UT3 SP/CoOp Campaign + UEd 4.0 = custom story-driven adventures and smart creatures?

[HeLDem0n]

Ok I dont understand this coop thing. Is it going to be like a team dm thing where your buddy is just a teammate? Or is it going to be like return to napali sp style game play w/ levels you find keys ect in?

[Kronos]

Kinda both I think, while there wont be "keys" there will be objectives.

[SuperApe]

...If worse comes to the worse I'm quite willing to create the whole system myself, from scratch.

(Me too. That's why I ask.)

Ok I dont understand this coop thing. Is it going to be like a team dm thing where your buddy is just a teammate? Or is it going to be like return to napali sp style game play w/ levels you find keys ect in?

It's probably inappropriate to speculate at this point. However, we can draw some conclusions from what we've seen in trailers, press releases and interviews. Three key things stand out, and are what prompted me to ask these questions in the first place: 1) Gears of War appears to be proof that Epic still enjoys telling a story and can see the market that wants to "play the story", 2) There are Krall in the main trailer. These may yet be just another player model, but I am willing to bet they are strictly NPCs, and 3) This SP/CoOp component of UT3 is marketed as a story and it's called a Campaign. Traditionally, that's game design speak for story. As Kronos says, we've been told there are Objectives, and I'm willing to bet that it's more complex that what you see in Assault (flip that switch, kill those guys, get to the end of the rail).

Wow, do we need "official" answers or what?

[Adam]

I'd love to get some official answers too, I'll be trying my hand at a single player mod as well.

[SuperApe]

Maybe *this* week is the week we get official answers to the two questions on the top post. As always, any suggestions on how to get an official Epic response are welcome.

[EyeOfTheJackal]

C'mon Epic, tell us whats happening!

I'm not a modder or coder myself, but I sure like to play the results of modding and coding, and if we can get proper SP mods for UT it'll be real cool.

[MonsOlympus]

You could try an email if you havent already, since UT3 will be a multiplayer type game with arena AI I dunno if it will include monster AI like invasion did. You might be lucky and Epic may put some of the Gears AI in there or perhaps its built into the engine itself. Then again UT3 isnt Gears so I dunno how far the code will go in regards to Gears.

[Adam]

...since UT3 will be a multiplayer type game with arena AI I dunno if it will include monster AI like invasion did.

Well, they've said that there is going to be a bigger single player component this time, with cut-scenes and the whole nine yards. But they have been pretty vague about what the single player will be like and what it will include, possibly because they are still working on it and they don't know exactly what the final product will be yet.

[Kronos]

You might be lucky and Epic may put some of the Gears AI in there or perhaps its built into the engine itself. Then again UT3 isnt Gears so I dunno how far the code will go in regards to Gears.

Roboblitz editor had some gears content in it, no graphical content, just mainly weapon names and character names, along with an option to set an inventory for each of them.

[MonsOlympus]

Well, they've said that there is going to be a bigger single player component this time, with cut-scenes and the whole nine yards. But they have been pretty vague about what the single player will be like and what it will include, possibly because they are still working on it and they don't know exactly what the final product will be yet.

Yeah I know UC2 included some SP stuff but the AI seemed to be similar in style still to arena type. So yeah there might be SP and cut-scenes but the game is still a Arena type game even if it does have warfare, I dunno if it will include pre setup enemy spawns etc for a more linear SP thing.

Watching these middleware clips at beyondunreal though, if that stuff is included in UT3 I honestly dont think this will be much of an issue especially with kismet as you can set it up yourself with a fair amount of ease.

[StalwartUK]

Check out this thread. The Kynapse AI sure looks like a useful feature for SP mappers to investigate. There's also 3 movies there demonstating it.

[SuperApe]

Thanks, StalwartUK.

Yes, videos 1 & 3 together seem to imply an official answer to my second question regarding the AI tools available to mappers. The Patrol example shown can lead us to believe that other basic behaviors (guarding, ambushing, waiting, etc) are going to be available through Kismet and the related tools. While other more complex AI structures (AttitudeToPlayer, Intelligence, etc) aren't readily apparent, I'm going to guess that that could be considered a minor feature to "make up" if not already present in the release of UT3.

(As a side note, the automatic path generation tool reminds me of a thing Steven Polge implemented in his ReaperBot code: just turn on a switch, run around the map for a while, and turn off the switch to save your bot's pathing of the map. Good one, Steve.)

I was already pretty confident that a stock SP gametype would be available to mappers with UT3 (first question). So, until we get an "official" response, I'm willing to say we can assume that both answers to the questions I pose on the top post will be answered, "Yes".

Cool! Now, we can concentrate on creating fun story-driven adventures!

[EntropicLqd]

The other thing to do would be to pull down the UE Runtime Engine and take a look at the stock classes. I've not got no idea what version is currently available - but it might give you some clues.

[rsgs92]

Sure like to see cool and out of the box AI TACTICS and not just runing behind you types. UT2 flag carriers hate the bots who stick to them! Hope they don't do that again. Maybe just for people playing at novice and not more than that.

[Mort_Q]

UT2 flag carriers hate the bots who stick to them! Hope they don't do that again.

I'm not sure I know what you mean... why do they hate bots that stick to them? Because it's effective, or because it's not?

Sorry, I don't play much CTF.