Epic kills Online service for all Unreal Tournament games next month :(

[Blzut3]

1 hour ago, Kinsie said:

It's mostly Epic not wanting to cannibalize their indie UE4/5 licensing business with a side of not having or wanting to take the time to package it up.

The former makes no sense since if that was the case, they could just open source it under a non-free license.  I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather have a restricted use license but the code available than no code at all (or just leaked code as the situation may be).  So I assume it's entirely the latter.  Given that Tim Sweeney has stated a desire to release it, I'm really surprised they can't just tell OldUnreal to go ahead and prepare a release.  But for all I know there's an issue with that.

 

That said, at least they are allowing OldUnreal to maintain the code so could be much worse.  Would be nice to see a similar arrangement for UT2004 though.

[Redneckerz]

Perhaps related, but Epic seems to ready a re-release of Unreal Tournament 3, called Unreal Tournament 3 X, free of charge, no microtransactions, and with crossplay beteeen GoG, Steam and EGS.

[Kinsie]

10 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Perhaps related, but Epic seems to ready a re-release of Unreal Tournament 3, called Unreal Tournament 3 X, free of charge, no microtransactions, and with crossplay beteeen GoG, Steam and EGS.

This appeared at the same time as the delisting reveals. It'll basically be UT3 but without a pricetag and with the old accounts/online system (initially Gamespy, later Steam) replaced with Epic Online Services. Given that it's The Least Liked UT Game except requiring an account for The Least Liked Store, I suspect that it'll go down about as well as an orgasm at a funeral.

[ducon]

14 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Indeed, preservation is very important.

That’s what we do in France in the BNF (article in French).

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, Kinsie said:

This appeared at the same time as the delisting reveals. It'll basically be UT3 but without a pricetag and with the old accounts/online system (initially Gamespy, later Steam) replaced with Epic Online Services. Given that it's The Least Liked UT Game except requiring an account for The Least Liked Store, I suspect that it'll go down about as well as an orgasm at a funeral.

Thanks for this, i missed out on that it was revealed at the same time.

 

Playing Devil's Advocate but i actually, somewhat... like the news? I have the game on X360, so having it F2P on Steam seems fine to me. Well, besides having to sign up for a store i have nothing with.

 

And it doesn't excuse that Epic could have just redirected the classic games to Oldunreal's work.

[Doomkid]

On 12/29/2022 at 2:44 AM, Kinsie said:

Boy, it'd suck if this thread was locked and nobody was able to see this warning!

No. What would have sucked would have been me leaving this thread unlocked while a fucking dumpster fire was burning in it, rather than closing it for a while to give it time to cool down. It was the right decision.

[indigotyrian]

17 hours ago, Kinsie said:

There isn't. At least, not for UE1. The only third-party middleware there is Galaxy Audio, which OldUnreal have long replaced with OpenAL. It's mostly Epic not wanting to cannibalize their indie UE4/5 licensing business with a side of not having or wanting to take the time to package it up.

 

I... suppose I can see this? Though I can't help but feel that if you're making a commercial product, licensing the new game even if you're deliberately targeting a retro feel is the way to go, if for no other reason that you actually get Epic's support as well as the fact that you're working with modern software. Open-sourcing UE1 completely wouldn't really cannibalize UE5 licensing for the simple fact of the matter that BSP holes just don't happen in UE5.

[banjiepixel]

The way Epic is handling this is horrible. What are their plans? Are they going release also Unreal Tournament 2004 X and Unreal Tournament 99 X? Are Unreal and Unreal 2 planned to become (free?) EGS exclusives? And if they didn't just want to sell "broken" UT games without online multiplayer, why not make them just free? Optimally UE1 should be made open source especially because how important Unreal Engine is to the modern games but that isn't as important as keeping the old titles available.

 

What were they thinking while pulling this move? Some transparency would help alot.

[Mr Masker]

4 hours ago, Kinsie said:

I suspect that it'll go down about as well as an orgasm at a funeral.

I'm stealing this.

[Murdoch]

2 hours ago, Mr Masker said:

I'm stealing this.

 

Me too. Hilarious. 

[ReaperAA]

20 hours ago, Kinsie said:

I suspect that it'll go down about as well as an orgasm at a funeral.

 

I love your comment, even as someone who like UT3.

[Master O]

On 12/29/2022 at 8:45 AM, Kinsie said:

I suspect that it'll go down about as well as an orgasm at a funeral.

 

Don't tell us you're speaking from experience....

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Just a heads up to bump this thread, but now it seems that Epic Games has just silently cancelled Unreal Tournament 3 X recently.

 

Now it seems that the Unreal series has been permanently replaced by Fortnite indefinitely.

[Master O]

How to configure UT99 and UT2004 for their respective community multiplayer servers:

 

https://333networks.com/instructions/ut (UT99)

 

https://ut2004serverlist.com/how-to-update-your-game/

[Azuris]

7 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Just a heads up to bump this thread, but now it seems that Epic Games has just silently cancelled Unreal Tournament 3 X recently.

 

Now it seems that the Unreal series has been permanently replaced by Fortnite indefinitely.

 

Maybe someone told them, that this was the worst of the Bunch.

 

Let them their Money printing Machine, but hey, give your Roots some Respect it deserves.

 

[Murdoch]

8 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Just a heads up to bump this thread, but now it seems that Epic Games has just silently cancelled Unreal Tournament 3 X recently.

 

Meh. 3 just wasn't that good. It would take more attention that Epic is likely willing to give it to actually make it appealing, rendering the whole operation a complete waste of time. With community servers stepping in, anyone so inclined can still find a game on UT99 and 2004.

[Kinsie]

10 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Just a heads up to bump this thread, but now it seems that Epic Games has just silently cancelled Unreal Tournament 3 X recently.

 

Now it seems that the Unreal series has been permanently replaced by Fortnite indefinitely.

A rare mercy in that the new, more fortunate generation will be spared the horror and anguish of accidentally playing Unreal Tournament 3.

[ReaperAA]

Just now, Kinsie said:

A rare mercy in that the new, more fortunate generation will be spared the horror and anguish of accidentally playing Unreal Tournament 3.

 

Lol. Though UT3 wasn't THAT bad (it's an okay game). I would play it over Fortnite anyday :p

 

[Kinsie]

Just now, ReaperAA said:

 

Lol. Though UT3 wasn't THAT bad (it's an okay game). I would play it over Fortnite anyday :p

 

Counterpoint: fucking look at it

 

 

It's a pile of half-preheated leftovers from Gears 1 development superglued together in a weekend to fulfil contractual obligations with a dying publisher.

[ReaperAA]

Just now, Kinsie said:

Counterpoint: fucking look at it

 

It's a pile of half-preheated leftovers from Gears 1 development superglued together in a weekend to fulfil contractual obligations with a dying publisher.

 

UT3's visuals are ill suited for an arena shooter I agree. But looks aren't everything. On a gameplay front, it actually the most balanced (weapons wise) UT. Well at least better balance than UT2003/2004

 

Also there are custom maps (HOLP series in particular) that have much less cluttered visuals and focus on pure layout and gameplay. There's even a way to get rid of the 5-inch-thick bloom of early UE3 games, although that does require editing the shaders through Unreal Editor.

[Professor Hastig]

It's somewhat ironic that this discussion got resurrected this shortly after Disney purged their video streaming services off a lot of content.

 

It makes me wonder what message this all sends to potential customers about these kinds of entertainment services. They were once hailed as the future of entertainment, free of the shackles traditional means of distribution had.

 

But now we reach the point where we finally see that all it did was give even more control to the monsters with the customer entirely at their mercy.

[Dark Pulse]

3 was better than most people give it credit for. At least it wasn't the fucking lame gameplay of 2kx (Flippy walljump crap, hitscan weapons being way too overpowered by easily killing anyone trying to close in with a Flak Cannon or Rocket Launcher, Shield Gun meaning you could practically ignore attempts to damage you while racing for a powerup... I could go on).

 

UT3 does have some unfortunate Gears comparisons, but if you actually ignore the looks and pay attention to the gameplay, it felt very solid and a lot more like UT99. And I damn well had a blast in Warfare. Was known on the FragBU servers as the resident tank whore.

 

That said, it definitely was rushed out about six months too soon thanks to Midway dying. By the time the rough edges got smoothed out (UT3 Black), it was just too damn late.

[Azuris]

6 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Lol. Though UT3 wasn't THAT bad (it's an okay game). I would play it over Fortnite anyday :p

 

 

Yeah, but it was somehow really lame (literally, just felt so slow).

Visually it was also just the typical Unreal Engine Look of that Time.

 

I guess from all of them it is the easiest to quickly polish and rerelease it.

 

5 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

3 was better than most people give it credit for. At least it wasn't the fucking lame gameplay of 2kx (Flippy walljump crap.

 

Pah, it was so much fun!

And all those great Gameplay Modes!

And you can easily just activate some Modifier to change it more to your Liking.

[Master O]

8 hours ago, Professor Hastig said:

It's somewhat ironic that this discussion got resurrected this shortly after Disney purged their video streaming services off a lot of content.

 

It makes me wonder what message this all sends to potential customers about these kinds of entertainment services. They were once hailed as the future of entertainment, free of the shackles traditional means of distribution had.

 

But now we reach the point where we finally see that all it did was give even more control to the monsters with the customer entirely at their mercy.

 

Many people, including me, said that physical copies are better because streaming services will invariably remove content whenever it either no longer sells well or is "politically incorrect" or not "woke" enough for whoever is in charge.

 

[dasho]

15 minutes ago, Master O said:

 

Many people, including me, said that physical copies are better because streaming services will invariably remove content whenever it either no longer sells well or is "politically incorrect" or not "woke" enough for whoever is in charge.

 

 

Yep, this is pretty much old news for anyone that's been paying attention.

[Mr. Freeze]

Collections are also much cooler to have in your home. I could buy a Kindle and have 1000 books on it but my bookshelf is an aesthetic all its own. 

[Captain red pants]

3 hours ago, Master O said:

 or is "politically incorrect" or not "woke"

Whoa this is about lost media! I don't know why you're making this political.

[dasho]

7 minutes ago, Captain red pants said:

Whoa this is about lost media! I don't know why you're making this political.

 

Because it is a mechanism by which media can become 'lost'.

[Captain red pants]

15 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

Because it is a mechanism by which media can become 'lost'.

So are right wing moral panics like the ones getting books pulled from libraries and schools *right now*. You know, the ones inspired by people who love to use the word 'woke'
If this is a politics free zone then that means anti-woke culture war shit should go to.
 

[Graf Zahl]

No big surprise here, neither on the gaming nor the movie side. This all plays out the way it had to be. Everybody wanted to have their cake and eat it, too, and now the costs are exploding. Even though I have little sympathies for Steam, things were better before both game and movie studios got carried away by dreams of endless supplies of money(TM) from launching their own services, just having one or two independent ones, keeping the costs in check.

 

Now we got the same amount of content but 5-10 times the cost - and the inevitable result is removing titles from the library that take up space but don't bring in much revenue.