The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

dAs far as Pelit is concerned, there's a lot of room at the top in Finland's gaming magazine business, and it's occupying all of it. You with more than one would probably call it a "Core" mag; it emphasizes the importance of playability and originality and loves genres such as adventure and strategy.
Back over a decade ago it gave Star Control 2 96 points out of 100 and shortly afterwards awarded it the Game of the Year title.

In the February 2004 issue, Pelit uses the whole four pages of its Retro column to take a look at the Star Control series and to review v 0.3 of The Ur-Quan Masters.It aso gets a mention on the cover, under the heading "Fabulous games (that you've never heard of)".The reviewer, who is an old fan, practically drools over this, commending the quality of the remake and awarding it five retro stars out of five. A superbrief English Summary on the inside back cover says: "The Ur-Quan Masters: The project is a phenomenal one. A fan project from heaven. And at no cost. Add the intros, outros and a network super-melee and you've made my millenia."

So, whee. I'd do some scanning or translating, but I possess neither a scanner nor the time.

That's a great review by the public! - I course I can understand since it is such a great game. Why only Finland though?

The magazine is a Finnish magazine. So it's all in Finnish. I just asked friend to scan those four pages for me, as I don't get the mag and I don't want to spend money on it right now  ;)

How many people outside Finland want to read a magazine which is almost entirely in a language completely unrelated to their own (unless they're from Hungary, in which case there is a distant relationship)?

But if he wants net play, well, that's just too bad. :'(

edit: wow, the timing.

No - I meant why did only Finland write a half decent reveiw about it? Or are their others that I am not aware of?

Why is there not a mag. reveiw of the game based in England or America for example? Or maybe I am just completly ignorant of the many that I am missing.

Why do people make game reviews in the first place? The contents of retro columns are harder to predict than the weather, especially as time goes on and there are more retro games to cover.

edit: are you logged on all the time, or is it just coincidence that there were three responses in three minutes?

So basicly what your saying is that they won't give the time of day to UQM because they think there are many better games out there?

EDIT: To D_999 - I have the forum in the background some times and when there is a response it beeps.

No, I'm saying that in 30+ years of computer games, there are many great games.

I guess - But that means that UQM will always be on  the back shelf.  :'(

This is more like instant messaging D_999!

Hmm, the reason there's no USA magazine column:  no financial incentive.  UQM's not paying a magazine big bucks to promote itself.

I think it is great, even when it happened only in Finland. This game deserves credit. And when I talk to the game, I am not just talking about the "old" stuff. I am talking about the remixes(for now) and other extra stuff.

edit: Which brings me to my question: Remix pack no' 3 - when?

As a remix team would say: "when it is ready!"

I can't think of any American magazines that actually have retro columns, though Star Control 2 did place #2 in Computer Gaming World's retrospective some years back for "best ending."

And, well, the ending isn't all there yet, so I wouldn't be bragging to them just yet :)  Besides, we're still an alpha; I'm amazed that half a column was given to an open-source game alpha, myself.

And it's not like we're being ignored... we've been linked twice by Penny Arcade.  A number of people from gaming websites have asked some questions, but don't seem to have written any articles.  The Western Hemisphere will know, when the time comes.  Fear not.

What must we do on this glorious day, fearless leaders?

Wait till the final version of UQM comes out and then tell the world!!! (exept Finland cause they alrready know about it)

Acually I had NEVER heard of SC3 before going to these forums. I had  heard of UQM - but never SC3. So I don't think it is because of SC3 - I mean that got even less then UQM. So - I think they just don't like the idea of taking a old game and "putting new breath into it". I also think it is because UQM has never paid for advertising. (Nor, in my opionion should it.)

To tell you the truth, I found this game when I found out I can't transfer sc2 from my brother's old computer to mine and then I went to search "illegel" version of it  :-/ ::)(for free ofcourse!.

Hi,

Here is word to word translation of the article published in Finnish "Pelit" magazine. It may not be perfect english but better than Orz english, I guess  ;). The original article is written by Tapio Berschewsky.

Enjoy.

The Ur-Quan Masters

Heinlein was wrong: There are free lunches. One of the spiciest is The Ur-Quan Masters project, a fan made windows version of one of the best computer games in the world, Star Control 2.

Star Control game sequel, especially part 2, is often remembered by older generation players with tears in their eyes. The game was launched in 1992, got 96 points in Pelit magazine review (vol.1/93) and was the first Game of The Year awarded by Pelit.

Star Control 2 combined epic space exploration adventure with clever and fascinating combat scenarios and its attractiveness has not diminished in 11 years even quark's diameter downwards. Luckily it is possible to confirm this, thanks to the developer of the game, Toys For Bob. TFB released Star Control 2 3DO-version source code for free and project Ur-Quan Masters was born.

Can you come together with Orz for *parties*

Star Control's melee, a top-down perspective space combat is legendary. Space combat takes place between two ships at time in zooming area which is full of asteroids and a planet in the middle with gravitational pull. This simple arcade-shootout is devilishly catchy because there are great number of different kind of ships to choose. Each species has own ship type which have individual speed, maneuverability, armament and special advantages.

For example ariloulaleelay skiff-class ship moves completely without inertia, is pretty fast, turns on a penny and shoots self-aiming but short range laser beam and is able to teleport. The slow and clumsy Ur-Quan Kzer-Za dreadnoughts shoot flaming long-range plasmadeath and can launch bunch of small fighters to destroy enemy. There are 26 different kinds of ships in the game, including the player's own mothership.

Ur-Quan Masters is divided in two parts: super-melee and actual game with a plot. In super-melee the name of the game is especially the duel between ships. At first, two fleets are created from the ships which are ranked by lethality against the enemy, even though small ships are remarkably under-estimated. Starfleets are then sent against computer or a friend (using same keyboard).

FREEDOM OR DEATH!

The story begins 20 years before the start of Ur-Quan Masters. The war between the Ur-Quan hierarchy and the Alliance of Free Stars has been devastating and furious for a long time. Finally Ur-Quans win the war against alliance of human race and Chenjesu race. A group of scientists are surrounded behind enemy lines. A rescue ship was never heard so scientists continue colonization and digging. On planet surface old ruins of ancient precursors and a factory suitable for creating spaceships are revealed. There are resources to manufacture one mothership. It is built soon and sent to earth to find out war situation.

First task is to fly to earth and make an alliance with the commander of space station that is controlling the human slave planet. So, the base station is now found and off you go to conquer galaxy and eliminate nasty and unhuman Ur-Quans. The precursor ship is a mothership that transport fighters within it. The game still lacks the intro demo and the final demo so the game starts, quite oddly, from edge of the solar system. It is odd that game still lacks the original intro still-pictures and music.

Exploring the infinity

The universe of the game consists of hunderds of star systems. Each of them can be visited and every planet and moon can be explored. The purpose of visiting balls is to collect resources in order to purchase ships, components, gas and crew. Every now and then the findings are transported safe to Earth in which ship is supplied with new equipment and new combat-ready spaceships.

Biological data is offered to Melnorme who sell extremely important new technology and information about galaxy events. Uncertain energy readings are found in some planets which often means that storyline is about to move forward.

Findings are collected using a lander craft that glides on planet surface. At first, some rocks are too dangerous to land. Without good shields and extra-speed, landers are far too weak to resist such hostile climate or dangers of unstable ground like fire-stroms, lightning or earth quakes.

Inter star system traveling is done in red colored hyper space. Every now and then some other race is encountered in middle of stardust. Some of them are hostile as <censored>, some are neutral and some are friendly. There is a lot of dialogue and it is full of absurd inner circle jokes and dark humour.

Other spaceships encountered usually first send player to their home world to take care of diplomatic relations with planet leaders. It is always good to try to convert other races against Ur-quans. Some races join gladly, the other races require special mission to be done while some races are always hostile. After the alliance is made it is possible to develope spaceships based on technology of new friends in home space station.

An old dog learns new tricks

The graphic is converted from original 3DO version directly but colourful, beautiful and large-sace artwork made in 1992 still looks playable. The original PC tracker music is included and also mixed pieces made for 3DO version from which it is possible to choose. In the same way it is  possible to choose either 3DO-version or PC-version user interface and menu bars. Many of the original composers (Finnish Riku Nuottajarvi among other) were recruited for UQM-project to re-mix old pieces, first remix-packet was just released.

It is no wonder that the Ur-Quan Masters is able to stand the test of time. The game desing is brilliant, dialogue is timeless and hilariously funny. Different kinds of soulful races and their strange spaceships are hard to forget even when the game is finished. I have played the Star Control 2 through about ten times and once again the scenes and creatures appeared in my dreams even weeks after finishing the game.

Only thing to be bothered is that it is not possible to play melee in net. Lack of intro demo and final demo is no big problem especially because just third alpha version of free game is available. No other words to be said, as Orz would put it "Is it time for *playing* yet".

Good:
- Cultural event of the year
- Everything

Bad:
- It is not possible to play melee in net

Summary: High quality space-opera with brilliant combat system. UQM must be played in order to believe the finesse of it.

If only the other review mags. can take a hint!  :-/

Then for the 1000 time, why not porting ONLY the melee part and make it avaliable to play on the net? I know I asked it before but I remember I got answers such as:" We will have to re-write the code".

EDIT: I just recalled another answer: "Go play TW."  Well, I don't want to go and play TW! I want it in uqm!

Well as the programmers would say, "Let us know when the beta version is ready DJ!"  - Though in my personal thought is that it would be the coolest feature.

2 Years. Iike I said, I am only a beginning programmer.

edit: I can try, but I need to know 3 things:
1. How to make the game "connected" to the internet.
2. What is the problem with the code that will make "high" pings if played in net.
3. How to fix 2.

Not to mention how to get your CPU to accept code!  ;)

Excellent. Let us know when you have a test version ready for us. Oh, and if you need help with getting it to connect to the internet and all, amybe you could ask the people over at TW? They seem to have managed that already ;)

Bah! There is a limit of what I am willing to do for this... Going to TW and ask for help is the limit...

Whats with the bitterness against TW. So they waste size, and time with crappy ships, that they churn out at an unimaginable rate.. but if you ignore that the melee is good.

You can overcome a little "dislike" for TW to get help from them. They are'nt THAT bad. There melee engines are good - just not the ships.  

Why can't someone take the net-melee part and put it only with sc2 ships for uqm, hmm?  ::)

If you're talking about just taking code from one project and sticking it in another:

Why doesn't somone graft gills onto their neck so they can breath underwater?  We understand how they work in fish, and we understand the human body.  

The big problem is that they don't work together at all.

If you're talking about making an SC2-ship-only version of TW, anyone can do that.  Download the source, remove the non-SC2 ships from the makefile/project-files & directories, recompile.  Voila!  You might even be able to hard-code 16-angle turning.

IIRC, it isn't only the new ships, it's the physics, right? Remember, TW has somewhat adjustable physics. And if your beef with TW is the new ships, why don't you simply start a game with the restriction, "SC1&2 only"?

Fine. Then do it yourself  :P

Fine! I will get to work if you say it is that easy... And ofcourse I will charge out 2$ for playing it  ;)

Okay; the old license file states:
Anyone is free to use Star Control: TimeWarp for any purpose.
However, be carefull with the SC 1, 2, & 3 stuff, as these have
extra legal complications due to the extra parties involved.

That license file doesn't exist in CVS though.  Don't know what happened to it.  Note that SC2 content isn't released for public use outside of UQM.

I suppose it should have been GPLed to prevent people from making money with it.  Oh well.

More specifically: "We have enough code that needs to be rewritten without whacking about the one chunk of code that actually does function as well as it ever did."

If anyone wants to try a port, the code starts in battle.c, and the various indirect function calls (ship_preprocess, etc) end up mapping to the various files in the ships/ subdirectory.

Anyone who's serious about this should consult with me, though, as I'm doing the "dethreading" of the code, and Battle () and the code that calls it are all going to be warped beyond recognition.  The internals of the stuff Battle () calls, though, is all elsewhere (haven't tracked it, don't know where those parts go) and that's where the work would be.

I will do that. But first let me "master" the CVS.

There's a full review about UQM that was made for the most respectable israeli gaming site. Also including an interview with the core team.
(gamer)

Really? I missed it!

gamer.co.il

I know the adress... But I can't find the article.

http://gamer.co.il/gamer2/php/doc.php?id=15465

The one who made the interview told me he corrected Mika's gender, I guess he forgot.

Well GWL is now a she there :)

Hehe, that's hebrew right? Right-to-left written stuff seems really bizarre in my eyes.

Such errors are quite common, might make some great misunderstandings, but whatcha gonna do?