Eh? i mentioned Quake4 (4), not Q3A, which much like UT99 still enjoys some nieche popularity (IE: the player numbers can be measured in thousands, not in hundreds).
how too get more pll in ut3
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Eh? i mentioned Quake4 (4), not Q3A, which much like UT99 still enjoys some nieche popularity (IE: the player numbers can be measured in thousands, not in hundreds).
I think you have misunderstood something then, as i think UT3 has allready hit the bottom, the player counts a very low, but they seem stable, so its probably the same group of dedicated fans that continue to play it now, and that probably wont change anytime soon.
If anything, UT3 could potentially see a boost in its player counts with the expansion.. but that all depends on what the expansion is, and how good it is, it would need to convince players like myself to take another look at UT3 for that to happen.
My argument is very straight forward, i only argue that the people who routinely tell me "you're just crazy! UT3 is ossom and i only see a few complaing about it! you're just a hater!" take a good hard look at the facts, the one objective thing we can measure, the player counts, if i'm crazy, then so are thousands of people who have chosen to not play this game, which only draws in a few hundred people at any time of day.
The game is not popular, a few hundred players is not a sign of health, and thus, would it not be better if we all stoped this pointless arguing, and instead focus on what needs to be done if UT is to have any future? thats what we all want, is it not?
Doh! I misread shoptroll's post as yours:
Sorry, misunderstanding there.
Actually, I don't personally think the expansion stands a chance of increasing the player counts enough to be what you or any of the other people complaining would consider "healthy".
Why? Because people are already settled into games they know they like and want to play often. CoD4 and L4D are really fun games, why would anyone have a reason to check out a game that basically came out over a year ago? Midway is on the brink of bankruptcy, they are not going to be able to advertise the expansion enough to maximize interest in the game again.
So who is Epic making this expansion for, if that's the case? The people who are sticking around or who enjoy the game but are not playing it because of this reason or that reason. They really have no other reason to make the expansion.
And, frankly, UT has never been that popular of a game. If you take UT2004 even during it's prime and took out all the demo servers/players and bots on unpopulated servers, you would probably get more of a glimpse of what I mean.
Even UT during it's heyday only ever had a 3000 or so people on at one time. We could hope for that kind of popularity for a new UT game but there is so much more competition and UT's style of game is just not popular anymore anyway. I think it's safe to say that no UT game is ever going to enjoy the kind of popularity that games like CoD4 and L4D enjoy, nor even the kind of popularity that UT had.
Epic says that about half of the people who play UT never play it online. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 75% or more, personally.
I think Epic has already moved to take Midway out of the equation, given the relatively recent addition of Epic's catalog to Steam and GOG. I wouldn't be surprised if the "expansion" is released to Steam on Day 1 as well as retail, if that's the route it goes.
L4D is tremendously popular right now because it's a unique experience, and co-op FPS hasn't really been done since the days of Quake and Doom.
Expansions don't usually bring in new customers unless they're coming in from a GOTY or "Gold Edition" release. So Brizz might be on to something about who the targetted audience is. At which point it really doesn't make a ton of sense for them to do a retail release. A free expansion would spark some interest in the game similar to XMP and Unreal 2. On top of that they would need to rebuild the demo and ship that out as advance promotion. I know from recent experience that the demo's performance is crap compared to the retail 1.3. In fact, rebuilding the demo should've been done months ago.
I think Brizz is right about no UT game is going to have the numbers that UT had, and that's simply because the market is so diluted. Back in 1999 you had a handful of choices. Nearly 10 years later and the number of choices has exploded, even before you take mods into account.
Also, not ignoring your Quake Live analysis, just don't have much to respond with aside from that I think browser based gaming is bigger than people think. It'll be interesting to see how Quake Live plays out once it reaches public beta.
L4D is tremendously popular right now because it's a unique experience, and co-op FPS hasn't really been done since the days of Quake and Doom.
Expansions don't usually bring in new customers unless they're coming in from a GOTY or "Gold Edition" release. So Brizz might be on to something about who the targetted audience is. At which point it really doesn't make a ton of sense for them to do a retail release. A free expansion would spark some interest in the game similar to XMP and Unreal 2. On top of that they would need to rebuild the demo and ship that out as advance promotion. I know from recent experience that the demo's performance is crap compared to the retail 1.3. In fact, rebuilding the demo should've been done months ago.
I think Brizz is right about no UT game is going to have the numbers that UT had, and that's simply because the market is so diluted. Back in 1999 you had a handful of choices. Nearly 10 years later and the number of choices has exploded, even before you take mods into account.
Also, not ignoring your Quake Live analysis, just don't have much to respond with aside from that I think browser based gaming is bigger than people think. It'll be interesting to see how Quake Live plays out once it reaches public beta.
Well you can't discount the fact that it is free. So it will definitely be interesting to see. I see so many issues with Quake Live, but I'm not going to ignore that it could become very popular.
Along those lines, Quake 3 is still $19.99 on Steam. WTF? That is an outrageous price for a ten year old game!
That's my fear aswell, but what will be will be i guess.
I wont disagree with that, i never expected UT3 to draw in the huge crowds that CoD4 can boast about, it was never going to happen, this is a game for a nieche market.
However, it is very unfortunate that it is not doing all that well within its own nieche, that so many UT fans don't want to play it because they are unhappy with so many aspects of it (and judging by what people say, the gameplay is not the problem, a few have some issues with it that could be fixed for them by mutators, but on the whole, its mostly things that could have been avoided if the game had seen more development and polish, and just removing most of thease things could have been enough for them to give UT3 a fair shake).
This is why i find all this arguing here so pointless, on one hand you have players who have strong opinions about "this or that is broken/not good enough, and that sucks!", and on the other you have players shouting back with "sure its not perfect but i can personally live with it, so STFU whiner!".. but in the end, it is a problem for us all, because this is a nieche game, and as such, if a sizeable portion of its fanbase is unhappy and doesen't wish to play, it hurts everyone in the form of very low player counts, it becomes a problem for all, hence, no good comes of dismissing thease problems as trivial or "unfair" or "whining".
We would all be better off if thease problems did not exist, it would be in everyone's interest to see them fixed, so why can't we have some sober discussions about it?
id has traditionally overcharged for their back catalog for as long as I can remember.
http://www.idsoftware.com/store/index.php?view=downloadable&page=2
Wolf3D for $15, Doom II for $20. I'm glad I snagged the combo deal off Steam last week (which I noticed lacks Quake 4 and the Hexen 2 expansion).
Couple interesting points I've seen in this...
If UT didn't even ever do much more than 3k players online, and thus far online, it has seemed to have been the most popular, maybe that is because of how easy it was to pirate.
I also think that considering that fact, why do we still lack the "All Servers" tab that UT had? You could go into the ini, and apply some generic filters that could evenly effect all game types, just hit the "All Servers" tab, and see all the available games in any game types. It at least made it look like there were more people online playing, or as many as there actually were as the case was.
UT is a split community within itself as is anyways. So many people cling to their favorite game type, they don't even see the other half of the game. Seems to me like steps to unify that a bit would help. Or split it into separate games, to focus it more, vehicles definitely being a dividing factor.
If UT didn't even ever do much more than 3k players online, and thus far online, it has seemed to have been the most popular, maybe that is because of how easy it was to pirate.
I also think that considering that fact, why do we still lack the "All Servers" tab that UT had? You could go into the ini, and apply some generic filters that could evenly effect all game types, just hit the "All Servers" tab, and see all the available games in any game types. It at least made it look like there were more people online playing, or as many as there actually were as the case was.
UT is a split community within itself as is anyways. So many people cling to their favorite game type, they don't even see the other half of the game. Seems to me like steps to unify that a bit would help. Or split it into separate games, to focus it more, vehicles definitely being a dividing factor.
I don't think we really disagree then
I think if Epic were to fix up the demo, add a CTF map and WAR map and make it compatible with retail, you'd have an instant player base thoughThat's how it worked in UT200X
It would be a start, a good demo plus letting retail players join demo servers would undoubtedly help.
But its not quite enough, more could be done to get thouse of us who bought the game, but don't play it, to reinstall and start having some fun, a new UI alone would do wonders twords that end, as would adding back in features like custom crosshairs and such things that people are missing, and.. well thease are all things that have discussed at leangth.
The game may not be able to branch out and suddenly draw in players who don't care about UT or Arena Shooters, but atleast it could bring back the players within its own nieche who where unsatiesfied with UT3, probably not all of them, it may be too late for that now, but we would all benifit from a boost in players, and the game appealing more broadly to its nieche market.
I would certainly like for the game to become fun for me, i just fear that Epic are unwilling to add back in the basic things i need to start enjoying UT3, and that's why i am so vocal about it, i'm very worried about the future of this franchise
This is part of the reason why I wasn't all that sad to see Bombing Run and Domination go away for UT3. Simplifying the game down to a handful of "core" game modes was a great design decision.
One thing that would help alot is a cashe converter built in or atest the tools to let us make one properly. I want to try out a game mode on a server and keep that game mode stored so I dont need to dounload it again and again off a server. I want to dounload maps and keep them and mutators and stuff.
Fixed.
Cache converter.
More effective com features.
Better Demo system (theater mode)
More effective buddy system (I miss wild cards)
More versatile server browser (aforementioned all servers tab)
I miss INI edits. I am okay with trying to implement GUI stuff for people who like that, but knowing all the commands, it's just easier for me to configure by doing it that way. Key=command, key=command| command |command, key=command| onrelease command.
There's no reason they couldn't put a alias binder, just like they had a speech binder. Then everyone can do it.
Custom cross hairs seem a pain in the dick now too. I think like, a good amount of this stuff I thought couldn't be done at release has been figured out, and I haven't had the motivation to reconfigure my game, despite the fact that doing so would make me want to play a bit more.
It seems like a lot of these things have a purpose. I could totally see in a larger online game, certain players appreciating privacy, and not having any noob able to put your name in a wild card for buddy to find you would be beneficial, but in a game with UT3's online player numbers?
I don't wanna sift through 80 million game servers, so I'll filter by things, like game type, but with UT3's online player numbers?
It seems like these adjustments were made with large scale population in mind. Large scale population isn't there.
I don't think we really disagree then
I think if Epic were to fix up the demo, add a CTF map and WAR map and make it compatible with retail, you'd have an instant player base though
Do we really want to go back to be able to play on demo servers?
From what I remember it made us play the same maps over and over and over again. Maybe because ppl didn't wanto to jump onto a empty server and wait, and instead instantly joined the populated demo server.
Now I can just join the CTF server I know usually has players, even if it's empty, and not long after it starts to get populated.... if it's late afternoon or evening that is.
UT's community being splintered is a symptom rather than a cause. Its already low online numbers make them seem even worse when divided amongst gametypes and mods. But those things didn't cause the low numbers. I never play S&D or competitive mods or custom maps (well, rarely) in CoD4 but I don't feel like things are splintered in any meaningful manner due to the large player base. And yet even with its many players it still has an "all gametypes" option for its server browser. D:
Honestly, no one should be expecting Epic to do anything for their "fans" anymore. They think we're wrong, delusional, jihadists, emotionally unstable, etc. While the customer is not always right (seriously, the opposite is a terrible consumerist ideology), they are 100% right about UT3 being a lead turd in a sea of regular turds surrounding a few gigantic glimmering diamonds floating effortlessly above all the crap.
The expansion won't be free, it won't be targeted specifically toward those who bought the original, and it's likely it won't actually fix many of the original's major shortcomings. At best it's a half-hearted contract build.
Honestly, no one should be expecting Epic to do anything for their "fans" anymore. They think we're wrong, delusional, jihadists, emotionally unstable, etc. While the customer is not always right (seriously, the opposite is a terrible consumerist ideology), they are 100% right about UT3 being a lead turd in a sea of regular turds surrounding a few gigantic glimmering diamonds floating effortlessly above all the crap.
The expansion won't be free, it won't be targeted specifically toward those who bought the original, and it's likely it won't actually fix many of the original's major shortcomings. At best it's a half-hearted contract build.
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Actually I remember quite well when I played the game heavily it regularly had 5000+ people online. (2002-2003)
I think UTs community being split between each game is a more important problem than having multiple gametypes or anything.
I have no idea if it did or not, and there is no way we can verify that. However, finding a vanilla UT server has been like finding a needle in a haystack for as long as I can remember.
I'd prefer searching servers by GREP mask or something, to filter out gametypes and map I dont want.