Take care Sentry Studios

Turin_Turambar · Jan 20, 2004

From shacknews - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/30127

According to this post on the Beyond Unreal forums, the planned compatibility between Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 will not happen. Epic's Tim Sweeney says the network code has changed too much for the two games to remain compatible, which is certainly disappointing as UT2003 players can probably expect a big dropoff in opponents and servers. Thanks Blues News.

DarkBls · Jan 20, 2004

OICW · Jan 20, 2004

Well, that's just peachy.

Domino · Jan 20, 2004

That's a shame... but look on the bright side, sounds like the network code is going to be improved dramatically.

Big_Duke_06 · Jan 21, 2004

I don't know that this is such a catastrophe for SS... Coding for UT2K4 should be very similar to 2K3, right? If so, just import the mod code into 2K4 when available and we'll all just have to buy another version of UT to play INF...

Matthew

Keganator · Jan 21, 2004

That's not the point though...UT2k4 was supposed to be just a big addon to UT2k3. The whole series was supposed to remain network compatable, so that you wouldn't *have* to upgrade every year. Now, lookie at this, we're all going to have to. UT2k3 never got accepted very well, and UT2k4 is like UT2k3+NiftyExtras. At least if UT2k4 was backwards compatable with UT2k3 you wouldn't have to set up all new TDM servers. Now...

Ugh.

Crowze · Jan 21, 2004

What I don't see is why they can't patch UT2003 and it's netcode to be compatible with UT2004, as originally planned. The changes can't be *that* significant, can they?

FieldMedic · Jan 21, 2004

Maybe it means that they just drop the support for UT2003 if they dont want to patch the UT2003 netcode .
Can be a "disguised" way found by epic to force people to buy UT2004 if they want a better netcode and fixed problems

The same they did for UT after the patch 436 by never fixing the server security issue with DoS attack possibilities.
Fortunately some people fixed that in an unofficial 440 (and 451).

A chance i didnt bought UT2003 ......

Da_Blade · Jan 21, 2004

Well Crowze, if the chances gulped up a good emunt of manhours they might want to see some money in return for it, thus they release it to be rebought. Might sound like it's a rip-off but they need to cover expenses too in the end...

[C22]-Mort · Jan 21, 2004

Sounds very much like a "Corporate decision" to me

Big_Duke_06 · Jan 21, 2004

I agree, this decision sucks. If I had bought UT2K3 already, I'd be pissed - haven't Epic been promising all along that the UT2Kx series would be backwards and forwards compatible? That you wouldn't *have* to upgrade? It very much does reek of corporate profit-taking.

I just don't get what the "Take care Sentry Studios" bit was about. I don't see how this affects SS any more or less than anyone else... Theoretically the mod code should be portable between the two (if it is only the netcode that is significantly different).

So this should more be "Take care suckers that bought UT2K3"...

Matthew

Da_Blade · Jan 22, 2004

Well, the way these things work is that they get a certain budget to do a certain thing. In this case they got a certain budget (a certain amount of manhours) to make improvements on ut2k3 to make ut2k4, and keep compatibility. Then, the changes get more significant and they see a way to improve it a whole lot better even, but it would exceed the budget. Thus they decide to make it incompatible and force people to buy anew.

Do remember that Epic's greatest income comes not from sellling individual games, but from selling 3d engines to other games. Unreal Tournament is and always has been, nothing more than a big commercial for their 3d engine. The netcode has long been a point of critique on their engine; now they want to show they got a good solution. I can't say i blame them...

Gnam · Jan 22, 2004

I think Crowze is on to something...if the only difference is the netcode, it shouldn't be that hard to patch 2k3 with the new netcode to retain compatibility. Of course, this depends on whether or not Epic is willing to do a patch, and in the interest of profits they may choose not to, but we'll see.

chunky · Jan 24, 2004

They have apparently changed or added 5mb of native code since the last ut2003 patch. That is a huge amount of code, and considering how long they have been developing ut2004 I doubt they want to allow people to buy a copy of ut2003 for $10, patch it and effectively have a copy of ut2004.

Personally I hate it when programs (particularly high performance programs like games) are held back to preserve backward compatability. I prefer less lag, better performance and a more flexible and effective engine for modders to work with.
Onwards and upwards...

})FA|Snake · Jan 24, 2004

jesus guys connect the dots, anyone think that the reason the can't maintain compatability anymore is becuase UT2k4 is more then ut2k3 + nifty extras?

5mb of source code changes is huge thats more then was change from the original Unreal to UT. Where would we be today if they decided to keep UT network compatible and didn't improve the code?

keihaswarrior · Jan 25, 2004

chunky said:
They have apparently changed or added 5mb of native code since the last ut2003 patch. That is a huge amount of code, and considering how long they have been developing ut2004 I doubt they want to allow people to buy a copy of ut2003 for $10, patch it and effectively have a copy of ut2004.

Personally I hate it when programs (particularly high performance programs like games) are held back to preserve backward compatability. I prefer less lag, better performance and a more flexible and effective engine for modders to work with.
Onwards and upwards...

Hear Hear! Who's going to want to play UT2k3 after UT2k4 is released anyway?

ecale3 · Jan 25, 2004

well considering epic is still a very mod friendly corporation, i can live with decesions like this. As long as they don't go the route of say Ubi Soft or EA Games i can live with having to pay for the game when i want a mojor update.

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