larrystorch: Now for the question of possible heresy amongst your team, have you ever played the Quake 2 Jailbreak mod? If so, do you find yourself comparing UTJB to it, or do you think the UT mod has evolved well beyond it? I have to ask, having loved Quake2 JB
NYGrrrl: What's Quake 2? UTJB3 has evolved way beyond what UTJB2 was!
Snowdog: Jailbreak for Unreal Tournament comes with a lot more nifty features, for example: The custom execution sequences, the skinnable HUD, the arena battles and the drunken llama effects when a player tries to cheat by disconnecting and reconnecting.
tarquin: I haven't played any of the Quake versions. I think the UT version is now a very different package. It adds a lot of new ideas, such as the arena, release protection and llamas; also a gametype mod is very much defined by its maps (at least in the public perception), and UTJB didn't carry any Quake maps across.
Mychaeel: I must admit I never played any other Jailbreak than ours. A while ago I searched the web for information on other games' Jailbreaks, but only to little avail.
There's one Quake Jailbreak thing though that was mentioned so frequently in feedback we got for UTJB2 that it finally made its way into Jailbreak III as well: human ladders -- being able to step on other people's heads and stand there to form a tower of teammates that eventually helps the uppermost of them escape through a hole high up in the jail walls. We got some nifty screenshots with whole clans standing on each other... but I have yet to see it put to real use.
Sexmachine: I haven't had the chance to play the "original" Quake 2 Jailbreak mod, but I sometimes do play JB:POW for Quake 3. Both (UTJB and JB:POW) are worth playing and both have the same roots and that's why Team Reaction always deserves to be mentioned (kudos to them). Besides that I think UT Jailbreak (especially the latest release) has really evolved well beyond JB:POW. All those cool JB3 features (like the arena, the deathcam view or the llama hunt) plus the pretty good acting UT bots lead to a completely different gameplay expierience.
El Bundee: I actually never played Quake 2. I bought Unreal when it came out, but I never played online at this time. My first online game was Jedi Knight and I got hands on UT when it already was released as GOTY edition.
larrystorch: What is the one feature of UTJB that you think sets it apart from the other mods?
NYGrrl: Replayability -- it's the most complete mod cause it's a whole new gametype, not just a variation or new scenery. Jailbreak not only encourages but requires teamwork. And lots of mapper support in the JB community is a BIG plus!
Snowdog: It's not really a feature I like about Jailbreak, it's just the fact that you and your team get to kill the enemy team, lay back and watch them get killed again in some sick, twisted way.
tarquin: Cheese. And the gameplay. It's a neat combination of CTF and LMS. In CTF if you can't do flag runs, you're cannon fodder or you're sitting around defending: it's boring. In JB the mere fact you're alive is useful to the team. That's good for lousy players like me.
As a mapper, I enjoy the challenge of fitting the jails and the arena into the body of the map. The ideal configuration would be a jail situated so convicts can see both the central areas of the map and the arena.
Mychaeel: We put a lot of effort into making Jailbreak III as compatible to other add-on game content as possible: custom player and bot models, mutators, anti-cheating measures like UTPure and CSHP. I feel that the tight integration of Jailbreak into UT is a big plus for people playing it.
Jailbreak at its purest is nothing more than a different set of game rules with a few necessary props like jails and switches, just as CTF and Domination are. We didn't feel it was appropriate to add our own weapons or player classes at the expense of all the diversity that an environment as modular as UT provides, with tons of weapon mutators, custom models and skins and other stuff readily available, allowing people to customize their gaming experience at will. Code-wise that meant that we had to inflict a lot of behavior from "outside" those interchangeable items rather than being able to do them straightforwardly from within their code -- but I believe the extra effort was worth it.
Sexmachine: In terms of gameplay, I think there is no other mod out there that makes it necessary to change your tactics (from offense to defense and back) so quickly. You almost have to develop some sort of "feeling" for that, to become a good and successful JB player.
And talking about real features: The capture sequences are always a blast. It's really great fun to get slain by some kralls and hear somebody taunt: "You like that? -- Oh yeah!"
El Bundee: In my opinion that's the gameplay. You have deathmatch elements like the 1-on-1 in the arena and the essential goal to frag opponents. But it's also a team game.
larrystorch: I noticed that there are a lot of JB oriented mutators. How important are they in extending the mod (in your opinion)?
NYGrrrl: Good mutators are always fun for any mod or gametype. Just the atmosphere of Jailbreak lends iself to some good mut ideas.
Snowdog: Mutators show that people actually like a mod and are prepared to extend it with goodies. What's the point of making something for a mod you don't really like? Besides that, mutators made for Jailbreak help the mod becoming well known.
tarquin: I play it plain, the way it was meant to be played... lousy heretics, polluting the pure essence of Jailbreak with their filthy unclean mutators... cough... all part of the rich diversity. I think the mod is great straight out of the box, but it's good to see it inspiring additions -- it adds to the diversity of Jailbreak. We 56k-ers often look to how rich the community around a mod is when choosing which to download, so it'll attract more people too.
Mych paid particular attention to compatibility with other mods and mutators; the other day someone in IRC mentioned they could only get out of the jail in JB-Pressurized when playing with Matrix Moves... and I thought "whaaaa...?". I could look at it as spoiling the play on that map (the purist in me), but I see it as evidence that Jailbreak is playing a key role in keeping UT vibrant even now at the end of its lifecycle.
Mychaeel: Hehe, I gotta love them :-) -- two of them are by myself. In fact, one of those two was my first foray into coding for UT before I even got anywhere near the thought of working on Jailbreak itself: A mutator that automatically respawned pickups when a new round started, thus evening the field for both teams. (That functionality has made its way into Jailbreak's core code meanwhile.)
Having mutators and other content contributed from within the community is a great thing. It shows dedication on part of our community that extends far beyond passive consumption, and that is what makes a community strong and keeps it interesting.
Sexmachine: As far as I know, each and every mutator that has been done for UTJB version 205 made its way into JB3. That's how important they are. For me, mutators are a way to add features to Jailbreak without re-releasing the whole thing again and I really like that.
El Bundee: Jailbreak offers many possibilities for mutators to add interesting features especially if you are in jail. Mutators like JBHammer where you can win prizes by doing hammer fights in jail or JBMadmen which make bots depressive and commit suicide in jail contibute a lot to the popularity of Jailbreak.