Not only is this a really awesome thing for Epic to do, it could have much further-reaching consequences than UT if it's successful.
At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry.
Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fun.
A few fun ways this also looks like turn-of-the-century FPS world:
-We could see an FPS rise in eSports prominence again
-Mods built on top of one game create tons of variety accessible to one player base
-Mod developers have an easy way to become recognized game developers
Also, not related to the old Quake / UT / Half-Life scenes, but the marketplace for assets will be on top of a game that isn't Team Fortress 2, so there's much more creative latitude once mods are released (disclaimer: I love TF2).
I love the movement mechanics of previous UT games, between always-run, dodging (doubletap a direction), double-jumping, and walljumping (jumptowards a wall, doubletap opposite direction), it was a rather entertaining game to play. Add to that the completely crazy weapons by today's FPS standards, and you have something I haven't seen in a long while.
The interesting thing about the weapons was that most were rather slow-moving and projectile speeds were very important. So motion prediction was far more important than for modern shooters.
Shooting someone out of the air with a rocket launcher was a feat.
Shock combos were an especially fun one. You had to predict where someone would be and get a shock ball (probably the slowest projectile in the game) near them, then shoot the ball out of the air with a scan-hit beam to blow it up.
I'm really excited to see what they're doing here.
Right. My favourite stunt with the shock rifle was shooting a ball straight or down, then jumping over an obstacle and then hitting the ball to kill another player. Very impressive to look at, but actually doable with a bit of training.
I hope they include the impact-hammer + teleporter puck combo. It was SO FUN blasting that puck across the map then teleporting to it, not to mention trying to defend against such a move with the shock combo.
I loved that move, teleport behind someone and then shock ball them whilst they try to figure out where you are whilst getting the hell out of the way since they;re anticipating you attacking them.
Yep, though Q3 sported more very fast moving or instant hit weapons (Shotgun, Plasma, Minigun, BFG, Railgun). On the other hand, Q3 also had faster player movement speeds, making hits even with fast weapons an exercise in tracking.
I still love playing Q3 as well, especially because of the driving soundtrack ;).
I bet it will. The open-source competitive shooters I can think of (Warsaw, Quake3's Challenge Pro Mode mod [in the sense that it was designed by community]) all had interesting and complex movement schemes.
And since we now have Github, all that awesomeness is just a pull request away...
There was even a Quake mod called "Defrag" which "de-fragged" the game (removed the killing), making it soley focused on movement. Really neat stuff; hard as hell but really rewarding when you start to get the hang of it.
Similarly, 'surf' maps for Unreal Tournament (if I recall correctly), which was capture the flag without the shooting, requiring players to run an obstacle course and abuse the game physics; dodging sideways up a steep ramp caused people to launch in the air, that kinda thing.
Racesow (Warsow mod) did the same thing. Except in the movement repertoire you also had wall jumps and dashes. Which meant you could keep your speed even when doing 360 degree turns.
Depends of the tutorials you followed. I've started with double beat strafe jumps (where you do 2 jumps before the direction change), then switched to single beat and almost got halfbeat working.
We are already seeing an FPS rise in eSports again. CS:GO has held 2 $250,000 prize pool tournaments in the last 6 months. It's the second most played game on steam with daily peaks over 150,000 players.
You can only share the source code with other Unreal Engine licensee who is authorized to access the same version of the engine as yours, and if you copy and paste the Unreal Engine code into your own project or engine, the your product will be governed by the EULA and royalties will have to be paid.
TLDR: This is non-free. It is not open source, its not free software, and it is unlikely to ever exist in distributions like Debian and Ubuntu.
You're right, it's gratis. I highly doubt it'll satisfy the definition of free/open source software, as it'll (understandably) lack redistribution rights.
It's still a highly daring development model, all things considered. The concept itself is hardly new, but it's the first time an AAA developer has adopted it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It also won't satisfy the definition of free/open source software in that the source code likely won't be available under an open-source license (though they're using GitHub, so maybe).
They didn't say word one about the code being open; just the development process and the progress they're making.
Epic has completely changed this year and doing amazing things like this and the $19 engine access. Living up to their name.
Looks like they are doing the Team Fortress 2 free to play model, even though they say it is free and not free to play, the vanity store/content is the Valve F2P model used in TF2, DotA, probably CS etc. These games are huge because of the community content, Epic is seeing that.
This is such a cool thing to do and only wish they did it many years ago.
Wow, that is a pretty awesome plan. I can really see it paying off hugely for everyone involved. Now you can be part of a game development team without having a task master forcing to work 80 hour weeks, and yet you can still be part of it from the beginning to end. I wish Blizzard would do this for the WoW engine.
Yeah, but the repo is private -- the nice thing about being active on github when you aren't getting paid is that others can see what you've been committing to publicly and it looks great on a resume.
> When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free.
> We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game.
What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? To my understanding, "free to play" means the game is largely free, but with the implication that there is additional content that can optionally be purchased. "Free" means the game is free, with no implication either way of whether optional purchases exist.
Free to play is typically monetized. While they are allowing others to publish paid mods, and profiting from it, they seem to be indicating that they will provide a quality core UT class game, for free, without charging for any of it. Which is pretty awesome.
You're definitely right that the distinction they are making isn't very clear, and they could message that part better.
>What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"?
I think the distinction is that Android Platform is "free". The Unreal Tournament Platform is "free".
Both give you usable functionality out of the box, and free. Both give you the opportunity to purchase additional functionality in a "store".
"Free to play" generally means the developer will add more content, or cheats, or whatever to purchase, whereas "free" in this case means they will offer a platform and a store where they will take a cut.
The distinction is that they won't be monetizing Unreal Tournament 'the game'; there won't be gems to purchase, or hats to buy, or whatever else.
They will be providing a marketplace where other people can sell their own content that they create, which is optional and not (necessarily?) integrated into the main game.
The implication of 'free to play' is that the game itself is full of opportunities to monetize players, or that progression can be sped with currency which you can earn/buy, etc, and that the developer will be splitting their time between bugfixes/features and producing new content to sell to people (at varying levels of balance between the two).
The difference here is that the developers are producing two separate things: one, a 3D tournament-style FPS; and two, a shop where people can sell game content that they've created, and make money from it (or presumably give it away for free).
We we're only talking about gameplay effecting purchases (so not skins and what not) I think it's used to draw the distinction between where you can purchase changes to gameplay that take effect in a mixed population of purchasers and non-purchasers (free to play), and where you can buy into access to segregated gameplay populations (free with mod marketplace).
For example, free to play in a FPS could be purchasing weapons that cannot be accessed in other ways. On the other hand, free + mod marketplace could say... imagine for some reason UT4 ships without a certain game mode... say CTF with Vehicles. Some enterprising fellow can now make a mod with CTF with Vehicles, and sell it on the marketplace. Or maybe a game mode where everyone has bow and arrow and a knife. The point is that there is now a 'different' game that you pay to get access to.
Fundamentally, it would be like say... if Half Life multiplayer was free on release, but someone still went and sold Counter Strike anyways.
I guess they are talking about Team Fortress 2 here. In TF2 you are allowed to buy actual weapons and power packs in the marketplace, not just skins for them. You could also get them by playing, but it takes an awful amount of time.
Another important aspect that I hope they adopt from TF2 is that even if you use default items (e.g. weapons) you will not be in disadvantage when playing with users that spent money on items.
I'm assuming that you won't be able to buy things in the marketplace and bring them into other people's games. With mods in the previous UTs it's been very much that every player in a game is on exactly the same footing except for player skill.
You start with the same gear, and anything else you can get is sitting around the level to be picked up by everybody.
I'm not sure how the community would feel about that. UT puts you in situations where your opponent is carrying around 10 different guns at once, and the split second "he just pulled out a sniper rifle" reaction can be pretty important.
If they do have weapon skins carry into the game, Epic will have to be gatekeeper on approving all of them. If not, you'd have people reskinning their rocket launcher to look like it's something else, with negative gameplay effects.
Perhaps we'll see two tiers of aesthetic mods? Ones that anybody can create and use in their local / self-hosted games, and others that have been approved for online play?
All the gameplay-affecting weapons cost mere pennies in TF2 though (and most of them are sidegrades or downgrades anyway). The money in TF2 is basically all in purely-cosmetic items and effects.
Most of the gameplay-affecting weapons are $2+ each (example [1]). It's true that they are sidegrades (it isn't just pay-to-win), but its kind of disingenuous to say they cost "mere pennies"
Unintentionally a bit misleading, but not disingenuous. The market value for an ordinary TF2 weapon, on sites like http://scrap.tf/ but also in the TF2 aftermarket generally, is usually the equivalent of about $0.014 . One you have a basic acquaintance with TF2 trading, the idea of buying weapons at the official store is so outlandish that it had genuinely slipped my mind that it was even possible until you reminded me. (Even if you don't want to mess around with item crafting or trading with bots or humans, at Valve's other official item store you can buy a fancier, kill-counting version of that same weapon for 15% the price! http://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/440/Strange%20Clea... ) I suppose there must be a significant number of people still doing it though.
Ah, interesting. I haven't played TF2 since the player marketplace was introduced. It uses to be either buy from the official store or go through some pretty shady websites.
I think this distinction will be largely moved along by the people who contribute to their eventual content marketplace. If there's a ton of interest in commercial mods, then you'll see non-free mods, though the base game itself will be free.
It's very hard to predict how this will shake out right now, though.
I guess it's free in the sense that UT4 is a complete game, you will not need to pay to experience UT4. The extra content is made by the players themselves and can be given away for free or sold.
If it's like previous UTs, you don't get to bring your own mods into somebody else's game. Each game is played with a particular set of mods (set by the host), and they apply equally to everyone.
It will be tricky to incorporate the fanbase because there's a huge split in UT fans about the high-speed pace of UT2k4 vs. the slower, spammier gameplay of classic UT. UT3 attempted to split the difference and was universally reviled.
Still, this is super-exciting and I hope the best for them. The classic FPS genre has needed this for years.
UT3 was reviled because it was designed for both consoles and PCs, so everything was a compromise - sort of the windows 8 of the UT series.
I know what you mean about the split, but as someone who loves both series I think either way will lead to a great game. I personally think the faster-style would be more successful because the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style.
>the series as a whole has always leaned more towards a arcadey/tactical style than a simulation/strategy style.
It's interesting that you say that, because I think the biggest achievement of UT to date is the Onslaught mode, which fluidly mixed strategic and tactical, vehicular and on-foot gameplay. And as onslaught showed (on some maps - not all), you don't have to sacrifice speed or pace of close-in combat to enable strategic gameplay of CTF/ONS type.
This is amazing! I remember playing mods like Team Fortress on Quake - things people made just because they enjoyed it. The problem with mods lately is that it takes really passionate people to support them for free, and they're either hard to monetize or monetization isn't even an option (SC). There's still plenty of great UGC, but it's generally not commercial grade - time investment is high, and financial reward is 0.
This model is brilliant!! It could keep people playing for years just by trying out new mods, new content, and more. Really excited to see what happens.
This announcement just sold me on an Unreal Engine 4 subscription[1] if for nothing else than to obtain access to early Unreal Tournament builds. Unreal Tournament is one of my favorite video game series, and I love that it is possible that I will be able to contribute to the development of the latest installment.
It's not clear whether this will eventually be licensed under an open source license. Since it doesn't look like they're planning to monetize the game directly then it might seem to make sense to do so.
It drives up subscriptions to Unreal Engine 4, so that's probably the primary monetization strategy. They won't make any money from players until the content marketplace opens, but this could do a lot to drive people to use and learn UE4.
It's a potentially smart business move, will be interesting to see how it works out for them.
Well, they say development will be "in the open" and that "[w]hen the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free." So they use the words "free" and "open," but they don't say anything like "free software" or "open source." Even someone like Stallman acknowledges that this is a legitimate use of the word free (although the terms "gratis" or "free as in beer" are less potentially ambiguous).
While folks are building these new mods and such, don't forget to look back to existing UT properties for ideas. Unreal 2 XMP is still one of the best team-based FPS setups I've seen. Sadly, it never recovered after they shut down the directory servers to try to force everyone to switch to Unreal 3.
This will be very interesting to watch. I think I spent more time playing with skyrim mods from steam than playing the original game, which was a new experience for me, since using fan-made game mods was usually more trouble than it was worth in the past. A streamlined "app store" experience can add years of life to a game, and with the massive investments required for AAA titles these days, that has to be good for the publishers, as long as they can capture some of the revenue. It also provides a low friction platform for new game developers and artists to get their content in front of a lot of people who may not be part of the indie/casual game demographic. I really hope this model catches on, it would be a win for everybody.
After finishing the Warcraft III single-player campaign I played 2 vanilla online games before discovering the tower defense "mods"/maps in the custom ladder. For 3-4 years the only game I played was various custom maps in Warcraft 3. It certainly added years of gameplay to the game. It even gave birth to an entire new genre with DOTA.
I'm very exited to see what this will bring us, although I don't know what I think about the idea of payed mods...
Nice, but I don't want another UT, I want another Unreal. A true successor to Unreal 1. I did not like Unreal 2, I did not like the characters of it at all. I kinda like a silent protagonist, because it solves the "I don't want to play as that douche" problem.
Epic Games could potentially corner a portion of the VR market. The VR market may explode bigger than the internet. I wish Epic Games was publicly traded, I would definitely buy the stock.
It slightly concerns me that "the community" is going to have a direct say in UT4's development. First, many developers and pundits have said that whenever a community starts to dictate the course of a game, things often go south, since the most vocal members of a community very often don't represent the majority of the playerbase. (I believe TotalBiscuit has pointed to WoW as a great example of this, though I haven't played it myself.) Secondly, I love UT and I've been playing it from the start, but I'm not a hardcore arena shooter player. Advanced techniques like bunny-hopping, strafe-running, and all the crazy stunts described in this thread simply don't interest me. As far as I'm concerned, many of them are glorified bugs and should either be removed entirely, or alternatively made more accessible for new players through tutorials and/or better in-game feedback. (See: skiing in the new Tribes, rocket jumping in TF2, combos in fighting games.) But I reckon that most of the people interested in the project at this early stage are exactly those kinds of advanced players. As a result, I fear that we'll get a game that's too obtuse for the "filthy casuals" (such as myself) who will be required to keep it active in the long run. Contrary to the current zeitgeist, I don't believe it's enough to balance a game around the competitive community in order to make it fun for everyone. Competitive gamers are a niche; people like me, who play for fun with a few friends over a couple of beers, are the mass market.
With that said, I'm really happy to see that there's going to be a UT4, and I'm looking forward to following the development. It's been a while since the last great arena shooter, and I hope we'll be seeing a resurgence sometime soon!
If it was anything but Unreal Tournament I'd agree. Communities can devolve into anarchy, with every new feature being a super feature, then a super-duper feature, and so on.
But UT is pretty much anarchy anyway. That's the appeal - a great big shootout with low latency and amazing ridiculous weapons!
I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Valve lately. Epic and Crytek have both released their engines for absurdly cheap rates and been gathering a lot of steam around their platforms. Valve is known for their community interaction and marketplace but haven't released their plans for Source 2 etc. Any ideas?
Wouldn't that be a great move? Not sure how they would make the money on it then, but I think it would quickly beat most other engines out there in popularity.
I don't know if that's Valve even wants, but it could be if say that would get most game developers out there to create OpenGL/Linux-compatible games by default, and since Source 2 will only support OpenGL (I think), that could be one way to do it.
Valve has stated they want to bring the community closer together for buying/selling/trading of goods. I would expect they would make their money that way.
I doubt they would dump DirectX completely. They've reworked the engine for linux to not care if it's running DirectX or OpenGL. Leaving this intact could provide a way to eventually port to Android/iOS and other mobile platforms? Valve has stated they want to get into the mobile space but have seemed to fail thus far. I recall them mentioning Linux was a natural step to go from Win Desktop -> Mac -> Linux to Mobile running Linux (Android)
Not sure how they would make the money on it then, but I think it would quickly beat most other engines out there in popularity.
They would make money if Source 2 was designed to make Linux a premier development and gaming environment. Valve wants everyone on Linux, eventually. It's the only refuge they have from the walled garden lockdown future of Windows.
What codebase are they starting with? How long will it take to develop a tournament quality game? The announcement says a "small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today" and that a playable version won't be available for "many months".
Whatever assets Epic releases, we're aiming to adjust them to match UT99 as closely as possible over at www.uTournament.net. We're also going to integrate the game into the web browser!
Free as in beer. The Unreal engine is proprietary software, and this new UT game will be, too. Epic is using the word "open" and hosting the source code on GitHub, but it's still proprietary (freedom denying) software.
I wonder if one could learn how to program games in C++ by following the progress from the very beginning and persistently try to understand every line.
This is the only on-line game that I played at a seriously high level(ut2k4). It pretty much burned me out on multi-player games but... Dare I ask; will there be TAM? I never really experienced the "dance" of ut2k4 in any other game. Spiritually it could be compared to guntana I suppose. Once you get the muscle memory down it's a complete mind game. 100+bpm mind game. How I miss it :|
Epic's model is already so cool, "Here, take our billion dollar tool and make something awesome with it. If it's a success, we'll take a small cut. If not, no sweat.", and now this! I can't even wait. I've waited so long for the next Unreal Tournament... I hope Epic makes billions off of UE4.
Interesting. I wonder if Epic is also looking at this as an opportunity to cultivate, then hire, fresh talent.
To be blunt, if you always wanted to break into the game industry, this couldn't be a better opportunity for you to pick up related experience and build relationships with potential employers.
This is my most loved favourite Game, yeahhh! This is so awesome, I'm gonna buy a new PC and smash Gentoo, or NixOS onto it! Hope I find out which Graphics-card and which Mainboard is supported well enough to play the game at max resolution.
Would be cool to see live streams of dev screens throughout the project on Twitch.tv. I always find it interesting to watch someone else code without preparation and not "for show".
This is awesome. I haven't played it in years but UT was one of my favourite games when I was younger. They had a pretty cool level editor I used to spend a lot of time playing with.
If you want to check out their current editor, $20/month gets you access to the editor and the full C++ source for the engine. You can even cancel the subscription and keep using it if you don't need updates.
I doubt it'll be included with the new UT (since that's going to be free), but it's a pretty impressive toolset.
In my limited experience that's because free games don't have the resources to combat hackers. Epic and UT might be different. Does world of tanks have a hacker problem?
At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry.
Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fun.