The UT project update for this week indicated a Q&A session with the community but for those of us who are watching the recorded broadcast, the Q&A session didn’t seem to make the cut. There is also a 1:44 remnant on the Twitch past broadcast list that doesn’t seem to function.

That said, what was presented contained several interesting tidbits regarding the next release. Chief among these were movement changes with changes to slide and wall slide as standouts. Steve mentioned a bug fix that “could” get people that have been affected the most by the aiming/netcode issues, back in the game. It looks like game has been one frame off with regards to calculating where a hit takes place. Will be interesting to see how this affects mouse movement feel.

Also of huge interest to HUB operators :), was the one second blurt out by Steve that there will be some sort of HUB-based mapvote in the next build. Good to see that Epic is listening to us!

Watch the Twitch stream HERE.

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Gooba posted an amazing Necris Skaarj concept for UT (@utgame) a while back in the Skaarj thread on the forums. Not many people are checking out that forum thread these days because it got a bit stale. It is so incredible, in typical Gooba style, that I thought it was worth posting to make sure more people see it.

I’m almost at the point where Gooba can pretty much concept everything out for UT and the game can be built from there. So rare to see a “miss” from Gooba.

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Pete Hayes (aka YemYam) was back for this week’s UT project (@utgame) update and as usual, had some great stuff to show. Key among those items were updated Link Gun renders and animations. It is looking insanely awesome even at this early stage.

Community Q&A also returned this week and is a great feature that will hopefully stay.  It’s fantastic to hear candid responses from Steve and the team. The big shocker this week was Steve’s comment on the potential to revisit Sneh’s wall-running concept. Climbs back on chair…

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The DM-Morbias for UT (@utgame) made by Jim Brown was supposed to make the 5/28 build but slipped through the cracks for some reason. For the impatient types like me, you can play it online on the Unreal Carnage HUB under the “DM All Maps” gametype.

One reason it might not have gotten into the game is because it was misspelled as “DM-Morbais”. Doh!

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Pete Hayes, aka Yem Yam, has released some new screenshots of his link gun WIP. It’s looking great! For more screenshots, be sure to follow the development thread HERE.

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This week’s UT Pre-alpha Project Update starts off in a map review. It’s not just any map review though, it’s Gooba’s new level DM-Sand (which is available to play on the Unreal Carnage HUB).

There will be a new build on 5/28 that will include Frag Center, improved spectating camera system, improved first person spectating, DM-Morbias(!!), DM-Solo, and  CTF-Mine. They have also added in-match stats in the scoreboard and end match stats. Custom match creation for offline play and Hubs will be back!

The stream also featured the much anticipated return of a Q&A session with Epic taking questions from the forums. Here’s a few of the highlights:

Mouse movement:  Steve thinks networking might be the problem but acknowledges issues.

Player Movement:  No immediate movement changes.  Adding effects for movement to make them easier to read.

Netcode changes :  Steve mentions several netcode changes that will be worked on in the near future.

Matchmaking:   Coming soon and expanding on what is in the Hub functionality already.

Rypelcam tools:  There will be new demorec tools with DVD-like controls and a replay system.

Vehicle gametypes:  Steve says they are still a while away from vehicle gametypes.

Server downloading of  custom maps: They will be working on improving server stuff relating to downloading custom maps.

Voice taunts:  On Jim’s todo list.

Bind text to a key:  They weren’t sure if it was already functional.

Anti-cheat: Speed hack prevention in the next build and much more to come when the game is much farther along.

Should be a new female character soon.

Steve says alpha (dropping the “pre”) is coming at the end of summer.

On this week’s UT Project Update (@utgame), the Epic team showed off the new Frag Center interface that will hopefully appear in the next build. The concept is to have a mix of community highlights, screenshots, videos, and Unreal world themed sequences.

Like the Launcher and Hub interface, it will probably take several iterations to find the optimal layout and functionality but this announcement has put quite a bit of excitement into the next release of the pre-alpha.

Hopefully Epic will be able to produce a number of Unreal/UT themed matinee sequences and not just rely on the community to make those. The Unreal/UT lore is one of the key things that provides extra depth to the series.

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I’ve been remiss in not posting the last update to Codexe’ amazing Necris Facemask for the new UT.

If we can get more of this kind of quality and integration with the character from community designs, it will lighten the load significantly on the small Epic team with regards to character variations. This is top quality stuff! Hopefully this will be on the marketplace soon.

Follow the development thread HERE.

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