UT2k3 failure was not due to poor maps

[NeoNite]

Is that how all the maps are named in Quake 3 Arena ? Maybe it would have easier for the makers to give the levels actually names. I only played the demo and it was good. Anyway, there seemed to have been no real better game in the end. I did look on Google and more pages said UT was better, but I only went to a few pages. I was never around in the days of "UT vs Q3A". People said UT2k3 had some "quake-like" stuff in it, what are they exactly talking about?

Edit: Then again, I did not like most of the maps that came with the game and because I had no way of getting online the first few weeks of having UT2k3, I got board playing the normal maps and mutators (plus unpatched) till I got back online.

Naaah those are the .bsp (map) names. Q3 works with .pk3 files (equal to winzip structure) where the map, aas (botfile, you'll need this for them to work on your map), textures etc are stored.

q3dm1: Arena Gate
q3dm2: Proving grounds
q3dm6: Campground
q3dm7: Temple of retribution
q3tourney2: House of Pain
q3tourney3: Hell's Gate

one more: q3tourney4: vertical vengeance


Some older but good q3 levels with excellent/good layout:

Overkill (fast map, excellent gameplay)
Lun3dm1 coriolis storm
Qfraggel2
kihaku
pit and pendulum
falling higher (senndm2)
Bal3dm2 (good tourney map)
Lloydmdm2 (ancient archipeloga)
ik3dm1 (very fluent map)
and plenty more...

User maps are generally better than retail ones that's true -_-

 

[pine]

Quake 3 maps... absolutely terrible?

Thematically unimaginative maybe, but the gameplay is spot-on in most of them.

werd. The Q3 maps are designed purely with flow in mind and they play really well. The great assortment of maps Q3 shipped with is precisely the reason it's had such longevity..

 

[Sir_Brizz]

look at CS, it has IMO some of the most cloggy, campy, horrible flow, layout and the most flawed maps of any game I have ever played. Yet it is the most popular game available!

If you think UT2k3 has horrible maps try CS... :tdown:

 

[Renegade Retard]

uh...
what? FragBU... hello

dang, you beat me to it!

 

[The Warden]

alot of people came over from UT, EXPECTING MORE UT, but got a completely different game, more jumping, more movement possiblities, and a toned down Shock, Sniper, and mini gun, and said WTF this sucks and left.

The other thing that's changed is attitude. it seems (I'm about to generalize) it's all about winning, and if you lose it's ok for the winner to shout insults at you. How nice.

that last Statement is experience. I ran into an xeno guy in a 1v1 duel server (Han knows where this is) and everyone including the specs tossed insults at me. You know, I know I'm a lousy player. but people tossing insults at you, doesn't make it any fun.

Also you'll notice I rarely play on pubs hhmmm the third time I played UT online I ran into a skin cheat (CTF), left me with such a crappy feeling it soured me.

 

[Euphoric Beaver]

I think Copy Protection plays a major role.

 

[NeoNite]

that last Statement is experience. I ran into an xeno guy in a 1v1 duel server (Han knows where this is) and everyone including the specs tossed insults at me. You know, I know I'm a lousy player. but people tossing insults at you, doesn't make it any fun.

What a bunch of llamas :-/
You know, you shouldn't rate a player solely on skill, but also on attitude. Even better, I think attitude plays an even more important role.
All the 1337ists can go to hell and stay there for all I care.

 

[The Warden]

What a bunch of llamas :-/
You know, you shouldn't rate a player solely on skill, but also on attitude. Even better, I think attitude plays an even more important role.
All the 1337ists can go to hell and stay there for all I care.

not everyone is that bad. that was a bad generalization. I've ran into a few Cool pro's too.

 

[NeoNite]

Yeah I know they're not all like that, but I guess plenty are.

 

[EvilDrWong]

...People flat out can't run it or don't like something about the gameplay. It has absolutely nothing to do with maps.

Gameplay and bad FPS have nothing to do with the map?

 

[-AEnubis-]

System Specs

It's all about system specs. This is what I am convinced of. If you look at the numbers... It really seems to be a combination of system specs, and how much FPS affects gameplay.

No one has FPS problems in 2d RTS games. Hence the perverbial but ton of people on battle net. Can run on 2d tridents (barring wc3).

CS is easily the least system intensive shooter there is. Then other things like the realism appeal ice that cake, but first you gotta be able to play the game on your PC. You can run it playable on tnt's, voodoos, or even matrox vid cards.

After that any quake engine game will run great on any GF2 or better.

Uengine games about equal in play to qengine, plus their phenom glide frames if you got voodoo.

That old POS R6 engine ran pretty much equally on the same vid cards as the aforementioned two.

You really need a minimum GF3 with a fair amount of tweaking, or better, like a radeon 9000+ to play UT2k3 competitavely, because frames at this pace are a huge issue.

That Star Wars MMORPG is prolly doing quite well, even though it takes a monsterous machine to run full details, the combat engine is engagement based, so battle pace is impacted little by frames.

The tastes in different games are going to be split across the board, maps in one genre are only going to have effect between two games that are equivalent (like UT and Q3). UT2k3 has no rival right now in system intensity, for that genre. You can't compare 2k3's maps to Q3s as per basis of determination to why people play one more, because it takes twice the system to run 2k3. They are not equal. Nor are they in gameplay. 2k3 is a generation a head.

Yea there will be deviance from this theory due to some really crappy, and some just phenominal games, but this I believe to be the biggest guiding force.

You can't pin just one reason on it though. It's not possible.

 

[EvilDrWong]

Well put! ...Except for this part:

You can't pin just one reason on it though. It's not possible.

We can always blame it on Big Tobacco. It's America's scapegoat.

 

[Swift Viper]

Another thing I think went wrong with UT2k3 as some other people said was how different it was. Making it the same too much would have been a bad idea, but making it too different also is. I think if it was not called Unreal Tournament and had a different name things would have been a lot different, people would not compare it to UT, but compare it with maybe other FPS out there. Honstly, I was hopeing for the game to be like UT, but it is so different, yet it uses the same weapons (not damage, speed, etc.). I was not happy with the UTClassic mutator, because it still had some "UT2k3" style it in. The Assault Rifle should have been Enforcers, Rocket Launcher should have fired six rockets and grenades, Lightning Gun should have been Sniper Rifle, get my point? The reason why I'm saying this because if they going to call it UTClassic, then make it like UT, not trying to keep some UT2k3 stuff in it. ClassicUT actually tryed to make the weapons much more UT like and it did, unlike UTClassic (Epic's verison). I guess another reason (besides maps with eyecaddy > gameplay) UT2k3 was not liked by hardcore UT fans was because the game did not have the same "feeling" that UT had. Hopefully, UT2k4 makes the game feel more like UT again, from what we saw so far, the characters, sniper rifle, HUD, and with the menu being much easier to be made by mod makers, Uwindows 2.0. Again, I think all this had to do with UT2k3 being too different.

Please don't flame me, this is not INA and that is my views on it.
The Warden: I feel your pain, I stop playing online mostly because of that, them turning a game into much more.

 

[TossMonkey]

UT2003 has problems because it gives special attention to DM. Double Dom is really great and no-one plays it, why? Because UT2003 only shipped with like 6 Dom maps. This kind of neglect kills UT2003.

 

[SugarBear]

Deathmatch is where online FPS has it's roots, that's where teh biggest audience is, it makes sense from a business standpoint to pay it special attention, it might suck for gamers, but in the end, no one cares about the gamers.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

it all goes to show what I've been saying all along. The only reason CS is still the top game because it's the only one that will ruyn on all computers!

 

[TWD]

Doubble dom is frustrating and annoying to play. There are tons of custom maps, but nobody plays it. They don't play it because they think the gameplay sucks. Saying it's the maps sounds like a poor excuse.

 

[PainAmplifier]

It's all about system specs. This is what I am convinced of. If you look at the numbers... It really seems to be a combination of system specs, and how much FPS affects gameplay.

You can't pin just one reason on it though. It's not possible.

I have to disagree with this. All you have to do is look back at computer history to see that this is not true.

Stage 1: DOOM
This little game triggered a massive migration to 486 class computers and 8MB of RAM alone. That it single handedly took gaming out of "It's for Kids" and made computer gaming something consoles are still trying to emulate to this day even with all the console/PC ports that now exist. It was followed by such notables as Wing Commander, Duke Nukem 3D and X-Wing (Star Wars).

Stage 2: 7th Guest
This game alone made CD-ROM's a must have in new computers and a necessary upgrade, long before any other game really needed the added space a CD-ROM had over a pack of Floppies. Games like Myst/Riven just solidifed the need in the minds of the hold outs.

Stage 3: QUAKE
This was the #1 driving force in getting people to upgrade to the new Pentium computers. It also set the benchmark higher, for new games to reach.

Stage 4: 3dfx's Voodoo card.
3dfx showed how 3d needed to be done, and single handedly put 3d cards into the spotlight thanks to game mod's like GLQuake and 3d fixes to games such as tomb raider. Later games built with glide in mind would point to the future like Unreal did. Now it's almost impossible to find more than a handful of new games which don't require a 3d card. (Or a new computer that doesn't have a minimum of 3d ability. Even if it's just a crappy 3rd rate integrated thing.)

Stage 5: The Internet
Multiplayer gaming, helped get the Internet's foot in the door long enough for other stuff like the Web and Email to blow the doors off making this a household item. (I'd say porn did more for this, but gaming was most likely the best excuse to cover up the porn... ) Plus it made more sense to pay for a single internet connection, rather than going for a multiple of services like DWANGO or TEN. (Which made pitching to to the significant other or parents much more palatable.)

So looking at these significant moment in computer gaming history we can see that system specs don't dictate a games popularity...but rather it is the opposite. A games popularity dictates the system specs and pushes a mass drive to upgrade if you don't meet the specs. So when it comes to UT2k3...the game simply isn't good enough to make it worthy of getting a system to play it if you don't have one already. And if you have a system capable of playing CS, that game is good enough that you don't feel left out by not playing UT2k3. (Plus it should be good enough to play UT also.)

 

[Sir_Brizz]

no it's because the average gamer is under 17 living at home and doesn't have a job. Parent's aren't going to buy their kids a computer to run some new game...especially if the game is allblood and guts.

 

[hal]

Half Life 2 will be the ultimate test for that theory.