SamHell under this ole' Shack interviews CliffyB, one of the guys working away on maps for Unreal Tournament. Hey, with ice skating partially under control, they're on their way right? What about the demo?

Q: In all seriousness......how close is Epic to releasing a UT demo? 

A: The game is done, but we are just testing and improving our net code. Make a new rev, send it to our remote testing force, test, improve, repeat.

A pair of Epic interviews from 3DU: an interview with Pancho Eekels, Level Designer/3D Artist from Epic Games about himself, Epic Games, level design in Unreal Tournament, gameplay and weapons in UT. Then, a chance to talk to Alan Willard, Level Designer for Epic Games, currently working on Unreal Tournament. He talks to them about himself, level designing techniques, differences in Unreal and UT levels, programs, and features.

Saw on VE that Greenmarine made a post in the GT UT Forum about one of the things that bugs me (and id's Paul Steed, notice how that doesn't happen in Q3) the most: Foot Sliding aka Ice Skating:

For UT, we've added strafing (running sideways) and backpedling animations. These animations make players slide less. (They used to appear to slide because there was no left right and back animation.) This is not an animation system problem, it was a problem with the animations themselves (two entirely different things).

3DUnlimited has a new Unreal Tournament interview online offering what looks to be an interview on the topic of Unreal Tournament level design.

GameFan has an interview with Tim Sweney of Epic Games also talking about Unreal Tournament.

Goofy game of the day award goes to Nerf ArenaBlast which is being cretaed by a contractor under Hasbro using the Unreal engine.

The guys at 3DAudio Immersion have a new audio (surprise!) interview with Tim Sweeney of Epic games.

The guys at UnrealUniverse have done some messageboard scouring and come up with a bit of chatter on the Unreal Tournament net play. Anyone else remember like a year or so ago I made a post about the Unreal net code not being very good, and some Epic guy emailed me saying how wrong I was? Remember when Unreal came out a month later? Ah well, the latest Unreal net code is actually quite good anyways. While on the UT subject, check out the Quakers Guide To UT.

The AGN3D guys have slapped up some Q&A action with James Schmalz of Digital Extremes who is of course contracted for work with Epic on Unreal Tournament.

Word in this GT messageboard thread is that Epic games is contemplating a server program similar to the "primary server" setup that the Valve/Sierra guys put out for Half-Life with a server release a bit before the actual client in preperation for the large initial client load on the net when the release hits.

The server-only build we're talking about will probably be a lot smaller - as it won't have textures, sounds, or music.

But we want the server admins who get free copies to have the client as well becuase we want them to set the servers up so that they're fun to play, have different map lists, etc, so sending out CDs to them makes sense.

You can also check out this post talking about the HUD, as well as the Unreal Technology page which talks about the Linux port.

The UnrealUniverse guys have slapped up some info on UT for ya. Unreal Tournament Modes of Play Page and Unreal Tournament Armoury Page

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

Well check this out, My own little corner of the Shack, Fileshack.com has expanded into the Unreal files domain courtesy of the GameKey guys. The new Unreal section here at Fileshack.com features 3rd party maps, models, mods, total conversions, utilities, and of course a detailed list of all the official Epic releases. Basically if it has to do with Unreal, it's in there. If it's not, I've even got a "add file" script so you can get your stuff listed in there. Check it out!

GameSpot UK busts out with their hands-on preview of Unreal Tournament. They have also added some new stuff to the screenshot gallery according to Blue

Gamers-Central are the latest guys to preview Unreal Tournament.

Games-On-Line has an interview with Mark Rein of Epic Games talking about Unreal Tournament. Thanks loony

GameCenter takes a sneak peek at Unreal Tournament from Epic Games

UnrealFiles.com has opened, pretty much making available any and *every* Unreal file you could possibly think of. Featuring a search engine and indexed / categorized sections for map, models, mods, TCs, and utilitities. If you're a Unreal player you just scored a new bookmark.

It looks like the Linux port of the Unreal Tournament servers is well underway, in fact according to the latest Unreal Tech Page update by GreenMarine he just finished playing a few rounds on one of the servers. Here is a bit of it, thanks Stallion.

This means that a solid UT linux server will most likely be available when UT ships (if not sooner). I'll probably see what needs to be done to get everything moved over to the Unreal source safe and cook up an Unreal linux server for our beta testers tonight.

The guys at PlanetUnreal sent word of this really interesting use of the Unreal engine being done by an architectural firm based in Dallas, TX. They are modeling projects in Unreal/UnrealED before building their stuff full scale. The screenshots are pretty damn cool looking. Check out a few: Shot 1 | Shot 2 | Shot 3 | Shot 44