Why still no official website?

[Fisherman's Friend]

More than 1 month after the game has been inofficially announced™ through websites and magazines there is still no official websites or forum, nor is the game mentioned on any of the involved companies' websites, be it DE's, Infogrames' or Epic's.

Wtf is going on here?


The term "inofficially announced" is ™ by Infogrames SA, 2001-2002. All rights reserved.

[Wowbagger]

Welcome to the club
Were all confused by this.
The only (conspiracy) theory i have is that there was some hickup between MS, Epic and DE and maybe even Legend since theyre affected to.

Its a mess anyway.

[Tetris L]

Originally posted by Wowbagger
The only (conspiracy) theory i have is that theres was some hickup between MS, Epic and DE and maybe even Legend since theyre affected to.

My guess is that Microsoft plays in important part in it too.

[Metakill]

Maybe after hiring a bunch of coders, mappers, modelers, and skinners, they couldn't afford to hire a good web page designer.

[Law]

Unreal Championship is technically an X-Box exclusive game. If the Unreal Tournament 2 hype-machine starts up, it would hurt the sales for UC. Microsoft doesn't want that to happen. DE keeps UT2 away from the public eye 'officially'.

Of course this is all an unfounded conspiracy theory.

[Tetris L]

Originally posted by Law
Unreal Championship is technically an X-Box exclusive game. If the Unreal Tournament 2 hype-machine starts up, it would hurt the sales for UC. Microsoft doesn't want that to happen. DE keeps UT2 away from the public eye 'officially'.

Of course this is all an unfounded conspiracy theory.

That's quite exactly what I had in mind when I said " My guess is that Microsoft plays in important part in it too." But DE/Infogrames can't hide UT2 from the public until Microsoft resolved their problems with the Xbox broadband service. And if they wanna hide it, why do they give lots of interviews and previews to the press? Something smells very fishy here. Either there is some big fight with MS going on behind the scenes or .... or ... I don't know.

[Wowbagger]

Yeah as i understand it UC is finished? but they cant release it due to MS broadband problems?

If thats the case its a pretty unusual happening in the gaming business

And i understand it if DE wants to get some money for their effort. (maybe by releasing UT2?)

[Tetris L]

Originally posted by Wowbagger
Yeah as i understand it UC is finished? but they cant release it due to MS broadband problems?

Lets put it this way: It COULD be finished (or very close to it). It was originally scheduled for Q1 2002. But since the Xbox multiplayer service is delayed, they keep tweaking it and adding new content. Telling from the last UC preview I read the other day DE are now developing UC and UT2 in parallel, adding new features and engine updates to both games.

[[tHG]Dark Ranger]

Im just pleased to know that there will be an UT2 on the PC platform....very pleased

[Fisherman's Friend]

Who can I mail to at Infogrames, if I want to vent?

[[tHG]Dark Ranger]

I wouldn't vent. Just be glad its coming to the PC. Not only that I heard that UT2 will be released for the to PC before the XBOX.

[RegularX]

well, and this is but a guess - but a slightly non-conspiratorial one, is that UC isn't done and we aren't seeing much more on UT2 until it is. The recent XBoxActive preview stated that UC was "at the moment only about 35-50% done", and that moment was on like Feb 20th.

Now, we all now there are lies, damn lies and game previews, but if UC is only 50% in Feb, a Spring launch is going to be pretty hard to make. The Microsoft involvement may be a bunch of suits waving around a contract that reminds DE of the importance of launching UC with the broadband release, not 2 months later.

More credence to this is the sudden disappearance of Dark Sector news, which some DS site mentioned was due to UC's upcoming release.

Of course, that doesn't explain why there was the torrent of UT2 interviews recently, although that might have been because InfoG had already scheduled that big European Press Preview of it.



rgx

[[tHG]Dark Ranger]

RegX your guess is a good as anyone's on UT2. DE's site has been very quiet with no new info for a while. We all know its coming and thats good enough for me for now. I wish Developers though would release these new games in the winter time and not during the spring and summer. Know what I mean?

Dark Sector is still in the works of course..just pushed back.
One of the Dev. at DE responded to my question/comment on the status of DS on another forum (months ago)with the above answer..."still in the works"..

I also remember Pancho at DE saying ..."DS will bear the fruits of Unreal Championshiop...."

[Tetris L]

Originally posted by RegularX
The recent XBoxActive preview stated that UC was "at the moment only about 35-50% done", and that moment was on like Feb 20th.

I found the preview, but I can't find the date when it was written. But since the text states that UC will be out in Spring 02 and because of the odd "35-50% done" I find it hard to believe that the preview is only a week old.

[RegularX]

Originally posted by Tetris L

I found the preview, but I can't find the date when it was written. But since the text states that UC will be out in Spring 02 and because of the odd "35-50% done" I find it hard to believe that the preview is only a week old.

I would be in agreement. It made the newies round about a week ago, but that doesn't mean it wasn't discovered late. It doesn't seem to be listed many places, so hard to tell when it was actually posted.

Even if it was posted only a week ago, I wouldn't hold the 35-50% complete in high accuracy. Completion percentages are often reported in different ways with little in the means of clarity - and even if it was an accurate estimate, it's really hard to position that in terms of time. Any developer will tell you that's it is possible to spend 90% of a dev cycle on the last 10% of the code.

Anywho, all conjecture. I do agree I think Microsoft has something to do with this. Notice that every time you read about the release, they mention the broadband release. MS knows that the next console battle is going to be about online popularity, and most of their marketing for XBox has surrounded around the "Only for XBox" label. UC is their "Halo" for broadband(OK, a bit of Overkill, because Halo is really their Halo for BB - it's compatible with the BB network right? ). Whether it's marketing, scheduling, or both - lots of things about the UC release just don't seem right.



rgx

[RegularX]

Originally posted by Tetris L

from the last UC preview I read the other day DE are now developing UC and UT2 in parallel, adding new features and engine updates to both games.

Which preview was that Tetris? I don't think I've read that one yet.



rgx

[Prophetus]

My opinion (which is often not worth a dirty cent), if UT2 isn't released soon and MS is playing the "Hype" game, then UT2 will fail to sell the projected amount of copies. UT2 has to beat the excitement of Unreal 2.

From what I know and read, UT2...as it is now...isn't superior to Unreal2. So, unless UT2 incorporates something uniquely advanced (not so far as the engine goes, but for gameplay as well), I seriously doubt UT2 will receive the proper attention once Unreal 2 is released.

This strategy with hyping up Unreal Championship is and will kill UT2. For any game, release dates is a crucial factor. I've seen games immediately die because they were released early and too advanced for the current hardware. Same goes for games that were considered awesome, but released too late. I wouldn't be surprised if UT2, as we know it now, isn't released at all.

It has and will have tough competition and UT2 needs to be something the gamers WANT to, not just play, but purchase. So, unless UT2 proves it can migrate gamers from Unreal2 and the Expanded Multiplayer world, I can't see it succeeding. Seriously, UT2 should have been released...like...yesterday!

I'm not saying it's done. I'm stating that timing is everthing and people are so hungry for a new Unreal game that UT2 would have received proper attention from the gamers. And since I believe that Unreal 2 is far superior, UT2 wouldn't hurt U2's sales. However, release U2 first and UT2 second...I...I...I don't get this...strategy.

Are they purposely trying to make UT2 fail? DE is a respected and very talented company. So, I hope they have something up their sleeves, in regards to UT2. Otherwise, I find nothing exciting or special about UT2 (in comparison to U2).

[Tetris L]

Originally posted by RegularX
Which preview was that Tetris? I don't think I've read that one yet.

They didn't explicitely say it. It is just my interpretation of the fact that the newly added features mentioned in UC previews lately are exactly the same as the ones listed in UT2 previews.

Originally posted by Prophetus
... if UT2 isn't released soon and MS is playing the "Hype" game, then UT2 will fail to sell the projected amount of copies. UT2 has to beat the excitement of Unreal 2.

From what I know and read, UT2...as it is now...isn't superior to Unreal2. So, unless UT2 incorporates something uniquely advanced (not so far as the engine goes, but for gameplay as well), I seriously doubt UT2 will receive the proper attention once Unreal 2 is released.

This strategy with hyping up Unreal Championship is and will kill UT2. For any game, release dates is a crucial factor.

UT2 has the advantage over U2 that it has a very popular precedessor. But it has the disadvantage that it is released after U2, so it will get less attention. As I see this, things could go either way: UT2 failing or becoming very popular.

I think Infogrames are well aware of the risks of releasing two Unreal games so close after eachother. If they don't manage to give the two games a unique style and unique features, UT2 sales will probably be lower average at best.

UT2 suffering from the UC hype? Hmmm ... I don't see UC get hyped much. There are more UT2 previews than UC on the web, although UC has been announced 9 months ago and UC only 1 month ago.

Keep in mind that UC for PC (UT2) originally was planed to happen never or at least not earlier than ½ year after UC for Xbox. Only the fact that the Xbox multiplayer service got delayed f*cked up the schedule.

[RegularX]

Originally posted by Tetris L

the newly added features mentioned in UC previews lately are exactly the same as the ones listed in UT2 previews.

hehehe....as cool as it probably will be, if I hear about that rocket through the smoke thing (which I think I've read in reference to all three games) again, I'll scream.



I don't think we should worry much about release dates yet though. My evil suspicion is that UT2 actually coming out Q3 of this year is pretty unlikely. And U2 has already been pretty seriously delayed. Maybe they'll both come out for Christmas and InfoG will just bundle em together...



rgx

[Prophetus]

Tetris...by "Hype" I mean the sillness of MS (if in fact, this is true) trying to prevent UT2's media exposure.