
The future of Unreal Tournament begins today - OlivierLi
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/the-future-of-unreal-tournament-begins-today
======
gtaylor
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
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).

~~~
neohaven
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.

~~~
Argorak
The interesting thing about the weapons was that most were rather slow-moving
and projectile speeds were very important. So motion prediction was far more
important than for modern shooters.

Shooting someone out of the air with a rocket launcher was a feat.

~~~
rurounijones
One reason I loved the original Tribes game where the main weapons were slow
moving like the spinfusor and grenade launchers.

That, coupled with the high mobility (Jetpacks!) of the players lead to real
duels that could last a while.

~~~
Argorak
Phew, I spent far too many hours on Katabatic. :)

Tribes is a great game favoring mechanics over realism.

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

------
ChuckMcM
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
They're still milking it though.. :( Remember UO shards? I don't remember
origin taking them too kindly.

~~~
nrb
Actually, OWO/EA mostly ignored them. Blizzard, however, has been vicious in
their legal response to third-party hosted servers.

------
baddox
> 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.

~~~
palcu
I guess they are talking about Team Fortress 2 here. In TF2 you are allowed to
buy actual weapons and power packs in the marketplace, not just skins for
them. You could also get them by playing, but it takes an awful amount of
time.

~~~
alceufc
Another important aspect that I hope they adopt from TF2 is that even if you
use default items (e.g. weapons) you will not be in disadvantage when playing
with users that spent money on items.

~~~
wlesieutre
I'm assuming that you won't be able to buy things in the marketplace and bring
them into other people's games. With mods in the previous UTs it's been very
much that every player in a game is on exactly the same footing except for
player skill.

You start with the same gear, and anything else you can get is sitting around
the level to be picked up by everybody.

~~~
LaikaF
Could be CSGO style weapon skins, where when it's on the group it's the base
model, but picking it up changes it to whatever weird skin you bought.

~~~
wlesieutre
I'm not sure how the community would feel about that. UT puts you in
situations where your opponent is carrying around 10 different guns at once,
and the split second "he just pulled out a sniper rifle" reaction can be
pretty important.

If they do have weapon skins carry into the game, Epic will have to be
gatekeeper on approving all of them. If not, you'd have people reskinning
their rocket launcher to look like it's something else, with negative gameplay
effects.

Perhaps we'll see two tiers of aesthetic mods? Ones that anybody can create
and use in their local / self-hosted games, and others that have been approved
for online play?

------
Pxtl
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
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
>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.

~~~
Pxtl
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.

------
ignostic
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.

------
moshR
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)

------
jiggy2011
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
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.

~~~
zanny
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
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).

------
JohnTHaller
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.

------
pault
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.

~~~
orng
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...

------
panzi
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.

------
ww520
Glad to see they are building on the brand. UT is the game I play for the
longest time. Still playing UT 1999.

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

~~~
higherpurpose
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-
bui...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-build-a-
billion-person-mmo-with-facebook)

~~~
wwwtyro
It is hardware - we can do as we please with it, we're not limited to
Facebook's software.

~~~
joshuapants
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
Cydia.

------
archagon
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
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!

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

~~~
johnward
Please don't tell me these are $400 hats like TF2

~~~
moshR
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_pri...](http://steamcommunity.com/market/search?q=appid%3A730#p1_price_desc)

------
winslow
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
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
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
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...](http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5695340/portal-nvidia-shield-
release-date)

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-
shie...](http://www.androidcentral.com/half-life-2-coming-nvidia-shield)

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

~~~
astrodust
Free hats, apparently. What are they thinking!?

------
cpeterso
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".

------
tfb
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!

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

~~~
davexunit
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.

------
adem
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.

------
Rapzid
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
:|

------
Xdes
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
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)

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

------
mangeletti
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.

------
roberthahn
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.

------
kelvin0
Can`t wait to get back into frenzied ESR deathmatches, or full auto sniper
rifle mods ... good times

------
whywhywhy5
I really like this completely transparent approach. They should totally stream
coding sessions too.

------
X4
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.

------
elwell
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"_.

------
k-mcgrady
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
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.

------
dyeje
Loving the recent moves by Epic. Very interesting stuff.

------
err4nt
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!

------
pachydermic
Holy shit this is awesome

I wonder what the license is?

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

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

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

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

~~~
tgb
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?

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

------
iagooar
This is epic stuff.

------
lupinglade
Finally. Been waiting for this forever!

------
josephschmoe
It's like the Dota 2 model but open source.

I like it.

~~~
binarycrusader
It's not open source; it's subscription-only source. Please don't start that
rumour.

~~~
josephschmoe
Ah, I see.

