The Next Unreal Tournament: Totally Free, Developed By Public

Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "Epic Games is rebooting Unreal Tournament, but not in a typical way. A small team of veteran developers will begin work on the next edition of the popular, multi-player shooter, in collaboration with pretty much anyone who wants to participate. "From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We'll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates," reads a note on the company's blog. All code and content will appear on GitHub, and development will focus on Mac, Linux, and Windows. What's the catch? According to Epic, it'll take months to forge a playable game. "When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free," the blog adds. "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.""

so

[hypergreatthing]

If it's free, as in free to download, compile and use, why would anyone want to use a market place to buy and sell skins/artwork?

Re:so

[gman003]

Ease of use? Installing mods in previous games (UT99, UT2004 and UT3), while not particularly difficult for the tech-savvy, isn't exactly user-friendly, and when you mess up there's little information on how to fix it.

As for "why would you sell it on Epic's marketplace instead of on your own?", that's almost definitely going to be what most gamers will be using, so that's where all the customers are. I certainly wouldn't mind selling maps for a dollar a pop.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Umod package format was designed for ease, but since most people play pirated copies that never installed it properly (umod extension setup happens at install time) there was often complaints about that (and less about not being able to use umods on Linux or Mac platforms which is a valid issue, but definitely the minority.)...

Re:

[Khyber]

"Ease of use? Installing mods in previous games (UT99, UT2004 and UT3), while not particularly difficult for the tech-savvy, isn't exactly user-friendly, "

What the fuck crack are you smoking? You either copy the mod to the game directory or run the self-extracting and installation-detecting executable.

Speaking as I have all UTs instaled on my system and still play and mod them regularly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the stuff they develop for use in the market place is not included in the original free game. Moron.

Re:

[Khyber]

As if someone else can't make the same or equivalent thing and simply not charge for it.

Moron.

Re:

[jones_supa]

As if someone else can't make the same or equivalent thing and simply not charge for it.

Ok, I'm sure you will then volunteer to do all that extremely hard work for not a single penny.

Re:

[Khyber]

"Ok, I'm sure you will then volunteer to do all that extremely hard work for not a single penny."

It's only hard if you're totally inept at understanding tutorials provided by many many many other communities dedicated to modding.

But you seem the ill-educated type.

Re:

[jones_supa]

Ill-educated, eh? :) How about you? Have you created a full playable deathmatch level from beginning to end?

Re:

[jones_supa]

All right, I'm cool with that, but around Slashdot it's often the opposite: people see making a buck somehow wrong, when it comes to software and entertainment.

Re:so

[stewsters]

Some people want to make a profit, some don't. It gives the people who want to make a few dollars of their model get paid, and lets those who just want to make something offer theirs free. See https://www.assetstore.unity3d... [unity3d.com] for an example of this now. If you don't have all the skills to make a game, you can still make money off of selling assets.

I have no idea how this will go, but it will be interesting.

Re: so

[loufoque]

More inventory space is hardly cosmetic.

Re:so

[PhrostyMcByte]

I assume they'll not be making this extra content Open Source, and perhaps have official servers which any old compiler will not be able to connect to.

The greater benefit here is that there will be a very public log of what it takes to make an AAA title. A super in-depth tutorial for all those devs who might want to license it.

Re:

[hypergreatthing]

"All code and content will appear on GitHub"

Re:

[khellendros1984]

"All code" doesn't mean a subset of the code. It means "all code". Anyhow, if one has the game code and the art assets, then there's nothing to stop you from replacing the assets in the game. If there's some DRM-encumbered binary blob for talking to the store, there'd be nothing stopping someone from coding their own replacement that points to another store.

Personally, from the tone of the announcement, I'd expect something like Google's app market. The official market would be the default, but there's not

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

RTFA. It doesn't say anything about it being under the terms of a FLOSS license; or a liberal license. It will probably be the standard UE4 license, possibly even forbidding changing the store code.

Re:

[khellendros1984]

I can't get to Polygon from here, so I read the entry on the Unreal Engine blog/wiki prior to my previous post. The game code doesn't look like it'll be under some kind of copyleft, but it *does* look like access to the data will be cheap ($19/seat/month and 5% of income from games based on the engine). In the EULA [unrealengine.com] (which appears to govern licensee actions with the engine and UT Project game assets), I don't see anything stopping a developer from making a modified version of the main game executable and dis

Re:

[epyT-R]

Fuck those app stores.. just give me a download for the zip file..

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

Source says this:
"All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub"

I.e. you can view the code if you are an UE4-licensee. Just like how the UE4 code is on GitHub, available to UE4-licensees.
It will not be "free software" for free as in freedom/libre. I will only be "open source" for a very weird, non-OSI-approved definition of the term.

Re:

[kiddygrinder]

the code availability has exactly zero to do with how it's licensed

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

I'm going to repeat what the other Anonymous Coward above said: "nobody said free to compile and use". TFA says that the code is available to UE4 devs. I.e. people who pay the subscription money for an UE4 license.

Re:

[Himmy32]

People like to pay for convenience.

Re:

[rholtzjr]

I am no longer interested in this cheat infested type FPS's. I totally lost interest in deluging a person with a rocket launcher only to be killed by him with a knife.
Best of luck folks.

Re:

[Em Adespoton]

I am no longer interested in this cheat infested type FPS's. I totally lost interest in deluging a person with a rocket launcher only to be killed by him with a knife.
Best of luck folks.

So you're saying his skill won out over your cheats?

Re:

[rholtzjr]

No, I am saying his cheats on invulnerability won out on a standard in-game weapon

Re:

[aliquis]

- I'm sick of cheaters!

* Brings rocket launcher to knife fight *

Re:

[epyT-R]

take it up with careserv newb!

Re:

[rholtzjr]

I have a better idea, why don't you keep using your cheats and I will move on to a game that utilizes skill and not mods to overcome opponents.

Re:

[Threni]

Don't you report them, and then they get watched/videod and if there's evidence they're cheating they're kicked/banned?

Re:

[Blaskowicz]

But Quake 3 clones like that tend to be less fun, less optimized versions of the real thing. May look too dark or something, sound effects worse, maps worse, runs slow on old PC, inequal quality, unfinished game, lack of players and even sometimes the little issue that people installing the game from distro's package manager will have an older version.

I'll have to try Xonotic 0.7, expecting it to barely run on open source driver, I expect to have to set the keyboard to qwerty before launching it so I can ac

Re:

[MrTester]

When I first heard this earlier today what came to mind is Minecraft.
If they can create a good stable base product with good enough <Insert developer jargon for "information people need to develop mods" here> support then there very well may be a market for good mod packs.
I know I would have been more than happy to pay $20 or $30 for Feed The Beast for MineCraft.

If they can turn that into a market where they skim some money off the top from the mod pack sellers to pay for a free base product (the oppo

Re:

[MrTester]

oh.... and we are talking about a LOT more than just art and skins here. IF they are going the Minecraft route.

Re:

[dubbayu_d_40]

Skins, for example.

Re:

[tysonedwards]

Think of it this way... Sure you *can* use the Amazon App Store on your Android Phone, and even get some Android Apps cheaper than you would on Google Play, however you would need to seek it out and install it yourself versus just using the one that is pre-loaded on your phone.

As such, using the Unreal Store will create immediate visibility to all users, as well as put the onus of distributing and more importantly tracking patch levels and updating the content on Epic instead of the user.

Still, the te

Re:

[Kjella]

For the user the game will be free as in beer, not "freemium" with in-game micro transactions. The code will neither be free as in beer nor free as in speech, but if you are already a UE4 subscriber ($19/month) you can use and extend the code for no extra charge, presumably under the same license and terms as mods to the engine itself so basically it's a reference implementation FPS. If you sell anything you owe them 5% of the gross revenue, if you give it away you owe them nothing. Which makes their pricin

Re:

[Z80a]

The "evil" is most likely simply creating a gigantic programmer and user base of the unreal engine, so they can shift a lot of the indie and big games to use their engine instead of lets say crytech.

Re:

[complete loony]

More importantly, since they want a royalty payment on sales, why are they charging developers per month up-front? Wouldn't this reduce the number of developers willing to experiment with their engine?

Re:

[rwven]

I take it you're not the kind of person to donate to OSS projects, then?

Re: This sounds great...

[Anonymous Coward]

The $20/month is the fee for continuing updates to the Unreal Engine 4, that cost won't impact UT4 in any way except that I believe modders would nee to licence the Unreal Engine 4 to create mods for UT4

Re:

[dreamchaser]

Your heart was broken because they didn't support your OS of choice? I'd prefer to play my games on Linux too (and I do with those I can) but really? Isn't that a bit of hyperbole?

Re:

[Bugamn]

Consider that there are few games for Linux and there were even fewer at that time. It probably is a bit of a hyperbole (and I don't think there is any problem with that), but I can see how someone would have their heart broken over that. Maybe they use only Linux normally, so it means they cannot even play?

Re:

[Maltheus]

Right there with you. That was the last regular FPS I played. Quick, fast, brutal action. One of my favorite games of all time. And having it on Linux meant I actually played it, rather than just have it sit on a shelf. All they needed to do was slightly improve on the UT2K4 concept.

I hope this works out, I'm very much looking forward to this.

RealCTF

[mfh]

Former RealCTF level designer here.

This is a really good idea, and I welcome this as great news! :-)

If anyone needs some level design, hit me up!!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

That UID.

Re:

[stewsters]

Woah. Woah.

Re:RealCTF

[mfh]

He bought / stole the account, and he's been spouting a lot of bullshit lately.

And you're spouting a little right now! ;-)

Suggesting this acct was stolen is just a patent falsehood. The original owner of this acct sold it for $100 in a very well publicized Ebay auction. I happened to win the auction and I felt at the time that a piece of Slashdot history (a beta account -- 2digit already) was well worth the money out of sheer novelty. A 3digit acct later sold for around $700 and another for $200-300, from what I could tell.

Love or hate the low-uid, you have to admire any piece of Slashdot history. CmdrTaco is probably the only person posting with a lower UID than me and he's not posted here in a long time (2011). I donated quite a bit of time to helping CmdrTaco on a revamp of the moderation system over several emails back and forth, and he was appreciative of my feedback. I'm a programmer and system designer so he didn't just outright reject what was said. There was a small think-tank of us working on it. But shortly after that Slashdot was sold and the changes were never implemented.

Come on man. I enjoy Slashdot. I've posted my wacky opinion here for quite a long time. My other acct was 6 digit. The one before that was a 4-digit low to mid 2000s uid. I've since lost access to both of those. A good friend was very involved with this site early on and tried to get us all into it back on the TWCTF mailing list back in the day.

So you're not wrong... [imgur.com] except you are wrong about the stealing thing.

Re:

[sexconker]

I said "He bought / stole the account". According to your own story, I was correct. It is not a "patent falsehood" as you claimed. The truth is your account UID is NOT an indicator of how long you've been on Slashdot, or an indicator of any experience, knowledge, etc. in anything tech-related.
It IS an indicator that you prefer to masquerade and misrepresent yourself. Your recent posting history is absolute proof that you enjoy spouting bullshit.

Re:

[mfh]

After this comment to you, I've said all I am going to say to you about this. You can live in denial if you prefer.

Don't like what I have to say? Tackle the issues. Stop attacking the person presenting them [wikipedia.org].

When I first started posting from this acct I acquired about 25-40 new cyber stalkers, and each loooooved the ad hominem attack because it is a cheap way to smear someone and try to ruin someone's day. They would reply after everything I said that I bought the acct on Ebay... just to warn everyone that I

SLightly offtopic, but...

[Nidi62]

Holy hell, I don't think I've ever seen a 2-digit ID post before.

Re:

[CODiNE]

Uh oh. Now you've done it. Watch a 1-digit roll over in it's grave, and post to top that.

Re:

[mfh]

The only one who would is CmdrTaco but he hasn't since 2011. I haven't seen anyone post lower than 56.

Re:

[BTWR]

I have a friend w/a 1-digit UID. He's not interested in selling but I wonder what it would go for...

Re:

[mfh]

I was thinking I'll do the Quake1 maps but now that I think about it, Spill the Blood [youtube.com] would be awesome to update for the new UT, with TWCTF.

UWindows

[damicatz]

I hope they bring back UWindows. That, IMHO, was the pinnacle of interfaces for games and the consolized interfaces of the later versions are crap by comparison.

This should be amusing

[idontgno]

As anyone who's watched the most famous recent use of Twitch [twitch.tv] will realize, this should result in epic loltrolling and griefing of the development process.

That or else the development process will be sufficiently insulated from the rabble that this announcement boils down to just marketing.

Re:

[AvitarX]

If all the content is third party, it's not really their game being charged for.

Unreal Tournament Forever

[mrbluejello]

I don't see this launching soon.

open = being able to have your own build bypass

[Joe_Dragon]

open = being able to have your own build that bypass the DRM.

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

Really, you too: Read the actual article. It says nothing about it being open source or free software. It only says the UE4 developers will have access to the source on GitHub.

Re:

[hobarrera]

Github requires that you pick an open source license for public repositories. Their saying it's "Not free to play, just free" also makes me think it'll be free software.

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

Yes, exactly, and this is not a public repository! No one said this will be a public repository!

Hell, they already do that for the Unreal Engine 4! Look at that, here, ffs: https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github

Re:

[DrMcCoy]

Also, GitHub /doesn't/ require you to pick an open source license for public repositories. You can choose whatever the hell damn license you want.

The only thing you do by accepting the GitHub terms of service is grant some rights, namely that everyone can see and fork your repository (which might qualify as "open source" in your book, but I view as a cop-out). Of course, this still doesn't give anyone the rights to actually do anything with the code besides looking at it.

Which is one of the reasons many fre

Re:

[im_thatoneguy]

If it's open it's not going to have any damn DRM, that's half the point of it being open source.

It can be open source, but still have licensed technology. For instance Shake's source code was available for I believe $100,000. But you couldn't distribute the code nor use any of the patented technology contained within.

If you license the Unreal 4 engine you get the source code. But you still have to pay to distribute your game based on that source code.

Re:

[im_thatoneguy]

Whether you pay or not, you're licensing the source. So it's both open and restricted in what you can do with the code. Similarly Epic can both gives you the source code to Unreal Tournament and restrict how you use it.

Interesting...

[Dega704]

They seem to have taken a leaf from Valve's book with Team Fortress 2, but are taking it a step further by opening the development itself. If this works out well, it could have a lot of ramifications for the future of game development. I'll be happy enough as long as the lightning gun comes back. That thing made headshots so much more fun.

Re:

[HeckRuler]

Man, I saw that in action just last weekend. A buddy had a retro-game LAN party in place of a bachelor party. Good times.

If they were going to bring it back, I'd suggest adding the family pet as a dynamic object that generally tears the shit out of you. Or the occupants of the house going about their business. "I'm sniping behind timmy's left ear" "Lookout, Dad is coming into the kitchen and he's full of rocket whores!" "Player 3 chewed like a cheap plastic toy"

Re:

[WheezyJoe]

Yes. Yes. and Yes.

Re:

[WheezyJoe]

Bring back the GIANT MAPS. I'm jonesin' to play in the giant bathroom again.

Yes! These maps were great! I used to hide out in a drain in the sink (there was a redeemer hidden in there) or take a sniper position on top a piece of crown molding. 2 inches high in a kitchen with a super shock rifle? and the TV actually worked!

Avid UT player here...

[Type44Q]

Avid UT player here (the original "UT99") and it was almost *entirely* because of the 3rd-party content (particularly the "Land of the Giants" maps) that I played the game as much as I did...

Re:

[WheezyJoe]

This. It's ancient, but there's something about UT 99 and it's great maps and mods that's un-matched for quick, dirty, mad crazy carnage.

I would love nothing more than re-creating the feel of that game with a few modern updates (maybe modern, smoother graphics for better eye-candy, destructible map elements (leave a crater where a redeemer went off, drop a wall on an enemy), rockets that actually fly fast like real rockets, blast waves, simulated vertigo/shock on impact, more useable gadgets in maps).

Re:

[WheezyJoe]

Still love UT99. So much so that when it wouldn't play on my new Mac, I bought Parallels, Windows XP and the Windows version of UT.

That's dedication, my friend. It runs fine with Windows 7, too, if you ever find yourself forced out of XP.

just modernize UT2k4

[Lehk228]

just upgrade UT2k4 with the things that have become standard in the last 10 years.....

actually fuck that, FPS has only gotten worse over the last decade, re-release with only the most minor tweaks to take advantage of modern hardware and improve the map and mod cache a bit (really just upgrade so hash collisions can't happen and add a browser function to delete only specific cached data when the cache grows to over 9000)

Re:

[Pubstar]

Just about your Sig, its Chelsy Manning now or some crap like that.

Re:

[DirePickle]

UT2k4 would be acceptable, but U2:XMP was the epitome of multiplayer Unreal games for me. It was the saddest Internet day when the master servers went down and scattered the player base. :(

Re:

[drsquare]

If old FPSes like UT were that great, people would still be playing them. People still play Counterstrike 1.6 and Starcraft, yet they don't play UT or Quake.

Re:

[Lehk228]

people still do play 2k4, I have never been unable to get a game.

Re:

[godztempus]

Actually they do still play UT. Check out globalunreal.com it is an active community of around 300 players with draft leagues run 4-6 times a year in various mods.

Re:

[Lehk228]

it wasn't shit when it was made, but it is out dated. the fact that the server can hand out mods real time is something that is still rarely seen in online gaming.

Its all about marketing the engine

[Aphadon]

Even though the UT series were great games in their own right, in reality their purpose have always been to serve as tech demos for the latest iteration of the Unreal Engine. The full UT3 source code is also available to UE3 subscribers as an example of how to implement a game using the engine.

However there hasn't really been any significant changes to UE3 in the last couple of years while they were ramping up development on UE4, so there wasn't much need for another UT game. Now that UE4 is ready to go

Fucking MODs

[ArcadeMan]

Every game these days supports MODs but nobody ever supports S3Ms anymore.

Re:

[Zeromous]

I settle for some HSC support.

Meh. The world has moved on.

[DarthVain]

UT ceased to be relevant a very long time ago.

DOATA2 and League of Legends are were it is at now for competition. Before that Starcraft 2. Before that CS. Team Fortress 2.

Making UT open isn't going to change anything, the world has long since moved on to bigger and better things.

If you want to bring something back that is relevant, bring back Enemy Territory with an open update. Now that would be awesome. Though much of the reason it was great, were features that have since been integrated into all FPS now,

No, it's not free.

[reiserifick]

You have to be a paid Unreal Engine 4 developer to access the source on GitHub...

Re:

[Renozuken]

You don't seem to get it, you're already paying the subscription to use the engine, subscribers just get access to the source code of the game where they can make changes and whatnot. Totally different.