27 ms·

The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

803 points by OlivierLi 12y ago

iagooar 12y ago
This is epic stuff.
cpeterso 12y ago
What codebase are they starting with? How long will it take to develop a tournament quality game? The announcement says a "small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today" and that a playable version won't be available for "many months".
gtaylor 12y ago
Not only is this a really awesome thing for Epic to do, it could have much further-reaching consequences than UT if it's successful. At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry. Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fun.
- blakerson 12y ago
  A few fun ways this also looks like turn-of-the-century FPS world: -We could see an FPS rise in eSports prominence again -Mods built on top of one game create tons of variety accessible to one player base -Mod developers have an easy way to become recognized game developers Also, not related to the old Quake / UT / Half-Life scenes, but the marketplace for assets will be on top of a game that isn't Team Fortress 2, so there's much more creative latitude once mods are released (disclaimer: I love TF2).
  - nadagast 12y ago
    I'd love to see FPS rise in eSports again. Here's to hoping this new game has some advanced movement techniques (bhop!).
  - neohaven 12y ago
    I love the movement mechanics of previous UT games, between always-run, dodging (doubletap a direction), double-jumping, and walljumping (jumptowards a wall, doubletap opposite direction), it was a rather entertaining game to play. Add to that the completely crazy weapons by today's FPS standards, and you have something I haven't seen in a long while. I wish it would come back. If it has that, that game has a player.
    - blakerson 12y ago
      I bet it will. The open-source competitive shooters I can think of (Warsaw, Quake3's Challenge Pro Mode mod [in the sense that it was designed by community]) all had interesting and complex movement schemes. And since we now have Github, all that awesomeness is just a pull request away...
      - Crito 12y ago
        There was even a Quake mod called "Defrag" which "de-fragged" the game (removed the killing), making it soley focused on movement. Really neat stuff; hard as hell but really rewarding when you start to get the hang of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBs_lslyuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBs_lslyuY
        zobzu 12y ago
        defrag is "just maps", the physics were essentially CQ3 (standard Q3 really) or CPM (challenge pro mode) ie most of the amazing stuff is done with something close to original q3 physics (1999 and earlier for beta players) Turns out q3 physics and netcode are still among the best there is today for FPS with low player count
        ashashwat 12y ago
        I tried and gave up. Fragging is easier than controlling the motions. I was not even able to master strafing in-spite of seeing lot of youtube videos.
        12y ago
  - TheCapn 12y ago
    >We could see an FPS rise in eSports prominence again Arguably CS:GO has been picking up steam lately hitting the #2 spot on Twitch.tv fairly constantly and spiking greatly during big tournaments. This announcement couldn't have come at a better time as FPS is once again gaining competitive traction.
    - fokasu 12y ago
      And on top of that CoD is going to be at the xgames. Not sure how that will be seen but eSports is getting more and more recognition
    - sjtrny 12y ago
      CS:GO is definitely the biggest FPS in eSport right now. Unlike CoD and Halo, the player base has been steadily increasing.
    - mkal_tsr 12y ago
      Maybe this will finally push Valve to upgrade to 128 tick competitive servers if they wish to grow CS:GO quicker. Think about it ... we're getting open-source game engines with streaming and competitive scenes reigniting, this is awesome.
  - sleepybrett 12y ago
    Halo(still) and Call of Duty have huge eSports prominence
    - cockasaurus 12y ago
      kill yourself
    - corin_ 12y ago
      I wouldn't call Halo 'huge', and it's extremely US-based, CoD on the other hand is doing pretty well (in terms of esports) outside America as well.
  - YourCupOTea 12y ago
    We are already seeing an FPS rise in eSports again. CS:GO has held 2 $250,000 prize pool tournaments in the last 6 months. It's the second most played game on steam with daily peaks over 150,000 players.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  They said "free" but not necessarily "free/open-source"... they might just mean they won't be doing an e-shop in game.
  - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
    You're right, it's gratis. I highly doubt it'll satisfy the definition of free/open source software, as it'll (understandably) lack redistribution rights. It's still a highly daring development model, all things considered. The concept itself is hardly new, but it's the first time an AAA developer has adopted it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
    - danudey 12y ago
      It also won't satisfy the definition of free/open source software in that the source code likely won't be available under an open-source license (though they're using GitHub, so maybe). They didn't say word one about the code being open; just the development process and the progress they're making.
      - eyko 12y ago
        > All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
        krisdol 12y ago
        On a private repository with a non-OSS-Compatible EULA
  - jholman 12y ago
    In fact, their FAQ says that the UE4 code will be incompatible with free licenses, in particular GPL and CC. https://www.unrealengine.com/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/faq , Ctrl-F for "copyleft".
  - wfjackson 12y ago
    Even ignoring the e-shop, AFAIK, you need the Unreal Engine to build the source and it's Open Source but not exactly free/Free. Previous discussion on Unreal Engine 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7429774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7429774
- kevando 12y ago
  If rockstar does this with GTA, I would be so happy.
  - lucb1e 12y ago
    If any big company did this with their games, I would be happy too. Competitive and cross-platform are features few big games have these days.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Wow, that is a pretty awesome plan. I can really see it paying off hugely for everyone involved. Now you can be part of a game development team without having a task master forcing to work 80 hour weeks, and yet you can still be part of it from the beginning to end. I wish Blizzard would do this for the WoW engine.
- Tyrant505 12y ago
  They're still milking it though.. :( Remember UO shards? I don't remember origin taking them too kindly.
  - nrb 12y ago
    Actually, OWO/EA mostly ignored them. Blizzard, however, has been vicious in their legal response to third-party hosted servers.
- danvayn 12y ago
  Yeah, but the repo is private -- the nice thing about being active on github when you aren't getting paid is that others can see what you've been committing to publicly and it looks great on a resume.
Xdes 12y ago
I'm waiting for the Github repo. I will definitely track the code. My only wish is that Github had digests instead of email for every issue.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  I think you can already get to it once you get a UE4 subscription going. https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github
dyeje 12y ago
Loving the recent moves by Epic. Very interesting stuff.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
baddox 12y ago
> When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free. > We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game. What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? To my understanding, "free to play" means the game is largely free, but with the implication that there is additional content that can optionally be purchased. "Free" means the game is free, with no implication either way of whether optional purchases exist.
- Joona 12y ago
  I think they mean that there won't be "pay-to-win" content.
  - DatBear 12y ago
    That seems like it would be hard to enforce with an open modding system...
    - wlesieutre 12y ago
      If it's like previous UTs, you don't get to bring your own mods into somebody else's game. Each game is played with a particular set of mods (set by the host), and they apply equally to everyone.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  I think this distinction will be largely moved along by the people who contribute to their eventual content marketplace. If there's a ton of interest in commercial mods, then you'll see non-free mods, though the base game itself will be free. It's very hard to predict how this will shake out right now, though.
- acegopher 12y ago
  >What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? I think the distinction is that Android Platform is "free". The Unreal Tournament Platform is "free". Both give you usable functionality out of the box, and free. Both give you the opportunity to purchase additional functionality in a "store". "Free to play" generally means the developer will add more content, or cheats, or whatever to purchase, whereas "free" in this case means they will offer a platform and a store where they will take a cut.
pault 12y ago
This will be very interesting to watch. I think I spent more time playing with skyrim mods from steam than playing the original game, which was a new experience for me, since using fan-made game mods was usually more trouble than it was worth in the past. A streamlined "app store" experience can add years of life to a game, and with the massive investments required for AAA titles these days, that has to be good for the publishers, as long as they can capture some of the revenue. It also provides a low friction platform for new game developers and artists to get their content in front of a lot of people who may not be part of the indie/casual game demographic. I really hope this model catches on, it would be a win for everybody.
- mattmanser 12y ago
  Bathesda games have been mod friendly for years now. In fact mods used to be the norm. I played more nodded Quake 2 15 years ago than I did Quake 2. And selling them is not particularly new, Valve experimented with it back with CS1.6 and all those other mods that came out in the pack.
  - jonespen 12y ago
    Ah, the days of Action Quake 2. Strife jumping and writing configs where as big part of the game as the rounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOnty5VKHs#t=18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOnty5VKHs#t=18
- orng 12y ago
  After finishing the Warcraft III single-player campaign I played 2 vanilla online games before discovering the tower defense "mods"/maps in the custom ladder. For 3-4 years the only game I played was various custom maps in Warcraft 3. It certainly added years of gameplay to the game. It even gave birth to an entire new genre with DOTA. I'm very exited to see what this will bring us, although I don't know what I think about the idea of payed mods...
  - cockasaurus 12y ago
    it gave birth to the entirely new genre of league of legends
cantbecool 12y ago
Epic wants to emulate the success of Steam's community marketplace, especially CS:GO portion (some items are fetching north of $400+ dollars).
- johnward 12y ago
  Please don't tell me these are $400 hats like TF2
  - moshR 12y ago
    Fortunately there aren't any hats in CS:GO. The sought after items are rare weapon skins, especially those for knives. http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=appid%3A730#p1_price_desc http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=appid%3A730#p1_pri...
  - KnightHawk3 12y ago
    They are only worth that much because people pay that much for them, valve only prices hats (that you can buy) at like $5 It's not really their fault people want to pay $400 for a hat.
jiggy2011 12y ago
It's not clear whether this will eventually be licensed under an open source license. Since it doesn't look like they're planning to monetize the game directly then it might seem to make sense to do so.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  It drives up subscriptions to Unreal Engine 4, so that's probably the primary monetization strategy. They won't make any money from players until the content marketplace opens, but this could do a lot to drive people to use and learn UE4. It's a potentially smart business move, will be interesting to see how it works out for them.
  - antjanus 12y ago
    Right, it's like an extended tutorial/PR campaign for people to start using UE4. That's the core of the initiative it seems.
  - zanny 12y ago
    But then this isn't free or open at all. And them saying it is is a disservice to real open game projects like Xonotic.
    - cwyers 12y ago
      Well, they say development will be "in the open" and that "[w]hen the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free." So they use the words "free" and "open," but they don't say anything like "free software" or "open source." Even someone like Stallman acknowledges that this is a legitimate use of the word free (although the terms "gratis" or "free as in beer" are less potentially ambiguous).
  - lucb1e 12y ago
    > It's a potentially smart business move Yet without it being a dick move. Even if it's good for them, it's also good for us :)
wnevets 12y ago
Pretty cool idea, too bad I was never a big fan of UT.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
This is awesome. I haven't played it in years but UT was one of my favourite games when I was younger. They had a pretty cool level editor I used to spend a lot of time playing with.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  If you want to check out their current editor, $20/month gets you access to the editor and the full C++ source for the engine. You can even cancel the subscription and keep using it if you don't need updates. I doubt it'll be included with the new UT (since that's going to be free), but it's a pretty impressive toolset.
ignostic 12y ago
This is amazing! I remember playing mods like Team Fortress on Quake - things people made just because they enjoyed it. The problem with mods lately is that it takes really passionate people to support them for free, and they're either hard to monetize or monetization isn't even an option (SC). There's still plenty of great UGC, but it's generally not commercial grade - time investment is high, and financial reward is 0. This model is brilliant!! It could keep people playing for years just by trying out new mods, new content, and more. Really excited to see what happens.
goeric 12y ago
This is a brilliant plan and an amazing move by Epic. It'll be great to see this play out.
moshR 12y ago
This announcement just sold me on an Unreal Engine 4 subscription[1] if for nothing else than to obtain access to early Unreal Tournament builds. Unreal Tournament is one of my favorite video game series, and I love that it is possible that I will be able to contribute to the development of the latest installment. [1] https://www.unrealengine.com/register https://www.unrealengine.com/register
wj 12y ago
I wonder if this plus Oculus will result in a universe like what was described in the novel Ready Player One?
- sixQuarks 12y ago
  Epic Games could potentially corner a portion of the VR market. The VR market may explode bigger than the internet. I wish Epic Games was publicly traded, I would definitely buy the stock.
- drawkbox 12y ago
  Dust up your Joust skills. Oculus mixed with a social world does match up with the OASIS in Ready Player One possibly.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Facebook has its own plans with Oculus, such as turning it into another Second Life-style social network. http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-build-a-billion-person-mmo-with-facebook http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-bui...
  - wwwtyro 12y ago
    It is hardware - we can do as we please with it, we're not limited to Facebook's software.
    - joshuapants 12y ago
      The iPhone is hardware - we can do as we please with it, we're not limited to Apple's software. Seriously, what fantasy universe are you living in where all hardware is open and easily used for whatever you want?
      - wwwtyro 12y ago
        Cydia.
- 12y ago
pachydermic 12y ago
Holy shit this is awesome I wonder what the license is?
- dublinben 12y ago
  Probably all rights reserved. I would be shocked if the code and art resources are released under free licenses.
johnward 12y ago
Hats. We're going to monetize it with hats.
- astrodust 12y ago
  Free hats, apparently. What are they thinking!?
nixpulvis 12y ago
This is the future of game development. I have been saying this for a while to friends. I'm excited to see how this goes.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Do you suggest that every company will either be building its own moddable game + engine + mod store or being reduced to a mod-builder?
drawkbox 12y ago
Epic has completely changed this year and doing amazing things like this and the $19 engine access. Living up to their name. Looks like they are doing the Team Fortress 2 free to play model, even though they say it is free and not free to play, the vanity store/content is the Valve F2P model used in TF2, DotA, probably CS etc. These games are huge because of the community content, Epic is seeing that. This is such a cool thing to do and only wish they did it many years ago.
- leoc 12y ago
  Yup, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive now has blinged-out weapon skins for your Ts and operators.
ww520 12y ago
Glad to see they are building on the brand. UT is the game I play for the longest time. Still playing UT 1999.
JohnTHaller 12y ago
While folks are building these new mods and such, don't forget to look back to existing UT properties for ideas. Unreal 2 XMP is still one of the best team-based FPS setups I've seen. Sadly, it never recovered after they shut down the directory servers to try to force everyone to switch to Unreal 3.
Pxtl 12y ago
It will be tricky to incorporate the fanbase because there's a huge split in UT fans about the high-speed pace of UT2k4 vs. the slower, spammier gameplay of classic UT. UT3 attempted to split the difference and was universally reviled. Still, this is super-exciting and I hope the best for them. The classic FPS genre has needed this for years.
- rm999 12y ago
  UT3 was reviled because it was designed for both consoles and PCs, so everything was a compromise - sort of the windows 8 of the UT series. I know what you mean about the split, but as someone who loves both series I think either way will lead to a great game. I personally think the faster-style would be more successful because the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style.
  - ak217 12y ago
    >the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style. It's interesting that you say that, because I think the biggest achievement of UT to date is the Onslaught mode, which fluidly mixed strategic and tactical, vehicular and on-foot gameplay. And as onslaught showed (on some maps - not all), you don't have to sacrifice speed or pace of close-in combat to enable strategic gameplay of CTF/ONS type.
    - BystanderX 12y ago
      Yeah, onslaught isn't something I see talked about much anywhere else and was loads of fun.
    - Pxtl 12y ago
      It's too bad they ruined the ONS mode in UT3 with the overcomplicated warfare mode. ONS didn't need switches and that ball thing and whatnot.
- bobbles 12y ago
  Personally I hope they built towards UT99 and modders make a 'UT2K4' edition.
josephschmoe 12y ago
It's like the Dota 2 model but open source. I like it.
- binarycrusader 12y ago
  It's not open source; it's subscription-only source. Please don't start that rumour.
  - josephschmoe 12y ago
    Ah, I see.
martindale 12y ago
Free as in freedom (libertas), or free as in free beer (gratis)?
- davexunit 12y ago
  Free as in beer. The Unreal engine is proprietary software, and this new UT game will be, too. Epic is using the word "open" and hosting the source code on GitHub, but it's still proprietary (freedom denying) software.
err4nt 12y ago
I signed up. I can't wait to be part of this and I can't believe I'm only the 35th person to fork the repo!
whywhywhy5 12y ago
I really like this completely transparent approach. They should totally stream coding sessions too.
kelvin0 12y ago
Can`t wait to get back into frenzied ESR deathmatches, or full auto sniper rifle mods ... good times
deleted 12y ago
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elwell 12y ago
Would be cool to see live streams of dev screens throughout the project on Twitch.tv. I always find it interesting to watch someone else code without preparation and not "for show".
X4 12y ago
YESS, Finally, Thank You EPIC! This is my most loved favourite Game, yeahhh! This is so awesome, I'm gonna buy a new PC and smash Gentoo, or NixOS onto it! Hope I find out which Graphics-card and which Mainboard is supported well enough to play the game at max resolution.
winslow 12y ago
I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Valve lately. Epic and Crytek have both released their engines for absurdly cheap rates and been gathering a lot of steam around their platforms. Valve is known for their community interaction and marketplace but haven't released their plans for Source 2 etc. Any ideas? That said, this is an awesome move by Epic!
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Source 2: free and open source! Wouldn't that be a great move? Not sure how they would make the money on it then, but I think it would quickly beat most other engines out there in popularity. I don't know if that's Valve even wants, but it could be if say that would get most game developers out there to create OpenGL/Linux-compatible games by default, and since Source 2 will only support OpenGL (I think), that could be one way to do it.
  - winslow 12y ago
    Valve has stated they want to bring the community closer together for buying/selling/trading of goods. I would expect they would make their money that way. I doubt they would dump DirectX completely. They've reworked the engine for linux to not care if it's running DirectX or OpenGL. Leaving this intact could provide a way to eventually port to Android/iOS and other mobile platforms? Valve has stated they want to get into the mobile space but have seemed to fail thus far. I recall them mentioning Linux was a natural step to go from Win Desktop -> Mac -> Linux to Mobile running Linux (Android)
    - cwyers 12y ago
      At least one Valve game will be running on Android soon, Portal is coming for the Nvidia Shield in the next few days: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5695340/portal-nvidia-shield-release-date http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5695340/portal-nvidia-shield... It looks like Nvidia is handling the port themselves, though, so who knows what that means for other Valve titles. EDIT: Well, apparently Half-Life 2 is getting ported next. So Valve games are coming to Android, although only for Nvidia Shield users so far. http://www.androidcentral.com/half-life-2-coming-nvidia-shield http://www.androidcentral.com/half-life-2-coming-nvidia-shie...
panzi 12y ago
Nice, but I don't want another UT, I want another Unreal. A true successor to Unreal 1. I did not like Unreal 2, I did not like the characters of it at all. I kinda like a silent protagonist, because it solves the "I don't want to play as that douche" problem.
- Fasebook 12y ago
  I wouldn't hold your breath. I do miss that Unreal discovery feel though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unreal_Engine_4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unr...
cockasaurus 12y ago
quake was better
deleted 12y ago
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roberthahn 12y ago
Interesting. I wonder if Epic is also looking at this as an opportunity to cultivate, then hire, fresh talent. To be blunt, if you always wanted to break into the game industry, this couldn't be a better opportunity for you to pick up related experience and build relationships with potential employers.
lupinglade 12y ago
Finally. Been waiting for this forever!
tfb 12y ago
Whatever assets Epic releases, we're aiming to adjust them to match UT99 as closely as possible over at www.uTournament.net. We're also going to integrate the game into the web browser!
Rapzid 12y ago
This is the only on-line game that I played at a seriously high level(ut2k4). It pretty much burned me out on multi-player games but... Dare I ask; will there be TAM? I never really experienced the "dance" of ut2k4 in any other game. Spiritually it could be compared to guntana I suppose. Once you get the muscle memory down it's a complete mind game. 100+bpm mind game. How I miss it :|
nelmaven 12y ago
I love the original game and love that Epic is doing this! It's going to be great! :D
archagon 12y ago
It slightly concerns me that "the community" is going to have a direct say in UT4's development. First, many developers and pundits have said that whenever a community starts to dictate the course of a game, things often go south, since the most vocal members of a community very often don't represent the majority of the playerbase. (I believe TotalBiscuit has pointed to WoW as a great example of this, though I haven't played it myself.) Secondly, I love UT and I've been playing it from the start, but I'm not a hardcore arena shooter player. Advanced techniques like bunny-hopping, strafe-running, and all the crazy stunts described in this thread simply don't interest me. As far as I'm concerned, many of them are glorified bugs and should either be removed entirely, or alternatively made more accessible for new players through tutorials and/or better in-game feedback. (See: skiing in the new Tribes, rocket jumping in TF2, combos in fighting games.) But I reckon that most of the people interested in the project at this early stage are exactly those kinds of advanced players. As a result, I fear that we'll get a game that's too obtuse for the "filthy casuals" (such as myself) who will be required to keep it active in the long run. Contrary to the current zeitgeist, I don't believe it's enough to balance a game around the competitive community in order to make it fun for everyone. Competitive gamers are a niche; people like me, who play for fun with a few friends over a couple of beers, are the mass market. With that said, I'm really happy to see that there's going to be a UT4, and I'm looking forward to following the development. It's been a while since the last great arena shooter, and I hope we'll be seeing a resurgence sometime soon!
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  If it was anything but Unreal Tournament I'd agree. Communities can devolve into anarchy, with every new feature being a super feature, then a super-duper feature, and so on. But UT is pretty much anarchy anyway. That's the appeal - a great big shootout with low latency and amazing ridiculous weapons!
- pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
  Fuck appealing to the mass market, that's been the downfall of almost every good game.
mangeletti 12y ago
Epic's model is already so cool, "Here, take our billion dollar tool and make something awesome with it. If it's a success, we'll take a small cut. If not, no sweat.", and now this! I can't even wait. I've waited so long for the next Unreal Tournament... I hope Epic makes billions off of UE4.
amalag 12y ago
I love free, but the problem is that free games get a lot of hackers.
- tgb 12y ago
  In my limited experience that's because free games don't have the resources to combat hackers. Epic and UT might be different. Does world of tanks have a hacker problem?
adem 12y ago
I wonder if one could learn how to program games in C++ by following the progress from the very beginning and persistently try to understand every line.

803 points by OlivierLi 12y ago

This is epic stuff.

What codebase are they starting with? How long will it take to develop a tournament quality game? The announcement says a "small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today" and that a playable version won't be available for "many months".

gtaylor 12y ago

Not only is this a really awesome thing for Epic to do, it could have much further-reaching consequences than UT if it's successful. At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry. Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fun.

blakerson 12y ago
A few fun ways this also looks like turn-of-the-century FPS world: -We could see an FPS rise in eSports prominence again -Mods built on top of one game create tons of variety accessible to one player base -Mod developers have an easy way to become recognized game developers Also, not related to the old Quake / UT / Half-Life scenes, but the marketplace for assets will be on top of a game that isn't Team Fortress 2, so there's much more creative latitude once mods are released (disclaimer: I love TF2).
- nadagast 12y ago
  I'd love to see FPS rise in eSports again. Here's to hoping this new game has some advanced movement techniques (bhop!).
- neohaven 12y ago
  I love the movement mechanics of previous UT games, between always-run, dodging (doubletap a direction), double-jumping, and walljumping (jumptowards a wall, doubletap opposite direction), it was a rather entertaining game to play. Add to that the completely crazy weapons by today's FPS standards, and you have something I haven't seen in a long while. I wish it would come back. If it has that, that game has a player.
  - blakerson 12y ago
    I bet it will. The open-source competitive shooters I can think of (Warsaw, Quake3's Challenge Pro Mode mod [in the sense that it was designed by community]) all had interesting and complex movement schemes. And since we now have Github, all that awesomeness is just a pull request away...
    - Crito 12y ago
      There was even a Quake mod called "Defrag" which "de-fragged" the game (removed the killing), making it soley focused on movement. Really neat stuff; hard as hell but really rewarding when you start to get the hang of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBs_lslyuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBs_lslyuY
      - zobzu 12y ago
        defrag is "just maps", the physics were essentially CQ3 (standard Q3 really) or CPM (challenge pro mode) ie most of the amazing stuff is done with something close to original q3 physics (1999 and earlier for beta players) Turns out q3 physics and netcode are still among the best there is today for FPS with low player count
      - ashashwat 12y ago
        I tried and gave up. Fragging is easier than controlling the motions. I was not even able to master strafing in-spite of seeing lot of youtube videos.
        12y ago
- TheCapn 12y ago
  >We could see an FPS rise in eSports prominence again Arguably CS:GO has been picking up steam lately hitting the #2 spot on Twitch.tv fairly constantly and spiking greatly during big tournaments. This announcement couldn't have come at a better time as FPS is once again gaining competitive traction.
  - fokasu 12y ago
    And on top of that CoD is going to be at the xgames. Not sure how that will be seen but eSports is getting more and more recognition
  - sjtrny 12y ago
    CS:GO is definitely the biggest FPS in eSport right now. Unlike CoD and Halo, the player base has been steadily increasing.
  - mkal_tsr 12y ago
    Maybe this will finally push Valve to upgrade to 128 tick competitive servers if they wish to grow CS:GO quicker. Think about it ... we're getting open-source game engines with streaming and competitive scenes reigniting, this is awesome.
- sleepybrett 12y ago
  Halo(still) and Call of Duty have huge eSports prominence
  - cockasaurus 12y ago
    kill yourself
  - corin_ 12y ago
    I wouldn't call Halo 'huge', and it's extremely US-based, CoD on the other hand is doing pretty well (in terms of esports) outside America as well.
- YourCupOTea 12y ago
  We are already seeing an FPS rise in eSports again. CS:GO has held 2 $250,000 prize pool tournaments in the last 6 months. It's the second most played game on steam with daily peaks over 150,000 players.
Pxtl 12y ago
They said "free" but not necessarily "free/open-source"... they might just mean they won't be doing an e-shop in game.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  You're right, it's gratis. I highly doubt it'll satisfy the definition of free/open source software, as it'll (understandably) lack redistribution rights. It's still a highly daring development model, all things considered. The concept itself is hardly new, but it's the first time an AAA developer has adopted it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
  - danudey 12y ago
    It also won't satisfy the definition of free/open source software in that the source code likely won't be available under an open-source license (though they're using GitHub, so maybe). They didn't say word one about the code being open; just the development process and the progress they're making.
    - eyko 12y ago
      > All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
      - krisdol 12y ago
        On a private repository with a non-OSS-Compatible EULA
- jholman 12y ago
  In fact, their FAQ says that the UE4 code will be incompatible with free licenses, in particular GPL and CC. https://www.unrealengine.com/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/faq , Ctrl-F for "copyleft".
- wfjackson 12y ago
  Even ignoring the e-shop, AFAIK, you need the Unreal Engine to build the source and it's Open Source but not exactly free/Free. Previous discussion on Unreal Engine 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7429774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7429774
kevando 12y ago
If rockstar does this with GTA, I would be so happy.
- lucb1e 12y ago
  If any big company did this with their games, I would be happy too. Competitive and cross-platform are features few big games have these days.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Wow, that is a pretty awesome plan. I can really see it paying off hugely for everyone involved. Now you can be part of a game development team without having a task master forcing to work 80 hour weeks, and yet you can still be part of it from the beginning to end. I wish Blizzard would do this for the WoW engine.

Tyrant505 12y ago
They're still milking it though.. :( Remember UO shards? I don't remember origin taking them too kindly.
- nrb 12y ago
  Actually, OWO/EA mostly ignored them. Blizzard, however, has been vicious in their legal response to third-party hosted servers.
danvayn 12y ago
Yeah, but the repo is private -- the nice thing about being active on github when you aren't getting paid is that others can see what you've been committing to publicly and it looks great on a resume.

Xdes 12y ago

I'm waiting for the Github repo. I will definitely track the code. My only wish is that Github had digests instead of email for every issue.

gtaylor 12y ago
I think you can already get to it once you get a UE4 subscription going. https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github

dyeje 12y ago

Loving the recent moves by Epic. Very interesting stuff.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

baddox 12y ago

> When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free. > We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game. What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? To my understanding, "free to play" means the game is largely free, but with the implication that there is additional content that can optionally be purchased. "Free" means the game is free, with no implication either way of whether optional purchases exist.

Joona 12y ago
I think they mean that there won't be "pay-to-win" content.
- DatBear 12y ago
  That seems like it would be hard to enforce with an open modding system...
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    If it's like previous UTs, you don't get to bring your own mods into somebody else's game. Each game is played with a particular set of mods (set by the host), and they apply equally to everyone.
gtaylor 12y ago
I think this distinction will be largely moved along by the people who contribute to their eventual content marketplace. If there's a ton of interest in commercial mods, then you'll see non-free mods, though the base game itself will be free. It's very hard to predict how this will shake out right now, though.
acegopher 12y ago
>What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? I think the distinction is that Android Platform is "free". The Unreal Tournament Platform is "free". Both give you usable functionality out of the box, and free. Both give you the opportunity to purchase additional functionality in a "store". "Free to play" generally means the developer will add more content, or cheats, or whatever to purchase, whereas "free" in this case means they will offer a platform and a store where they will take a cut.

pault 12y ago

This will be very interesting to watch. I think I spent more time playing with skyrim mods from steam than playing the original game, which was a new experience for me, since using fan-made game mods was usually more trouble than it was worth in the past. A streamlined "app store" experience can add years of life to a game, and with the massive investments required for AAA titles these days, that has to be good for the publishers, as long as they can capture some of the revenue. It also provides a low friction platform for new game developers and artists to get their content in front of a lot of people who may not be part of the indie/casual game demographic. I really hope this model catches on, it would be a win for everybody.

mattmanser 12y ago
Bathesda games have been mod friendly for years now. In fact mods used to be the norm. I played more nodded Quake 2 15 years ago than I did Quake 2. And selling them is not particularly new, Valve experimented with it back with CS1.6 and all those other mods that came out in the pack.
- jonespen 12y ago
  Ah, the days of Action Quake 2. Strife jumping and writing configs where as big part of the game as the rounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOnty5VKHs#t=18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqOnty5VKHs#t=18
orng 12y ago
After finishing the Warcraft III single-player campaign I played 2 vanilla online games before discovering the tower defense "mods"/maps in the custom ladder. For 3-4 years the only game I played was various custom maps in Warcraft 3. It certainly added years of gameplay to the game. It even gave birth to an entire new genre with DOTA. I'm very exited to see what this will bring us, although I don't know what I think about the idea of payed mods...
- cockasaurus 12y ago
  it gave birth to the entirely new genre of league of legends

cantbecool 12y ago

Epic wants to emulate the success of Steam's community marketplace, especially CS:GO portion (some items are fetching north of $400+ dollars).

johnward 12y ago
Please don't tell me these are $400 hats like TF2
- moshR 12y ago
  Fortunately there aren't any hats in CS:GO. The sought after items are rare weapon skins, especially those for knives. http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=appid%3A730#p1_price_desc http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=appid%3A730#p1_pri...
- KnightHawk3 12y ago
  They are only worth that much because people pay that much for them, valve only prices hats (that you can buy) at like $5 It's not really their fault people want to pay $400 for a hat.

jiggy2011 12y ago

It's not clear whether this will eventually be licensed under an open source license. Since it doesn't look like they're planning to monetize the game directly then it might seem to make sense to do so.

gtaylor 12y ago
It drives up subscriptions to Unreal Engine 4, so that's probably the primary monetization strategy. They won't make any money from players until the content marketplace opens, but this could do a lot to drive people to use and learn UE4. It's a potentially smart business move, will be interesting to see how it works out for them.
- antjanus 12y ago
  Right, it's like an extended tutorial/PR campaign for people to start using UE4. That's the core of the initiative it seems.
- zanny 12y ago
  But then this isn't free or open at all. And them saying it is is a disservice to real open game projects like Xonotic.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    Well, they say development will be "in the open" and that "[w]hen the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free." So they use the words "free" and "open," but they don't say anything like "free software" or "open source." Even someone like Stallman acknowledges that this is a legitimate use of the word free (although the terms "gratis" or "free as in beer" are less potentially ambiguous).
- lucb1e 12y ago
  > It's a potentially smart business move Yet without it being a dick move. Even if it's good for them, it's also good for us :)

wnevets 12y ago

Pretty cool idea, too bad I was never a big fan of UT.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

This is awesome. I haven't played it in years but UT was one of my favourite games when I was younger. They had a pretty cool level editor I used to spend a lot of time playing with.

wlesieutre 12y ago
If you want to check out their current editor, $20/month gets you access to the editor and the full C++ source for the engine. You can even cancel the subscription and keep using it if you don't need updates. I doubt it'll be included with the new UT (since that's going to be free), but it's a pretty impressive toolset.

ignostic 12y ago

This is amazing! I remember playing mods like Team Fortress on Quake - things people made just because they enjoyed it. The problem with mods lately is that it takes really passionate people to support them for free, and they're either hard to monetize or monetization isn't even an option (SC). There's still plenty of great UGC, but it's generally not commercial grade - time investment is high, and financial reward is 0. This model is brilliant!! It could keep people playing for years just by trying out new mods, new content, and more. Really excited to see what happens.

goeric 12y ago

This is a brilliant plan and an amazing move by Epic. It'll be great to see this play out.

moshR 12y ago

This announcement just sold me on an Unreal Engine 4 subscription[1] if for nothing else than to obtain access to early Unreal Tournament builds. Unreal Tournament is one of my favorite video game series, and I love that it is possible that I will be able to contribute to the development of the latest installment. [1] https://www.unrealengine.com/register https://www.unrealengine.com/register

wj 12y ago

I wonder if this plus Oculus will result in a universe like what was described in the novel Ready Player One?

sixQuarks 12y ago
Epic Games could potentially corner a portion of the VR market. The VR market may explode bigger than the internet. I wish Epic Games was publicly traded, I would definitely buy the stock.
drawkbox 12y ago
Dust up your Joust skills. Oculus mixed with a social world does match up with the OASIS in Ready Player One possibly.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Facebook has its own plans with Oculus, such as turning it into another Second Life-style social network. http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-build-a-billion-person-mmo-with-facebook http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-bui...
- wwwtyro 12y ago
  It is hardware - we can do as we please with it, we're not limited to Facebook's software.
  - joshuapants 12y ago
    The iPhone is hardware - we can do as we please with it, we're not limited to Apple's software. Seriously, what fantasy universe are you living in where all hardware is open and easily used for whatever you want?
    - wwwtyro 12y ago
      Cydia.
12y ago

pachydermic 12y ago

Holy shit this is awesome I wonder what the license is?

dublinben 12y ago
Probably all rights reserved. I would be shocked if the code and art resources are released under free licenses.

johnward 12y ago

Hats. We're going to monetize it with hats.

astrodust 12y ago
Free hats, apparently. What are they thinking!?

nixpulvis 12y ago

This is the future of game development. I have been saying this for a while to friends. I'm excited to see how this goes.

CmonDev 12y ago
Do you suggest that every company will either be building its own moddable game + engine + mod store or being reduced to a mod-builder?

drawkbox 12y ago

Epic has completely changed this year and doing amazing things like this and the $19 engine access. Living up to their name. Looks like they are doing the Team Fortress 2 free to play model, even though they say it is free and not free to play, the vanity store/content is the Valve F2P model used in TF2, DotA, probably CS etc. These games are huge because of the community content, Epic is seeing that. This is such a cool thing to do and only wish they did it many years ago.

leoc 12y ago
Yup, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive now has blinged-out weapon skins for your Ts and operators.

ww520 12y ago

Glad to see they are building on the brand. UT is the game I play for the longest time. Still playing UT 1999.

JohnTHaller 12y ago

While folks are building these new mods and such, don't forget to look back to existing UT properties for ideas. Unreal 2 XMP is still one of the best team-based FPS setups I've seen. Sadly, it never recovered after they shut down the directory servers to try to force everyone to switch to Unreal 3.

Pxtl 12y ago

It will be tricky to incorporate the fanbase because there's a huge split in UT fans about the high-speed pace of UT2k4 vs. the slower, spammier gameplay of classic UT. UT3 attempted to split the difference and was universally reviled. Still, this is super-exciting and I hope the best for them. The classic FPS genre has needed this for years.

rm999 12y ago
UT3 was reviled because it was designed for both consoles and PCs, so everything was a compromise - sort of the windows 8 of the UT series. I know what you mean about the split, but as someone who loves both series I think either way will lead to a great game. I personally think the faster-style would be more successful because the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style.
- ak217 12y ago
  >the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style. It's interesting that you say that, because I think the biggest achievement of UT to date is the Onslaught mode, which fluidly mixed strategic and tactical, vehicular and on-foot gameplay. And as onslaught showed (on some maps - not all), you don't have to sacrifice speed or pace of close-in combat to enable strategic gameplay of CTF/ONS type.
  - BystanderX 12y ago
    Yeah, onslaught isn't something I see talked about much anywhere else and was loads of fun.
  - Pxtl 12y ago
    It's too bad they ruined the ONS mode in UT3 with the overcomplicated warfare mode. ONS didn't need switches and that ball thing and whatnot.
bobbles 12y ago
Personally I hope they built towards UT99 and modders make a 'UT2K4' edition.

josephschmoe 12y ago

It's like the Dota 2 model but open source. I like it.

binarycrusader 12y ago
It's not open source; it's subscription-only source. Please don't start that rumour.
- josephschmoe 12y ago
  Ah, I see.

martindale 12y ago

Free as in freedom (libertas), or free as in free beer (gratis)?

davexunit 12y ago
Free as in beer. The Unreal engine is proprietary software, and this new UT game will be, too. Epic is using the word "open" and hosting the source code on GitHub, but it's still proprietary (freedom denying) software.

err4nt 12y ago

I signed up. I can't wait to be part of this and I can't believe I'm only the 35th person to fork the repo!

whywhywhy5 12y ago

I really like this completely transparent approach. They should totally stream coding sessions too.

kelvin0 12y ago

Can`t wait to get back into frenzied ESR deathmatches, or full auto sniper rifle mods ... good times

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

elwell 12y ago

Would be cool to see live streams of dev screens throughout the project on Twitch.tv. I always find it interesting to watch someone else code without preparation and not "for show".

X4 12y ago

YESS, Finally, Thank You EPIC! This is my most loved favourite Game, yeahhh! This is so awesome, I'm gonna buy a new PC and smash Gentoo, or NixOS onto it! Hope I find out which Graphics-card and which Mainboard is supported well enough to play the game at max resolution.

winslow 12y ago

I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Valve lately. Epic and Crytek have both released their engines for absurdly cheap rates and been gathering a lot of steam around their platforms. Valve is known for their community interaction and marketplace but haven't released their plans for Source 2 etc. Any ideas? That said, this is an awesome move by Epic!

higherpurpose 12y ago
Source 2: free and open source! Wouldn't that be a great move? Not sure how they would make the money on it then, but I think it would quickly beat most other engines out there in popularity. I don't know if that's Valve even wants, but it could be if say that would get most game developers out there to create OpenGL/Linux-compatible games by default, and since Source 2 will only support OpenGL (I think), that could be one way to do it.
- winslow 12y ago
  Valve has stated they want to bring the community closer together for buying/selling/trading of goods. I would expect they would make their money that way. I doubt they would dump DirectX completely. They've reworked the engine for linux to not care if it's running DirectX or OpenGL. Leaving this intact could provide a way to eventually port to Android/iOS and other mobile platforms? Valve has stated they want to get into the mobile space but have seemed to fail thus far. I recall them mentioning Linux was a natural step to go from Win Desktop -> Mac -> Linux to Mobile running Linux (Android)
  - cwyers 12y ago
    At least one Valve game will be running on Android soon, Portal is coming for the Nvidia Shield in the next few days: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5695340/portal-nvidia-shield-release-date http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5695340/portal-nvidia-shield... It looks like Nvidia is handling the port themselves, though, so who knows what that means for other Valve titles. EDIT: Well, apparently Half-Life 2 is getting ported next. So Valve games are coming to Android, although only for Nvidia Shield users so far. http://www.androidcentral.com/half-life-2-coming-nvidia-shield http://www.androidcentral.com/half-life-2-coming-nvidia-shie...

panzi 12y ago

Nice, but I don't want another UT, I want another Unreal. A true successor to Unreal 1. I did not like Unreal 2, I did not like the characters of it at all. I kinda like a silent protagonist, because it solves the "I don't want to play as that douche" problem.

Fasebook 12y ago
I wouldn't hold your breath. I do miss that Unreal discovery feel though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unreal_Engine_4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unr...

cockasaurus 12y ago

quake was better

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

roberthahn 12y ago

Interesting. I wonder if Epic is also looking at this as an opportunity to cultivate, then hire, fresh talent. To be blunt, if you always wanted to break into the game industry, this couldn't be a better opportunity for you to pick up related experience and build relationships with potential employers.

lupinglade 12y ago

Finally. Been waiting for this forever!

tfb 12y ago

Whatever assets Epic releases, we're aiming to adjust them to match UT99 as closely as possible over at www.uTournament.net. We're also going to integrate the game into the web browser!

Rapzid 12y ago

This is the only on-line game that I played at a seriously high level(ut2k4). It pretty much burned me out on multi-player games but... Dare I ask; will there be TAM? I never really experienced the "dance" of ut2k4 in any other game. Spiritually it could be compared to guntana I suppose. Once you get the muscle memory down it's a complete mind game. 100+bpm mind game. How I miss it :|

nelmaven 12y ago

I love the original game and love that Epic is doing this! It's going to be great! :D

archagon 12y ago

It slightly concerns me that "the community" is going to have a direct say in UT4's development. First, many developers and pundits have said that whenever a community starts to dictate the course of a game, things often go south, since the most vocal members of a community very often don't represent the majority of the playerbase. (I believe TotalBiscuit has pointed to WoW as a great example of this, though I haven't played it myself.) Secondly, I love UT and I've been playing it from the start, but I'm not a hardcore arena shooter player. Advanced techniques like bunny-hopping, strafe-running, and all the crazy stunts described in this thread simply don't interest me. As far as I'm concerned, many of them are glorified bugs and should either be removed entirely, or alternatively made more accessible for new players through tutorials and/or better in-game feedback. (See: skiing in the new Tribes, rocket jumping in TF2, combos in fighting games.) But I reckon that most of the people interested in the project at this early stage are exactly those kinds of advanced players. As a result, I fear that we'll get a game that's too obtuse for the "filthy casuals" (such as myself) who will be required to keep it active in the long run. Contrary to the current zeitgeist, I don't believe it's enough to balance a game around the competitive community in order to make it fun for everyone. Competitive gamers are a niche; people like me, who play for fun with a few friends over a couple of beers, are the mass market. With that said, I'm really happy to see that there's going to be a UT4, and I'm looking forward to following the development. It's been a while since the last great arena shooter, and I hope we'll be seeing a resurgence sometime soon!

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
If it was anything but Unreal Tournament I'd agree. Communities can devolve into anarchy, with every new feature being a super feature, then a super-duper feature, and so on. But UT is pretty much anarchy anyway. That's the appeal - a great big shootout with low latency and amazing ridiculous weapons!
pikachu_is_cool 12y ago
Fuck appealing to the mass market, that's been the downfall of almost every good game.

mangeletti 12y ago

Epic's model is already so cool, "Here, take our billion dollar tool and make something awesome with it. If it's a success, we'll take a small cut. If not, no sweat.", and now this! I can't even wait. I've waited so long for the next Unreal Tournament... I hope Epic makes billions off of UE4.

amalag 12y ago

I love free, but the problem is that free games get a lot of hackers.

tgb 12y ago
In my limited experience that's because free games don't have the resources to combat hackers. Epic and UT might be different. Does world of tanks have a hacker problem?

adem 12y ago

I wonder if one could learn how to program games in C++ by following the progress from the very beginning and persistently try to understand every line.