Steven Polge of Epic Games has made a post to the GT Interactice messageboards talking about the network play to be featured in Unreal Tournament. Most of his work centered around the higher packetloss clients looking for a way around that PL. Also there was this bit about client-side weapons:

I've also implemented client side weapon animation/sound effects for Unreal Tournament. This won't make be retrofitted into Unreal I. The advantages of client side weapon firing are instant feedback, lower bandwidth (since the server isn't sending updates about your weapon), and no lost sound effects or animations because of packet loss.

While on the topic of UT, Next-Gen Online recently posted in an article a supposed release date for Unreal Tournament. Well the folks at VoodooExtreme went straight to the source and ask Tim Sweeney of Epic Games just what was up with that UT release date. Dig it:

They're getting secondhand and thirdhand information from someone who doesn't have a clue. Don't believe any of the release dates mentioned there. :-)
-Tim