An US-Bildungseinrichtungen wird derzeit ein neuer Weg erprobt, trockenen Unterrichtsstoff im Fach Chemie spannender aufzubereiten. Fortschrittlich denkende Wissenschaftler benutzen hier Unreal Tournament 2004 und die daraus entwickelten Mods SolubilityFPS und ChemlabFPS, um die Zusammensetzung chemischer Lösungen anschaulich zu illustrieren.

Der Spieler… Student steuert dabei durch schaurige Korridore und wird mit chemisch korrekten Monstern konfrontiert, die er in der richtigen Weise erledigen muss, um der zugrunde liegenden Formel zu entsprechen. Zumindest ein grosser Teil der männlichen Studenten äusserte sich sehr enthusiastisch über den Lernerfolg, regte darüber hinaus aber auch ein FPS-typisches Einführungsvideo an. Für den, ähm, anderen Teil der Studierenden sollte dann ein “The Sims”-Mod Entsprechendes leisten. So oder so: Ein vielversprechender Anfang.

( via scitechbits)

]]> http://11k2.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/turing-rehabilitiert-test-auf-games-ausgeweitet/ Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:40:07 +0000 Fritz http://11k2.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/turing-rehabilitiert-test-auf-games-ausgeweitet/

Der geniale britische Computer-Wissenschaftler und Kryptologe Alan Turing hat zumindest posthum eine Rehabilitierung erhalten. Premierminister Gordon Brown erklärte offiziell, Turing sei Unrecht widerfahren: 1952 hatte man ihn wegen seiner Homosexualität verurteilt (damals in Britannien ein schweres Verbrechen) und vor die Wahl gestellt, ins Gefängnis zu gehen oder sich einer Hormontherape (mit schweren Nebenwirkungen) zu unterziehen. Damit war auch seine Karriere beendet. Er starb zwei Jahre später unter nicht völlig geklärten Umständen.

Der von ihm postulierte “Turing-Test”, nachdem ein Computer als intelligent bezeichnet werden soll, wenn es ihm gelingt, Menschen glauben zu machen, er sei ein Mensch statt einer Maschine, findet neue Anwendung. Auf dem IEEE Computational Symposium on Intelligence and Games in Mailand wurde zum zweiten Mal der BotPrize in Höhe von 6000 US-Dollar ausgeschrieben. Die Teilnehmer sollten einen Bot programmieren, der Unreal Tournament 2004 so überzeugend menschlich spielt (einschliesslich Taunts und Smacktalk), dass mindestens 80% der Juroren ihn für einen Menschen halten. Im Vorjahr war kein Bot preiswürdig, diesmal erhielt Jeremy Cathran von der University of Southern California immerhin 1700 USD.

Congrats, Alan und Jeremy. Unten das BotPrize-Video.

( via number10, technologyreview)

For those interested, I have made a custom UT2004 server running with the Helix ESV2 mutator as well as the parachute mutator. It also includes my home-brew map, AlkaliValley. If anyone has suggestions for different mutators or maps, please feel free to get in touch with me, I would also like to know any feedback on how well the server performs ping/fps wise.

Cheers.

The IP is: 97.123.28.82:7777

Name: West Coast Onslaught [FAST REDIRECT]

Also note that I have set up dedicated webspace for the redirect so all the mutators  and maps should download in a flash.

Question 1

Gametheworld.com is a multiplayer e-sports center. This is where people can come in and play computer games either for fun or competitively with others in the same room as them or in a completely different center or country on the fastest and highest spec computers available at the current time, featuring every popular multiplayer game on the market.They also have stores all over both northern Ireland and Ireland to cater for everyone’s needs.

GTW main page

Question 2

From my research i have found out that the Company called game the world iam writing about has a vast number of stores across northern Ireland and Ireland.

These include stores in:

Bangor, Coleraine, Lisburn, Comber, Armagh, Belfast Lisburn Road, Holywood, Ballymena, Maidenhead, Clondalkin and Dublin Grafton Street

With new stores opening later this year in:

Letterkenny, Limerick, Newtownards,Ballymoney, Magherafelt, Cookstown, Lurgan, Portadown, Lisburn and Castlereagh Road, Belfast.

The company gametheworld is an LTD company (private limited company.) therefore they are not required by law to make available a list of there profits and share them publicity with the general public. (to obtain a copy of there balance sheet for this year i would have to contact the company directly and pay a small fee to them to get it.) However in my extensive research on the company i did find out that in a report published by 4ni.co.uk gametheworld is investing £1.2 million in a project to increase its USP (unique selling point) in the computer game centre. This investment will hope to create 14 new jobs in the area.The software which they are creating will be distributed to almost 100 countries worldwide and with support from Invest Northern Ireland it will be able to develop many more new products in the future.As well as cresting there own software Gametheworld are currently in the middle of a licensing deal with a Scandinavian company called Smart launch of which they use to run all there games from in each centre.

smart launch logo

Question 3

For My business gametheworld the web is not the only channel to market for this business as i have listed above in question 2 they have many stores around northern Ireland and Ireland to promote itself. The stores that gametheworld has play a big part in the promotion of the business, this is because as well there customers using there website to buy products they can drop in any store and purchase an item that they want.They can also from as little as £3.50 create an account and put an hour of gaming time on to gain access to the wide range of games that are available to them such as battlefield 2 , unreal tournament 2004, 2007 and team fortress 2 to name a few. Gametheworld’s main competitor (or closest rival) in this field would be a gaming company called pong which operates in pretty much the same way as gametheworld does but the disadvantage is that pong has only one store in Belfast and thats it.

chain map

As for the bussiness won by both the website and the centres around northern ireland and ireland it is hard to tell as there are cases where in some parts of northern ireland the stores (such as newry , lisburn and armagh) the centres are really popular and lots of people come to them where as not very many people from these centres would post on the forums on the website.On the other hand people from other centres such as bangor , Clondalkin and Grafton-street post on the fourms alot but the centres themselves are not that full all of the time.

]]> http://mitchrukat.com/2008/09/08/unreal-tournament-2004-review/ Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:39:55 +0000 Mitch http://mitchrukat.com/2008/09/08/unreal-tournament-2004-review/

Rating: 10 Out of 10

UT 2004 is a great game. They really updated from last year’s game. They have 10 gameplay modes. The biggest ones are Assault and Onslaught. Onslaught is when two teams face off in a big environment setting up nodes and trying to destroy the team’s power core. It doesn’t stop there though. You can actually get into vehicles in Onslaught Mode. Tanks, Hover Cars, Aircrafts, Buggies, Jeeps, and Turrets. This game has everything in it. It has great gameplay, audio, visuals, but it still doesn’t have the greatest story line.

Pros:

+ Voice Chat

+ 10 Gameplay Modes

+ Onslaught Mode

+ Great gameplay, audio, and visuals

Cons:

- No Problems

Extras:

# Unreal Tournament 2004 Cheat Codes

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, how boring!!!!!!!!” you might think….

But once I’ve taken care of the boring stuff I’ll see if I can lighten up this post a bit…

Now I’m not entirely like all the other computer geeks who want to run all the latest games. I find that the focus has shifted from game play to graphics. But that might change in the future. For me it’s all about the game play.

Now my absolute favourite game ever has to be Unreal Tournament 2004. I just love the fast game play, and the rude taunts.

I said earlier that I prefer gameplay over graphics, however graphics play a huge part in game play. I find that may of all new games have so good graphics that it actually prevents me from enjoying the game. Now let me explain, in the games that are bit older you can easily distinguish a moving person from tree or background.

However in may new games (like Unreal Tournament 3 (Which I have longed for since I heard about it)) the players and the background get quite hard to distinguish of over medium distances, the colours are to similar.

In Unreal Tournament 2004 the graphics is just right, they are not bad (have you seen the water and the lightening in some levels, just awesome!) and you can play it on almost any computer you can find on the market today (including used computers).

Now you know how I feel about the graphics hysteria in the game world at the moment.

IT is now time to talk about my present desktop computer.

First some specs:

CPU: Intel Celeron 2,8 ghz
RAM: 1536 mb DRR ram
GPU: nVidia GeForce 6600 GT with 256 mb ram
NIC: Netgear Gigabit LAN
HDD1: 250 Gigg IDE/PATA
HDD2: 320 Gigg IDE/PATA
Screen: Viewsonic 21″ LCD screen
Keyboard: Logitech standard on PS/2
Mouse:A4-Tech X7 (the older model without the useless button for double click(who needs a separate button to double click? Not me…))
USB: 1.1 (no USB 2 ): )

This is what I would want to have:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p2h_lP37wrecRzo1USUbyLA
Note: All the links link to a swedish computer shop.

In the upcoming Centenary Test (Rugby League), players (as well as coaches and other team personnel) representing Australia and New Zealand will be subject to International Rules. From what I can remember, this means that the test match result can be a draw if each team has the same score at the end of 80 minutes of football. Now, of course this won’t happen, because: a) Australia excels at Rugby League, and b) New Zealand doesn’t.

This rule introduces the ‘draw’ end condition, one that isn’t possible in NRL rules. In the NRL First Grade Competition, if the sides competiting in a match have equal scores after 80 minutes, a break is taken and then players return to the field to play ‘golden point’. In this situation, the first team to score a point (or points for that matter) has the point/s added to their score and is declared the winner (and thus the game is over). One other rule I can think of that differs under International Rules is the one regarding the number of player interchanges (or substitutions) that can take place during a match – the particulars of which I’m not certain.

At its heart, the game is still the same, but the subtle differences in the rules can and do influence the way the players and coaching staff form their game plan. A player may spend the full 80 minutes onfield during a club match, but might not perform as well after the 80 minutes if golden point conditions occur. In Rugby League, draws don’t occur all that often, but small factors can have profound impacts on games of uncertainty.

In Unreal Tournament 2004 (Win), there are ‘mutators’ – optional modifications to some visual or functional element to the game. Mutators do not affect the start and end conditions for a game, but change the experience and decision-making considerations of a player. The ‘Big Heads’ mutator causes a playing character’s head to grow as its number of kills increases. When the character is killed, his head shrinks to less-than-normal proportions. Characters with big heads are bigger targets, and thus have a higher chance of being killed (without considering player skill), so this mutator works as both an experience enhancer (big heads are good for a laugh) and a catch up mechanism.

‘Quad-jump’ is another mutator and allows players to jump to a height four times the normal limit by pressing the jump key successively at certain points during a jump sequence. ‘Double-jumping’ is a basic and common manoeuvre in UT2004, so maps are designed with this in consideration. However, the quad-jump allowed players to access pick- and power-ups that usually take skill, problem solving or just sheer luck to encounter.

I’m not saying that this is a poorly designed mutator, however it changes the gaming experience in a significant way. I’ve come across the mutator in online games, and generally all the players know how to get around maps by exploiting the new abilities facilitated by quad-jumping. Since bot AI in the game is not designed to take advantage of these abilities, it is difficult to practice with the mutator turned on to effectively use it to one’s advantage.

Unlike professional Rugby League, where players are thoroughly made aware of the changes of rules and their consequences, online games generally expect players to be familiar with the rules implied by different game modes and mutators. While I’m all for mucking around with mutators to enhance my gaming experience, I find it frustrating when playing at a LAN or at a random online server that I can be left behind simply because the other players expect me to be able to play according to their rules. This is more a problem I voice to game players than developers, because the interpretation of rules, whether operational or constituative, can make or break the multiplayer experience.

One of the features I enjoy about modern first-person shooters is the variety of game modes they provide. If a player isn’t feeling up to the traditional flavours of Deathmatch or Capture the Flag, there are many other competitions to participate in, such as the generic Team Deathmatch and Last Man Standing, as well as more game-specific modes like Onslaught from Unreal Tournament 2004 (Win). The interesting thing about these game modes is despite their different end conditions, much of the game world and player abilities remain the same between them.

On a functional level, Team Deathmatch only differs from Deathmatch by assigning players to teams and keeping score based on those teams rather than for each player individually. Capture the Flag introduces the player abilities of capturing, carrying and saving the flag (however mundane the player input to perform these abilities may be) and shifts the end condition to focus on flag captures in place of kills. Mod development facilities provided by many FPS developers (such as Unreal Editor) mean that the player community can concoct their own modes of play, such as Suicidematch (much like Last Man Standing, but the aim is to be the first player to kill him/herself a given number of times). The title is nasty but the mode is good for a few laughs.

The point I want to make is that these different game modes may attribute to the popularity of FPS titles. I have found, particularly at LANs, that while a lot of people may share interest in an FPS title, they may only be interested in certain game modes. Consider this in comparison to an adventure or role-playing game, where there is generally a single game mode. Players who like these heavily narrative-based games play the game because of interest in that one type of play, whereas an FPS title can rack up a sale because the player likes at least one game mode enough to be compelled to buy it.

There are many commercial and academic implications for this feature of modern FPS games; ones I won’t go into here, but I am interested by the observation.

It’s that time of the year again. time to LAN.

This time however things are a bit different, first of all this time EVERYBODY will get a PUBLIC IP, and I’ve not patched my XP fully, I have the latest patchess, but I lack some earlier ones, oh well There might be no danger at all…

Secondly this time there will be an Unreal Tournament 2004 tournament not just Counter Suck!

Of course I’ll attend both the LAN and the tournament.

Thirdly, this will be the biggest LAN ever (as far as I know) with 168 seats (We’re not talking Dreamhack here) and some company have gotten permission to sell LAN stuff there.

I hope to bring you all some pics.

It’s been a while since I wrote, and some stuff have happened.

I’ve been at the LAN party I wrote about (more of that later).
I’ve passed the practical exam for CCNA 4 (just…).
I’ve become 20 (and gotten some money for a DSLR).
I’ve pass our wireless course. (just…).
My laptop have broken (again…) (bad HP, bad, bad HP).
I’ve started playing Chrono Trigger (on ZSNES @ school (on a Live CD linux dist with my HOME dir on a img file on my USB stick)).
I’ve been a Cybertown (a laser arena in Stockholm) (they have new weapons and equipment (ugly but otherwise nice)).

——————————————————-
Ok then, here is how the LAN party went:

It started on Tuesday however I could not go until Friday afternoon since I had an exam.

The LAN started out great with my monitor getting dropped on the floor from about 1 meter, I tested it and although it had had a large drop it work without any problems.

I hooked up my PC and booted it, the biggest problem was my wireless head phones that picked up other peoples sound from time to time.

I sat with my friends and had a great time playing (amongst others) Unreal Tournament 2004, Age of Empires II, as well as some Risk II.

The obvious drink was of course Jolt (and lots of it!), one can’t survive a LAN party without Jolt.

That’s about it for the LAN party

—————————————————-
Now I need some advice.

Which DSLR camera do you think I should save up for if you look at my gallery?

I like shots over a distance (at least I do now)

What I like about my K800i is that I always have a camera with me, I know that a DSLR is neither as small nor as light as my K800i, but I do want to be able to change the leans.

Price…. Well, I do not have the money nor do I want to buy an Hasselblad DSLR with about 39 megapixles. other than that you may give advice for any DSLR you might think will suit me regardless of price.

—————————————————

/Stoy – Nobody of the resistance

P.S.
I’m Swedish, don’t expect that will spell everything perfect!
However if you see a spelling error, please post a polite comment about it, and I will see what I can do about it.

If you want to chat with me I’m usually in #101010 @ irc://irc.chat4all.org during the evenings (now during x-mas I will be online far more than that… (probably from about 10:00 to about 23:30 – 00:30)) in Sweden (GMT +1)
Just highlight me and wait, If I’m there I usually respond in 1-2 hours! (During the day it might take longer for me to notice if you highlight me)

If you have an IRC client installed and properly configured entering this irc://irc.chat4all.org/101010 into the address bar of your browser should get you to my channel.

Being an avid user of Unreal Tournament 2004 (Commonly abbreviated UT2004), There were a few times when I wanted to host my own server, It was a bit of a pain having to find all the information and such, so I’ve made an easy guide that anyone can follow to get a UT2004 server up and running. Please take note that this guide is intended for Linux, NOT Windows/Mac. So without further wait, let’s get on with it.

Section 1
Requirements

This guide assumes that you have Unreal Tournament 2004 installed and working.

A server is best hosted on a stand alone computer, so that all processing power can go towards the server itself.
If you want it to run even smoother you may choose to run the server without a GUI, which will save even more CPU power for the running of the server.

I recommend a computer with at least a 2GHz processor with 384MB of RAM.

Section 2
Configuration

For editing the server ini file you will need a need a text editor
such as Kwrite, Abiword, or something similar.

I highly recommend you do NOT use OpenOffice Writer
as it can add it’s own formatting and ruin your ini file.

To begin, Go to the Unreal Tournament system folder (By default it’s located at /home/username/ut2004/System/)
Locate the file called ‘UT2004.ini’ and open it.

[IpDrv.MasterServerUplink]

ServerBehindNAT=False <–Change this to true if your firewall uses NAT (Network Address Translation) to forward ports.

[IpDrv.HTTPDownload]

RedirectToURL= <–Place the URL of the redirect server here, more detailed instructions can be found here.

UseCompression= <–If the maps on your redirect are in the .uz2, set this to True.

[Engine.GameReplicationInfo]

ServerName=UT2004 <–Change this to whatever you want your server to be named.

AdminName=User <–This will appear to a user when they view your server info, Set it as your own name.

AdminEmail= <–This will show the user your Email address,
This is handy if you want feedback from people who play on your server.

MessageOfTheDay=MOTD <–This will appear to a user as soon as he/she joins your server.

You may set up to 4 lines, to create a new line you must use pipes.

Example: MessageOfTheDay=Welcome | No Cheats | No Monkeys | No Complaining

Would display as the following ingame:

Welcome
No Cheats
No Monkeys
No Complaining

[Engine.AccessControl]

AdminPassword= <–This is the admin password, you can use it to login via the console while ingame.

GamePassword= <–Add a value here if you want to password lock your server.

[Engine.GameInfo]

MaxSpectators= <–Set this to limit the number of spectators in a game.

MayPlayers= <–Change this number to raise/lower the total amount of players that can play at one time (Max 32).

[Uweb.WebServer]

bEnabled= <–Set this to True if you would like to enable the Web Admin Interface.

ListenPort= <–Set this to something other than 80 (I personally use 7757) and don’t forget to forward the port you set.

To login, type your IP (If your on the same network as the host box, you can use the internal IP) then add : then the port you have set.
Example: 192.168.1.1:7757

Section 3
Starting the Server

The only thing left to do is Start the Server.

To start your server, run the following command from a terminal:
(You must be in the /home/username/ut2004/System/ directory)

./ucc-bin server ONS-Torlan?game=Onslaught.ONSOnslaughtGame ini=UT2004.ini log=/home/username/Desktop/UTServer.log -nohomedir &

Some people may find typing this script everytime a bit irritating, so I’m going to show you how to make a simple script that does the same thing with a simple command.

Open your text editor, make a new file, and type this into it:

cd /home/username/ut2004/System/
./ucc-bin server ONS-Torlan?game=Onslaught.ONSOnslaughtGame ini=UT2004.ini log=/home/username/Desktop/UTServer.log -nohomedir &

(Be sure to replace username with your own user name.)

Then save it as ut-server.sh in /usr/local/bin/. Now whenever you want to start the server, all you have to do is open up a terminal, and type ut-server.sh.

And that’s it. If you have any problems, find any mistakes or would like to give feedback for this guide, please let me know via email at Erich.Von(at)Gmail.com.

]]> http://slackerninja.com/2007/06/16/so-hows-your-week-been/ Sat, 16 Jun 2007 01:37:00 +0000 slackerninja http://slackerninja.com/2007/06/16/so-hows-your-week-been/

Work*. UT2004. Work*.

Rinse and repeat till Saturday. Unless the Grand Poobah decides that my weekend is boring that is.

*this refers to a blanket term, as a description of it would reward me with an early flight to Hell. And a one way flight at that. However, a few sound effects should suffice for you dear readers to get an idea. They are as follows:

“BOOM!”
“BANG!!!”
“KABAAM!”
“CRASH!”
“SCREECH!!!!”
“POP”
“SNAPPLE”
“FLUSH”
“CRACKLE”
“VROOOOOM!!”
“BOW-WOW-WOW!”
“MEOW!!!”

(NIC = Network Interface Card)
(VLAN = Virtual Local Area Network)
(UT2k4 = Unreal Tournament 2004)

Here it is, teh mighty update from the really mighty LAN!

When I got home from school during Friday, I had already packed my PC and I just had to pack my backpack full of clothes, get my sleepingbag and pack some more stuff.

When I got to the LAN and tried to set up my NIC with the correct IP, however it didn’t work, Windows still claimed that the IP was already in use, even when we tried an IP my friend couldn’t ping it didn’t work…
After a litle while I got a couple of people from staff to help me, they could not get it to work either, but then one of them thought of something, what it the switchport I tried to user was on a different VLAN?
After fiddeling with the settings it worked! (not I did not fiddle with the switch, staff did)

Oh wow, so now I’m connected, what to do, what do to? well first of all, I fire up DC++ and check out the DC hub unfortunatly this lan there was barely 4 Terrabyte shared, on the previous LANs there have been at least 12 TB shared, oh well, at least I got hold of thw wounderful swedish comedy TV series “Kenny Starfighter”, and me and my friends watch and loled it through the night between Satutrday and sunday. I now have it on my USB disk so I can show people were I go.

The UT2k4 Turnament did not go as well as it could have, it wasn’t bad, but it lacked structure…
The probmen with it was that we did not join the tournament as a team, but as individuales, and when the mastch was started we joines either the RED or the Blue team, the problem was that we (me an my friends that I sat with) are quite inexperienced (spelling?) while the other ones have been playing almost constantly sice the game came out in ‘04

It we3 had planned it better, it would have been better.

That basicly it.