Rock, Paper, Shotgun

We’ve received a mysterious link from Ludocraft, who are currently making a “HD” version of one of RPS’ favourite mods, the bizarre airship combat game, Air Buccaneers. It’s a link to this image, which is inscribed with words – possibly Finnish? (my understandening of anything outside basic English is deplorable) – which apparently contain some clue to what will be contained in the remake. Ludocraft describe it as “a small bit of info on one quite interesting and unique new “thing” we’ll be adding to the game.”

Meanwhile the Ludocraft team have put up a server of the original mod. They explain: “It can be found in the Unreal Tournament 2004 server browser under name “LudoCraft’s AirBuccaneers 1.6 Server” or via direct IP: 80.75.107.152:7777.” Details for the mod itself are here, and obviously you’ll need UT2004. Anyone for a game tonight? 8pm UK time?

Air Buccaneers is getting an HD remake! You can even watch a trailer, below. Air Buccaneers – a multiplayer combat game between teams of balloon-piloting, cutlass-wielding canoneers – was 2004′s greatest mod, and arguably one of the finest mods of all time. And it is being remade. RPS veterans we recall our revival of the mod on a couple of occasions, events which always ended in a “why isn’t this being remade in UDK…” Now it is.

It’s also due for release in 2012. And that’s all I know for now, having just been alerted to this forum thread by Comrade sponge. I’ve contact Ludocraft for more information.
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Kick off from about 6pm UK time tonight? And if you’re reading this WITHOUT COMPREHENDING THE AWESOMENESS then you should read this and this. Then, perhaps, you will join us.

EDIT: UT2k4 master server is poorly, so launch Air Buccaneers, open console, and type “open 140.247.62.101:8777″ to join the server.

Splendid scholar and gentleman Andrew Mao sends word that he has put up an East Coast US server for Air Buccaneers – a feat of altruism which should fix our balloon-pirating woes. Looks like there’s a Warband event on tonight, but how about we all pile on to this on Saturday for aeronautical fun times?

Mr Mao also says: “ut2004://140.247.62.101:8777 – has redirect so even those who are too lazy to download the game can just put in the IP and get the files downloaded.”

That was a bit of a bust. Not sure what the problem was. I’ll have to fix it when we’ve got more time to experiment. Sorry!

EDIT: Server up again, but likely not for long. Will try to fix it up for tomorrow.

EDIT: Server had crashed, it’s back now. And crashed again. It’s not look very healthy. Working on it. It’s up for now, but not sure why it should be crashing so regularly.

Craig from PC Gamer UK sends word that they’ve got an Air Buccaneers server up and running until May 6th. We had some success with a revival last year, and details for getting started are here. Shall we have a game from, say, 2pm UK time tomorrow? The server should come up in the game browser, or the IP is 85.236.100.18:8077. Reminisce over last year’s events here.

Update: Server is still up, so let’s get some Sunday afternoon games going for people who missed out on last night. Shall we try and fill the server again tonight at 8pm UK time?

Get the mod here, and make sure you get the .zip version for the Steam version of UT2004. If you’ve not played before, play the in-game tutorial!

The air wars were still raging when I dropped out last night, so do pop by if you’re able. Highlight of the evening was the mass suicide-boarding of an enemy battleship, leaving our battleship unmanned and drifting, only to be re-crewed via rocket-glider. Now that’s a videogame, yes sir.

Thanks to everyone who turned up last night, it seems Air Buccaneers lives again.

For more info look here and here.

Thanks to everyone who turned up for Air Buccaneers this evening, it was a lighter-than-air riot. We’re going to do it again next Saturday at 7pm UK time, until we are defeated. More ruminations on this evening’s events below, along with some tips for anyone intending to come along at the weekend.

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UPDATE: From 7pm UK time? EDIT: Use .zip version of the game for Steam UT2004.
Keen-brained readers might recall a comments thread conversation we had about the lack of airships, balloons and other dirigibles in games. I decided we had to fix that, and the easiest way to do it was by starting up a game of the brilliantly barmy balloon combat mod for UT2004, Air Buccaneers. You probably don’t remember it, as it was one of the more obscure mods of the time, but it’s wonderful, mad, and remarkably atmospheric. In it two teams fight with cannons, blunderbusses, “air-mines” and other steampunk equipment, as they traverse the skies in rickety balloons. It’s brilliant. I downloaded it, and booted it up and… disaster. No servers. Fortunately, the heroic men at PC Gamer UK stepped into the breach and put a server up! (85.236.100.18:8077) Now it’s down to you lot to get the mod, and bring this work of airship excellence back to life, if just for a few evenings. More details below.

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