Unreal Tournament Shelved For Several Years

[brdempsey69]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

You think UT2003 was dumbed down?

Yes, weapons were nerfed something fierce, player characters were made to appear smaller, the movement was jacked up & all this took away from the vicious bloodfests that were so prevalent in the original UT. It was now bunny-hop hitscan fests.

That, to me, represents dumbed down.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe641

2k3 was far from dumbed down. It added so much variety and tactic to how you moved/played.

Hi boost dodging.

It was okay at first, but after a while it became borish & the fun & entertainment factors that kept me coming back for more in the original UT, weren't there in UT2003. Actually, I had played original UT Zark arms & it was far more entertaining than UT2003's vanilla game play & after playing Zark, I've never understood people's complaints about the stock UT weapons being too powerful.

[Soggy_Popcorn]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

The overall pessimistic attitude about the game didn't help it at all. You really can't argue with that. If people didn't like it and just moved on, fine. But a lot of them didn't. They hung around whining about every little thing for months and months.

Ridiculous. We've told you time and again, you overestimate the forum nerds' impact on normal gamers. The average guy has never been here, probably looked up some stupid gamespot review of UT, asked his friends about it, and decided whether or not to buy it.

Each of those actions would have warned him about its unfinishedness in advance, and if he did decide to buy anyway, well, you know how the player count is now.

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

I don't know how you can be overly anything on this topic. Nobody knows what it means or what Epic will do next, if anything. I would say it IS stupid to act like anyone making guesses in this thread is doing anything more than guessing like anyone else. Your post was full of guessing as well, so good job! I could easily apply to opposite of your own logic to your overly pessimistic and delusional post

Really now, it's not hard to extrapolate their recent strategy into future action. That's how you do pretty much everything in life. They're focused on the console market. It's good profit. Thus, it has pushed UT into the background (hence this announcement). That's not even assumption. Just some common sense analysis.

[Sir_Brizz]

Originally Posted by Soggy_Popcorn

Ridiculous. We've told you time and again, you overestimate the forum nerds' impact on normal gamers. The average guy has never been here, probably looked up some stupid gamespot review of UT, asked his friends about it, and decided whether or not to buy it.

Each of those actions would have warned him about its unfinishedness in advance, and if he did decide to buy anyway, well, you know how the player count is now.

I said it didn't help. You really want to argue that point? Okay, tell me how it did help then I wasn't talking about how big of an impact it had or anything relating to that. I only said it didn't help. Next time try to read my actual post instead of inserting your own commentary based on your opinion of my posting history. Thanks.

Really now, it's not hard to extrapolate their recent strategy into future action. That's how you do pretty much everything in life. They're focused on the console market. It's good profit. Thus, it has pushed UT into the background (hence this announcement). That's not even assumption. Just some common sense analysis.

Where did you come by this internal Epic memo that gave you this information? Oh, you can't provide one? Guess were back to assumption, also known as guessing.

[ambershee]

Originally Posted by brdempsey69

Yes, weapons were nerfed something fierce, player characters were made to appear smaller, the movement was jacked up & all this took away from the vicious bloodfests that were so prevalent in the original UT. It was now bunny-hop hitscan fests.

That, to me, represents dumbed down.

To me, that represents different....

[JohnDoe641]

Originally Posted by brdempsey69

Yes, weapons were nerfed something fierce, player characters were made to appear smaller, the movement was jacked up & all this took away from the vicious bloodfests that were so prevalent in the original UT. It was now bunny-hop hitscan fests.

That, to me, represents dumbed down.

Maybe you couldn't kill someone in two shock shots or a combo that was 500 feet away, or shoot six rockets at someone with a large splash radius.

You actually had to aim at your opponent and hit them. UT was fun, but 2k3 was much more entertaining to me.

I dunno about you, but I enjoyed being in the competitive scene in 2k3.

It was okay at first, but after a while it became borish & the fun & entertainment factors that kept me coming back for more in the original UT, weren't there in UT2003. Actually, I had played original UT Zark arms & it was far more entertaining than UT2003's vanilla game play & after playing Zark, I've never understood people's complaints about the stock UT weapons being too powerful.

UT's weapons were designed after Unreal's arsenal which was designed for killing monsters in a SP game. UT's weapons were also made for the likes of 56k modems, and with crappy pings. The moment I switched to a cable modem and had pings of 60 and lower, I realized how over-powerful the weapons can be. I could be just like Destrukt spawn raping XS|Pain on Liandri with the link in .03 seconds or the mini in .04 seconds because the hits per second are so insane. That doesn't' even cover how easy it is to get head shots with a low ping and the Sniper rifle.

UT's weapons are designed for high pings, and when we all had them the weapons were fine. Now that most people ping below 60, the major flaws in the weapons balance gleam brighter than the sun at mid-day.

Just a fyi: I'm speaking about my experience with Unreal - UT3 and playing UT/2k3/2k4/UT3 at some of the highest levels of competition play. I see things from a very different perspective than a pub player ever will. It sounds silly, but when you're playing some of the best players in the US you see a lot of things very clearly, and weapons balance is one of those things that you understand very quickly.

[brdempsey69]

Originally Posted by ambershee

To me, that represents different....

Different, doesn't always mean better, for a lot of folks.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe641

Just a fyi: I'm speaking about my experience with Unreal - UT3 and playing UT/2k3/2k4/UT3 at some of the highest levels of competition play. I see things from a very different perspective than a pub player ever will. It sounds silly, but when you're playing some of the best players in the US you see a lot of things very clearly, and weapons balance is one of those things that you understand very quickly.

You are quite right, this is a different scenario from playing on pubs or at LAN parties.

No doubt, everyone is going to favor one UT series game over another, for whatever reason. I have all 4 installed on my main rig, but for me, the original UT gets the most playing time.

[Malevol3nt]

Now would be a good time to consider making something in the likes of Unreal Live (as in UT99 in a browser), just like iD did with Quake Live.

They have plenty of content to choose from, all they would really need to work on is good browser integration and perhaps they should slightly update the graphics.

If I recall correctly, someone from Epic already gave a positive comment about what ID have done, and just possibly, maybe, in the loooong distant future (in two weeks), might give a thought about starting to think about the possibility of trying out an idea like that.

Or maybe they would think this is just copying ideas from other companies.

But one can always dream, right?

[elmuerte]

Originally Posted by Malevol3nt

Now would be a good time to consider making something in the likes of Unreal Live (as in UT99 in a browser)

Now is a good time not to consider UT Live. I think that market is already quite saturated (with Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes). I doubt there is much money to earn for Epic into bringing in another "free" game.
With a project like this you need a profitable business plan.

[NeoNite]

Originally Posted by UBerserker

Wow. When I made that post I never had in mind being an elitist fanboy of U1. I was only expressing my real opinions in the contest of the Unreal series. Oh well, I appreciate that you defend UT though, as I was never against it.
Let me say, I wasn't very keen at loving UT1 as you guys do. Now I mostly open my UT for Oldskool, MH, the recent CMP2 pack and other mods. The original game... I got bored with it, and now I moved to UT3 which personally I find a bit more entertaining.

Regarding the rest, I never said that UT1 was not a complete game. Plus, I defined "nothing special" the design of the weapons (never found them as unique as the original one - the Sniper Rifle and the Minigun for example) and environments (as said, nothing really impressed me). Not the gameplay, not the character, not the music, not the rest. Hopefully I've been more clear this time; UT1's still a beast in the series.

Yeah well, I have to apologise for that. I couldn't help it (although it's hardly an excuse I realise it), over the years I've read comments (be it on forums or the game) of so called "diehard unreal fanatics" and it always astonished me how degrading/condescending their opinion was on UT.

Shouldn't have compared you with that, and you're right it's all a matter of personal choice. And I do respect that, even if my previous post told you otherwise.

[Benfica]

Originally Posted by Soggy_Popcorn

This isn't about "taking a break" from the franchise, and coming back to win us over. Epic has clearly been trending toward console products. Because they can milk them more. Make more profits. They don't need UT or us at this point. If UT comes back ever, at all, it will be in gimmicky console form (and I don't mean that in an insulting way, it's just a different market)

This is not only about cash, consoles or "PC gamers". It's just that they don't need guys like you, you can keep your money and spend it on yet the 1734293th CS clone or whatever Gabe Newell pulls out of his fat greazy ass. They got tired to have the so called "loyal fans" blaming them of everything, after providing a game, an editor and bonus packs. Fans saying that everything about what they are passionated about sucks, if there's just one single thing that they don't like, even being able to mod an open game.

Admins or content creators contribute to the scene, generic PC or console players buy the game (even used) have fun and move on. Silent and sometimes passionately. Then there are the most "loyal", "devoted" and active that don't have a balanced view, often don't have anything decent to say, resort to personal attacks after criticizing the software, exactly the ones that had the most fun and value with the previous UT release!

Lots here were teens when started playing UT. They were teens when they started coding in assembly, reading Intel manuals to squeeze that last clock cycle out of their code, exploiting undocumented video tricks. So, I guess they love to hear some of you telling them that they don't like or know how to make PC games, when they and others started the f'ing revolution.

Now some even rant about how they should make the game PC only. You are delusional enough to believe you can tell geeks or creative people what they should do with their work, what to code and where, and expect them to listen. It's like demanding Linux nerds to improve Vista

There's something else, I've noticed that the communities that praise Epic the most are the ones that don't have "loyal fans". This is not good. Yes, most PC players respect UT, just read non-UT related sites, e.g. hardware, generic gaming, Central/Eastern Europe and others. But specially PS3 communities used to get the shaft for each miserable content download went "wow!" when they got custom content and then Titan, split-screen and acheivs for free. This is BAD. With grateful console players, low piracy, hassle-free platforms and not having FPS nerds hate and badmouth their work, I'm afraid that only Intel and content-creation motivates Epic to consider another PC game

[Dogger]

I roll about in that fat greasy arse of Gabe Newell, the man and his team are geniuses. They sat back for acouple of years and looked at the direction the market was going in. They realised you cant keep ahead by making just games, so they invented a system that sustains itself along with the games its hosting.

Epics problem is that they cannot change anything on the fly. If something is broke, doesnt really work in the game, or just needs a slight adjustment, it takes weeks and months for anything to be done about it.

For a game like UT in this day and age, i dont think you can just bang out the game and say nothing is drasticly going to change. Imagine if there was little updates here and there that changed weapon ROF and damage, movement, vehicle handling and other stuff people complain about, testing how it goes, and if it doesnt work just revert back to the old settings.

At the moment its just "lets sod that group of people and go with this group of peoples ideas and call it done untill the next game". There needs to be a compromise in the middle that both partys can see happen in real time.

IMO UT3 would of done amazingly well if it had a campaign like Tribes vengence and the constant balancing and patching like TF2.

[sharpfish]

Goodbye... to my first and favourite series on PC (Ok, for 'some years' not permanently).

Right now, well since the launch of UT3 I've been far more interested in a SINGLE PLAYER UNREAL GAME.. A new unreal, UNREAL 3... (maybe stick some mulitplayer on the side too). However, I'll make do with UT3 for now (and sometimes 2k4/99), I don't even play games as much as I used to, let alone have time for mapping.

[TurdDrive]

wont this mean goodbye to msuc?

[Slainchild]

Originally Posted by TurdDrive

wont this mean goodbye to msuc?

They only ever do one with a new UT release.

So yes.

[xear0]

dead game....i mean series

[brold9999]

Originally Posted by Slainchild

They only ever do one with a new UT release.

So yes.

Not necessarily, Epic will probably continue to release games with focus on modability. This announcement only means that that game will not be called "UT" or take place in the "Unreal" universe.

[xMurphyx]

Arena shooters are good games to showcase ones engine though so if that's what they are after they might just make another one, just not UT. The levels are as diverse as can be and you don't have to worry about epic story-lines connecting the various locales. Having a game where anything goes as far as characters and environments go and where constant action and high framerates are so important is just great. I don't know of a genre that works as well with that as the arena shooter.
They probably figured there is only so much you can do with the UT formula and they are done with it now so it's time to start over.

So from my limited perspective it seems like the chances for a new UT with a new set of weapons, a new set of characters, set in a different universe and of course with a new name aren't too slim.

No reason to be sad either, imo. The new game could be a winner and who really needs a new UT if anyone who has an interest in the series can pick UT, UT2003/4, UC2 or UT3 and find something they like.

[Interbellum]

Originally Posted by brold9999

Not necessarily, Epic will probably continue to release games with focus on modability.

Unfortunately, the UT series' [the focus on] moddability & customization has been steadily decreasing since UT99, and GoW's went from poor (custom maps for the original's PC version) to zero (console only).

Originally Posted by brold9999

This announcement only means that that game will not be called "UT" or take place in the "Unreal" universe.

Unless they're willing & able to really learn from their mistakes, I'd say

[Hideinlight]

Take a look at Heroes of Newerth if you want to see development of a successful multiplayer game in action.
Unreal tournament 3 was suppose to be a multiplayer game yet this is where is was most lacking in terms of features. I would say HoN is gonna set the standard for how a multiplayer game should be designed in the future.

It's even gonna have a replay system where you can actually rewind or forward games.
How cool would something like that be in Unreal Tournament?

If it had a lobby system you could create a 5 vs 5 CTF match, wait for it to fill up and play a round or two before creating the next one, thus giving you some quality games with the actual recommended number of players for a particular map.

Currently it's about joining games and hoping by some miracle that the server will fill up with enough players to have an enjoyable game.

This is the main reason why these gametypes almost never get played.

[Plumb_Drumb]

years? or BEERS!

blargh.
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