I am sure the most asked question of late is, "When is the release?" followed by "What is left to test?" As was mentioned in the Urban Terror Forums, we are still working on a few levels that are outstanding as of yet, with development still going. Sorry to say this does not include Paradise as we mentioned awhile back. RabidCow, |NV|S and BladeKiller are a few others are continuing to work with a few different levels in order to get them release ready.

Crenshaw was featured during day 25 of the 27 Days of Terror, since then|NV|S has spent many, many hours working on an all new Crenshaw. Many remember Crenshaw and those CTF gamers enjoyed Crenshaw, while the TS crowd was not too fond of how it played. But those days are gone and the level has been redesigned for improved gameplay. Here are some of the most current shots:

Aside from being the final weekend of 2006, as we look forward to ring in the year year with a whole lotta terror, we had plans this weekend for some major testing. Sure, over the course of the past few months we have had the QA Team testing bits and pieces of the new version of Urban Terror. Of course a day does not go by that a community gamer asks to be brought aboard to test the new release.



Up until now, most of the testing was just that. Testing. Going into a server with a development team member and doing what they ask in order to test a new feature or to check the results of a change in game code that rids the game of another nasty bug. At times there was some fun games going on, but a majority of the time was spent discussing and testing potential changes to improve the overall game.

We decided to stuff your Urban Terror stockings full of "fun stuff" this holiday season. As I mentioned earlier, development is not over and we are continuing to work towards that all elusive release date. We continue to show off many of the new features, exciting levels and updated models and skins that will enter the Urban Terror Community.



While we are working on a few different fronts in order to finish up Urban Terror, we decided to create a little something "different" that can be used when you game. We call it fun stuff because, it really is nothing more than that. Fun! Then again, isn't that what Urban Terror is "fun over reality?" The name was derived from the actual cvar that is used /fun in the console.

From those of us on the development team, we want to extend best wishes out to all those in the Urban Terror Community. Have a Merry Christmas today and hopefully the little, fat man brought you everything you asked for. It seems he missed the community and did not leave us a new release quite yet. But fret not, after a few days off for some holiday cheer and spiked egg nog, we will be back at work.

A very short update today as we look at another year coming to a close. We have a big test match set up for next weekend to check all sorts of different aspects of the new release. We don't want some big nasty to sneak up on us at the last minute prior to release. So, we have secured a community server and will populate it with minimum of 10 gamers, hopefully more, just to check and see how it all runs. And yes, we have done that at times with QA, but most of their work is testing items that have just been compiled and created inat a pk3 to be tested.

Anyway, enjoy your holiday season and especially Christmas ('cept for those in Australia), we will bring you more good news shortly. Ho. Ho. Ho.

BladeKiller has updated some of the work on Tombs (ut4_tombs) recently. We thought we would give you something to drool over. This level was recently used in the STA ProBowl (Team Survivor) last week and saw a bit of early community action. Here are some of the new screenshots of Tombs:

In every gaming community I have been a part of there was one thing we gamers wanted. The next release. While enjoying the current version of the game there was always talk, comments and many, many suggestions on how to improve the current game. The Urban Terror Community is no different. In fact, we (as a development team) are probably spoiled by our community as they are a very informed and supportive group. Not to mention good, skilled gamers.

Over the course of the last 18 months it has been some sort of rollercoaster ride. There were highs with announcements and anticipation, only to be told months later plans have changed. Unfortunately, that is how development goes sometimes. While we do control our own destiny (now as an LLC) we set out to fulfill a commitment many of us agreed to long ago. We set out to provide a "finished" version of Urban Terror. It is rare of a mod to last more than a few years. It is even more rare to have a mod be released as a finished product. Of course there are some exceptions. We don't see Urban Terror as an exception, we see it as an accomplishment of many years or work, long hours of development and more development, along with many testing cycles.

Quite a response to the first look at the upcoming level, Lavatubes (ut4_lavatubes) created by TwoSeven, after posting news about some of the inner workings of the levels a few days ago. As promised, we are back to bring you some more screen shots of the level.

So, Urban Terror is not the newest, the best, the most highly played mod that has been recently released. In fact, Urban Terror is now running on a very old, Quake III Arena engine that has been open sourced by id Software. One thing has remained a constant in our community, the gamers. These are those dedicated soles who play and support Urban Terror on community servers and in leagues worldwide.

We recently updated Urban Terror over at moddb.com posting some never seen before screenshots of a few upcoming levels in the new release including Lavatubes, created by TwentySeven. We were also able to show off some newly updated screen shots of Tombs by BladeKiller along with four shots of the red/blue team male and female models. And yes, that is a mowhawk you see on his head!

Each year a contest is held for Mod of the Year and while Urban Terror has never received any sort of award for the mod, we are glad to know we have a faithful following through thick and thin. In addition to showing our support for moddb.com, we ask you to take a minute and give your vote in their yearly contest.

ASE and ut4_Lavatubes

I've spent a considerable amount of time messing around with the source to the Q3 map compiling tool, Q3map2. Bug fixing someone elses big and complex source tree isn't a whole lot of fun. I've eaten my vegetables though, so my "dessert" is that I've taken what I've fixed and built my own little showpiece map.

It's a quirky one-room terrain map called ut4_lavatubes, and it does alot of things differently then traditional brush-based q3 mapping.Probably the most immediate thing when you look at it is that it's really curvey compared to normal q3 maps. This is because the map is entirely constructed in a 3d modeling program (3dsmax) and exported into an '.ase' model.



3ds max -> Radiant

The development team was recently contacted by Pablo Gil Fernandez, better known as eXKalibuR, the level designer behind such Urban Terror levels as Museum, Rucab, Half-Rucab, Com and especially Paradise. He contacted the team in order to "donate my editable maps (*.map) and permit you to edit and release them.

This is excellent news for gamers (mainly CTFers) in the Urban Terror Community who have been yearning and desiring a new and updated version of Paradise, due to some minor niggles with the level. While we are still in the process of acquiring the levels (.map files) we will be looking to update his outstanding work and pass it on to the community.

As eXKalibuR states, "in the end the most important thing to me is to share them to the UT community so that everyone can enjoy them again." And the development team could not agree more with this great news from eXKa. Stay tuned for more information and details on Paradise and his other Urban Terror levels.