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I look around myself

For random rambling. Please keep your posts tasteful and respectful.

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UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: I look around myself

Post Posted: 12 Mar 2016, 18:55

I said to some people I was going to write some kind of possibly cringey, possibly incoherent/hypocrit-ish thread this weekend on UnrealSP and there it is. Frankly, I wanted to say this for a long while, however I never felt the necessity beforehand (lotsa things are consuming me atm like Doto so I didn't feel doing it) but at this point I don't want to keep my thoughts being reserved forever, in some way I have to vent. This is probably the first time on the internet that I'm going to come as this and how down and defeated I fucking am

I miss the Unreal community.

Very much so. I miss the interesting daily discussions, I miss many of the people who frequented the forums regardless of their attitudes. Every once in a while I just read the old threads (and you know how I also miss the OLD LOST forums because of the super funny stuff there) just to remind myself of the good old times that are never going to be a thing again. Looking forward to all these SP projects back in the day that at this point almost none of them are going to see the light of the day except one or two - makes sense, people have their real life too, get bored and take new interests, me included that I should have finished G59 and starting some other thing I planned some months ago.
Meaning I'm not sure with the lack of content how much what there's of the community will live on.
I bumped that trivia thread after one year of inactivity and I'm going to finish it in the following days/weeks because I hated to see it halted and also because I felt like I had to do something to make sure "the community is still there" through some sort of posts with interesting info. Scrag did similar things by creating successful threads where he asked X about about Unreal maps, creatures and stuff or that travelogue thing. That worked, maybe not so nowadays with the amount of people around.

Looking back there's lots I forgot about my life as a member there - all my bickering with people such as salsa/integration/scrag/frieza, newcomers who said opinions about SP packs they've finished, those AMAZING offtopic threads like the UFO one with those Waffnuffly posts that fucking own that I'd read every fucking day and so on. I miss makemeunreal too for all the shit he said against me, no kidding; he's banned forever now but he was active and I greatly enjoyed that and many of his posts.

I miss all of that and many of the other regular users and mappers who were around. The majority of the old threads are like goldmines of how amazing this community has been and how much I loved it and can't forget.
I swear I miss all you old guys so bad I'm just going to PM every single one of you and say "thank you with all my heart".

Actually crying relentlessly while writing this, I just feel really that bad/depressed that I think it's all over and it's time to move on. Something went wrong, maybe I should've done more or acted differently for the community on my part, maybe I'm overreacting and one day things might shine again thanks to something big being released. I don't know.
BUT FUCK THAT if I hear "this is the end" I'm just going to stay here and do cool shit UNTIL THE VERYFUCKING END OF IT IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER

Thank you for your reading, going back being myself again now
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User avatar Hellscrag
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 00:01

Hi there UB. Chin up. The world is a beautiful place! o/

Still here on a lurker basis. I try to do something creative from time to time but life just gets in the way.

Don't feel that you should have done more. Unreal is just a hobby and you have done way, way more than most.
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Life is what you make of it.

User avatar Sat42
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 00:21

Hey UB!
I like your message, and really value that kind of honesty, it's heartfelt :)
I'm here too and will continue doing stuff (including finishing a new update for that game of telephone map for which you made an awesome contribution) once I get my gaming computer to Paris (this spring - around Easter) :)

Stuff goes on, and stuff will go on here too specifically, trust me ;)
Just slowly, but steadily.

Thanks for your message!
Nali: Magic or Telekinesis
Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

User avatar Semfry
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 00:54

As someone who follows several of them to a degree, with one or two exceptions (like the original Doom community that's stayed consistently active), older game modding communities always ebb and flow. Unreal is in a bit of a limbo position now between the in-between state of the site and the multiple large projects in unsure states, but it only takes one or two new successes for things to shift, if only for a little while.

I can say I know enough to say that at least a couple of notable projects should be coming out in some form pretty soon ;) .
Formerly Mman

User avatar Jigoku
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 02:14

*raises hand* I'm still here. Dunno if any of you care about me but I'm still here although I didn't think I'd be here this long...
Trying to get back into the swing of things.

User avatar Buff Skeleton
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 03:53

Semfry wrote:As someone who follows several of them to a degree, with one or two exceptions (like the original Doom community that's stayed consistently active), older game modding communities always ebb and flow. Unreal is in a bit of a limbo position now between the in-between state of the site and the multiple large projects in unsure states, but it only takes one or two new successes for things to shift, if only for a little while.

I can say I know enough to say that at least a couple of notable projects should be coming out in some form pretty soon ;) .


Yep, this is the truth. The community hasn't ever really died, but it has gone through many cycles of drought. Even this late in the game, the fact there are still people posting at least every other day shows it's not toast.

I've seen communities well and truly die off, and it's usually for online-focused games when the playerbase moves on to the next shiny thing. Unreal may be old and niche, but its singleplayer nature and relative ease of creating custom content compared to newer games keeps it interesting for the people who are into it. It also surprises me how many young people keep coming across this game - maybe the offspring of older Unreal fans from the late 90s? :)

Either way, I wouldn't worry about it. Post stuff that's interesting, create and release content as long as you enjoy it, and others will do the same - the community will still be around. It's just more spread out on its time scale.

Maybe one thing that would help is to bring back the old Work in Progress type threads and just shoot the shit with people as you work on stuff. There's probably more people actively developing stuff than you'd think, but we just don't talk about it enough (guilty as charged).
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User avatar integration
Skaarj Berserker Skaarj Berserker
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 12:40

My name was mentioned (lol), so I'll step out of the shadow, leave a few words and step into the shadow again. When I last posted, my avatar used to work, the forum used different software and people used different names.

I still visit UnrealSP from time to time, but I don't read everything. More precisely I use the RSS feed only. I dislike the new forum layout, majorly because it wastes so much space on the left side. My maximum screen resolution is 1366 pixels width and I have my taskbar on the left side, so the posts are entirely on the right half of my screen.

When i was active, the forums didn't feel that much more active than they are now. Unrealsp was already in decline back then. I can't remember anything big being released. The biggest things were probably SP2D, The Man from A.H.R.G., Zenith, RTNP: Ultimate Edition, The Fifth Vortex, Gothic Resurrection, the Unreal PSX demo, Chronicles of Weedrow and the 10th anniversary speedmapping contest maps. There's obviously a decline, but the decline is pretty slow, majorly because of people clinging to old habits.

At the end of day, I can't address reproaches to people not releasing their stuff. I encountered the no-release bug myself, on a much smaller level of course. There's not much motivation in finishing and releasing work when there are maybe 10 people playing it eventually. A lot of people spent more than 1000 hours to post/follow Unreal forums, but they will still consider only playing the big releases (e.g. who has played Star Shoal Chronicles or the stuff linked by Delacroix?) Or sometimes you just hit the limitation of the engine (bsp holes or node limit). I once had the idea to make a small planet where you can walk around. Sounded good, ended badly. I couldn't use a bigger polyhedron than an icosahedron with 60 warp zones, and the warp zones caused BSP holes at the edges.

So here's my opinion: Letting go is never easy. I like to wallow in memories, too (e.g. everytime I see this gif, I must think of the very talented artist formerly known as qTit). In case of UBerserker, the UnrealSP memories must span more than a decade. But at the end memories often paint a false picture. You remember the good stuff, forget about the bad stuff. I stopped posting because I had the feeling I was wasting my time, and I saw no way, how this community could revive with the Unreal franchise being terminated. I like the music, the pawns, the guns, the atmosphere, the editor and UnrealScript, but at the end a longer stay wouldn't have made me happy. After stopping posting I had never an itch to post again and that's probably a sign that I made the right decision.

I am still active in another gaming community. I pretty much hate that community and I joined when it was pretty much already dead (like in Unreal). But the difference to Unreal is: My love for that game is unbroken and I have hope that the community is doing better. There're still games released in this franchise and pretty much everybody has heard of it. If people hear Unreal nowadays, they'll probably ask: "Unreal? You must mean Unreal Tournament!"

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 14:15

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HI INTEGRATION

"You remember the good stuff, forget about the bad stuff."

Well, yes. This is sort of true.
Technically I haven't forgotten the bad stuff, more like I forgot the frustration of those moments when I was getting ganged on. This was really prevalent in the old forums quite a lot, with Sana and I don't know who else going against me every single time (literally completely different than now!). Things changed, my attitude evolved throughout the years, my English speaking quality standardized.
Now do I want those bad moments back too? Obviously no, and nowadays we're all pretty grown up enough that such things would never happen again. What was the last drama in these forums again now?
But even then I felt like the huge discussions were practically gone as well, this because of some of the more talky people not being around anymore.
Not sure really how to express myself but I guess my issue is probably "USP nostalgia".

The thing of me with USP is that it was the very first internet community I got into and it was the only one for a long while until I branched out to BeyondUnreal (which I now totally left but from the looks of it it's still very active due to UT4) and then to other gaming communities years later. Also helps the fact that Unreal was pretty much the "GAME" for me since its very release (I stood out of it for several years though, between 2001-2004 I guess) and now after like, what it is, 17 years, it's still an important thing to me that I've like an insane phobia of losing it forever AND losing interest with it.
Every time I think anything Unreal 1 I feel like that I haven't experienced it enough.
Every time I play Unreal 1 I feel like experiencing complete freedom.

USP generally carried my interest on Unreal as a whole and I CAN'T THANK ALL OF YOU ENOUGH. I don't know how much active UT99 and OldUnreal are nowadays (it's always good they exist! GAME LIVES) BUT I'LL STAY POSITIVE
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User avatar ElectricIce
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 14:59

Okay, okay! I am sorry, I'll talk more again then UB, I am sorry for being quiet! ;D

All jokes aside, I know how you feel, I've pretty much watched this community slowly decay, in lack of a better word, into what it is now in the background all the time, mostly because of my very lazy and drawn back attitude to talk, I may be very busy with dealing with my own life and creating various stuff, but I always occasionally check these forums for my most anticipated releases and potential small releases that can impress.

But I know exactly where you're coming from UB, I watched this community in the shadows(After Freiza told me I was basically spamming when I first joined), from a blooming tree to the leaves that are occasionally falling off now. The community may never die out completely, because just like a tree, it blooms again when the time is right.
Blooming as bright as before may be an overstatement but it may just as well do it still.

Never lose faith in the community while it has lasted for almost 2 decades, I will still be around till the end of times, probably lurking as I do and occasionally chime in with weird comments.


E.I "Ira"

User avatar salsaSkaarj
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 13 Mar 2016, 18:11

UBerserker wrote:...
Looking back there's lots I forgot about my life as a member there - all my bickering with people such as salsa/integration/scrag/frieza, newcomers who said opinions about SP packs they've finished, those AMAZING offtopic threads like the UFO one with those Waffnuffly posts that fucking own that I'd read every fucking day and so on. I miss makemeunreal too for all the shit he said against me, no kidding; he's banned forever now but he was active and I greatly enjoyed that and many of his posts.

hmm, my name (at least part of it :wink: ) was mentioned also so I might as well respond.

For one: I don't consider it bickering. I never had a problem with anyone differing in opinion with me, but sometimes you reacted as though your opinion was the final conclusion. That didn't bother me at all, in fact in many cases it made me look at certain maps again (and replay them) to try and find out why you liked (or hated) them so much. I actually learned a lot about gameplay setup that way and it did make me change my opinion about some maps (the most noteable being the darkness one in Unreal itself: a map which took me a couple of playthroughs before realising how damn good it was, erm... is).

It was my intention to write a lot more (basically my experience with maps) but the lack of new stuff (and not being an EXU fan nor a coop-player) actually limits the possibilities for input from me. Also I haven't got as much free time as I used to so there are no more daily visits to the forum.

BUt I guarantee that when some projects get released, I'll make time and I'll bore you guys with my rants. You'll probably wish you never started this topic :D

Seriously, I hope the community doesn't just disappear. There have been so many highlights (TLF and Xenome, there are more but these 2 come to mind first) and I have good faith there will be more, and that forum activity will be revitalised. BTW I just read those new topics of yours (Soledad etc..) and that's the kind of stuff which makes me check unrealsp.org on a regular basis.

User avatar editor Dave
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 14 Mar 2016, 19:37

My bet is people have decided to rather refrain from posting too many updates or even project announcements, either to not spoil too much or - more importantly - to dampen the anticipation and regular "any news?" posts with it. Eventually, stuff will be released when you don't expect it. For my part, I stopped mapping the last 4 months due to physical restrictions, and even when I know they would last, I will release what I have done, albeit it being unfinished.

You really did a lot for this forum. Don't blame yourself, you can only do so much on your own if you want to keep Unreal alive. You're an awesome member of this nice little community.
Prisons of the Unforchers Retold - more info: https://www.unrealsp.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4565

User avatar MrLoathsome
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 15 Mar 2016, 00:57

I agree with most of the others.

We haven't stopped, we are just slowing down a bit.

And we need to get our priorities right.
Remember: Unreal Life > Real Life. :D

If BuffSkelFly keeps updating EXU, you are required to keep updating G59.

Even on the UT side of it, according to GameTracker my AK/Ecoop server is ranked at 105th
and the oldskool at 304th. They get traffic and are running SP maps. (Over 550 of them...)

I been working on a few minor things that are close to release myself. Just a few scripted pawns
but I am attempting to write them with SP map makers in mind. They will work with U1 and UT or
have separate versions that do. (Flying sharks with lasers, Devilfish with lasers, Tentacles that crawl...)

Unreal SP isn't dead. 8)

"Nothing is over until we say it is." - Bluto \o/
Mooo !

User avatar Mister_Prophet
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 15 Mar 2016, 04:27

I feel bad reading this thread. I've tried to make myself more available for forum posts, but this usually comes down to random appearances on the MOTW thread. I know that I for one still love the game and I do check the site forum daily, even if I'm ghosting.

For people like me it's hard because while I've made contributions, I've had to downplay the projects I've been working on due to development hiatuses and real life obligations. Yet I do feel a bit of disappointment in some ways. There was a time when I could enter any community forum for Unreal and I'd be talking to a majority of people who were creative and working on things. Levels, skin packs, sound packs, mods, mutators, ect. I've hoped that people would remain more active working on stuff instead of waiting for others to astonish with new map packs. We've been blessed with some examples of this these last few years with people like DD and Teridax. My thinking has always been that I learned how to use the same tools everyone else has by default simply by owning the games, so I've always believed that waiting for others to make stuff when one could simply learn to make their own contributions should be the norm. If there is a decline, it's mainly because that over the years the creative people have thinned or moved on to other games.

UB, I'm sorry you feel the way you do. But I do read all the threads you make even if I don't comment, and that goes for a lot of you guys. And maybe I'll have some good news for you soon.

User avatar Kajgue
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 15 Mar 2016, 06:38

I'm still very much active, despite the difficulties I'm having. Predominantly I'm moreso active on oldunreal and #oldunreal IRC. I don't know about the UT community because I don't have my UT disk while not at home, but I'd say Unreal is still very much alive, and there is alot going on with 227 development. :)

There is also alot I'm doing creativity wise with others which I'm not talking about either :P
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User avatar Frieza
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Subject: Re: I look around myself

Post Posted: 17 Mar 2016, 23:06

*pokes head around the corner*

I don't check in with USP regularly anymore so I guess I'm part of the problem, but I feel your pain. It was really the first online community I really felt a part of and we've seen some great things come out of it. On the other hand, Unreal is nearing it's 20th birthday so it makes sense that as we're all growing older real life starts getting in the way more and more.

I'm still finding ways to be creative nowadays, although it's mostly in the realm of music rather than mapping. I still love Unreal, but I honestly don't really enjoy working with the by now archaic tools required for modding it. (I've had some experiences with mapping for the new Unreal Tournament in UE4 and the new BSP tools and the way the engine handles lighting just blow UEd2 out of the water in terms of useability).

I'd also like to apologize to the Weedrow team for my dissappearance/continued absence, judging by dropbox activity someone is still keeping the flame going which is really awesome I think. I don't think I'll ever go back to Unreal 1 modding, but I'm definitely looking forward to playing it!

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