U2 v.s Quake3 v.s UT v.s RTCW - Numbers do not lie! - sorry quake boys

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

It seems that UT might be the reigning FPS king well into the future, beating out even Unreal2 and Unreal Tournament2: Here's 2 articles about this:

http://www.planetrealcool.com/anthonyb/specialArticle.htm

Sorry quake boys! UT will dominate t'il 2003. Then maybe U2 and UT2 will catch up. But that all depends on what Legend decides to do with supporting lower end systems

You can see more here:
http://www.unreal2ctf.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1177

RegularX · Feb 2, 2002

Again, I am amazed at what passes for "reporting" on the internet.

Oddly at this time (which is 3:30AM CST - I'm feeling ill and can't sleep

) - these numbers don't lie:

Half Life 53340
Quake 3: Arena 3257
Return to Castle Wolfenstein 3147
Unreal Tournament 2501
Medal of Honor Allied Assault 1503

So what do these numbers tell us? Same thing as they do in that "article" - virtually nothing about gaming trends in general. It's just a snapshot of people currently online, and if you look again tommorrow, the order will change again.

And my favorite line:

"On the other hand, maybe its the case that regular online players have higher end hardware than casual online players and this may skew the results in favor of the new Unreal titles."

?? Casual online players? Regular online players? Duh, those l33t types have bigger, more powerful hardware. They were also the first ones to get in on the groundfloor of broadband.

There are plenty of gamers out there with the hardware right now to play U2 - the problem is most of them are playing Counter-Strike.

rgx

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by RegularX
Again, I am amazed at what passes for "reporting" on the internet.

Oddly at this time (which is 3:30AM CST - I'm feeling ill and can't sleep ) - these numbers don't lie:

Half Life 53340
Quake 3: Arena 3257
Return to Castle Wolfenstein 3147
Unreal Tournament 2501
Medal of Honor Allied Assault 1503

So what do these numbers tell us? Same thing as they do in that "article" - virtually nothing about gaming trends in general. It's just a snapshot of people currently online, and if you look again tommorrow, the order will change again.

And my favorite line:

"On the other hand, maybe its the case that regular online players have higher end hardware than casual online players and this may skew the results in favor of the new Unreal titles."

?? Casual online players? Regular online players? Duh, those l33t types have bigger, more powerful hardware. They were also the first ones to get in on the groundfloor of broadband.

There are plenty of gamers out there with the hardware right now to play U2 - the problem is most of them are playing Counter-Strike.

rgx

Actually I follow the statistics regularly. And the article is dead on. The article mentions that during off peak hours both RTCW and Quake3 will surpass UT. But the majority of the time UT will be ahead of Quake3 and RTCW. It also mentions that as time progresses games like RTCW will gain in popularity surpassing UT perhaps. Tune into the stats on saturday from 12 - 7pm Eastern North American time and you will see for yourself. One of the reason CS is so popular is because the system requirements are low by todays standard. 80% of the gaming world has a 500mhz system or less. Hardcore gamers are in a niche by themeselves

RegularX · Feb 2, 2002

"80% of the gaming world has a 500mhz system or less"

Where are you coming up with that stat? Most people I know with 500mhz or less are gaming with a PS2 these days. And "One of the reason CS is so popular is because the system requirements are low by todays standard" - I admin'ed a CS server for a while, nobody there was running a 500mhz system or playing CS because it required low system reqs. They generally had PIII's at least, a GeForce of some kind (or Radeon). Your average CS player these days thinks anything below 70fps is unbearably slow.

It is pointless and silly to claim UT as the "king" or will "dominate" when Counter-Strike represents the vast majority of the online playing community. And what constitutes an "off-hour"? I've seen UT below Q3 in the afternoon here ... is that off-hour?

rgx

LordKhaine · Feb 2, 2002

CS has far more players than UT. UT dominate? hah!. The Ut scene has been dying down for a while now.

NeoNite · Feb 2, 2002

You really don't like Ut don't you LK ... :con:

?
I'm beginning to wonder...

Ut dead? Only if you want it to be...

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

Take a look at the stats when the number of people online for the day is at the highest point. Quake3 will be no where near UT.
No one claimed that UT will outdo counterstrike. The article clearly says CS is the mother of all games to beat. Most people don't even know what a T&L card is ? And I played counterstrike for the longest time on a p266 with voodoo3 and had no problems whatsoever. People simply do not buy PC every year or upgrade their cpus every year. 500mhz was the top of the line like 2.5 years ago, and the majority of people simply have not upgraded.

hal · Feb 2, 2002

The whole CS phenomenon just amazes me. I played lots of HL and some CS, and just never saw what continues to draw players in droves. The fact that nearly four years after it was released, it draws almost five times the number of fps gamers is astounding.

LordKhaine · Feb 2, 2002

Do a poll online you'll see the *vast* majority of gamers online have a cpu higher than 500mhz. Even considering the fact most "casual" gamers wont vote or even see a poll, its still clear most people will be over 500mhz. And no I dont dislike UT, and UT isnt "dead". Dead and dying != the same thing. All games as old as UT are likely to slowly die. I think CS is "ok", But I greatly prefer Q3 or UT over it.

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by LordKhaine
Do a poll online you'll see the *vast* majority of gamers online have a cpu higher than 500mhz. Even considering the fact most "casual" gamers wont vote or even see a poll, its still clear most people will be over 500mhz. And no I dont dislike UT, and UT isnt "dead". Dead and dying != the same thing. All games as old as UT are likely to slowly die. I think CS is "ok", But I greatly prefer Q3 or UT over it.

Well your right about one thing. Mostly only hard core players would vote and that would not be very representative. Although most online gamers are probably in North America, there is a huge audience outside of America and most of them just aren't running high-end systems. And Even in North America 500MHZ machine was thought to be close to the top of line for gaming 2 years ago, and still works well for most games currently on the market so unless people have tons of money to throw around 900mhz systems and up are still in the minority

RegularX · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by IHTGM

Well your right about one thing. Mostly only hard core players would vote and that would not ...

Look, there's a difference between a fact and an opinion - a fact you can prove.

And what the article DID say is "Half Life is an aberration and won't be counted here" (and then talks about it later on). Which is kinda like saying, if we ignore certain hemispheres and other countries, Norway is the most populous country in the world - IT OWNZ JOO (on certain days and times of day, then it's France).

UT isn't dominating ANYTHING and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to look up the word "dominate".

That's not saying it isn't a great engine, or a great game, or that it doesnt have a mod community strong enough to support my multiple hour a week UnrealScript addiction. That isn't too say that thousands of people aren't still enjoying it.

And personally, I don't understand the CS craze either. I played it until their most recent release, and then I realized that nobody at Sierra, Valve, the "CS Team" (of which nobody seems to know who is actually working on the mod anymore), cared about changing the fundamental gameplay flaws that had existed in the game since B3. Instead, they deliver "HLTV", while it's still possible to fire the gun without any actual fire code being processed.

Plus, anyone coding a mod for the HL engine should realize that their mod can, and likely will, be hacked online in just around 4 hours.

Is UT dying? That's up to the mod makers to extend it's life past CTF. The game is near free at this point, and most people have rigs that can run it. We just gots to deliver the goods.

Oh, uh ..... end rant....

rgx

MrFawn · Feb 2, 2002

IMO CS is awesome, runs great on my computer, simple easy gameplay, and you can play it for hours without killing your hands

LordKhaine · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by IHTGM
....and still works well for most games currently on the market....

Wait? it does? thats news to me. On my system (a P3 500), the newer FPS'ers are basicly unplayable. Try playing RTCW on a 500mhz system, and then try to claim 500mhz is still enough. And even stuff like Q3A can slow down real bad on a 500mhz cpu. I have a GF2 GTS and 256ram and I still get bad slow downs in "old" games like Q3A and UT.

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by RegularX

...
And what the article DID say is "Half Life is an aberration and won't be counted here" (and then talks about it later on). Which is kinda like saying, if we ignore certain hemispheres and other countries, Norway is the most populous country in the world - IT OWNZ JOO (on certain days and times of day, then it's France).

rgx

Hehe. What the article is saying is that its not factoring half-life in the 3way comparison between Q3,RTCW, and UT. It does not say it will not mention it later on. How could you exclude the online king from such a discussion entirely.

By the way at peak hours today when online play is around the highest UT was right in front again

followed by RTCW and then Quake3

IHTGM · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by LordKhaine

Wait? it does? thats news to me. On my system (a P3 500), the newer FPS'ers are basicly unplayable. Try playing RTCW on a 500mhz system, and then try to claim 500mhz is still enough. And even stuff like Q3A can slow down real bad on a 500mhz cpu. I have a GF2 GTS and 256ram and I still get bad slow downs in "old" games like Q3A and UT.

Your system must be real crappy. I played UT for the longest time on a pentium266 with a voodoo3 and got smooth framerates at 800x600 with most of the details and effect turned on. RTCW is very playable on 500mhz machine if you play at 800x600. Take your pc back to where you bought it

RegularX · Feb 2, 2002

Originally posted by IHTGM

By the way at peak hours today when online play is around the highest UT was right in front again followed by RTCW and then Quake3

Right now, at 6PM CST, UT leads RTCW by less than 200, and Q3 by less than 1000.

Hardly "dominating". Especially when once you combine all of them together, they total about 1/3 of Counter-Strike's.

And ya know what - if you wanted to get REALLY literal about it, RTCW is a Q3 based game. Which means there are about twice as many ppl using the Q3 engine online as there are the Unreal.

So this is all semantics. And pretty silly semantics considering the current landscape.

rgx

DeadEyeNick · Feb 2, 2002

From what I observe after using so much of gamespy, during asia time(GMT+8) around 12pm-8pm, Q3 and Rtcw stands out among it's brunch of unreal shooters.
Q3 seems a lot more popular in Asia than UT as well. Maybe it's because there's still half the gaming population here that don't know what is UT.

In Singapore alone, Q3 to UT players are amost 5:1
And yeah, Half-Life remains strong. The lowest number of players I had seem from them are still around 35k range with all other shooters carrying less than 2000 players, and UT isn't even on 2nd postion. CS being fun, easy to get to, not insanely fast pace offers a more relaxing fps experience.

SkaarjMaster · Feb 2, 2002

Yeah, numbers smumbers. It doesn't matter to me. UT is the best game ever and I can't wait for Unreal2 and UT2. Yes, UT is slowly dying, but so what? I just joined a site to review maps and will be going strong with UT for a while. Unreal2 will be fun, but the serious drop in UT playing online will be when UT2 is released.

I am also amazed by the CS phenomenon. I played HL and was not impressed; you keep getting stuck on the railroad tracks and stuff.

I have a P3-500, 256 sdram, ATI Rage Fury and can have some lag when playing RTCW. I think RTCW needs at least 700-800Mhz and a GeF or Radeon-type video card to work well. I usually play all games at 800 x 600 anyway, because of my 17-inch monitor and I don't like the icons on the desktop so small to begin with.

Hal, I sending this from another location. Does that mess things up; this is the first time I've tried this?

TWD · Feb 2, 2002

As far as computer systems go I believe that we're in a strange transition that happens every 2 or so years. Either you have a really good rig, or a 500mhz. Soon within this year the 500 mhz croud will get new systems, except for the people who always seem to have crappy computers no matter what.
A very large portion of the online community have 500mhz computers, and it's large enough to matter. I remember when the WarCraft III beta was announced, how many people complained about the system requirements being too high. In fact it disqualified about a quater of the people that wanted to sign up. People are realizing that their system sucks, and they're determined to fix that and not screw it up this time.

As for CounterStrike, I'm not impressed at all. Why people like it is beyond me. The only thing I can think of is that they haven't played anything else. When I was at a lan party and they started playing counterstrike they wouldn't do anything else, in fact I don't think they really have any other FPS. None of my friends have quake from my knowledge and I'm the only one with UT.

As for numbers, unrealTournament and quake will always be equal. RTCW is pretty big right now, but I don't see it staying. When it came out everyone was playing it, but now look at how many BuFs are still playing it consistantly as much as they do other games. The question is what will happen to quake and half life when Unreal2 comes out. Most UT players will probably goto unreal2. Also the discount crowd that buys the games when they're really really cheap have already gone through UT, and Quake so I don't really see any of the two games making a big climb, on after UnrealII. It will be interesting to see how many quake players switch.

Another interesting thing to consider is that UnrealII will be the only new and big FPS for a long time to come untill doomIII, and then EVERYONE will goto that.

TWD · Feb 2, 2002

also you guys are only comparing FPS right now.

Let's see here's what GSI told me about the most played games right now.

Half Life
52728
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
4696
Quake 3: Arena
4170
Unreal Tournament
3780
Medal of Honor Allied Assault
2797

alright so then here's what Battle.net told me when I connected to the US-West gateway 81522 users playing starcraft. In case you didn't notice StarCraft has more players than Half Life at this moment, and I didn't even count the players playing online at kali and kahn. Battle.net has 308,393 players total

U2 v.s Quake3 v.s UT v.s RTCW - Numbers do not lie! - sorry quake boys

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