It's not hard for me to be positive. Did you ever play Unreal or UT2003? This launch hasn't been any worse than those, really.
There's a reason I said serious issues. This patch doesn't tackle the vast majority of all problems, but it does tackle the vast majority of serious problems. 80% of the major annoyances for me will be gone if this patch delivers what it promises. That's really all that matters to me.
I started with Unreal Multiplayer it was the first shooter i had ever really tried and liked. so i dont know what its release was like cause i didnt have any expectations.
and to be honest, there should not have been any expectations cause it was a new game.
UT2003 had a bunch of problems out of the box but the game worked, options were there, not missing or broken. (except for some notable few like the awful scoreboard and no voice menu)
Despite its problems (and signigificantly changed gameplay) it got a decent reception and good reviews, cause it still played well. different but well. of course there were UT diehards that still disagree to this day but there are also still ppl using rotary phones...
2k3 wasnt quite ready yet either, but it did work. and if not for ut2003, for all the probems - we might not have seen UT2004 so soon and lotsa bonuses to make up for the oooops! that was UT2k3. who knows, in a year we may see Epic denying UT3s existence (ala UT2003) and we'll all be playing UT: Xtreme Edition ftw
the problem with UT3 was that there were huge expectations and for whatever reason (we will never know) the game was released before it was really ready. it wasnt called a beta demo for no reason....
sure the ui and server browser are not part of the core gameplay we know that, the problem is they haveta work for the game to have any chance and these were delivered badly broken. not only that but UT3 was missing lotsa features that were in previous UTs that are expectedby players.
the problem (to me) was never that UT3 didnt play well, the problem was it still had 6 months give or take of beta testing before it should have been released. i luv the game despite the problems, but if its frustrating for even a fanatic like me to play her fave game series, then how bad is it for a "regular" player?!
If this patch delivers everything listed. THAT is what the Demo should have been. Maybe then nearly every single UT fan and UT review would not have unanamously singled out all the same broken parts and missing features... Maybe then, thered be a decent community builidng up around the PC version and maybe then we'd be seeing better reviews instead of a luke warm reception and excuses or silence about what really happened...
maybe then, we'd all be playing more instead of comparing notes on what went wrong?