I just have a feeling that UT is becoming more and more traditional. Do you still remember the first time you played UT99? I was shocked and totally blown away by everything in this game.The weapons, the double shooting mode, the assault, ctf, dom, the damn cool animations and musics...the game was so original and special, and everything was as cool as possible. i think that was why it got a GOTY award
But, from the recent revealed informations of UT2K7, i can hardly tell there will be lot of fresh and revolutionary game design. Voice command system and the Conquest mode could be the fresh parts, but is that enough if the objective is to get the GOTY again or just make a "much better UT than anyone's ever seen"?
My view is current design of UT2K7 is just a mixture of UT2K4 and UT99, based on a so-called new engine which mostly improves the graphic. So i can't convince myself that next UT could turn out to be better than the original. I listed the new features came with UT2K4, and you could compare it with UT2K7
The main new design elements/features of UT2K4:
- New enhanced movement system: double jump, dodging jump, wall dodge...
- New weapons: assault rifle, lighting gun, ion painter...
- New gamemodes: br, ddom, invasion, ons
- Enhanced AI
...
Looks like UT2K4 has more or at least not less new features than UT2K7-__-!!!
I know it's really hard to design a revolutionary sequel and make it even better, and it's also risky to remove old elements and add new ones, but are we talking about next-gen UT? yes, so why not be more ambitious?
As an old and hardcore UT fan, i indeed don't care if the dodge is back or not, or if there is not shock rifle anymore. I mean i don't care the exact features. What i want is the feeling of the original UT(Dark, mystery, ancient, powerful, fast-paced, human like, historical, dangerous, face to face) and the fantastic wonderful gameplay! To be frank with you, i feels a bit boring now after seeing the shock rifle and dodge again and again!
I miss the original UT so much, because I miss the feeling, but yup i tell myself they had gone forever...
UT has been restricted within its old rules...
Well i personaly think there are still some chances.
The following is a simple list where i think the revolutionary design can take place:
- new movement system
// The dodge/double jump based system can't resolve the conflict between fast-paced movement and the scale of level (which affect face2face feeling directly)
// The old movement system keeps player from smooth moving on slope or stairs
// There could be other possible z-axis moves (lift jump was really a great idea, so why not think about more)
// The old movement system keeps player from playing in the water (i don't like the bounce when you try to go onshore, and swimming is too slower than normal movement thus deep pool became very bad design in ut2k4, what a pity!)
// There could also be some portable vehicle/suit which allows player to move very fast, in the Conquest mode, you know, in ONS, if you can't get a vehicle, you have to walk over long distance, so why not give us more solutions?
- new weapons
//stinger is indeed not a totally fresh design, but i am not against it, at least it could be interesting not to see minigun again
// more offensive-oriented weapons, new balance can still be implemented. when you think weapon A is "too" powerful, it is possibly because weapon B is too useless. The right solution is try to make every weapon as useful as possible, don't just reduce its power simply, this is rude
// it's time to blow away us again with some totally new but cool weapons. Maybe physics related, like the stake gun of painkiller or the gravity gun from hl2.
// at least give these guys, shock rifle, flak cannon, rocket launcher, really fresh appearances
- new game mode
// I don't think Conquest can replace ONS. Conquest is a long time warfare, while ONS is just about half an hour. Conquest requires more players to play in a very very huge scene while ONS can be played 2on2...there are too many differences, so don't be naive to think player from UT2K4 won't miss ONS because they have Conquest
// ONS does has a few defects, e.g. the gameplay is based on vehicle and node too much, but these can be fixed
// And any new gamemodes for non-vehicles combat? Focusing on dm and ctf is really cool but, the best a dm can be is still a dm! survival sounds good but where is(are) the new team mode(s)?
// Is that possible to create a mode filled with all kinds of close combat. i mean face2face fighting? Is that possible to create a non-team mode that player try to get a portable "domination" point and the score begins to increase thus the hostile has to kill you and take away the "dom" from you? Or is that possible to create a defrag or non-frag mode where main gameplay is about physics environment and brilliant movement?
// you see, so many possibilities
- new environment
// physics can be much more useful than you can imagine. Before hl2, almost no one thinks physics is really important (and also they all think it's too risky to implement physics coz you know AI or collision or lots of things can be crazy, but hl2 did it, so beautiful and owned the GOTY)
// Underwater is impossible? It could be interesting and even great to see fast-paced moveing underwater and fight against your foes, and with the help of physics, we can try some really cool interations
// Dark and full realtime lighting? Thermal view? night view? you can shoot off a torch(which can respawn) to cover yourself or your team mates? or some parts of a level is totally dark sometimes and you have to switch on the night view? These may not good ideas but why not brainstorm?
- new vehicles
// i don't like the tank from UT2K4, because tank is too common, everyone knows tank. It should be a vehicle for releastic games like BF or COD, but not sci-fi games. Have you played hl2? This is a real sci-fi when it comes to vehicle!!! (especially those vehicles of the hostiles) Unreal Tournament is about UNREAL, so don't make real vehicle any more!!!
// Portable vehicles! Which act as a equipment(need a weapon slot?) than a normal vehicle, so if you can't catch a normal vehicle, you don't have to walk on foot, you can use it though it requires a few energy or other supply(just like ammo), and it can't provide you the power to attack
Or maybe a even more crazy idea, why not replace all the vehicles with potable movement enhancement devices? Thus we don't need 3rd view and the combat can be closer. This idea is a little like Tribe, but the difference is these devices are spawned like other items and player can change his current in-use device at the device bases(of course, we don't need more than one slot for these devices)
//The vehicle based gameplay of UT2K4 is very very different from the normal shooting gameplay, you know, everyone prefer to use 3rd person view to control vehicles, and because vehicles move much faster than human being so the battle field became even larger. So sometimes i feel i am not playing UT when im driving a tank or a chopper in ONS. And im always thinking why EPIC doesn't create a new title to develope the "ONS" gameplay and just keeps UT as UT, which was supposed to be a pure first person shooter.
hmm. that's enough
)
again, all of these are just my personal views, just some spam in this boring afternoon, no offense!
But, from the recent revealed informations of UT2K7, i can hardly tell there will be lot of fresh and revolutionary game design. Voice command system and the Conquest mode could be the fresh parts, but is that enough if the objective is to get the GOTY again or just make a "much better UT than anyone's ever seen"?
My view is current design of UT2K7 is just a mixture of UT2K4 and UT99, based on a so-called new engine which mostly improves the graphic. So i can't convince myself that next UT could turn out to be better than the original. I listed the new features came with UT2K4, and you could compare it with UT2K7
The main new design elements/features of UT2K4:
- New enhanced movement system: double jump, dodging jump, wall dodge...
- New weapons: assault rifle, lighting gun, ion painter...
- New gamemodes: br, ddom, invasion, ons
- Enhanced AI
...
Looks like UT2K4 has more or at least not less new features than UT2K7-__-!!!
I know it's really hard to design a revolutionary sequel and make it even better, and it's also risky to remove old elements and add new ones, but are we talking about next-gen UT? yes, so why not be more ambitious?
As an old and hardcore UT fan, i indeed don't care if the dodge is back or not, or if there is not shock rifle anymore. I mean i don't care the exact features. What i want is the feeling of the original UT(Dark, mystery, ancient, powerful, fast-paced, human like, historical, dangerous, face to face) and the fantastic wonderful gameplay! To be frank with you, i feels a bit boring now after seeing the shock rifle and dodge again and again!
I miss the original UT so much, because I miss the feeling, but yup i tell myself they had gone forever...
UT has been restricted within its old rules...
Well i personaly think there are still some chances.
The following is a simple list where i think the revolutionary design can take place:
- new movement system
// The dodge/double jump based system can't resolve the conflict between fast-paced movement and the scale of level (which affect face2face feeling directly)
// The old movement system keeps player from smooth moving on slope or stairs
// There could be other possible z-axis moves (lift jump was really a great idea, so why not think about more)
// The old movement system keeps player from playing in the water (i don't like the bounce when you try to go onshore, and swimming is too slower than normal movement thus deep pool became very bad design in ut2k4, what a pity!)
// There could also be some portable vehicle/suit which allows player to move very fast, in the Conquest mode, you know, in ONS, if you can't get a vehicle, you have to walk over long distance, so why not give us more solutions?
- new weapons
//stinger is indeed not a totally fresh design, but i am not against it, at least it could be interesting not to see minigun again
// more offensive-oriented weapons, new balance can still be implemented. when you think weapon A is "too" powerful, it is possibly because weapon B is too useless. The right solution is try to make every weapon as useful as possible, don't just reduce its power simply, this is rude
// it's time to blow away us again with some totally new but cool weapons. Maybe physics related, like the stake gun of painkiller or the gravity gun from hl2.
// at least give these guys, shock rifle, flak cannon, rocket launcher, really fresh appearances
- new game mode
// I don't think Conquest can replace ONS. Conquest is a long time warfare, while ONS is just about half an hour. Conquest requires more players to play in a very very huge scene while ONS can be played 2on2...there are too many differences, so don't be naive to think player from UT2K4 won't miss ONS because they have Conquest
// ONS does has a few defects, e.g. the gameplay is based on vehicle and node too much, but these can be fixed
// And any new gamemodes for non-vehicles combat? Focusing on dm and ctf is really cool but, the best a dm can be is still a dm! survival sounds good but where is(are) the new team mode(s)?
// Is that possible to create a mode filled with all kinds of close combat. i mean face2face fighting? Is that possible to create a non-team mode that player try to get a portable "domination" point and the score begins to increase thus the hostile has to kill you and take away the "dom" from you? Or is that possible to create a defrag or non-frag mode where main gameplay is about physics environment and brilliant movement?
// you see, so many possibilities
- new environment
// physics can be much more useful than you can imagine. Before hl2, almost no one thinks physics is really important (and also they all think it's too risky to implement physics coz you know AI or collision or lots of things can be crazy, but hl2 did it, so beautiful and owned the GOTY)
// Underwater is impossible? It could be interesting and even great to see fast-paced moveing underwater and fight against your foes, and with the help of physics, we can try some really cool interations
// Dark and full realtime lighting? Thermal view? night view? you can shoot off a torch(which can respawn) to cover yourself or your team mates? or some parts of a level is totally dark sometimes and you have to switch on the night view? These may not good ideas but why not brainstorm?
- new vehicles
// i don't like the tank from UT2K4, because tank is too common, everyone knows tank. It should be a vehicle for releastic games like BF or COD, but not sci-fi games. Have you played hl2? This is a real sci-fi when it comes to vehicle!!! (especially those vehicles of the hostiles) Unreal Tournament is about UNREAL, so don't make real vehicle any more!!!
// Portable vehicles! Which act as a equipment(need a weapon slot?) than a normal vehicle, so if you can't catch a normal vehicle, you don't have to walk on foot, you can use it though it requires a few energy or other supply(just like ammo), and it can't provide you the power to attack
Or maybe a even more crazy idea, why not replace all the vehicles with potable movement enhancement devices? Thus we don't need 3rd view and the combat can be closer. This idea is a little like Tribe, but the difference is these devices are spawned like other items and player can change his current in-use device at the device bases(of course, we don't need more than one slot for these devices)
//The vehicle based gameplay of UT2K4 is very very different from the normal shooting gameplay, you know, everyone prefer to use 3rd person view to control vehicles, and because vehicles move much faster than human being so the battle field became even larger. So sometimes i feel i am not playing UT when im driving a tank or a chopper in ONS. And im always thinking why EPIC doesn't create a new title to develope the "ONS" gameplay and just keeps UT as UT, which was supposed to be a pure first person shooter.
hmm. that's enough
)again, all of these are just my personal views, just some spam in this boring afternoon, no offense!
