Thank god someone else was saying it. UT is UT. Not Team Fortress.
Maybe, but what really defines UT under your perspective guys?
I'm sure some of us may define UT by:
- Fast Action
- Vehicles
- Arcade Style ("Unreal") - giving double jump, not visually realistic, wall-dodge, jump pad, etc.
- Balanced weapons & deployables
- Base on a few weapons having each more than one function, but the overall covers pretty much all the possible gameplay mechanics
- Arc trajectory
- Exploding (flak, rocket, etc)
- Sticking to walls (bio rifle)
- Slow projectiles (rocket, flak, etc)
- Bullets (enforcer, snipe)
- Spread (flak canon)
- Constant attack (link gun)
- Locking (rocket)
- Repair (link gun)
- Etc.
Classes?
Is it really a shame if some of us would prefer having some kind of "Classes", what would just mean "specializations". It could be anything. Classes is only a bad thing if you prefer having "individual skills involved, because by adding character classes you often create handicaps when a Classes face another specific one. With the UT weapons, that won't happen, so it can't be that bad, it would jsut mean that you would choose a specific Weapon Setup at the start, right? Anyway, there are so many ways to bring "classes" in a FPS. However, are classes necessary? If you may choose your weapons or else when you respawn... I don't think so.
Adding new elements to UT, would it be that bad?
If you are part of these guys reading...
"Would it be a good idea to have some kind of Gears of War weapons in UT?"
And answer : "Go play GoW then..."
I'll tell you the same here. If you don't want any changes "You can always go back on our old school shooters like UT99 and Quake 3 if more complex game elements are too much for your taste". Games evolve, the same goes for the gamers. UT must stay what it is; fast action, nice use of movements, vehicles, be UNREAL, do not have 100 weapons with only a few variations to fake the quality/quantity of the game, etc.
It wouldn't be bad to add more Customization in the Menu Interface.
It wouldn't be bad to add more Style of Characters in term of Customization, but what we already got was good enough for my taste, in my opinion, but maybe you would like way more Clothes.
And it wouldn'T be bad to improve the actual Formula.
A deeper Campaign
It wouldn't be bad to have way more things to Unlock. Maybe we could just progress through the Campaign to unlock "dodge, double-jump & wall-dodge".
Maybe we could also get more and more vehicles as we progress in the games, but we should be able to have close-quarter-combat battles to keep a great Game Experience Curve to keep the players entertained.
Bring back some "Bombing Run" Gametype styles, but more of that. It's new, fresh and original. It lets you play a game differently, alone, with bots or with good friends. Memorable moments, I'm sure you do have.
Keep "Instant Action", but maybe it would be better to make a real "Campaign". With a real story, etc. It won't replace Gears of War, GoW isn't UT and FPS needs more Singleplayer quality games. There is many interesting or simple + effective Game Structures. GoW wasn't using a complicated Game Structure and is a very great singleplayer game.
More Content... always better and welcome for Games of the Year
Adding some kind of "Grades" that you get by getting experience points would never be bad. Having the possiblity to search matches by "languages, countries, etc." could attract more players. Having clean and deep player statistic pages could be great.
A little & cool feature for modders and new comers?
Creating directly a Customizable Mutator that gives you the opportunity to change every possible & basic settings by moving some sliders... that would be very useful for "fun, quick prototyping, modders and new cormers". Having the option to save that could be welcome.
Recorded Demo is cool, but could be way better & effective
The option to save a Recorded Demo letting you see in First Person the match would help competitive players, machinima and gameplay montage videos.
UT Core Gameplays, ready for some changes? Maybe not
In terms of Gameplays, adding a deeper Core Gameplay Mechanic tree wouldn't be that bad, except for the movement, we are always at the Quake 3 stage (10 years ago?).
If the Design Decision is to keep the Core Gameplay Mechanic as Old School than it actually is, than I think it would be very interesting to focus on "Visual Special Effects" (SFX). In other terms, when you fall down from 3 floors, you could just break some tiles in on the ground. When you get bumped by a Impact Hammer and crash yourself in the wall, if we could just see the character crashing himself on it, crackling the wall, some kind of smoke
[maybe I'm just using the wrong word here] on the impact (like when the GoW character stick his back against a wall), etc. It could add a lot more immersion. When a body fly away and slide on the street... if we could see some kind of sparks due to the friction it would be "the step beyond" the actual FPS games. Be able to see water foot steps when you jumped 2 seconds ago in a water source & your body also reflect that [see Tomb Raider]. These are just details that makes all the difference between one generation and another.
GTA 4 by example, took care of these details. For sure GTA 4 and UT3 aren't the same games, but these details are making a big difference between our everage FPS and our best ever FPS... or the difference between a good game and a Game of the Year.
The UT franchise probably needs a new Breathe. Maybe heading in the same direction as Ubisoft goes with Prince of Persia could be a great decision.
Make something Unreal, fresh and new... oh.. and JAW-DROPPING on the Overall. Not just on graphics...