No more Bonus Packs! (Its not what it looks like! REALLY!)

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[IsP]KaRnAgE

You Can Be My Wingman
Jul 24, 2001
2,806
0
36
The Highway to the Danger Zone
Seriously, down with bonus packs. I'm not saying down with free new content though. I'm just saying there is a better way of delivering it. How? Take a look at good ol' Counter-Strike. New maps and stuff are released through patches, that all players HAVE to downloaded. This means that all servers WILL have that content, and all players to. If you do not think this method is a good one then you are just being a straight up CS basher.

Bonus packs are a thing of the past and only prove to be an annoyance imho. I hated having to look for servers that were running ECE because alot had a bad habit of not putting it in their title. After ECE was released I didn't want to play on servers that didn't have it, but since it wasn't a mandatory update, alot of servers (at the time, I don't know how it is recently) didn't bother installing.

So rather than waiting until they have 200mb of new stuff, why not slowly feed us new content (a map or two here, a model or two there) over time? This ensures everyone has the same content and can play on any server not running custom content.

What about people with 56k? What about them!? 56kers don't play CS then? CS has WAAAAAAAY more players than any of the older UTs did, and it seems to manage just fine pushing maps through in patches rather than bonus packs.

Note: I am not saying UT should have a STEAM-like service. I am just saying new content should be pushed in PATCHES and not in seperate bonus packs that people don't have to download.
 

togmkn

tog-em-kay-en
Jun 9, 2004
1,648
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Salt Lake City, UT
Yeah, I agree. Steam is an awkward idea to say the least, and shouldn't be used in UT2K7. Bonus packs can get annoying, and when running with servers, blah. I don't think it's horrible, but I would like a map released now and then instead of a pack. Official maps should be released in patches, but I don't really think so with user-made maps. Then again, I don't think CS takes that route, the only Steam-downloaded maps are made by the makers of CS.
 

G.Lecter

Registered Tester
Dec 31, 2004
1,257
3
38
36
Spain
www.oscarcrego.com
Patches are patches and maps are maps... :rolleyes:
Adding some maps in a patch would rise its filesize and make some people not download it... Not everyone can download maps (big filesize) but everyone should be able to fix the bugs the game has...
A good server will have the official Bonus Packs anyway... And there also will be lots of unofficial mapacks you want or not... ;)
 

Ignotium

Que hora es?
Apr 3, 2005
1,426
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Madrid
G.Lecter said:
Patches are patches and maps are maps... :rolleyes:
Adding some maps in a patch would rise its filesize and make some people not download it... Not everyone can download maps (big filesize) but everyone should be able to fix the bugs the game has...
A good server will have the official Bonus Packs anyway... And there also will be lots of unofficial mapacks you want or not... ;)

IWY
 

1337

1337
Jun 23, 2004
1,337
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www.jumpinjuggernuts.com
Let the community do what it wants. People that game on computers aren't the type that need to be spoon-fed stuff. Don't hinder admins from adding what they want to the server. Don't handicap the ut2k4 community.
 

zynthetic

robot!
Aug 12, 2001
2,947
0
36
zynthetic.com
I agree that bonus content should be included in patches but when you compare the amount of content Epic has been know to release w/ BPs I don't think it would be appropriate for a Tournament game.
I'd be happier w/ seperate patches/BPs as long as they don't create conflicts w/ themselves (UT's de.u and some random ECE stuff for 2k4).
 

SiN-BiN

New Member
Aug 21, 2004
608
0
0
briachiae said:
Let the community do what it wants. People that game on computers aren't the type that need to be spoon-fed stuff. Don't hinder admins from adding what they want to the server. Don't handicap the ut2k4 community.

I couldnt agree more, i dont want to automatically have 50 maps that I am never going to play.
 

{RA}SKYFURNACE

Game Mapper & Press
Apr 17, 2004
147
0
0
ECE was the first Bonus pack to not be "required" the ones before were.

I have no idea why epic made it optional.
 

krjal

Minotaur
May 10, 2005
83
0
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37
Australia
There was some odd marketing issues with the ECE because of selling it with the game and listing it as the 'selling' feature.

Personal opinion: Bonus packs should be required dl.
 

SiN-BiN

New Member
Aug 21, 2004
608
0
0
Mr.Magnetichead said:
If they are able to download a patch to fix online bugs then they are capable of DLing a few maps.

But like i said people may not want a whole lot of maps that they arnt going to play.
 

Denny

Engulfed In Flames
Mar 19, 2005
165
0
0
Offline playing with bots :/
But even with 56k (that i do have....temporarily anyway) i'd still download it either way, Bonus Pack or Patch it don't matter you'd have to download both anyway (well in some cases). But no Steam-like crap that stuff is nasty!
 

rhirud

Fast learning novice
Feb 20, 2004
706
0
0
The problem with the ECE release was that there was no easy way of telling if a server was running the old map or the new ECE version.

Every good server now cottoned on that if it's the ECE version they made a new map that had to be downloaded and called it, for example, ons-dawn-ece.

If it's the old dawn it was ons-dawn.

It was just poorly thought out
 

Discord

surveying the wreckage...
Nov 6, 2002
639
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Somewhere on Route 666
[IsP]KaRnAgE said:
If you do not think this method is a good one then you are just being a straight up CS basher.


Well... why yes, I'm a CS basher :D. I've played CS, along with a ton of other "realism"- oriented FPS, and TBH I find Space Invaders to be more engaging and realistic than CS.

But that has nary a thing to do with why I don't think UT needs this.

1. Why the ECE content was optional.

The ECE content was most probably the first optional official bonus pack in UT history simply because if you didn't play ONS, you neither needed nor wanted it; there was thus no point in spending HD space on it.

Furthermore, if the ONS servers weren't running it it was either because the admins didn't know or because they just didn't want it. And if they didn't want it, well, you could force them to install it all day long and you still wouldn't see any of it in their rotation. The "didn't know" bit I'm coming to...

And another thing: patches are often specifically designed to be backward- compatible and not mandatory as an acknowledgement of their WIP status. Patches can cause more problems than they fix for some selected users, and the option to roll them back is in many cases a godsend. Not to mention that the Mac and Linux patches are often on a staggered release schedule by necessity.

2. Download redirection.

In CS, and also in Q3 engine games, there's no such thing as download redirection. If you try to join a server running a map you don't have, you'll be looking at a status bar for a looooong time before giving up and going googling. If the server has downloads enabled at all -- a lot of them don't because of the stress it puts on the server.

UT is smart enough to let the servers farm those downloads out to webservers. Not only will these webservers provide faster delivery, but you can even get the file in compressed format and use it right away. For downloading custom content on the fly, UT is still king and a single map usually just isn't an issue, it's down before you know it.

Granted, downloading ECE via redirect would still suck (if it's even possible), but for individual maps it's no problem. This assures that the maps that are popular deserve to be that way (for one reason or another) and nobody has to store content they aren't going to use.




Now. The main thing I'd like to see changed in content distribution for UT is the "Community" tab in the GUI. The problem with it, simply, is that people don't go there except to watch a demo. What UT needs next, I think, is a little popup on the main menu screen that alerts users to the availability of new content.

And that's it, carry on. :)
 
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G.Lecter

Registered Tester
Dec 31, 2004
1,257
3
38
36
Spain
www.oscarcrego.com
Mr.Magnetichead said:
If they are able to download a patch to fix online bugs then they are capable of DLing a few maps.
Remember 56k still exists... The average map size for a UT2004 map is 10MB(zipped), so the maps for UT2007 will pobably have higher filesize... (around 20megs?) ;)
Therefore, a patch that only fix bugs would be a 10MB file (cute and fast). However a patch with 5 new maps could rise to 100MB :eek:...
 

Denny

Engulfed In Flames
Mar 19, 2005
165
0
0
Offline playing with bots :/
G.Lecter said:
Remember 56k still exists... The average map size for a UT2004 map is 10MB(zipped), so the maps for UT2007 will pobably have higher filesize... (around 20megs?) ;)
Therefore, a patch that only fix bugs would be a 10MB file (cute and fast). However a patch with 5 new maps could rise to 100MB :eek:...

Good Point. 10 MB really isn't that big of a deal on Dial-Up, it takes rougly 1 1/2 - 2 Hours. Be careful sayin that 56k's still exist, otherwise you'll hear alot of "Well why the hell don't you switch to broadband?" and so on, my answer is "I can't, we all don't live in big cities with cabel drops every 100 ft."

But that's something else entirely.