I love warsow and have been playing it for a decent time, I guess I first started a little more than a year ago, and since UT3 was fun but didn't offer the kind of play I was looking for (for example, playing in populated servers that weren't Biohazard, 32 players) I started playing more and recently.
One downside is that there is a large portion of the warsow players that are not really able to keep up with the game's speed and difficulty, and as such only play ica on funpark. While that certainly is fun, it really takes away from the game. About half the servers I see are running funpark-ica.
As for comparisons, I still think UT as a series is better than warsow in some areas. For instance, the movement in Warsow is pretty versatile, but most of it relies on strafejumping and bunnyhopping, thus requiring large open spaces or maps with paths consciously laid out to be bunnyhoppe through.
While you can make huge jumps and quick turns easily in warsow, it's only really versatile when it comes to large open spaces with some obstacles in it.
This opposes UT's movement that is very much focused around quick movement over short distances, making for much more intense CQC. (better ability to dodge on close range, other than rocketjumping and other 'tricks')
CQC in warsow is mainly spamming shotgun and laser gun at each other, which isn't really challenging because once you rob the other guy out of his speed, he can't go anywhere anymore fast.
Also, most warsow weapons are fairly bland compared to UT's.
In UT terms, Warsow weapons are:
-
gunblade = impact hammer of sorts with nowhere near the (feeling of) power that the IH has.
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riotgun = boring, weak flak cannon without cool gib effects or *thump* effect.
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grenade launcher. Only really useful when someone is in mid-air or coming around a corner. No big boom, just a little *plink* hitsound and a tiny flash.
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rocket launcher with decreased damage and splash radius, faster than UT counterpart. Only single-rocket mode, so none of the triple-rox goodness.
-
plasma gun = basically a link gun primary-only gun. Near useless outside 1on1, due to low fire rate and small hitboxes.
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laser gun = link gun secondary beam with insane damage and slightly longer range than UT. Also goes empty in about a second and a half on stock ammo.
Really easy to hit with due to low movement speed in CQC (which is really the only time you'd use this).
Electrobolt = a sort of sniper/shock rifle hybrid, without the coolness of combos.
All in all, I'd say UT's weapons are far more interesting. These are just balanced (mostly) and not really particularly fun. Most need a bit of boom thrown in before they start feeling like weapons instead of laser-tag toy guns.
Still though, warsow's dedicated community and higher speed (and the fact that I can strafejump while boatloads of players can not
) definitely make it worth playing to me
edit: When UT3 was just released I was planning on porting one or more warsow maps to UT3 because of their nice designs. Now it seems I will be doing it the other way around