[puff**cholzzon]

4.2 did kill urt. The NA scene died because they refused to play a buggy game, you won't blame them for that, will you?
I know quite a number of players who felt the same.
When you released 4.2 it was unplayable. 4.1 had it flaws too, but it was playable. I find it funny that urt activity peaked after FS had little influence on the game for years.

I don't mean to chase a dead body, but the list of screw ups by FS since 4.2 release is sooo long. Just naming the biggest; you recruited some kid who stole your source and compromised your auth server and anti cheat and who knows what else. Then you got hacked through an exploit known and being warned of for months.

What's left of the playerbase now is the remnants of incest in the 9th generation. Everyone in their right mind doesn't actively play this game anymore.

I wish you all the best for HD.

[FS Barbatos]

cholzzon, on 30 July 2014 - 04:34 PM, said:

the list of screw ups by FS since 4.2 release is sooo long. Just naming the biggest; you recruited some kid who stole your source and compromised your auth server and anti cheat and who knows what else. Then you got hacked through an exploit known and being warned of for months.

This shows how little you know about all of this.

First of all, that kid we recruited is a talented coder who had decent contributions to several projects, we had no way to know he was a douchebag who would leak the source code after a few months. How could anyone predict this? Will we be blamed for being open to new talented contributors?

About the hack once again you're totally wrong, the hacker used the Heartbleed exploit which was publicly revealed to the world only a few hours before the attack on our servers, and it was estimated that more than 50% of websites in the world were vulnerable to this attack. Debian / Ubuntu or any other distribution were NOT patched against this attack and there was nothing we could do to prevent that.

[FS BladeKiller]

I'm surprised to see so many still playing UrT in any form after all these years and with so many new games released during that time. The NA scene started dying before they killed STA. People were fighting so much with the league admins that they all quit. I'm friends with several of those admins and was in XTC at the time.

[=jF=shad0w]

Hmpfh, i really feel like you guys should have mentioned the lost source code of 4.1 right after the release of 4.2, would have saved you from a lot of flame/insult.
Like even with the latest of 4.2, it didnt really feel like a big improvement of the game compared to 4.1.1 (for me atleast) considering all the work you guys did put in and i always questioned myself why they didnt just fix some minor bugs in 4.1.1 and move on to hd, guess i know the answer a little too late.
People really had huge hopes for 4.2, a working anti-cheat, auth-system, all the bad things of 4.1 fixed, but it looks like you guys digged your own grave with setting a release datum and an "unfinished game".
The reason most of the players left however probably doesnt even have to be related to all that, more to the quake3 generation growing up (and thus big, old clans like puff,jF, M|, SG..) leaving the game, which led to little to no competition at the top so the newer powerhouses (aCe, KoS, rekt..) eventually got bored and did quit the game aswell.
Like for me personally,UrT is still my favorite game, but proper guys to play with and against are missing.
I cant really see a way to make it really popular again, since most of new gamers dont even know what q3 or urt even is :(

This post has been edited by shad0w: 30 July 2014 - 07:30 PM

[Fredrik]

shad0w, on 30 July 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

i really feel like you guys should have mentioned the lost source code of 4.1 right after the release of 4.2, would have saved you from a lot of flame/insult.

http://youtu.be/esXJN_OTkmU?t=40s

This post has been edited by Fredrik: 31 July 2014 - 02:02 AM

[FS |HSO|RaideR]

Pot Kettle Black ...

I do like the Captain Hindsight video. The Urban Terror community shifted for the worse around the 4.x series, not in terms of the "Game" but in terms of what the "Free Open Source Engine" brought to the table.

Having the engine sources "Open" made for both massive benefit and massive problems. All of which are subjective and in my opinion "Urban Terror" and "Subjective" is the problem. If you look at it fairly and objectionably it is easy to see that if you sit from a seat of no responsibility and poke apart holes for those with aforementioned responsibility it is really quite easy. We call this in modern internet society as "the troll effect". The power is generated by not having any responsibility, or anything to "quote unquote" loose.

The second trouble of the 4.x series was the conflict of interest of "hey ... what you do wont let me do or continue to do x" and also not to forget "I" is "We" and subjective community empowered authority and responsibility.

Examples of the above:

1. We (i) need the source code so we (not i, i need for other reason but others) can improve the game faster.

2. We (i) don't like this feature, here are the others (my friends only) that dont

Unfortunately nothing is EVER as clear cut as placing blame. However, everyone wants too. If something is not going right its human instinct to rationalise why this bad thing is happening.

Negativity, Trolls, Activators, Wind Ups, Whining, Moaning, Unsubstantiated Ball-shit, ... the list is ENDLESS, all it does is breed more of the same.

4.0 was met with its fair share of hostility. 4.1 was the fix to "bits that didnt work so well". Then the full force of "Free", "Abuse", "Cheating" and everyone in the community was not hear because they bought Q3, they just DLed it for free brough with it a degradation of "Exclusivity" and the ability to filter the majority of abuse effectively.

Sorry, but human nature and the evil that comes with it is to blame. Every human being is capable of it, but unfortunately, when some people have no consequences, with no fear of reprisal, and nothing invested, not even time. Some become really ugly. Especially when they can for almost "No effort at all" try to take / belittle those with investment.

It's not like i'm 100% clean of being evil, my ugly side rears its head far to often for my liking, which is why I resigned my public duties and focus on my works I enjoy.

Aside from all the doom and gloom, we are still here just about and HD proves to be exciting now we finally have something tangable that we can all contribute too. 4.2 is more or less retired to me now. I will be focusing on something new.

[Lecter2142]

So if I understood you correctly:

• No source code of 4.1;
  
• There is a source code for 4.2 that you've been working on for four years or so;
  
• You prefer to switch to making a new source code from scratch instead of polishing and working more on the actual version of the game which is quite decent and valuable now;
  
• You're using an engine that does not even work on everyone's computer because it is too high performance (ie: Barbatos had to borrow the computer of someone else to work on UDK);
  
• You will make people pay to create content (= buying udk to make maps);

Why didn't you stick with ioquake3 again? Too old? Well there are still plenty of games today who use the quake3 engine and are not having any difficulties with having high graphics or a good player base (best example: Quake Live).

It's not a question of what you're using to make the game, it's a question of what you already have for this game. You have a source code, and more importantly you have content. Tons of maps that will disappear because of another engine... Some people on this game don't realize that we have actually some awesome maps playable for competitions but they always want to stick with the same (boring) ones.
Also, you have knowledge about the actual source code. If I understood correctly, you have to spend time to learn the new engine... That's not helping from a time perspective.

The release of 4.2 was a big risk but now you have something. You've got something working and decent that makes as much sense as 4.1 and that blows away the pro 4.1's arguments. You already want to switch? You want to take more risks again?

If you can't make UDK work on everyone's computer, what about the people who will have to play it? No where I've seen a post of yours about your care for those who are already having difficulties to run the actual game version on their computer...


I hope you don't have your eyes bigger than your stomach and you don't put all the emphasis on the graphics (because for now that's the most I've heard about). The game now is great. The actual special graphics of counter-strike/not too evolved/not so bling-bling is what makes the charm of this game.


So I hope that for those of us who don't have the latest computer out on the market you will allow more flexibility in the game and thus more settings and parameters (disable/enable textures, different lightmaps, more sound settings, etc).

Again correct me if I'm wrong and I hope I'm wrong. Also, all of this is respectful. It's not because some people have big mouths that everyone does...

This post has been edited by Lecter2142: 31 July 2014 - 08:26 PM

[FS Barbatos]

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

Again correct me if I'm wrong and I hope I'm wrong.

Yes you're all wrong but it's okay. :)

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

[*]You prefer to switch to making a new source code from scratch instead of polishing and working more on the actual version of the game which is quite decent and valuable now;

Urban Terror HD is a new game. Improving ioquake3 engine is a waste of time because it is no where near what the new engines are doing in all aspects. 4.x is quite decent for a 10 years old game, yes, but sometimes you just want to work on a great engine with great tools, and it isn't possible with ioquake3.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

[*]You're using an engine that does not even work on everyone's computer because it is too high performance (ie: Barbatos had to borrow the computer of someone else to work on UDK);

This is wrong. I have to buy a new computer because the real time Editor (where we actually make the game) needs a lot of power to run smoothly. I have never talked about In Game performances and I said a few times already it's too early to talk about it right now because we currently run the game with all quality filters set to the maximum.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

[*]You will make people pay to create content (= buying udk to make maps);

I don't know the plans of Epic Games about a free map editor but I'm sure one will end up being released so you have to be patient. You can already work on HD map layouts for free by using Blender (you can also use 3dsmax and Maya). You currently have to pay $20 once to be able to use all tools provided by the Unreal Engine and you can then use thousands of assets offered by Epic Games in your maps without having to worry about licensing stuff.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

Why didn't you stick with ioquake3 again? Too old? Well there are still plenty of games today who use the quake3 engine and are not having any difficulties with having high graphics or a good player base (best example: Quake Live).

"Why didn't you stick with your Nokia 3310? The snake game was awesome and it was solid like a rock."
I hear it all the time and the answer is that after 13 years of using an old engine you just want to use something new, with new technologies and new challenges. What makes you want to continue working after all these years is to learn new things every day and there was nothing to learn anymore on ioquake.
Quake Live and most of the quake based games / mods are dead or have very small player bases.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

It's not a question of what you're using to make the game, it's a question of what you already have for this game. You have a source code, and more importantly you have content. Tons of maps that will disappear because of another engine... Some people on this game don't realize that we have actually some awesome maps playable for competitions but they always want to stick with the same (boring) ones.

Yeah we already have tons of things that are 13 years old. We also have dozens of weapons, player models, animations, sounds, tens of thousands of textures done for HD as well as several maps on their way.
The maps won't disappear, you will still be able to play them in 4.2 like you do right now. Again Urban Terror HD is a new game and only new maps or converted maps will be in it. If you want your map to be in HD and are willing to work on porting it, be aware that we're looking to hire someone like you.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

Also, you have knowledge about the actual source code. If I understood correctly, you have to spend time to learn the new engine... That's not helping from a time perspective.

It is a nightmare to work on 4.2 codebase. A true nightmare and any former / present coder will tell you the same thing. It takes weeks or even months of work to add a gametype where it takes a few hours to do 3x better on UE4.

Yes we've got something that works with 4.2 and we will continue to maintain it for a while but ask yourself a question : wasn't the Nokia 3310 working very well too?

We must indeed learn the new tools that UE4 provide but this is the first time in _years_ that the whole team is super excited about it. After a few hours of learning these tools you can't even remember how you were doing without them and ALL artists / coders in FS will tell you the same.
People like BladeKiller or Nounou were very skeptical about UE4 tools too and after a few days of working with these tools they would not look behind for a second.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

If you can't make UDK work on everyone's computer, what about the people who will have to play it?

The real time editor is resources hungry like any other next-gen Editor (cryengine, UDK3 (former version of UE4), Unity...) and yet you can play thousands of games made with these engines / editors on 6 or 7 years old computers. We will do proper settings for crappy computers too.
Please talk about performances issues when a beta version of Urban Terror HD is out. For now this is pure speculation and FUD from your part.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

I hope you don't have your eyes bigger than your stomach and you don't put all the emphasis on the graphics (because for now that's the most I've heard about). The game now is great. The actual special graphics of counter-strike/not too evolved/not so bling-bling is what makes the charm of this game.

No, graphics isn't our priority even if it's cool working on something beautiful.

Lecter2142, on 31 July 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

So I hope that for those of us who don't have the latest computer out on the market you will allow more flexibility in the game and thus more settings and parameters (disable/enable textures, different lightmaps, more sound settings, etc).

Yes we will.

[Lecter2142]

Thanks for your answer :) . I have nothing to say, you've answered most of my worries.

I forgot to ask another question and this is just for the sake of asking (I'm not going to elaborate): as you said UrT HD will be a new game, does it mean there could be any slight chance of making UrT 4.2 open source for those who would like to keep on working with ioquake3 when HD will be out (just the source code, not the assets) ?

Thanks again!

This post has been edited by Lecter2142: 31 July 2014 - 10:19 PM

[FS Barbatos]

The answer is: no, this is not in our plans for now.