by JRandomNoob » 03.22.14
This is indeed a drastic change that has the possibility of substantially transforming UrT. Then again, it’s not the first time this has happened, and we absolutely need an update of some kind. It’s seriously a miracle that such an old multiplayer game is still being played. And while exponentially increasing processing power has brought it down from requiring a pretty beefy machine (layering more detail and complex collision on top of the already-demanding Quake 3) to an “appliance” grade software we’re nearing the point where no amount of horsepower would make it playable because available hardware simply doesn’t support the features the engine depends on.
Considering that the official answer to questions about HD system requirements has always been “we’ll allow you to turn off all bling” they may well go out of their way to make the supported range of hardware as broad as possible. As for Linux, the engine already supports Android, and I see no reason why this port wouldn’t happen (Valve/Source/Steam and the similarly-licensed CryEngine are already there, going om nom nom at the potential market).
Remember, the engine was only released a few days ago and many things can still happen.
At any rate, it’s too early to proclaim that the world has ended. Even by the most optimistic estimate HD is like two years away, not considering the possibility that they find that replicating Quake in Unreal just doesn’t work and switch engines again… 4.2 is going to stay here for a while and it’s still being developed and supported — although I hear all coders work on HD now, so no more new features, only bug fixes and such (which, remember, is more than 4.1 received during its five-year reign). Maybe we’re going to see ten years more of 4.2, kept alive by people with weak machines, while the majority is playing HD — I mean, look at Counter-Strike, the One True Version played competitively is even older than UrT!
3.x → 4.x also killed a load of old maps — too dark, too small, etc. Most of the existing maps are either crap or not played, or both. Jump maps would be a considerable loss since nearly all of them are made for 4.x, and the physics of HD may well be sufficiently different for jumping purposes that even rebuilding them 1:1 wouldn’t work.
About myself, I’m not worried, even in the worst case I might still be able to map for HD if not play my creations:-P For the time being I’m ignoring HD and continuing mapping in the old-fashioned way. (Not counting the quick hack job I did on HE Tennis I have one released map, one nearing completion that I’m working on daily, and four or five in various stages of development.)
@Rhinestone: Pretty sure they’re going to stay the hell away from id Software after the licensing fiasco of fstech1. Although, should id also jump on the bandwagon and start offering its own cheap licensing scheme, who knows…