UT3 Postmortem

[MonsOlympus]

As far as I'm concerned, they can talk till their faces are blue and that doesn't change a thing. Time will tell where they stand, thru their actions. If for example, the patches stop coming... then we'll know. This game certainly is not done being patched yet, let's see what they do.

I actually find it very silly. I'd rather have more variety in characters themselves, then just new sunglasses. And much, much more functionality with them.

On this I sorta unhappily disagree. There have not been "a lot of good mods" for this game already. There have been a number of small mutators. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to belittle those, but there is a difference.

Same deal with maps. What we've mostly seen is small DM maps, and remakes. Remakes galore. There are very few, a couple maybe, actual new custom maps for Warfare for example.

I just think you're being a bit over-optimistic about new content coming down the pike. In the last week alone, I've talked to 2 or 3 different mappers about their concerns that this game (and it's userbase) just isn't worth taking the time to map for. It's something I'm worried about, because I just can't keep playing a game w/o custom maps.

I hope you're right, but it might take more than wishful thinking to get it done.

Well it is unfortunate mappers think like this, honestly I would be looking to make mods (which I used generally) for my own love of this game and engine. Not because I of player counts, something which I think is overused!

Take Max Payne 2, there was a round up recently in my local game mag about mods for that game and how many players does that have? If you have a passion for creating things then I think thats all that matters!

Then again Im not sure what you mean by concerns over its userbase but perhaps you are talking about this over critical view of alot of things. For all I know you could be saying that they wont map because they're thinking UT3.5 is on its way.

Ofcoarse it might take longer for total conversions to hit and there might be less than there has been in the past because of the scale now. The mods I have seen released are mutators and maps which use little original content though so as I said I was using the term generally.

UT3 is still a tourney game though and if character customization had done something more than just visually Im sure that'd be one of the things Epic would be saying they wished they didnt do. Then again maybe the masses would have liked this more than the ole, all players on equal footing type deal. Sure there is a few problems for modders with the system currently but it will get better.

Maybe I am just being overly optimistic but hey Im gonna stick with UT3 modding myself I just remember how things were back in UT2003 then to see things hit full mass a year odd later with UT2004 was really nice

 

[R.Flagg]

Well it is unfortunate mappers think like this, honestly I would be looking to make mods (which I used generally) for my own love of this game and engine. Not because I of player counts, something which I think is overused!

Take Max Payne 2, there was a round up recently in my local game mag about mods for that game and how many players does that have? If you have a passion for creating things then I think thats all that matters!

Just for sake of conversation, I've seen some of these 'gaming mags' laying around and poked through them a bit, and I've seen the kind of tripe you can find in there. (ie: 'put some car-parks and guns that jam in there!') I won't concede any point based on some quote from a gaming mag. But that's just me, I'm stubborn that way.

But anyway, I don't think what you said is entirely fair to any mapper/modder who is wondering about working on UT3. It's not so cut and dry. Just because they are concerned with low player counts (and that's just one point, Epic abandoning the game is another, for example), does not mean they don't have a love or a passion for what they do. After all, part of what is fun about the process, is sharing your creation with others. And 'working' with others who are doing the same. You know, as much as I hate the term, a mapping "community".

Anyway, maybe not making my point well, but there is one in there somewhere.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Yeah I can agree with that and I didnt mean to come off like mappers who care about playercounts dont have any passion. Certainly sharing your creation is part of it but if that was the case then any amount of players should be enough as long as there are players, maybe the mappers prefer to play other games with their friends and not UT3. Hey some people even have jobs

I can fully understand concerns that epic might abandon the game especially with the announcement of gears 2, so they might go on to do UT3.5 or just concentrate on gears for awhile.

What Im kinda trying to say is we have UT3, its here, we have the tools so is there anything more than inspiration we need? I find UT to be an inspiration in itself personally.

My point about "community" though is they can be found even for games where you thought was none, I never had any idea anyone modded max payne 2 for eg. So if there is a lack of community, why not help to create one instead of abandoning it at the first sign of trouble?

 

[Grobut]

Too many broken promises? What promises? While I can agree with you on the unfortunate remarks, the too little positive action may be more of an opinion, but will I relent on that. But really, what broken promises? When did Epic make a solemn vow or promise? Yes, I'm asking for exact quotes you can find from Epic. Sorry, but some things that are called out like that have to be challenged. Frankly, I have never seen or heard the words "I promise" or "we promise" uttered by an Epic employee in regards to UT3 (aka UT2007). But then again, my memory isn't what it used to be, lol.

Does "when its done" ring a bell? does "The PC is our bread and butter"? does "thease screenshots are actual ingame shots"?

I dont really care to go dig up the last 2 years worth of pre release hype, you should know all this stuff allready if you followed UT3's development.
There where no shortage of promises made, no, they did not prefix them with "i promis" or "i solemnly vow", but that does not mean a promis was not made, if you tell people that you are delivering them something, you have made a promis (only when you prefix it with a "maybe" or "i might" can you avoid doing it without breaking your word, but such words where never used to my recolection).

And besides that, you are arguing semantics here, nothing more, we all know this release was not what we where told we where getting.

 

[Kantham]

Yes, but oddly enough it is not covering the things from the other articles, so none of them are compleate.

We really need a full transcript of what was said, like hal pointed out, i really dont think we are getting the full story from either of thease outlets.

Yeah I read ya.

What I take it from both article is that they think they made a perfectly balanced game for the plus part and the negative part is a terrible UI interface and options that were not conform to the PC regulars. That's pretty much all I want to know.

I wouldn't say perfectly balanced, but it's quite a step back in therm of movements and lack of "this" and "that". And yes it's always nice to admit our own errors but they more likely don't have the choice do they? I'd start to think something is terrible when I get like "70%" of my customers screaming about it.

 

[WarTourist]

And yet they got your name wrong, "senior producer Mike Morris"

Just kidding. Ah got to love typos eh?

(I just realized someone already pointed this out <.<)

Yeah, what's weird is they got it right in the article propper. Well, since that's my father's name, it sounds like he just got some game jouralism ink!

 

[WarTourist]

I hate to keep hearing that UT3 is an epic failure when it is a darn fun game to play.

You should question why a handful of people invest so much time and energy talking about something that makes them angry. The ignore feature of this forum can help .

 

[Crotale]

Does "when its done" ring a bell? does "The PC is our bread and butter"? does "thease screenshots are actual ingame shots"?

I dont really care to go dig up the last 2 years worth of pre release hype, you should know all this stuff allready if you followed UT3's development.
There where no shortage of promises made, no, they did not prefix them with "i promis" or "i solemnly vow", but that does not mean a promis was not made, if you tell people that you are delivering them something, you have made a promis (only when you prefix it with a "maybe" or "i might" can you avoid doing it without breaking your word, but such words where never used to my recolection).

And besides that, you are arguing semantics here, nothing more, we all know this release was not what we where told we where getting.

Sorry, but you are full crap. If you, or anyone else, personally take everything a developer says he will include in a game as gospel, then you will be sadly disappointed with every game you buy/play.

If you remember, there was movement afoot sometime last year after Epic stated they would merge CTF and vCTF gametypes. Wow, they did not deliver that, so are you pissed about that one too?

 

[WarTourist]

I wonder what CliffyB is thinking now after saying what he did and now to have Jeff and Mike come out and say basically the exact opposite

Hi Anuban. Where did we disagree?

 

[Wunderbar_007]

Dammit I hate how these convos go NOWHERE!! It's just pointless comments flying back and forth! Can we get some NEW INFORMATION PLEASE!!!!! Like a hint to what is being planned for this game!? A small announcement?!? AN IDEA!?!? ANYTHING!? Bloody hell, the majority is already bashing this game, now EPIC comes out and admits screwing up, none of this is HELPING and it sure as hell not going to attract new players!! I'm sorry but sometimes it feels like this great game is failing cause of pure stupidity!

 

[_Lynx]

does "thease screenshots are actual ingame shots"?.

Show me a shot that wasn't an ingame shot but a prerendered image.

 

[fuegerstef]

Show me a shot that wasn't an ingame shot but a prerendered image.

You know, there is a still something else than prerendered.

Shall I dig out that shot that clearly shows the handles from UED that they forgot to remove?

 

[N1ghtmare]

All of the pictures of UT2007/UT3 I saw were in game. Even in that video a long time ago with Othello shooting at that robot was proven to be in-game.

 

[haslo]

I think the thing in question here is whether "ingame" is meant to be "in a real game" or "posed beforehand and then rendered with the game engine". As the shots certainly are the second (with some tweaks, and by using tiledshots and not simple screenies), but not the first. But no game company would do that differently, unless they like committing commercial suicide. I mean, even mappers with weak computers, when making screenies for their maps, tweak the settings up to the max and make screenies with that, even if it brings them sucky FPS.

 

[Molgan]

Sorry, but you are full crap. If you, or anyone else, personally take everything a developer says he will include in a game as gospel, then you will be sadly disappointed with every game you buy/play.

Might be, but Grobut is right. Everything Epic said and didn't say ended up in public expectations that Epic couldn't match. Nobody who have kept an eye on the epic forums can disagree about that. You can call everyone idiots, it will still not change this fact.

Glad Epic acknowledge the problems like this and I'm very curious on what we will see in the future of UT. To me it's still the #1 game.

 

[Beelzebud (Satanas)]

I can say one thing. When and if Epic releases a UTIII2k4, I won't be buying it like I did UT2004, I'll just put it on ignore.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

You know, there is a still something else than prerendered.

Shall I dig out that shot that clearly shows the handles from UED that they forgot to remove?

And this is different than other developers how?

Anyway, the shots are clearly staged. That doesn't mean they aren't in-game. It would be next to impossible to get shots like they did during regular gameplay, if you can do that on your machine, I'd sure like to see the results.

One good thing to come from this Postmortem is that we now know that Epic knows that we know that certain parts of the game are utterly horrible. Perhaps that means they are really working on a permanent fix.

 

[Anuban]

Hi Anuban. Where did we disagree?

Hi WarTourist and if you really wanna know about it ... Well imo CliffyB made it sound like the failure of UT3 had more to do with unhappy customers and whiny users than with the problems/issues/bugs in the game. He didn't seem to acknowledge as you and Mike did that Epic f@cked up plain and simple, in a few areas and that it is up to Epic to fix the problems and make the PC version the best around. I know Cliff is working on a console game and you are going to say he was talking about his own project and not anything to do with UT but it didn't seem that way to me ... and a few others. That is all I meant ... I was not complaining or trying to stir up trouble, but Cliff sounded a bit off base in his interview, at least to me. And Mark never admits any mistakes ... it seems like that sometimes ... so my point was that as a casual observer who is older it looks like the 4 of the big 5 at Epic (meaning Mark, Mike, Cliff, Tim (not included here), and you) are not seeing things the same or if they are they are not expressing the message clearly enough ... sometimes that comes across as looking like their are differing philosophies kind of struggling for dominance in determining the direction of Epic. But like I said that is how it appears to an outsider at times. In business a lot of times perception can be a huge ally or an equally large impediment to your end goal ... that's all.

 

[Minimaul]

One good thing to come from this Postmortem is that we now know that Epic knows that we know that certain parts of the game are utterly horrible. Perhaps that means they are really working on a permanent fix.

Yeah, and I think that is the most important thing right now.

 

[BooGiTyBoY]

My main issue is that I've always loved Epic games and have always come to expect top-quality products from them. Whether a player thinks the game is good or bad, fun or not, past games from Epic have always had a superior level of production quality over other released games on the pc, even from other developers using their engine. They always seemed to be overall "solid" games even with their respective small niggling problems which can be expected of any pc game released ever.

To me UT3 was released with nowhere near the same level of production quality as previous Epic games. I'm not gonna sit here and yell EPIC FAILURE and all that crap, but I will say that for me personally, I have lost faith in Epic's quality after UT3 and subsequently GoW on pc as well which has just as many if not more problems than UT3 does.

Whether you choose to blame Epic themselves or Midway/Microsoft respectively, the Epic logo is still on the package and I will be hard pressed to want another game "on release day" from them.

Just my opinion.