Urban Terror
Encyclopedia
Urban Terror, commonly abbreviated as UrT, is a free multi-player first person shooter game developed by FrozenSand. Originally a total conversion of id Software
's Quake III Arena
, FrozenSand released Urban Terror as a free standalone game in 2007 utilizing ioquake3 as an engine. Although the ioquake3 project uses id Software's id Tech 3 engine under GPL license, Urban Terror's assets and code are closed source.
Urban Terror was nominated to the 2007 Mod DB
's Mod of the Year Award.
. Silicon Ice Development was formed in spring 2000 and was made of several international developers, many whom were familiar with modifying Quake III Engine games; hence progress was made quickly. When its first version, beta 1.0, was released at QuakeCon 2000, Urban Terror was the realism mod with the most features and graphics completed. Beta 1.0 gained popularity quickly, and many third party maps became available. The development team was expanded, and beta 1.27 was released in late 2000.
Beta 2.0 was released in June 2001, and was a major leap forward in terms of production quality. New textures, models, weapons, sounds, and maps brought the mod up to par with many contemporary commercial games of the time. The next major release occurred in August 2001, at QuakeCon 2001, of beta 2.3, which introduced several new maps. The last release for the beta 2 series occurred in January 2003, with beta 2.6a being primarily a weapons balancing patch
.
August 2003 saw the release of beta 3.0, a major graphical revision of Urban Terror. Over the next 11 months, seven more updates were released, culminating in beta 3.7 in July 2004. Work on Urban Terror for Quake III Arena slowed down, as Silicon Ice Development was working on a release for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
, titled Urban Terror MX featuring new vehicles and gameplay. During this period, Silicon Ice Development changed its name to FrozenSand. Urban Terror MX never reached alpha stage, and the project was canceled in 2006.
With the release of the ID Tech 3 engine source code, Urban Terror could legally be released as a standalone game. Urban Terror beta 4.0 was released in April 2007 using the ioquake3 project engine. Urban Terror is now a standalone game. Beta 4.0 ushered in another graphical overhaul, several new maps, and numerous tweaks and bug fixes. The popularity of Urban Terror surged as Quake III Arena was no longer required in order to play. The current version of Urban Terror, beta 4.1, was released in December 2007.
On the 25th December 2010 the Urban Terror HD Alpha 0.1 test was publicly released, featuring a new Engine, new Weapons, Maps and Characters.
January 20th 2011 an interim release, 4.1.1, was open to the public. Although it doesn't contain any new weapons or changes in gameplay it does offer updated skins, funstuff (customization) and maps. Clients running 4.1.1 are expected to work on either 4.1 or 4.1.1 servers while only upgraded clients can play on upgraded servers.
." It blends elements from games such as Quake III Arena
, Unreal Tournament
, Counter-Strike
, and Warsow. The realism in the mod is introduced through a number of changes:
The number of weapons and other gear that can be carried is limited. Damage is also more realistic than in Quake III Arena, based on dividing the player target into discrete areas
. Depending on the map being played, external environments are realistic and can include weather effects such as rain
or snow
. Weather effects can also be controlled by game variables via administrator privileges.
Urban Terror allows players to perform superhuman feats. Damage is a key example; while damage taken depends on the part of the body which is hit, one can keep going after receiving numerous hits. Further breaking from reality, Urban Terror also retains the movement speeds from Quake III Arena (circle jumping
) which allowed players to move through the environment incredibly quickly and includes moves such as wall jump
ing and power sliding. Wall jumping allows players to literally jump off of walls and helps the player to gain more height, distance and speed. Power sliding lets the player slides, rapidly, in a crouched position, maintaining speed. These abilities have spawned a sub-community of players who focus on specially designed "jump maps" of which the goal is to reach the end of a series of difficult courses.
Numerous game modes are featured, including classic FPS modes such as Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag
. Also included are Team Survivor, Free-for-All (deathmatch
), Bomb & Defuse, Capture & Hold, and Follow the Leader. Beta 4.2 will bring two additional game types: Last Man Standing, and Jump Map Training (a special mode for the aforementioned jump maps).
, and one grenade
slot, in addition to three general equipment slots. Players must select one pistol, and one primary weapon. Players are also automatically equipped with a Ka-bar knife. Primary weapons include heavy weapons such as sniper rifles and assault rifles, as well as all secondary weapons. The secondary weapons include submachine guns and shotguns. Secondary weapons may also be equipped as primary weapons, allowing the player to pick up other primary weapons from killed players.
Of the remaining five slots (secondary weapon, grenades, general equipment) only three may be filled at spawn-time. (Equipment may be picked up from dead players to fill unused slots later on during the game.) The player may select to carry either two fragmentation grenades or two smoke grenades. The player can also select one of three secondary weapons. Finally, the three general equipment slots may be filled with any of several items such as kevlar
armor and weapon attachments.
in Urban Terror is done by dividing the player target into four discrete areas: head, torso, arms, and legs. The effects on the torso and head can be reduced by game items such as the kevlar vest and the kevlar helmet, respectively. In addition to the damage system, wounds require bandaging, and wounds sustained in the legs slow the player down considerably until they are bandaged. When a wound is not bandaged, the player will eventually slowly die from bleeding to death. Players can also bandage each other to partially restore another player's health. The bandaging process is much faster if the player that is bandaging is equipped with a medkit item, also allowing them to heal other players to nearly full health.
A stamina system is also present, and is depleted by jumping and sprinting. The amount of stamina is related to the amount of health a player has. Equipping or picking up a kevlar vest or the IMI Negev
decreases stamina considerably. Stamina is recharged fastest when a player is motionless and crouched, but will recharge slowly even during normal movement.
anti-cheating technology built into Quake III Arena. As PunkBuster
does not support modified versions of the ID Tech 3 engine, the standalone version of Urban Terror 4.1 had no working anti-cheat system.
The next release is expected to bring about the use of Passport, an identification system which is also complemented with an AntiCheat.
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
's Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
, FrozenSand released Urban Terror as a free standalone game in 2007 utilizing ioquake3 as an engine. Although the ioquake3 project uses id Software's id Tech 3 engine under GPL license, Urban Terror's assets and code are closed source.
Urban Terror was nominated to the 2007 Mod DB
Mod DB
Player's Choice*Best Indie Game: Tremulous*Best Released Mod: Point of Existence 2*Best Unreleased Mod: Black Mesa*By genre-2005:*-2004:*-2003:*-2002:*- External links :* *...
's Mod of the Year Award.
History
Urban Terror started out in 1998 as a planned mappack for Quake III Arena, in which real world environments would be featured. It expanded from this idea to a full total conversion featuring realistic weapons and gameplay similar to Action Quake 2Action Quake 2
Action Quake 2 is a mod for the computer game Quake II created by The A-Team. Although originally released in 1998, it still has a small player base mainly in South America, Scandinavia and especially in Finland, with active servers on several continents as of 2008...
. Silicon Ice Development was formed in spring 2000 and was made of several international developers, many whom were familiar with modifying Quake III Engine games; hence progress was made quickly. When its first version, beta 1.0, was released at QuakeCon 2000, Urban Terror was the realism mod with the most features and graphics completed. Beta 1.0 gained popularity quickly, and many third party maps became available. The development team was expanded, and beta 1.27 was released in late 2000.
Beta 2.0 was released in June 2001, and was a major leap forward in terms of production quality. New textures, models, weapons, sounds, and maps brought the mod up to par with many contemporary commercial games of the time. The next major release occurred in August 2001, at QuakeCon 2001, of beta 2.3, which introduced several new maps. The last release for the beta 2 series occurred in January 2003, with beta 2.6a being primarily a weapons balancing patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
.
August 2003 saw the release of beta 3.0, a major graphical revision of Urban Terror. Over the next 11 months, seven more updates were released, culminating in beta 3.7 in July 2004. Work on Urban Terror for Quake III Arena slowed down, as Silicon Ice Development was working on a release for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a free and open source multiplayer first-person shooter video game set during World War II...
, titled Urban Terror MX featuring new vehicles and gameplay. During this period, Silicon Ice Development changed its name to FrozenSand. Urban Terror MX never reached alpha stage, and the project was canceled in 2006.
With the release of the ID Tech 3 engine source code, Urban Terror could legally be released as a standalone game. Urban Terror beta 4.0 was released in April 2007 using the ioquake3 project engine. Urban Terror is now a standalone game. Beta 4.0 ushered in another graphical overhaul, several new maps, and numerous tweaks and bug fixes. The popularity of Urban Terror surged as Quake III Arena was no longer required in order to play. The current version of Urban Terror, beta 4.1, was released in December 2007.
On the 25th December 2010 the Urban Terror HD Alpha 0.1 test was publicly released, featuring a new Engine, new Weapons, Maps and Characters.
January 20th 2011 an interim release, 4.1.1, was open to the public. Although it doesn't contain any new weapons or changes in gameplay it does offer updated skins, funstuff (customization) and maps. Clients running 4.1.1 are expected to work on either 4.1 or 4.1.1 servers while only upgraded clients can play on upgraded servers.
Gameplay
Urban Terror is billed by FrozenSand as a "Hollywood tactical shooterTactical shooter
A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...
." It blends elements from games such as Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
, Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is a futuristic first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels...
, Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
, and Warsow. The realism in the mod is introduced through a number of changes:
The number of weapons and other gear that can be carried is limited. Damage is also more realistic than in Quake III Arena, based on dividing the player target into discrete areas
Collision detection
Collision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. While the topic is most often associated with its use in video games and other physical simulations, it also has applications in robotics...
. Depending on the map being played, external environments are realistic and can include weather effects such as rain
Rain
Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
or snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
. Weather effects can also be controlled by game variables via administrator privileges.
Urban Terror allows players to perform superhuman feats. Damage is a key example; while damage taken depends on the part of the body which is hit, one can keep going after receiving numerous hits. Further breaking from reality, Urban Terror also retains the movement speeds from Quake III Arena (circle jumping
Strafe-jumping
Strafe-jumping is a form of trickjump used to increase a player's speed in computer games based on the Quake engine and now the Doom 3 engine...
) which allowed players to move through the environment incredibly quickly and includes moves such as wall jump
Wall jump
This article is about the video game move. For its real-world counterpart, see wall flip.A wall jump is a technique players can execute in several video games.-Technique:...
ing and power sliding. Wall jumping allows players to literally jump off of walls and helps the player to gain more height, distance and speed. Power sliding lets the player slides, rapidly, in a crouched position, maintaining speed. These abilities have spawned a sub-community of players who focus on specially designed "jump maps" of which the goal is to reach the end of a series of difficult courses.
Numerous game modes are featured, including classic FPS modes such as Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag
Capture the flag
Capture the Flag is a traditional outdoor sport generally played by children, where two teams each have a flag and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base," and bring it safely back to their own base...
. Also included are Team Survivor, Free-for-All (deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
), Bomb & Defuse, Capture & Hold, and Follow the Leader. Beta 4.2 will bring two additional game types: Last Man Standing, and Jump Map Training (a special mode for the aforementioned jump maps).
Weapons and equipment
Players have one primary, one secondary, one pistolPistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, and one grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
slot, in addition to three general equipment slots. Players must select one pistol, and one primary weapon. Players are also automatically equipped with a Ka-bar knife. Primary weapons include heavy weapons such as sniper rifles and assault rifles, as well as all secondary weapons. The secondary weapons include submachine guns and shotguns. Secondary weapons may also be equipped as primary weapons, allowing the player to pick up other primary weapons from killed players.
Of the remaining five slots (secondary weapon, grenades, general equipment) only three may be filled at spawn-time. (Equipment may be picked up from dead players to fill unused slots later on during the game.) The player may select to carry either two fragmentation grenades or two smoke grenades. The player can also select one of three secondary weapons. Finally, the three general equipment slots may be filled with any of several items such as kevlar
Kevlar
Kevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed at DuPont in 1965, this high strength material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires...
armor and weapon attachments.
Damage and stamina
Damage registrationCollision detection
Collision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. While the topic is most often associated with its use in video games and other physical simulations, it also has applications in robotics...
in Urban Terror is done by dividing the player target into four discrete areas: head, torso, arms, and legs. The effects on the torso and head can be reduced by game items such as the kevlar vest and the kevlar helmet, respectively. In addition to the damage system, wounds require bandaging, and wounds sustained in the legs slow the player down considerably until they are bandaged. When a wound is not bandaged, the player will eventually slowly die from bleeding to death. Players can also bandage each other to partially restore another player's health. The bandaging process is much faster if the player that is bandaging is equipped with a medkit item, also allowing them to heal other players to nearly full health.
A stamina system is also present, and is depleted by jumping and sprinting. The amount of stamina is related to the amount of health a player has. Equipping or picking up a kevlar vest or the IMI Negev
IMI Negev
The Negev is an Israeli 5.56 mm light machine gun, developed by Israel Military Industries Ltd. of Ramat HaSharon , as a replacement for the 5.56 mm Galil ARM light machine gun, whose barrel would overheat easily during sustained fire...
decreases stamina considerably. Stamina is recharged fastest when a player is motionless and crouched, but will recharge slowly even during normal movement.
Anti-cheating technologies
Originally, Urban Terror (as a Quake III Arena mod) used the PunkBusterPunkBuster
PunkBuster is a computer program that is designed to detect software used for cheating in online games. It does this by scanning the memory contents of the local machine. A computer identified as using cheats may be banned from connecting to protected servers. The aim of the program is to isolate...
anti-cheating technology built into Quake III Arena. As PunkBuster
PunkBuster
PunkBuster is a computer program that is designed to detect software used for cheating in online games. It does this by scanning the memory contents of the local machine. A computer identified as using cheats may be banned from connecting to protected servers. The aim of the program is to isolate...
does not support modified versions of the ID Tech 3 engine, the standalone version of Urban Terror 4.1 had no working anti-cheat system.
The next release is expected to bring about the use of Passport, an identification system which is also complemented with an AntiCheat.
External links
- Urban Terror official website
- Frozen Sand LLC
- Urban Terror official YouTube channel
- [ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/games/urbanterror/iourbanterror/source/complete/ Urban Terror engine sourcecode]