Steve Polge about UT3 Expansion Pack

[rAt.8^].bAg]

Originally Posted by TheIronKnuckle

invulnerability is lame. they should have just made it 500 armour that slowly ticks down to 200.

Same diff, eh?

"...big circle with a few staircases and a couple lifts in the center, whoop-tee-do."


Doesn't matter. It's the game play, stupid. As a DM/TDM, Fearless rawks.

[cosmix]

I dont think that the upcoming expainsion pack will be useless. They wouldn't announce it as "a large update and expansion" if they only contribute us some new maps, fix the interface and patch some bugs.
I'm sure they know the whole situation very well. They haven't only fix the game, they have to patch the community as well that is really broken if I follow my post here.
If they will release some official new content, maps, patch or whatever in the future, it must more than most of us expect and I'm sure it will be.

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Originally Posted by Poker

invul isn't so bad since you've got the option of alt-IH, which is kind of fun. I don't find Fearless to suffer for that, or for the lack of Shock, however. It's more the uninspired geometry—big circle with a few staircases and a couple lifts in the center, whoop-tee-do. Barely two grades better than Morbias, really.

But maps with simple layouts or layouts that are fresh or good to learn are the best...

[JohnDoe641]

Originally Posted by Leo(T.C.K.)

But maps with simple layouts or layouts that are fresh or good to learn are the best...

Too bad Fearless isn't any good.

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Meh, for me it is, it plays well, has great FPS....etc..even looks aren't that bad.

Maps like Arsenal are actually not one of my favorites, but fearless is better than that.

[Poker]

Originally Posted by Leo(T.C.K.)

But maps with simple layouts or layouts that are fresh or good to learn are the best...

Fair enough, simplicity has its place and audience. Even Bio and Deimos have their uses, arguably. I just happen to think the richest, most fluid gameplay is to be had on levels that aren't as symmetric and redundant as some of those.

[T2A`]

There's a difference between simplicity and uninspired, bland crap. UT3 suffers from the latter, unfortunately, even with its more complicated layouts. HOLP does a good job of showing what simplicity is supposed to be.

[darkonxy]

Forget the expansion
http://hedsteem.com/hsportal/index.php
These guys are making loads of content for UT3

Tons of people play and there are loads of VCTF maps out the whazoo

Sadly this is the reason i choose not to play on BUF no custom content purely stock S#$% with custom maps .... not really interesting

[UBerserker]

Forget Fearless, BioHazard or that Deimos which came out from a Jazz Jackrabbit game. Diesel owns all.

[Poker]

Originally Posted by T2A`

There's a difference between simplicity and uninspired, bland crap. UT3 suffers from the latter, unfortunately, even with its more complicated layouts. HOLP does a good job of showing what simplicity is supposed to be.

Right, but you're narrowly applying the attribute of "simplicity", specifically to the look rather than the layout. I actually wouldn't use that word to refer to the HOLP style at all—"lightly decorated" would be more like it. In the ways that matter, i.e. geometry, HOLP content is generally quite well thought out, and most often anything but simple.

Originally Posted by UBerserker

Forget Fearless, BioHazard or that Deimos which came out from a Jazz Jackrabbit game. Diesel owns all.

True, Diesel is superb as well.

[T2A`]

No, I didn't mean the look. In terms of layout, the HOLP maps are generally simple to learn yet effective. Things have a purpose and it works. Many of UT3's maps, especially the more complex ones, don't feel as if they have a purpose. It's like the layout designers just went around going, "Oh, I guess we need a hallway here or something." The layouts themselves lack any sort of memorable character and often deadend themselves or get connected in strange, unintuitive ways. Many times things are blocked up unnecessarily and certain areas are completely devoid of pickups and tactical worth.

That's the feeling I got, at least. D:

[Sir_Brizz]

I don't think so for the most part, I think they were just going for more interesting layouts than usual. Whether that was a good idea or not, I don't know, but there ARE several HOLP maps that are just as, if not more, confusing than the stock maps (and at least one I can think of that has just as much decoration).

[cosmix]

The engine-independent content tool 'Beast' from Illuminate Labs is integrated with the Unreal Engine 3 now.

"Beast for Unreal Engine 3 simply replaces the light maps in Unreal Engine 3 with full global illumination light maps, getting you a vast increase in lighting quality without actually modifying the rendering pipeline in Unreal Engine 3. You get a ton of new options to light the content, and the overall results will be far superior than the default light maps from Unreal Engine 3."
more...

Maybe this is part of the Expansion Pack? Would be nice

Some Unreal Engine 3 examples...

[Kazimira]

That lighting looks good but will it eat framerates?

[Hyrage]

Originally Posted by Kazimira

That lighting looks good but will it eat framerates?

I don't know, but should we expect to see the Gears of War 2 Technical Feautres in the next UT3 update?...

Afterall, GoW2 already use tons of UT3 static meshes...

[Kazimira]

Now this I want to see. I have a pair of graphics cards and want to use them not just the CPU.

[JEnepas]

Originally Posted by Kazimira

Now this I want to see. I have a pair of graphics cards and want to use them not just the CPU.

The only negative read could be that since consoles are well known to be weak graphically eg. PS3 's, now very outdated nv40(low memory etc) but have strong multi core cpus, is the rendering so cpu bound in UT3 simply to suit these consoles?

[evilmrfrank]

the bottom picture of borderlands doesnt use global illumination. :P

[Benfica]

Originally Posted by JEnepas

The only negative read could be that since consoles are well known to be weak graphically eg. PS3 's nv40(low memory etc) but tend to have strong multi core cpus, was the whole engine and by implication UT3 simply suited to these?

Not sure about all what I say below, but I see it this way:
UE3 may be influenced by the PS3 yes, but mostly it has to do with the fact that the "internal loop" of the Engine is not native, it's a virtual machine that interprets code (the game and mods that one can make). And IIRC there's a layer that converts a request at a time to Direct3D and OpenGL and forces a lot of back and forth (context switching). That layer is sort of required and always existed on previous Unreal Engines, also on UT and UT2004 because they ran on Linux.

[JEnepas]

Originally Posted by Benfica

Not sure about all what I say below, but I see it this way:
UE3 may be influenced by the PS3 yes, but mostly it has to do with the fact that the "internal loop" of the Engine is not native, it's a virtual machine that interprets code (the game and mods that one can make). And IIRC there's a layer that converts a request at a time to Direct3D and OpenGL and forces a lot of back and forth (context switching). That layer is sort of required and always existed on previous Unreal Engines, also on UT and UT2004 because they ran on Linux.

"The negative perf posts were from people who hated the CPU bound nature of the rendering. Namely, even at 1920x1200 we weren't maxxing out a single NVIDIA 8800 pipe. All these guys who SLI'd them thought there was some issue when their performance didn't increase when they enabled the second card." - WarTourist

This is what surprised me, it just seems like a lot of untapped capability for a modern pc & it doesn't seem to apply to other non UE3 games.