Make People Like UT3

[Shadow]I[]

ut3 needs achievements that are unlockable!

 

[Grobut]

Who's arguing that UT3 was not a big success and that it didn't have a few issues? Other than that, your argument is skewed to your own outlook.

Well ofcourse it is, i wrote it, thus is reflects my outlook, that is the nature of opinions.

And as far as sequels that were released on new engines, look at Unreal II, it also was not as popular as Unreal I either.

Different issue, U2 fell flat on its face for very different reasons than UT3, U2 was well enough made and had polish, it was just not what fans of Unreal wanted, the enemies, the maps, the storyline, it was not Unreal, we wanted Unreal.

UT3 however has the basics in order, for the most part, but it absolutely lacks polish, and functionality, the creature comforts that we have grown accustomed to.

A lot of the entire point that many of you are missing here, and it is really getting my goat that the point just isn't sinking in, is that you are comparing UT3 to UT2004 which was a game on a mature engine. UE2 at the time of UT2004 had many years to mature and have bugs fixed and features added, there were numerous released titles on the engine prior to the last UT2004 patch.

Thats a much too narrow look at things, there are other games out there than the UT series, games on brand new engines get released all the time (well not like every second obviously, but in the grand scheme of things), and yet they manage to have basic stuff like custom crosshairs, a feature that has been standard for shooters for over a decade, but UT3 does not have that, despite the fact that it has been standard in past UT titles.

Thats the sort of thing people point at when they say "its unfinished", things like that are just so basic they should be there, just like they put Cupholders in cars, this is the sort of creature comfort you expect of a finished and polished product, and even more so if past versions used to have it.

UT3 lacks a ton of creature comforts like that, and its not because of engine limitations, its because the game was rushed out the door in time for the 2007 X-mas sales.

So let's take your time machine back to Unreal II and look at its feature set and editor, now compare the current state of UE3/UT3 to that -- UE3 has significantly more functionality for an engine at the comparable infant stage. If you don't own Unreal II then download a copy of the Unreal Engine 2 Runtime and have a look at that.

Also if you own GoW PC, fire that up and compare it to UT3. Even the time difference between the two of those UT3 is much more stable and has additional features completed. As this year carries on, we will see even more of the engine featues and bugs completed.

If you really don't understand the development of engines and games, then please do not post what you feel your version of reality should be. Reiterating the same comments over and again doesn't mean your reality will become substituted for the real one.

You compleately miss the point, we are not talking about the same thing at all, i'm talking about the game and not the tech, the vast majority of UT3's flaws do not stem from the tech beeing immature, nor was that the case for U2 or 2K3, it is not the nuts and bolts under the hood that has held thease games back.

The tech only enters into it when we're talking about the modding scene, and here we definately see problems with the tech's maturity, but this is not the reason why the server browser is a ghost town, that reason you find within the game.

To state that UT3 should have everything that all of its predecessors had and more is silly. Nothing in this world is like that. And to state that we have come to expect a certain level of features is also your opinion only, I have no need for demorec and never did and I don't miss it. Same with the OpenAL issue.

Go take a look at your server browser, see all thouse empty servers? and how few actually have a good game going on them compared to other games?

Your opinion that all is well in UT3 land does not seem very popular to me..

The UT community, the games installed fanbase, has allways been made up of alot of different players, because UT was so flexible as it was, it attracted alot of players for different reasons, who found ways to play it that they enjoyed, they liked different aspects of the game.

UT3 does not do that well at all, it is not as flexible as past ones, and it is very uniformed, it only caters to a certain part of the community.
The UT community was allways on the small side, so alienating huge chunks of this community is an extremely bad idea! an MP shooter is no good to anybody of hardly anyone plays it.

So whilst you might not care that certain features are gone, because you personally did not make use of them, i bet you care about playing the game with other people, and about UT3 having some kind of future, and guess what, that means you ought to care about thease missing features! because they are responsible for turning off many players in the UT community.

If Epic had waited until everything that can conceivably be written and added to the engine was completed, UT3 would have been another DNF.
And instead of a three year wait between titles it would have been five or six or more.

Its still not about the engine, i am still talking about the game and not the tech.

Comparisons to other game studio titles and engines is also totally invalid. No other game series gives the degree of mod'ability that Epic does with UE, and all of that takes a significant amount of time to complete.

Understandable, but then they should build the engine and outsource the game development, or expand their team so they have enough people to pull it off.

I dont think the Unreal franchise can survive another title that falls flat on its face, or generates this much animosity, Epic needs to get smart about this.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. There comes a point where a new engine can be used to release a working title and it has to be used as such to recover the investment cost for development. After all they have to live too.
And you can't compare UE3/UT3 to most other titles since most other studios developing their own game engine are doing it for a single platform. So Epic's development cycle is longer. Plus my previous comment on mod'ability.

Ofcourse, but releasing a game that seems to repell huge chunks of your fanbase and goes straight to the bargain bin is not exactly a good way to recover your investment, now is it?

And its downright counterproductive if said release generates a bunch of negative word of mouth that could damage your sales of other titles in the future.

Your choices would have been: UT3 now, UT3 years from now, or no UT3. From a completely objective opinion which would you rather have? Personally, I'm fine with now.

It would never have taken years to make the game better, just six months could have done big things! a year could have done great things! 2K3 morphed into 2K4 in a year.

I'd rather have waited 6 months from now than gotten the UT3 we got 6 months ago, that is my honest opinion, i was quite happy with their "when its done" idea, and i'm rather sad they didn't go through with it.

Epic made some decisions on the game structure and feature set, decisions were also made on release date (which I feel was six months too early). Not everyone liked all of the decisions.

Indeed.

None of the current set of items that the bashers have chosen to bash prevent or severely limit everyone's use of the game. And those specific reasons are not the entire story as to why a number of people didn't play UT3.

Its use? no, but its enjoyment? now that is a whole different ballgame.

UT3 is collecting dust on one of my shelves right now because of the things that didn't make it into the game, it is not enjoyable for me, i am an offline player, and UT3's Instant Action is subpar in every way to past UT's, i still play tons of UT and 2K4, but UT3 is of no use to me in its current state, its not fun.

And again, you need to think bigger, whilst you personally may find the game quite enjoyable, all the people who disagree with you are lost sales, and people who will not be populating servers.
UT3 can ill afford to turn down players right now, and it doesen't matter if you agree with them or not, games like this have a limited enough audience as is, shutting the door on parts of it is not really a viable option.

You can live with it and play it, or you can move on.

You don't affect change by shutting up and going away, quite the opposite.

UT3 allready happened, its too late to change that, and all we can do is hope for some very big pacthes and bonus packs that may unify this community again, but hopefully someone will notice this whole mess and take note of the things that did not work out very well, and avoid thouse mistakes in the future.

 

[DGUnreal]

I enjoy your posts Grobut, I mean that sincerely.

Different issue, U2 ...

UT3 however has the basics in order ... but it ... functionality, the creature comforts that we have grown accustomed to.

I don't agree, because much of the anti-arguments of late are regarding OpenAL, Demorec, etc., and those are functions of the engine, not of UT3.
Those are component parts of UE3 and are not game specific.

... there are other games out there than the UT series, games on brand new engines ... and yet they manage to have basic stuff like custom crosshairs, a feature that has been standard for shooters for over a decade, but UT3 does not have that, despite the fact that it has been standard in past UT titles.

But as I stated, those other games don't have all of the additional work such as creating a multi-platform engine and providing a wysiwyg editor system to the likes of UE3. If you have worked with any other game engines you'll bow down to Epic for UnrealEd. I stay away from any freelance work other than UE3 simply because the development system is much nicer to work in.

So the early versions of the games released on the engine are going to have some component parts that are not currently fully utilized or completed. Those get added as we go along. Look at the vehicle system development during UT200x as an example.

Fire up UnrealEd 3 again sometime and have a look at the bump packages etc. There was work going on with normal maps and such that never made it into UT2004. Personally I would have loved to have that feature at that time.

Regarding custom crosshairs, what percentage of the gamers actually use that, same as demorec. Some things have to get bumped to a later date in order for the most important features and functions to get completed.
Unless the developer makes the choice to wait until every possible option is implemented. That was not the choice in this case.

Granted as I've already said, another six months would have been nice, but if custom crosshairs is a deal-breaker, then I wouldn't expect someone like that to be happy with any release version of UT3.
And as Brizz has already mentioned many times, UT3 in its current state is not as bad as what so many are making it out to be. If it is missing a few optional things that we all would like to see, the best we can do is let the developer know our requests, going on fits of fire rampages through the forums is really not going to help anyone.

Thats the sort of thing people point at when they say "its unfinished", things like that are just so basic they should be there, just like they put Cupholders in cars, this is the sort of creature comfort you expect of a finished and polished product, and even more so if past versions used to have it.

I don't know what it is like where you are at. Here in Canada, everything from floor mats to rock guards to cig lighters are options on vehicles.

UT3 lacks a ton of creature comforts like that, and its not because of engine limitations, its because the game was rushed out the door in time for the 2007 X-mas sales.

I'm not arguing that at all, in fact I stated just this same thing above, that IMHO it should have had another six months in the oven.
Even that would not have satisfied every want though.

But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth (who ever came out with that saying and what does it really mean?? checking if it is an old hag I guess...). I've been in the UT community long enough to know that future patches finish and add features as well, and I'm willing to wait since I do like the gameplay. As I stated, I don't feel that these more "optional" features are so much why it didn't become popular. As has been covered before, people are into consoles and different game types right now. It's akin to releasing a disco or swing-band album these days, everyone is into rap and skip hop (well I'm not really, I prefer 80's rock). It's not career suicide to do that, but don't expect high-sales among newcomers, and some of your existing fan club may not like the new sound.

You compleately miss the point, we are not talking about the same thing at all, i'm talking about the game and not the tech, the vast majority of UT3's flaws do not stem from the tech beeing immature, nor was that the case for U2 or 2K3, it is not the nuts and bolts under the hood that has held thease games back.

The tech only enters into it when we're talking about the modding scene, and here we definately see problems with the tech's maturity, but this is not the reason why the server browser is a ghost town, that reason you find within the game.

Most of it is the tech. UT3 is just a bunch of scripts sitting over top of a game engine.
Issues that anyone encounters with running the game regarding audio/video/input, hitching, slow framerate, OpenAL, network problems, etc. are the engine. As are features such as where's the real water, etc.
All that is directly contributed to what's sitting over the engine will be menu graphics/layout and player models and meshes and textures, etc. This only makes up a small portion of the community complaints.

Your opinion that all is well in UT3 land does not seem very popular to me..

I never once stated that all is well.
All that I have maintained is that almost all of the "issues" mentioned by the nay-sayers are in most respects optional features or things that do not contribute to the game not playing.
If anyone really enjoys the gameplay, they won't care if they can't currently tweak crosshairs, demorec, etc. That is not to say that they might like to get them in a future patch.

UT3 does not do that well at all, it is not as flexible as past ones, and it is very uniformed, it only caters to a certain part of the community.
The UT community was allways on the small side, so alienating huge chunks of this community is an extremely bad idea! an MP shooter is no good to anybody of hardly anyone plays it.

In the example of many UT2004 gamers, fixing OpenAL, Demorec and adding more functionality to the Server Browser are not going to make them now want to play it because they don't like the gameplay without having the dodge-jump, shield gun, twenty foot 2k4 leaping, etc.

It's the UT99 -> UT2004 -> UT3 thread again.

So whilst you might not care that certain features are gone, because you personally did not make use of them, i bet you care about playing the game with other people, and about UT3 having some kind of future, and guess what, that means you ought to care about thease missing features! because they are responsible for turning off many players in the UT community.

If someone left the game community because they couldn't customize the crosshairs, they are just being silly about it. Like i said, unless it comes down to the gameplay, the rest is just icing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not stating that these optional features should never be included, but listening to some members here you would think that Epic deliberately cut things out just to tick you off and submarine the franchise.

Epic has always been known to give more back to their community through patches and packs than any other game company. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt again in this case. However, with the way that some of the community has been, I wouldn't blame Epic at all if they simply dropped the franchise, I personally have been significantly more disenchanted with the community than I ever was with the state of the UT3 game.

Understandable, but then they should build the engine and outsource the game development, or expand their team so they have enough people to pull it off.

Expenses, profit, and so much more factor into this. They are a company, not a mod team working on the side creating something.

I dont think the Unreal franchise can survive another title that falls flat on its face, or generates this much animosity, Epic needs to get smart about this.

My feelings towards the UT3 community have changed. As a mapper, never have I seen such a large percentage of people who get downright ignorant if you don't make the changes they think should go into your map.
Also look at all of the PC and PS3 cooking flaming that went down.
I attribute this to the fact that the current generation of gamers are less mature (and I'm not speaking of age) and more spoiled.
And if you think it is going to get better once the Xbox 360 version comes out, I think you are in for a surprise. That just heralds in another group of tweenies that will whine about downloadable custom content, and the existing PC and PS3 groups are going to whine about the Xbox 360 exclusive content and split screen, etc.
Why do you think that most other games don't allow user-created content? And their multi-platform/multi-console games are for the most part identical?
Ask any parent and they will tell you, give both kids the same toys and then they won't fight. In my opinion, that perfectly describes most of the current community.

I think what will happen is that the PC side of the community will just shrink down to those who are genuinely interested in mapping and mod'ing. The PS3 and X360 console kids will just move onto the next shiney game that comes along ("oooh... shiney... ").

Although I cannot speak for Epic, I fully expect UT4 to be console with a possible later PC port, where they don't have to worry about people whining over as much, and where they don't have to worry about supporting a map/mod community.

It would never have taken years to make the game better, just six months could have done big things!

It's already been more than six since it's release. To do every conceivable fix and addition that has been listed in the forums would take more than six months. It still wouldn't have hurt though...

UT3 allready happened, its too late to change that, and all we can do is hope for some very big pacthes and bonus packs that may unify this community again...

I don't see that happening.
A lot of the UT2004'ers are simply not going to play because it doesn't "feel" like UT2004 or have the missing 2k4 features.
A lot of the first-timers are simply not going to play because they didn't like the gameplay and are into console games of other styles or formats.
Patches and Bonus Packs are simply going to give more to those people who stuck around and already like the game and gameplay.

Even if the next patch fixed OpenAL, Demorec, Server Browser, Custom Crosshairs, Demo guy, added plenty more UI options, etc., a few of the people on these forums who have uninstalled the game and are constantly still posting here may well in fact re-install and try it, but I'll guarantee that they will just uninstall it again because they will still find something else to complain about, be it Gamespy or whatever.
If you aren't going to play the game now, adding custom crosshairs isn't going to bring you back.
I'm not speaking to you personally on that sentence...

 

[Anuban]

Wow that is a lot ... I'm not going to address it all (I disagree with a bit too much and it really isn't all that important) but one thing that I do have to 100% disagree with is that PS3 gamers and Xbox 360 gamers are all going to move on to the next shiny thing mentality you have. All console gamers are not the same and many find a favorite and stick with it (take the huge online communities of Gears, Halo 2 and 3, R6V, CoD titles and others as well) and I have seen that a fair amount of PS3 gamers are really sticking with this game. Also I see the 360 community eating this game up and really enjoying it.

And I say this as someone who considers himself a true gamer ... not just a PC gamer or a console gamer or a platform specific gamer (although I do most of my gaming these days on the 360 thanks to GTA IV ... for a while when UT3 and Crysis first came out though I totally stopped playing on consoles until I got a PS3 and then only used it for UT3 as well ... the PS3 has seen some major time since I bought the PS3 version of GTA IV and am just renting the 360 version ... though I am going to buy that as well soon. Now though with some great new console games out I have been going back and forth ... on the PC I play WiC, HL2:Ep2, Timeshift, and of course UT3 and Crysis ... while on consoles I play UT3, Dark Sector, RFoM and of course GTA IV the most and this week that will be enhanced by the addition of The Hulk and NG2 (possibly The Bourne Conspiracy as well).

Also imo mapping and modding will always be a cornerstone of UT and I can't see that disappearing with UT4 or whatever it will be called. Especially if the MSUC goes well (and remember that is all about the PC version) look for the next version to be just as robust if not more so when it comes to making Mods. If fact the PS3 version will definitely grow as more and more PS3 UT gamers are getting into modding. And who knows what the future of UT on the 360 may be? It could be that MS eventually opens up to the ideal of User created content for certain products. But in any event modding and UT go together like Oreos and the White creme filling in the middle. Can't see Epic ever casting that aside.

 

[pinnacle]

Look... we all know UT3 has problems. Those of you trying to say that things like a crappy UI or the lack of demorec aren't problems need to reexamine the standards set by modern FPS games and how UT3 stacks up against them. However we also know that Epic just ran out of time. They admitted to releasing the game before it was finished and the UI was one example of them throwing something together in the last minute fully aware of how poorly it would work on the PC.

Nonetheless, the most important thing about UT3 doesn't have anything to do with UT3 itself - it is the way Epic will rebound with their next UT game. If they release something on par with UT3 and redo all the mistakes they committed, then that will be that. If on the other hand they release something that corrects all of UT3's mistakes and exceeds the expectations that UT3 originally had, they'd be sitting on a winner.

Blaming the community for UT3's failure is stupid - as some people have pointed out, the vast majority of people buying/playing a game are random casual players who don't visit forums like these. UT3's bad marketing, high learning curve, and steep system requirements (compared to the games a lot of casual gamers play) combined with all of the problems associated with meeting an unreleastic release date makes a recipe for disaster. If a game is good, people will play it. Blaming forumers for whining is only looking at a very small slice of the pie. The fact that so many forumers are whining says more about the game itself than the forumers.

IMO Epic should only release one more patch for UT3 then focus on the next UT game. It is already way too late to save this game (it was too late when the demo came out) and there's no way some patches or bonus packs are going to vastly increase the online activity.

In short: UT3 is what it is. It can be fun but has lots of problems. The most important thing will be to see what steps Epic takes to correct the mistakes they made with UT3.

 

[Crotale]

Well, I guess I'm in a slightly different boat. While I don't play UT3 very often these days, due to a lack of interest and too many other projects vying for my attention, I do have issues with the game that irritate the hell out of me. The UI is the biggest, what with its inability to remember my last played map and gametype just makes the game less fun to play. As much as I dislike it, that issue doesn't make me want to come onto this or any forum and start bashing the game or Epic. They know about the issues and hopefully will correct as many of them as possible. If not, I guess I will eventually no longer play the game. But with the modding assets and replay value of the game, I've already gotten my money's worth and then some.

Pinnacle, for the record, I doubt that any of us who actually do support the game or Epic do so out of blind fanship. But, you know what they do say about football fans. A real fan stays with their team even through the losing years, because anyone can jump onto a winning team's bandwagon for the short ride it will be. I think that can be said in this regard as well. You cannot expect Epic to put out winning title after title after title. No developer can pull that off, not even the "mighty" EA.

Although I am questioning my own sanity at this moment for responding to these threads, I'm not sure why they keep popping up week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week...

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Blaming the community for UT3's failure is stupid - as some people have pointed out, the vast majority of people buying/playing a game are random casual players who don't visit forums like these.

I already approached this point of view earlier, but I'm sure it got lost in the sea of words above.

First, there is not one single thing that "caused UT3's failure". Not even I would attempt to single something out

Second, UT3 is an online multiplayer game. The ratio of people who use the internet and also browse the internet is going to be higher with people who are even considering a game like that. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people who had interest in UT3 at any point in it's development probably visited the game's web page, and the majority of them probably linked along to the game's official forums. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what they saw there. To sign this off as an insignificant number of people is just silly. We aren't talking about Zuma Deluxe here.

Please note, I'm talking about people who looked at the forums, not people who joined the community and actively participated (or even participated at all).

 

[-AEnubis-]

wow tl;dr

 

[DGUnreal]

... one thing that I do have to 100% disagree with is that PS3 gamers and Xbox 360 gamers ...

Nothing personal was meant.
I said "console kiddies", I didn't say all console gamers. There will be a number who constantly play favorite games (including myself), but console gamers by and large tend to change games more quickly than the last generation of PC gamers.
I also don't think you are the norm when it comes to the common console gamer.

... mapping and modding will always be a cornerstone of UT and I can't see that disappearing with UT4 or whatever it will be called. ...

... look for the next version to be just as robust if not more so when it comes to making Mods. ...

The engine is developed on the PC and the tools are on the PC, so there will always be a PC platform version of the engine, however:
1. There are just too many good business and development reasons to move onto consoles.
2. Future generations of engines on future consoles are going to become even more complex than UE3, pushing the casual community mapper/modder even further behind. This isn't meant as a slam but almost every community UT3 map I've looked at has had many things done incorrect in it, because they don't understand how to use the tech or understand the actual concepts of what it is they are doing. This gap is only going to get wider. I compare it to the old shareware gaming concept which companies like id and Epic MegaGames pioneered in -- that just isn't as feasible these days as the technology is too intense for a casual basement startup.
3. As the tech increases in complexity, it may no longer be feasible to release developer tools or SDKs to the public. Most game developers already do not make their tools public. The PS3 audio codec issue is already an example of this, as is MS's reluctance for user-content. If future consoles continue in this trend, which I have no doubt they will, it will narrow the field for community content even more.

I don't mean any of this to sound negative or to bring down the community. I'm just a realist. I don't expect the average corporation to completely change their views and become totally end-user consumer oriented in this way (I'm speaking of the console and hardware companies here, not Epic).
The extent of user-editing and "custom content" may very well drop back to the style of in-game drag-and-drop, as it is simpler for casual mappers to do, and easier to fit within the restrictions of console guidelines and design.

 

[Bort]

wow tl;dr

 

[Sijik]

Random blanket statements with no backing kick ass!

People want to support a game that's fun and good and all that. You can't make people like something they don't like. The very idea is retarded and totally against what the genie said in Aladdin (about how he has phenomenal cosmic power yet can't make someone fall in love).

Example: CoD4 certainly isn't perfect. In fact, it suffers from a lot of the same issues UT3 has -- crappy server browser, gameplay designed with consoles in mind, mysterious patch that takes forever to come out, etc. Yet many people like it because it's fun. It's the #2 game behind WoW, at the moment.

Just keep in mind that it's troll statements like yours above that keep other trolls around to argue with you.

I'm not saying I'm a troll; I'm just saying. I'm sure everyone already considers me one, though. D:

Just my observations, not just from here, either. Pretty much any game I've payed attention to, all I ever hear is what sucks about it. It's rare to find a community that actually supports its game instead of just b***ing about it, and all the more rare with sequels. People only want whatever the last game is, and often seem to reject anything new simply because it's new. I'm tired of the cycle, and if it's trollish to be the only one not jumping in and joining the bashing then I'm fine with that. If no-one has a problem with hating nearly every new title just because it's new (2k3, U2, XMP, UC2, even vehicles in 2k4, all got all sorts of crap largely because of their differences from the last title) then they shouldn't have a problem with people hating them for it.

Most of this thread is trolling, anyway, I kind of thought that's what everyone's intention was with it; besides the OP, who dared to suggest, essentially, "why don't we stop trolling and do something productive instead." The response was clear: this community no longer has any intention at all to actually support its series. BU, by and large, has become something entirely separate, concerned about its own opinions and egos and seems to have a tendency to view any new title from an adversarial viewpoint.

If people can be overly critical and exaggerated with their opinions on the new titles, and force their opinions down everyone's throats until everyone leaves, then there should be room for someone to try and give that crap back to them.

Regardless, UT3 is the most fun I've had in an Unreal game since Unreal...

It has brightskins, but not ultra neon brightskins

I guess we have different standards...
.....................

As for the graphics, there's actually a lot of tweaking that can be done. There's a "UT2004 compromise" mod that, while it unfortunately makes a few gameplay changes that limit its potential fanbase, makes some interesting tweaks to the graphics that some here may like.

 

[gregori]

Guys, I installed the game last night on a new laptop, played it and had a blast!

I found the UI ugly and simplified, but nothing that stopped me from enjoying the game!!

The movement and weapons are perfectly fine and it feels very like UT again. The graphics are fantastic except for the overuse of bloom and distortion. Visually its much more focused than UT2k4 - the world feels pretty solid!

What people have most complained about has been pretty trivial stuff.

The biggest fault I found with the game was the lack of new stuff. Its not a very interesting game, esp if you've played previous titles in the series for last 10 yrs! There is very little in terms of new gameplay. You don't have to learn any new skills. They stripped out the advanced movement but didn't add any new gameplay to fill that void. WAR is basically ONS.

The only new things here are the hoverboard and the fantastic Necris Vehicles!!

The core of the game is fine. With a little more work this has the potential to be a fantastic game! I would doubt that Epic will do this because of the less than stellar sales.

 

[R.Flagg]

First, there is not one single thing that "caused UT3's failure". Not even I would attempt to single something out

But, in all sincerity, I really think we can. And that would be ... decision making. It's the only thing that ties everything else together.

So the answer is to fix (who does) that.

 

[Lruce Bee]

People can come in here and rag on the game all they like and it doesn't bother me in the slightest - you just have to deal with that objectively.
I've seen other threads and comments praising the game in equal measures and some of it could be considered trolling but that's really nothing new and I tend to filter that stuff out but it does have a place within the thread - some of it funny, some of it serious and very well put together like the differences in opinion in this very thread, particularly the counter debate between DGUnreal and Grobut who put their points across with equal enthusiasm and I read them with great interest.
And that's how it should be really.
The game? - well I'm sat on the fence with this one since I haven't purchased it BUT I have played it and it simply didn't impress.
All the stuff I've read complaining about the game were very apparent when I did get around to playing.
Were they showstoppers? - No, not at all.
Did I enjoy the game? - No, not really.
Something fundementally missing from this release and I can't quite put my finger on it.
I don't care about cross-hairs or even the User Interface, just doesn't bother me , so you won't get me bitching about that.
What I will say though is that the essence of Unreal has dissappeared and that's what dissappoints me most of all and I just don't care for the artistic style this series has developed and thus the game no longer captures my attention.
And that's about it really.

Lruce

 

[gregori]

Many complained that Warfare didn't turn out how it was supposed to and Assault was axed. I happen to agree. Warfare is perfectly fine, but its just ONS2.0, really!

Thats why it would be such a good time for some team to make a Mod for a new gametype to make it how they imagined it. Perhaps that Mod should be called ENVY or Conquest!

Such a mod might decide to steal bits of XMP, ASSAULT, ONS, Enemy Territory, Monster Hunt and Invasion etc etc

 

[Grobut]

I enjoy your posts Grobut, I mean that sincerely.

And i yours, even when we dont agree

I don't agree, because...

Thease are just examples though, the thing is, UT3 lacks countless features that we where used to and that we want, if we had to list them all in every post, they would read like a printers self test pages, they would be huge walls of text, so people tend to go with examples instead, and say "this is the sort of thing thats missing", and others will jump on it and say "yeah not having that really sucks", and thus, one single gripe gets pareded around for a week or so before someone mentions the next one, and then that one gets paraded around etc etc.

Its never one single feature like the lack of Demorec thats the real issue, thats just a very small example of the bigger picture.

Some of thease things are definately the result of immature tech, but i'd say most of them are not, my example with the crosshairs for instance is a good example of something that is absolutely possible with this tech, but never made it into the game because they rushed the release, and there's many more, like why can't we disable bright skins, a checkbox in the menu would do that, i could come up with examples all day, and the list of things that are left out due to time constraints will be alot longer than the list of things that comes down to immature tech.

But as I stated, those....

I am certianly not about to say anything bad about the Unreal engine, i love that thing, a delightfull scamp it is!

So the early versions....

The thing is, the average Joe is not going to care about any of this, ever, he is not a modder, and he is certainly not a freelance developer, he is a gamer, and all he see's are the games, and when he see's things that worked better in his old games and doesen't work in his new one, he will get angry.

He's the guy you have to build games for, because he is Joe Everybody, he is your cunsumer base.

Thats why i would have preferred they held off the release of UT3, till such a time that it would wow Joe Everybody.
We went through this with 2K3 and now with UT3, it should be clear to everyone by now that thease games are not going to be successes, and we have seen how a bad title like that hurts the community, the fanbase, the consumers, its not a good buisness strategy.

Fire up UnrealEd 3 again sometime....

Ofcourse you would, who woulden't? but ultimately, it will all be for nought if you dont build a good game around this tech.

Why do you think Half-Life had such a huge modding scene? its certainly not because that engine was the pinnacle of engine development, nor was it the most user freindly to work with, but it was a good game that was hugely popular, and had a huge user base.

You need a good game to build a good modding community, the tech alone is just not enough.

Regarding custom crosshairs....

The crosshairs alone would not have been a problem, but add another 50 things to the mix, spanding just about every aspect of the game, and you have a game that feels shoddy and rushed.

As i said at the top of this post, its never about that one specific issue that gets paraded around the community as an example, its that issue plus its many freinds!

You just can't build a game that is technically good anymore, people wont play it, you need the trims and the toppings too, because countless games have been released with all the trims and toppings for a long time now, we know games can be that good, and we have decided that if a game should be worth 50 bux and our time it must be that good or we'll just play it competitor that has what we want.
Thats the market now, and you can adapt or die.

You look too one sided at this issue, from the perspective of a modder and dev, you get lost in the tech, you need to also look at it as a gamer, a gamer that thease days has plenty of choice when it comes to games to play, the gamer doesen't care about the tech, all he cares about is that it looks good and does what he wants it to do, or what he feels it needs to do.

Granted as I've already said, another six months....

Brizz see's things his way, i see them my way, and whilst from his perspective the game gets an unfair rep, because he still has fun with it, from my perspective the game is shoddy and rushed, and has subpar gameplay due to small maps with all too linear play, and the portion of the game i wish to play (IA) is wholly broken, i am not having fun at all.

That is why from my perspective, thease things are infact a big issue, i know modders can make maps and mutators that would make me enjoy this game, but it will all be for nought if the game is still so rushed that i cannot get rid of the bright skins (i really truely hate them!), and can't do things like adding custom bots to both red and blue team, and select what team i'm on, i need thease things to enjoy the game, and thus they are very important to me.

There is no universal truth here, since the UT community is as diverse as it is, no one opinion really describes how we all feel about this game.

I don't know what it is like where you are at....

Actually, here in Denmark cars are taxed with between 100 and 300% depending on size and class, untill they have driven so many miles they become tax free, so like many other Danes i drive an old 1992 vintage wreck, a Saab 900, and it does not have a cup holder.

But if i spend the insane amount of dosh a brand new car would run me, you'd better belive it would need to have a friggen cup holder!

I'm not arguing that at all....

I dont think 6 months would have been enough either, 12 perhabs.

But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth....

A gift horse is a horse that talks, the saying is basically stating "if you see a talking horse, dont look it in the mouth, because you will find out its fake and loose all wonderment"

Anyway, there is certainly many more reasons for UT3's unpopularity than just the missing features, that is a given, but they certainly dont help the matter, if you find the gameplay iffy AND the game feels slapped togeather at the last minute.. well thats just double jeopardy 'innit?

Besides, for some of us thease features are not really optional at all, and here im thinking about the offline crowd like myself, this part of the game is just so lacking it hurts, it is missing elements that are vital for its enjoyment.
UT3's IA is as bad as playing with bots in CS:S, you can basically just select a number of them and a map and then go play it, and the bots will roam around like lemmings with aimbots, its not worth playing.

Most of it is the tech. UT3 is...

Obviously i am oversimplifying when talking about "game" versus "tech", at the core its all code run on an engine that is just more code, and under that its all 1's and 0's, but talking about it like that will be allmost impossible, then we'd be having a discussion that would look like it belonged on the UDN

When talking "game" i mean all the assets that are build ontop of the engine, the UI, the maps, the models, all of that.

And here we find a very long list of items that could certainly have been build ontop of this engine, we could spend houers talking about the UI alone

The thing i am getting at here is, things like the hitching graphics and frames, and lag are issues that most people will fully expect to get patched, to some degree atleast, they are referred to as bugs and everyone knows there will be some in a new game.

But the other missing features are percived differently, they are not looked at as bugs, but as beeing unfinished/unpolished, they are things that, people look at them and say "this could have been done, nay, it SHOULD have been done! this is just shoddy and rushed", and that creates a very negative impression of the game, more so than "oops, i guess this bug slipped by them".

I never once stated that all is well. ....

Well like i said, not all of the missing features are optional for the games enjoyment, atleast not for many of us, some of them are downright game breakers to some of us.

But the big issue here is that games very seldomly survive a botched release, even if they do get good followup development in form of patches and bonus/expansion packs, the damage will more often than not allready have been done, and people will have abandoned it and cast their love on something else.

Thus i really feel Epic should rethink their current release strategy, i think it os doing alot of damage to this franchise.

In the example of many UT2004 gamers....

Yeah i know, making UT2Kx depart so much from the UT gameplay was probably a mistake that will haunt and split this community for a very long time, its like they have 2 sepperate games under the same name.. but that damage is done, there's not much we can do about that.

But all hope is not lost here, with a solid UT3 there would be no reason why a 2Kx gameplay mod/mutator could not be popular with the 2Kx crowd, but pulling them into UT3 is going to be very hard indeed if both the stock gameplay departs from what they want, and the game feels shoddy and unfinished compared to 2K4.

That is my angle here, there is much that could be done with UT3, if the game just felt polished and fully featured, compleated, then i really think alot more people would be willing to tough it out, and develop mods for it that makes it play like they want, or wait for such mods to be released, but as it is, with both gameplay that does not appeal to alot of people, and a look and functionallity that feels half done and rushed, people are not going to have much goodwill at all if they are not die hard fans of its stock gameplay to start with, they will move on to other games.

You see what i am getting at here?

If someone left the game community...

Eh, i've covered this, its not about that one feature, its about that one feature and its many freinds having a big old tea party on your HDD

Don't get me wrong, I'm not...

Well thats just human nature, people here, including thouse who are not happy with UT3, are here because they are fans of UT, of the franchise, and when you are fan of something and you see it all going wrong.. well, emotions can run wild and things will be said that might just be a bit over the top.. a bit.. rash.

Expenses, profit....

Epic is in a rather unique position, beeing able to license out what's probably the most popular game engine right now, i think UE3 adoptation probably rivals the popularity of the old Quake engine back in the day, there is money to be made there.

So i'd think they could afford to make a good game using the engine themselves, and not settle for one with half the toppings missing, even if it would mean paying some freelancers to make some assets for them, or a outsourcing a few bits so they can meet deadlines, or hold off a release untill its ready to go gold, though admittedly, i am not their accountant, i dont know what their budget looks like.

Besides, having a good frachise pays for itself, if you have a fanbase of X amount of people that will buy your games just because its called "UT", thats an asset! and you should want to hang on to that asset, and you do that by releasing good games, and i think even the most devout fans of UT3 will have to admit that UT3 probably did not help this franchise, just taking one look at all the controversy it has sparked certainly seems to indicate that.

My feelings towards the UT3....

I wont lie to you, i too dont like what i see, but that goes for all gaming, games have become a "use and throw away" sort of thing now, and gamers mentality has changed, i dont know what to tell you except.. its a brave new world

I wish we could go back to how things where durring the late 90's and early 00's, but that might never happen, except maybe on an indie level.

I think what will happen is....

I hope you are wrong, because i dont really care for gaming on a console, but i fear you are right

It's already been more than six since...

Well to be fair, its been over six months where most of their resources have probably been tied up in developing the Xbox version, i'd think more would have happened with the PC version in 6 months with more manpower dedicated to it, but my stance is that 6 months would probably not have been sufficient aswell.
Though talking about "every concievable fix" might just be a tad over the top

I don't see that happening. A lot of...

Ahh, but then we come back to what i said earlier, about how i feel that if the game just felt more polished and compleated, i feel the modding scene would be much better able to fill in the gaps.

Its absolutely true that a big patch that fixes all the annoying little leaks and holes wont magically bring back people over night, but its a start, a good start, and i think it would take that to form a solid foundation for the sort of modding that can pull people back in.


And holy Batarang Batman! this post turned out to be HUGE!

 

[MonsOlympus]

tl:dr

Try making a post without chopping someone elses to pieces next time, it'll probably be half the size!

 

[Grobut]

tl:dr

Try making a post without chopping someone elses to pieces next time, it'll probably be half the size!

Well if you had actually read it, you would have seen that there's no chopping going on, and we're actually haveing a rather freindly exchange of opinions.

But i digress, god forbid people would actually have to read something on a purely text based medium

 

[Adelheid]

I think it is a little unfair... no, very unfair to say that people just don't like UT3 because it is new/a sequel or because of some kind of internet peer pressure.

*Dons flameproof suit*

Me, I liked UT2003. And Unreal 2. It took two weeks but I also grew to like UT2004, even though technically I already owned the damn thing and so would have been within my rights to bitch and moan about it upon release.
I don't like UT3.
Not because of some idiotic detail like "the UI is clunky" or because of some fanboy "But it's supposed to be UT but better!" attitude, or even because of it's complete abandonment of BSP in favour of incredibly (and unnecessarily over-) complicated and intricate models which make my PC squeal like a Paedo in a prison after lights out.
I don't like it because I don't like the direction it has moved in, I don't like warfare, I dont like the fact that it is only a tournament if you apply the term as loosely as you can. So there!


And I especially don't like what happened to the Necris; I was expecting them to look something like this Click! it looks like a more natural evolution to me.

 

[MonsOlympus]

But i digress, god forbid people would actually have to read something on a purely text based medium

Dude that post is huge and Ive done some big ones myself! god forbid someone make a friendly suggestions in a text based medium. Id read it if I didnt have to read DG's post again along with it, especially since you know I already read it