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Win My Copy Of Unreal Tournament 3 Collector Edition

Fsckin.com is giving away a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 Collector’s Edition. Just make a comment on this post with a valid email address and I’ll randomly select the winner. I’ll have it to your door by Christmas. Want to know why I’m giving it away? Keep reading…. It’s been about 2 months since anything […]

Fsckin.com is giving away a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 Collector’s Edition. Just make a comment on this post with a valid email address and I’ll randomly select the winner. I’ll have it to your door by Christmas.

Want to know why I’m giving it away? Keep reading….

It’s been about 2 months since anything new on the Linux front has been released for Unreal Tournament 3. In fact, the only files release to Linux enthusiasts has been a buggy Linux demo server beta – which is completely useless now, since the retail game has shipped.

Ever since I heard there would be a Linux Client shipping on the retail Windows disc I was extremely excited.

“Woohoo! A real, live Linux-supported game, with the client on the disc! I’ll be in heaven!”

Then I read that the game wouldn’t have a Linux client on the disc, but it would be available when the game hit retail, which is still just fine and dandy… I can deal with that – it’s pretty much par for the course.

Unwittingly, I ran out to my local game retailer the day the game hit retail, and purchased a Collector’s Edition of UT3 for about $60 bones. Like other people, I figured it would be in my best interest to buy the more expensive collector’s edition and voluntarily provide additional financial support the continued development of Linux friendly video games.

I actually installed Windows Vista POS Edition for a week, just to play the game.

My initial impressions from playing this game that it was designed for consoles and then (badly?) ported to the PC. Hell, even the videos on the collector’s edition bonus disc, ALL of the videos of the offices of Epic Games show the play testers using Xbox 360s… there isn’t a single person shown playing the game on a PC. Additionally, some other things indicated this was the case, like the initial game menu system responds INSTANTLY to keyboard input, but there is a significant delay when using a mouse pointer to navigate the menus.

I’m not much of a gamepad person, but just for the sake of trying to test out the controls to see what would happen… I hooked up a gamepad and started playing the game without a keyboard and mouse. I ended up scoring better with the gamepad – no kidding. The gamepad just had a better feel to it, and didn’t feel like the inputs were lagging behind the action. On top of that major transgression, with no Linux server available to date, I am of the opinion that the game is doomed to fail miserably.

This is not bad news for Epic, by the way.

I’ve known for awhile that Epic is not first and foremost a video game company, and if you think I’m out of my mind, listen to me for just a moment. I can hear the cries from the enthusiasts already screaming blasphemy, but hear me out. Epic makes video game engines and sell them. The video games that result from coding the engine is just a byproduct that’s been polished up a tiny little bit.

Don’t believe me? I dare you to watch the E3 videos of UT3. They aren’t trying to sell their video game – they’re pitching all the features of the engine. The profit margins of selling an engine are far, far higher and much more lucrative than selling video games.

I’ve got more than a few friends in the video game business, and several have worked with Unreal Engine 3 projects. They have made the claim that even the engine source code contains inefficient and absolutely rediculously bad programming that seems like someone with a bad grasp of simple logic coded the entire thing.

Ever seen something like this?

bool isRunning()
{
if isNotRunning = true
isRunning = false
else
return true;
}

At least it's in Hungarian notation. This is the kind of barely intelligible code that's in the UT3 engine, according to my sources... they hate Unreal Engine 3.

This got me to thinking, what is the best way that I can show my extreme disappointment with Epic?

I’ll just give away my copy. I’m not going to be playing it anytime soon, as far as I can tell.boxy2.png

And even IF Epic pulls their head out of their collective asses 5 minutes from now and actually releases a Linux client – I’m not planning on installing it. It’s a console game. I’m not much of a console kind of guy.

Just make a comment on this post with a valid email address, and I will choose at random one lucky person to win my own personal copy of Unreal Tournament 3 Collector’s Edition and have it to your door by Christmas… which is faster than the Linux client will likely be released.

I am serious as a heart attack.

Contest is OVER! It ended at December 16th at midnight, mountain standard time.

The winner was Tyler, picked at random.org out of 107 entries after removing duplicate comments. Congratulations Tyler, you’re number 86!

random.png

You’ve got an email waiting for you Tyler, reply to it asap so I can get it out in the mail tomorrow.

146 replies on “Win My Copy Of Unreal Tournament 3 Collector Edition”

I see your upset about the linux stuff as well. My clan is waiting for the linux servers to be released. Until then were just hangin out and playing other games until then.

This copy of UT3 would be great to have as a present for someone in our clan if your willing to choose me, however if your not that is not a problem. Hope you come back to UT3 once the linux stuff is released 🙂

Someone will want to take it off my hands, no matter how much I trash UT3 and Epic in general.

I *could* have gone and doused it with gasoline and lit it on fire… then posted it on YouTube… I’d rather have some fanboy enjoying it instead of wasting $60 just to prove a point.

Hey Wayne, the Linux dev making the Linux port (icculus) talked about this in a recent interview. He said it is nothing political RE: the delay with the Linux version. It was only a time-line problem with their distribution and manufacturing. That they had to get out a GM disc.

Heh, I could do with a copy, all the stores here are sold out, and games in NZ are hideously priced ($120 for a copy of UT3). Nice to see someone who’ll do something constructive with their stuff instead of putting it to waste.

I would sell it and donate the money to some Free software developer. We have a couple of members in our clan that can’t afford it, I would be glad to give it to them.

There is no excuse for not releasing Linux server and game. They can hire more developers if the they want, so don’t give me those “time-line” problem and other BS.
If you ask me it is political. Micro-F-soft doesn’t like partners who are not committed to M$ technology. Given the success of GoW (M$) and upcoming XBox release, I do not think there will be Linux versions of UT3 anytime soon.

Good enough reason for me to play other FPS games.

I bought a copy of UT3.. Not collector’s edition. A simple one. It’s only 10$ in Russia. ( NOT a pirate version! it’s original! with a valid serial number! )
I’m waiting for a Linux version cos i use linux for work and study and rebooting my PC pisses me off.
Pick me!

hey man, sad sad thing to hear been reading for awhile, i don’t even play games on my PC anymore but my roommate does, so i figured I’d send you a shout and see if i can get my roommate a Christmas present.

Goodness knows a poor college guy like me could use it.

Too bad it won’t run on Linux, though. Games are pretty much the only reason I keep Windows around.

not to reiterate, but after reading your post i had to jump back to my del.icio.deus bookmarks to find the following linkage detailing the linux client:

http://icculus.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm/ezmlm-cgi?64:mss:58:ebhpjkcopohfepbmnlkb

http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=4084

middleware issue sounds like its possibly all Microsoft’s API and their unwillingness to release some of the hooks that UT3 uses, but still, hire some decent developers and port it. for the mean time, we’ll just have to stick with our open source games and support companies who support linux like id…….

gamepad, meh? i’m still wiling to give it a shot in wine……..may i eat my own words then burn it on youtube!!!!

Alright well im getting a Ps3 for christmas as my only present this year, im looking forward to buying a few new games. If i got the URT3 it would blow my mind away and i would probably play it nonstop

>>Interesting… my thread at Epic’s forums got crapped all over by a moderator and closed.

Sorry for making a mess in your thread ((( My faul..

Auch! That increases our chances! ))

sux they are shitting on your post…lame

btw, what’s up with the random smiley face in the upper right hand border corner of the page…..nice touch…

oh, the random smiley face? it’s some weird ass bug in wordpress that isn’t supposed to appear on pages, but it does – sometimes. It’s for stat tracking.

🙂

Sucks that the Linux client still not released – my plan was to wait until it was before I bought it.
I still keep a dualboot for LANs and games that still don’t run well under wine, and I admit that this is a game that I’ve been looking forward to for some time now.

That code gives me a headache. (And I tutor Computer Science I so that’s saying something)

bool isRunning()
{
return !isNotRunning;
}

I’m still hoping that a Linux client will be released. Maybe by the time I get enough money for a hardware upgrade it will be out. If not, I’ll give it to my little brother for Christmas.

Here’s another rumor for those that enjoy following this stuff:
http://www.prounreal.com/?t=73341&f=180

Oh, and pick me.

Only reason I have windows installed, to play games of course 🙂

I will play the hell out of this game.

Good luck to everyone!

-Jake

I’m a console gamer. I was planning on getting this for PS3, but i wouldn’t mind having it for PC instead. Pick me!

“At least it’s in Hungarian notation.” <_ What did you mean by this? I am from Hungary, so just asking beacuse of this… 🙂

BTW, keep up the good work with this blog!

Cheers,
Tom

Wow. Glad to hear you’re going to try and find this game a good home verses letting it sit on your shelf or throw it away. (Don’t enter me in. I don’t have time and someone else will.)

I wish Linux would get native ports more often…maybe now that Linux seems to be getting a foothold in the lower end market producers will snap to it and start porting Linux.

GameSpy bringing down UT3? That’s interesting… No GameSpy for me…
If these morons can’t get UT3 for Linux out after all the time they’ve had, I’m happy with just playing Tremulous. I don’t want your copy. Give it to someone else.

You’re not the only one to note that UT3 is better on consoles. Ars did an article today that came to pretty much the same conclusion.

BTW, and good suggestions on tools to do the equivalent of DVDShrink’s re-author? Clicking reauthor under Wine freezes my emulator, and my results with k9copy have been less than stellar. I’ve got kids and my standard mode of operation has been to rip just the movie from their DVDs, put the original on a spindle and let them use the rip in the original case. Very useful for the DVD player in the car since there’s no fumbling with buttons on the menus, and makes my life easier when I dump the rip into the player and can walk away. I hate having to fire up VMware just to run XP so that I can run DVDShrink natively.

You forgot that the game was obviously not quite finished when it was shipped. It was overhyped and lots of features didn’t made it to the game. I’m not talking about content, I’m talking about fury’s inability to make a barrel-roll, scavager unable to climb walls… There’s more.

Anyway, I’m hoping that patches and bonispacks will fix this god-forsaken game (If they fix the game with expansions, somebody is gonna get hurt!).

So anyway, I rather win the game than pay for it. by the time (if) I get it, I’m sure wine will have support for it *grin*.

Too bad indeed to hear your giving it away, tho I would love to receive a copy of the game :). From what I’ve seen, Epic still has some way to go with this game, should have made it come out in 2008 when all shit was fixed :S.

i say pick me. why i say so?
i’ve read every post you’ve ever wrote on this site, and loved pretty much every single one of them. i checked linuxrecipes.com and was ‘dissapointed’ to see it redirects here…in was hoping you had a second site with different posts. if thats not reason enough to pick me then what is?

I think Epic saw just how lucrative the console market is when they released Gears of War, and are now doing everything they can to cash in. Can’t say I blame ’em either, after all, console players are fools, and you know what they say about a fool and his money…

But I digress. I waited for damned near a year for the NeverWinter Nights client back in the day, so another few days/weeks/months won’t kill me. Besides, I’ve got ET: Quake Wars to keep me busy. 🙂

So send over that copy of UT3 and when the Linux client is finally released I’ll put it to good use. 🙂

I think that you’re giving up to soon. I trust in Ryan and in EPICs history. If you’d send the game to Germany, I would take it. I still hope that the Linux client will be there by the time it arrives. (Your frustration is exactly the reason why I never buy a game unless the Linux client is already available.)

I am optimistic that Epic will pull through on the GNU/Linux client. In the mean time, I won’t spend a nickel on the game until the client comes out.

Well, I’ve only tried the beta so far and it didn’t feel that consolish, at least I didn’t notice.
PS: Please pick me 🙂

From what I heared, the whole thing about ‘stalls due to middleware issues’ could also be a licensing problem. UT3 seems to depend on the PhysX SDK from Ageia, which has a non-free license.

So as soon as Epic *finally* resolves that problem, the linux client (and server?) should be ready in… a reasonable time?

And yes, please pick me. I really liked UT2004, and the promos of UT3 look promising (even if the bundled content turns out to be crappy, as some of my friends claim).

Anyone is welcome to enter, no matter where you are located. If luck swings your way, so be it.

I just checked and 165 countries have visited the site in the last month. That said, I’m not planning on spending more than about $20 to ship it – overseas or otherwise.

If it’s more than $20 to send it via airmail, I’ll coordinate with the winner to figure out a compromise.

I’d like to get, but just to spare my money on buying the game when the Linux-client gets out and the game still performs that bad on my 7900 GTX.

If it does, I’ll sell it and give 50% of the money to wikipedia and 50% to a little company that produces native linux-games.

I’m very upset about Epic. It’s good though, that it’s not Ryan who has to take the blame.

I’m a little disappointed that the linux and mac clients aren’t yet available, moreso that the linux server isn’t yet available, but the thing that really bugs me is that there’s been no official word on the delays. The only info we have is from an IRC log with the developer contracted to do the port, who mentioned some vague “legal issues”. I’d like some more info straight from Epic, letting us know what the current status is. Even if they say “There are some legal issues that we can’t elaborate on, but we’re working on it and should have something by Christmas” – that’d at least be something. Luckily for me I have a Windows box (hmm.. luckily?) so I can play the game.

You’re right about Epic being in the business of selling game engines first, and games second. That’s been the case since UT99, so I don’t see that as a big deal. They’ve built up a reputation of making great games regardless, and supporting the community more than most other developers. The UT series are my favourite games. I disagree with you saying that UT3 is a console game (apart from the dodgy menu system). I’m not a console guy either, and UT3 is perfectly suited to PC.

I’m sorry you didn’t like the game. You should probably include a deadline for comments. As it is, it isn’t really clear when the contest ends.

Joshua Jabin

You sound like a dbag in article. First of developer like epic dont care about linux because no one plays games on linux. This one reads like another elist O MY GOD YOU DONT SUPPORT LINUX YOU CANT HAVE MY PRECIOUS MONEY linux articles. Linux gamers are so marginal they can be simply be ignored.

Second: the code fragment…

bool isRunning()
{
if isNotRunning = true
isRunning = false
else
return true;
}

is completely made up by you, and isnt in the unreal tournament 3 or the unreal engine. The game (and its underlying engine) is a technical masterpiece and you can be sure that its tweaked for maximum scalability and efficiency. The code you use as an example is pure made up bs because it wouldnt even complite. There is no return statement for the true case of an if statement. If youre going to provide proof of inefficient code, you might as well post something without syntax errors!
__________________________________________
I really hope you do pick these at random …..
heidux !!!!!at!!!!!! gmail.com (altought I already got the game, it runs awesome on my Windows machine so just email me your CD KEY hehe)

Sorry guys. I have already one the competition. How do I know? I have a “RANDOM NUMBER SUPER ATTRACTION MAGNETIC PIN POINTING GRAVITY EXCELERATOR MACHINE” with a backup TIME MACHINE in case there is a need for a second or third chance, but so far I have never had to use the backup TIME MACHING because the ATTRACTIVITY of my “RNSAMPPGE Machine” has always been precise. The “RNSAMPPGE Machine” has told me that this is the exact random post that will be chosen in due time. However, if it is NOT, and that is highly unlikely, then no one will ever know, because I can use my backup time machine to go back and recalibrate the “RNSAMPPGE Machine” to find the exact point again.

Thanks for filling in the previous comments though, otherwise I would not have been able to make my pin point comment right here.

:>

I’ve got the thing already but bless you, and even if you did make the code snippet up who G.A.S.?

The point is that it was poor planning not so much for the client because although the illustrious asdf (did I spell that right?) may be correct in that Linux gamers are outnumbered the fact is that there are a multitude of Linux servers which are not currently able to hock the wares.. just plain short-sighted on many levels.

aK

I do not think it is a GameSpy issue. They had it ported to Linux already for the alfa-beta demo server. This is something else.

My best bet in situation where microsoft is involved and where ‘licensing’ and Linux are involved is that they are the reason.

Prove me wrong, but I think there won’t be Linux server released.

@asdf : It’s not so much about the client not being available on Linux (after it had been promised), but the server as well. If you do not understand why it’s probably a very good idea ™ to have the dedicated server for a game you expect your fanbase to run servers for being available for Linux, then you should probably just stfu and gtf off of your soapbox 🙂

As for the engine being a masterpiece, yeah, I bet you read the sourcecode and can comment on that with authority. The article author heard of crappy code. He illustrated it with a snippet that is crappy code. Any coder would be able to tell you that. He’s not gonna copy and paste half the engine sourcecode. All that is beside the point anyway; the UT3 engine is cool, but it’s no masterpiece. Hell, they haven’t even figured out how to make use of anti-aliasing — you know, the easy stuff, after all, the competitors get it right. It’s a rushjob, sadly. I bought the game 3 days ago, and I am already mightily disappointed. It could have been great, and it might even still become great, but right now it’s sinking, and sinking fast.
This will be the last Epic/Midway game I will ever buy. Life’s too short for this sort of shit.

WOO! Free UT3! I’ve been following on the icculus list my friend and understand what you are saying. Best of luck in the future.

-Pugzilla

*Edit*
You won! Read your email!
-Wayne

When the world will stop thinking that money is the fuel to improve software, the sun will smash into Earth.
But we can stop these evil thougths supporting open source softwares. You did right giving away this game, it was made with money in mind, not with users or fun.
We just have to keep on with our hope in a better future.
A gentoo user that is still waiting the 64bit version of flash player and has a brother dead-brained with Unreal.

might as well give it a try. sounds like a shitty ass story though, must have been a major disappointment.

Yo, whats this with hungarian mate?
btw, i dont say ‘choose me’, cause u wouldnt, so: dont even think about choosing me.

You should have gone out and purchased ET:QW the day it came out like I did, it didn’t take very long for the client patch to come out either.. AND the game actually is very VERY good 😀

Never actually played any of the unreal tourney games…
But hey, I’ll “Try it” I think it runs under wine right?

abadtooth – I’ve got ET:QW – It is a pretty good imitation of BF2. 🙂

UT3 fails to run under WINE last I checked, it’s gotten garbage ratings on the AppDB as I recall.

Yes the contest isn’t over yet! I hope the linux client comes out soon, because I don’t want to play it on vista…

i’d let my dog shit on it and send it back to epic with a xmas card thanking them for not doing what they promised and making you loose your money..

@ugh: At least then they get a present.
I wouldn’t let my dog sit on it, rather in it then it’s a complete present. The problem is I don’t have a dog so I won’t be able to grand Epic that present. But I have a few cats so that might do.

I thought epic said that it wasn’t going to ship with an Linux installer and that the Linux installer would be made available for download some time after the release of the retail.

Linux is a nice OS but had to much problems with it with the software and games I use so I will stick with Windows XP, Vista looks nice but thats all and the looks I can change in XP as well.

This isn’t one of those competitions where you can increase your chances of winning by posting multiple comments is it?
If so, w00t I’m in for 2, otherwise disregard this comment 😉

Yeah I have BF2 as well, some of the game play is similar, but I still prefer ET:QW..

None the less, id still came through with there end of the bargain… actually making the Linux client…

I think you should have instead of giving it away done something like what was in your last post, only instead of posting videos of people destroying there computers, you could have destroyed your copy of UT3 and I’m sure you could have come up with some ingenious way to do it 😛
Maybe you could run a poll?
Personally since it won’t run under wine I would like to see you destroy it, think of all of the traffic you’d get 😛 ahahaha

Fun to see such a fun setup here. I’ll hope for a copy.

Recient google searching popped up that the linux client is stuck in the legal department. Fun stuff.

Just FYI, that code snippet you posted is not in “Hungarian notation.” They’re using interCaps/camelCase (which is a newer C++/Java convention for variable and method naming). Hungarian notation embeds the type of the variable inside the variable name, so for example, a pointer in C/C++ would have a name starting with “po” followed by a couple more characters to indicate what that variable is a pointer to. Booleans would start with a “b,” etc.

Modern type-safe programming languages, like C++ , C# and Java, don’t need you to embed the type in the name of a variable — the compiler will check to make sure you’re using the correct types, and coerce types if necessary. (If you’ve ever needed to refactor code by changing the type of a variable, but didn’t want to rename the variable across multiple code modules, you perhaps can understand why Hungarian notation is a bad idea for modern programming. Imagine if the name of the variable indicates it’s one type, but the declared type is actually something else.)

That code is still atrocious to look at… two different boolean variables to track the same state information? What happens if they get out of sync? Pray that someone doesn’t get the bright idea to save some time and test one of the two Boolean variables directly instead of calling isRunning()!

Because of the economics of video game development, you’ll never see exceptionally good quality code come out of a game studio, with the possible exception of id. (I’ve actually had e-mail conversations with Carmack, and he’s all right. He definitely understands the math and the computer science involved.) Most of these guys are cranking on a schedule and don’t have the time to write elegant or even optimal code. They’ll also happily mix in Win32 system calls with mainline code rather than isolating OS-specific code in specific modules — not necessarily for performance, but out of sheer laziness.

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