A new development strategy.

[Banoffee]

Originally Posted by esJ

CS and COD4 also necessitate skills that UT doesn't.

Like what?

[Jrubzjeknf]

Knowing your limits, for ie. clipsize, how long you can run and how long you can hold your breath when you're sniping. With UT, your clipsize is as big as your ammo count, you always run and your aim is always dead on.

[Argus]

Originally Posted by Banoffee

Like what?

Crouching every time you fire so you don't fall foul to..

EXTREME RECOIL

[Banoffee]

Originally Posted by Jrubzjeknf

Knowing your limits, for ie. clipsize, how long you can run and how long you can hold your breath when you're sniping. With UT, your clipsize is as big as your ammo count, you always run and your aim is always dead on.

Reloading is a "skill"?

I was comparing more to CS actually, so I'll agree with the rest. Except maybe recoil. There must be a better way of doing it than random spread (even Q3 CPMA changed the shotgun to a fixed pattern).

[T2A`]

UT's flak cannon has always had a random spread. And you can replace reloading with having weapons with which you might actually run out of ammo. Knife? Impact hammer. Bombs? Domination points. Hostages? CTF. Except in CTF the flags won't capture themselves when you take out the other team. In CS you don't even have to worry about spawning unarmed and without your team. Sooo hard!

The biggest difference between CS and UT is the camp-laden gameplay of the former. A lot of it is knowing where the enemy is going to come out and flashing/nading it and waiting for someone to peek out. But even that kind of stuff is in UT via DOM, TAM, and keeping control over an area in which a powerup is about to spawn in 1v1/TDM.

[Crotale]

Originally Posted by T2A`

That is and always will be a silly myth that has no backing. Anyone who plays UT for more than two hours will easily understand why. The problem is it's different, and currently this difference is not popular. How, pray tell, is COD4 less point-and-clicky than UT? Tactical shock combos and rocket spirals vs. yet another game filled with three-round, instant-hit bursts? If the gaming community cared to understand this, UT wouldn't be niche.

When compared to games such as HL2 or even the original Unreal, the Tournament games require less reasoning and more awareness of the surrounding area and players. You're right, it is different. But, to put it into an observation made by a friend of mind, UT gameplay is more about more instinct than intelligence. I'd say that is closer to the mark than many of us are willing to believe.

Unfortunately, your second point is solid. The third not so much. I have a completely stock INI for highest details and I could own any new UTer with ease.

Well, that may be true for you, but UT games are notorious for being the most customizable games available in that regard. Most games do not allow for custom crosshairs, etc, in the way UT games do. And I think that has some bearing on things. I saw a lot of players tweak the systems and use different controllers such as the speedpads in order to gain advantage over others back when I played UT2003 competitively.

For whatever reason, though, gamers don't really want a challenge anymore. Somehow the notion got out there that being good at COD4 and CS was some sort of achievement even if that's not really true. If being good at instant-hit, random pew-pew is considered cool by the masses, something like UT is bound to fail.

Now that might be true. I'd be more inclined to believe that most gamers today are just not interested in putting forth the time and effort to learn how to be successful at any given game. They simply want to finish the SP and move on to the next big thing.

As a lament, it seems that WoW players are some of the last few bastions (all 20 gozillion of them, lol) who will stick to a game for any length of time.

[dub]

Originally Posted by esJ

CS is just as hard as UT is, you could even argue that it's harder. Same with COD4 although it isn't anywhere near as wisdespread established yet.

I would disagree. Alone from the fact that CS has simple movement and only hitscan weapons. In UT those are two areas you have to learn on top of the skillset you require in CS. When you go further there are timings and pickups too and in the 2 last games you could argue that vehicles add yet another dimension.

Originally Posted by Crotale

1. UT is nothing more than a point-and-click-fest than requires no brain power.

I can't believe people think that when the likes of CS and CoD with their 95% hitscan weaponry and minimal movement, play much more "point and click".

I don't fully understand how UT is considered old-school when it's changed a fair bit since it's 99 release and when you compare it to CS for example that has pretty much only received a graphical upgrade. Games like Battlefield in essence are CS with vehicles.

[Crotale]

dub, we can argue semantics all day long, but we all have to realize that UT games are not the type of games most gamers play, for whatever reasons. The three examples I posted were only a few, but were the most likely reasons I see for lack of a bigger online community when compared to other FPSers.

Even the offline experiences in UT games are far better IMO than most SP games, but when the UT games are touted as primarily MP, many gamers are scared away due to my reason number 2: they'll get their butts handed to them by the already highly skilled UT veterans. It doesn't mater how much you, me or anyone else says that those newcomers should suck it up and learn the game, they won't stick around if they aren't having fun. Period.

[Argus]

Originally Posted by Crotale

It doesn't mater how much you, me or anyone else says that those newcomers should suck it up and learn the game, they won't stick around if they aren't having fun. Period.

Are you making the assumption that, if someone was getting owned, they wouldn't be having fun?

I mean, I get owned almost all the time and still manage to get some enjoyment out of the game.

Maybe before you post something like that you should ask for some opinions from said "newcomers" first. Period.

[Crotale]

Well, then, why aren't more gamers playing UT games? Why do they continue to play games such as Halo and CS? That is because they actually have a chance to survive long enough to get some enjoyment. The kind of owning I was referring to in the previous posting is the kind where the newbie can barely respawn in and then "boom" he's dead again. Sorry, but I fail to see how that is fun for the lesser skilled player.

Perhaps your getting owned is more like you can actual spawn in, pick up weapons and get a few frags, but you end up losing the match. That is a far cry from a newb getting continuously owned right after respawning. If he never gets a frag, he won't come back for more. Well, most won't.

Edit:/ Btw, I know what you mean about getting owned most of the time and still enjoying the game. But I still maintain that a newcomer most likely won't return if his first experience is continuously getting owned immediately after (re)spawning.

[JaFO]

Originally Posted by T2A`

And that's good in what way? None. The standard Windows method doesn't even allow you to keep your game installs on separate partitions/drives.

Actually it does.
You can move the 'documents & settings'-folder to anywhere you like.
It's not even a hidden setting anymore like it used to be in Win2k/NT-series.

To even make the folder tree navigable I had to create two shortcuts on my own which just adds to the clutter.

I have one to "C:\Games\UT3\UTGame\CookedPC\Environments" for mapping since UnrealEd never remembers the proper folder you were using, I have another to "C:\Documents and Settings\Gibson\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps". I could easily create more, but the CustomMaps shortcut suffices, as it puts me down near ExportedScripts, Screenshots, Demos, and Config.

Not only that, but I've had to hide all *.ini and *.upk files in the CustomMaps folder so I can actually see the maps I've installed. How is any of this good, exactly? How is requiring extra shortcuts for usability a good thing?

The only reason you've got two extra shortcuts is because you insist on keeping your maps outside of the official folders.

That is and always will be a silly myth that has no backing. Anyone who plays UT for more than two hours will easily understand why. The problem is it's different, and currently this difference is not popular. How, pray tell, is COD4 less point-and-clicky than UT? Tactical shock combos and rocket spirals vs. yet another game filled with three-round, instant-hit bursts? If the gaming community cared to understand this, UT wouldn't be niche.
... If being good at instant-hit, random pew-pew is considered cool by the masses, something like UT is bound to fail.
...

I think the problem is more that the guns in CS/COD4 make a lot more sense to the average gamer compared to the UT-series.
Everyone understands how 'every day' weapons relate to each other in terms of power/rof/accuracy/etc (even though most of that knowledge is based on 'Hollywood'-definitions instead of real-life statistics).

It's UT that has the weird 'random pew-pew'-weapons that can't hit **** by comparison. That's why it doesn't "click" unless you build a scifi-game on a hugely popular background like Starwars or something as massive as Halo.

// ---
Having played CS in the early days I can say that 'getting owned' in that game is even worse to me.
You start with a ****ty weapon (a pistol) and if you make a mistake you get to wait for 5 minutes (or longer) to try again and unless your team wins you're going to have to wait a really long time before you can afford anything half-decent which you won't get to shoot if you're unlucky.
Perhaps the real disadvantage for UT is that you keep getting 'owned' a dozen times over while CS-style games make it look less painful as you're spending a lot of time waiting to play the ff-ing game.

[Argus]

Originally Posted by Crotale

But I still maintain that a newcomer most likely won't return if his first experience is continuously getting owned immediately after (re)spawning.

I have never known anyone facing an experience like that. Maybe if it's a smaller map, like, say, Rising Sun, and it's packed full of players then sure, I'd agree. But I find that that is unlikely to happen, wouldn't you say?

[Crotale]

If you're opnly talking UT3, then maybe you are correct, since the playerbase is very small. But, I played on a lot of various public servers when I played UT2003/4 and I saw quite a few morons who love to spawn rape. Sure, a seasoned player might be able to get around this kind of crap play, but a newcomer gets completely put off by the experience. Maybe it isn't as rampant as I may have inadvertently indicated, but it still happened quite a bit in those games. For some odd reason, I never saw that amount of spawn raping occur in other games.

Still, the argument is that UT games are not most gamers type of games for many reasons.

[Soggy_Popcorn]

Just the fact that most arguments in favor of UT are based on the weapon strategies shows the narrowness of its niche. While UT's weapons are indeed far more complicated and do require more skill than, say, CoD's weapons, UT has no other 'dimensions,' for lack of a better word.

It could be argued that powerup-timing and the sort add complexity, but this is something that newcomers would never think of when they are simply trying to survive for more than five seconds. Other games such as Gears (although I really did not enjoy it) add the elements of cover, reviving teammates, etc., and this is the stuff that newcomers actually appreciate.

Don't get me wrong, I think UT gameplay is a masterpiece in and of itself, but it simply lacks other goodies (however meaningless they may be) like CoD's level-up crap.

[esJ]

To be fair it isn't the lack of 'extras' that stop me wanting to play UT04/3 ... both games just feel clumsy, I'd much prefer to play quake which is a faster and imo far more elegant game.

[Argus]

Originally Posted by Crotale

If you're opnly talking UT3, then maybe you are correct, since the playerbase is very small. But, I played on a lot of various public servers when I played UT2003/4 and I saw quite a few morons who love to spawn rape. Sure, a seasoned player might be able to get around this kind of crap play, but a newcomer gets completely put off by the experience. Maybe it isn't as rampant as I may have inadvertently indicated, but it still happened quite a bit in those games. For some odd reason, I never saw that amount of spawn raping occur in other games.

Still, the argument is that UT games are not most gamers type of games for many reasons.

I thought this discussion was only about UT3..

It seems there have been enough arguments about your list of reasons, so I'm just gonna leave it alone. []

Originally Posted by esJ

To be fair it isn't the lack of 'extras' that stop me wanting to play UT04/3 ... both games just feel clumsy, I'd much prefer to play quake which is a faster and imo far more elegant game.

Clumsy? Pardon me for not understanding, but in what respect do they feel "clumsy" at all?

[Crotale]

Originally Posted by Argus

I thought this discussion was only about UT3..

Yes, but in order to better understand how to create a better strategy for UT3, one must look at how the average gamer sees UT games in general. Even if UT3 outsold all the other UT games and had bigger player counts online than any of the previous versions, it still wouldn't be as successful as H3 or COD4, IMO.

The other issue is whether or not we are talking UT3 as whole or just the PC version.

[T2A`]

Originally Posted by esJ

To be fair it isn't the lack of 'extras' that stop me wanting to play UT04/3 ... both games just feel clumsy, I'd much prefer to play quake which is a faster and imo far more elegant game.

GB2ESR...?

I've always wondered if people actually play Q3/CPMA or if it's more that people have played it once or twice and then say they play it while harping on how much better it is than UT just because they think it somehow makes them cool to do so.

UT3 feels far more clumsy than any of the previous UTs. The movement is overly grounded, yes, but the weapons feel very inconsistent in comparison to past games.

[DarQraven]

It's pretty much everthing that's already been mentioned, combined into one post, that would end this discussion.
So here:

1) Niche because:
It's hard, it's too fast for many people, it doesn't allow you to "pwn" people by spamming because in UT people can actually dodge (given that the server isn't overpopulated), weapons that give you methods of attack besides spray 'n pray.

2) Not popular because:

-Modern day gamers are wussies. Most of them that I know think they are absolutely godlike when they can finish a game on hard difficulty by camping and exploiting bad AI. Even worse in multiplayer. The corpsehumping starts after the first accidental double kill and keeps going on after that. When faced with someone slightly better, it's either a hacker, a cheater, a nolifer, or homosexual; preferably all four combined. Or lag because everyone in the world lags, while they themselves are always on 3 Terabyte/s fiber-optic connections.
Games that require you to learn to play are 'gay'. People that have learnt to play the game are 'gay'. In short, everything that presents a challenge is 'gay'.

-The bad state of UT3 on release/demo. Word of mouth is indeed one of the most important advertising media in PC gaming. While a fancy box shot and noisy commercials with lots of sound effects and explosions might sell console games by the dozen, PC gamers tend to read reviews before buying or will torrent the game to try it out themselves.
There is no denying that UT3 was in a very bad state. I've seen freeware home-dev games that had a better menu system, as well as the ability to switch maps without crashing the client.

--

As for the CS/CoD4/UT/Q3 comparison, I think it is very fair to call Q3 and UT the harder games.
I've played all of them a good deal of time, and I rocked pub servers in CS as soon as I figured out the maps, and learned how to use AWP/M4. Desert Eagle dominance came shortly after that (bit of aim_deagle training and voilá), and as far as combat came I was victorious is most cases.
However, those games were far less about actual FPS skill than no-lifing the game and having a clan.
You could put 5 individual people with exceptional aim and decent tactics against an organised team of 2-3 people on teamspeak, and they would lose every single time. Fact: You can have the worlds fastest reflexes, insane aim, and very good player prediction. You'll still be pwned by those camping dudes with the flashbangs because you have no way to dodge. They can hear you coming, they'll know where you're coming from, and they'll take you down.

[fuegerstef]

Originally Posted by T2A`

GB2ESR...?

GB2CPL...!!!


Oh, wait...