1999 is just the date where it all began. It's quite logic to use it as a term to not exclude anything. It's pretty obvious that no new game will be like a game back in the days. There is always some sort of advancing throughout a game (implemented as
expierence-value) as that's what people care about these days - competing by "I'm on level X"/"I got a KD-rate of X.XX"/"I unlocked that X skin"/etc.. A Quake/Doom/UT 1:1 port won't work IMO.
I know (judging from posts) that one dev was working on demo replication. Since they are using UDK (not UE3 full) they have to work with that what Epic is providing (natively). Many features of UT3 were stripped off UDK. UT3 2.0 had many features which didn't got added to the base UE3/UDK version (I've read that also from one Epic dev somewhere).
As mentioned by Reakktor, they started Toxikk because Epic didn't want to work on the franchise for a long time. They pretty much got the intention to create a UDK UT-like game in 2012. I got the same intention back in 2010/11. I officially asked Epic (via PM@Flak; July 2012) to create such project in collaboration with the UDK community using UT3 assets but also likely implementing a UT3
login validation check so only users wit the original game could use that community UDK-UT3. But that game was planned as the same as Toxxik, addressing all UT fans (99, 2kx, UT3 and also UCx). The legal department was against it. That was a big rock on that journey. That
project was on pause for a long time. But with the release of UE4 OT was created and I joined that small group. Not sure if Epic ever reveal why they are creating UT now and not a new retail UT4 but I guess OT was one reason and they wanted to 1. never actually adandon UT, 2. don't have issues with OT being a simple rip-off (as the initial plan for that game wasn't good after all) and 3. to get interets in working collaborative on a new UT by using the new UE4. OT got dropped quite fast, the same could have happened to Toxikk if UT4 would have been release in late UT2012 or early 2013.
After that small background information about my own plan for a UT-like game, I see no reason to bash Reakktor (or any other small indie group) which are trying to create a UT-like game (as clone, rip-off, inpiration, ...) as all the intentions go back to only 1 thing: We all love UT because of its gameplay and less about it looks. That's what all the games have in common. And I could have been in the same position as Reakktor, being bashed and justify the look and direction of my game. I actually like the direction of Toxikk. Even more as the
current process/direction of UT(4). But that's a personal thing and might only be temporarily.
Once the SDK is released/accessible, a RypelCam adapted version for Toxxik could be created. Probably not by me as I don't plan to buy an access-code for Toxxik for the moment (still too much on my todo-list as you may know
). It actually looks like the trailers are already made from captured live demos and using some sort of
camera tool.
PS: UE4 doesn't prevent us/anyone from creating RypelCam4
don't think that Rypel, you or me will work on that in the near future tho.
PPS: UT will have a free SDK but that won't be as accessible as the full engine editor (said quite recently by one Epic dev). Without knowing anything about the plans, I would say one can expect the same editor like it was available for UT3 but this time for UE4 and not UE3. Since you won't need to have script access for BluePrint, the game can be extended like UT3. It might be a big security problem, but Epic could also allow C++ modding without having to provide the source code by provinding just the header files.
