  Let's not succumb to the redmondian propaganda that Linux isn't PC.
  - hbn 4y ago
    I thought the Windows=PC "othering" was more of an Apple initiative, like in the "Get a Mac" campaigns
  - djmips 4y ago
    Should have said 'not Windows'
- haunter 4y ago
  I meant the Mac and Linux version was removed from Steam too The game haven't had any meaningful update for years and it was unplayable on modern Mac since they moved to 64bit only https://steamdb.info/app/310080/patchnotes/ https://steamdb.info/app/310080/patchnotes/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
npteljes 4y ago
They just pull out of date downloads. There's not much info on Proton and Wine compatibility, because of the originally existing Linux version I guess, but I think there's a good chance that it will run fine.

flyinghamster 4y ago

Can't run your own server? I don't want the game, no matter how great it is. Nothing like having your game and DLC go poof when the servers get the old rug pull.

boppo1 4y ago

Just wish they'd open source UT2k4. Why wouldn't they at this point?

gambiting 4y ago
As a game developer working for a large AAA studio myself - it's usually not because people don't want to, it's because companies are usually opposed to spending any money on things which aren't strictly necessary. The topic of open sourcing some of our older games(and I really do mean older, like 20 years plus) keeps coming up every now and then, but each time it's shut down because legal would need to do full assessment of everything surrounding it, like maybe we could release the code but not the assets like music or models used, in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't cost a lot or money or time, but in general anything above 0 on a project that won't bring any money in is too much(as sad as that is). And even the code itself might need cleaning up, 20 years ago the programming culture was very different and there is plenty of plainly inappropriate comments in the code and you'd want someone to make a full pass on the code and clean this up first. And finally - after 20 years we might not even have the code and/or full assets available. I spent a long time trying to find the source files used to render the cutscenes in the game but they are all gone. And we are 99% sure that the code we have for one of our games is not actually for the master version that shipped, but for a revision just before. So you could open source that, but it wouldn't build the same game that people are playing right now. I can't speak for Epic here of course, but I imagine the reasoning here is somewhat similar - any developer put on this project is a developer not working on something else.
- consp 4y ago
  > won't bring any money in is too much(as sad as that is) Depends on what your measure is: capitalistic -profit and shareholders above everything else- then yes, if you take a "good for society as a whole" into account not so much.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  You should consider it to have free PR value. Its not just cost unless you lack imagination.

GlacierFox 4y ago

Developers should be required to develop a mechanism to run a server outside their networks after the game has been discontinued.

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
The publishers should put the source code for the server into escrow under the condition that the code gets released with appropriate open source licensing if the company no longer runs any available servers.
- spyremeown 4y ago
  I'd really like to run my own servers for some of the MMOs I played as a kid. But they're mostly from Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese companies... Does anybody have some resources on running your own custom servers? For example, how private WoW servers work, were they reverse engineering?
  - jefozabuss 4y ago
    https://www.getmangos.eu/forums/topic/9974-how-did-the-dev-team-do-it/ https://www.getmangos.eu/forums/topic/9974-how-did-the-dev-t...
  - mdrzn 4y ago
    I've been following this community [0] which has unofficially relaunched a Korean online game which originally only lasted from 2003 to 2007 [1] and I played when I was a kid. It's amazing to be able to login into the same UI/UX and play the same game almost 15 years later. [0] https://www.spgenerations.com/ https://www.spgenerations.com/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_Project
- plastiquebeech 4y ago
  The publishers usually can't publish their games' source code, because of various library and middleware dependencies which are not free or open-source. Same issue with cheap IoT gizmos. Even if the retailers wanted to publish an implementation of their backend servers, they probably bought (rented) much of the functionality from a third party, under a license which forbids redistribution of the third party's IP.

turing_complete 4y ago

Unreal tournament 2003 is still online? Didn't expect that.

johnchristopher 4y ago

> Unreal Tournament 2004 Ow :(

infinitezest 4y ago

If I buy a game and a company effectively breaks it by turning off my ability to play it, is that not theft?

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
I don't think it would count as theft, but if the original advertising/product information included the online components as a feature, then they could be sued for that. I remember when Sony pulled the Linux support from PS3 as that was a similar situation although even more anti-consumer.
chess_buster 4y ago
If unlicensed copying is theft, than switching off a required server is murder, I guess.
- LightHugger 4y ago
  When do we get to put companies on trial for gameslaughter?
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Probably only after we elect Ross Scott for president.
wil421 4y ago
I guaranteed whatever license you never agreed to doesn’t actually say you bought the game. More like a license to play the game as long as parent company sees fit.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  I guarantee the marketing says "buy". In any case, you can't commit fraud in your marketing then 'correct' it in obscure clickwrap license terms.

ronjouch 4y ago

Mandatory link to the excellent "Dead Game News" series from Ross Scott: https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/dead-game-news https://www.accursedfarms.com/videos/dead-game-news Ross's exhaustive reporting & ideas on the topic are both grounded AND funny. For a TL;DR of the main ideas and potential legal paths, see his "'Games as a service' is fraud" video: https://www.accursedfarms.com/posts/other-videos/gaasfraud https://www.accursedfarms.com/posts/other-videos/gaasfraud

thinkmcfly 4y ago

It's not worth buying pc games if they have to launch through epic

2Pacalypse- 4y ago

While not that unexpected, I'm curious to see if this will start a trend that other game publishers might follow. I'm mainly curious about when Blizzard will deem the cost-benefit analysis to swing in favor of shutting down their old battle.net service which hosts games like StarCraft 1, Diablo 2, and WarCraft 3. For StarCraft 1 specifically (and its Remastered version), a few us have been building a custom server/launcher[0] which should at least ensure that the game/community doesn't completely die out. However, we still rely on Blizzard's online services to verify the in-game purchases, like HD graphics (the game will automatically stop rendering the HD graphics if you didn't log into Blizzard's services in the last 30 days). It remains to be seen how this will be handled by Blizzard if (when?) the time comes. [0] - https://github.com/ShieldBattery/ShieldBattery https://github.com/ShieldBattery/ShieldBattery

wil421 4y ago
Diablo 2 resurrected is supposed to use the old code with a “graphics” uplift. When it first hit they were having some battle.net issues, on the blog they spoke about dealing with legacy code and challenges. Hopefully, for D2 this means a lot longer life.
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>I'm mainly curious about when Blizzard will deem the cost-benefit analysis 3-6mos after the MS deals closes will be my prediction, or 2mos after the deal is blown up by the US Government and Activision starts massive cost-cutting
- t-sauer 4y ago
  This acquisition is such a hot topic, I doubt that Microsoft is going to do anything controversial in the first 2-3 years.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
>how this will be handled by Blizzard I'm going to guess 'in the most used hostile way possible'.

shanebellone 4y ago

I have an idea for "Sunset Matchmaking". The concept benefits companies by reducing their costs and benefits players by allowing them to find a game provided another person (somewhere in the world) wants to play too. I'm not convinced it would be a viable SaaS but might work as an opensource project.

BatteryMountain 4y ago

We need legislation/conventions/culture of opensourcing server software if a game/service is abandoned, to easily self-host or if a third party platform wants to take over stewardship of hosting a specific service. Just update a url in your game config to point to the new provider/server.

klntsky 4y ago
> legislation It's not even an option in most of the developed world, it's equivalent to property expropriation.
- Double_a_92 4y ago
  Just add a requirement to declare for how long the online part of the game will continue to work. With the loophole of it being "infinite" if you allow community servers.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Requiring open protocols and guaranteed interop are feasible though.
  - moonchild 4y ago
    Distributing implementations of closed protocols is speech. I don't see why such restrictions would be desirable. If you don't want to play games that use closed protocols, you're under no obligation to do so.
    - LadyCailin 4y ago
      This is an absurd stretch. The definition is already stretched too far without additional stretching.
- asddubs 4y ago
  you could probably require it to be included on sale, though.

fergie 4y ago

Its strange that Unreal Tournament was kind of abandoned by Epic. It was such a great game in every way- so far ahead of its time. Even today Unreal Engine is probably the best off the shelf 3D game engine available. I am surprised that they dont make more of the franchise. If they repackaged UT2004 with the new engine (UT2023) I would play the hell out of it.

williamscales 4y ago
Epic was working on a new UT which has been in early release. It's quite fun but I believe development stopped some time ago.
- billyjobob 4y ago
  It was killed due to the success of Fortnite.
  - t-sauer 4y ago
    That's just one side of the story. While the success of Fortnite definitely played a part of the cancellation, no one really cared about the Unreal Tournament reboot. It got no traction at all. The game was playable but had no players. And while there was a big interest of a small group, it got no interest outside of that group. I think that even if Fortnite wouldn't have been as big as it is, Unreal had no chance because the gaming demographic changed and there is no demand for a game like UT anymore.
    - tapoxi 4y ago
      Arena shooters in general are kind of a dead genre. Quake Champions, Diabolical, and a few others all collapsed. Even Halo Infinite couldn't sustain a player base.
      - thereddaikon 4y ago
        Halo Infinite died because Microsoft mismanaged it. They had huge player numbers at launch but they failed to keep the content going and people moved on. They couldn't even manage a tie in with the stupid halo show when it launched.

lakomen 4y ago

I don't see epic being a better alternative to Steam. Steam sucks, is anti consumer but Epic is even worse. They don't even allow communication or rating. Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned? And their constant pushing that I should install and run their service all the time, even try to trick me into installing it is also very suspicious. I will not run some game selling platform's service in the background all the time, even if it's just on a gaming machine. Bad enough my graphics drivers run harmful spyware in the background (nvidia). Then their return policy is the same as Valve's 2h and I have to waive my 14 day right of withdrawal from the purchase. Replace shit with more smelly shit.

t3rabytes 4y ago
Tencent has a minority stake, Tim Sweeney is still majority shareholder.
est 4y ago
> Isn't Epic also mayorly Chinese owned? By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned.
- Quikinterp 4y ago
  Tencent is Chinese and has its hq in China.
- imchillyb 4y ago
  > By Chinese you mean Tencent? Tencent is south-african owned. @est > Founded in 1998 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China,... > ...Tencent has been listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 2004. > https://www.tencent.com/en-us/about.html#about-con-1 https://www.tencent.com/en-us/about.html#about-con-1
  - est 4y ago
    Since we are talking about how Epic was invested by Tencent, the same rule applies here: https://www.ft.com/content/1270c7e4-95e4-406f-b712-c3234152437f https://www.ft.com/content/1270c7e4-95e4-406f-b712-c32341524... South African internet group Naspers, Tencent’s biggest shareholder

richardjam73 4y ago

The address for the master server in UT2004 is set in the ut2004.ini file and can be replaced. http://beta.openspy.net/en/howto/ut2k-engine/ut2004 http://beta.openspy.net/en/howto/ut2k-engine/ut2004 OpenSpy has similar options for the other Unreal games. Some require patching. Their code is open source and on Github. https://github.com/chc/openspy-core-v2 https://github.com/chc/openspy-core-v2 The latest Unreal Tournament will soon be gone however, it may never return as it was never finished.

shapefrog 4y ago

If I buy (licence) a game from epic that requires servers they maintain to function ... so they have to give me back the money now that they have rendered the game non-functional?

ohyes 4y ago
You don’t have a perpetual license, so no.
- thih9 4y ago
  Is there any minimal duration requirement? Or is the developer allowed to publish the game and shut down the servers, say, a month later?
- bakugo 4y ago
  If you bought the game, and the seller didn't make it exceedingly clear that you were renting instead of buying, then yes, you do own a perpetual license. Just because the developers write "actually you didn't buy it even though we said you did, tough shit" in the EULA doesn't make it true.

CivBase 4y ago

Man, I bought a dozen songs for Rock Band just a year ago because I brought it out to play with friends. Guess I'll never get to play those again :/ I know it's not reasonable to expect companies to keep their online infrastructure up forever, but I wonder what the actual operating costs of most of these servers are. I can't imagine most of them are operating at a scale much larger than my personal home server at this point.

neilv 4y ago

I don't care about Epic specifically, but I do care about some other games that have been made dependent on central servers. I don't want to the publishers of those other games seeing Epic get away with this, and thinking that they too can shut down necessary central servers. How costly does the expected legal and PR fallout have to be, that publishers won't try to do this?

tiahura 4y ago

I remember when Unreal 1 out. Network play sucked - contrary to what they had been hyping. Mark Rein did a chat event ( was it planetunreal?) and I asked him to promise that Epic would fix it and not roll the fixes into a new game. About 2 months later Unreal Tournament was announced. Full circle.

FredPret 4y ago

Years ago I bought a great new PC. “But does it play Crysis” I thought. So I bought Crysis 1 on Steam on a big special, daydreaming about finally maxing out those settings. Turns out it doesn’t play Crysis, because there’s some mandatory anti cheating thing that phones home, but that company no longer exists.

AustinDev 4y ago
This is why I'll never be against piracy especially in gaming. I personally buy all the games I play but, I've run into situations similar to the one you just described with Crysis 1.

drvdevd 4y ago

In the cloud era, why not spin these servers up on-demand?

oblio 4y ago
Because you still need a human to take care of operational stuff.

ChoGGi 4y ago

And there goes unreal master servers

DocTomoe 4y ago

And this, kids, is why you don't buy anything that has been touched by Epic.

dawnerd 4y ago

I wish we had some kind of regulation that required companies to release something to keep old games up even if it's just technical details if someone wanted to create their own.

falcolas 4y ago

Tough love time. If you buy a game that depends on someone else's servers in any fashion (even just a server browser), you are accepting that it will be shut down at some point. This has been shown to be the operating model of modern games for over a decade now. Even if it costs a penny to keep running, they will eventually shut it down. The outliers - those who will keep them up - are exactly that: outliers. I wish it were otherwise, but this is a purely capitalistic move that will never get enough support to be regulated; and so it will never change.

Blackthorn 4y ago

Oh FFS! How much does it really cost them to keep the Unreal Tournament servers running?

danielodievich 4y ago

Back in 2015 when I was at AppDynamics, we sold a bunch of APM into Xbox. The Autopilot-based IaaS there (NOT Azure), their own web server (NOT IIS) and a huge mess of interconnected services proved to be a really steep climb for us but we sure had fun. One of the use cases that we explored was how to enable the minimum level of care and feeding for all the services for the games that are still out but no longer hot, like something that's 5, 10, 15 years old. Nobody there wanted to touch those AT ALL, but it had to be maintained for contractual reasons. Operating in this proverbially dusty and cobwebbed areas of the code was very interesting. You had to move really carefully to not disturb anything, because often there was no original engineers left anymore who could fix things if they broke. So I am not surprised that Epic turns old stuff.

AndrewOMartin 4y ago

FTA: The following titles will have all online services disabled on January 24, after which players can continue playing single or local multiplayer modes offline: - 1000 Tiny Claws - Dance Central 1-3 (Note: Dance Central VR online multiplayer will remain available) - Green Day: Rock Band - Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess - Rock Band 1-3 (Note: Rock Band 4 online multiplayer will remain available) - The Beatles: Rock Band - Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars - Unreal Gold - Unreal II: The Awakening - Unreal Tournament 2003 - Unreal Tournament 2004 - Unreal Tournament 3 (Note: We have plans to bring back online features via Epic Online Services in the future.) - Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition

nhunter 4y ago

This was a regular practice when I worked on services at EA. Old games had online components shut down or de-registered. The utilization of the game was always a factor, but games that were 2-3 years old, particularly in sports, got discontinued regularly - with player communication involved.

footlose_3815 4y ago

[dead]

deafpolygon 4y ago

Sad. First they kill the new Unreal Tournament. Now they're killing off the rest of it. Unreal Gold Unreal II: The Awakening Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal Tournament 2004 Unreal Tournament 3 Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition