New to multiplayer and modding

[Will.E.Mammoth]

Hi all! I've been playing the single player on ut04 for about 10 years, so I must be decent! I want to try multiplayer online now that I have good enough internet. But I've hit a couple frustrating stumbling blocks. Firstly, regarding the choice of server, is anyone playing convoy or normal death matches? I don't care much for those car racing maps and so on. I have tried to create a custom server before and invite my mates (who also own UT on steam and are in a similar position), but its quite difficult to get right. My listen servers don't show up for them, and if they do, when they join I'm not sure how to get the number of bots right. Normally the whole map needs to download each time which is also a pain, especially as we don't have great internet. Ideally when in the game I want to play not just in silence but have a team and be able to at least chat message them. If I just join a random onslaught game its pretty lonely and I usually get decimated by these freaks of nature who probably have unreal tattooed across their butt cheeks (and good on ya).

I also want that mod that makes the 'pong" sound when you hit the enemy. Where do I find that and how does one install mods anyway? Lol sorry I'm very late to the party here. Can you use that mod on single player? I wanna know when my L.G tickles Xan's feet as he darts around the corner.

[Z.Ibrahimovic]

Hey Will,

There aren't many people around anymore. It can be that people are hiding in modded servers that do not show up in the serverlist until you install that mode yourself.

Install the TAM mod for example that gives you a few additional tabs in the serverbrowser.
https://www.utzone.de/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=981

And take a look at all the listed UT servers:
https://www.gametracker.com/search/ut2k4/

Ragarding the hosting of servers. You want to create a dedicated server instead of a listen server. Make sure that you have your router being port forwarded so people are actually able to join you. If you do not; the server will show up as N/A on the deathmatch serverlist with "UT2004 Server" as name.
https://portforward.com/unreal-tournament-2004/

There are several mods around on servers that balance bots and/or balance based on 30 rounds avarage points/skillevel. I sugges to just download a few from active servers and add them to your own. Some make sure there is a minimum amount of people/bots and some just add a single bot to make teams level in playercount.

For some botcommands during a game:
https://unrealadmin.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5286
To add downloaded content from servers

The mod that makes the hitsounds. It is in many mods like the TAM mod I linked.
Best known mod it is in is UTcomp: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=907374923&searchtext=

If you do not want to re-download content from servers there are 2 options:
1. Install the files to your own copy.

There are tools that help you installing them once downloaded from servers: https://gms.cyberrock.net/download/ut2004-cache-extractor-v2-1-0/

2. Put the cache of downloaded files to 999 days. Go into your ut2004.ini and search for
[Core.System]
PurgeCacheDays=30

[WHIPperSNAPper]

Damn, you missed out on a lot of fun. There was still some online activity 10 years ago, but today modding would probably be a huge waste of time for any UT title as few people are left playing.