[#rekt.Vogg]

Don't you think it is about time you shut down the 4.1 servers?

are there any plans promotion wise?

When HD comes out, will maps like turnpike still be in the official map list? or will they only be available as third party maps?

can you improve the bots? because atm they are really stupid and the level 5 bots are still really bad.

How is the movie contest going? :p

This post has been edited by Vogg: 22 June 2013 - 11:40 AM

[|it|Seven of Nine]

Vogg, on 22 June 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

How is the movie contest going? :p

I'd like to answer this one immidiatly since the Q&A session will probably be later than the result :)
It has stopped, the submissions are being voted upon, and soon the results will be posted.

[[Sk&Bh]Txc]

Hypperz, on 22 June 2013 - 12:26 AM, said:

...

Why does nobody use the PSG? And in saying that, is there, or has there ever been any tweaks in mind to gain it some popularity? This same question could also apply to the Negev.

...

''Nobody'' just heard you ;) .
BTW also http://www.urbanterr...utifulnihilist/ might still have some PSG-1 demos you might want to see .

[pulse]

Seven of Nine, on 21 June 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:

For instance might be misinterpreted, so I guess if FS will want people outside of FS to do voice acting for urt?

Yep, from the community itself. I did a couple threads on this topic before, we all thought it would be a good idea!

[wTf|beautifulNihilist]

Txc, on 22 June 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

''Nobody'' just heard you ;) .
BTW also http://www.urbanterr...utifulnihilist/ might still have some PSG-1 demos you might want to see .

Ha! I'm famous
<3

[BRAVO]

I would like to know if you will add .44 magnum and flashbangs in any 4.2 future release or you will wait until HD.

[|it|Seven of Nine]

Thanks for all your questions, there's certainly enough to fill a Q&A session or two with these questions. Don't forget that during the stream (which will still be announced) you can also post questions in the chat.

[FS BladeKiller]

I just want to make it very clear to the people asking about open sourcing 4.2 that GPL'ing the mod code would not include Urban Terror's assets. This means you would have to make all your own from the UI assets to player models, weapons, flags, HUD elements, etc. You can not use the name Urban Terror either.

[|it|Seven of Nine]

I've reopened the topic, this is not an invitation to start a new Q&A. Here are the answers, and if you want to watch it all again watch it here!
You can of course discuss the answers. We will organize another Q&A sometime in the future, this time not so damn long :D

Development process

• What is being worked on more at the moment, UrT HD or 4.2? (SilverFoxZ)
  Both are being worked equally. 4.2 should be seen as the version that will keep being developed to bridge the gap until HD. It’s also a great way to test things for HD. A good example of what’s already in place is the idea of player accounts and authentication as part of the requirements of building a anti-cheat or prevention system. It makes a lot of sense to add it as a 4.X update and is fully functional before HD is even released when such an addition was originally planned as a HD feature.
  
  
• Will there ever be any other project than UrT developed by FS? (SilverFoxZ)
  Another game? It’s too early to say as we still have to finish HD. There are projects like GTV which are not FS projects, but will be used in UrT HD.
  
  
• Will Frozen Sand invite people from the community to do voice acting for the game? (Pulse)
  If there is an need and the individual is willing to at least sign the contributor's agreement it's something to consider. With out the paper work we would be heading back to the same problems already present in 4.X as far as art content goes.
  
  
• Will there ever be a Bug Tracker on the website so everyone can see progress? (x3r)
  This is something that we are looking into as far as known bugs goes. Bug tracking in general is difficult to keep up with but as B1naryThief said in the stream, he’s looking into arranging this.
  
  
• Can you tell us about your work organization. For example, how do you communicate? How do you fix deadlines for this or that stuff to do? How do you decide if you are going to make a feature that was suggested by the community? The main point of this question is to know how are you organized, how is it managed (whether it's about Frozen Sand or UrbanTerror) (brainie)
  If you read Valves employee handbook we are very much organized the same way. Since we are a team of the willing setting “fixed” deadlines has and will never work as a demand of someones free time. To counter the feature creep effect with usually creates delays as to fixed released dates we instead us a release window of opportunity which occurs every Friday.
  Communications wise we use IRC to get ideas onto the table that is followed up on our internal message board and then use TS3 to fine tune as objectives that in the past would take weeks or even moths to settle as to intent that can't be accomplished with out direct communication.
  Community suggestions are “ALWAYS” considered and if logical implemented in ways that is not always recognizable. The skin forcing feature was seeded based on a few suggestions that was implemented to solve a lot of player suggestions as to player model visibility and color blindness due to color imbalance of a given map. An all green skin would never work on a map like Raiders and now that it's implemented BladeKiller can make the skin textures she wants. Win win.
  
  
• Can you tell us about the philosophy of this game? This is a very broad question, it's done on purpose (brainie)
  We think therefore we do.
  The philosophy is simple that others are expert on what has to be done but we take on the challenge of doing something besides nothing and then see and take notes on what happens afterwards. Call it games development by natural progression (aka flex development).
  
  
• Can you tell us about the way you are going to make this game equal for the competitions and for the people who want to play it for fun. Are you going to make it more axed on the competitive play or not? (brainie)
  We won't make any special clients or special rules for competitive play, the game will be the same for everybody as it is now. We still listen to the feedback of both types of players and if something makes sense and is feasible we could implement features. A good example is KNOCKOUT, this will be implemented in an upcoming release, it’s mainly a match mode. But it could just as well be played on a public server, if well organised.
  
  
• Where do you take your inspiration from to create this game? Do you follow some ideas from Counter Strike, or Quake, or anything else? (brainie)
  It's safe to say that 100% of the current development team are made up of a broad range of skilled individuals who's main interest is in seeing Urban Terror being around for another fifteen years. It's also safe to say we are inspired by each other when someone comes up with a good idea to make something that’s broken better as it relates to the game they love to play. And the community, KO came from rYuuJiN who is a community member.
  
  
• Does frozensand have any plans to promote Urban Terror more? (Vogg)
  The Urban Arts 2013 competition has only just finished, this is of course with the promotion of Urban Terror in mind. We recently looked into arranging a BYOC event at QuakeCon this year, but its very last minute and might not result into something. A lot of us on the team though believe that KnockOut has proven that it has a lot to offer and FS will be supporting SevenofNine as a means of promoting Urban Terror both now and in the future when HD is ready.
  RaideR recently came up with an idea, but it's early days, anyway to be short, yes there are plans, but really the product (urt) should promote itself, that's how 4.0 became as big as it did. 4.0 was a great step foward from 3.x. Now we're busy working on it's succesor urt HD.

UrT HD

• Can the community expect a Linux/Mac version of HD for us to test? Or is that in the 2 weeks which never happened last time? (Kris)
  No, because we are not using a licensed idtech3 engine as our base due to the fact that the contract offered to us did not include Linux or Mac although this was promised to us several times. It also had time restrictions and royalties and fees added so after over 2 years of negotiations we declined and are now working on a new engine. We lost a few years of work due to this which has delayed HD.
  
  ps. Good example how not to ask a question, snide remarks decrease the likelyhood of your question being answered.
  
  
• Will HD be released on Steam or is it too early to say? (x3r)
  Going Steam is on our radar but the way things are going Frozen Sand / Urban Terror could just as easily become the next Steam. Setting this as the goal is cheap as there is no labor or start up costs involved and on the ego side of things Urban Terror is just to good to put it into a mix of “hopefuls” through greenlight.
  Ask this question in another year.
  
  
• I played UrT for over 5 years, but haven't played in a long time, because I was disappointed with everything after 3.0. My favorite UrT was 2.4. I would love to see something like it return. Are you guys planning on remaking UrT on a newer engine or webbrowser based like quakelive to increase popularity of it? I would also love it to be more competition based for 5v5 or something of the sort. (xaombie)
  We have an urbanterror encyclopedia at our disposal in the form of Bladekiller and she told us that 2.4 was a disaster with servers crashing that was replaced in 2 weeks and it didn't even contain a matchmode as that came with 3.0. But we'll just skip over that. As for your questions, yes we are working on "remaking" urbanterror in a new engine. As for the 5v5 competitive scene, it's still alive and kicking on competitions like Urban Zone and clanbase.

UrT 4.2

• When do you think will most players completely switch to 4.2 and are any actions by FS planned to make it happen faster? (SilverFoxZ)
  4.2 is history repeating itself and we have a fair idea of how long it's going to take for a semi-complete switch to occur that we can drop 4.1 support with as little growing pains as possible. Authentication and player registration is adding a bit to server switching and until there is a majority of servers on the 4.2 network there is little we can do about implementing an active anti-cheat.
  
  
• Don't you think it is about time you shut down the 4.1 servers? (Vogg)
  Yes and no. We are still working on answering the two question rule.
  
  
• Will there be any new maps in 4.2? (SilverFoxZ)
  As part of the download package? Probably not as bandwidth is still expensive. With the move towards HD as far as content goes maps added as part of the download package would fall under the category of owner based projects so the opportunity to add maps is still there and is really a question is one of our mapmakers still interested in doing a map for idtech3?
  
  
• Will there be another 4.2 update and if so when? (SilverFoxZ)
  Of course, this question was posted before we had decided when 013 would be released.
  
  
• Can we expect voIP in-game for 4.2? (for both global and team) (x3r)
  With TS3/mumble etc being available as an option why would voIP also need to be included as part of the core game?
  In short, it is not on our todo list.
  
  
• Will we get a team balance without having to use B3 for 4.2? (x3r)
  If one of our coders wants to take it on as an owner based project it's possible. (P.S.) Bribery in the shape of hot pockets and Think Geek T-shirts works well.
  
  
• Will vanilla UrT ever support 64 slot servers in 4.2? (x3r)
  No, the game is designed for 8 vs 8 maximum. More than this is also hard on performance with the Q3 engine.
  
  
• Will there be more freedom given to server admins about what weapons can be used on each team, damage, # of jumps allowed etc? (x3r)
  As of yet we don't have plans to allow server admins to change things such as damage. As for the number of jumps, I'd say this would be counter productive as jump maps are designed with a certain number of jumps in mind. You could always change the gravity :)
  Further more there are some games like xonotic and warsaw which show giving too many options could be bad. It's hard to find a regular game.
  
  
• @BladeKiller Can we get a zombie skin in 4.2? (x3r)
  Yes.
  
  
• Are you guys going to try add more popular custom maps to the vanilla UrT? (x3r)
  No, as this makes it difficult for the custom map to be updated/maintained.
  
  
• Once HD is released, will you open source 4.2? (x3r)
  This has been talked about but not an easy question to answer until we get to that point in time. To be honest there is little value in open sourcing the game code beyond maintaining the needs of an already established community. The current problems and issues our coders deal with every day is the primary reason to move development to HD and a new engine design.
  
  We can also say that the name Urban Terror is copyrighted and won't be allowed to use for any projects based on the gamecode, IF it gets open sourced. Furthermore all the artwork/models etc will not be released as we don't have all the rights to release them under open source. For example, our maps' readme.txt say they are for Urban Terror only and are not to be used on other games.
  
  
• When will notoriety be finished? What factors will effect notoriety? (x3r)
  Notoriety is a sub-value as part of the planed active AC system so it's not so much a question of when it will be finished but what vales can we continue to add. From the game side of things this gives us something to take away as to risk as in you are caught cheating we take away your stuff.
  As to what factors will be included we are not going to tell anyone.
  
  
• Can medic information be output to the logs so bots such as B3 can factor this in for skill and for team damage? (x3r)
  This would fall under the category of owner based projects. Find a coder that’s willing to do the code (who knows the speed at which things get done around here it might even be done already ;) )
  
  
• Will "Blue / Red Team Won" sound be updated for the new colors? (x3r)
  This is not high on our priority list, we are aware of it. New “announcer sounds” and “radio chat” will be created for HD, so it’s hard to say for 4.2.
  
  
• Will there be more chat $variables as others and myself have suggested in the past? (x3r)
  Once again an owner based project.
  
  
• Can we get entity prediction so players and entity objects don't take a long time to appear when you come around a corner with high ping? (x3r)
  Anything involving the use of ping as a fixed variable is not really possible. Ping is not reliable.
  
  
• Can we get a shuffle teams that doesn't restart the map? (x3r)
  We can see what we can do J
  
  
• Could you implement a bot_maxplayers like bot_minplayers but start kicking bots once the server gets to XX players? (x3r)
  Bots are very low on our list of things to do.
  
  These are two questions that we'll combine as they both are on the same subject of animations.
  
• The character animations in 4.2 were disappointing, and I am hoping that more effort will be in the HD release. How important is character animation to the team? (voidref)
  
• The biggest complaint to 4.2 is still the animations - Has simply conceding and reverting them back to how they were in 4.1 even come under consideration? (hypperz)
  I'd just like to add that in the question hypperz also said: He did say he didn't notice the problem anymore, so maybe he answered his own question, everything needs getting used to, same as the new hits.
  As much as some feel they are disappointing there is equally as many if not more who feel that they are better. Character animation is important and goes with out saying but the current animation system is the same system used in 1999 for Quake 3. The best way to describe MD3 animation is it's like moving furniture around to get the perfect Fung Shui.
  HD is a totally different animal and the first concepts is to go with a 2.5 perspective and putting both the current 1st and 3rd person perspectives into a single channel.
  It should also be noted that animations were changed not because they needed to be changed but because the hitmesh needed to be put back onto the same animation channels as the rendered player models to improve collision detection.
  
  
• Leg shots in 4.2 are registered from the belt down (some swear it is worse) - Is this intended? (hypperz)
  This has been addressed in 4.2.013 - with additional hit zones between the upper torso and lower legs. There is a limit of 16 hit zones in the game code.
  
  
• Will FS improve the bots, at the moment they are really stupid and at level 5 are still really bad. (Vogg)
  If someone with AI skills joins the team that could be their project. At the moment it takes a lot just to keep the human element working so improving bots is low on the list of things to do.

UrT 4.2 - weapons

• [I think] Grenades and knives are not using the unlagged code, will they be made to use it in future 4.2 versions? (x3r)
  Something something “can of worms” something something J In short, no.
  
  
• Why was the SPAS whacked with the nerf-stick? – So in other words are there plans to change the weapon characteristics of the SPAS as it isn’t used as much as the mp5 and ump secondary weapons? (hypperz)
  The SPAS is unique as it fires shot and not single projection bullets so collision detection becomes problematic. Either hit values would have to go up, which is a very narrow value window as it is, or the number of pellets increased, which in the past has caused servers to crash.
  In general “ALL” weapon specifications has changed with improvements to collision and the addition of a from scratch hitmesh that works and at the moment there is no indication that weapons did not just simply scaled relative to one another and the smart move is to wait and see if players can make the adjustment first.
  
  
• The damage output of the glock seems very illogical compared to the DE and beretta - Could you give any insight to how the current damage output of it was chosen? (hypperz)
  MajkiFajki designed the specs for the weapon, his answer "Berretta and DE are two OPPOSITE pistols in every way. You can't compare them. Glock specs are designed to give players different pistol than two others and to allow them more customisation in selecting gear VS play-style. You want high dmg? Choose DE. Great accuracy? Choose Beretta. Something between? Choose glock."
  
  
• Why does nobody use the PSG? And in saying that, is there, or has there ever been any tweaks in mind to gain it some popularity? This same question could also apply to the Negev. (hypperz)
  You shouldn't expect the PSG to be like the SR8. BeautifulNihilist for instance uses the PSG to perfection. She plays totally different than SR8 players. The fact the weapon isn't used much in general does not mean it's bad.
  SevenofNine: I can say from my own experience the negev can be used succesfully in clanwars, it's not my preferred weapon, but like a smoke grenade, there's a time and a place.
  
  
• BRAVO would like to know if FS will add the .44 magnum and flashbangs in a future 4.2 release or will this come in HD? (BRAVO)
  Frozen Sand is in the process of creating the necessary infrastructure required to move the entire development team over to HD development but updates to 4.X will continue to be owner development projects. If one of our developers wants to take ownership to do the work necessary to get the Magnum and flashbangs in and working for a release window then they will have to manage the requirements and resources available to them to make it possible.
  The magnum is a bit too high res for 4.x and the flashbangs are buggy so we might have to wait for HD for these two. We shall see.

MISC

• Will there ever be a "proper" UrT Soundtrack(s)? Other than the menu theme. (SilverFoxZ)
  FrozenSand has a "Composer / Audio Engineer" on the team called UnifiedTone You won't have heard much of his work, but he has done quite a lot for HD.
  
  
• How much are the operating costs FS pays out each month on average? (if you don't mind me asking) (x3r)
  We do mind you asking, we can cover our running costs with advertisement funding. Donations are always welcome.
  
  
• How do you see this game in 5, 10 and 15 years? (brainie)
  Alive and kicking.
  Urban Terror is already closing into the classic range of fifteen years and it's one of those safe things to say that we on the team are here to make sure that it’s around for another fifteen. Where we will be in fifteen years is really up to the community to decided as 100% of the development team “is” made up from a broad cross section of talented individuals from with in the community who join because they want to help make someone eases job easier.

MAPS

These are two questions we'll combine:

• When HD comes out, will maps like turnpike still be in the official map list? or will they only be available as third party maps? (vogg)
  
• Which maps are being worked on for Urban Terror HD? (happyday)
  There are a number of maps, some of which are already released as alpha's or beta's like "Sarlat La Caneda" and "Old Jerusalem" by Majki.
  Then there are recreations of classic urt maps like turnpike and uptown. Nevada is based on TP's layout and is being worked on by skaz, and uptown is getting a Chicago theme and is being worked on by Majki.
  Further more, there are some as of yet unannounced maps which are still being worked on.
  And as some of you may know already levant has been working on a an "icy race map" for those who haven't seen it yet :.[/hl]
  http://youtu.be/qlKpEpooa2w
  
  
• Will FS bring back ut4_revolution? (bagheera)
  The original creater Wetwired gave QueenBee permission to maintain the map, so it's up to her. QueenBee was not a part of SID nor FS but she was a very good friend of the team.
  
  
• Will bomb mode be added to ut4_tunis? If not please remove BM from the voting menu for that maps. (bagheera)
  FrozenSand does not have the rights to Tunis and we don't have the map source so we can't make any changes to it. Also the voting menu is not dynamic, it doesnt change with each map.

FUN

• What is the best dish to eat while playing UrT? (SilverFoxZ)
  This game is so fast who the hell has time to eat,sleep, or even go to the bathroom?
  
  
• Who is the most evil FS member (RaideR/NulL? (SilverFoxZ)
  Why, Evilelf, of course.
  P.S. I think RaideR would be more than willing to fight to the death for the position.

[SilverFoxZ]

@Seven I thought people like you and sometimes me would have time to eat while being dead in TS/Bomb mode?