Unreal Games pulled from online storefronts

Spasticus Autisticus said:
Unless I am mistaken, they are just taking down the master servers for Unreal and UT. That will make the built-in server browsers unusable, but you can still connect to servers directly (and maybe use third-party masters although I don’t remember if that’s actually a thing for Unreal games).

Pretty soon the only multiplayer games that will be available to play are the absolute newest titles, big-ticket “evergreens” and old classics like UT and Q3A. There is already a swath of titles from the mid-2000s through the 2010s that are unplayable because of their reliance on dead services like GameSpy and Games For Windows Live, and it’s just going to get worse as shitty modern game devs double down on centralizing matchmaking and server infrastructure.
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There's community-run master servers for UT99 but I don't know about any others.

Masterserver Guide - Oldunreal-Wiki

www.oldunreal.com www.oldunreal.com
 
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Coolio55 said:
Possibly. It was years ago but I assume that they don't want a repeat of:

Epic's Fortnite fail: Ancient UT2004 server used for login-stealing proof-of-concept

A tale of XSS, SQL injection and OAuth implementation
www.theregister.com www.theregister.com
"Epic's Fortnite fail: Ancient UT2004 server used for login-stealing proof-of-concept"
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whoever wrote that gives the impression of being a massive faggot. still it's the best possibility as it saves money by not spending on eletrical bills and you don't have to waste hardware space for some oldass server.
Keine said:
There's community-run master servers for UT99 but I don't know about any others.

Masterserver Guide - Oldunreal-Wiki

www.oldunreal.com www.oldunreal.com
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if it kind of works like valve's masterservers then it can be changed, there's that Area51 game that uses gamespy but was patched to not use it and list any potential servers up for it no problem but SWAT4 uses a different kind of patch even though it also uses gamespy, same basis, different applications.
 
BrunoMattei said:
Why now of all times? One could guess either Tim Sweeney's neurosis or maybe -perhaps finally- they're going to do something with the IP?
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Thats very optimistic of you. They just don't care. Its easier to just not care than it is to pick up the few cents those users are dropping on the floor.
 
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They are going to re-release UT3 at UT-X and force the use of Epic Online Services, which harvests user data. It will also require an Epic Games account to play and they will use those accounts to artificially inflate their userbase for investors. Also because they are going to use EOS that means anytime there is a fortnite event, nothing will work. Also this will entirely break steam deck support ofc. Tim Sweeney is a manchild with a hateboner for Linux and Steam who would do anything to please his chinese owners. Pretty sure they outlined this plan in the leaked documents from the Apple lawsuit. Epic games is also pushing the use of EOS onto as many games as possible, which breaks all Linux support, possibly on purpose knowing Timmy's hate boner.
 
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Epoch said:
They are going to re-release UT3 at UT-X and force the use of Epic Online Services, which harvests user data. It will also require an Epic Games account to play and they will use those accounts to artificially inflate their userbase for investors. Also because they are going to use EOS that means anytime there is a fortnite event, nothing will work. Also this will entirely break steam deck support ofc. Tim Sweeney is a manchild with a hateboner for Linux and Steam who would do anything to please his chinese owners. Pretty sure they outlined this plan in the leaked documents from the Apple lawsuit. Epic games is also pushing the use of EOS onto as many games as possible, which breaks all Linux support, possibly on purpose knowing Timmy's hate boner.
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I'm going to need a bit of elaboration on the Linux hateboner side.
Unreal Gold is a rare breed of application that still runs on modern Linux without modification. Clearly they used to give a shit if they made something so robust.
 
Unless I'm talking out of my arse? But I'm pretty sure the masterserver is unofficial for Unreal and can be since the community 227 patches (which you should all be using). I would go check the ini files on a 227 install but I'm not at that machine, either way it doesn't just poll gamespy and epic, giga long term unreal autist Hyper.nl comes to mind.

I don't think it will effect Unreal since it has been community driven for over 15 years now. Fucking hate Epic and what they did to Unreal, but I need to raise awareness that most players aren't using "Straight off the storefront" installs. You can download patch 227 from the oldunreal fan site, go install some map packs while you're there. We havent had to dick around with whether to use '226' or '225' for over 10 years.
 
Coolio55 said:
I'm going to need a bit of elaboration on the Linux hateboner side.
Unreal Gold is a rare breed of application that still runs on modern Linux without modification. Clearly they used to give a shit if they made something so robust.
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are there multiplayer capable rips? i still have the discs and the gog version, but a pripped version would help with getting a MP party going after they remove them from all stores.

the games are very near to my heart from early age...
 
Cantercoin said:
well theres always the second gog website where you can just download the files for your convenience
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this, imagine still giving epic money after this stunt, for a shitty sale no less.

anyone who wanted it bought it years ago for 80% off.
 
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Can a game company pull a Microsoft with games you bought on Steam, and say that you can no longer download games you bought anymore, as you merely bought the right to play the game, not actually own it? I know that Steam has traditionally allowed people to download games they already bought as much as they like, but is there anything legal backing this up?
 
Hepativore said:
Can a game company pull a Microsoft with games you bought on Steam, and say that you can no longer download games you bought anymore, as you merely bought the right to play the game, not actually own it? I know that Steam has traditionally allowed people to download games they already bought as much as they like, but is there anything legal backing this up?
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Nope, or at least no laws that are actually enforced. iOS games, even paid ones, become unplayable all the time due to OS updates breaking the game, and then the publisher often just pulls it from sale. And then you've got games like Battleborn, which have single player modes, that won't start up at all if you don't connect to their servers, rendering even the disc useless.
 
Hepativore said:
Can a game company pull a Microsoft with games you bought on Steam, and say that you can no longer download games you bought anymore, as you merely bought the right to play the game, not actually own it? I know that Steam has traditionally allowed people to download games they already bought as much as they like, but is there anything legal backing this up?
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you will own nothing and you will be happy.
 
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Pissmaster said:
Nope, or at least no laws that are actually enforced. iOS games, even paid ones, become unplayable all the time due to OS updates breaking the game, and then the publisher often just pulls it from sale. And then you've got games like Battleborn, which have single player modes, that won't start up at all if you don't connect to their servers, rendering even the disc useless.
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I have never heard of this happening on the Steam platform, but as this was such an asshole move by Epic and they have a history of being douchebags, I wonder if Epic will eventually force Steam to purge the asset files from its servers and make it no longer launchable from the Steam platform. Epic might also start sending C&D notices to the people that run unofficial Unreal servers to shut them down as well.

I think in a few years, we will see that all of this cheering on of the end of physical media will come back to bite us in the ass, as we are also watching streaming platforms permanently remove shows and movies left and right, so this should be an example of why you should always backup your stuff on physical storage in case of corporate fuckery, which has become rampant.
 
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