Æon's Unreal Page


Last updated on Thursday, January 14th 09:58 1999 Counting since: Saturday, August 1st 11:15 1998

Welcome to Æon's Unreal Page

Find: News, Server Info, File Archive, FAQs, Tips & Tricks, Custom Maps, Screen Shots, Links, Statistics/Ranking, UnrealEd Tutorials... This page was primarily dedicated to my Unreal Server... but you'll find other interesting tidbits here as well :)... I started this page to let me collect all the stuff one needs to run a dedicated server and to let me share the info with you folks out there who have not yet totally given up on Unreal 8-).

This page was... Shocked by [M7]... See his cool Web.

Thursday, January 14th 09:58 1999

AEstats - The Next Generation :)
I have continued work on the AEus package on a separate site, dedicated to Stats and Ranking generation. The new Stats package is called AEstats, and supports Unreal along with Quake II, Rocket Arena II, Lithium II mod and soon Half-Life and SIN.

The latest release of Unreal 2.20 seems to have trouble with the Unreal Script code I provide in this package. And soon 2.21 with 5 DM new maps will appear. Around the middle of next week I'll look into this and fix things, hopefully :).

Out of the Eon
As you may have noticed I haven't done any updating in a long time. This has to do with the fact that I no longer really believe in Unreal... I play Half-Life :), but I'll continue to do small updates from time to time.

Sunday, November 8th 22;17 1998

Setting up the AEus page
I have started to set up the AEus Code page, that has several sub pages. See: Features, Download, Installation of Mod & Parser, Details on Mod and Parser, finally a section on Tips & Tricks.

All the info and some more that I provided in the AEus195b.txt file are now part of the "AEus Code" sub pages, and some extra info as well. Hope this helps.

You will also find a news section there...

Thursday, November 5th 08:50 1998

AEus - In the News :)
On Blues News:

   Unreal Log Parser  [9:17 PM EST]
   AEon's Unreal Page, a German Unreal server page, has the first release of AUus,
   a Windows 95 Unreal deathmatch log parser that can generate an HTML stats page.

Note: Even though this page may be German, in fact it's in English ;)... "AEus" ! and it will run from any shell/DOSbox, since the code is in ANSI-C and portable.

On Planet Unreal:

   11.4.98 18:53 » Unreal Modifications
   Unreal Log Creator... The first release of Aeus by AEon, your asking for
   confusion there, is now available here. Features include Global and Player
   specific stats, rankings, frags per hour and plenty more. Be sure to check it out!

Note: It's called "AEus" capital "E"... The "here" and "AEus" links point to this site, sorta redundant :)

Thanx... Blue and Planet Unreal.

AEus - Plans
I will start to write a more comprehensive documentation for AEus and AEonsDMmod, on the Stats -> AEus Code page. The module might be of interest to other mod authors. Since the code is pretty straight forward, it should be easy to add Ranking to game modules that are "Death Match" a-like. E.g. where frags primarily count, and not more subtle or complex scoring mechanisms (e.g. CTF) are used.

The first author interested in my mod is Win who is currently working on the UWar mod... hi there :)).

I will write a special section on "AEonsDMmod", where it shadows Unreal's code, ideas behind it, and the info it outputs.

Wednesday, November 4th 21:10 1998

1st Unreal Log Parser - AEus 1.95b available
My Unreal log parser is finally available. Binary for w95 only, for now. This will let you hopeful Unreal admins out there generate nice Stats pages like on this site :). Grab the binary AEus195b.zip (387 KB) and read the AEus195b.txt for quick and dirty installation.

Hope this is of some use. Feel free to spread the word :))

Please note: The above code is a Beta, use it completely at your own risk!!! Use it with the latest Unreal Patch 2.19.

Wednesday, November 4th 09:24 1998

Unreal Patch Update - v2.19
For a local copy of the latest Unreal Patch get: UnrealBeta219.zip (2.11 MB). Install it into your Unreal\System\ drawer.

Here is a list of bug fixes:

  Internet Play
    - When the server switches levels, all players were thrown into the holding cell,
      but don't properly rejoin the next level. Fixed.
    - Entering a server as a spectator then typing "suicide" on the console caused the
      spectator to be visible to players as a little tiny chess pawn. Eliminated.
    - "RMODE" command is no longer allowed during network play (potential unfair
      advantage).
    - Fixed object updates becoming erratic after 30+ minutes in the same level.

  Internet Server
    - Fixed potential crash when players are downloading files.

  LAN Play
    - Fixed message "Connecting to unreal://0.0.0.0/" without ever connecting.
    - Fixed joining game from "find local servers menu" not connecting.

  UnrealScript
    - Fixed crash calling static functions.
    - Added function InternetLink.IpAddrToString
    - Implemented ELinkMode MODE_Binary in UdpLink, for mod authors who need to
      implement binary UDP protocols.

  Editor
    - Fixed crash on exit

AEus - Status
On a note: I won't be doing much with Unreal any longer... Except for AEus... I will put my spare time into making a public version. As of now I am still not sure if I will release the source code. Depends on the feedback I get.

Since a new Unreal Patch is out... my hopes are high that Unreal Script is working properly again. I will sit down this evening and take a look the the current Unreal Script code. If all goes well I should have an update of "AEonsDMmod" working this weekend.

I will be handing out AEus in steps. First a Beta that contains binaries for w95 and Intel Linux. (Other platforms are no problem at all, Linux on Alpha's comes to mind, or even OS/2, or DEC Ultrix. We have all these machines at our institute, and since my code is in ANSI C, a recompile should be no problem at all). The archive will contain so-called "Header" htlm files. These are the HTML pages you can see on the Stats pages, only that they have "key word lines" that tell AEus where to place stats tables etc. This will make it very easy for you admins out there to put together your own stats pages. I will also include an example log file for tests. There won't be any detailed docs. I'll include a short readme that tells the more brave among you how to get started.

By and by I'll put together a comprehensive "AEus Code" page (at present the links leads nowhere), that will contain tips and tricks, and more detailed docs. But the latter will take a while. First I hope to make a working AEus binary available. Note the present version still has some bugs, and lots of extra stuff is still not implemented. It all depends on the feedback I get. If there is lots of interest, I'll be motivated to do quite a few other nifty things :).

Out of the Eon
Long Time no Update :9... I have been on vacation in the Bavarian Forest this last Week, to get away from it all... did some hiking. Above 1000m we even had snow... woopiee :)).

On a more serious note. Personally 3D shooters are getting on my nerves, I haven't been playing any of those in months. The only game I am really looking forward to is Quake III.

Nothing much has been happing in terms of a new AEon's Unreal Server, due to some weird "holdups"... hmmm... maybe this is for the better... it leaves me more time to get a life .-)... Will keep you posted if anything happens Server-wise.

Friday, October 16th 8:52 1998

AEon - Taking a Break and Waiting for next Patch
After several weeks of intense work on my parser AEus, I am very tired, and therefore I am taking a break from it. If my mod AEonsDMmod where working I would have released demo executables (w95, Linux) for you folks to test. But as it is, my module no longer works with 2.17. And UnrealEd is buggy as hell :(. I sent Epic a bug report but as of now, no new patch was released. Once UnrealEd (script!) has been fixed, a demo of AEus will be made available.

AEus - Plans
Things to do sometime: Put the "Best of..." Page together. More Player Stats. Real world tests with log files (As of now I had been testing things with a Bot generated log file. Real world players will have plenty of stupid ;) ideas on how to mess up the log.). AEus Code page. Documentation for the parser. I am not sure about releasing the source code, depends... :). I'll probably make the things one would need to change configurable. The more important features are already configurable.

Server
I was offered another Unreal server recently, but I have received no further info or email on the subject. So I have to assume that nothing will come of it. :(

Hosting
Unreal Nation recently did show some interest in hosting this site. They sent the email to M7, who redirected it to me. So I am still not 100% sure if they really meant my site. I asked them to send in some details on the matter. But I have not received an email. Pretty sloppy handling of potential sites I have to say :(.

Out of the Eon
Maybe it's me, but I have the feeling that Unreal won't make it. Epic sorta messed things up with their net code, that now seems to work somewhat. But since things like UnrealEd don't work properly after all this time, I just can't see anyone *that* motivated to work with a buggy tool. I also have the feeling that this is all in preparation for the "next generation" of games that will be using the Unreal engine. Duke 4 ever comes to mind. Once it's out, most of the buggy stuff will work properly to attract a large enough crowd of players from the *start*. Looking at the number of German Unreal players and comparing it with the number of Quake II folks. It seems evident that Unreal will never really make the cut. There simply isn't that critical mass of players to get the game off the ground. This may sound pompous ;), but maybe my not having a server here in Germany is one of the reasons why Unreal isn't that popular. As it may be ... these are just my 2 cents.

... News Archive ...

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Shocked By [M7]