16 replies to this topic

[ambershee]

Hi Guys,

I've been given the heads up that there's a new MSUC for 2008, and it's not long away. The prizes are all there and ready for the taking. We're a pretty talented and capable bunch - so let's see if we can nab some prizes for Shee Labs!

Here are the categories - note that phase 1 is June 27, 2008, phase 2 is October 17, 2008, phase 3 is May 15, 2009 and phase 4 is August 31, 2009.

Best Mutator
Enter during Phase 1
Mutators are one way to modify a game, and we are looking for changes to a UT3 game type for the Best Mutator category. Mutators are "mini mods": they adjust settings such as speed or gravity, add a weapon or a power-up, and so on. Players should be able to set and configure mutators like extra game options. These can be a lot of fun, so be sure to check out some of the awesome mutators that come with UT3 to experiment with what you can do – then let your imagination run wild!

Best New Game Type
Enter during Phase 1
Game types are a much larger class of mod, and allow access to a much larger range of functionality. If your idea can't be implemented within a mutator, you should work on a game type. The Best New Game Type category focuses on gameplay, and not necessarily what new art is included. The new game type may use new levels and other content, or it may use existing UT3 levels and content.

Best Tool
Enter during Phase 1
Got a cool tool or utility you've created for UT3? Here's where you can win some money for it! Tools can be external, like an UnrealScript development environment, an .ini manager or an application that helps server administrators or adds functionality within UT3.

Best New Weapon
Enter during Phase 1
The language of UT3 is carnage, and its verbs are the guns! Show us new ways to dismember your enemies and dish out the pain by creating a new weapon.

Best New Character/Customization Pack
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3
Can you make an awesome original UT3 character model? Feel free to call on the game's existing skeletal meshes and animation, or go for extra consideration and create your own! More interested in accessories? No problem. Dazzle us with a collection of helmets, facemasks, shoulder pads and other character customization options.

Best CTF Level
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3
Make an awesome level for the Capture the Flag game type. In this category, you're welcome to use any of the existing content that comes with UT3, or you may create your own. The best levels will combine great gameplay with strong visuals and good performance.

Best Warfare Level
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3
Make a fantastic level for the Warfare game type. In this category, you're welcome to use any of the existing content that came with UT3, or you may create your own. The best levels will combine great gameplay with strong visuals and good performance.

Best vCTF Level
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3
Make an awesome level for the Vehicle Capture the Flag game type. In this category, you're welcome to use any of the existing content that comes with UT3, or you may create your own. The best levels will combine great gameplay with strong visuals and good performance.

Best Deathmatch Level
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3
Make a great level for the Deathmatch game type. In this category, you're welcome to use any of the existing content that comes with UT3, or you may create your own. The best levels will combine great gameplay with strong visuals and good performance.

Best Use of Physics
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3, 4
Here, we're looking for the most interesting ways you can utilize physics within UT3's gameplay.

Best New Vehicle
Enter during Phase 2
Vehicles come in all shapes, sizes and styles. Build one and make it fun to use.

Best Game Mod
Enter during Phase 2 (splits off into Best FPS and Best Non-FPS in Phases 3 and 4)
Be inventive. The Unreal Engine can be used for all sorts of game genres. Let your creativity shine and design something cool!

Best Machinima
Enter during Phases 2, 3, 4
Machinima is animated filmmaking within a real-time 3D environment. Unreal Engine 3's Matinee system allows you to build these kinds of movies inside the Unreal Editor. Fire up UT3 and begin a new single-player game. Check out the cool non-interactive movie of the Reaper fighting off the Krall horde. Did you know you could do this? Are you a future Hollywood honcho? Show us how good you are! Learn more about Machinima at the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences web site at www.machinima.org. Time limit for submissions is five minutes.

Best Graphics in Map
Enter during Phases 2, 3, 4
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even when you're in a carnage-filled UT3 slugfest. Take us to breathtaking alien vistas, grungy urban hives, or anywhere in between. This category is rated on artistic quality, and not gameplay. Beauty uber alles!

Best New Weapon Set
Enter during Phase 3
Build your buffet of death-dealing hardware and they will come! These weapons should be balanced and play together well.

Best FPS Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
This one needs no explanation. Make the best first-person shooter-style mod that you can.

Best Non-FPS Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
Be inventive. Unreal Engine 3 can be used for all sorts of game types. Let your creativity shine and design something cool that you wouldn't ordinarily see in a traditional first-person shooter.

Best Level for Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
Among the best game mods, some levels stand out as classics. This category rewards phenomenal gameplay levels for custom game mods.

Best Art for a Game Mod
Enter during Phase 4
Whether it's the frozen frontlines of Eastern Front WWII or a magic infused fantasy kingdom, this award recognizes excellence in game visuals.

Best New Vehicle Set
Enter during Phase 4
Some fly, some hover and some just barrel through you leaving a broken and bloody carcass in their dust. Blow us away with your high-octane squadron of death-dealing rides and you could walk away with this prize.

Educational Category
Enter during Phase 4
Schools represented by the most worthy students or faculty in the contest will receive cash prizes. Entrants who are students or faculty members will be asked to provide the name of their educational institution and the contact information for the school. For consideration in this category, the mods do not have to be school projects, but the students or faculty must be presently enrolled with or employed by the institution.

[xiongmao]

Interesting, have to finalise my JavaServer
Hope we can do this with all members, I like Shee Labs Mutator Week but I prefer team work, let's finish 5WeekProject first (or should say begin ...)

Edited by xiongmao, 03 April 2008 - 03:27 PM.

[ambershee]

I think we should get something proper going with the JavaServer - for example, we could knock up a decent program which records individual player statistics and performance on a particular server - that could be classified as a tool, or a mutator quite happily

It's be good if we can get entries into every code-related category going.

Edited by ambershee, 03 April 2008 - 03:37 PM.

[xiongmao]

Yeah you're right !! I could add Html generation for the stats.

We need a brainstorming !!! for all those categories

[ambershee]

Here's how I see it:

Best Mutator
Enter during Phase 1

We can composite some of our work in progress with other snippets of code we have to produce a more solid, stable mutator. I was writing (for Upgrade) a mutator which essentially lets a player create a weapon; they started with a simple rapid fire bullet weapon, but when they found a weapon, they could change their weapon's fire type to match the weapon they found (spread, homing, sniper etc), or if they found ammo, they could change the projectile (flak, stinger, bullet etc). Perhaps we could get that finished off, add a few cool statistics and other features? I didn't get massively far with it, but it's a good start - we only have a few months, so we need to use all the existing content we can get, but still produce something cool.

Best New Game Type
Enter during Phase 1
We can work on a public release based on the 5week project, and implement other things to fit into other categories? We should have two or three months after the project duration to refine it into a proper game type.

Best Tool
Enter during Phase 1
I have no idea. Perhaps something like a framework based around that JavaServer that anyone can implement. That way we can implement it in our other projects too.

Best New Weapon
Enter during Phase 1
I have no idea. Perhaps a weapon prototype knocked up for Robot Factory, although those included aren't mega funky. Brainstorming time people.

Best Use of Physics
Enter during Phases 1, 2, 3, 4
We can extend 5week project to make extensive use of physics, because it's an offline game. We have a year to work out this implementation, but I'm thinking we need to do some seriously cool stuff in terms of interactivity.

Best New Vehicle
Enter during Phase 2
Let's get that Sonic Boom prototype vehicle working as a UT3 vehicle - maybe use it in 5week project or Robot Factory?

Best Game Mod
Enter during Phase 2 (splits off into Best FPS and Best Non-FPS in Phases 3 and 4)
Robot Factory / 5week project - we don't have long for this one, so probably 5week.

Best Machinima
Enter during Phases 2, 3, 4
Cut scene for Robot Factory / 5 week project. Plenty of time for this.

Best Graphics in Map
Enter during Phases 2, 3, 4
Robot Factory / 5week project

Best New Weapon Set
Enter during Phase 3
Robot Factory.

Best FPS Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
Robot Factory.

Best Non-FPS Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
5week project, or something small, fun, and totally out there

Best Level for Game Mod
Enter during Phases 3, 4
Robot Factory / 5week project

Best Art for a Game Mod
Enter during Phase 4
Robot Factory

Best New Vehicle Set
Enter during Phase 4
Robot Factory / Sonic Boom?

[xiongmao]

The idea of Customization Mutator sounds good. Robot Factory and Sonic Boom are quite mysterious for me, I just read rapidly the documents on SVN.
Not much to say on different parts except that the focus on three main projects which serve all sections is really the best approach.
An old mythic game could be done for "Best Non-FPS Game Mod" such as Tetris (just an example) not original but definitely a different usage of UnrealEngine

[ambershee]

I was thinking of doing something like a physics game, with dynamically animated blobs XD

Robot Factory is probably realistically the best mod we can get out in a 1 year time frame.

Edited by ambershee, 04 April 2008 - 12:34 PM.

[xiongmao]

So 5weekProject should be for GameType and RobotFactory for best mod.
I like the animated blobs But in fact I'm not sure what do you mean by physics? is it flying, walking and other physics like that?
A Mario Party Like could also be interesting (using weapon momentum)

[ambershee]

As in using more advanced physics calculations to create puzzles and stuff - UT3 has PhysX at it's core, which can do some really cool stuff on higher end machines

I just thought of a 2d physics blob game, coincidentally, the idea reminded me. Try looking for a game called Gish, there's a free demo. It's really good.

[Darknet]

This seem fun to do. ^^)>

[THE_SPELUNKERmw]

What about Allegience, Strategic Weapons, and Death Spree? That's a gametype, weapon set mutator, and another mutator right there!

Allow me to explain

ALLEGIENCE
This is copied and pasted from my epic forums post: This would fit in Phase 1's Gametype category!

Capture the Flag is fun, and so is Team Deathmatch, but one day I felt like capturing the enemy.

Yes, when you kill an enemy they come over to your team! However, there were a million scoring problems and balance issues to resolve.


I've worked it out completely, and now I have resolved all issues!


I will start work on this as soon as I am able. However, I'm still new to unrealscript as seen in the programming section, the thread I made.


Here is the full idea:
When the game starts, players are placed on random teams that are auto-balanced to be perfectly equal (maybe with 1 more player on one team with an odd number of players)

Next, you fight the enemy the usual way, by shooting them complete with massive amounts of gibs!

However, you die yourself eventually, and you are forced to make a choice...
Do you wait and watch your team fight to the end or do you switch sides to help the enemy, causing you to respawn instantly?

Betray and Respawn or Keep your Allegience and stay dead therefore forced to spectate?

To add to this, you lose 25% of your score for choosing "betray and respawn". This amount is the "betray cost", and from hereon I'll call it "BC".

This is interesting and all, but how do you get a score in the first place?
You get 1 point every second for each living member of your current team. This means that switching teams might be bad if your current team has more live players. Also, since players are technically still on their team when "dead and spectating", you could change this option to "all" instead of "live only". This means you get 1 point per second for ALL players, live or dead, on your current team.

Personally, I prefer "live only" for that option which I will from hereon refer to as "score type" or "ST".

Now, this is the most interesting part: You are only looking to raise your OWN score! You are NOT truly working with other players! You are playing on teams, and you have to help out your team, but in the end you only care about increasing your own score!

The question is this...
Do you keep your Allegience or do you betray your comrades for your own gain? This is why it is called "Allegience"



This is fine and all, but is it possible to have teams-within-teams? Yes.
This is a truly "what the heck" moment, but I thought small groups of players might want to stick together, so I created the "squads" system!

Simply put, you have to stick with your squad's current team. You choose a group of players to stay with, and your squad's score increases instead of your own. This means that there are teams-within-teams!

However, how do you handle team-switching and the question of "allegience or betrayal"?

Well, simply enough, your ENTIRE squad must choose to "betray and respawn" or you will be stuck "dead and spectating". If one of your squadmates is still alive then you will be unable to switch teams because you are only able to "betray and respawn" when you have died!

One final note is this: When all of one team is eliminated, the teams are reset to a completely-balanced state! You may feel bad being the last player to die in this kind of situation, but you may end up "betraying and respawning" or you could simply survive and stay on the winning team. Anything can happen, so don't expect to be the "last survivor" very often at all!


I hope I haven't lost you, but that is my idea. In a nutshell, those who keep their Allegience while the other team "betrays and respawns" therefore switching over to your team, you will always win! And yet... the question remains once your teammates start switching themselves. Keep your Allegience or betray your comrades?

STRATEGIC WEAPONS
You know how realistic weapons are supposedly "tactical"? They're not. The only tactical features are the tradeoff between accuracy and movement and throwing grenades around corners to avoid getting hit. THAT'S IT! I wanted something that was so strategic that it ended up being a logic puzzle! So I made it.

Designed for Phase 3: Weapon Set but put in the form of a mutator in order to work with multiple gametypes (Preferably my own Allegience gametype)

First: ALL Weapons, Powerups, etc. are replaced with "energy ore" (hereon refered to as "EO") When they collect enough energy ore they simply press the number of the weapon they want to buy, and it is instantly bought and selected! However, exactly WHAT weapons are we talking about?

NOTE: each energy ore pack is worth 5 EO.

Impact Hammer -> Medbot
Prim. Fire: Heal Teammate (+ 10 hp, 1 sec delay)
Sec. Fire: Heal Self (+ 100 hp, 10 sec delay) NOTE: You have to get this weapon out to heal, but that leaves you open to attack!

Enforcer -> Rail Pistol cost: none(start with it) Cost: none (start with it)
Prim.: Enforcer Energy Shot (normal enforcer, blue-colored effects instead of yellowish colored)
Sec.: Chargeable Penetration Shot (goes through walls further the more it is charged, Charge increases damage too. Does up to 75 damage)

Bio Rifle -> Sticky Proxy (Basically acts like bio goo that never dissapates on its own and looks like a spiky ball, could explode rocket-style but not necessary) Cost: 30 EO
P: Straight Shot
S: Arc Shot (for getting over walls etc.)

Shock Rifle -> Shock-R (The Shock Redeemer, the main attacking weapon) Cost: 100 EO
P: normal shock rifle beam Charged up: Instagib Rifle Shot (2 sec. to charge)
S: normal shock rifle core Charged up: Rocket w/ red energy core graphics instead (2 sec. charge also)
THE SHOCK-R COMBO!!! -> Shoot a fully-charged red-rocket-energy-core with a fully-charged instagib shot to create a redeemer explosion! Have one friend charge prim. and the second charge sec. then they can bomb someone out of their place without having to charge for 2 sec. twice!

Link Gun -> Kinematics Gun (Half Life 2 anyone? Pushes and pulls whole people!) Cost: 20 EO
P: Push (just like hl2, pushes once then waits a second to push again. Also, can be used for harmless rocket jumping)
S: Pull

Stinger -> Teky Bow (Turok inspired) Cost: 10 EO
P: Normal Arrow (Acts like Stinger secondary fire, moves faster, damages more, and pushes more when charged; 2 sec. charge)
S: Electric Arrow (On contact this explodes into the impact hammer's secondary fire but in all directions. Bigger explosion when charged for 2 sec.)

Flak Cannon -> Xray Shotgun (See the enemy only when you have it out then own them in the face) Cost: 40 EO
P: Shotgun Blast ( A single very powerful blast that kills in one hit if 75% of the scatter shots hit!)
S: Sentry Turret ( The Shotgun is dropped and set up as a sentry turret that owns enemy passers by in the face)

Rocket Launcher -> Atomic Shield (Like the shield gun if it actually did its job) Cost: 50 EO
P: Deflect Shots (shots simply bounce off you, does not counter explosion splash damage)
S: Absorb Shots (shots AND explosion splash damage, including redeemer explosion, are added to health up to a maximum of 200 health)
NOTE: Use the gravity gun to make them die from falling damage!

Sniper Rifle -> Generator (Gives Invisibility while equipped) Cost: 60 EO
P: Spawn EO Pack ( 1 sec recharge)
S: Suicide and Spawn 20 EO Packs (Suiciding makes you lose all the guns oh no!)

Redeemer -> Upgrader (Gives Invincibility while equipped) Cost: 60 EO
P: Spawn Berserk & Quad (spawns them at the same time in front of you for you or teammate, 10 sec recharge)
S: Spawn Helmet, Vest, Thighpads, and Jumpboots (all at the same time in front of you, 10 sec recharge)
NOTE: The second you unequip the Generator or Upgrader you lose invisibility/invincibility! This means you either are working to help your team by spawning stuff or you are fighting the enemy! You can still quickly get another weapon out to fight at any time though.


These Strategic Weapons could in fact use the original graphics with new functionality, but new graphics would be preferred to enter it in Phase 3's weapon set category!!!

DEATH SPREE
Go on a kiling spree while avoiding falling down! For the Phase 1 Mutator category!

First of all...
All players start with 100 total armor. Your armor amount is the amount of damage it takes to force you to feign death, making you fall. All pickups are left as they are to allow you to restore this armor. The only way to avoid falling down from taking too much damage is to be ducking at the time!

Secondly...
Whenever you do get a kill or you end up respawning, a random item/weapon/powerup is given to you according to a list of 10 things.

Finally...
This mutator is customizable! Customize how much armor players start out with, whether ducking prevents forced-feign-death or not, and what the 10 things randomly given are(this is similar to ut3's normal weapon replacer menu in look)

[ninjadave]

This caught me eye, and I'm very much interested.

I barely skimmed over the contest rules and everything, but I have several ideas that came to mind.
I'll read through it again and rethink some of these unrefined ideas.

Best Mutator
I'm liking ambershee's idea. With gun modifications and such. Reminds me of those old classic shooters, the side-scrolling ones.

Best New Game Type
I've done plenty of game mode experimenting, and this is one I remember that was very original.
-Time zone: Very odd but... anyways this game mode is actually 2 maps in one. Two almost replica maps are built side by side. One looks much older than the other. A teleporter leads a player from one map to the other.
Anyways the result is a 'time travel' map. Certain things are set up so that when something is destroyed in the 'past', its destroyed in its replica map. The 'future'.
Lets say a person is in a base. If its blown up in the 'past', it will immediately destroy itself in the 'future'. This is a half and half mapping and programming.
All you really need is a medium sized map and an older looking version of that same map, then some classic programming tricks.


Best Tool
I'm guessing tool for practical use? No idea.

Best New Weapon
RW rifle (RadioWave Rifle): Rifle that fires high amounts of radiowaves that burn people. Sounds somewhat funny, but last time I checked its really a weapon. Radiowaves bounce, so naturally this weapon would have a ricochet effect. Maybe a hilarious color to let people visualize the weapon effect.

Best Use of Physics

That comes to mind.
Though I don't know if thats what they are looking for...
The only other thing that comes to mind is a trampoline map. As in, you bounce to move about, and objects bounce as well. I actually made a 2D game with this, mostly turns out to be hilarious. With spike pits in the map and falling bouncing objects, you could knock other people about and eventually into spikes.
The main trick was the jump button being a down jump button. This way you bounce higher by going faster downward.

Best New Vehicle
I'd love to see a real vehicle, but maybe thats just me. I'd drive a Ferrari.

Best Game Mod
I have ideas, but nothing good. =/

Best Machinima
Luckily we have plenty of time.

Best Graphics in Map
Hmm...
I make a map look better than it is, but I'm not that great at it.
What would be neat is if you have a real place mapped out and you photographed every area of it to have a completely photographic map. What graphics beat the real thing?

Best New Weapon Set
Real weapons would be neat. Though thats just me I bet. Maybe futuristic modded classic weapons. Didn't Bioshock have that? It wasn't 'futuristic' but you know what I mean.

Best FPS Game Mod
Realism mod?

Best Non-FPS Game Mod
I can only see something very original winning here.

Best Level for Game Mod
Plenty of ideas, but this has to be in an existing mod huh.

Best Art for a Game Mod
I can't draw.

Best New Vehicle Set
I mentioned real vehicle before

[ambershee]

It's important to understand, we have a very limited timespan within which to develop and release our projects. This means that we have to concentrate on attempts at incorporating categories and deadlines into our current projects.

As a personal criticism - I work with UE3 on a day to day basis doing 'realistic' projects. It's not fun to develop. Anything we work on needs to have very simple aims; it needs to be enjoyable to work on, and it needs to be feasible. My other personal preferences are to keep things heavily focused on faster paced, skill based gameplay. Realistic work is just too much of a chore, and it's nothing special, just a rehash of everything we've seen before.

This is why I chose to primarily promote Robot Factory; the project is mainstream enough to be extremely playable. It doesn't devolve too far from Unreal Tournament 3, excepting that it has an equipment and skill based selection system (perhaps a bit like Call of Duty 4?), and heavily ties into a cover system (perhaps a bit like Gears of War?). Those aspects are pretty popular, no doubt, but are incorporated into something fairly different - a light-hearted, team based game with a whole load of attitude.

We also have the 5 week project, and a very tight June phase one deadline. Concentrating on the 5 week project game mode allows us to finish both the project, and work towards hitting that deadline with a compact, but quality product.

[ninjadave]

I know your right, I just wanted to get some ideas out there.
I'll see what I can do.

[xiongmao]

Anybody here ?? deadline is June. I think we got the road map. Let's divide the tasks again

[ambershee]

Way ahead of you - I'm just knocking together a quick thread.

June deadlines are Mutator, Game Mode, Tool and Weapon.

Mutator, we can knock up some sort of custom weapon gizmo, that would be cool. Game Mode is clearly 5 week project.

The other two, are less obvious. Tool, we could work on the Java interface a bit, and call it a tool for developers, or we could write some new features into UnrealEd - how about kismet sequences for the Java interface? Now that is a tool. Weapon? I say we probably drop it. We could potentially do something cool, from the Robot Factory implementation (thread being typed as I speak), but I think we're already far too stressed.

Primary focus is 5 Week Project, clearly.

The others, well, what are we more interested in working on, and how much can we do?

[jaguar]

I could code a new weapon, but id need a model, and some ideas