You know you’re old when games you still play quite regularly turn up in retro reviews! The community master server is still pretty well populated, as are UT '99 servers. These games are still the pinnacle of their genre. No micro transactions, no DRM, no pay to win. Just you, your shock rifle, and as much amphetamine as your nerve endings will take. As the reviewer says, the level design and game mechanics are legendary at this point, and players of any ability can quickly get into a flow state that modern games can only dream of. These are fine wines in a world of cheap lager. New gamers should drink deep from the pc games of the 2000’s.
How noob-friendly are those servers? Haven’t played since it’s era, but I’d be interested in booting it up again. I’d imagine I’d just get constantly wrecked by dudes who have been playing consistently for 20 years.
I played UT99 a few months and yeah I had no chance against the regulars. The only match I got a good position turns out I was playing mostly against bots and hadn’t realized it
You’ll have to set up your game to loom for a new Maser Server. Epic decided to shut the olds one down.
They’re not hostile to new players, but there are a lot of veterans. UT2k4 is probably going to be easier than ut99 where the pace is a lot faster.
Oh god… I never bothered to consider Unreal Tournament 2004 was 20 years old. I still consider it the “newer” unreal tournament compared to the OG and 2003…
UT2004 is peak UT, UT3 was just a brown mess, and the latest UT never got out of Alpha before Epic shelved it infavour of Fortnite
It was probably shelved because the company they contracted UT2k3 and UT2k4 out to is now Digital Extremes.
Too bad DE is so hard on dark patterns & FOMO, trying to keep you in the game / returning daily. Warframe was great for a while but it became more and more of a chore which soaked all the fun I had out of it. Unfortunately they’ll likely do the same for Soulframe.
Eh its in a really good place right now. They’ve added a bunch of ways to get archon shards and even some new attempts at an endgame
I recently had the opportunity to go to a lan party, but the only arena shooter they had listed was UT3. Why even bother having any if that’s what you pick?
Why only play listed games?
What is stopping you from setting up your own server and playing UT2004?
oh, you mean at the lan party. There were more reasons not to go, but if the game isn’t listed, I doubt I would be able to get anyone else to play it. Even back in the day, I could never get anyone to play Quake 3. The crew I use to game with moved on to RPing in Battlefield and CoD games.
I mean, the master server that lists everyone else’s games is down. Epic maintained a server that was just a list of other servers. A casual player opening up UT or UT2k4 will see nothing. You can play against bots, at LAN Parties, or direct connect to server you already know about, but you wont find new servers through the game without changing where the game looks for the master server. More technician info on the process is here.
At the time I bought UT2003 a few months before 2004 came out and I was kinda peeved I just spent money for a new release to come out so soon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Tournament_2003
I never played UT3 though. Not seriously, anyway. I think I tried the demo and never got it.
UT99 is still one of my favorite games of all time. I would love to see a remaster
Oh shit this isn’t 2003 but a third game? I was wondering why I didn’t remember any vehicles.
I just played ‘99 as that’s all my PC could run.
Yeah, 2k4 was it’s own thing. Also the collectors edition had a set of video tutorials on how to create and modify models in the free version of Maya. As well as how to add them to the game in the unreal editor.
2003 and 2004 were separate games, but 2004 was basically an improved version of 2003.
hundreds and hundreds of hours squashing people with the Manta
I remember playing on a RPG invasion server and it was one of the best gaming experiences up to that point. It was PVE where you’d get XP for every monster you killed and wave you’d survive and you could use it to upgrade your weapons and stats. Sadly just a few days after discovering it, the server went offline and I haven’t found another one like it.
Those were so much fun!
Hoping to get a flak cannon of infinity and stacking up attack speed and vampire was my go to strategy.
10/10 would lag pc to win again
You should still be able to get the mutator, I believe it is called UT2004RPG, then you can host a server on your next LAN party
I still remember the outrage when they announced 2004 wasn’t a free upgrade for 2003 purchasers. Stores did their best to mitigate that, but all my friends were peeved and kept to UT99 because of it.
Yeah me too. It was definitely a pretty shitty move though, especially after butchering the 2003 release.
In my memory the graphics looked a lot better though. lol
This game was really awesome! I spent so many hours playing online with whoever. It had several awesome arenas.
Now you make me want to play it again!
I’m willing to bet you could probably still find servers with a handful of players on the weekend so long as you’re running the last version of the game (the patch is probably not on the official site anymore though). Or with All Seeing Eye.
I still play online from time to time, the key is to join an empty server with a friend, others will see and join fairly shortly after
This was amazing. I remember having LAN parties first with UT99 then with Counter-strike and UT2K4.
Those LANs were peak gaming for me.
Wait a minute…
Is the Dog Days map just one of DE’s old UT maps converted to their new engine?
This made me reinstalled ut2k4. Used to play the demo with orbital2 instagibCTF slomo low gravity. Good times.
