Mod Ideas

The Mod Ideas page is a place for suggesting and debating mod ideas for any Unreal Engine based games. Although the primary focus is on UT2003 and UT2004 this will change over time as more Unreal Engine games get released. It may even lead to new mods being created. This page grew out of a scratch pad of the stressed ramblings of EntropicLqd, father, or menagerie-keeper as he would style it.

This page is part of the Unreal Wiki site. That means anyone can add text or edit the material that is here. It's a collaborative environment, and newcomers should read New Contributors Quick Start before making edits. To see what is new since your last visit, see Recent Changes or the (diff) and View other revisions links at the foot of this page.

The guidelines for using this page are still rough, so open to suggestion.

It's Open!: Firstly, when adding an idea to this page be aware that you are opening it up to comment from any casual passer by. Be prepared to be met with stony silence or many suggestions. As well as opening the idea up for comment you are also giving up some ownership of the mod – someone else may write it before you.
Commenting: When commenting on an idea, add your comments to the discussion section of the mod. Allow the original owner of the idea to refactor their mod description to include your suggestion should they like it – and be prepared for your suggestion to simply be ignored or rebuffed. It's not personal.
Expressing Interest: If you are interested in writing a mod, but haven't got time to do it right now, add your name to the Interested Scripters list. Before you start work on a mod idea listed on this page you are responsible for checking to see if anyone else has started the mod before you. The aim here is to contribute effort rather than duplicate effort. If someone else has started the mod feel free to offer help, but again, be prepared for your offer to be turned down (some of these mods are way to small to be built by more than one person). You really also want to read Mychaeel/Modding Etiquette before starting any project...
Delivery: Once you decide to go into "delivery mode" with an idea here make that fact plain within the Interested Scripters section. It would also be nice if you added a journal page to the Wiki on Category Journal for the mod. The journal should read more like a tutorial rather than a diary and explain why you decided to do things the way you did, as well as how you did them. A journal is by no means a requirement, but it would be nice.

There's also a corresponding Map Ideas page for ideas for mappers making maps.

Please only post a project idea here if you actually plan to work on it.

Wider Reading

Other pages on the nature of mods, how to make them, and how to make them good.

Gameplay - what is gameplay? what makes good gameplay?
Mychaeel/Mod Startups – essential rant
Brandon Reinhart's Mod Authoring
... and generally, the rest of the Unreal Wiki, maybe starting with UnrealScript.
and you can use the ScratchPad to work on code

ONS Variants

/AirCombat – Aerial dogfighting Onslaught style.

CTF Variants

/TurnCoat
/Balanced CTF
/CarJack – Steal all the cars on the map, and park them at your base.
/CarryTheFlag – Carry the flag home rather than simply touch it.
/Cold War – Collect, attack and defend parts for your nuke!
Mapping for DrawBridges – Get control of a central room, lower your bridge at steal that flag!
/ExpertCTF – All weapons given, regen health and ammo and off-hand hook. See www.planetquake.com/expert for details.
/LonelyFlag – Two teams compete for a single flag.
/MultiCTF – Aka CTF+, CTF4, I'd like to get a combined mod going for this.
/Reversed CTF – Only a little modification make things more hectic
/TouchDown – Effectively Bombing Run with an attacking and defending team that swap over.
/UnrealBallPool – Collect the most balls at your flag base to win (Maybe Dom maps would work better?).

DOM Variants

/DestructionDOM – Control points need to be destroyed to be captured.
/Dompendant – You, i mean you, are by yourself!!
/KOTH – King of the Hill mod (one DOM point).
/Power Domination – Dominate the power nodes of an Onslaught map.
/RandomDOM – 6+ Dom points but only a random 2 work
/Triple Domination – 50% more domination than Double Domination!
/UnrealSprint – Touch consecutive control points without dying to score points.

New Game Types

/Anagram – A team word game with big weapons.
/CatchTheSmurf – Catch that Smurf!
/ColorfulWarriors– A Flying Airboats Mod w/ Giant GreenNalis, 25-30 Colorful Warriors skins, etc.
/DaiymoDefense – Everybody likes ninjas and samurai. Think VIP Assassination with katanas, bows, and blowguns.
/DownhillUT – Bobsleding and Snowboarding meets Back To The Future meets Super Mario Kart meets UT2k3
/Extreme Co-op – Advanced UT2k3 Co-operative Mod
/False Prophets – Defend your prophet or die trying
/FishFood – Who can be the biggest fish in the pond then?
/Gladiator – Only the Gladiator can frag!
/IceClimbUT – a single player mod that you have to climb obstacles and stay away from ice spikes. Inspired from the TI-83+ game IceClimb.
/KarmaCrossfire – 2 players, 2 stationary guns, 2 goals, a Karma ball and lots of explosions
/KillingSpree – a single player gametype focusing on killing sprees
/Hoard – Collect "Hoard Orbs" to score.
/Magicans – A magic teamgame
/MonkeyKnifeFight – Small dudes with knives!
/Origiut – The original UT weapons and playing!!
/Pool – Play pool (billiards) with a UT 2003 twist using karma.
/Predator – Destroy your opponents as the predator.
/ProjectMassive – A massively multiplayer roleplaying game for 2004. Most probably will be ported to UE3 once it comes out.
/Ringworld– A Ringworld-Inspired Mod for UT2003
/RollercoasterRider – Build coasters and ride them.
/RoundUp – Take members of the other team prisoner, lock em all up. [UT]
/RunningOfTheBulldogs – AI/Human controlled bulldogs try to run over players
/Soul Devourer – 1 Ultra Powerful Demon VS Everyone.
/Spelling – Recognise the picture then spell the word.
/TheHunt – Can you survive the Hunt?
/UnRealMyst – A mod to provide the groundwork for Myst style puzzle games
/Virus – Blow away virus in your own computer just like the original game.
/WaterFight – See who can get the most soakage.
/We've Created a Monster – Not your average Mutant variant.

Miscellaneous Ideas

/Deadman Launcher – You know you love to see your character tumble like a ragdoll down the stairs...its unfortunate you have to die though (thats why I propose the Deadman Launcher).
/Arms – Play UT with ported weapons from other games like doom, quake, etc.
/Advanced Vehicle Damage – Destroy parts of vehicles such as wheels & weapons
/BinkPlayer – Plays .bik files on the 'new scriptedtextures' that appear to render level action on them.
/Bomberman – You know that old game?
/Buddy List – For UT
/ChargingJumpBoots – Jump boots with variable height.
/Civilians – people in the map who just get in the way
/CorpseRedemption – Redeem a frag by killing your dead self.
/Dark Match – Turn out the lights and run around with torches.
/Decal Match – Adds more decals to the game
/Enhanced Spectator Camera – A Truly ESPN worthy Spectator camera mode.
/Firestarter – A combo/pickup that causes the player to set alight anyone who looks in his eyes
/Flame shield – A combo/pickup that protects the user from bullets and explosions that also damages nearby players
/Helmet – Play UT2003 through the eyes of your helmet. With vision filters.
/HyperspaceButton – Instant teleportation across the map (or maybe death).
/Hovercar – Remember those cars buzzing around the UT intro? Drive them!
/Jedi – To hell with unreal lets have some starwars.
/Jet Set Tournament 2003 – JSRF-style lock-strafing, with possible further conversions
Mind Reader – A UT2003 version of.
/Minefield – Run around with caution, you might step on something nasty.
/MovementTrainer – Practice moving, aiming, and generally grooving around.
/Multi Team UT2003 – Models and interface support for 4 or maybe even 6 teams.
/MutatorShuffler – Randomly selects mutators for use in the next map.
/NowWithWings – Provides players with two modes of transport.
/Possessed – Fighting is easy once you have a body.
/Real Terrain – Deformable terrain as in Red Faction
/Riftwar – Three team species/class based minimod
/Smoke Bomb – Dissapear in a puff of smoke.
/Spam Weapons – Yeah, I know, spamming is bad. But in this case you don't have other options.
/Sticky Boots – Run up walls and across ceilings. These boots are amazing.
/Talkative Bots – Hey, the bots are talking back.
/Splintercell mod – sneak around shadowy maps...
/Wipeout-style mod – futuristic racing mod idea

Total Conversions

/Block Wars – Mayhem in the Judge Dredd universe.
/Cyberwars – Cyborgs test their toys on each other
/Descent Mod – Remember that game where you used to fly around and, er, shoot robots and find the reactor and escape? The 360° of freedom one?
/Freeloader – Ever heard of Excape Velocity? try combining that with UT2k3...
/Medieval-Fantasy – In the vein of Rune/Dark Vengeance
/Rocket Jockey – A Rocket Jockey inspired game, in which players must ride rockets around an arena and launch cables at each other.
/ShineMatch – Super Mario Sunshine converion?
/Ski-ing – How about that?
/StarCraft – SC Single player/multiplayer shooter.
/Stellar Conflict – BF1942 meets space.....sorta
/TheMachine – Single-player RPG mod on Mars.
/UTroids – I once saw Tetris for Uwindows... why not 3dAstroids?
/Xenocide – futuristic class-based warfare simulation with human, alien and robotic factions
/artillery towersa team based mod where they have to blow up each other's tower.

Map Components

/ChangeMusicVolume – A volume in which the music changes to whatever the mapper designates when you walk into it.
/GravityWell – Add an area of gravitational effect to your map
/Lightning – Lightning that attaches to a player (like the red beam that attaches to a teamate with the link gun) like how static electricity would do, and does damage!
/LocalGravity – Configure Gravity, and the orientation of players in your map.
/MeteorShower – Add a meteor shower to your map.
/PlayerMovementZone – A zone that lets you tweak the player's speed (Should probably be volume now)
/ShockTower – A point defense or DM feature
/Trampoline – A jump pad you have to work at
/Unreal1Monsters – your favorite baddies are back, with shiney new meshes and karma deaths ^_^
/VelocityTrigger – A diferent for of Targetkicker
SustainedDamageTrigger – A trigger based upon total damage recieved rather than damage amount.
/NoRotatingItems – Disable rotating for some or all items in a map
/Sunshadow – Player shadows are adjusted based on which way the sunlight actor is pointing
/CTFextras – a few extra things to add more gameplay strategy and teamplay to CTF
/Team Switch UT – a sort of team trigger that switches from team to team

Weapons

/Instagib N Grapple – An instagib rifle with a grappling hook as the secondary fire.
/Charging Shock Rifle – A weapon that does more damage the less you fire it.
/Spiderman Gun – Spiderman, spiderman, does whatever a spider can...
/Ablative Gun – a gun thats only what your opponents make it!
/Killstick – Sniping weapon from Megatokyo.
/Bloodrifle – Powered-up sniper/shock rifle variant.
/SpiderHack – Use spider mines to hack enemy vehicles
/Manhack – Manhacks from HL2

Mutators

/Accelerating Rockets – Rocket Launcher rounds accelerate until they run out of fuel.
/Bloodbath – Infinate bloodbath (Optimized DecalStay)
/BotReport – run a botmatch and report what happens
/Chameleon – Causes a players skin to be replaced with the walls texture.
/CratePickups – all pickups are in crates!
/Creeper runes – Think RealCTF's RealCreeper. or, Quake I's CreeperCTF
/DevTools –0 Various Developer tools
/Dodgeball – Think Super Dodgeball for the NES.
/ForcedLowGrav – LowGrav mutator goes into effect for certain maps of your choosing otherwise regular gravity is in effect.
/Heavy Items – You'll be weighed down by your items.
/InfiniteAmmoCombo – Adrenaline Combo that returns ammo when used / stops ammo drain
/InstaVsSniper – Arena mutator where Red team gets the Enhanded Shock Rifle and Blue team gets the Sniper Rifle.
/Iris – your "eyes" adjust to changing light levels.
/Kinetic Rifle – modifies the Shield Gun primary fire to operate at range
/MarioUT – Head bouncing ahoy!
/Mercury Missile InstaGib – Descent II Mercury Missiles instead of energy beams.
/Mini Bulldogs – Replace players with miniature Bulldogs
/NukeRifles – Combat with very dangerous nuclear sniper rifles!
/OptOutDeathMessages – No DeathMessages cluttering up the Chat area.
/OptOutTauntPacks – A way to avoid downloading taunt packs without canceling server join.
/Playthings – A weapons mod with a nonviolent theme. A set of creative, non-lethal weapons could be very interesting.
/RagDollPhysics – Changing parameters on ragdoll physics.
/Random Gravity – Gravity changes at random intervals.
/Really Random Spawn Points – An end to spawn camping.
/RegeneratingAmmo – A mutator that regenerates ammo for weapons held.
/SeasonsMultiMap – Map assets change depending on the system date on the server.
/Semigib Onslaught – A half-hearted instagib mode for Onslaught.
/SkinRelay – Client-defined skins passed to all players
/Sorcery – forget machine guns, rocket launchers and shock rifles, bring on the fireballs!
/Synthesizer – Uses normal ammo in combinations to create new attacks!
/TacticalScreen – one player of each team has a multiscreen showing every transloc-cam
/TeamWeaponArena – Specify allowed weapons and pickups on a team by team basis.
/Sentry Weapons – deploy a Sentry Weapon that would be a tripod with the weapon you have selected on top
/Variant Weapon – A new weapon with the alt-fire configurable to the client to fire whatever he/she wants it to from a list.
/X-ray - adrenaline combo to see through walls
/UT2003 Jukebox - a concept I had to make something similar to a jukebox for 2003
/Upgrades - Inspired by excessive. Makes it so the weapons that your opponent drops are worth more then amo.
/Yog-Sothoth – adds the Great Old One to the map, who seeks to devour all

Third-Party

/U-Replay – Takes Recorded Demofiles and Renders them as High-poly, High-res Video files

Ideas for Other Unreal Engine Based Games

/Devastation Conquerors – Multiplayer co-op across single mission maps.

Vehicles

/Dropship – A flying vehicle capable of carrying four bulldogs inside itself
/Eclipse – Heavy bomber, three crew
/Gliding scorp – The blades on the scorpian provide lift.
/Fury AKA Nemesis – 4 metres long (~256UU in UT200X), it handles like a manta, but pressing [possibly B, like in the airpower mut)

it turns into a fighter, and handles as such.

Discussion

Kartoshka: Is it safe to delete those pages marked by the "delete mark" tag? There was a bit of a discussion before, and no real decision made. I'd like to tidy this up a bit, but I'm worried I'll end up marking for deletion some page that's still getting worked on...

EntropicLqd: If you check the page history I suspect the delete marks were added over a year ago, so I suggest you go ahead and delete them. Happy cleaning.

Kartoshka: What about making one page for actively developing/finished stuff and one for just ideas? How often do people add stuff to this page anyway? I haven't seen anything new quite some time. Maybe when UT2007 rolls out, that will change...

Tarquin: I agree that we have a LOT of "mod ideas" pages that just aren't going anywhere. (Just taking a look at this page now and... HOLY CRAP that's a lot of pages just gathering dust.) But when you're marking pages for deletion, are you moving the material somewhere else?

Kartoshka: Do you think we should keep the old material somewhere? Most of the ideas that didn't go anywhere are already implemented somewhere, too complicated, or just not well thought out. IMO, we should dump that stuff. Right now, I'm keeping the pages that resemble a design document, or that have been worked on "recently" (in the past year or so).

Switch`: I'd archive the old ones somewhere, ie: in /Archived?. Ideas don't have to be design docs, they can be random thoughts. Those random ideas can inspire people to create something fun and well though-out. IMO the more we have of them the better.

Tarquin: I agree. Make a judgement call (Kartoshka since you're workign on it, or whoever feels like helping and move the ones that are feasible and interesting to /Archived?, all on a single page. Delete the ones that are too close to existing mods, totally crazy, or really lacking in their descriptions.

Kartoshka: For now I'll just tag the crazy ones for deletion, and leave the rest here. Then when Unreal Engine 3 games roll out, we can archive all the ideas that are here now and worth keeping. Sound good?

Refactor Me