The actuall forums have under gone an upgrade.

Click Here for the poll on weather FragBU should play some BR..

There have been a few threads popping up about FragBU. The coolest is DaBeatard's compilation of the custom maps that are installed on The Web Mothership. Thanks, Beat!

WORF has started two threads one asking about BR and another about ideas for tweaking ColaWars: FragBU edition

With any luck, he'll have the new version of Cola Wars ready for play this weekend.

Some of you must want to be able to do that something extra here.

With loads of stuff like unlimited disk space etc the site is your oister(sp?)

Interested PM me over the forums :D

ELAN has come to a close for the 7th event.

With the first European BuF'er (CaS) attending it turned from a British ELAN to a European ELAN.

A write-up, pictures etc will show up soon enough.

By the looks of things people are planning to end the crap the RIAA is doing.

Thanks to AI in this thread

and the full thing here

If your interested in talking about the weapons that are coming along with UT2004 head here

Just so you all know Dopefish has let BuF know that The Lion King is being released on DVD.

Read Here

IT'S GHEY!

Well the 7th ELAN will be taking place next month (1st and 2nd) and by the looks of things our first Euro Player with be attending.

CaScAde is looking on working his way over from holland for the weekend.

Still with only 20 odd sign-ups the tournaments are going ahead, I am going to be getting warm-up servers up this week to get things going this weekend.

Could all who can provide a server of wish to help organise please meet in #unrealfans on ETG (if you are a reg in #beyondunreal just type /j #unrealfans). I should be around most of the day

There was a new version of the popular IRC client released. It fixes many minor issues in the 6.0 release. Get it here: http://www.mirc.com/get.html

For all who don't chat to us and are interested in doing so, just click

I am one of the new news posters on the BuF homepage, hopefully I'll bring you tidbits from the forums and chat along with random nudity.

The dates for ELAN 7 have been confimred as the 1st - 2nd of November 2003.

Same Place as ELAN 6 same sort of times:

3pm - 6pm meet in pub
6pm - 7:50pm eat
7:50pm - 8pm walk to LAN Centre
8pm - 8am Play vairous PC/PS2/etc games
8am walk out and get blinded by morning light

Sign Ups are now open.

If you've got a small team (4 or 5) and can compete in a small tournament for the fun and enjoyment of gaming click BuF Tourney's and sign up.

The Tournaments are due to start on Monday next week.

WOO! A week and a half of work put in and it's complete and read to be used.

Any BuF Wanting a news account please let me know and we can get this site going again

The new BuF Homepage Design will be showing it's face something within the next 30 minutes.

With the colours from the BeyondUnreal Beta Style Set it should work nicely, just need activity around here.

Going on the BU Beta Style:

Hunter/New/

click for a sneak peak

Through various Threads we are deciding on yet another BuF Tournament.

In the past we have had: UT RA and UT2003 CTF. This time I am aiming for a UT1 Tournament, with people wanting various game types, from Assult to DOM.

I'm sure most of you are bored of this design and with UT2004 coming and with other re-designs etc going on all over BeyondUnreal I am going to be redesigning this site with a little help from others at BU, should be fun....

I will be doing a basic EuroLAN section here on BuF's Homepage will be simple and will be updated for each event as well as containing pictures and the like.

But I can't be assed to cry.

Plans already set, getting a Geforce4 Ti4200.

As well as planned updates I'll be contacting certain people that take part here to do a little bit of work here and there.

Because ELAN6 happened such a short time ago and the section hasnt been updated, I will be talking to QAPete and getting access to update the page.

We originally designed this page to be used by the BeyondUnreal Forumers, so that BuFers could highlight things of interested to them here, rather than have 'em buried in the forums themselves.

If you are a BuFer, and you're interested in taking on a news posting, content producing role here on the BuF Homepage, shoot me an email, and we'll see what we can do about getting you FTP and news system access here.

BeyondUnreal is a community-run and community-oriented site. This is the homepage for the BeyondUnreal Forumers, and we'd like to see you guys run it! Don't just sit there reading the forums - be a part of making things happen!

Yes, that's right, the good old Crimewatch database that contains all kind of information on BuFers is back online. Thanks a lot to PMB and DeeperShade for providing me with the files. If you want to be added to Crimewatch, all you have to do is drop me a mail with your picture, name, date of birth, location, favourite quote and notable avievement. I will update the page as often as possible. Please remember that I'll only add people that send in a real picture of themselves, that's the fun of Crimewatch.

Are you into the hockey thing more than I am? Then you're certainly interested in competing with your fellow BuFers in a Fantasy Hockey League, right? Thought so.

Head on over to the thread for more information!

Hourences just posted his Spotlight on..., featuring the awesome Unreal Tournament Single Player mod Xidia Gold. Go check it out here! You will definitely enjoy this one, no matter if you're one of those Single Player freaks or not!

Enjoy!

Wow! Looks like we got two interviews today, folks. .altan decided to use his 15 minutes of fame in the Spotlight by posting an interview with him. Check out his spotlight to learn more about .altan's relation with Barbie, his inability to buy UT in Turkey and much more!

Did I mention that our favourite Belgian mapper, Hourences, did the interview? Moreover, he will be the next to stand in the Spotlight! Keep your eyes peeled.

Just a quick note to let you all know that I just posted the latest interview: The Dopefish. Go check it out and learn more about the biggest spammer BuF has ever known.

Thank you, hermpes, for yet another quality interview!

I just updated the list of clans in the Beyondunreal Clans section. You can use this section of the site to check out the homepages of other clans and find more info on players you meet online. Is your clan not listed, but do you think it definitely should? Then either drop me a line, or visit this thread.

TomWithTheWeather finished his awesome capture the flag map named after RSU's UT server: the Carnage Reactor. The map looks great and has some huge easter-eggs for you! Run to the Spotlight on... section for some screenshots and the download link!

We have a new interview for all you to enjoy! Check out the Interviews section to learn more about forum and IRC regular, beerbaron.

On a side note, Gir (our former interviewer) is busy with real-life business, but our local hippy hermpes kindly volunteered for the position. Thanks to him you can expect interviews with new BuFers on a regular basis!

Team Fusion proudly announces the first public beta of WebTourney - the Unreal Tournament 2003 based online battle tournament. WebTourney is a web-based online trading/battling game that allows you to battle against other players using Unreal Tournament 2003 powerups, weapons, characters and maps. The many features of WebTourney include:

- Shopping: Buy weapons, health and other powerups from the game's many shops.
- Trading: Trade unwanted weapons with other WebTourney warriors.
- Battling: Fight against other warriors to gain battle experience points and in-game credits.
- Training: Train against training bots to gain experience before entering the arena.
- Powerups: Buy and trade powerups that give you special abilities in battle.

Head over to http://webtourney.bombardiers.org now and battle against the other Unreal fanatics who have alrady registered.

Read more about WebTourney here

Hey all it's o'Dex here, just wanted to let ya'll know I'm here! (Not like you didn't already know that ;) )

Anyway expect much to come!

Are you addicted to Morrowind too? Want to share your experiences with fellow BuFers? Maybe you have a question? Or perhaps you just want to show off your l33t-looking character? Head on over to the Morrowind forum that Sparky created and get posting, you n'wah!

Some weeks ago, Gir mentioned the idea of a BuF test, where you can test your knowledge of BuF. I really like the idea, but I need your help! Clicky-clicky my name and send me an e-mail with some good (or bad) questions for the BuF Test. Also, if you know how to set up a test like this and have the time to help out, mail me.

Wheeeee!! Hal decided to give me access to the news database of this site (what was he thinking? ). This means the BuF Homepage is finally back in business. Don't be surprised to see other BuFers posting news here soon, too. We're working to get a good staff together to help this site blossom.

I can't stress enough that the BuF Homepage is a site by BuFers, for BuFers. This means that you have to contribute to keep this site alive. If you have written a serious article on online gaming or a wacky story about monkeys, send it to us. If you have created some goofy flash movie or a great wallpaper, send it to us. If you have some great initiative like Speedmapping, the Vandalism Tour or the Godlike Project, make sure to let us know. The BuF Homepage is a great place to let everyone know what's going on in the community!

Don't be afraid to drop me a line if you have questions, suggestions or just a great idea for the site. I won't bite. Too much. I promise!

Well, the good 'ol Homepage has reached a crossroads. Way back in 2000, LiquiD_SiN created the BuF Homepage as a way to show off all of our pics and bios. Well, vB came along and squashed the need for that. I took over the page (waay back when it was still on XOOM hosting), got it moved to PU, and so on and so on.

As UT2003 draws near, our gaming attention turns away from UT and towards the new. Perhaps it's time to dust off that old translocator and head back in for one last UT frag. TWD seems to think so, and a lot of others do too.

We here at BeyondUnreal are pleased to announce that our very own Dave 'Boom' Maldow will be visiting the offices of Digital Extremes tomorrow.

As the launch of BU draws ever closer, you can expect all the exclusive bits of information as well as ingame screenshots of the game everyone's waiting for -- Unreal Tournament 2003!

So keep watching BeyondUnreal over the next few days!

ShackES is reporting that the six games to be used for the 2002 World Cyber Games have been announced, and Unreal Tournament is among them.

BeyondUnreal has zipped up and mirrored a new UT 2003 demo video from a recent Samsung Italian event. This 33 minute video features Mark 'You Guys Play Like Girls' Rein (uncontrollable chuckle) doing a very nice weapons and Unreal editor demonstration.

There are some nice tidbits of info in the video, which we've compressed from 259.1 meg down to a tidy 119 meg .zip file. Learn a limitation of the Shield Gun. Check out the new shock combo effect. Listen in awe as real Italians comment on what they are seeing. (grin)

Be sure to stop by the BeyondUnreal Demos Page for the latest in UT 2003 and, as time rolls on, other Unreal-engine demos and videos!

I just got this in the mail, and because it's late and I'm tired, I'll just do a straight CTRL-C, CTRL-V:

TsN, Team Sportcast Network, is proud to announce its support of the Unreal Community. As long as this community has gone without a professional radio network, it's about time someone stepped up to the plate! Furthermore, to show our continued support of the Unreal Community, we've decided to start off by casting UT matches. But make no mistake, our UT coverage from here on out will go unrivaled and will undisputedly become YOUR favorite Sports Network.

This Sunday, the Team Sportscast Network brings you its maiden Unreal Tournament broadcast!

Who: Dark Shadows [DS] vs. Retribution [R]
What: CTi Overall Final
When: 9:30 PM EST
Where: irc.enterthegame.com #tsn
Why: Because we can!

TsN's very own Tantrum will be bringing you all the fast-paced action of this exciting best 3 of 5 face off!

Be sure to tune in early so as not to miss ANY of the action and catch an exclusive interview with Cache of Cached.net!

Finally, a call-to-arms of all the Unreal Tournament community casters and caster-hopefuls! If you feel you have what it takes to cast some of the most fast-paced, intense, and action packed team games in all of gaming, stop by http://www.tsncentral.com and fill out our DJ Application Form!

Team Sportscast Network, The broadcast leader in the Online Gaming Revolution.

Our friend Varpu is holding a mapping contest at his site, which you can visit for more information.

The folks at GamesRadar have posted their preview of UT2003, based on their experiences of it at the UK press event last Tuesday.

Thanks, TTG.

Worthplaying.com have news on the announcement by Ubi Soft of Splinter Cell, the latest Tom Clancy-inspired game to use the next-gen Unreal Engine:

Ubi Soft Entertainment, unveiled today the latest creation inspired by the works of world renowned novelist Tom Clancy. Splinter Cell is a third person stealth action game, featuring cyber-terrorism, shadow agencies, and covert operations and is set in the realistic, highly detailed geopolitical universe as portrayed in the works by Tom Clancy. In the fall of 2002, Ubi Soft will debut this lone stealth action game worldwide on the Xbox and PC, with further new generation platforms following in 2003.

Kurafire has posted up a rather nice UT2003 wallpaper in several sizes. Head over to the site and scroll down to have a look (it's set #49).

Cheers, UT-2003.com.

German site UT-2003.com have been in touch with Infogrames Germany and recieved official word that there are no plans to remove blood from UT2003 and Unreal 2:

Translated by Google.

With all products, in which pixel blood is poured, there are considerations from the outset whether one adapts her to the German market. This can by colouring of the blood, replaces the human opponents by means of robots and various other possibilities to take place. There are however at present no concrete plans to change UT2003 or unreal episode 2 in any way for the German market.

Greeting,
Martin

The reports just keep coming from the UT2003 European press events that have been taking place recently.

Barrysworld have posted their impressions of UT2003 from that UK event in Slough, and Gamesweb.com have posted a UT2003 special in German from last week's event in Germany (Google English Translation). C&VG have also posted screenshots from UT2003.

Thanks, Blues.

VoodooExtreme have posted a short Q&A session with James Schmalz, head honcho at Digital Extremes. They've also posted four new UT2003 screenshots that Infogrames flowed them.

Thanks, TTG.

XSReality have posted an article on the UT2003 UK press event that went down in Slough, Berkshire on Tuesday. Included in the article is an interview with Jay Wilbur, Epic Games PR guy, which, as it turns out, is an interesting read.

Jar, over at Unreal Tournament2 Net posted an interview with Epic's Dr. Sin, of CSHP and UTPure fame. Here's a snippet:

jar
What will the hack-protection in UT2003 be like? Is it a derivative of the CSHP or UT-Pure code or a grass roots build?

Dr.Sin[epic]
The protection for UT2003 is nothing like CSHP or UT-Pure. With CSHP and Pure we had to work within very strict rules. We couldn't attack the problem using native code (it would limit the game to only PC users).. we couldn't break network compatibility, we had to tiptoe around mods, etc. It's by sheer will of the guys writing it and the admins running it that either protection held up as well as they did.

None of these are problems for UT2003 and the protection reflects that.

Out of the box, UT2003 will be well protected. We took a good look at all of the attacks used to bypass protection in UT and have addressed them. We have created a method that allows server admins to dictate what can and can't be run on the client as well as knowing if what's running there has been modified.

We also made sure that community has the tools needed to defend themselves. This is important as it has to be a dual effort.

IGN PC have posted a first look at Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, the upcoming Unreal Engine-based installment of the famous tactical shooter series:

The game's built using the Unreal engine and it looks good, even at this early stage. Sean explains that a team of 13 engineers are working primarily on the code of the game, trying to "make Unreal into Rainbow." Meanwhile an "army of artists" are creating the game's primary content, leaving issues of secondary art and interface concerns for later.

While we expected the Unreal engine would set new standards for graphics in this series, some people have been concerned that the new game would retain too much of Unreal's over exaggerated nature. Sean admits, "When you use a game engine from the ground up like this, that's a very legitimate concern." He adds that fans of the series should rest assured -- the subtlety will be preserved.

A few lucky gamers were able to get a hands-on test of UnrealTounrnament2003 a couple of days ago, and were kind enough to tell about their impressions. One of the gamers (and fellow forumer), bootsbaby tells in her views:

sheild gun - the shield is pretty cool.. absorbs quite a bit of damage. I was chasing someone that had theirs up. I was using the rocket launcher and I hit him at least 4 times before I started to do any real damage to him.. soon as he dropped the shield.. he was dead tho, with no protection. also, rockets and mini alt fire do well against this. strafe at the feet I got a good charge up on the shield gun but never got a chance to use it against anyone

flak cannon - aside from the bright orange shards I like this gun one bounce, you have to aim.. no spamming.. big thumbs up the alt fire is the same - smiley ball and all.. does alot of splash damage as usual

Our friends over at Defense Alliance have released version 1.1 of their mod, in which you defend your fort from an attacking horde of humans. Features of note include:

- Most bugs found in DA1.0 are fixed
- Updated DA1.0 Maps
- New player model skins!
- Improved Netcode
- Improved AI

You can grab the download and more detailed info off the Defense Alliance website.

Yesterday, Pete told you about the teaser images at UnrealTournament2.net. Well, jar has added 32 new images of the UT'03 Demo in action, including lots of GUI shots. They're taken with a hand-held digital camera and are a little shaky, but are definitely worth checking out.

Giga has reported that this is the official logo for Unreal Tournament 2003. It looks pretty impressive, although there's been no official confirmation that this image is in fact the UT2003 logo.

The logo is certainly more complex than any logo before it, and puts more of an emphasis on "TOURNAMENT", rather than "UNREAL". We'll keep you posted as ever with any new developments.

In case you've been living in a cave or something, Unreal Tournament2 Net has posted two variants of movies taken from Giga TV in Germany. The movies are quite big (two of the, totalling 325 megs), but they've also posted two smaller movies of pretty much the LAN action (watch Mark Rein talk smack!) which are about 30 meg each.

For both sets of movies, you'll need to install the Divx player.

Full Versions:

Part One
HTTP Site #1
HTTP Site #2
FTP Site #1
FTP Site #2

Part Two
HTTP Site #1
HTTP Site #2
FTP Site #1
FTP Site #2

Small Versions:

Part I
Part II

Also at UT2 Net, you'll find some teaser shots and a couple of potential logos. Stop by and inhale the goodness!

Mark Rein stopped by Giga.de with a copy of Unreal Tournament 2003, leaving in his wake a handful of in-game shots and a hands on preview for the guys at Giga.

The article is not in English, so I could only resort to using Google's translation. However, pictures require no translation and there are several of those including shots of the new logo, end-score board, in-game desktop, and a new shot of a CTF map.

Discuss

After slipping down to my local Newsagent this morning after a heavy, yet satisfying night out on the town I was shocked to find that PC Powerplay had indeed placed the full version of Unreal on this months Cover CD. So, for all you budding Aus UT players out there who are yet to discover what started one of the biggest FPS franchises to date, jump on down and grab this months PC Powerplay, which retails for $9.95.

Just so you know I'm not pulling your chain, check below for a scan of the Cover CD.

In case you didn't know, Unreal Wiki is a new hosted site on BeyondUnreal. What is Unreal Wiki? Well, it's an open-source, collaborative set of Unreal editing resource goodness that ANYONE can add to, change, etc., run by Mychaeel and Tarquin, but authored by many.

The Unreal Wiki could easily become an incredibly rich Unreal editing resource if you get involved adding content! Stop by Unreal Wiki, take a look around, read up on the ridiculously simple Wiki markup language that's used there, and contribute! This is a great time to get involved, with UT2003 coming out soon, so let's turn Unreal Wiki into the primary stop for everyone's Unreal editing needs!

Last year, a member of Ubi Soft sent us an email. Basically, they needed motivated people to join their team. The individuals would come from the Unreal community. Of course, Ubi Soft couldn't give us too much details but they did confirm they were creating a new game, utilizing the Unreal II engine.

Remember, this was last year when information about Unreal 2 and UT2003 was scarce or non-existant. Excited, I immediately asked if the game was the sequel to UT. With a sadden heart, they told me it wasn't a sequel. As time marched on, I forgotten about Ubi Soft and their unique First Person Shooter game. Then today, I dived into some archives and discovered XIII!

This is old news, but I believe it still needs some exposure. Here is a clip from their press release:

Ubi Soft® Entertainment today announced the development of XIII, a unique first-person shooter (FPS) game that creates a completely interactive graphic novel within a cel-shaded world. XIII is based on the comic license of the same name from Belgium comic book author, Jean Van Hamme, and the game will be powered with next-generation Unreal® Engine technology. XIII will appear across the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo GameCube™, the Xbox™ video game system from Microsoft and PC CD-ROM and is targeted for a Q1 2003 release.

XIII is the first FPS to utilize cel-shaded graphics to create a visually stunning effect unique within the action genre. The next-generation animation and Unreal Engine technology combine to illustrate XIII's complex and immersive story.

Yo, yo...young ladies. I'm back and I'm willing. So all you beautiful fragstresses get on over here and prepare for some great Unreal loving, or whatever turns you on, I'm not fussy.

Anyway... on topic, I thought I'd let you all in on the word of the streets concerning custom Forum style sets. 'Sparky's Breakfast' is the latest edition to our evergrowing list, and it's pretty easy on the eyes. You can head on over here for a quick preview, and apply it within your Profile, under Edit Options. Until next time my, beautiful fragstresses, as I must return to my Kangaroo's... they're going nuts in the background.

Look who found the secret hiding spot. The other day, I asked Hal to post some news for me. He politely reminded me I had access to this news page (I totally forgot...doh) and can post news anytime I want. Sweet! This homepage will never be the same...oh no...muwahahaha...cough...wheeze...spit.... Anyways, I'm back and ready to post some confusion...well, Infogrames confused us enough with all the name changes. I'll just stick to the news.

We've all read tons of news and tidbits about U2 and UT2003 (or is it UT2003v.4Vol7EpisodeX) and the excitement is rising all around the world. I'd like to remind people that UT is still alive and kicking and great mods are being released, even now. One little, but pumping mod coming out sometime this year is USkaarj.

This real time strategy mod will pit you against an opponent using either human or Skaarj characters and technologies. BarnEbiss, over at Infiltration Command, tweaked the selection and building codes (which were created by Freon).

Although the mod is growing, BarnEbiss still needs some assistance. If you are interested in creating a successful and entertaining RTS version of UT, then contact BarnEbiss by visiting his forums. Until then, click here for a sneak peek at the in game building model.

UT Jailbreak III Service Pack 1 is a network-compatible add-on update for Jailbreak III. It includes some bug fixes and a bunch of frequently requested new features such as optional numeric ping and play time display, a vastly faster server browser and a plain-text web admin interface variant.

Those of you that fool around with .utx files know that the UTX viewers is a great tool to have. Jesco has released what will be his final version of the UTX viewer. You can pick it up at his site. The changes are:

• some minor code-cleanup
  
• rewritten file handling (fixes a nasty error under XP when opening the first package)
  
• filename of active package is displayed in the title bar
  
• added shortcuts for most used menu-items
  

Prophetus pointed out a really cool wallpaper created by PCGamer featuring an enormous Skaarj. Go check it out!

10 Questions - 9 employees. The first question Action Vault has posted in the interview is: "Based on your personal preferences, what are a couple of your favorite weapons in Unreal Tournament 2003, and why?". Here are some great answers:

James Schmalz
Digital Extremes Founder and Creative Director
I like the new Rocket Launcher best. It's great when you get a direct chest hit and blow the torso clean off leaving the smoking and burning lower body to dance around for a second until it collapses - very gratifying.

Steve Sinclair
Lead Programmer
I enjoy the Lightning Gun. Zooming in and scoring a head shot then watching the headless neck stock burst into flames. This is continually rewarding for me. Even if I miss the head shot but take them down, I can usually zap their head off as they're falling dead to the floor. Its fun to scare people with the weapon as well by shooting at walls near their head, its impact makes a great crackling sound that gets people running for cover quick!

Glen Miner
Customer Punishment Officer
Favorite weapon? It's all about the Rocket Launcher for me. Nothing says lovin' like blasting somebody's legs off and watching them fly through the air with their bloody stumps trailing thick black smoke.

From Infogrames:

Infogrames, Inc. is pleased to announce that Tactical Ops:Assault on Terror is complete and has gone gold!


Using cutting-edge Unreal technology, Paris-based Kamehan Studios has taken their compelling anti-terrorism modification and added new and improved textures, character skins, weapons and all new locations. Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror transforms the wildly popular modification for Unreal Tournament into a gripping stand-alone squad-based first person shooter.


Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror will be in retail stores by the end of April for an estimated price of $29.99.

TO-Center.com has a trailer. You Euro-Buf'ers will have to wait six weeks after the North American release.

TetrisL, our resident expert on UT2003, has painstakingly taken an IRC log of a 4 hour long (!) chat that DE and Epic had with XGR.com, and trimmed away all of the nonsense and posted them in question and answer form (HTML) right here. It's very interesting, very long, and a few new things are revealed. Stop by this thread and comment and give him your thanks for all the hard work!

Needless to say they are sweet. Lots of good action shots. Notice the new combos, the incredible twisted trees, particles, player models and GRASS! heh, seriously... check it out here and here. Thanks to TetrisL (as usual)

Normally we don't p1mp individual maps reviews here at the Homepage, but when a truly standout map comes along... what do you do? Well, Lophead at Insite has come across a real gem of a map, created by Hourences... so you know right away it must be good.... right?

Well, as most of you probably don't know (or care), I've been out most of the week due to a RealLife move. My company has moved me from out of the swampland of west Tennessee, to the great open farmland of metro Indianapolis. No, I'm not in the Witness Protection Plan, but it's a terrific excuse for the lack of updates. ;-)

|K|Larathiel fires off a few short questions to one of DE's top level design guys... Juan Pancho Eekels. Naturally the talk centers around mapping, and he does confirm that people will be able to convert old UT maps into the new UT2003 editor.

Gamespot has a short article on the 2002 Benchmark and Epic's demonstration of the new Unreal Technology. Here's a very entertaining quote:

Near the end of the scripted demo, there was a firefight scene that dramatically illustrated how parts of the Unreal technology could come together to produce the sort of drama you'd expect from a good action movie. In the scene, small squad of space marines approached a lightly guarded entrance to an installation, and individual soldiers smoothly crouched behind cover on one side of the approaching bridge. They took out a couple of guards, who crumpled to the ground depending on how they were hit by gunfire--an effect made possible by the Karma physics system. When a guard in a mobile suit stepped out to stop the attack, a rocket went astray, hitting a stalactite, which in turn crashed down into the bridge. The bridge explodes somewhat differently every time the demo runs, because the physics engine determines how the debris collides. As a finale, one soldier from each side ended up in hand-to-hand brawl in the chasm below. A punch sent a helmet flying, the soldiers tussled on the ground, and they exchanged a series of vicious blows until one ripped the other's arm off.

Rhakka sends word that coders are needed to help with UltraUnreal's upcoming project:

UltraUnreal is looking for a few good coders to help us in our vision of unifying the North American Unreal competition scene in ways never before realized! We have a well-developed MSSQL 2000 database (normalized at level 5) running on a windows 2000 server, using ASP, VBScript and Javascript. Coding is also done using MS Interdev 6.5. Currently we're very close to our go live requirements, but we need to expand our coding team in order to meet our ultimate goal of being fully operational by the release of UT2003. If you're involved in the north american clan scene and would like to make a contribution that will touch on all aspects of Unreal series clan gaming for years to come, please email rhakka@ultraunreal.com!

Again, from the GDC (wish I was there!) comes another hands-on preview of UT2003. This is a nice read, filled with first-hand impressions along with a couple of revelations:

James assured me that the game was running on a Geforce 3 card, or at least he alluded to it. And to further the unbelievable spectacle, James [Shmalz] also claimed that Unreal Tournament 2003 would run on a TNT 2 card!

As promised, the Jailbreak UT crew have released Jailbreak]|[. This update is packed with new features, and of course to play online, you'll want to pick up this latest version.

New Gameplay Features

• Human ladders: Stand on other people's heads.
  
• Ducking actually reduces player height.
  
• Overhauled release protection: New looks, and picking up weapons/shooting reduces protection time.
  
• Pickups respawn after capture.
  
• Separate capture time limits for botmatches and network games.
  
• Transloc control for mappers: Designate translocatable zones.
  
• Hammer fights in jail.
  
• Advanced team balancing options: By clans, by skill.
  
• Automatic (and manual) arena view.
  
• Persistent global and server players stats.
  
• Mid-game joining: Spectator mode until team is joined.
  
• Last man standing message on the heads-up display.
  
• Capture timeout disabled in Sudden Death Overtime.
  
• Players get full health back on release and arena battle.
  
• Pickups and weapons respawn before starting an arena fight.
  
• Cheese.
  

IGN has experienced a hands-on preview of UT2003. Several small, new bits of information have been revealed.

The Game Developer's Conference is wrapping up and Gamespot has come away with a hands-on preview of Unreal Tournament 2003. Some of the highlights for me were the mentions of tighter hit detection, vehicles, slower Flak Cannon, more deliberate/realistic pace, and last but not least - continued support from DE after release.

Wowbagger has created a rather fine wallpaper out of some concept art for UT2003. I just thought I'd share it with you in case you didn't make it into the UT2003 Forums very much. Maybe this'll get you fired up for it, eh? Download the big 1280x1024 image here

We've gone ahead and provided a BeyondUnreal mirror of the recent ut2.wmv video that's making the rounds. The video contains *stunning* aspects of the new Unreal engine, and is a must-see, especially if you're interested in the new character animations and physics. You can grab the zipped version right here.

Well, we all knew it was coming, and true to their word, Infogrames has released the following:

LOS ANGELES - March 18, 2002 - Infogrames, Inc., a leading global publisher of interactive entertainment software, announces release dates for two highly anticipated sequels in the Unreal(R) family of action games. "Unreal Tournament 2003," whose precursor won GameSpot's 1999 Game of the Year award, is poised to deliver non-stop multiplayer action starting this summer. And, "Unreal II," sequel to the blockbuster hit "Unreal," will bring single-player story-based action to new heights when it ships this fall in time for the holiday season.

"Unreal Tournament 2003," being created by London, Ontario Canada developer Digital Extremes, is a completely new incarnation of the hit game that has come to epitomize the gladiator bloodsport of the future. The original game has enjoyed success as a team sport among rabid gaming fans and professional gaming leagues since its release and Digital Extremes will continue the non-stop mayhem by delivering a fantastic multiplayer gaming experience utilizing Epic Games' state-of-the-art next generation Unreal Engine technology. "UT2003" takes players into more than 30 action packed arenas, with over 50 highly individualized characters and an intimidating arsenal of weaponry. Digital Extremes previously co-developed both the originals, "Unreal Tournament" and "Unreal" alongside Epic Games with James Schmalz, founder and creative director of Digital Extremes, co-designing both games.

"Digital Extremes is planning to blow the doors off the action genre when 'Unreal Tournament 2003' ships this summer," says Schmalz, "The original 'UT' has maintained a strong fan-base over the past two years and we believe the all-new 2003 edition will more than satisfy the existing fans as well as attract new players to the game."

Schmalz added, "The new game types, special effects, weapons, player models, vastly more detailed arenas and improved artificial intelligence in 'UT2003' will redefine the word sequel."

The long-awaited JailBreak3 now has a release date of March 23rd!

Downloads will be available on Saturday, 3-23-2002 starting at Midnight GMT, followed by a release party where you'll have the opportunity to chat with the developers and other Jailbreak fans and, last but not least, to play some great games of Jailbreak on servers which will be ready for rumble at this time.

The release party will begin on Saturday, 3-23-2002 at 8 PM GMT. Join us in

Channel: #utjb
Server: irc.enterthegame.com

Our Tetris_L posted the following clarification in the BU Forums:

Tim Sweeney just commented on GameSpot's post and corrected some of it:

http://ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166333

The Gamespot announcement was a mix of actual news and speculation (this wasn't Gamespot's fault; we seem to have some bugs in our PR pipeline.)

The name "Unreal Episode 2" is just something that we, Legend, Epic, Infogrames, have been discussing internally. We haven't come to a decision and are still split on it; some of the guys love it and some of the guys hate it. What does everyone here think?

The motivating factor for a name change would be to reduce the confusion we've created by having several Unreal games in development.

For now, though, the name is still "Unreal 2".

The new name for "Unreal Tournament 2003" is official. But the idea of to releasing a new one every year is just another concept we've been debating internally. If that were seriously considered, we would have to avoid splitting the community every year.

The next-generation Unreal engine's network code and file formats are stable enough that we could potentially ship UT(year x) and include the maps from UT(year x-1) and maintain backwards compatibility with existing servers. This obviously couldn't go on forever, but could assure a lifetime similar to UT. Remember, in over 2 years of UT, we only broke network compatibility once.

Anyway, ongoing Unreal Tournament releases aren't an actual plan, just an idea we've been tossing around.

-Tim

4Unrealers.com has an interview with Laurent "Shag" Delayen, lead man for Tactical-Ops:Assault on Terror, the retail version of the realism mod Tactical Ops. There are six screenshots that look to be new, and a sneak on how far along they are:

MooN: This game is expected to be released this spring. Which is the actual development state?

Shag: We just completed our Alpha milestone earlier this week. Development is doing great, and given the very tight deadline i think we´re all impressed of the work accomplished so far. I think TO:AoT will surprise everyone.

If you want to get a good feel of whats to come in TO:AoT, head over to the Tactical Ops Home page and start downloading.

In an interview to be published Sunday at HomeLAN, Epic Games' Vice-President Mark Rein reveals, "Unreal Tournament 2, developed by Digital Extremes, should hit store shelves before the end of June and we expect Unreal 2, developed by Legend Entertainment, to be in stores in time for Christmas." Stay tuned to HomeLAN this weekend as Rein reveals more of Epic's plans for Unreal products including whether or not Unreal 2 will have the multiplayer mode, the Unreal Perfomance Test, the Unreal engine and Epic's plans for GDC and E3.

ULTBase has been busy getting Fragadelic back in order after some technical difficulties. Here's ULTBase on the state of Fragadelic.

Last of all I have made a decision regarding MODWatch. It is going to be left to rot. BUT I shall continue with interviews, not just on MOD's, but anything related to Unreal. I shall also be doing the occasional article too. This will all come to light at The BaSement, which I am currently working on. More Soon!

If you're into map reviews, no doubt you already know about Insite, but what you may not know is that they also feature great interviews (such as with our own QAPete) and editorials. Here's my favorite question of the interview: ;-)

Lophead: What was it/or some of the factors that made you decide to abandon PU, the GameSpy network and taking NaliCity and the PU forum community with you?

DELETED

We'd like to welcome yet another of the best Unreal sites to Beyond Unreal. If you're a fan of Infiltration, chances are you already know about RealMaps huge catalog of Infiltration map reviews. But they also have reviews of realistic maps for AS, CTF, and DOM. I've picked up several myself based on RealMaps reviews.. check them out!

I added a great link to the Unreal Maps/Mods section of our Essential Links. If you haven't tried it yet, you should. Varpu has a searchable UT map database that allows you to view the maps thumbnail screen shot as well as individual textures.

[_]D Java Joe ~ at the Infogrames Unreal 2 Forum has cooked up his very own seagoat. The seagoat, for those of you who do not know, is a little creature from Unreal 2. Check out the recipe and more pics here.

TO Center has 4 new screenshots of the Unreal engine powered game Tac Ops: Assault on Terror. This game is the retail version of the UT mod Tactical Ops.

This thread from the Tac-Ops forums list some of the FAQ's that have been going around since the retail version was anounced.

The Third Reich, a World War 2 total conversion of UT and one of our fine hosted forums has been long working on this project. Their latest update has eight pics (and the first ever) of the mod in action.

We're pleased to be hosting MappeD's new forums here at BU. BangOut is busy tidying up the place, and we're looking forward to seeing some more top quality reviews from them soon. In the meantime, head over to the MappeD Forums and say hello, discuss teamplay, maps, map reviews and more.

Jeremy posted some great looking screens this morning of the upcoming 2.87 release of Infiltration.

Warren Marshall of Infiltration fame, talked with EpicKnights a little about Infiltration's animation and player models. It's a short interview, but a must-read if you are interested in this master 3D artist's perspective.

4) Why does Infiltration use Skeletal Animation for their weapons? Most people would 'assume' that Skeletal Animation is primarily used for just character animation.

Warren: We noticed that weapons animated using the traditional vertex animation approach tended to swim a bit in first person. Skeletal animation allowed our weapons to look precise all the time. Also, we can use a different mesh (PSK) file for each animation (PSA) file, which means we can literally have as many weapon attachments as we want. So since each PSK file is mere kilobytes in size, we have a much smaller file size altogether for each weapon than you would using vertex animation. With vertex animation, each possible attachment variation means you're including all the animation data each time. File sizes can balloon considerably. However, using skeletal weapons hurts performance a bit more than vertex animation. But using UT's skeletal system for weapons means a whole lot less time spent on exporting and handling the meshes in general, what with the ActorX plugin's versatility. Imagine having to update the mesh of your weapon later on in development - with the skeletal system, you simply alter it once and export the PSK file. Done!

Hypothermia interviews Aaron Leiby, Senior Programmer at Legend Entertainment about his involvement in Unreal 2. Most of it is pretty lighthearted with no new revelations about the game, in fact many of the questions are of a personal nature. It's a good read, however, as Aaron seems to be quite an evasive and funny guy.

Unreal Ops continues to update their UT2 Weapons Preview with a little help from Digital Extremes. The weapon descriptions should now match up correctly with the right pic, some names have been corrected, and a few new little tidbits have been revealed. Among them, the knowledge that the translocator is being tweaked to limit its use.

Gamespy has a new Preview/Interview with Laurent "Shag" Delayen of the Tactical Ops team. In between gigantic ads, you'll notice three good-looking screenshots. Here's a portion

GameSpy: What advice do you have for other mod developers?

Shag: I think the most important (thing) is to get into a community. The first step is finding the developer's website or a huge community website (Planet Unreal for example ed-or BeyondUnreal!). This is really important, since news posts and forums will lead you to the right tutorials and to the right people. A very important thing as well is time; you really need to be motivated and not too hurried, a mod and a team take a lot of time to build.

Congratulations to the entire BuF community, who has spammed relentlessly for years to achieve 1,000,000 posts as of today!

Professional spammer AngelShade (DeeperShade's alter-ego) is, by all accounts, the lucky holder of the 1,000,000th post.

The BeyondUnreal team is extremely proud to be a part of your great community, and plan to be here for your 2,000,000th post! At the rate everyone's posting, that might be soon!

Gamespot has a nice 5 page preview of Unreal2. The 11 "new" pics they posted look just like the others that I've seen, but they do go into the GOLEM sytem that Legend is using for the models. It's a pretty interesting read. Some of the other more interesting parts include the assertion that there will be no vehicles in multiplay.. oh yes... and notice the March 1 release date that they give at the top of the article. Sounds like a long shot to me. Here's a clip from the article.

Unreal II will feature a total of 20 multiplayer maps inspired by settings from the single-player game, and because those maps were designed to be easily covered on foot, there'll be no vehicles to control in multiplayer games.

SecretLevel, the developers of UnrealTournament for DreamCast have announced that they will be bringing the Unreal Engine to the GameCube! No news yet as to what games that might include, but it's big news for you Nintendo fans out there. (thanks to RegularX at UT.org for the link)

One of my favorite class based mods for UT has a new release. Weapons Factory UT has been updated with quite a few class tweaks.

• Files
  
• WFUT 107b umod style
  
• WFUT 107b zip style
  
• Official Mappack
  
• Third-party mappack

In anticipation for the upcoming Unreal games we're all looking for the latest hardware to beef our systems up with. Not that you'll have to have such a beast as the GeForce 4, but sometimes you've just got to have the best. Along comes The Tech Report with their preview of nVidia's latest graphics cards. Find out if the 4 series will topple ATI and take control of the graphics card throne.

We had some fun in our IRC channel (#beyondunreal on irc.enterthegame.com) tonite. This time, we came up with witty slogans for BeyondUnreal. Here's a sampling, shamelessly intended to lure the unsuspecting BuF reader to the forums for some fun:

QAPete - BeyondUnreal: We Got Wang
Dopefish|mIRC - BeyondUnreal: Like attaching jumper cables to your nipples.
_Zd_Tapeworm|STD[PORN] - BeyondUnreal: You need it cause you're WEAK
FireSlash - Bye... beyno.. Nby... ay screw it: for that dyslexic part of all of us.
[RSU]D-Stroya - BeyondUnreal : All your hotcarls are belong to us!
Dopefish|mIRC - BeyondUnreal: Sheep's Night Tuesdays: Sheep come for free!
QAPete - BeyondUnreal: Live n00b Feasts every Friday night!
[RSU]Arcturus - BeyondUnreal: If it doesn't say BeyondUnreal, it's probably something else.
Dopefish|mIRC - BeyondUnreal: Now With 90% More Crap!
[mored] - BeyondUnreal : 10% Fat Free.
QAPete - BeyondUnreal: Where exactly one admin supports Dopefish
[mored] - BeyondUnreal : We actually have female forumers.
Dopefish|mIRC - BeyondUnreal: We don't need no steenking catchphrase!
[RSU]Arcturus - BeyondUnreal: Visit us or we'll send a large box full of disgruntled OAPs brandishing small kittens to your house.
[mored] - BeyondUnreal: GingerPr0n available.
Dopefish|mIRC - BeyondUnreal: Home to some of the bravest UT playing women on the 'Net.

See what you're missing? Get your fine butt over to #beyondunreal on IRC, server is irc.enterthegame.com. BeyondUnreal: where the mutants go to party!

A smallish preview with many of the now familiar pics can be found at GamesDomain.

BeyondUnreal's very own Tactical Ops continues to make headlines. This time, Gamespot's Trey Walker talks with the producer of this UT mod that is on it's way to retail.

GS: What parts of the game is the team working on right now?
RC: The team is currently working on making Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror a stand-alone product. Players won't need to have Unreal Tournament to play this game. They are also working on new maps, new skins and new models. As for the new animation, it is going to be implemented very soon. In addition, we are testing the game and fixing bugs.

Those of you who enjoy your Tournament OSX style can help yourselves to Westlake Interactive's new preview version of Unreal Tournament for OSX. You'll find it bundled in a neat little 1.1MB package.

Welcome to February. Along with the new month comes an update from Epic concerning the state of the Unreal Engine, it's features, and lots of pics to illustrate them.

Some of the new things include:

• A completely integrated visual debugger for UnrealScript.
  
• Streamlining of the import of models from Max or Maya into the Unreal Engine where they can be manipulated through a handy GUI.
  
• Details on the Karma Physics Engine.
  
• Advanced texturing capabilities.
  
• Improvements to the Unreal Camera System (flybys, cut scenes, etc.).
  
• Networking upgrades.
  
• X-box improvements,
  
• Renewed support for the Linux version of a dedicated server.
  

Tactical Ops, one of the great UT mods (and one of our great hosted sites) is going to the store shelves, courtesy of Infogrames. Gamespy :/ just got an exclusive interview with Rafael Curulla of Infogrames to help explain how the retail and currently downloadable mod will be different.

Have you ever been searching for an answer to your UnrealEngine/Ued question, found it after ages of searching and wished there was an easier way? Well, you can contribute immediately to the Unreal Wiki project. It's a completely open-sourced, user editable compendium of Unreal Engine knowledge! This is one of the most exciting new Unreal documentation projects around, and the potential is enormous. A quote from tarquin, it's co-creator:

This is a completely open project. Everybody & anybody can contribute. You are an editor: click the link at the bottom of any page to start.
Wiki markup is very simple to learn. See also our Wiki tips.
Go and see [Wikipedia] for an idea of what can be accomplished with a Wiki system.

UT Jailbreak MotherShip 2 server has gotten a new IP address. The new addy is unreal://66.92.236.120:7777 The Mothership Servers page will be updated shortly.

While your there check out the info for the other Mothership game servers. You can find info for the Infiltration, CTF, Jailbreak, and Stranglove 2 servers.

According to this article at Network World Fusion there is a security flaw in Netscape's and Mozilla's web browser.

"The vulnerability affects Navigator Versions 6 through 6.2, as well as Version 0.9.6 and earlier versions of the open-source version of Navigator, Mozilla.....The bug can be exploited by causing users to visit a Web address inserted into HTML code on a Web page or in an HTML-formatted e-mail. If the user were to view the malicious Web site, cookies could be stolen off the user's computer."

Netscape users should upgradeto Version 6.2.1, and Mozilla users should upgrade to Version 0.9.7 ASAP.

AnandTech was lucky enough to get it's hands on build 848 of the Unreal Engine (436 was UT's last). What do you do with such a great gift? Why you torture the latest graphics cards of course! This quote tells you what the article is all about:

If you'll remember, the original Unreal engine was geared for software rendering but it has evolved into something that is entirely geared for hardware accelerated 3D rendering thus making it a much better benchmark of GPUs. Eventually Epic will have a version of the Unreal Performance Test 2002 that will encompass every feature in the engine that will eventually make its way to Unreal Tournament II among other titles

You may remember a while back when Computer Gaming World magazine boasted a brand new 2 page shot in their "Loading" section? The accusations began coming in that they had been Photoshop'ed, and Legend's Mathias Worch denied that it had been done. Well, a new development has come in, and Epic's Mark Rein speaks out:

I wanted to issue a correction about the Unreal2 "Loading..." page in CGW. On Friday it came to my attention that there was a thread on Shacknews where people were questioning the legitimacy of the image used in the CGW "Loading" page. Matthias Worch made a statement saying that it was 100% real. Unbeknownst to Matthias, it had been modified by hand-drawing shadows into the screenshot after it had been taken. Player shadows weren't working at the time so I gave the go-ahead to add them and release the modified image to CGW for their "Loading" page. This is something I am 100% responsible for and in retrospect I should not have done it - I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to our fans and gamers in general for doing this. This is not something you would expect from Epic Games and I want people to know that I was responsible for it. I have included the original screen shot on which the image was based (before shadows were added) as well as some screen shots taken this weekend using the current version of the game in which shadows are working.

Mark Rein,
Epic Games Inc.

As seen on the Tactical Ops Forums, a mutator to stop the Ade Bot have been created. This thread gives the details and some feedback on what it is, how it works, and that it does work, including a console screenshot in game. This gives us another weapon against those who mess-up games on the pubs.

You can grab the mutator here:

• http://www.3dunlimited.de/to-scene/download/adeaway.zip
  
• http://www.united-zockers.org/downloads/adeaway.zip
  

BeyondUnreal has hooked up with BarrysWorld to provide you with a Euro-based BarryServer Classic CTF MotherShip! As many of you know, BarrysWorld has long been a haven for gamers, providing free web space to gamers, as well as offering their fine BarryServers at reasonable prices to the serious gaming community. BarryServers are unique, as they have exclusive web administration capabilities beyond what UT offers as standard, and they're hooked up to some mighty phat pipes! The entire team at BeyondUnreal is very happy to be teaming with BarrysWorld to provide our European visitors with a great place to game!

The server is up at 213.221.174.45:7790 - stop by for a game!

Clan members - check out how you can get your own BarryServer!

The February issue of PC Gamer magazine features a big five page article on Unreal2. It's well written (of course) and full of big, beautiful photos. There's nothing new for the person who's been closely following the bits of information coming out of Legend lately, but it's definitely worth picking up a copy just to immerse yourself in U2 goodness. ;-) Below are some scans of the article. They're a little grainy, but hey - that's what you buy the magazine for!

Hey, fellow BuFers! Thought I couldn't post news here? Think again...I'm a n00b with root access!

Anyway, some minor excitement as we bring things together throughout the BeyondUnreal world. All of the Unreal 1 maps at Nali City have been mirrored and are available for download. This includes some of the old mods for Unreal 1, located on Nali City's 'Files' page.

What's that, you say? Why bother with the old Unreal 1 maps? Well, there are quite a few people out there that email me concerning them, especially the SinglePlayer levels, so we wanted to bring them all to you in one place.

Stop by Nali City for more details.

Not really Unreal news, but I know alot of you BuF'ers play Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Activision has announced that they have aquired Grey Matter Interactive. Grey Matter, who developed Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Activision, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. The actual price of the deal has not been released, but Activision has issued 133,690 shares of common stock in connection with it.

If you remember, a few days ago GAME PLANET ran a preview of Unreal Tournament 2, but all of the text was in Dutch. [Ci]Morgan was kind enough to translate it for us and format it with a few pics thrown in as well. It looks great, and you can read it here.

The PlanetJailbreak Team invites you to check out a sneak peek of Jailbreak III with "Buffy and Drake, a Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy in 16 Pictures." created by ElBundee.

Afterwords, join everyone for Sunday Lockdown on the UTJB MotherShip Servers. It starts around 3pm Eastern time.

Look for the latest build of Tactical Ops this weekend! Take a look at the very large Features List.

We're most happy to welcome Tetris L (the artist formerly known as Cleaner) and the Unreal Cleaned FAQ's to Beyond Unreal! This site has long been in my favorites folder and holds a wealth of information about UT, UT aliases, and UT links. More recently added to Cleaned is the Unofficial U2 FAQ. Both of these FAQ's are virtual compendiums of knowledge on each game.

GAMESPOT is getting in on the UT2 action with their Pancho Eekels Interview. There's not really much new discussed, but if you haven't read up on the game... here is the chance to do so. Along with the interview are 56 pics, art or renders (nothing new). Some of the more interesting portions include these comments that expand ever-so-slightly on what we know to this point:

"...We have also implemented the concept of recharging stations that recharge your health, ammo, or shield. Now, this doesn't mean that every time you pick up ammo, health, or shield that you have to stand still. This is because each recharging station has an initial holographic icon floating on top of it, which has a charge of, say, 25 percent. It takes time for that to reappear again after you've zipped over it and picked it up (just like a regular pickup). But if you are greedy, you can stay on the station for a full refill. This causes the station to get drained, and it takes time for it to fully recharge; you can't camp on top of it. All of this still gives you the opportunity to control certain areas of the map if you want to, since there are still physical stations that are very important to your arsenal, health, and shield..."

No, I'm not complaining at all... keep 'em coming! Most of the 23 pics you'll see over at Game Planet has been seen before, but there are a couple that I've never seen, as well as some great weapons renders.

GIGA Games has seven videos of Unreal Tournament footage taken from their TV special. The video footage is from hand held cam looking at various computer monitors of gameplay and other demonstration. We've seen the pics... here's your chance to see it in action! You'll want to be sure you've downloaded the DivX AVI codec.

Recieved an email from Jesco announcing that he has released version 3.2.0 of UTX-Viewer:

The most important change is the complete rewritten handling of package folders; you now can
define up to four different folders with packages which are accessed by a TreeView (like
Windows Explorer). Speed is also a bit better and S3TC compressed texture no longer cause
the viewer to display noisy textures.

The complete list of changes is:

• Package list has been replaced by a TreeView;
  
  
  
  • new search option; generates a new treenode with all results
    
  • mass extraction currently disabled Added support for groups in 'Package
    
  
  
• Export' dialog Fixed size limit for packages (Oversized-Headers Error) 10-15% performance
  increase in texture extraction (plus another 30% when using Windows NT/2000/XP)
  
• Splashscreen is now displayed for two secs at startup
  
• Removed noisy palettes in packages with S3TC textures; although, only the non-compressed
  mipmaps are displayed Error in logging fixed
  

You can find both a pre-compiled binary and the sourcecode to UTX-Viewer at http://utx-viewer.sourceforge.net

To help clear up the confusion, Infogrames has officially confirmed that Unreal Tournament 2 is indeed in development by Digital Extremes (co-authors of UT and creators of Unreal Championship). The official quote taken from Voodoo Extreme:

Infogrames confirms Unreal Tournament 2 in the making by Digital Extremes. As rumored all week online, the co-creators of Unreal and Unreal Tournament are currently working on the sequel to the infamous 1999 Game of the Year. Late next week, in conjunction with the February issue of PC Gamer, Infogrames will officially announce the game and detail all the news currently available at this point in development. The cover story includes an in-depth interview with the development team at Digital Extremes, specifics about the gameplay and globally exclusive artwork to be seen only in PC Gamer.

Jim.be is back at it again with 5 new Screenshots of U2. These look a little more stylized or "posed" for "oooh's" and "ahhh-s" than the others, but they're nice just the same.

Well, more about UT2 has surfaced. It looks just like Unreal Championship to me, but they seem set on calling it UT2...so be it! Jim.be has an article that pretty much says the same thing as the article reported from the French gaming magazine, Joystick. Along with tons of new in-game pics, they're showing lots of models and artwork. And then, of course... the list:

Computer and Video Games has a video of some Unreal Championship (X-box)footage. It really shows off the player models and the terrain. Go check out the reasonably sized (10MB) demo.

As seen on Shacknews:

tothegames.com has 16 screenshots of every Buf'ers future favorite game to drool over.

Also, Computer And Video Games has a 10 meg movie from Unreal Championship, the X-Box title. You can grab it here.

The French Gaming Magazine 'Joystick has posted the first screenshots of Unreal Tournament 2, together with an article on the game. The game appears to be similar to Digital Extremes Xbox title Unreal Championship. The article is written entirely in French.

Below are links to scans of the article featured on PlanetUnreal.

Just the obligatory, yet cheerful well wishings for the Holiday. Sparky's birthday is celebrated the world over, and we want to be the first to wish him well.

First off, we'd like to welcome Eavy's Unreal Tournament Mods to BeyondUnreal. Second, as a present to us all, he's released 5 new mods for Unreal Tournament in a nice little Christmas package:

• EavyDominationPlus - a mix of Domination with Capture the Flag.
  
• EavyHighlanderMod - turns players into immortal Highlanders who can only be killed by headshots.
  
• EavyMonsterMadness - spawns Skaarj monsters in any map.
  
• EavyCheatMode - lets players use cheat console commands without logging in as an admin.
  
• EavyTournamentMutator - This mutator protects against common exploits like spawn-killing, impact-jumping, impact-launching, rocket-launching, redeemer-launching, team-switching, flag-dropping, tele-fragging, team-killing, and translocator-tossing.
  

Yes, I know I'm early, but I'll be busy with family things for several days and I just wanted to be sure to wish you all well. Updates for the next week depend on if/when any of us are able to do so. Until then...

Azm0 from Unreal Fortress has released beta version 2v8 of the fortress mod publicly as an early Christmas present for the UT community. Here's what he says...

That's right, if you have the time and the inclination then you can download the new version of Unreal Fortress and have a play even though it isn't quite finished. Pop over to our ftp site and get it from the beta2v8 directory. Word of warning, you will need to remove any old versions of Unreal Fortress and the download is 70meg.

If someone wants to throw up a server in the U.S. I'm sure the stateside lot will fill it for you.

Merry Christmas all :)

Daikiki sent in some terrific news on the state of UT Jailbreak 3. Daikiki explains the rest:

Since
its initial release nearly a year ago, UT Jailbreak has proven very
popular amongst all manner of players. Its excellent bot support
makes it a highly playable single player experience while multi
player is also highly enjoyable, in part due to the large number of
excellent maps available from many highly talented third party
mappers.

In this, the third release of UT Jailbreak, we have polished the code
and presentation of the mod extensively while adding several new
features. For example, UT Jailbreak three sports a completely redone
hud and scoreboard. Both are exquisitely animated and the hud is even
skinnable by third parties and mappers. Two distinct hud designs will
be included in the distribution. Team balance and clan play issues
have also been tackled, with added support for balancing teams by
clans and by skill. Additionally, stats tracking has been
implemented, both internally per server, with players being awarded a
standing based on their skill in previous games, and globally, with
servers sending game data to a Perl enabled web site of the server
admin's choice. In this manner, several servers can 'feed' the same
site with statistics. The site, in turn can display those statistics
using simple Perl scripts, an example of which will be included in
the distribution. Also new are UT Jailbreak specific relics, custom
model support, a completely redone announcer pack, and several
features Quake Jailbreak players will recognize, such as the human
pyramid.

UT Jailbreak III will be released with a selection of the best maps
available for the mod in addition to several that have never before
been seen.

More images here: screen1 screen2 screen3 screen4

PC Zone, a UK magazine has several new pics of Unreal 2. Unreal Center has a few of the pics up at their site. You can find more here in our own U2 Forum.

Friday morning marks the deadline of your reservations for the UltraUnreal 2 LAN Party. They need about 40 more confirmed players or the whole thing is getting kicked back to summer. The original UU LAN had over 150 UT'ers fragging and having fun. If you live anywhere near Columbus, Ohio... I'd get on over to their site and sign up right away!

Divided Sky, Ultra Unreal crew member and sometimes BuF member has cooked up an interesting interview with members of two of the top UT Team players. Xavier (HV) and Bertram (ProphecY) discuss the upcoming Ultra Unreal tourney and UT in general.

Oh my, it seems like only 13 days ago that SF unveiled it's latest build. Well, the mod that keeps on growing has just grown again. StrikeForce has released 1.70, and here's what you'll get:

Maps

• SFTDM-IslandBase
  
• SFTDM-Recurso
  
• SFTDM-Reservoir
  
• SFTDM-ForWhomeTheBellTolls
  
• SFTDM-Dogtown
  
• SFDM-HavnJiesavrre
  
• SFDM-Graffiti
  

Here's another BeyondUnreal wallpaper I cooked up recently, featuring the Unreal 2 marine and lots of transparent blue squares... well it looks cool anyway :).

Links? Look down!

• Discuss
• Download

File this one under "duh". For some reason, BeyondUnreal's hosting of this most intriguing mod got missed. For those of you who never owned a SEGA Genesis(Mega-Drive), HZ was the grandfather of all RTS games, and considered by many to be one of the best. You won't find any complex menus here, just pure fun.

Gamespot, in reporting on the delay of Microsoft's X-box broadband network, dropped an unwelcome bomb on those of us waiting for the release of Unreal Championship:

The full range of network services, complete with the release of complex online multiplayer games such as Unreal Championship, won't take place until late next year, perhaps even as late as the holiday season 2002, according to sources.

The status of Unreal Championship itself is also a bit clouded at this time. Sources close to Digital Extreme report that the game is currently going through a major overhaul. Although the graphics engine is very much in place, many of the game's levels are being redesigned and new maps are being implemented, because the team wasn't satisfied with several of the original designs. Naturally, the game's development schedule has expanded as a result.

After being shut down long ago, Unreal Tower is back with a slick, speedy Flash site. For those of you who don't know, Meltdown has a nice little collection of scripting utilities and mods... including the great Monster Madness.

The ever-popular UT mod UT Jailbreak is announcing a supplement to Sunday Lockdown (a popular online event featuring the mod). It's cleverly titled, Tuesday Lockdown. If you can't guess when it is, take a look at daikiki's news:

At the request of forum regular Tahngarth I'd like to point you all in the general direction of this thread. Unsatisfied with the weekly Sunday game, he's gottten together with some other affectionados and has set up an additional Tuesday lockdown. Now, even if you do work the weekends or spend most of your Sundays hungover, you've no excuse not to get the living daylights thrashed out of you in a fine old game of JB.

Gameplay takes place on the Mothership 1, evenings GMT-ish. Hope to see y'all there some day.

Fellow BU hosted site Fusion has interviewed the Unreal Fortress project leader Azm0. Azm0 talks to Fusion about UT, Unreal 2 and what we can look forward to in the future.

Check out the interview here.

Well, there are more reports about, of DigitalExtremes secret development of UT2. According to WorthPlaying.com, an article in PCGamer.se says it is scheduled for a July 2002 release! Still no denials from Infogrames, DE, or Epic, only the cryptic "we don't comment on rumors". Here's the text:

Here is some new info about the game!


There are for now over 30 levels implanted, divided over one "techno Egyptian area", a world of ice, a world of lava, a jungle planet and many more.


The games characters are rendered with six times more polygons than in the original and there are far more models.


Among the characters you'll find a nightmare alike clown looking figure, with a dark and high hat and a blood-filled smile on the lips. The details in the game are strikingly rich.


One of the gaming communities most well preserved secrets is to be released in July next year.


Stay tuned for more info!

Blue Monday have an interview with Kevin Johnstone, Legend artist working on Unreal 2 skins. The interview touches on his past work as well as his current project.

BLUE MONDAY - What’s the first thing players will think when they get to play Unreal 2?

KEVIN - Unreal 2 is going to make your jaw drop. I’ve never been as excited about the possibilities of a game I’ve worked on before as I am about U2. In U1 you can be impressed by much of the games environments and characters but you’re still sure they are not real. In U2 you can be fooled, as the detail level is much, much higher.

How about that? We have a wallpaper before we have a main page. Download it here (770k). Thanks, Tossmonkey... it looks great!

Old news, but if you haven't got your hands on nVidia's new detonators, then check 'em out now. Everyone around the community seems to be pretty impressed with the new drivers, some people seeing a jump of up to 10fps ingame.

Driver linkage below...

• Windows 9X/ME Drivers
• Windows XP/2000 Drivers
• Windows XP 64-Bit Drivers
• Windows NT Drivers

The first in the Interview Series. He's no stranger to the stranger, but there's more to life than sp0rks and f00ns. Having said that, find out what the utensil of choice is, what goes on it, why Linux doesn't suck after all, and why you're just a cinema n00b. Here's a bit of what you'll read:

You know those times when you're asleep, and suddenly you're awoken by a terrible feeling of fear, often related to the chunk of rebar that's been coated with ketchup, salted, and jammed into your eye socket?
Yeah, those times suck, don't they?

I like tacos.

As seen on Linux Games, Nvidia has released a new version of their kernel driver. These fix a number of problems some people have been having.

Saphire Nights, BuF's resident romantic poet and sometimes steamy story writer has outdone herself this time.
When Saph made a promise in a previous thread of a "full friction lapdance" for Allison (one of BuF's other femme fatales) when she hit 2000 posts, little did she expect that Allison would leap from a post count of approximately 1000 to over 2000 in the space of one evening.
Whilst some people may think this may be due to divine intervention, the more cynical of us are inclined to think that the BuF moderator Boom might have had something to do with it.
Needless to say, what with Boom being BuF's resident lawyer, he could not be reached for comment at this particular time, ( though he's able to fit us in next week sometime if we can afford his fees).
Anyway Saphire Nights kept to her word and the steamy details of Allisons lapdance can be read here.
Enjoy.

Xbox.IGN has put together a nice preview of Unreal Championship, based on last week's Infogrames Gamer's Day on Unreal Championship. It covers everything from the new team-play concepts, to weapons (can anyone say Sattelite Death?) and the new Bombing Run gametype. Here's a snippet:

The controls have been changed to mimic fighting games, in the sense that you'll be rewarded for pulling off combos, and of course the fact that you can now do the ever-popular double-jump. They were fairly vague about exactly how a combo in a shooter works, but mentioned that it was about special kills, like a mid-air kill, or using two weapons together to finish someone off. On top of your normal health and ammo bars, you've now got a Bio Energy bar, which builds as you pull off combos. When it fills you hit a berzerker mode where you'll get 20% more damage for your attacks. It's like Quad damage, but based on your playing skills, not just for being lucky enough to find it.

The guys over at Ferrago.co.uk have put together a nice overview of the upcoming Unreal Championship. Definitely worth a read if you're not up to date on this good-looking game. The pic at the right is one of many from the article.

Check your local bookstore for a copy of Computer Gaming World, and feast your eyes on a stunning 2 page image of an Unreal 2 firefight! The image to your right is but a cheap scan, and you'll no doubt want to rush out and purchase a hard copy of your very own. ;)

Well, straight from the rumour mill, we have several little Forum snippets, a "no-comment" from Infogrames, and an article by Computer and VideoGames.com. I'll present it to you, and let you take from it what you will.

Strike Force has an early Christmas gift for you in the form of beta release 1.65b. Make sure you have 1.60 before you install the 57MB (zip or .exe) file. The download and mirrors can be found at their site

Weapons

• Widow Maker, Steyr Aug, M203, Desert Eagle, Smoke Nades and HKG36 non-scoped added
  
• Weapons specs & position rebalanced
  
• Sniper rifles tweaked so they don't fire while crawling
  
• New sounds for smoke grenade and frag grenade
  
• Improved grenade and smoke grenade throwing code
  
• Made muzzle flashes for each weapon and added them all
  
• Added 2 more supersonic bullet flyby sounds
  
• Set up color tracer rounds for terrs & sf
  
• Scope wobble is increased if your running while zoomed it
  
• Doubled the spread of the shotgun's, so there isn't anymore shotgun sniping
  
• M203 has a messages added so you know what mode your in (grenade or normal)
  
• Shellshock effect when you're hit by a grenade and not killed. Ground shakes and ears ring
  
• New sound for claymore hand clacker
  
• Put in new scope textures for all sniper rifles
  
• Put a boot knife on every player so they always carry the knife
  

The BuF Homepage continues to evolve. At the top you'll notice a slightly larger logo, featuring characters from Legend's Unreal 2, and from Digital Extreme's Unreal Championship.

Wow, this is really cool, and it's something that I just missed a while back, but maybe some of you did too. We're always looking for the biggest and the best ways to play games, but how would you like to play UT virtually, with multiple monitors, or in a wrap-around theater?? Can I hear a "hell yeah"? Using the CAVE technology, the guys at UltraUnreal have begun working it out:

Remember the good ol' Sircam virus a few months back? Now there's a newer and even more nasty bug that's out to turn your 'puter into a pile of beige-colored steaming metal -- W32.Badtrans.B@mm. Because I'm feeling particularly lazy today, here's a quick copy n' paste from Zaccix on the forums...

Upon attempting to read my mail just now, I was infected with what I now know is the W32.Badtrans.B@mm virus. No warning, just a very quick window popup when I viewed the message in the preview pane and boom, infected. Ironically, I was about to download the latest Mcafee virus definitions after checking mail.

Anyway, whatever virus checker you use, update it now. I don't care if you have to stop that pr0n download, head to download.com or wherever and grab that definitions file. Lets not see another SirCam-like spread.

I still reckon that virus writers should've been shot at birth...

If you haven't checked it out yet, Covert Forces Alpha 4 was previously released. This mod has a huge assortment of realistic weapons, and while the skins aren't entirely done yet, you'll no doubt find the mod to be quite fun to play. It's relatively small in size, so be sure to check it out.

If every other word you type is "demorec" (the other being demostop) then you'll want to check out the new version of usaar33's UT Demo Manager. Features...

Demo Analyzer:
This lists every file that you need to play the demo. Never again will there be probems with missing file demo crashes. On top of that, it tells the mapname and the type of demo (client or recorded server-side on a dedicated server).

Summary Generator:
This button will write an information txt file about the demo that can be easily distributed with demos. You will know exactly what files you need to include with the demo and others downloading it will know what packages they need. (see below for more info)

Multiple Path support:
UDEMO now supports demos in other directories besides the ut system directory.

Auto-Recording:
Ever wanted to record a demo of every game you play? UDEMO will detect level changes and automatically record a demo, using the format that YOU specify.

It looks like we have a nice collection of shots of the upcoming X-box title by Digital Extremes. To The Game has several renders, in-game shots, and concept art for you to check out. To the right is a very fine render of one of the weapons.

Cheating has been dealt a serious blow. Yet another tool is available to deal with the scourge known as aimbots, and guess what... no download! The details lie in the ServerSideOnly packages listed in the .ini. If you run a UT server, or if you know someone who does.. this is a must-read.

Yes! Yes it is! Pete's added our link to the front of the BeyondUnreal Temp Front Page. That means we are officially live and part of BU!

Dunno if the site's supposed to be live yet, but I'll post this anyway (my first non-test post... hurrah!).

If you're particularly bored, head over to Fusion and check out their article on Why we'll love Unreal 2. Post any comments over here!

Location: Nottingham Lan Arena.
Time: 23/02/02 to 24/02/02 - Saturday Evening through to 9am Sunday morning

Rumours have started of the next chapter of that which is known as "EuroLan 5"
Current plans indicate that it will be taking place on the 23rdh/24th of Feburary (school holidays if you're still young enough to go).
The previous 4 have been a resounding success, where much gaming was done, much beer drunk (for those who were of legal age) and many silly antics occured.
You do NOT need to bring a PC with you, there are 30 (ish) Athlons all networked together with GeForces and games installed .
Cost will be arond £12-£15 depending on how many people turn up. You will also need to bring money for food (usually pizza)
Not only do we play UT (with lots of custom maps), we also get some serious games going of AvP, CS, Tribes2 and Q3 (boo hiss)
So if you want to meet up with some of the (in)famous members of the European BuF community (and no Deepsy isn't an alcoholic - he doesn't got to meetings), toddle over to this thread and post your interest, or drop me an email.

Be sure to drop by the Most played custom maps thread to put in your favorite maps. We've indexed the current list right here at the BuF Homepage. There are currently about 243 maps listed. Have we missed one? I think not! Mwuahahaha

Okay, now some of you may be aware of this already... but I bet that many of you are not! There are quite a few maps that Epic created for both Unreal and UnrealTournament ... that never made it to the game! Read about them on our Forums, and even catch a few screenshots of them. To the right is a shot of the original Coret Facility.

Just a few lines here to let everyone know that most of the Community and Essential Links stuff is complete. Thanks to RaptoR for his continued work on the look of the site.

... hit the "Output News" button after submitting to make your news appear on the front page.

Yeah, update this as much as you like with BuF stuff :).

icles

Will help keep this uptodate as possible......I mean...seriously...what else am I supposed to do all day?

My actual job?

HAH!!

what about the others, have they agreed to post stuff here yet?

Just testing

I like peanuts!

Another example post to test newsphp's headline max-out feature. Blah blah blah.Another example post to test newsphp's headline max-out feature. Blah blah blah.Another example post to test newsphp's headline max-out feature. Blah blah blah.

I like spam.

Testing some modifications and other crap.

bling bling!!!!

Now that our plans for total Unreal World Domination have begun, there is no stopping us!

Welcome to the all-new BeyondUnreal Forumers. Thanks go to RaptoR for the l337 design and news program.

Along with a new site comes a new mission. That mission for this site is to become the ultimate Forum resource and commentary page for the greatest Unreal Engine Forum on the face of the earth. We wouldn't settle for second rate Forum software, and we are not going to settle for second rate stuff here! =)

Some of the changes you will notice are the addition of more news posters to keep the content fresh. We'll be the ultimate source for Unreal related links, we'll have a M-M-M-Monster Thread of the week, and generally just have a hell of a good time.

Cya round.

Testing NPHP's date system...

Hey hal.

Just a quick test message using the new news script. CGI didn't want to work, so we're using NewsPHP. Check your mail for login info, etc.

Rap'