I plan to update the FAQ regularly as new previews and interviews are published, until U2 eventually goes gold, but I can't promise, as real life™ keeps me busy.

1.2. Disclaimer, Copyrights and Credits

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial FAQ. Nothing of what is written herein has been authorised by the makers of Unreal 2: Legend Entertainment, Epic Games or Infogrames.

This is a pre-release FAQ, i.e. Unreal 2 is still under construction. Thus anything written about it in this FAQ might be subject to change.

I am not an employee or contractor of any of the involved companies, which means I don't have any insider knowledge at all. Anything written in here that is not clearly identified as a quote from a interview with Legend, Epic or Infogrames staff is just my personal opinion and may be wrong. I wrote the FAQ based on my best knowledge and research, but like any human I make errors. If you feel that I am wrong about anything written in this FAQ, please e-mail me to TetrisL@gmx.ch and your input will be checked.

Copyrights and Trademark Info

All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.

Please inform me via e-mail TetrisL@gmx.ch if I should unintendedly have violated any copyrights or other rights of any individual or company in this FAQ. The matter will be checked and - if justified - the related paragraph will be corrected / modified immediately.

Credits

Big credits go to Epic Games, Legend Entertainment, Digital Extremes and Infogrames for bringing us the great Unreal game series!!!

Credits to the websites who made all the interviews and previews that I quoted from in this FAQ, names as listed with each quote.

Greetings and credits to all the nice people on the BeyondUnreal U2 forum (formerly Planet Unreal) and Infogrames' U2 forum, especially Dork, GrimStar, Wowbagger, Iceman and a few others who have contributed to the making of this FAQ.

Further greetings to my clanmates of [$FCE2] – Respawn Inc.. Hang in there, pals! Eventually we'll be playing a game together again!

1.3. About this FAQ

What is an FAQ and what is this FAQ about?

FAQ is the abbreviation of "Frequently Asked Questions". An FAQ is a compilation of answers to such frequently asked questions. In fact it should rather be called "FGA", i.e. “Frequently Given Answers”. ;)

This FAQ is about Unreal 2, a computer game currently in the making by Legend Entertainment in collaboration with Epic Games. For more detailed info see below.

How can I do a search in this FAQ?

Use the built-in search function of your browser.

If you can't find the answer to your question through the table of content, I'd recommend searching for the keywords of your question.

The FAQ site has no search option, you can easily use the built-in search feature of the program, that you use to view this FAQ, from its top menu bar:

MS Internet Explorer: [Edit]®[Find (on this page)]

Netscape Browser: [Edit]®[Find in page]

MS Word: [Edit]®[Find]

MS WordPad: [Edit]®[Find]

MS Notepad: [Search]®[Find]

May I copy, distribute or mirror this FAQ?

No, except for personal use.

You may copy this FAQ in electronic or hardcopy version for your own personal use only, as long as you don't modify it in any way from the original.

You may not copy, distribute or mirror this FAQ in electronic or hardcopy version on any CD, media, magazine or website for any commercial income purpose, i.e. you charge the users more than the pure connection/distribution costs or have commercial income through advertisement banners. In any case, a written permission by the author is required. Mail to: TetrisL@gmx.ch.

Version History

Version Date Content Changes

0.1 03 Sept 01 Started work, compile list of questions

0.8 09 Sept 01 First draft, published internal for review.

1.0 10 Sept 01 First official release

1.01 11 Sept 01 Minor corrections

1.02 12 Sept 01 Increased font sizes, added info from Tim Sweeney Interview and added 2 screenshots.

1.03 16 Sept 01 Added info regarding leaked pre-alpha

1.04 21 Sept 01 Minor corrections.

1.05 28 Sept 01 Updated info on release date

1.06 04 Oct 01 Updated info on U2 on Mac

1.07 07 Oct 01 Updated info about converting UT maps to U2

1.08 08 Oct 01 Updated info about Legend team members

1.09 12 Oct 01 Updated info about motion capture animation

1.10 16 Oct 01 Updated info on Unreal Warfare

1.11 19 Oct 01 Added UW engine games ATMA and New Legend

1.12 25 Oct 01 Added info on U2 texture formats and new screenshots

1.13 28 Oct 01 Updated info about U2 co-op

1.14 31 Oct 01 Updated info about multiplayer cheat protection

1.15 14 Nov 01 Major update! Lots of new info about U2 player and weapon models and facial animation (Thanks Chris!). Info on U2 SDK added. More explanation on converting UT maps to U2. (Thanks Matthias!) Info on GMax support. Info on U2 with Windows XP. More info on (no) U2 co-op. Some details about weapons (leech gun, mindclaw) and enemies (Shian, Drakk) added. Minor addition on XMP classes.

1.16 21 Nov 01 New tech info about particles and models. Info about localized versions. And fixed some broken links to VE.

1.17 17 Dec 01 Sorry for long time w/o update; been extremely busy with real life. Not much news though. Added info on dodging. Added an answer summary line for most questions. Added more info on system specs and importing gMax prefabs.

1.18 03 Jan 02 Info from two articles in print magazines, various new screenshots, new Izarian info, Info about Info about rumors regarding UT2, added U engine game Seraphim, added detail about artifacts in multiplayer

1.19 Added info on new U2 video

1.20 12. Apr 02 Corrected Release Date, Removed Multiplayer

Disclaimer: Since I’m a dedicated multiplayer my personal focus is on UT2003 since it was announced that U2 will be singleplayer only. You better not expect frequent updates to this FAQ. Some information you find in here may be outdated and wrong.

1.4. Abbreviations

U1 Unreal 1 = Unreal "Classic"

UT Unreal Tournament

UC Unreal Championship

U2 Unreal 2

WoT Wheel of Time

1.5. About the Author

About the Author

My nick-name is "Tetris L". The name comes from a funny Gamespy Grudge in 1999, that featured the duel "CliffyB vs. The L-shaped Tetris Block". Needless to say that I won by a big margin. ;-)

I used to go by the name of "©leaner" but dropped that name in Summer 2001.

You may know me as the author of my Unreal website or my activities as member of the UT clan [$FCE2] – Respawn Inc., my activities as admin of the Barrysworld UT CTF league or as the smartass spamming the BeyondUnreal forum and Infogrames' forum. :)

My real life name is Harm Köpke. I’m born 1971, German and a mechanical engineer working in powerplant design.

Contact

You are invited to send any comments, corrections, additional information or whatever you have to say via e-mail to TetrisL@gmx.ch. Any input will be appreciated, considered and checked and if I use any of the information that you sent me, be sure I'll give you credits.

If you have a question that you don’t find the answer for on this FAQ, do NOT email me about it. If the answer is not in here, I probably don’t know it. Post the question on one of the UT2003 forums listed in the links. On those forums the chance is much higher that there is somebody around who can help you.

2. Unreal 2 Basics

What is U2?

Unreal 2 is an action computer game, a so-called "First Person Shooter". It is the sequel of Unreal, the very successful FPS game by EpicGames from 1998.

For a more detailed description see section 4 "Gameplay".

Who are the makers of U2?

Legend Entertainment, under license of Epic Games.

U2 is being created by Legend Entertainment, in cooperation with and under license / supervision of Epic Games, the makers of U1.

Legend have worked with EpicGames before. They made the Return to NaPali expansion pack for U1 and they made Wheel of Time, a game using the Unreal engine.

Epic Games provide the core graphics and game engine for U2 and still hold all franchise rights for Unreal, thus the supervision (on the long leash ;)).

U2 will be published by Infogrames Entertainment, S.A. Infogrames own Legend and GT Interactive, who published U1 and UT.

The Legend Team in Detail (acc. FGN Online, updated with info given by Legend's Grant Roberts):

Project Director: Michael Verdu

Tech Lead: Mark Poesch (also programming)

Art Director: Paul Mock

Programmers: Mike Fox (AI), Chris Hargrove (Systems Programming), Aaron Leiby (Systems Programming), Sam Brown

Level Designers: Scott Dalton, Grayson Edge, James Parkman, Matthias Worch

Art Staff: Hugh Riley (Lead Animator), Kevin "Rorshach" Johnstone (Skins) Dawid Michalczyk (Texture Art), Anthony Pereira (Concept Art & Design), Marc Tetreault (Texture Art), Joel Walden (3D Art), Robert Wisnewski (3D Models), Fabrizio Bianchi (Texture Art), John Sheffield (3D Models)

Production/Testing Staff: Craig Lafferty (Associate Producer & Tester), Grant Roberts (Associate Producer & Tester)

Music Composition: Jeremy Soule (Contractor), Chance Thomas (Contractor)

Sound Effects: Eric Heberling (Contractor)

For details on the persons, see the Legend Team Details.

Furthermore there is certainly the Team at EpicGames (Cliff Bleszinski, Tim Sweeney & Co.).

When will U2 be released?

Q4 2002.

The official FAQ says:

Q. When will Unreal II be released?

A. Unreal II is scheduled for release in the second half of 2002.

An official press release: http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?show=333

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.

A bit more specific: http://www.gamefaction.com/news/101722691822897.shtml

Unreal Episode 2 November 2002

I thought U2 was supposed to be out much earlier! Why was the release postponed?

See question “Why was Multiplayer dropped from U2?”

Will U2 be released as localised translated versions in non-English countries?

Most likely yes.

Legend's Matthias Worch commented in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Wheel of Time was completely localised for Germany, France, Italy and Spain, so the same might happen for Unreal 2. There's no real plans for locatization yet, though, we're still busy with the English version.

Considering that UT also had localised voice packs for some countries, I consider it more than likely that local versions will be released. Especially since a good understanding or spoken and written text is much more important in a story-driven singleplayer game than in a multiplayer game like UT. The very least is subtitles.

Since when is U2 in the making?

Since end of 1999.

Only ½ year after the release of U1 it was announced in an interview (Oct 98) and a press release (Dec 98) that Legend would be doing U2 for Epic.

However, as Scott Dalton explained in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

Legend Entertainment was working on Wheel of Time at the time, and we didn't begin on Unreal 2 until after WoT had shipped and we were off of doing additional support for it. That was about a year after this press release was issued.

This is in line with what Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this interview on Gameplex.ch , published 23 June 2001:

Q: When did the development of Unreal 2 begin?

A: Unreal II has been in development for about a year and a half.

Is U2 the same as UT2?

There are lots of different games in the Unreal universe meanwhile. Make sure not to mix them up:

Unreal (Unreal 1, Unreal Classic) is the first game in the series, focused on singleplayer, co-created by EpicGames and DigitalExtremes for PC, released in March 1998. An expansion pack "Return to NaPali" was released later, made by Legend Entertainment under License from Epic.

Unreal Tournament is based on U1, using much of its techniques, weapons and characters, but it is focused on online multiplayer gaming. It was also co/created by EpicGames and DigitalExtremes; released December 1999 for PC and later for Apple Mac, Sony PlayStation and the Dreamcast Console.

Unreal 2 is the sequel to U1 currently in the making by Legend Entertainment. It is scheduled to be released Q4 2002. It is strickly a singleplayer game.

Unreal Tournament 2003 is the sequel to UT(1) currently in the making by DigitalExtremes. It is scheduled to be released in late June 2002. It is based on UT and is a multiplayer game, for online and offline play.

Unreal Championship is the “sister game” of UT2003 also made by DigitalExtremes. It shares much of the game content and technology, but is made exclusively for Microsoft's Xbox console. It is scheduled to be released together with the broadband online gaming service of the Xbox, expected in early 2003.

Unreal Warfare is the game currently in the making by EpicGames themselves, expected for late 2003. Nothing is officially known about it except the title. If you want to read more about it, check the Unofficial Unreal Warfare FAQ. It’s mostly rumors though. :)

Will there be a sequel game for UT, i.e. UT2?

Yes, it is called Unreal Tournament 2003.

For details about UT2003 see The unofficial UT2003 FAQ.

Will there be an open beta test for U2?

As far as I know Epic have never done an open beta test for any game before, so it is most unlikely that there will be an open beta for U2.

Epic's FAQ says about it:

Q: Can I be a beta tester for your next game?

A: Our publisher handles testing and quality assurance and they do not accept outside testers.

However there is a chance for a demo before the release of the full game, like Epic successfully did with the UT demo, released almost 3 month before full game. -> See next question!

Will there be a demo for U2? Before or after release of the full game?

Most likely yes. But it is unknown when.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q. And what the world wants to know, Will Legend release a Demo version of U2 as Epic did with UT before the launch of the game, after the launch or not at all?

A: Mike’s Answer: That’s partially up to Epic and Infogrames - I don’t have an answer for you yet. Ask us again when we get closer to the release window :)

A bit more promising his answer in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Will there be a demo-version?

A: This is up to Epic and Infogrames. I'm currently assuming that we're going to release a demo - but not until near the release of the whole game.

I've heard about a leaked beta version of U2. Where can I download it?

Yes, it is true that a version of U2 was leaked mid Sept 2001, however ...

It is not a beta. It is not even an alpha. It is a very early pre-alpha built that was used for a presentation for the press at the E3 game fair. This pre-alpha is far away from the full game experience. It is more a tech demo than a playable game. It has only some few maps, weapons and enemies. The enemies have no AI and no animations, they just stand there and you can't interact with them. You can run around and you can shoot them, but they won't fight back and when you kill them they will just disappear. There is no menu, all game control must be done through console or editing the INI. Also ... many features of the engine were not yet implemented in this built, for example dynamic shadows and most of the particle effects.

I won't post a download link here. Also do not mail or icq me about it. This leaked pre-alpha is stolen property and strictly speaking distributing it is warez and illegal. If you want it, find it yourself.

Do yourself a favour and don't spoil the full game experience for you. Try to be strong and resist the temptation. Chances are that if you download it you'll be disappointed because not all the features are implemented. Also it is not yet optimized for performance yet and might run slow, even on fast machines. Wait until U2 has reached a stage at which the makers are happy with it and consider it ready to be shown.

Where can I find good descriptions and screenshots for U2?

See section Links.

Where can I find videos for U2?

No U2 gameplay footage has been published by now. But there are a few tech demo videos around that show the capabilities of the Unreal engine:

FilePlanet Epic's Official Tech Demo (ß this rox!)

Computec Different version of the Tech Demo (More facial and mo-cap animation scenes)

Gamespot GDC Tech Demos

Multiplayer.it UW engine tech demo (à direct link)

German magazine PC Games published a video from a press event at Legend's office, showing interviews with Mike Verdu and Matthias Worch (both in German!). You can download the video from Tiscali.cz or WorthPlaying. Warning, the video is 30 MB and half of is are Interviews in German! Note that the Legend guys made some important comments and explanations in this thread on INA and this thread on BU. If you wonder about certain starnge vidual effects in the video, definetly read the two threads.

Furthermore there are two UC videos around. It's not directly U2, but you get impression of the engine capabilities.

FilePlanet Official UC Trailer

Spelletjesgarnaal E3 UC footage (ß this rox!)

When can we expect more screenshots and a video?

At the E3 Expo 2002

http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=5340

Mark Rein – [...]After the January publicity we put a gag order on all the Unreal games to allow the developers uninterrupted time to bust their buns and the marketplace time for a breather and it really paid off nicely. Between now and the two releases Jay Wilbur and myself will pick up the majority of the PR duties so the teams can concentrate on delivering the products with the least amount of distractions. I don't think the people out there realize how much effort it takes and how exhausting it can be to feed the hungry press.

HomeLAN - What are Epics's plans for GDC and E3?

Mark Rein – […] At E3 Infogrames will be showing UT2, Unreal2 and Unreal Championship publically in a BIG way. It's going to be a lot of fun and I think people will be blown away by how good these games will be. [...]

Who made the music for U2?

Infogrames' Matt Powers said in this interview on PC Game Central, published 3 Sept 2001:

We have two of the best composers in the business working on music.

According FGN Online these two composers are:

1. Jeremy Soule, known for his music in many other games. Check this interview.

2. Chance Thomas

3. Tech

3.1. General Tech

What are the system requirements?

The official FAQ says:

Q. What will be the recommended system requirements to play the game?

A. Unreal II will look stunning on high-end systems, but you should be able to play the game just fine on a P2/450 with a first generation GeForce card.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: What are the system requirements looking like at this point?

A: Right now we're developing a game that will be playable on a PIII-500 with any hardware accelerator card that supports T&L (e.g. GeForce I, 2, 3, ATI Radeon, etc.). The game will look fantastic on a high end system, but should be playable on a good mid-range machine. We are still evaluating how to support lower end systems with TNT2 and Voodoo3/4 class cards... Infogrames will make a final determination later this year.

However, Confucius says: "Never believe the official minimum requirements as stated on the box!" ;) If I were you I wouldn't even try running U2 on a P3-500, unless you're satisfied with a framerate of less than 20. This is just my personal opinion, but I expect the minimum system to run U2 at a decent framerate (>30) at a decent resolution (800x600) to be at least a 1GHz CPU with 256 MB RAM and a GeForce2 or equal video card. Anything less will be frustrating.

In general, anybody who gives you detailed system specs or framerates is just guessing and anybody who asks for them is asking a "stupid" question. Legend's Matthias Worch put it nicely in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Sorry, you won't get any FPS numbers from anybody until we're much closer to shipping. I know that people keep asking, and I know that it's important to everybody who wants to upgrade soon, but there's simply no way to give accurate numbers until we've stabilized the build. Things still change on a daily basis, and there's still some important code updates forthcoming that we have to integrate or optimize.

You can be certain, though that I'd be bitching at my boss every day if my current work computer (P3/1GHz with a GeForce2) wasn't able to run the build in a playable fashion - couldn't get any work done that way. ;)

As for playing U2 on non T&L cards Legend's Chris Hargrove explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

If you don't have a card that supports T&L, we will not make any promises at this point that the game will be playable. Everything we're doing tech-wise assumes that T&L is present. This isn't just an assumption of our own technology, it's also an assumption of the Unreal Warfare engine itself. If your card doesn't have T&L, you might be able to run the game, but probably not as well as you might like.

Regarding cards using "software T&L", he added:

In terms of the argument about how fast CPUs are these days, yes they're fast... but we expect T&L because the CPU is still going to be very busy doing *other things*. If the CPU gets bogged down doing transformation and lighting calculations that otherwise can be offloaded to the video card (and that's a lot of calculations, given our high poly count), it can be a *big* drain on performance.

To anybody interested in playing U2 on non-T&L-cards I strongly recommend reading this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum. Excellent info from the U2 dev team. I interpret that as: U2 will have a software T&L option, but Legend do not make any promises regarding performance if this is used.

What is more important for U2: A fast CPU or a fast video card?

Mark Poesch stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q: DarkBis has a question for you bout the Engine itself, will the Engine be more sensitive to CPU Speed than your Graphics GPU?

A: Mark’s Answer: Both are important still. Much of the setup for the rendering system is CPU based -- so a fast (1GHz+) CPU is still worth having. But, the big difference is that the new engine will be much better able to take advantage of the GPU. Instead of being able to render a maximum of 800 world polys and 4000 mesh polys, we're able to push 10s of thousands of polys, and the distinction between "world" and "mesh" has been radically reduced.

What platforms will U2 be released for? (PC, Linux, Mac, Consoles?)

Initial launch will be PC only, other platforms might follow later (time unknown).

The official FAQ says:

Q. For what platforms is Unreal II being developed?

A. At this time, the PC is the only announced platform.

There have been lots of speculations and rumors about U2 being ported to PlayStation, Max, Xbox, ... but those are all unconfirmed:

Regarding rumors that U2 will be ported to Mac Mike Verdu said in this interview on InsideMacGames back in September 2000 (1 year back from now!):

Still can't talk more about Unreal II Mac plans yet. I know that there is great enthusiasm in the Mac community for the Unreal and UT ports. I can also say that I am hoping that we'll be able to get a partner (like Westlake) to do a Mac conversion of Unreal II. The final decision will be made with the involvement of Epic and Infogrames - and we're still a long way off with U2, so concrete plans probably won't be made until early next year at the earliest.

About ½ year back Legend's Grant Roberts said on Infogrames U2 forum (Thread already deleted, so I can't link to it.), when asked about U2 on Mac:

If there will be U2 for Mac, it will not be made by us. ["us" being Legend Ent.]

New hope for the Mac fans comes from a post by Legend's Matthias Worch in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum, dated 4 Oct 2001:

I don't think anybody said that there'd never be a Mac version of Unreal 2. Right now we have to concentrate on finishing the PC version first, when that is done a Mac might happen very well happen, but I think that's mostly up to Epic and Infogrames.

Rumors that U2 will be ported to PS conflict with Epic's Mark Rein's statement in this interview on FGN Online.

"That would be impossible," stated Rein. "Unreal 2 could not run on PlayStation 2."

Rumors that U2 will be ported to Xbox are also unconfirmed. On one hand it makes sense, as the Xbox is based on PC technology and technically it will be relatively easy to port U2 to Xbox. The U engine has support for the Xbox included from built 739 upwards. On the other hand it does not make sense, as Epic already cover the Xbox market with a product from the Unreal series: UC. They wouldn't wanna compete with their own product, would they? Personally I guess Epic/Infogrames will wait for about ½ year after release of UC and U2 to see how well the two games sell and how well the Xbox sells overall. Then they'll decide about the Xbox port of U2 (as well as the UC port for PC).

Which versions of MS Windows does U2 support?

Any.

Since U2 communicates with hardware mostly through DirectX, basically all Windows versions are supported, as long as they have DirectX 8 or higher.

Legend's Matthias Worch commented on this in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Games couldn't care less about the underlying OS, so WinXP itself won't make any difference. What games DO care about (and U2 is no exception) is the drivers that are used to adress the hardware. And those drivers are provided by the hardware manufacturers, not us

If the WinXP drivers for your 3D card/soundcard are better than their Win9x/2K counterparts the game will run faster. But the speed differences should be marginal - definitely not enough to justify spending a lot of money on XP...

What rendering system will U2 use? (D3D, OpenGL, Glide, ...?)

Initial launch will be Direct3D only. OpenGL might follow later.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: What api is U2 going to have native or optimized support in? both Opengl and Direct3D?

A: Direct3D.

And that probably means D3D only. Too bad, as this will make it hard to port the game to Linux. :( But read more below; there is hope!

Epic's Tim Sweeney explained why, in VoodooExtreme's "Ask Tim Sweeney":

Q: Being a Linux and free software supporter I favor non-proprietary and and open standard API:s. So for game development I would go with OpenGL/Mesa as my 3D-API of choice, mostly because of ideology. [...] So where do you stand in this issue, if we are considering ideology?

A: Right now a DirectX game is more likely to work on the typical non-techie consumer's PC than an OpenGL game, since drivers are more polished and more widely available. I guess the point is that our customers care a great deal about our game working on their PC, and aren't necessarily very interested in our ideology. [...]

Q: Today OpenGL-drivers are not a problem (at least if you own a Nvidia card, which most people do), and I believe Daniel Vogel has proven that the Unreal engine can run as well, or even better using OpenGL in Windows or Linux (OpenGLrenderer has more features, i.e. s3tc support) instead of using Windows only Direct3D. So are there still today any major advantages with choosing Direct3D? As mentioned OpenGL is more open, modular, and also cross-platform.

A: Dan wants to get the OpenGL code back up and running, but not until our next-gen features are essentially complete. I'm not sure whether he'll have the time, but we'll see. We certainly don't have anything against that idea; the only limitations are time and resources.

Q: Also what is the chance of future Epic releases being available to Linux users?

A: We'll definitely have Linux server support, since a significant number of game servers run Linux. Regarding client support, it's too early to say. The stronger Linux has become as a client OS (by the time our next game ships), the more likely this is to happen.

Hmmmm ... that " Dan wants to get the OpenGL code back up and running" part and the " We'll definitely have Linux server support" part didn't sound too bad. :)

Epic's OpenGL master Daniel Vogel himself explained his position too when asked about the matter by VoodooExtreme:

Q: DirectX or OpenGL? The age old Question....

A: Personally I prefer OpenGL because it's not tied to the Windows operating system, but D3D8 has come a long way since D3D7 and if Microsoft continues this trend, D3D9 will be very nice. I just wish they had a real specification instead of the current fuzzy documentation. D3D8 also still has some issues I can't believe they didn't notice or care about, but it is largely usable. Changes to OpenGL (unlike with D3D) have to be thought through more carefully as breaking compatibility is not a viable option for OpenGL's Architectural Review Board (ARB), so it usually takes them longer to implement features into the core API. I tend to prefer the extension mechanism OpenGL uses over the D3D approach of changing the API drastically. It allows IHVs (independent hardware vendors, e.g. ATI or NVIDIA) to fully expose their functionality and provides a test bed for usability and feasibility before it finds its way into the core API. But this can create issues with intellectual property as seen with the OpenGL equivalent of vertex shaders.

As you can see I'm largely torn when it comes to my API of choice on Windows. But in the end it's not the API you choose that will determine how good or bad your game looks - it's what you do with it ;-)

Will U2 make use of the advanced features of latest generation video cards?

Yes.

As the most important new feature of latest generation graphic cards (such as NVIDIA's GeForce3 and ATI's Radeon 8500), U2 makes use of pixel shaders and vertex shaders through DirectX. (Shaders are supported by DirectX 8 and U2 is written to make full use of all DX 8 features. See next question too.)

As explained in this preview on Gamespot UK:

Much of the graphical wizardry on show in Unreal II is made possible due to the implementation of DirectX 8.0, the streamlined utility that makes a full debut with Legend Software's shooter. The important thing here is that version 8.0 allows greater control over the graphics shaders, of which there are two - vertex and pixel. The vertex shader allows the programmer to control body and facial movements, while the pixel shader enables comprehensive pixel combination to replace the traditional multi-texturing approach. In the words of Tim Sweeney from Epic Games: "We are working on really cool effects based on the DirectX 8.0 pixel shader. These effects are aimed at the Xbox and Nvidia's NV20."

Legend's Mark Poesch stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q: BallistophobiAE wants to know if you can shed light on what some of the GF3 features might be, as us Die Hard Unreal fans may have to fork out that 389 bux so we can get our fix on! We definetly need to know so we can start saving now! Hehe.

A: Mark’s Answer: Our skeletal rendering pipeline takes advantage of both the vertex and pixel shaders in the GF3. Given the success we've had with visuals to date, we're focusing more on gameplay right now. But, by Christmas, you should be able to see examples of what we've done with the GF3 shaders. (No promises, though!)

Furthermore Mike Verdu stated in this interview on Gameplex.ch , published 23 June 2001:

Q: Is the engine optimized for a Geforce 3 or will, for example, a Geforce 2 suffice?

A: Of course, people with high end machines and GeForce 3 cards will see lots of cool new stuff because we will take advantage of the new hardware - but all the screen shots that have been released to date were taken on machines with GeForce 1 or 2 cards.

The first confirmation was in this interview with Mike Verdu on XGR Radio on 7 June 2001:

(The interview is voice and I can't be arsed to type it all, so go and listen yourself. :P But essentially the Q&A is:)

Q: Will you release special drivers for the GeForce 3?

A: Yes

If anybody's wondering what kind of "cool stuff" you would see exclusively on a DX8 card, Epic's Rich "Akuma" Eastwood explained in this thread on the BeyondUnreal forum:

they're talking about material effects & particles

What he means is different types of light reflection (shiny ... dull) and light effects depending on the type of material (metal, stone, leather, textile, skin, ...). For an explanation of particle effects see chapter 3.2 Engine.

As for ATI's new Radeon chip and its features, this is what Epic's Tim Sweeney had to say about it, when asked by VoodooExtreme on 14 Aug 2001:

The DirectX8.1 features are welcome, and something that developers who are already taking advantage of GeForce3 can easily take advantage of. TrueForm is probably a waste of time that developers won't bother supporting. I don't have a card yet, so I can't confirm the performance claims, but I expect it should be at least pretty good and potentially great, given ATI's track record in the past couple years.

Which version of Microsoft's Direct X is U2 optimized for?

Version 8.0.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Any involvement yet in DirectX 9 in this engine? Do you guys already have acces to a pre-developer Direct X 9 kit so u can plan ahead with things to come ?

A: We're just working with DX8 for now.

A bit more promising, Mark Poesch stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q: Now Mike, we are wondering, How is it, as Hors 24 pointed out, that the U2 engine can handle up to 10 times more Poly’s than the UT engine, is there any technical specifics you want to spew forth here? Is Direct X 9 already an issue in your , i presume totally directX 8 optimised U2 engine ? Without havin' to inform us what specificly, is there any access already for you guys regarding DirectX 9 specs ?

A: Mark’s Answer: The original rendering pipeline used in both Unreal and UT was optimized for software rendering. It was optimal for creating high-quality scenes on systems with minimal or no 3D support. Unreal II and the Warfare engine have cut software support, and embraced the capabilities offered by GeForce and higher-performance cards. This means that instead of computing lighting for every poly, we can set up the lights, and dump raw polys at the card at a tremendous rate, and let the card do much more of the work.

At this point, it's our intent to be fully DX8 compatible. We can't discuss DX9 at this point. (DeM's Note: Uh oh, that sounds good :P)

Will U2 support multi CPU systems (SMP)?

No.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Will there be multi-processor SMP support in U2.

A: This is a question for Epic.

He also stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q. Tetris L asks weather or not Unreal 2 will support SMP, as he has used it, as many have, with Q3 and it improves Frame Rates drastically, if it’s not gonna be included, can you explain to us why?

A: Mike’s Answer: This might be a question best directed at Epic - I can’t really answer that yet because engine development is ongoing.

As for Epic's position on this, Tim Sweeney made a statement on VoodooExtreme's "Ask Tim Sweeney" on 21 Jan 2001 that is not very encouraging:

Q: With dual processor motherboards being cheap (and stable) nowadays, and a relatively large amount of home computer users actually having an SMP system, I can't help but wonder when (or if :| ) the "SMP Revolution" will take place. Right now, the only released game engine that has some kind of SMP support is Quake3, and even that doesn't really do as good as a fully SMP-supported engine would benefit from dual processing.

A: SMP seems to be dying right now. Athlon's don't support SMP yet, and Pentium 4's don't support SMP.

I don't have any market data on this trend, but I see it here at Epic every day: we're gutting old high-end dual processor Dell workstations and replacing them with high-end consumer PC's. My current development system is a 1.2 GHz Athlon with DDR from Micron, which only cost around $2500 -- compared to around $8000 for the Dell's we used to buy. We buy these PC's because they outperform workstations in most real-world applications.

I think SMP will be revived, but the revolution will depend on single-chip SMP support, which is rumored to be in the works from both AMD and Intel. The really critical factor for any new technology to be successful is price: the price needs to be reasonable enough that high-end gamers can afford it. Sticking two processors in a PC just isn't a very reasonable economic thing to do, but if you can cram two CPU's on a single chip, then why not? The added cost might be only a couple hundred dollars.

My interpretation: That probably means that the U engine will not make use of SMP in the near time. :/

What is the U2 music format? Will U2 have a built-in MP3 player?

Yes, U2 will use MP3.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Wouldn't it be VERY nice to have a built-in-MP3player so that, fraggin' along the road, my favorite mp3's play without laggin my network and CPU as winamp now seriously does (yeah, even with a state of the art PC and OS).

A: We will be playing MP3s in-game for single player music - but they come with their own set of performance problems.

As for the "performance problems", fragswill explained in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

MP3's usually have a much bigger file size compared to the UMX, although they have a better compression. UMXs are a sequenced collection of samples, instead of one sound file. That's why you can't convert mp3s to umx format, without 50mb+ filesizes.

What the heck does U2 have to with Atari??

As confirmed by Infogrames' Bruno Bonnell in this interview on FGN Online on 21 June 2001, Infogrames holds all rights on the Atari trademark and plans to publish U2 under the Atari brand:

We gained the Atari name as part of the Hasbro deal and we like it a lot. It will become a major brand again, probably from October. We will use the Atari name on big games like Stuntman and the Unreal series.

3.2. Engine

What engine will U2 use? What is the "Warfare" engine?

U2 uses the "Warfare" generation of Epic's Unreal engine, modified by Legend.

U2 will use the latest, much improved version of the Unreal engine, also known as the "Warfare" engine, modified by Legend in some respects (particles, model animation, …). Note that the Warfare engine is still the Unreal engine, just the latest generation! Strictly speaking it should be called the "Warfare built of the Unreal engine".

Mark Poesch stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q. A lot of people are wondering what the Differnce between the UW engine and the U2 engine is? Such as Niko 65 pointed out, not a lot of people know this, could you explain?

Mark’s Answer: Unreal II is based on the latest version of the Unreal engine - sometimes called the “Warfare engine” in the press and in the community. Many of our subsystems have been modified and augmented to an extent that our engine and Epic's are different. But, at its core, Unreal II is powered by the Warfare engine.

Epic's Mark Rein explained about this in this Interview on FGN Online, published 23 Jan 2001:

Q: Do you continually evolve the engine's technology and what is the Warfare engine?

A: Yes, the Unreal Engine is a constantly evolving product. The technology you're seeing in this build of the engine is the basis of what will power future Epic games including Unreal 2 (being developed by Legend Entertainment), an unannounced Xbox title and then eventually a game codenamed Unreal Warfare way down the road.

This is why you'll occasionally hear us or licensees refer to the 'Warfare' version just as we referred to the 'Tournament' version of the engine to represent the feature set of the engine built between the releases of Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The name of the engine is still the Unreal Engine but internally we'll refer to Warfare build xxx where xxx is the latest actual version number.

(Note: The "unannounced Xbox title" is UC, which was not announced yet at that time.)

Builts 0xx-3xx are the classic Unreal engine; builts 4xx-5xx are the "Tournament" engine, builts 6xx-7xx are the "Warfare" engine. The latest built available to licensees is 777. For both the Tournament and the Warfare engine at least the engine core code has been completely re-written, based on the experience with previous versions.

For more detailed information and news regarding the Unreal engine, check Epic's Unreal Engine News.

Features of the UW engine?

Legend's Mike Verdu sums up the highlights nicely in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

The most noticeable improvement is the huge increase in the poly counts for levels and characters. The environments are incredibly detailed when compared to what people have seen with the previous generation of technology.

Next, gamers will probably look at the outdoor scenery that is made possible by the new terrain system - the landscapes look amazingly realistic.

More subtle improvements come in skeletal animation; the new tech lets characters move naturally and provides for head tracking, eye movement, lip-synching, per-poly hit detection, and procedural blending of effects.

Finally, particle effects create the delightful illusion of running water, blazing fire, drifting smoke, breaking glass, advanced weather effects, and even flowing hair.

For more details on the engine, read Epic's Unreal Engine News, read this feature on VoodooExtreme about the December 2000 Unreal engine tech demo, and visit the UDN Unreal Developer Network.

What polycount will we see in U2?

From this article on PC Gamer:

The new engine also boasts 10 times the number of polygons for particles and characters compared to UT, with typical enemies sporting 3,000 to 5,000 polys and the Atlantis crew pushing 7,000 to 10,000.

Indeed, the improved terrain and level geometry will push 100 times the poly count of UT. On top of this stunning new outdoor terrain system, there's also an improved meshing system that, when combined with a fine skeletal animation system, allows for some incredibly fluid character movements.

Legend's Chris Hargrove and John "Slashporn" Sheffield explained about the polycount of weapons in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Chris: Most of the weapons are between 1000 and 1500 triangles. We don't go overboard on the weapon triangle counts since they're always onscreen and hence a perpetual rendering cost.

John: Saw someone mention that now they can get to work on weapons ... should point out before you do so that the 1000-1500 spec includes both hands, and that (most of) the weapons themselves are from 500-750 polys. Don't go too much above that if you want to be Mr. Efficient (and he gets ALL the chicks). You'll want to use our player hands in most situations, which we'll release along with all the other SDK-type stuff that shows up after the game's been out for awhile.

How does U2's particle system work?

As you can read in the Unreal Engine News, Epic have included the particle system developed by DigitalExtremes into the latest version of their engine. But at the time when DE developed their particle system, Legend has already created their own one and that is probably the one that is going to be used in U2 (or a merger of the two). However, both have the same capabilities.

As explained above, particle effects can be used for things like running water, blazing fire, drifting smoke, breaking glass, advanced weather effects, and flowing hair.

Legend's Scott Dalton confirmed in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum, when asked if U2 will have the same particle effects that DigitalExtremes showed off with at E3:

We will be using the particle system we (Legend) developed specifically for Unreal 2. It's a great tool (I'm using it right now to create some new weapon effects) and should be wonderful for mod makers and level designers. It's capable of all sorts of various effects, every thing from environmental and weapon effects to exotic stuff like hair and cloth. All in all a very versatile and powerful system. And yes, in case you're curious, our rockets do disturb smoke they pass through, like DE showed with their system, although this wasn't something we thought to show off at E3.

I haven't had the chance to play with DE's particle system, but it was looking good at E3, so I'm sure they've got all sorts of groovy stuff in theirs as well.

Legend's Scott Dalton explained in this interview on Tolstiy's Place, published November 21, 2001:

Q: Could you, please, generally describe all the capabilities and characteristics of your particle system?

Scott Dalton: Wow, that's a lot to cover. Aaron took his experience from our last project, input from the LD's who used it, and research into other existing systems out there to create our new framework. The particle system is based on a modular component-based system where you plug in various particle types and control them with forces. What's nice about this setup is you can add as many or as few particle types and forces as you'd like to a single system. Particles can be all sorts of various types like points, sprites, triangles, streaks, and even other actors. Forces control the particle and include concepts like movement, acceleration, rotation, size, friction, inertia, damage, collision, and gravity.

Aaron Leiby: 19 particle types and 41 forces total - if numbers are your thing.

Q: What designer tricks may be realized using your particle system - what was impossible before and is easily accessible now?

Scott Dalton: It's certainly more advanced than our last particle system offering far more depth to the control available. Additionally, external forces and lighting can affect the particles so for example you can physically disturb smoke or light up steam. They're versatile to the point that you can completely create new weaponry or convincing ambient life just using particles.

Q: How easy will it be to master your system? I'm speaking here about custom mapping for your game.

Scott Dalton: The first time you use the particle systems there is a bit of a learning curve. That's to be expected given the increased amount of complexity over the old system. The forces tend to be pretty self-explanatory though, so once you begin to play around with it, the sky is the limit for the kinds of effects you can create. I intend to create a tutorial for getting up and running with the system soon after we release Unreal 2.

There is a lot more info, so if you're interested in the details, head over and read the full article at Tolstiy's Place.

Will U2 have weather? (Wind, rain, ..) Will there be day and night?

Yes and yes.

Regarding weather and day/night, Infogrames' Matt Powers said in this interview on PC Game Central, published 3 Sept 2001:

A: Unreal 2 takes place in a variety of environments. [...] The missions also take place in a variety of lighting and weather conditions.

As explained above, the particle system can be used for realistic volumetric rain, snow, fog, mist, … instead of layered semi-transparent textures as used in UT.

Will U2 have destructible environments, like RedFaction's GeoMod engine?

No.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Will it have structure damage as in Red Faction? Where you can shoot out walls, or pillars & the whole structure comes tumbling down?

A: We support a very high level of interactivity with the environment (as any good FPS should). We don't have fully destructible environments, but then again I don't think any product has really pulled that off quite yet.

Does the U engine's 'per-pixel collision' feature mean that you can blow your enemy's limbs off?

Yes.

Infogrames' Matt Powers explained in this interview on PC Game Central, published 3 Sept 2001:

Q: In Unreal II, will there be weapon specific damage? For example, if an enemy is hit in the leg, will he start hopping around on one leg?

A: We have per-poly collision, so we'll track where someone got hit and potentially tag it with a decal. We are also planning to allow players to blow limbs off some of the clearly non-human critters. But I can't say that we'll support that functionality globally - you may get a generic "hurt" animation for some characters or creatures no matter where you hit them - even if the affect limb was tagged with a decal.

What other games use the U engine?

Plenty.

There are a number of past and future games that use(d) the Unreal engine under license of EpicGames:

Past Games: Deus Ex, Clive Barker's Undying, Deep Space 9 : The Fallen, Wheel of Time, NerfBlastArena, Rune, ...

Future Games: Duke Nukem Forever, Mobile Forces, W.A.T.E.R.(?), Harry Potter, Thief 3, Maelstrom, Devastation, Deus Ex 2, ATMA, New Legends, Seraphim, Postal2, Y-Project, ...

... plus some more that I have forgotten or that are not yet announced.

Check out screenshots of future games to get an impression of the capabilities of the latest generation U engine.

3.3. Model, Maps & Mutators

Will U2 generally make it easy to make custom stuff (maps, models, mutators, ..)?

Yes, very.

Legend's Scott Dalton explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Unreal 2 is very much geared towards ease of use for the mod community. As far as models are concerned - We're using an entirely new system for skeletal animation import and control. Chris Hargrove has created GOLEM (our skeletal system) to be as easy to use and extendable as possible. The models and their controllers act like plugins, where mod authors can easily create their own models, skins, and even control systems for the model. This means that you just save out new models and skins into a .gem file and drop them into the meshes directory.

This is great for both us and mod authors because it allows the artists to get their work into the game as fast and easily as possible.

I think a real source of cool mod stuff will be the controllers. Since they're layered plug-ins, like the head and eye tracking we had on demo at E3, you can easily add your own controls and effects on top of what is already there.

Of course a ton of the other stuff we've been working on will be great for mod authors too. Our particle engine, scripting system, dialog engine, etc. For instance, you can easily create an entirely new weapon in just a few minutes using only a particle system. I can't wait to see what people come up with.

Hmmmm …. sounds good! :)

For more info on the Golem system, scroll down to question "How will the U2 skin/model system work?".

Will an SDK (Software Development Kit) be released anytime soon?

… so that mod makers can start working on custom stuff before U2 is even released?

No. The specs won't be published until close to release of the full game.

Legend's Scott Dalton explained in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

We will not be releasing the editor prior to release of the game. UnrealEd is intimately integrated into the rest of the engine, game code, and many other aspects of the game. It would not be possible for us to release a standalone editor that could be used prior to release of the game. The editor and rest of the engine and game are all part of the same beast.

You will have access to UnrealEd, Golem studio, and all the other tools/plugins that are required to make additional content for the game when you install the game.

Sorry, but that's just how it works, and it's not feasible or possible for us to do it any other way.

We -may- release general specs on the various aspects of content creation sometime closer to release, but we haven't decided for sure on that at this point. I don't recall any other companies even doing that prior to release, but we want to do all we can to support the mod community and are trying to make the game as friendly to new modifications as possible.

Legend's John Sheffield added in the same thread:

I think the problem here isn't lack of information, but impatience ... there's no reason to think that you'd get dev info so early, so why plan for it?

Another thing you should consider is, if Legend released a bunch of mod-making knowledge and tutorials to the public, then changed its file formats or techniques or procedures or requirements sometime between now and shipping, you'd wind up with a lot of pissed off mod developers. There's enough consternation when a patch for a shipped game changes things to the point that existing mods or map features no longer work. Imagine how much things would be likely to change for a game that hasn't even shipped yet. People'd be frustrated and blame the company for leading them on, I guarantee it.

It was pretty exceptional when the guys at Irrational released their Freedom Force tools a couple of months ago with several months to go before the release ... but they're apparently very certain that nothing is going to change that might break people's mods, moreso than I expect most developers are in the months before they finish.

It's awesome that you're so interested in working with the game and I don't want you to feel squelched, but this just isn't the right time to start cranking out assets.

He added in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

You'll want to use our player hands in most situations, which we'll release along with all the other SDK-type stuff that shows up after the game's been out for awhile. That, along with the fact that we have a fair bit of non UT-like things happening, means that you shouldn't bother animating anything that you will want to actually use in the game until you've got the goods. Really wanna stress that so nobody does a bunch of work then feels cheated when it doesn't run correctly.

Hopefully (this is a lone artist's uninformed speculations here, so don't read this as "we're planning to ...") we'll post some official specs and a tutorial or two when we get closer to release, once we know that nothing can possibly break your mods due to us having to change, concatenate, expand, re-work, tweak or otherwise mess with the official specs.

What editor will U2 use?

U2 will come with the latest version of the popular UnrealEd that is available at the time of U2's release.

The latest version currently available to licensees is UnrealEd 2.6, included with the U engine built 739.

Here is a collection of screenshots from UnrealEd version 2.0 upwards:

- Warren Marshall's desktop showing "Mesas", the canyon map.

- Allan Willard's desktop showing a collection of high res textures.

- Grayson Edge's desktop, working on the map "Janus Lab"

- The Matinee cinematic tool

- Terrain Editor, from Epic's terrain making tutorial

- EnrealEd2 being used for for DeusEx2 Shot 1 and Shot 2

Will UT maps be playable in U2?

No, at least not directly.

The maps have to be converted manually in UnrealEd: They have to be re-scaled and a few more things need to be updated:

Legend's Matthias Worch explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

You'll be able to import the .t3d of your map and convert it to U2 this way, but there's several drawbacks. The player height in U2 is different from Unreal/UT, so all your proportions would be off. The occlusion system is different from Unreal, so you might have to redo some areas to take real advantage of that. Our AI system uses a special scripting language, so you can't do much there, either Terrain is obviously not available in Unreal/UT. And adding all the high-detail geometry is also something that you can't do now, since it isn't using BSP for that - even if you build that detail into the level now you'd still have to go back and convert large parts of the level.

So I guess my answer is: I think you'll be better off if you wait until U2 has been released.

Furthermore Matthias elaborated in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Unreal and UT use a very similar version of the rendering engine, so loading old maps wasn't a big problem. Loading UT maps in U2 is not going to happen, even if we wanted to - too much underlying code changed. The texture format has changed, I doubt it's even possible to load a UT .utx in U2 (you'll probably get a serialization error). The way the engine stores texture coordinates has changed. The mesh/animation system is new. The sound system has been rewritten. The way the engine does occlusion has changed (in fact, it's a completely new renderer). Dynamic lights are done is differently. The music format has changed. A lot of the actors for game logic (Triggers, SpecialEvents etc.) have changed. And of course all assets (weapons, enemies etc.) are new and things like the player height have changed.

Level designers will be able to import .t3d files of their old levels and rebuild those, but even then they should be prepared to spend significant time on rescaling rooms, realigning textures, tweaking sound radii etc. Would it be possible to write a converter for old UT maps? Probably, but it wouldn't create satisfying results, so we won't do it (we don't have the time, anyway, it's not a trivial task).

Sorry, that's just the way it is, and no email to Infogrames, Legend or Epic will change that ;) You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and if you want a new game that pushes the technical boundaries you can't keep all the old code, you have to rewrite stuff. U2 would not look half as good as today if we'd kept all the old code. The same happened with Quake, Quake2 and Quake3, btw, you couldn't simply load a map from the previous title and expect it to run. And I doubt it hurt any of those games :)

Last but not least Matthias gave a recommendation for people who want to start making prefabs in Max and import them into UnrealEd later in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

One unit in Max corresponds to one unit in UnrealEd, so scale is easy to determine. Just set the "Grid Spacing" to 1 and the "Major Lines every Nth" to 8 and you got the exact same grid that you'd have in UnrealEd.

Meshes are always drawn completely (so if you see one triangle of a brush Unreal will always draw the entire thing), so you might want to break up very big meshes into smaller pieces.

Meshes don't have to be closed, they can have holes/missing polygons (good for optimization, only build the parts that the player will actually see and leave out backsides etc.)

Textures are assigned by Diffuse bitmap name, so you'll want to make sure that you use the same filenames in Unreal and Max. The .ase importer will automatically search memory for matching texturenames and assign them when you import the brush.

Mapping veteran Shinigami explained about the player height in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum: Legend went with a new scale in U2: 24 units = 1 foot, instead of 16 units = 1 foot as in U1/UT. This means U2 models will be 50% taller than U1/UT models and consequently the maps have to be scaled up by 50% too.

What texture formats will U2 use?

Mostly high-res DXT compressed UTX textures.

Textures are still in UTX format, except skins, which will be standard image formats, as explained below.

Legend's Matthias Worch explained in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

Most of our textures are 512x512, but some are bigger (1024x1024) and some smaller (256x256 etc.). Pretty much everything is DXT compressed, but some textures are uncompressed 24 or 32bit and a (very) few are palletized 8bit (the old Unreal/UT format)

The engine can handle textures up to 2048x2048 and doesn't have to downsample anything before it displays it (at least not on the cards that we support right now, if you got a Voodoo3 or older that's a different matter).

What code language will U2 use? A new UScript? Are UT mutators compatible with U2?

An improved Uscript.

Legend's Chris Hargrove explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

We are still using UnrealScript, although for level designers we also have a simplified "higher level" language (written by Mike Fox) that sits on top of UnrealScript, specifically for AI scripting purposes. As for the mutator issue, that remains to be seen.

Chris added in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

As far as the UScript changes go, it's too early to comment heavily on that, because a lot of changes have been made to coincide with changes in the engine itself (and not just mesh-related stuff). So you may just have to adopt a wait-and-see position on that side of things (BTW I'm just referring to our actual UScript code being used, not the language syntax. The language grammar isn't that much different from UT).

Will U2 require custom skins to be installed on the server, like U1/UT?

No, U2 will most likely have a much more flexible system.

Legend's Mike Verdu and Mark Poesch stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q: Will U2 allow you to use Custom Models and Skins without having to download them from the server, instead, if you don’t have the file on your Hard Drive, just display a Default skin?

A: Mark’s Answer: The final plans for MP assets aren't fully nailed down -- but we are working to decouple assets from MP gameplay. For example, you'll always play the same class in DM regardless of the character model/skin you select. We should be able to extend this to include the ability to play MP with user-defined skins.

Mike’s Answer: We are working hard to make this game friendly for the community. I think you’ll see a lot of cool stuff - tools, assets, and capabilities - that will make it easy to extend and customize the game. We are just in the process of integrating our newest version of the skeletal animation system, and once we see how that goes, we’ll have a better idea of how best to support custom skins.

A bit more specific, Legend's Chris Hargrove explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum in reply to Dusufyte's suggestion to use a more "Quake-like" system for use of custom models and skins on public servers (longish post; read link for details):

The system which we are planning on doing works almost exactly the way you've described, with the possible exception of sounds (our ideas for custom sound distribution are a bit different at this point; that's still in its early stages though, so you never know).

In general, the idea of cheat-protected default models/textures (using encrypted digital signatures and MD5 checks etc) and cheat-tolerant client-side-only models/textures (with no such checks) is very much what we have in mind. I'm not going to claim the cheat-protected stuff as being "hack-proof" by any means, but I can safely say that anyone trying to modify the default data without being detected is going to have their work cut out for them.

Some of this is still in its infancy as far as our implementation goes, but we haven't run into any serious snags (theoretical or practical) at this point, so I don't see any problem with this kind of system. We pretty much came to these same conclusions some time ago, and we all agree it's the way to go, so I'm hoping we end up with something that pleases people.

There are implementation-detail differences from your description of course (since our mixture of .u* files and external file data is something I don't want to explain in depth at this point), but the point is that we want it to be easy for people to get custom work into the game as painlessly as we can (without breaking any fundamental assumptions in the way the engine works). That goes for simple client-side skin and model changes all the way through more hefty server-side mods.

In summary, it looks like we will finally get to see some custom skins and model being used on public servers, whooohooo!

How easy will it be to skin/model for U2? How does the "Golem" tool work?

Easier than in UT.

Legend's Matthias Worch explained in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

[…] We're using our own proprietary animation system, not Epics. The U2 animation system doesn't use .utx packages anymore, it simply references bitmap files (.bmp, .pcx, .tga or .dds) from a directory. Changing skins is as easy as dropping the new skin in the appropiate directory - boom, it's ready to use. :)

Wow, that sounds almost too easy. :)

Legend's Chris Hargrove and Scott Dalton explained the basics of Golem in this interview on Tolstiy's Place, published November 21, 2001:

Q: Lets speak a bit about your animation system, which will be used in Unreal II. As I know, it is called GOLEM but it is unclear where does this name come from - why GOLEM, guys?

Chris Hargrove: The name "Golem" comes from Jewish legend, although its modern meaning has more in common with a creature from fantasy mythology. In fantasy terms, a golem is a soulless being made of some earthly substance (like clay or stone) which is given life by some magical or divine process. The entities of our mesh system start out as "lifeless" mesh models which are then given life through the creation of artist-controlled entity scripts (for animation and other effects). So the name seemed pretty appropriate.

Q: What are the distinguishing features of GOLEM you'd mention while speaking about it?

Scott Dalton: GOLEM is more accurately a mesh control system then a strict animation system. It uses layered plug-in type effects to control the mesh in any way conceivable. Since these things are multi-layered, you can get a variety of effects happening simultaneously that simply weren't possible before. A lot of the effects are dynamic, so as you apply them all together they can create unique movements that aren't just standard canned animation-loops.

GOLEM can control everything from straight out animation play back, to bone blending, to UV mapping, rendering blending modes, vertex shaders, pixel shaders, dynamic IK bone control, attachments, vertex level effects, LOD, lip-sync, call backs for code, you name it. These are hot-swapped onto the mesh so you can pop them on and off while leaving the other layers intact. The potential for expansion and mod usage is pretty awesome. End users can create new effects that we've never even thought of, which of course can also act like plug-ins on top of all existing GOLEM models and effects.

There is a lot more info about Golem, so if you're interested in the details, head over and read the full article at Tolstiy's Place.

If that's still not enough, Chris elaborated "a bit" ;) on the a.m. Golem system in the same thread:

U2 uses our own model system, known as Golem. It is an external library and tool set, which is independent of the Unreal engine. U2 just happens to be the first application that supports using it.

The primary editing tool for working with Golem models is called Golem Studio (working title). It's a standalone app with capabilities for creating and manipulating models, and viewing them within a D3D-based render window that uses virtually the same pipeline that the application (Unreal 2) uses, so you can get a feel for how your model will look. This includes animations, material settings (with multitexture support and a lot of other color and blending controls), and so forth.

Since Golem is a standalone thing, textures used within the tool are loaded from external files, not from Unreal texture packages (.utx files). However, the game does use Unreal packages, and this conflict might seem to indicate that one would need to manually duplicate textures; one inside a package and one outside. To avoid this, we provide a process where a .utx can be quickly and automatically generated from the texture files (dds, tga, etc) within the Golem workspace tree. So when Matt said that the system doesn't use .utx packages anymore, he's correct... but the game still needs them, so we make the conversion step as painless as possible.

Be aware though that I am looking into the possibility of allowing .utx textures to be loaded within the tool as well (to potentially prevent needing any duplicates at all), so the details of this step may change between now and the time we ship. But whichever approach we end up settling on, painlessness is definitely a top priority.

Netdevil said: " In any case, i'm more interested in the model format since my program needs to directly read the model from its package to preview the skins."

Bear with me, this may sound a bit complicated:

Golem's .gem model file format is extensively documented so if you want to import or export to/from it, you'll be able to do so. Some facilities for making this easier will be available via the library itself if you code in C++, using the class-based plugin SDK. For example, the .psk/.psa importer to bring in data from Epic's skeletal files is actually just a plugin; it's not tied to the library, and additional plugins can be dropped in at will.

So if you want to import/export data from Golem with Golem itself, you can do so via the SDK. If you want to work with .gem files externally on your own, the format is documented so you can do that too. Be aware though that the former may be simpler than the latter, due to the various kinds of data that .gem files support. I supply documentation for the format of all standard gem objects, but plugin authors could potentially add their own additional data (to be used by any new entity script abilities they've added... i'll explain those later), and it's up to them whether they want to document those objects or not. But many folks won't need to add data like that, since some simple custom information can be added in a standardized way via integer/float/string/objref attributes, which all gem objects support (and the format of these is documented... think of them just like key/value pairs that can be hung off of any gem object).

As for the standard gem objects, there are quite a few to handle different chunks of data, such as triangle and vertex lists, texture UV coordinates, material definitions, bone animation sequences, entity blueprints (the backbone of the system; more on these later), and so on. So you'll have your hands full, but the information to help you out should be there.

I'll try to go into greater detail about the system as time goes on and we get closer to release. I also plan to release the .gem file format specification to the public a little before release if possible (once it's in lockdown), so mod/tool people can make any preparations they need. The SDK should be available shortly after the game ships, for those who want to look into making Golem plugins.

Furthermore he added in reply to the question if the Skinmaker tool would still be needed with Golem:

The current plan AFAIK is for Golem Studio to be available free just like U2ed.

I'm not sure whether SkinMaker would be made entirely obsolete as far as U2 goes, since Golem is not really focused on creating meshes or skins. Rather, it's focused on importing them and then doing modifications/additions that are specific to Golem's feature set and which don't necessarily have parallels within tools that the imported data comes from. Examples would be material editing, LOD level generation, and the creation of entity scripts (and by scripts I don't mean scripting language code; this is purely data-driven through dialog boxes so it's easy for non-programmers to work with). The scripts for example are the means of accessing a lot of the dynamic animation abilities like the head/eye tracking shown at E3.

He seemed to be in a chatty mood or terribly bored when he wrote the following essay about Golem in the same thread:

Our mesh system and related file formats are new for U2 and were written inhouse at Legend, so bugging Epic probably won't get you very far.

As far as guidelines, there aren't a whole lot of restrictions. You'll obviously have to make compromises in things like performance and/or memory if you use too many polys or too many features etc, but those are just compromises, not restrictions.

The file format (which includes both the mesh geometry and the animation information) will be released publicly shortly before we ship (I don't want to release it too early since it's subject to change until we start doing release candidates). But you will be able to import PSK/PSA files into Golem as a start (incase you're already familiar with Epic's skeletal tools) and then work with the Golem-controlled features afterward.

It [Golem] is written in C++, specifically MSVC++ 6.

As far as the other specific questions go (re the skeleton resizing etc), I would answer them individually but it may not be necessary, if you read the response to the following (this is the long one):

I guess now is as good a "later" as any. I won't go into actual implementation specifics here and that's something I refuse to do until we're right about to ship (since details can change at any time). But I can at least give an overview of how some of the system works, because the basic premises are not likely to change, and this could be useful information to people planning on making mods for U2. Mostly I'm writing this information in order to get all of the "can we do this" questions to stop.

Golem meshes are stored as a set of objects within Golem Entity Model files (using the .GEM extension, so they're just called "gem files" around the office). These objects (which I'll call "gem objects" to distinguish them from Unreal objects since they're different things) represent data for different parts of a mesh, like triangles, vertices, materials, and so on.

Gem objects can refer to one another, and these references can be to objects within the same file or a different file, so shared data can exist across multiple files. The triangles/vertices/etc. gem objects mostly deal with raw data, and they're connected together via a gem object called a Model. A Model object is an empty thing which refers to triangles, vertices, bone-weighted points, materials, etc. and treats them as a combined whole, representing a physical mesh model. You can make multiple Models which refer to many of the same subobjects underneath, allowing a lot of data reuse. For example, you may want to make a Model that's the same as another, but with different materials and texture UVs, and you can do that in Golem without duplicating the unchanged data unnecessarily.

A Model object is not responsible for animating this mesh, it just defines it. In order to get to animating this mesh, we need to talk about Entity Blueprints.

Golem doesn't treat meshes as single things that are shared across multiple actors, since a lot of runtime mesh information (like things used in dynamic animation effects) is stuff that's needed on a per-actor basis. In order to handle all of this, the system instead is based around its own internal per-actor construct called an Entity. These are constructed from gem objects called Entity Blueprints.

Entity Blueprint objects are the top-level object of the system, logically speaking (physically, all gem objects are just peers, but logically there's a hierarchy of use, and Entity Blueprints are the root of this). Every Entity Blueprint object in Golem corresponds one-for-one with a Mesh object in Unreal (like the kind you select when editing an object's Display->Mesh property in UnrealEd). In fact, when you run one of our preprocessing steps for getting Golem data into the game, you're generating a blank Mesh stub that points to an Entity Blueprint in Golem. This is the only type of gem object that Unreal directly relates to, so when I say it's the top-level object in Golem, I'm not kidding.

When an Unreal actor goes to use a mesh in a game, it spawns something called a MeshInstance under the hood (don't go looking for this in UT; it's something I worked with Epic on adding into UW). If you're familiar with writing UnrealScript code for UT (or even Unreal 1), think about certain actor variables like AnimSequence, AnimFrame, and so on... then think about how those kinds of variables would be extended to handle multiple animation channels, and then think about the extra information for current bone and material state, etc. That's a lot of per-actor data, which would be silly to store for every actor when it may not even have a mesh at all (like lights or triggers). So MeshInstances were created to delegate some of this (now rather sizeable) per-actor mesh information to separate objects, and they're only created for actors that actually use meshes (anyone who's ever worked with UnrealScript knows that the Actor class is already big enough as it is, so MeshInstances were made to prevent it from getting unnecessarily bigger).

Anyway, for U2, each internal MeshInstance tells Golem to spawn one of its Entities which the actor can use. The Entity that Golem decides to create is determined by the Unreal Mesh in question, and that Mesh is a stub that points to a Golem Entity Blueprint, as mentioned before. Hopefully all of this makes sense (if not, don't worry, this'll take a bit of getting used to but you'd be surprised how well it works in practice).

The key points here are that the top of the Golem logical object tree are the Entity Blueprints, and these relate directly to the Unreal Mesh objects available in the game.

Anyway, inside of Golem, Entity Blueprint objects (which I usually just call blueprints) are kinda like Model objects in that they're effectively just empty things with a few references to other objects, and some additional optional attributes (like origin scale/rotate/translate, or hooks to other blueprints for attachments). This allows data reuse at another level above the Model, where you might want a character that uses the same basic model but has different attachments (like different heads, or backpacks or whatever).

Each blueprint has two important references within it. One is to a Model object (discussed above) which defines the geometry for a mesh but doesn't animate it. The second referenced object, the one responsible for animating the thing, is an Entity Scripts object.

If a Model object is used for the "body" of a mesh, then an Entity Scripts object is used as its "mind". All of our static animation and dynamic animation abilities are all contained within the context of Entity Scripts objects which (as one might guess) contain a collection of "scripts".

A "script" in this case is not code like in the UnrealScript sense (it's not code at all, just data, edited via a simple dialog box interface within Golem Studio). It's just a set of animation-related actions to perform during different blocks of time. Each script in an Entity Scripts object is perceived as an animation name in Unreal, so any script created here can be invoked in UnrealScript directly using PlayAnim(), LoopAnim(), etc. While Unreal may think of the script as a static animation, in reality it may be an arbitrary combination of static and dynamic effects.

Each script is composed of a set of "threads" (I use OS terminology here, where an executed script is like a "process" and it has threads underneath it). Golem can handle multiple script processes running on an entity at once (i.e. multiple animation channels within Unreal), but it can also handle multiple threads within the same process, determined within a script itself.

Each thread can have one "ability" hooked into it at any particular period of time over the lifetime of the script. It's hard to make an analogy for this, but if you've ever played Final Fantasy IX, think about those abilities like Antibody or Auto-Haste, and how you would add and remove those from your characters as you needed them based on the situation and the point cost. This is the same kind of thing, where each thread in a script can have one ability hooked into it at a time. Over the lifetime of the script, when a thread starts using a new ability, it automatically stops using the previous one.

When I say "lifetime of the script", it basically means the length of the animation, so to speak. Each script has an arbitrary frames-per-second playback rate, and an arbitrary frame count (you choose whatever you like for these numbers, so the length of a "frame" is really up to you). When you're using nothing but a static animation, then these numbers are exactly the same as the original animation data. But it's just as easily possible to have scripts that are 10000 frames long using a variety of static animations back to back, or perhaps none at all (via abilities which are entirely dynamic)... in which case "script lifetime" is a more appropriate term than "animation length".

One of the stock abilities is currently called "Apply Bone Frames", which does nothing but fetch the bone state from a gem object containing static bone animation data (like the kind pulled in from a PSA file), and apply it to the current entity. If this is the only ability you ever used, then it'd basically be raw animation support. But we've also got plenty of other abilities as well, for doing all kinds of things like bone manipulation (scaling, oscillating, simplistic IK, etc), per-entity material modification (color warping, alpha fading, etc), vertex effects (shockwaves, gravity wells, ...), and so on. And I actually haven't implemented that many abilities yet compared to what there will be when we ship (they're very easy to write, and several of the existing ones have been implemented in 10 minutes or less).

All of these abilities can be hooked into a script thread at will, they have customizable parameters (like what animation object to fetch from, or how fast to do an alpha fade, or how strong a vertex shockwave do you want, and so on). When certain abilities require external position information (like IK or head/eye tracking), Golem supports the concept of "satellite nodes", external positions that are simulated by the system during editing but bound to actual world positions at runtime.

And for situations where our provided feature set isn't enough, programmers can write plug-ins which add new script abilities (which are fairly easy to write; the simplest ones are only around 50 lines of code), new gem object types to be stored along with other gem objects (for cases where additional data is required, like how the "Apply Bone Frames" ability needs a gem object to hold the actual animation frames), new importers/exporters and other editing commands, and so on.

This post is WAY too long already. It's quite possibly the longest message board post I've ever written in my life. But this is what I can tell you for now, and I likely won't be able to say anything more detailed about the system until we're about to ship. So if you want to know what our feature limitations are, there's your answer. Maybe at some point in the future I'll be able to post a Golem Studio screenshot since that might help things make more sense, but that won't be anytime soon so for now you'll just have to take my word on things. At least the artists here have been pretty pleased with the system from what I can tell. Hopefully mod authors will be as well.

Will U2 use skeletal animation? Facial Animation?

Yes, certainly.

UT added skeletal animation with patch 413 and U2 will certainly have it out of the box. Bones down to the detail of fingers and facial gesture.

Legend's Chris Hargrove explained a bit about facial animation in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

Q: The only thing im worried about is animated eyes. Would you create a set of bones to them? Looks like more tutorials for me.

A: You'd use bones yes, although the number of bones used depends on your requirements. If you want eye tracking, then you'll want a bone at the center of rotation of each eyeball (i.e. the center of the eye itself, not the center of the pupil), to allow the tracking ability to work. Also, if you want dynamic blinking, then you'll want one bone for each eyelid, although the rules for how to set this up position-wise are a little more flexible since you have multiple options for blinking (translation-based or rotation-based). Of course, all of these restrictions are based on the set of animation abilities that we provide by default (which are quite a few, and you'll be able to mix&match them for plenty of effects we haven't come up with yet). For those cases where our stock abilities aren't enough, programmers can add in new abilities relatively easy via plug-in DLLs. All of these abilities interact within a common type of data that the engine considers an "animation", but you can combine static animation data and dynamic elements almost entirely at will under the hood. Eye-related features are just one application of that.

Q: Also does anyone know if they're single meshes, or is the head seperate along with the eyes?

A: We have meshes where the head and body are part of the same mesh, and ones where the head is an attachment. Both cases are treated similarly by the game, so the choice here is really up to you and whether you want to make an entirely original mesh or interact in some way with our existing meshes (for example, if you want to make a new light marine body that uses our existing heads, you'd obviously want your mesh to be headless). There are some differences within the mesh data in terms of if/how you set up an attachment, and how animations using the attached models (if any) are handled, so that may require some work depending on which way you go, but that's all done while setting up your mesh. As far as the game's concerned, both cases are treated almost identically.

Q: And how bout the mouth?

A: Same situation as with the eyes; it depends on which of our abilities you want to use. Our primary ability for lipsyncing doesn't care about the actual mouth bones themselves per se, it just uses a viseme reference animation (an animation with one frame per mouth viseme, currently we use 16 visemes if I remember correctly) and then uses those viseme poses to compose new lipsync poses at runtime. So the number and position of bones in that situation is largely irrelevant. But again, this is just our way of doing lipsyncing. Somebody else could write a new lipsync ability plug-in after we ship that does it entirely differently, and you could choose to use that instead if it was easier for you. The system is pretty extensible as far as this kind of thing goes.

Q: Last but not least... Wil I be able to animate the Hair?

A: See above. You can animate it yourself, or you could use one of our node oscillators, or a combination of both, or somebody else's thing... take your pick.

Chris also explained a bit about eye animation in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

Q: I mean, can you make the eyes of the models jitter and dart back and forth as they look around? (kinda like the close up stuff of Aki in Final Fantasy)

A: Yes, provided they have eyeballs that are weighted to bones that are relatively independent of the rest of the face (not counting the eventual hierarchy connection to the head bone of course). For example if you wanted to use our stock abilities dealing with eye manipulation you would want to have the eyeball bones placed at the center of the eye so that rotation alone would cause pupil movement. You could use a fully modeled eyeball (like our high-poly models like Aida have), or make the eyeball a reduced set of polys on the face and then only make a few iris/pupil polys using this eyeball bone, etc... that's up to you. What's important is that for our provided code for this, we only use rotation, so having bones at the eyeball center is important.

Will Legend provide a support package for the GMax modelling tool?

No, but indirect import is possible.

Legend's Chris Hargrove and Matthias Worch commented on this in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Chris: Don't expect a whole lot of gMax support from us, if any. Discreet's licensing policies for gMax are extremely unfair to developers, in terms of both price and restrictions.

Matthias: If you want to make (static) level geometry you can use Max for that. UnrealEd imports .ase files (which is one of the filetypes that 3DSMax can export to). Just create your mesh in 3DSMax and export it to .ase, you will be able to import it as a brush in UED and add it as geometry.

And as Chris said, I wouldn't count on gMax support just yet. Yes, gMax is free to you, but what Discreet doesn't tell you is how much they charge developers for a license. We'd have to pay a LOT of money just to be allowed to create and release a game pack for gMax, and I don't know if we have that budget.

Will U2 use motion capture animation?

No.

A lot of people will expect to see MCA in U2 after they saw the awesome mo-cap'ed karate scenes in the Unreal tech demo movie.

This is what Legend's Mike Verdu had to say about it in this interview on Gameplex.ch , published 23 June 2001:

Q: Did you use motion capturing for the character animations? Or is it a new technology? Or maybe a combination of both?

A: Many of our characters are alien creatures - so motion capture wouldn’t do us much good. And we have a fantastic animator in-house... he’s done an amazing job bringing both the human and alien creatures to life.

Hmmmm .... that was a "no". This doesn't necessarily mean that the animations will be bad. But I have yet to see game characters move as life-like as Lara Croft, that are not mo-cap'ed. Lets see if U2 can do it. :/

Update: This 10 Oct 2001 press release by Epic, announcing that they've purchased a Vicon 8i mo-cap system, gives the Unreal fans hope. Acc. 3DRealm's George Broussard's comment such a system is about $200'000. Probably the system will not be used for U2, but for sure we'll see lots of mo-cap animation in Unreal Warfare. Sweet!!

4. Gameplay

4.1. Gameplay Features

Is U2 only singleplayer or also multiplayer gaming?

It is strictly singleplayer.

Until January 2002 it was planed that U2 would have multiplayer. Many were concerned that U2 and UT2002, which were both to be released in 2002 with multiplayer, would split the community and hurt eachother’s sales. Thus Epic, Infogrames, Legend and DE sat together and re-arranged the whole release schedule and features of the two games. It was decided that UT2003 would be strictly multiplayer and released in mid 2002, while U2 would be strictly a story-based singleplayer game, to be released end of 2002.

A few statements about why the decision was made:

Tim Sweeney from Epic Games: http://ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166343

Legend's plans for Unreal 2's MPX multiplayer were a brilliant idea, but before the team had even begun working on the multiplayer code and maps, that part of the game had already grown into what could have been an 18-month project for the entire team on its own. We'd love to have seen Unreal 2's multiplayer vision carried through to completion, but it turned out to be unrealistic to try to develop such a huge single-player game with such a huge multiplayer component.

That's why the decision was made, and it was by mutual agreement and discussion between Legend, Epic, and Infogrames. Nobody was forced. And it wasn't about boosting UT2 at U2's expense. Unreal 2's MPX would have complemented rather than competed with Unreal Tournament 2's more traditional UT-style game types.

So, yes, we suck for overpromising and underdelivering. But it's more a matter of trying to accomplish more than we were capable of, not a sinister motive.

I don't know how far back you go in the community, but Unreal 1 was originally planned to have massive multiplayer features, with seamless linking, inventory, and visibility between servers. That was another great idea sacrificed for the sake of focusing on the more vital part of the game.

Matt Powers from Infogrames UK: http://www.mpz.co.uk/forums/showpost.asp?PostID=2405

Definitely an interesting week and a good one for everyone related to Unreal. We have committed to ship dates (we will make all our dates). And we have made decisions which are best for the games. Both UT2 and U2 will be awesome games when they are released.I am positive that all the fans out there will be impressed and happy.

I can understand people's disappointment in the removal of multiplayer from U2 but it really is for the best. Allows us to make a better single player experience and reduces confusion in the multiplayer world. UT2 will be out for a couple months prior to U2 and there will be tons of servers. Trying to put out a different, Unreal multiplayer game that will compete with UT2 is crazy. This really is the best decision for the games and the community.

I agree Infogrames could/should announce this better. It is tough since Infogrames is such a large corporation. We do try to keep in touch with the community.

Cliff B from Epic Games: http://ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166025&pagenumber=2

U2's mp was dropped because, frankly, making a truly next generation single player FPS experience is a ton of work and the game needs to ship sometime this century. The team is focusing on a great SP experience. You think the mod community won't figure out all sorts of crazy stuff with the game within days of release? They will.

UT2 will fulfill all of your multiplayer needs.

A bit of hope for a possible future addition of MP to U2 comes from this letter by Mike Verdu:

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108702

We were disappointed at losing the MP in U2, but the decision is allowing us to focus on making the best damn SP game ever. And DE is putting a lot of effort into making UT2 as cool as possible.

It's not my place to speculate, but you may see XMP resurrected in some form in the not too distant future.

Will there be co-op in U2?

No.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Can players play co-op in Unreal2?

A: Co-op is currently not in the cards.

From this article in the Nov 2001 Computer Games Magazine issue:

Many of the missions will be like this—a mix of combat, scripted sequences, interaction with characters, and solving a few puzzles that go beyond plates and levers. This type of complexity is the main reason that the designers have eschewed the idea of including a cooperative game—something for which the Unreal community has really slammed them. Verdu believes that you need to design a cooperative environment from the getgo, and that doing so would have prevented a lot of the more interesting elements of the single-player game. " I hope that when they see what we've done with the single player game they'll understand why it would have been a tough decision to support co-op mode."

Legend's Matthias Worch explained a bit about the reasons in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

We've said it several times before, and I'll say it again: there will be no coop in U2. Sorry, live with it

We're making a very story-driven SP game here, with dialog, tons of scripted sequences and quite a bit of non-linear gameplay. No, all that will not take away from the action (Unreal was an action FPS game and U2 will be the same), but it's simply impossible to include a coop mode that works well and is bug-free (do you have any idea how easily scripted sequences break when there's more than one player? ;)) without adding a few more months to the schedule.

We realize that a lot of the hard-core fans love coop, but we have to make tradeoffs here. HL is still the biggest FPS game out there, and it doesn't have coop (nor do I hear many people *****ing about it). If you want coop you should wait until a 3rd party team creates a mod for it - until then you can play straight action-shooters like Serious Sam :)

Legend's Scott Dalton added in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

It takes a lot of work to design a game towards a single player. It also takes a lot of work to design a game towards a great co-op experience. If you don't care about a story and don't care about interaction then co-op becomes a lot easier (hence co-op in doom, serious sam, etc.) but it becomes much more complicated to add that into a game with more focus on character interaction, scripting, story elements, etc.

We'd rather not make the rest of the game suffer greatly to support a feature that very few people actually play. Maybe if we dropped multiplayer (DM, CTF, XMP, etc.) out of the game we would have the time and resources to support a great co-op mode. I don't think most people want that however.

The good news: The girls from PlanetNaPali are on the case and promissed to start working on a U2 co-op mod as soon as the game is released. :)

How many maps and how many hours of gameplay will the story be?

It will be about 35 maps, taking 20-25hrs to play through.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: How long will the singleplayer-mode be or will it only take a weekend to see the end?

A: It won't be 60 hours but it won't be a tiny morsel of a game either. We're looking at 20-25 hours for a good gamer. We don't want players to have the same experience over and over again, so we're trying to create a game with lots of variety that is long enough to make people feel satisfied.

Q: How many levels do you think will make it into the final SP part of the game?

A: The number of levels is starting to lose its meaning these days... think of Half Life and its collection of many, many smaller levels. Our level count is already well over 30, but some are larger than others. I think we'll have a good solid single player game with 20-25 hours of game play.

He added in this interview on Gameplex.ch, published 23 June 2001:

Of course there is much more game play in the multiplayer - you can fight bots or go on-line and spend many, many hours playing.

It’s worth noting that there are some single player missions with considerable replay value. In situations where you are giving soldiers orders to attack or defend a base, you will have different outcomes every time you play.

How will the gameplay be like?

Unreal 2 will not be a classic linear "open all doors, kill all monsters, press all switches and find exit" story, but instead U2 uses a non-linear, mission-based story.

PC Powerplay says about it:

Each mission will feature a different tactical situation, including hostage rescue, civilian escort, an assault on an enemy base with a squad of friendly troops, defence of a structure or area against attack, stealth-based infiltration and reconnaissance, as well as more traditional search and destroy sorties. Between missions the player will return to the Atlantis to research collected items (such as new weapons), interact with fellow crew members, and re-arm for the next objective.

Legend's Mike Verdu explained in this interview on Gameplex.ch, published 23 June 2001:

Q: Unreal was a classical 3D-shooter with a minimum of story and very linear levels. How different to that is Unreal 2?

A: We are creating a very rich story for Unreal II - which will be delivered using in-game cut-scenes and our new real time conversation system. We’ll also have a variety of types of game play, including traditional first person missions, hostage rescue, squad based combat, escort missions, exploration and discovery in new environments, and a number of multiplayer variants. We want to make a game that has the classic elements of a shooter but has enough new experiences to keep people engaged, surprised, and delighted as they play all the way through the game.

Regarding the story, the official game description says about it:

As the player, you are the lone representative of the Law in a distant sector of space. You patrol your beat in the creaky but serviceable starship Atlantis, a former military escort vessel that was decommissioned and retrofitted for civil government service long ago. [...]

Things are quiet... until the sector erupts in a full-scale interstellar war. Battles rage on and around more than ten vastly different worlds as several alien races, multiple mercenary armies, and the infamous Terran Military engage in fierce combat. You are caught in the middle of the fighting, and must balance your responsibility to protect the colonists, archaeologists, miners, and other civilians in your sector... with the duty to discover the source of the conflict and put an end to the war.

The single player game takes the form of a series of missions linked by the narrative framework of the game's story. Missions may take place in the dense jungle of a tropical planet, in the ancient ruins of an alien city, deep underground in a warren of tunnels, on the molten surface of a hellish volcanic world, in the bowels of an alien industrial facility, in the endless oceans of a water-bound world, or on board an enemy starship. There are more than ten unique settings, each with its own distinct look and production design.

The story unfolds through briefings, cut scenes, in-game dialog, and the action contained in the missions themselves. Story telling does not get in the way of the action - the game is designed so that the missions are fast paced and intense; there are natural pauses as the player returns to the Atlantis between combat missions.

This article on CGM explained about the style of the game and the difficulty settings:

The missions will be quite a mixed bag. You'll see very simple Serious Sam style levels where you'll use brute-force methods to blast everything in sight. "We want some levels where it's just a joy to use powerful weapons to take on hordes of cool enemies," says Verdu. These hard-core shooter experiences will balance out other levels that have more sophisticated tactical scenarios.

There will be three difficulty levels, but unlike before, creature damage amongst them will not be relative. They're trying to make difficulty a factor of the number of creatures rather than making them variably tough over the three difficulties, but this is not to say that their skill level won't vary. They may act like idiots on the stupid level and smarter and more lethal on the hard level. But that's will be a function of the A.I. rather than the number of hit points they have.

To get a feeling about it, take a peek preview on FGN Online into …

60 Seconds in the single-player game:

After you clear the ramp and run a safe distance, the dropship claws skyward on a plume of blinding white fire. You take a moment to look around the surface of Charon. The landscape is made up of twisted spires of rock and ice. Volcanic vents spew fire, smoke, and steam into the twilight sky, which is dominated by the sight of the gas giant planet Janus.

Your suit HUD flashes and chimes as Aida contacts you from the orbiting Atlantis. "The outpost is about 500 meters behind you," she says. "Watch for bad guys."

You turn around and survey the remains of the outpost. Fires are burning in the wreckage. You see blast damage, gaping holes in the walls with the thick metal bent outwards like jagged flower petals.

As you approach, the dark spaces inside the buildings are lit up by bolts of searing violet light and staccato orange flashes. You can hear the snap and hiss of energy weapons and the distinctive chatter of Terran combat assault rifles.

You enter through one of the craters in the side of the main structure. Inside, you quickly assess the situation. A squad of Terran Mercenaries is engaged in a firefight with a group of aliens, armored six-limbed creatures that can only be Izarians. Each group is spread out on one side of the outpost control center, a large room filled with destroyed equipment and drifting smoke. The Mercs and Izarians look evenly matched. Individual Merc soldiers and alien troops have taken cover and are firing furiously at each other.

Neither group should be here; the distress call that brought you here was from the original occupants of the outpost - the crew that manned the comm relay station.

Both sides seem to see you at once. There is a brief pause in the fight. One of the Izarians, a big brute that must be the commander, raises one of his limbs in an obvious salute. The Mercs, on the other hand, immediately begin firing at you. You can see the winking orange muzzle flashes of their guns, the smoke, and the sparks and debris flying from the walls and floor nearby. You take cover behind a smashed console, ponder the situation, and make a quick decision. Even though the Terrans are obviously hostile, the Izarians are ultimately the worse threat.

You select universal comm on the suit HUD and yell "What Company?" into your mike. The fire from the Mercs abates. "Screaming Eagles on assignment with TerraCor. Who the hell are you?" "I'll stand with you! Cease fire!"

The Izarians are smart enough to figure out what's up. You are suddenly surrounded by the bright violet beams from their energy weapons. The console you are hiding behind begins coming apart under the heavy fire. You key your mike one last time. "I can flank 'em - let's rock and roll".

You take your single EMP grenade off your belt, arm it, and throw it in the general direction of Izarians. It goes off with a thump and you hear a crackle of static as the overflow interferes with your suit systems. The grenade explosion produces its intended effect - the Izarians have stopped firing as their comm systems, suits, and weapons are temporarily fried. You abandon your cover position and sprint along the wall towards the Izarian line, firing your CAR as you go. As you get close, the Izarians begin to recover. Beams hiss and snap around you. Vaporized plastic and metal gouts out of the walls nearby. You are wreathed with smoke.

As you get closer, you flank their position. You can fire right up their line. You draw a bead on an Izarian and shoot; he spins and drops. In the mean time, the Mercs explode from behind their cover positions, firing as they go. Two more Izarians drop. The remaining aliens break - they leave their positions and flee down a corridor.

Any details about the Atlantis crew members? What happens on the Atlantis?

Legend's Mike Verdu introduced them in detail in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

Q: Who are some of the main characters in Unreal II? With respect to driving the story along, what purpose do they serve? What about their practical functions?

A: There are a number of important characters in the game, but I'll only cover the members of the Atlantis crew since discussing any of the others would give away important story points.

The first officer is Aida Shen. She has a background in military intelligence and was dishonorably discharged a few years back. She's a very talented officer, but her less than stellar record has kept her out of any job but patrolling the ass end of space with the backwater Colonial Authority. Aida keeps tabs on what is going on in the sector. She has an excellent intelligence network and is able to call in favors with her old buddies in the military and merc companies. Aida briefs the player before he goes into combat, talks to him during the missions, and keeps him up to date with story developments.

Isaak Borisov is the ship's engineer. He served on an elite warship until a case of post-traumatic stress syndrome led to a medical discharge. Bitter and stressed out, Isaak mostly keeps to himself. His function on the Atlantis is to keep the ship running and make sure the player has the best weapons and equipment available for planetary missions.

The last member of the crew is Ne'Ban, the pilot and navigator. Ne'Ban is an alien who serves in the Colonial Authority under an officer exchange program set up by enterprising diplomats. Ne'Ban makes sure the Atlantis gets from point A to point B without being shot up by the much larger - and more capable - enemy warships now infesting the once quiet sector of space.

Furthermore he explained in the same interview:

Q: What sorts of actions can be taken when the player character is aboard the starship Atlantis? Is there more to it than mission briefings and debriefings?

A: You can talk to your crew to find out what's happening aboard ship and in the rest of the sector. You can visit the armory and find out the status of Isaak's research into different items brought back from missions (you can't immediately use an alien weapon you find on a planet - Isaak needs to study it and modify it so it's suitable for human use). You'll also be able to engage in some mini-quests on board the ship - mediating conflicts between the members of the crew, repairing key parts of the ship, etc.

Interaction with the crew is probably the most compelling on-board activity. The player will get key story points during briefings and the missions themselves - but there is a lot of the story which is available only if the player goes digging for it. We did this not to hide the story, but to make sure that players who aren't interested in a deep story don't have to wade through a ton of narrative to get to the shootin' - they can return to the ship, get briefed for the next mission, get equipped at the armory, and go back planetside for more combat.

How do you communicate with your crew members and other NPCs? How do you give orders to squad members?

Through a command / talk menu.

From this preview on PC PowerPlay:

"One of the important goals with Unreal 2 is to create a game that has high-intensity combat and yet tells a real story with interesting characters," elaborates Verdu. "We intend to do most of the storytelling and character interaction on the Atlantis, between missions. We will also have 'slow times' during the combat where NPC [non-player character] interaction and storytelling become the main focus of gameplay. "With character development, we are trying to move the genre ahead a bit. We want the player to have conversations in realtime, not the stilted, horrible 'choose-a-dialogue-statement-off-a-menu-while-the-NPC-does-an-awkward-idle-animation' conversations that are common to the current crop of games."

To this end, dialogue options will work more like the bot commands in UT. If the player responds too late, then there's every chance the character waiting for an answer will get impatient and either change the topic or turn away. It's entirely possible to interrupt others, leave in the middle of a statement or response, or invite a third party into a conversation.

According to Verdu, the flipside of this complexity is that dialogue will be short and to the point - the player's responses will generally be a few words. "The player needs to be able to assess the possible responses and decide what to say without feeling like he's really under pressure, because the NPC might get testy and walk away. But it's a good trade-off. We want a dynamic and fast-paced experience, not a talk-a-thon."

Legend's Mike Verdu explained in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

Qt: How does the dialogue system work, and what makes it dynamic in nature? Can the player character interact with others at any time?

A: The dialog system is an evolution from the mechanism for giving orders in UT. You approach a character and hit a key to talk to them. Dialog options drop down on the HUD and the conversation proceeds in real time. There is no awkward alternate interface. You can terminate the conversation at any point through the dialog options or by backing away from the person you're talking to when you're done communicating.

This new dialog system is used for everything from giving orders in the heat of battle to having multi-layered conversations on the Atlantis. If we do this right, the interactions will feel very natural. You can even interrupt conversations and be interrupted in turn.

On the Atlantis, the crew will remember where you left off conversations and how you interacted with them - if you continually leave while someone is talking or you are rude to them, they will begin to react negatively to you. You may see tense or unhappy expressions on their faces and you'll get clipped, strained speech instead of warmth or banter. Positive interactions lead to positive reactions. You can change your relationship with someone on your crew - and the nature of the conversations you will have - by changing the way you interact with them.

In the same interview:

Q: At certain parts of the game, the player will be able to issue orders to his troops. Can you explain how this system works?

A: We will have a great deal of variety in the game play for Unreal II. Some missions require the player to take control of a group of soldiers in order to attack or defend a base or installation of some kind. The mechanism for giving orders is pretty simple - it works exactly the same way as the dialog system. The orders themselves will tend to vary depending on the specific mission and its objectives. Examples of orders include: "Defend this area", "get medical attention", "follow me", "use your own initiative", "call for reinforcements", "sound the alarm", etc., etc. Troops under your command are bots and are pretty smart.

What environments will you fight in?

Various.

Legend's Mike Verdu explained in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

Combat missions may take place among the ancient ruins of an alien city, on the ocean floor of a world covered with water, deep underground in a warren of elaborately carved tunnels, on the molten surface of a hellish volcanic world, inside a secret planetary research lab, on a lush jungle planet, on board an enemy starship, or even hopping from planetoid to planetoid in a remote asteroid belt. There are more than 12 unique settings, each with its own distinct look and production design.

Can players "prone" (lay down) in Unreal 2?

Yes.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: With the introduction of large outdoor terrain to the unreal series will a 'prone' feature be available in Unreal 2?

A: Yes.

Can you "dodge" (double-tap side jump) in U2?

Most likely yes.

Legend's Aaron Leiby commented in this thread about dodging on Infogrames' U2 forum:

We generally try to avoid removing features that vast majorities of people like (even though many of us do not). Especially when it's easy enough to simply provide an option to turn it on/off. And especially when it would only cause more work for us to remove it.

He said that talking about WoT, but I think the same applies to U2.

Furthermore I heard rumors that dodging was possible in the leaked E3 built. ;)

Will U2 have "boss" creatures?

Most likely yes.

With the revival of the huge freaky bosses in Serious Sam many gamers were hoping for some even better bosses in U2.

The following is what Legend's Scott Dalton revealed in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum. ;)

Luckily for you, we have captured both with our Boss Monster, also known as MechaHawking, which I give you an exclusive screenshot of here (shh - don't tell anybody) : Image

He should challenge your intellect, as well as you 1337 skillz0rs.

I bet we'll all poop our pants facing this one. ;)

4.2. Creatures

Which enemies will you encounter in U2?

Legend's Mike Verdu explained in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

Q: Is there a large assortment of enemies in the sequel? Have any improvements or changes been incorporated into the AI? And can you reveal anything about the Skaarj enemy type that returns from the original?

Q: There are at least 24 enemies in Unreal II - and they range from armored human soldiers to totally alien, biomechanical horrors that can disassemble themselves to get through tight spaces. The Skaarj are back from the original Unreal, but they are the only ones to make the jump from the first game. The rest of the bestiary is new.

Summing up the facts from various reviews and interview, there are 24 enemies in U2, from 6 different alien races. These are:

0. Humans (Military soldiers and mercenaries)

From FGN Online: " Mercenary soldiers do the fighting for the large corporations, and they come in all shapes and sizes. At the high end are the brutal computer-controlled cybernetic warriors and elite human Heavy Mercs who wear massive suits of powered armor. In the middle are the grunts – the Merc equivalent of the military combat soldier. They are tough, smart, reasonably well armored, can carry different weapons, and are able to communicate – and interact with - with their squad mates during combat. On the low end are the light Mercs and the lower paid, rag-tag washouts who assemble their armor from scraps and cobble together whatever weapons they can."

From various other reviews:

"Mercs or mercenary soldiers, well armed and intelligent they can carry different weapons and are able to communicate and interact with their squad mates during combat."

"... mercenaries of varying strengths--some will don medium armor while others will be wearing heavy suits with massive energy weapons."

"... we saw new models of [...] marines (light, medium, and heavy versions, with several different factions of each), and the mercenaries (light, medium, and heavy as well), which are known as "Japanese mercs" because of their Asian-influenced look."

"Three groups of marine have also been thrown in, starting out with dim-witted and poorly armed humanoids, working up to fully armed cybernetic warriors."

1. The Skaarj

From Actionvault: The Skaarj have been significantly upgraded for the new game. They are bigger, smarter, and more lethal. They are able to use a variety of weaponry. We've also developed the mythology of the Skaarj - they now have tribal affiliations. Each Skaarj sports elaborate body tattoos that identify its clan.

In a new twist, the player may actually have to team up with one Skaarj clan to take on another - the constantly shifting balance of power on the battlefield can lead to some interesting alliances.

From IGN PC: There will not only be a light, medium, and heavy version of the Skaarj, but there will also be several skinned variations of each, with diverse color patterns and a multitude of different tribal tattoos, indicating the separate Skaarj factions. Powers told us that the different Skaarj factions will actually be fighting amongst themselves in some levels when you come upon them, and you can opt to skirt around them -- avoiding the conflict altogether -- or, go in head-first and blast them all.

Frrom Gamespot: The game will actually have a wide variety of these fierce predators. The light Skaarj is basically the same as the Skaarj that you ran into in the original Unreal. Of course, the new light Skaarj looks a lot better thanks to the impressive Unreal II engine: The new character model now sports an extremely high number of polygons, smooth and realistic idle animations, and a virtual canvas of tattoos. According to Powers, these tattoos will be different between some of the Skaarj to denote their respective tribes. The plot in Unreal II will detail the warring Skaarj factions, each of which is after a mysterious artifact believed to hold the ability to unlock a devastating weapon. Additionally, there will be different types of Skaarj warriors, and in Powers' demo, we saw a medium Skaarj warrior who was bristling with pointy tusks and massive armor. While it isn't yet in the game, an even larger heavy Skaarj will eventually make its way into Unreal II.

For a brief instance, the video also showed what looked like a completely metallic Skaarj warrior running away from the screen.

2. The Shian Warriors

One of the scenarios for the singleplayer story is "the ocean floor of a world covered with water". These are the resident creatures.

"The Shiarn are an underwater community (and the underwater regions look extremely cool). They appear to have lobster shells and tentacles, and communicate with you telepathically, in that your mind simply "hears what they're saying." Where this really comes into play is that they, just like fairy tale mermaids, are able to summon all the sea creatures in the area to serve in the battle. You'll spend a lot of time not fighting them directly, but instead fighting all the creatures that they're summoning from different parts of the ocean."

"a floating crablike creature that resembles the Invid from Robotech fiction"

"jellyfish like monstrosities"

3. The Izarian Hunters

"... have six wicked weapons for limbs and razor-sharp teeth."

"... a tribal looking race of six-limbed horselike beasts ..."

" … hunt in packs …"

Legend's Chris Hargrove said in this thread on Infogrames U2 forum:

The Izarians deliberately have a lower amount of detail in them than some of our other models. You should be able to figure out why, and what that means in terms of gameplay when dealing with them.

And you know what it means: As said above … they hunt in packs.

4. The Striders

From Actiontrip: "biomechanical horros" that "not only grow their own armor, but their own weapons and spaceships. The worst thing about them is that they have the ability to disassemble, pass through tiny cracks or extremely narrow passages, and then reassemble on the other end (T-1000 anyone? - Ed)."

From Gamespy: "Striders are biological creatures that not only grow their own armor but their own weapons and spaceships. Alone, the Strider Pod is not very threatening, however, if you group a bunch together they will create a Strider Villain. Group some Strider Villains together and you'll get a Strider Nemesis. What's cool about the Strider monsters is that it can navigate around obstacles and through small openings by disassembling themselves long enough to get though it, only to reassemble at the other side. How wicked is that?"

From Gamespot: "The Striders are the most interesting of the new faces. Look at a single Strider and you might frown, even offer pity towards the biological deformity, but you'd send it to hell without a second glance. Come across a gathering of Striders combined into a Strider Villain, a vast organism that can grow its own armour and weaponry, and you're starting to realise what all the fuss is about. Run into a group of Strider Villains merged into a Strider Nemesis and you're despairing. By grouping together, it's possible for Striders to create huge tower-like structures capable of immense power and vast intelligence. And like the T-1000 unit in Terminator 2, if you try and escape from the Strider Nemesis, it can navigate around obstacles and through small openings by breaking down into its component parts and re-assembling."

From FGN Online: " The Striders grow their own armor, weapons, and even spaceships. One Strider Pod alone is not intimidating at all – a conical blob of goo on four squat legs that is dumb as a post and is armed with little more than serrated teeth. Unfortunately, the Pods will combine with each other to form the much harder Strider Villains. And multiple Strider Villains can clump to create a towering and lethal Strider Nemesis with dramatically increased intelligence and firepower. The larger Strider monsters can navigate around obstacles and through small openings by disassembling themselves long enough to get past or through."

5. The N

"trans-dimensional beings that can occupy different places in space and time simultaneously"

"Only three N exist, but they're crazy multi-dimensional beings that can be in multiple places at once, and attack with psionics. The mind boggles."

From Gamespot UK: "If this isn't pushing the boundaries of your imagination far enough, then welcome the N. into the fold. But be warned, you're going to need a head for abstract thought and an acute awareness of basic astro-physics just to comprehend these little buggers. The N. are trans-dimensional, omniscient beings capable of being in thousands of places simultaneously over both time and space. Theoretically, there are only three N., though in combat there may appear to be hundreds and thousands of the pesky freaks. Oh, and just to make your task that little bit harder, it's also impossible to actually kill a Borg-like N., as firing into it will only fractionally deplete the energy it expends to fold space and time. Obviously."

From FGN Online: " The N are trans-dimensional aliens that can occupy many simultaneous places in space and time. In reality, there are only three N – but because they can somehow be in more than one place at once, there appear to be hundreds of thousands of them. N weapons are all ranged and psi-based – and each of the three N has a different weapon. You can't really 'kill' an N – when you shoot one, the weapon simply depletes the energy used to fold space and time at that particular node of the N."

6a. The Drakk

The Drakk have been mentioned only once in an article in the Computer Games Magazine as

"mechanical creatures with insect-like features"

"menacing robotic"

It is unclear to me whether the Drakk are one of the 6 races in the war.

6b. The Araknids

From this article on PC Zone:

"There'll be a spider-like race called the Araknids which will attack in swarms. Araknids come in many sizes, with the smallest being simple cannon fodder and the biggest being more intelligent, more heavily armoured, and able to use some very odd and dangerous new ranged weapons." Yes, he did show them in action, and yes, arachnophobes will be crawling up the walls in disarrayed panic when they get a glimpse of this lot.

In addition to the 6 alien races fighting the war there are various animals and wildlife

Previews mentioned animals, for example Gamespot:

There are even small native creatures feasting on a carcass of an enemy you encounter later in the game--just part of Legend Entertainment's dedication to making you think that each environment has its own realistic ecosystem.

This screenshot shows flying reptiles in the sky.

What is a Seagoat?

The player's pet.

Legend's Matthias Worch registered http://www.seagoat.org, with an image of a cute little animal on it. (There are a few hidden goodies on that page; good luck searching for them. :)) The site made the question come up: "What the heck is a seagoat? Is it related to U2, and if yes, what role does it play in U2?"

The official FAQ says about it:

Q. What is a "sea goat"?

A. Unfortunately, no one can be...told what the seagoat is. You have to see it for yourself.

A preview article PC Gamer sheds some light on it, saying:

The Legend developers also hint at a "pet" character, code-named the "sea goat," that might inhabit the Atlantis - you may "adopt" this creature at some point early in the game, and keep it with you throughout the remainder of the campaign. No further information was forthcoming (no matter how subtle our questioning) - as with many of the details, they are still to be fleshed out over the remaining 12 months of Unreal II's development.

The pet theory is supported by this concept art showing the seagoat in a cage in the "players cabin" (see text in upper right corner).

Why did the popular Nalis not make a return in U2?

Because Legend didn't like them. >:(

Infogrames' Matt Powers said in this interview on PC Game Central, published 3 Sept 2001:

Q: Is there a reason that the Nali are not going to be introduced into the sequel?

A: The Nali were specific to Na Pali, and Unreal II takes place in a different part of the Unreal universe.

Is it just me or does that sound like a very lame excuse? >:(

4.3. Weapons & Items

Which U1/UT weapons will make a come-back in U2?

The shockrifle and the flak may be available in multiplayer.

There has been quite a bit of discussion and confusion about this, and the last word is not spoken yet.

In summary, the Flak and ASMD will be in U2, but probably modified from the UT version and maybe only in multiplayer. Read for yourself:

The big confusion started when Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Will there be an ASMD shock rifle?

A: Nope. But there are 15 weapons total, including lots of new cool stuff.

This caused an avalanche of angry complaints by long-time U1 and UT fans, demanding to have the most original weapon of the Unreal series in U2.

This made Infogrames/Epic/Legend re-think and just 2 days later it was announced on Unreality:

Matt Frary who's a PR Manager at Infogrames just mailed me this:

"Hi Preacher, Unreal fans asked for it -- now they got it. Based on popular demand, the ASMD Shock Rifle and Flak Cannon have been integrated into Unreal 2. This brings the total number of weapons in the game to 17."

This made Chris Hargrove post on this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

Okay, I know I'm going to catch hell for saying this, but I'm not going to let this one slide, otherwise misinformation will spin things out of control and make us look worse in the end.

Without trying to throw a slam at our PR people or anything, I'll merely say that Mr. Frary should have consulted us before making his statement.

The ASMD/Flak issues were in discussion between Legend, Epic, and Infogrames well before the topic was even brought up here on these forums. I'm not saying that we're ignoring the fanbase here or anything (we're certainly not), but by the same token, we've been considering these issues for some time now.

That said, the ASMD and Flak cannon *MAY* make it into U2, and the current trend in our discussions (which may have led Mr. Frary to jump to a conclusion here) is that they will... but this is not carved in stone.

The point of debate is the fact that even before the idea of reviving these two weapons came up, we've had new weapons of our own all along which perform similar functions. Not necessarily *identical* functions (some changes are aesthetic, others are gameplay related both in terms of originality and technical issues like network efficiency), but definitely similar.

So the issue is, do we bring back these two weapons as-is, despite the fact that we have similar new weapons already, and possibly upset weapon balance as a result? Or do we not bring these two weapons back, and then upset diehards who consider them series "trademarks" (which is a debate in and of itself)? Or do we just bring them back and then remove our new weapons, reducing originality and possibly hurting the balance with the other new weapons? It's a tough problem, and it comes down to the fact that while yes this is Unreal, it is also a *new game*, and in cases like this those two things may not see eye to eye.

So I'll augment Mr. Frary's statement by saying that as of now, these two weapons will *likely* end up going in, in one form or another (possibly only for multiplayer or something and not for single player, who knows)... but the fact is the verdict's still out.

This may not be what people want to hear, and I know that saying this may get me some backlash from the community and/or my employer, but I'm saying it anyway. If the hype machine gets out of control based on misinformation then it doesn't benefit the product, it damages it.

When a more concrete decision comes out of all this, you'll hear it directly from us.

He obviously didn't talk to his bosses before (;)), because 2 hrs later he posted again:

Okay, time for me to post a correction to my correction.

I talked with Mike Verdu and he said (unbenownst to me at the time of my post) that at some point recently we did finally agree with Epic to put these two weapons in, so apparently that decision was finally made.

However, what hasn't necessarily been completely decided yet is the form the weapons will take in terms of gameplay, i.e. whether they'll be in the singleplayer game or only multiplayer, and other potential gameplay tweaks to help out balancing issues, etc... that kind of stuff still hasn't been worked out entirely yet. But apparently having the weapons in some form is now part of our baseline, so Mr. Frary wasn't entirely incorrect.

So they may not be exact replicas of the UT weapons, and they may end up being multiplayer-only, that kinda thing... but the current consensus is that they'll be there in some form.

And once more just 4 minutes later:

Okay, talked to Mike again, and he just said that "they're in"... maybe more details have been decided that I don't know about, so I'll shut up now.

What weapons will be in U2?

The game description on www.unreal2.com says about it:

You'll find some favorites from the genre in addition to new and exotic weapons that you've never seen before. [...] All told there will be 15 guns, launchers, lasers, and assorted instruments of mayhem.

(Note: This has been written before it was announced that the Flak and ASMD would be added, which increased the number to 17.)

Legend's Mike Verdu explained in this interview on Action Vault, published on August 17, 2001:

Q: What kinds of decisions have gone into overall weapon design? Is it safe to assume that players can expect both conventional and new weapon types?

A: We gave weapon design a great deal of thought. We want to have cool, innovative new weapons that give the game a distinctive flavor in multiplayer - but we also wanted some familiar weapons that people will be immediately comfortable with when they fire up the game. The result is a large selection of guns, launchers, projectors, and beam weapons - some made by humans, some made by aliens, and all packing some pretty serious firepower. FPS gamers should feel right at home with the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, pistol, combat assault rifle, sniper rifle, and shotgun. They'll also have a chance to play with some new, exotic weapons like the hunter/seeker Takkra, flamethrower, and biological Leech gun.

Summing up the facts from the various reviews and interview listed in the links section, including the a.m. Flak and ASMD there will be 17 weapons total in U2. These are the 13 weapons that are known by now:

0. Tractor Beam

Not really a weapon, more a transport device:

From IGN PC: "The last and hardest thing to really put into words was one of the multiplayer levels that we got a glimpse at that was set in an asteroid belt. It was really, really cool. Really. The basic premise is that you are floating along amongst these pieces of space rock shooting at your opponents. But to move around, you have to pull yourself towards asteroids with a special tractor beam type of grappling hook."

The fact that there is a tractor beam transport device in U2 might indicate that UT's translocator will not make a return in U2.

1. Stun Baton

Obviously a melee weapon. No details known yet.

2. Pistol

The U2 peashooter ;) No details known yet.

3. Combat Assault Rifle

Primary fire is what you'd expect from an assault rifle: "minigun-like". It is not known if you can switch it to single shot or burst-wise fire.

The secondary fire mode sounds a bit unusual for an assault rifle, more flak-like:

From Gamespot: "The assault rifle had a unique alternate mode of fire: It fired three pieces of charged shrapnel that bounce off solid objects and shred "soft" targets like Skaarj and other humans."

From IGN PC: "The assault rifle spit out three bits of shrapnel that rebound off of hard surfaces, but embed in the less dense flesh of your enemies."

4. Shotgun

The good ol' shotgun that we've loved so much in so many FPS games. :)

Single- or double barrelled? Pump action? No details known yet.

5. Sniper Rifle

Let's make all the campers happy. ;) Can you say "Headshot"? :)

I don't know how how to interpret 2 reviews that describe the secondary zoom as "with a zoom that's built into your HUD" and "zooms within the character's HUD".

6. Flak Cannon

See the question above " Which U1/UT weapons will make a come-back in U2?".

Acc. Scott Dalton the flak may be modified from the U1/UT original and/or may only be available in multiplayer. No details known yet.

7. Rocket Launcher

Certainly no FPS game is complete w/o a rocket launcher.

Acc. Mike Verdu it is "great for clearing out rooms full of enemies" in singleplayer, but may be toned down for multiplayer.

Two reviews reported about the secondary firing mode:

From Gamespot: "The rocket launcher's alternate mode fires three rockets that rotate around each other."

From IGN PC: "The rocket launcher releases three smaller rockets from the standard payload which spiral toward your foe, similar to Quake II."

In the discussion about this, Legend's Scott Dalton elaborated in this thread on Infogrames' U2 forum:

"The rocketlauncher uses the same ammo for both fire modes. This "rocket" is essentially a cluster of 4 mini-missile warheads in a stabilizing booster harness.

In primary fire mode, the 4 mini-missiles funnel their fuel through the main booster harness and act as a single rocket with a single large explosion. In alternate fire mode, again this single "rocket" fires out, but the mini-missles detach from the harness and follow a weaving drunken path to their eventual detonation resulting in a cluster explosion sort of effect.

For those that fear spam usage of this weapon, fear not. The mini-missiles are being well balanced for damage and speed so that while they have a different tactical advantage to the primary fire rocket, their overall power is not out of balance for their application.

8. Grenade Launcher

This sounds like a very cool weapon, with multiple ammo types to add even more variation to the large U2 weapon arsenal:

"multi-mode grenade launcher that fires incendiary, fragmentation, poison gas, EMP, and stasis grenades. Grenades can be fused to explode on impact or can be set for timed detonation."

"Legend has given the old grenade launcher a twist as well, by offering up multiple shell types. From the standard frag grenades to EMP, gas, smoke, poison, and incendiary, to a cool time-warping stasis grenade, this one gun should provide ample methods of creating dysfunctional foes."

From Gamespot UK: "In creating the weaponry, Legend Entertainment has taken the best idea from Rewolf's so-so Gunman Chronicles and created a user-definable arsenal. The grenade launcher is a good example. This compact unit is able to fire incendiary, fragmentation, poison gas, smoke, EMP and stasis grenades, all of which can be programmed to detonate on either impact or proximity."

From PC Gamer: "Fires different ammo such as smoke, incendiary, poison, fragmentation, and gas grenades. It also fires EMP grenades (which disrupt electronics) and a "stasis" grenade that will pause time momentarily ("and create a Matrix-like effect," says Verdu)."

"five different grenade types for the grenade launcher, including: incendiary, fragmentation, poison gas, EMP, and stasis (a time-stopping effect)"

Acc. Mike Verdu it is "great for clearing out rooms full of enemies" in singleplayer, but may be toned down for multiplayer.

Stasis grenade ... hmmmm .... can you say "bullet time"? :)

9. Flame Thrower

After having seen the great screenshots we all can't wait to have a nice big BBQ and see how this baby plays.

"Unreal II will likely end up having the most impressive flame thrower ever, thanks to the game's improved particle and special effects engine, making sadistic roastings more enjoyable then ever."

"There are different kinds of energy weapons, but the most impressive weapon is the flamethrower. It does an enormous amount of damage, and the effect it produces is incredibly realistic, rivaling the same effect in Gray Matter Studios' upcoming first-person shooter, Return to Castle Wolfenstein."

Acc. Mike Verdu it is "great for clearing out rooms full of enemies" in singleplayer, but may be toned down for multiplayer.

An interesting bit of info about the secondary fire comes from GameSpot:

"Like the weapons in previous Unreal games, Unreal II's have secondary functions, and though we weren't able to see most of them, we were told that the flamethrower's secondary fire produces globs of material that you can ignite after firing."

Note to these screenshots: In the 2^nd image the flame effect looks considerably different than in the 1^st one. The 2^nd image is much older and has been removed from unreal2.com, so the 1^st image is probably the final look. The 3^rd and 4^th image show a player holding the flamethrower.

10. ASMD Shock Rifle

See the question above " Which U1/UT weapons will make a come-back in U2?".

Acc. Scott Dalton the ASMD may be modified from the U1/UT original and/or may only be available in multiplayer. No details known yet.

11. Leech Gun

This reminds me of the medic's attack in TeamFortress or the poisoned arrows in ChaosUT:

"biological weapon", that "fires leeches that slow the enemy down not only draining energy, but lifeforce as well."

"can eat away at armor and deplete armor strength"

"If all of this sounds a little too quick and painless for the galactic scum currently standing on your toe, then why not switch to the Leech gun, a sadistic machine that flings black bloodsuckers onto the flesh of an enemy, gradually draining their energy and depleting their life-force."

"They're currently working on the visuals for this, attempting to make the wiggling leeches squirm all over your prey as they literally suck the life out of them (eewwww)."

12. Takkra

I wonder how this weapon is going to play and how much skill it will take to use it:

"fires AI driven hunter-seeker drones" that "can track down and fire on an opponent" and "they even fly in formation".

"The Takkra can fire drones that will home in on the enemy, or even better, they can form a defensive shield around you."

"The Takkra is another imaginative design that unleashes swarms of small hunter drones either to track down an opponent or close ranks in a defensive formation around the player."

A comment regarding PC Gamer's report that the Takkra is "an apparent homage (or just 'inspired by') the Hive Hand gun in Half-Life": The gun was probably not so much inspired by HalfLife, but more by Legend's very own Wheel of Time, which had several of such "hunter/seeker weapons".

11. Mind Claw

"a fearsome psi-weapon"

"a crystal-based psionic weapon that channels health from your enemies to you"

The name "claw" might indicate that it is a melee or at least short range weapon, which on the other hand doesn't really make sense if it's a PSI weapon.

Probably a gun that you steal from the "N" race, who use psi-based weapons.

12. Laser / Beamer Weapon(?)

This has not explicitly been listed, but note that the official game description talks about "guns, launchers, lasers, and assorted instruments of mayhem".

And Mike Verdu talked about "a large selection of guns, launchers, projectors, and beam weapons"

13-17. Not even the names are known to date.

18+ Defensive weapons: Mines, Turrets & Force Fields

This FGN Online review talks about "mines", "automated gun and rocket turrets" and "force field generators". These weapons are probably exclusive to multiplayer.

UT was infamous for it's spammy weapons. Will U2 be the same?

The spam problem will be adressed.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on Unreality, published on August 23, 2001:

Q: Will the weapons be as spammerfriendly as in UT, or more hard to use as in Unreal1?

A: [...]Most of the weapons in Unreal II require skill to use well - but there are a few which are great for clearing out rooms full of enemies. The rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and flamethrower come to mind. Keep in mind that many of our "room clearing" weapons are designed to be a blast in the single player game but may be seriously restricted in multiplayer to avoid the "spam" problem.

Will U2 have a translocator, jetpack or grappling hook?

Most likely only a tractor beam device.

No official statement here. However, the fact that there is a tractor beam / grapple hook in U2 (see item 0. in weapon list above) might indicate that there is no TL. Statements by Legend's Grant Roberts on the U2 forum that he personally dislikes the TL do not necessarily mean that there is no TL in U2. But I doubt that he would state it in public if U2 had one. ;)

It is unclear if that tractor beam will only work in the low-grav environment of that special level or if it's available in all maps, at least multiplayer.

Will U2 have vehicles?

No.

Legend's Mike Verdu stated in this Q&A on UnrealCenter, published on August 30, 2001:

Q: Will Vehicle Code be built into the Engine or is Legend gonna leave that up to the Mod Community?

A: Mike’s Answer: I think you have to build vehicle-based game play in from the start rather than have it be an ancillary feature - and U2 was not designed for vehicles. We have large scale battles on terrain, but the combat is focused around a structure or a key terrain feature. The terrain is easily navigable on foot and does not require vehicles. Vehicles can be incredibly cool, but they really do change game play and they should be a consideration from the start.

Infogrames' Matt Powers confirmed in this interview on PC Game Central, published 3 Sept 2001:

Q: Will there be any use of vehicles in Unreal 2?

A: No, there will not be any vehicles in Unreal 2.

What can I say except "Hmmmm :-/"