Massive Unreal 2K3 Mod Contest Launched 231
code-e255 writes "Epic Games, the developers of Unreal Tournament 2003, and nVidia have announced a huge UT2K3 modification contest called 'Make Something Unreal'. This competition will reward the truly great modders out there, and will hopefully encourage more people to mod for UT2K3." Word is that "..entries can be made in 13 categories, including 'Best Mod,' 'Best Character,' 'Best Use of 3D Sound,' 'Best Real-Time Non-Interactive Movie (also known as Machinima),' and more", and prizes include over $1,000,000 in total, with first prize $50,000 and a $350,000-value commercial Unreal Engine license.
Sounds fun (Score:5, Funny)
I plan on making a Slashdot mod based off of Slashdot Reloaded [slashdot.org]. All of the agent Smiths will be rendered in ASCII.
Marathon? (Score:2)
Re:Marathon? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes I know it's for the original unreal tournament, but I bet an interested soul could start a project to port it to UT2k3. ;)
Re:Marathon? (Score:1)
Wow. Thanks. I guess that's what I get for focusing so much on science and neglecting my game play.
Marathon on UT2K3? Don't look at me (Score:2, Informative)
Epic has told me personally that
Re:Marathon? (Score:1)
go ahread and take 'em! (Score:5, Funny)
Hillary Rosen: The MP3 Hunter
"Executive by day, mercenary by night. If music is downloaded, she knows about it, and justice will be hers. Warning: This game include copious amounts of lawyers, therefore it may not be suitable for young children."
and of course:
Lee Carvallo's Extreme Putting Challenge!
Battle your friends in this knock-down, drag-out putting competion. It's in your face! In your mind! It's EXTREME!!
Re:go ahread and take 'em! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:go ahread and take 'em! (Score:2)
Is that anything like extreem programming?? If so, I think my boss'll buy it for me!
Make Something Unreal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Make Something Unreal (Score:2, Funny)
Re:nvidia waste of money (Score:2)
this should do it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:this should do it (Score:2)
BTW, I didnt care much for Tribes2 when it came out, too much hardware needed to get decent FPS, and bugs. Loaded it the other
Re:this should do it (Score:2, Informative)
From the Unreal Wiki [beyondunreal.com], released UT2k3 engine games:
America's Army [americasarmy.com]
Devastation [devastationgame.com]
Raven Shield [raven-shield.com]
Splinter Cell [splintercell.com]
Unreal 2 [unreal2.com]
Unreal Championship [unrealchampionship.com]
Postal 2 [gopostal.com]
Notable upcoming Unreal Engine games include:
Deus Ex 2 [deusex2.com]
Thief 3 [thief3.com]
XIII [ubi.com]
Unreal Warfare, Epic's worst-kept secre
Re:this should do it (Score:2)
Yeah, that Commander Keen engine sucked too: I mean look at it compared to even the Quake3 engine! It suxored!
And yeah, I can't believe they are just re-using the HL1 (a modded Quake engine) engine for HL2: what are they thinking?!
Also if they are going to make it work on consoles, that means that they are probably sacrificing the brute force a good PC can
Why do
Re:this should do it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:this should do it (Score:2)
Try 3DMark03.exe. It should run faster on nVidia cards.
Re:this should do it (Score:2)
At last somebody gets it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:2)
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:2)
So, now everyone has a real incentive to learn "I Can't Believe It's Not Java" - AKA Uscript.
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:2)
Not trying to steal your thunder in any way what so ever, but QuakeC, as it's called, has been around since the original Quake. I promise.
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:2)
Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:5, Interesting)
They release most of the applicable source code, give away the mapping resources, and even post on their
I'd say that actively encourages users to tinker with their games. Or if you meant they needed to provide incentive like money and an engine license to get what id pretty much does with just great quality games?
SCO Headquarters Mod (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SCO Headquarters Mod (Score:2)
Nice prizes (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice prizes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice prizes (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as some one who as been unemployed for a while and have used all thier benifts, I'd take the million.
Why? Because with the economy still being what it is, unless I got a contract that said I couldn't be fired for at least 5 - 10 years but could leave anytime I wanted to. The million would go much further.
Re:Nice prizes (Score:2)
Did you RTFA? They're not giving a single person a million dollars. The first prize is $50k. A million dollars is the total value of all the prizes, including an Unreal Engine license they're giving away -- which doesn't really "cost" Epic anything much (though it's valued at $350,000).
You should be able to infer all that from the slashdot summary.
Re:Nice prizes (Score:2)
And let me tell you, when I say "fat", I mean "skinny" - it's not even in the same neighborhood as the first prize here. If someone handed me f
Back in the days... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the days of Doom, I did systems administration work for a Dutch architect firm. I know I certainly thought of using the Doom engine to convert electronic drawings of a building to a complete Walk-Through Interactive Experience (tm).
Unfortunately, as all Dutch architect firms balanced the tight rope between going bankrupt and surviving that time, there was no money/time available for developing mods for that sort of thing.
I certainly hope that some beautiful projects will see the light of day that would otherwise, if it wasn't for this prize-money, never be realised.
Re:Back in the days... (Score:3)
Oh wait...
Epic is a great company. (Score:5, Informative)
Another great example of how much the support the mod community occurred a year ago this month. Last June, they flew in 35 modders and amateur game developers (including myself) from all over the world to visit their offices in Raleigh, North Carolina, to see the new game engine. They paid for everyone's airfare from places as far as Germany and Canada, paid all of our travel expenses, put us in a hotel, drove us to and fro, paid us back for the cab ride from the airport, etc etc etc. The only money of my own that I spent the entire time was for food at the connecting flight's airport.
They brought us all in to look at the then-unreleased Unreal Warfare engine. They gave us a huge lunch, catered from a local deli with all fresh deli meats and cheeses and everything, and TONS of soft drinks in a refrigerator, and let us eat and chill out in their break room where they have every console known to man on a giant wide-screen TV. We played that for a while, and then we all got to wander around the office and meet everyone that worked there and see where the games we modified were made, and the people that made them. For someone that's been playing their games ever since Jill of the Jungle and Brix, it was a really amazing experience.
After that, we got down to business, to the real purpose for our being there. They gave us a day-long seminar showing us everything the engine can do and how the tools work to do it, answered questions, gave great examples, and impressed us heavily the entire day. They covered every single aspect of the engine, explained everything in full and showed us everything that the public hadn't yet seen. We were all astounded.
After a while, we all go to try out the latest build of UT2K3 over the LAN. I got to play for probably half an hour and had a blast. I'm pretty sure everyone got a chance.
At the end of it, everyone walked away with a free GeForce 4 Ti 42/44/4600, an ATI Radeon 8500 (the best on the market at the time), or an Audigy. Once they handed all of that out, they took us all to see Minority Report.
The next day, we all flew back home. The day UT2K3 was released, we all had a copy in the mail FedExed (where available) to us at our doorstep, waiting for each of us in the morning.
That whole trip still ranks as one of the coolest and most exciting things that has ever happened to me.
Re:Epic is a great company. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd not use the term generous here.
They certainly are talented people who know how to craft good games and market them very well but what you experienced was a big advertising campaign, using one of the most efficient medias available : users' word of mouth.
This does not make them generous, they'll be generous if they gave money away without expecting any profit from
Re:Epic is a great company. you are cynical. (Score:2)
Yes, it's true that that mods add tremendous value to the product and wining-and-dining of the modders does do good things for work-of-mouth advertising.
I think that trips like these are a novelty, at least, this is one of the only I've ever heard of. Do big companies that hoard billions in cash (and could readily afford to do so) do anything like this? Does Microsoft br
Re:Epic is a great company. you are cynical. (Score:2)
Microsoft has their great internship program to encourage the brightest people to work for them and put another brick and some spackle on their empire. Also, people have to make an effort to get these internships, the parent poster was invited.
With regards to the ideashappen thing, from what I remember from slashdot's article on it, you have to give up image rights and possibly the idea itself (it would be in the public domain, at any rate). Not to mention it's sponsored by visa wh
Interns are not paid? (Score:2)
Seems pretty different than inviting people in for free, as the previous post was asking about...
As for ideashappen - who has gotten the 25k so far? Or is it just a giant idea mine that funnels directly to patent lawyers?
Sounds generous enough.. (Score:2)
Re:Epic is a great company. (Score:2)
You do realize the video/sound card companies give them oodles of free cards with which to develop on, correct?
Though it is sweet you got to go and hang out w/ them based solely on your mod work, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I just couldn't help my cynicism
Re:Epic is a great company. (Score:4, Interesting)
Epic is really a great company
Yeah, I love how they handled their IRC client in the original UT. There was a crasher bug in it that, if you msg'd someone with the right string (or typed it in a channel), the program would crash and burn. It didn't matter if you were even in the IRC window, if you were connected and the message came through to you somehow, *poof*. In game, in the server browser, didn't matter. Idiots would come on IRC and crash entire channels with 100s of people in them, or they'd crash rival clans while they were in the middle of important games.
Epic knew about this bug for well over a year, and they did absolutely nothing about it. We at Gameslink (then the IRC network for UT) ended up patching the ircd just to fix Epic's problem, and keep UT users happy. It should not be the responsibility of an IRC network to patch their whole network of servers to fix a terrible client-side crasher that could be solved in 5 minutes by a competent programmer.
Great company, indeed.
Re:Bitter much? (Score:2)
For two reasons, one of which I mentioned outright in my first posting.
Re:Epic is a great company. (Score:2)
Just kidding. I know my geography. They flew in two of my friends that live in Canada just north of Washington. They had to take two or three connecting flights skipping all across the country and were in transit for 20 hours. The route they took was admittedly rather roundabout, but such is air travel.
yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, the developer of such a mod should be fairly compensated based on the popularity and ultimately, the sales, of their mod, not a one-time payout.
It's funny and sad that game developers are literally begging the community to create their next big hit for them.
On the other hand, a million dollars is a lot of money, and the poor CS developer probably got manipulated out of ever making that much money when he sold CS to Valve.
So hey, go make your mod and give it away to Epic!
ok, correction... (Score:3, Insightful)
While the modders aren't giving up their mods to Epic, it's still the same thing: Epic makes you give it away to increase revenue of the retail product.
Never l
Re:ok, correction... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where I come from, if you don't make money, you go out of business. So yes, their ultimate goal is to make money. Is that so wrong?
Consider this: They could go out and decide to go for the easy money, and make another deer hunting, or fishing or whatever top selling, easy and cheap to make crap they can.
Company makes money, we get a good game, and the designer of the mod gets some prizes and some recognition. How is this a bad thing?
Re:yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny and sad that game developers are literally begging the community to create their next big hit for them.
Why? The community has been writing mods for years, mission packs for major commercial games (both Quake mission packs come to mind) and are now being offered a nice prize to make what I'm sure will be a top-quality conversion. Developers are hoping to showcase the flexibility of their engines while funding the creation of the next wave of creative talent. You underestimate the community.
For example the community (amateur enthusiasts) created Linux. And GNU/Linux. ;-) And The Gimp. And Apache. And MySQL. These things run on everything from a web werver in an RJ45 plug to massively-parallel computing monsters from Ma Blue. Funny what this sad community can do...
Re:yawn (Score:2, Insightful)
Its not a parasitic relation ship, as is the usual company policy, or like MMOs like everquest. This benefits BOTH parties, the gamers and the developers. Developers make money, and also may find things that could be done to their products, to fullfill customer
$350,000? (Score:2)
(But seriously, I've always wondered why cube hasn't been more like the open source half-life. It should be easy to mod...)
Anyone Interested? (Score:2, Funny)
Meh? (Score:4, Insightful)
UT2K3 has always felt quite deathmatch-oriented (as opposed to team deathmatch, CTF, etc.) which makes for great fun for about ten minutes. I know there is a vocal minority who could play nothing but DM for hours on end, and more power to them. But for most other people, deathmatch is a dated concept, once you get over the novelty of playing against real, live people from all over the 'Net. Once that's done, I like the advanced tactical and strategic possibilities available with more team-oriented combat.
I think UT2K3 is also a bit underwhelming because many of the maps prioritize beauty and uniqueness over gameflow. I don't want the map itself to be the focus. Sometimes it's like trying to frag in a 3D Escher painting. I this is largely why BF1942 is more compelling. Familiarity with the environment creates faster immersion.
Also, UT2K3 doesn't significantly improve upon the rock-solid gameplay of its predessesor, and even took away a very popular and unique multiplayer mode (although you can add it with a 3rd-party mod). I understand a recent patch even included specific instructions for making gameplay more like the previous installment.
Oh well. I hope they push an envelope or two with UT2k4. Because it's looking like Sierra will have DoD, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike running on the Source engine come spring 2004. That will be Uber. Everyone's filling their piggy banks for these, plus Doom3, Deus Ex 2, and a few other high-profile, long-awaited titles. I just don't see how UT2k4 will create a viable niche.
Re:Meh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Meh? (Score:2)
Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just ask the poor schmucks who exercised stock options before the bubble burst and didn't sell the stock before it crashed. They aren't happy people, since the IRS taxes on the value when the options are exercised, not what the stock is worth at tax-time.
Re:Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:2)
There are reasons to exercise them and hold, in the sense that the person may have left the company and be
Re:Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:2, Interesting)
Needless to say, the grand prize certainly favors developers already producing mods commercially as they'd certainly get a lot more out of a license of th
Re:Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:2)
and the crappy part is that the total cost to the company to give away that engine is $0.00
Oh boy.. I would win a tax liability!
There's ALOT more to making a game that actually makes any money then an overpriced game engine.. even if you make the Uber-awesome game with it, it can still end up an unknown because you dont have $100,000 to market it and have it pressed, boxed
Also known as... (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation: "Well, dangit...we're just all out of ideas on this whole first-person shooter thing, and we've fired a bunch of creative help... Let's collect materi...ah...throw a contest!"
Honestly, how about a mod for that female character in the single-player release, so she doesn't look like she was beaten with an Ugly Stick? And seriously, leather is SO first version.
Fix the game, too (Score:3, Interesting)
But don't take my word for it, try it yourself: Try it yourself [promode.org]
Re:Fix the game, too (Score:2)
Re:Fix the game, too (Score:2)
So everyone at the tournaments at QuakeCon plays the FPS equivalent of T-ball? For money?
I think you just might be overstating. Typical CPMA believer, I suppose...
You're also wrong. Promode reintroduces bugs that Id fixed in the physics code in order to chan
Documentation... (Score:3, Insightful)
UT Request please?? (Score:2)
Or even Bill Gates for that matter. I prefer sco.
Thank you.
The UT2003 engine and...? (Score:3, Funny)
UT2003 Word: you're weapons are literally A-Z
UT2003 Outlook: shoot the incoming virii and worms, penile erection mails act as a quad-damage
UT2003 Nethack: their's potential here...
UT2003 Emacs: M-x frag
UT2003 SCO: to consider this would be a thought crime
I'm worth a million in prizes (Score:4, Insightful)
Who evaluated that engine? I have a million dollars in prizes in my pants.
Re:I'm worth a million in prizes (Score:2)
It's as bad as Microsoft giving away copies of windows, and getting a tax break on an arbitrary dollar amount.
-- Bob
Re:I'm worth a million in prizes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm worth a million in prizes (Score:2)
Re:I'm worth a million in prizes (Score:2)
That's not what my mom said.
Hey, wait a minute...
Re: prizes (Score:2)
Re: prizes (Score:2)
Re: prizes (Score:2)
The problem is, everyone has such quirky and unique hardware and OS configurations that there's always some small percentage of people who have a hard time with any game. Just because one particular game didn't work for you and others don't is no reason at all to assume that it was
Re: prizes (Score:2)
SIN was almost unplyable out of the box. Which pretty much sunk the game, and was really too bad because a patch that came out later fixed most of the issues. Ara (sp?) had the same sorts of issues, though not anywhere near as bad. Both were well known because people complained. Loudly. Everywhere. The same thing happened with HL's original netcode (which they've since completely revamped, allowing it the success it has today)
I want to see..... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it would rock if someone could write
code that would take you automatically from
one server to another online by passing through
a gate in the game. Imagine g'oud versus SG1 team
multiplayer where you gate out of one firefight with
your team right into another one (on a new server).
Imagine the fun of forgetting to plug in the
numbers and getting telefragged on the IRIS back
at your clan's command center.
IRIS codes to allow people to get on your clan
server. So so much could be done with this idea.
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2)
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2)
They are simply gateways in a map that lets you see into and enter into another part of the map, opening up the possibility of Escher-like maps. Unreal had them first, AFAIK. But they have nothing to do with server changes - you stay on the same server, you even stay on the same map!
The only place I've seen server-to-server gateways ingame so far is in online RPGs like Everquest.
"Teleporters", are what people are thinking of. (Score:2, Informative)
In contrary to the other posts in the thread, the functionality is in both UT and UT2k3. It's just that nobody really goes to the trouble of setting them up.
Incidentally, there is an SG1-flavored UT2k3 mod in development, Atlantis [beyondunreal.com].
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are clearly creating a derivative work of their Intellectual property, and as they are a company, they are going to charge you to do it.
You could do some realy great things based off movies books or tv shows, but its going to cost you an arm and a leg when they find out. Whatever wins this contest will have to come out of nowhere much like CS did... combine great gameplay with
Re:I want to see..... (Score:3, Interesting)
To refine: Every server has a home "world" map which, if run by a clan they can customize at will, or use an off-the-shelf world. The SG1 idea is good for a concept, but no need to stick to that world. Moving from server to server is not through some fourth wall busting menu system, but a fully immersive stargate system. A clan can kick back on their own wo
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2)
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2)
Re:I want to see..... (Score:2)
A quake rocket launcher ... (Score:4, Insightful)
(To answer my own question: probably.)
The should award points for anti-cheat (Score:2, Interesting)
Epic is nervous (Score:2, Interesting)
Best Driver Optimization! (Score:2, Funny)
not enough prize money (Score:2)
A few notes (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, the 3D Buzz [3dbuzz.com] team has created many excellent training videos covering many aspects of the Unreal tech, from programming to content creation.
>> Ultimately, the developer of such a mod should be fairly compensated based on the popularity and ultimately, the sales, of their mod, not a one-time payout.
The mod developer keeps complete ownership of his work. The contest doesn't take that away.
For example, if you enter an early version of your mod in the contest, you could later create a retail game based on it and pursue a publishing deal. The Tactical Ops mod for the original Unreal Tournament went this route and was published in retail by Atari.
Regarding tax issues, one should definitely consult a tax attourney upon making the finals for the grand prize. My understanding (IANAL) is that, if we gave you a $350K cash prize, that would be revenue for your mod team's corporation or small business. If you then spent that $350K on an Unreal engine license with the intent of using it commercially (which is the only reason one would want such a license), you would then incur a $350K expense, leaving a net tax liability of zero. So a direct award of an engine license is not necessarily a taxable event.
Re:A few notes (Score:2)
Crates!!!!! (Score:2)
Daria Paintball Jungle mod (Score:2)
Cause' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cause' (Score:2)
Sorry but this just doesn't make any sense at all. $50,000 is pretty nice prize money for a few hobbiests who love to mod, that part is fine, but why encourage modding at all if you're just going to tie everyone's arms behind thier backs with a licensing scheme?
"...and prizes include over $1,000,000 in total, with first prize $50,000 and a $350,000-value commercial Unreal Engine license."
Lame.
Counter-strike and TFC
Re:Federal Income Tax liability. (Score:2)
If Microsoft sells you 100000 Windows licenses for $1 (to "beat" Linux maybe) are you liable for the taxes on the "normal" license costs or just the $1?
Large companies get deals like this all the time, how much tax do they pay? They certainly don't pay the full amount for each license when they get a bulk deal.
This not only applies to software, but if I strike a deal with a company to purchase some computer hardware at a discount, I only pay taxes on the discounted amount, correct?
Umm....No (Score:2)
I really like music. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to learn how
Re:Umm....No (Score:2)
Firstly, this is simply incorrect. Secondly, this is arrogant. This means that in one statement you simultaneously come off as arrogant AND ignorant.
I happen to be a extremely skilled guitarist, but I didn't build my guitar, amps, or any of my digital recording equipment.
Congratulations on your mastery of the guitar.
You are stating that understanding map building tools is analagous to knowing how to construct a guitar i