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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Massive Unreal 2K3 Mod Contest Launched 231

Posted by simoniker from the unreal-mods-mais-real-money dept.
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.
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Massive Unreal 2K3 Mod Contest Launched More

Massive Unreal 2K3 Mod Contest Launched

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  • Sounds fun (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:37PM (#6135611) Journal
    If the UT2003 development community is as intellectual as their gaming community is, then this competition should turn out some truly compelling work. Code comments such as "// y0 dis hack here fukc u awp phag - ((COK))". Team disputes over a certain code submission or design alteration will be settled "1 on 1 in dm61a bi0tch". The Epic Games team, before walking into an audience filled with eager designers awaiting the announcement of the winners, peek their heads in and ask "FF?".

    I plan on making a Slashdot mod based off of Slashdot Reloaded [slashdot.org]. All of the agent Smiths will be rendered in ASCII.

  • Hey, how about a Marathon remake using a the new UT engine? Man, I wasted many an hour in the genetics building playing that game...

  • go ahread and take 'em! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sweeney37 ( 325921 ) * <mikesweeney.gmail@com> on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:43PM (#6135653) Homepage Journal
    MOD Ideas:

    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!!

  • Make Something Unreal (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:43PM (#6135654)
    In the spirit of the contest and to play to the sponsors, Iâ(TM)m going for a mod that artificially boosts the displayed FPS when running on an nVidia card.

  • this should do it (Score:5, Funny)

    by ozric99 ( 162412 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:43PM (#6135655) Journal
    C:\Program Files\Sierra\HalfLife2> rename hl.exe ut2k3.exe
    • Actually, with the main licensed game engines being Halflife, Unreal or Quake series engines, Epic games needs to push thier engine. The new Doom3 and HL2 engines will be the main gameing engine for the next 3+ years (1-2 years for mainstream games, then a 3rd on will be cheaper budget titles.) Look at how many Quake3 engine games are on the market, there is money in those licenses.

      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
      • Also, it was quiet interesting Americas Army came out before UT2K3 using the UT2K3 engine. So the engine does look good on other non-bouncy fps games. (Any other U2K3 engine based games out?)

        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] ...and of course itself [unrealtournament2003.com], and any others I have forgotten.

        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:5, Funny)

      by The Creator ( 4611 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:12PM (#6135835) Homepage Journal
      Well the last article did teach us to reuse code.

    • C:\Program Files\Sierra\HalfLife2> rename hl.exe ut2k3.exe

      Try 3DMark03.exe. It should run faster on nVidia cards.

  • At last somebody gets it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:44PM (#6135660) Homepage Journal
    Wow, a software company that actively encourages the users to actively tinker with their product, with the understanding that this will only increase the popularity of their game. While this trend has been developing lately in the game world, this definitely takes it a huge step forward! Bravo!
    • Modding communities have been around for a long time without legal intervention, no? IMHO, Half Life's modding community (natural selection owns!) really demonstrated how a product's life can be lenghthened, but still, mods have long been recognized as good.
      • Are you kidding? Half life is by far the best for supporting their developers with conventions, contests, and outright buyouts. Despite having (IMHO) the best engine to develop in (mutator, gametype system & maptype system = schweet) Epic has traditionally lagged behind in the subject of support and documentation. Half-life quickly stole the chalice from ID for best nurturing of mod community.

        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)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:54PM (#6135733)
      Carmack and ID have been supporting moders for a long time, including adding a C like language to Quake 3 for modding. Then there's the fact that they release the code for older games, you can't get much more mod friendly than that "here have our code and do with it as you wish".

    • Re:At last somebody gets it (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:55PM (#6135743) Homepage
      Apparently I missed when id Software stopped doing this?

      They release most of the applicable source code, give away the mapping resources, and even post on their .plan files when someone has a really cool modification.

      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)

    by DoctorMabuse ( 456736 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:48PM (#6135680) Homepage
    Kill SCO execs for fun and profit.

  • Nice prizes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:51PM (#6135711)
    The money is nice and stuff, but with the economy the way it is right now, how about making first prize A JOB???

    • Re:Nice prizes (Score:5, Funny)

      by ehiris ( 214677 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:15PM (#6135851) Homepage
      I would be very careful of giving a job to somebody who wins an Unreal competition.
    • The money is nice and stuff, but with the economy the way it is right now, how about making first prize A JOB???

      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.

      • Speaking as some one who as been unemployed for a while and have used all thier benifts, I'd take the million.

        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.

        • Dude. Fifty grand. I've been out of work for about six months now, and I'm still living off of my earnings from a fat contract I did last year, and I could probably go another six without breaking a sweat. (Well, okay, I'd sweat some, but I do live in Texas.) I mean, it's good to have savings and everything, but it's also nice to live your own life for a while.

          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)

    by leomekenkamp ( 566309 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:52PM (#6135716)

    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.

  • Epic is a great company. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Polyphemis ( 450226 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:56PM (#6135749)
    Epic is really a great company. This is just another one of the great things that Epic does for the community. They've done a contest like this before for their last game, for example.

    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. :) Everyone I met there was awesome, friendly, helpful, talented and extremely knowledgable. I have the utmost respect for Epic as a company, and they have my undying loyalty and admiration for being such awesome and generous people.
    • I have the utmost respect for Epic as a company, and they have my undying loyalty and admiration for being such awesome and generous people.

      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
      • Hey there. You seem to be pretty cynical. It seems as though the company was very generous relative to other companies out there.

        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
      • I think the more important point would be why assume they weren't being generous? As long as Polyphemis had a good time and met some cool people it sounds great.

    • Re:Epic is a great company. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @12:28AM (#6137270)

      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.

  • yawn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erikdotla ( 609033 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @05:57PM (#6135759)
    A million bucks is nothing compared to the revenue generated by "The Next Counter-Strike" which is exactly what Epic is trying to create with this.

    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)

      by erikdotla ( 609033 )
      Each submission must be the property of and an original work of the entrant. Submissions must be available for free public download and playable with the retail version of Unreal Tournament 2003 (patched to the 2225 update) for Phase I and Phase II. For Phase III, and for grand prize consideration, mods must be playable in Unreal Tournament 2004.

      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)

        by Cruel Angel ( 676514 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:34PM (#6135952)
        So are you Down on Epic for trying to make money, and a good game a the same time?

        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)

      by coupland ( 160334 ) * <dchase@hotmailCHEETAH.com minus cat> on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:33PM (#6135951) Journal

      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)

      by Omestes ( 471991 )
      How can you be down on this? I LIKE companies making a 3rd party community. Nothing wrong with the company making money on it either, hell I hope they make MORE money than companies who don't, just to encourage more of a connection with players.

      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
  • Wow! They can have cube for their game for free!

    (But seriously, I've always wondered why cube hasn't been more like the open source half-life. It should be easy to mod...)
  • I can provide voice. Mine's pretty deep and orgasmic. lol. Let me know if you're interested!

  • Meh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Captain Beefheart ( 628365 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:01PM (#6135778)
    People still play this game a lot?

    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)

      by Omestes ( 471991 )
      Log onto the server, and do a head count. TDM games far outnumber DM games. Its all about intigib Team DM, or Instigib CTF.

    • DeusEx2 is not really a MP game, and D3 less of one. HL2 hasn't even announced what their MP will be (though it's sure to be something thoughtful, since they're keeping it secret): DoD and CounterStrike and TF2 appear to be heading towards being their own games. The real problem is not so much whether UT2k9 or whatever is a great engine, but about winning clients back from other online games. The problem is all about network externalities: the more people are playing a given game, the better the experien

  • Consult a tax advisor before you win. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NumberField ( 670182 ) * on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:01PM (#6135779)
    According to the contest page: "All costs, taxes, fees and expenses associated with entry into this Contest and any prizes received shall be the sole responsibility of the entrants and winners." The federal income tax alone on the $350,000 Unreal Engine commercial license would, according to the latest IRS tables, be $103,832.
    • Mod parent up...it is Insightful.

      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.

    • Couldn't you, instead, take the cash instead of the "prize" of the license? I believe US law requires that contests (game shows) provide a cash alternative based on their real cost not based on the retail value (thereby giving an incentive to take the prize, but as you say you have to pay taxes on that $350k, surely more than the $50k [35% tax bracket?]!)

      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
    • The federal income tax alone on the $350,000 Unreal Engine commercial license would, according to the latest IRS tables, be $103,832.

      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)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:03PM (#6135793)
    "[...]entries can be made in 13 categories, including 'Best Mod,' 'Best Character,' 'Best Use of 3D Sound,' 'Best Real-Time Non-Interactive Movie[...]" etc, etc.

    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)

    by 0WaitState ( 231806 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:06PM (#6135805)
    The best mod out there is promode for Quake3--fixes all the bugs and crap that was put in there to keep the newbies happy. The difference between promode and vanilla quake 3 (and UT) is like the difference between professional baseball and T-ball.

    But don't take my word for it, try it yourself: Try it yourself [promode.org]
    • It looks to me like a mod made by Quake 1 guys who think Quake 3 is "gay" because it isn't Quake 1, so they turn Quake 3 more into 1.
    • The best mod out there is promode for Quake3--fixes all the bugs and crap that was put in there to keep the newbies happy. The difference between promode and vanilla quake 3 (and UT) is like the difference between professional baseball and T-ball.

      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)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:09PM (#6135815)
    I've done quite a bit of UnrealScript coding, and have been disapointed with the documentation provided. If they had added a 'Most Comprehensive Tutorial' catagory, it could have done a lot to get people making future mods. I think a lot of GPL projects could benifit from this aproach also. If IBM spent 1% of the money they spent on linux on linux docs, it would really help linux spread longterm.
  • Could someone create a UT character called McBride and put the goatse.cx pic as the guy's face?

    Or even Bill Gates for that matter. I prefer sco.

    Thank you.

  • The UT2003 engine and...? (Score:3, Funny)

    by brer_rabbit ( 195413 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:15PM (#6135855) Journal
    I suggest combining the UT engine with existing software:

    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)

    by aka-ed ( 459608 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .cilbup.tbor.> on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:17PM (#6135865) Homepage Journal
    prizes include over $1,000,000 in total, with first prize $50,000 and a $350,000-value commercial Unreal Engine license...

    Who evaluated that engine? I have a million dollars in prizes in my pants.

  • Yea you'll need the money to buy UT2005, UT2006, and UT2007. I'm waiting UT2008 though, that's the one where they will finally make something that doesn't play like Quake III with eyecandy and actually qualifies as an upgrade over the original UT.

  • I want to see..... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sevn ( 12012 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:23PM (#6135897) Homepage Journal
    One truly awesome Stargate SG1 mod for UT2003.
    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. :) Imagine using
    IRIS codes to allow people to get on your clan
    server. So so much could be done with this idea.
    • Digital Extremes [digitalextremes.com] have been quietly working on an offical Stargate game for about a year now. As far as your walk through a door and join another server idea, they are called Portals and have been around sine.. uh.. Quake 3(?). It's just that not many (any?) games make use of it.
      • There are also "Stargate" influenced characters in UT2K3 as it is. Look at some of the "Egyptian" skins.
      • Portals are NOT for walking between servers.

        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.
        • ...described here [beyondunreal.com]. They can be used as gates to different parts of the level(like the common-or-garden usage), or to another server(using the unreal:// url pattern).
          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].
    • My guess is that it would cost more to get the rights to make a game or mod based on Stargate SG1 than you would ever win.

      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)

      by HBergeron ( 71031 )
      I was going to mod this up, but instead, I just want to reply to say this is one of the coolest/slickest concepts for a fps I have heard in a while.

      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
      • This is actually not a new idea at all: it was proposed back in the QuakeWorld days, and a couple of people even tried to make it work. The basic problem is that servers are of such different quality that it doesn't give a very consistent play experience. It also doesn't help that so much extra content would be necessary to even make going from server to server worthwhile. However, that was then, this is now. It might work: couldn't hurt to give it a shot.
        • Yeah, I have heard from others on that as well. I think my space setting idea works better in this context - If you can't make a jump to a particular system or land on a particular planet,(servers) there can be an explanation (jump point flux, refused landing permission, storms), and as long as some minimum server standards are set it could work. Maybe not yesterday, not quite today, but tommorow I got to think that this is the way to have a true multiverse/Snow Crash type virtual world - distribute the s
    • you can actually do this with MOHAA relatievly easy, you just force the player to use the connect command on an IP you specify. works pretty good actually, doesnt work with portnumbers, but I have a mod for MOHAA that forwards people to other servers if the server gets too full.

  • A quake rocket launcher ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Friday June 06, 2003 @06:30PM (#6135932) Homepage
    Am I the only one who found it funny to find a story about UT under a column who's label is the Rocket Launcher from Quake 3?

    (To answer my own question: probably.)

  • I think points should be awarded for cheat resistance. Cheating is ruining on-line gaming.

  • Epic is nervous (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Whammy666 ( 589169 )
    I think this is a big publicity stunt on the part of Epic. (Well duh.) What I mean is that UT2003 hasn't drawn the fan base that Half-life enjoys, despite HL being 4 years old now. (Ancient by game standards.) Now Epic is faced with the upcoming release of HL2 which is expected to blow all the other FPS clear out of the water. Plus, Valve has announced that the SDK for HL2 will be released ahead of the game to give mod authors a change to get ready for the big release in September. Furthermore, Valve has be
  • Hmm, if nVidia is sponsoring this contest, is there a category for Best Driver "Optimization"? I've found that if I turn all scene rendering off, and have it output pure black, I can get an amazing framerates! I've even modified the drivers so it will only do this when you're benchmarking ... sure to be an invaluable mod.
  • Considering how much the Half Life folks made off of mods like counter-strike I am not sure $1 million in prizes is adequate. The makers of Unreal Tournament stand to make lots of cash if any of these mods are decent.

  • A few notes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tim Sweeney ( 59452 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @07:51PM (#6136331)
    Regarding documentation, check out the Unreal Developer Network [epicgames.com] for a huge amount of documentation.

    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.
    • Won't work that way. The license is an asset. Although you might depreciate it over time, you can't just say buying the license puts you $350k in the hole. This doesn't mean you shouldn't consult a lawyer, though. That award could end up bankrupting a person.
  • From the Unreal Engine License Page: "...Unreal Engine licensees starting from version 829. It allows you to simulate solid objects such as crates" OMM [oldmanmurray.com] needs to take care of this now that they are back!!
  • I want to see that. If you have ever seen the "Daria" episode "The Daria Hunter" it could lend itself beautifully to a CTF game. Actually there could be a whole bunch of "Daria" related maps, all in various parts of Lawndale. You would play with various paintball-shooting guns and you would be "out" and "respawn" when hit by a ball of paint. Non-player "casualties" and "friendly fire" would be punished ala America's Army. Since one of the running gags about Daria Morgendorffer was that she was an enthusiast

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