Should Epic repeat the 2k3 -> 2k4 history again to save UT3?

[Sir_Brizz]

I don't see (and haven't seen) a ton of gameplay knocking threads or complaints.

Most people are complaining about features that they used often in previous games missing or just completely broken, or things like the AI being stupid or the single player not being what they wanted.

In general, I think most people who enjoy UT are happy with UT3's gameplay in nearly all aspects (note: NEARLY), it's the other parts of the game that don't feel polished that make them not want to play.

 

[DarkSonny]

I don't see (and haven't seen) a ton of gameplay knocking threads or complaints.

Most people are complaining about features that they used often in previous games missing or just completely broken, or things like the AI being stupid or the single player not being what they wanted.

In general, I think most people who enjoy UT are happy with UT3's gameplay in nearly all aspects (note: NEARLY), it's the other parts of the game that don't feel polished that make them not want to play.

+1

 

[B4NE]

I don't see (and haven't seen) a ton of gameplay knocking threads or complaints.

Most people are complaining about features that they used often in previous games missing or just completely broken, or things like the AI being stupid or the single player not being what they wanted.

In general, I think most people who enjoy UT are happy with UT3's gameplay in nearly all aspects (note: NEARLY), it's the other parts of the game that don't feel polished that make them not want to play.

See, that's what I'm really not understanding. IMO, as long as the gameplay is good, sign me up, I'm in. I don't really understand the obsession with complaining about the pregame stuff like the user interface. Sure they could have done it differently but they didn't, so what. The game it's self is fun, I can see the disapointment if you started playing during UT2k3/4 and that's all you really know of the Unreal series but for the majority of the Unreal fans we got what we wanted, Unreal back to its roots, a fast paced run and gun shooter more like an updated and improved UT99. I hope they do release a big patch or a UT4 soon but if they don't, Epic isn't at fault in my eyes, the community is. All the trolling and complaining about the little details is what steered everyone away from the game when the actual game really wasn't bad at all.

Well its certainly interesting hearing people who own more than 1 version or even more than 1 console version of the game. Its wierd how timing can be important, I guess all the other games like cod4 or halo 3 have settled on 360 now so that could be a contributing factor, people are just alittle bored of what they have and are looking around more. Where when UT3 was released on PC there was a heap of competition, Im sure the PS3 version had its fair share as well.

Thing of it is now Im thinking back to comments Epic made about knowing how to make good PC games. Now Im not going to say they dont know how to but they havent seemed to prove that much of late especially considering the praise Gears got and now UT3 on 360 is getting. I think most people agree on the fact UT3 was released to early on PC, but as people have been saying the 360 version isnt perfect either.

Its just wierd for me to hear someone say the 360 version turned out best, I mean sure its perhaps alittle more polished but its the same game. In saying that maybe theres something to peoples perceptions, like say a game like oblivion for eg scored higher on 360 but like UT3 was essentially the same game. I think it goes to show different platforms do require alittle more in terms of specific support, thats not to say multi-platform isnt the future but maybe developers should look less at the bottom line and more at filling out a version for that platform entirely before releasing.

I understand there could be issues with cross-platform play but with UT3 thats entirely a non issue. So while 360 had splitscreen it still doesnt have the ability to play against PC players, neither does the PS3 version for that matter so as long as companies are keeping us all locked down I wont be a console shooter fan in a hurry and games may suffer on certain platforms because of it.

I'm not sure if I worded myself correctly, I should have elaborated a bit, the 360 version turned out best IMO because the community is behind it 100%. No one is bashing the game because maybe expectations were lower? There isn't much to compare it to really, the last game Xbox had that was comparable was Unreal Championship what almost 6 years ago? Plus, like I said, it came at the right time for 360. The Halo's and the COD's have been played to death now. Alot of people were ready to move on to a new sci-fi shooter.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

See, that's what I'm really not understanding. IMO, as long as the gameplay is good, sign me up, I'm in. I don't really understand the obsession with complaining about the pregame stuff like the user interface. Sure they could have done it differently but they didn't, so what. The game it's self is fun, I can see the disapointment if you started playing during UT2k3/4 and that's all you really know of the Unreal series but for the majority of the Unreal fans we got what we wanted, Unreal back to its roots, a fast paced run and gun shooter more like an updated and improved UT99. I hope they do release a big patch or a UT4 soon but if they don't, Epic isn't at fault in my eyes, the community is. All the trolling and complaining about the little details is what steered everyone away from the game when the actual game really wasn't bad at all.

I agree with you to a certain extent, but the way some things were broken was simply unacceptable in my mind. For example, it won't be until 1.3 that custom content support is fully implemented. That's a big no brainer and WTF in my mind. People also use a lot of other things that are broken, like client side demo recording, instant action bot management and a lot of things like that. The point I'm trying to make is that just too many thing in too many areas of the game were broken at release.

In my opinion, there were far too many problems with the multiplayer part of the game when it came out. I won't single any one thing out *cough*Gamespy*cough* but the state it was released in was pretty sorry for a multiplayer-centric game.

Still, this doesn't keep me from p[laying the game pretty often. I find it fun and I can look past these problems for that reason. I did it with UT2003 as well.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

There are even a lot of complaints to gameplay, but at other places more than this, it is by the masses of ut2004fans people doing this.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I don't care about the UT2004 fans They didn't keep that game alive much better than the UT3 fans are keeping it alive

 

[Bersy]

without the freeloading demo players UT2004 would have been as dead as UT3 years ago.

 

[Grobut]

See, that's what I'm really not understanding. IMO, as long as the gameplay is good, sign me up, I'm in. I don't really understand the obsession with complaining about the pregame stuff like the user interface.

Just to compliment the things Brizz allready said about this, i'd like to add that thease things are not purely cosmetic in nature, nor are they purely "pre-game", some of them have a profound effect ingame aswell.

If it where just that the menu looked ugly, was clunky and annoying, and loaded slowly, i really woulden't care, sure such things are a bit annoying, but they would never have been enough to stop me from playing the game on their own, i enjoy many other games despite them having annoying user interfaces.

The problem is that alot of this is not just "pre-game", the fact that some options are missing or broken actually determines how the game is played "in-game", this would not bother people who happen to like the way things are set up in UT3, but for thouse of us who don't, the fact that we cannot change them like we used to makes the game incredibly frustrating, even with its good gameplay mechanics, there's just a whole bunch of other things that constantly annoys us about it.

So why play something that annoys you? especially when you can just go back to the previous versions that lets you do what you want?

Its just very unfortunate that UT3 twists our arms like that, and forces us to make that choice, because there really was no good reason for it, UT3 could easilly have had the missing options, and we could all have moved on and enjoyed it.

 

[B4NE]

Just to compliment the things Brizz allready said about this, i'd like to add that thease things are not purely cosmetic in nature, nor are they purely "pre-game", some of them have a profound effect ingame aswell.

If it where just that the menu looked ugly, was clunky and annoying, and loaded slowly, i really woulden't care, sure such things are a bit annoying, but they would never have been enough to stop me from playing the game on their own, i enjoy many other games despite them having annoying user interfaces.

The problem is that alot of this is not just "pre-game", the fact that some options are missing or broken actually determines how the game is played "in-game", this would not bother people who happen to like the way things are set up in UT3, but for thouse of us who don't, the fact that we cannot change them like we used to makes the game incredibly frustrating, even with its good gameplay mechanics, there's just a whole bunch of other things that constantly annoys us about it.

So why play something that annoys you? especially when you can just go back to the previous versions that lets you do what you want?

Its just very unfortunate that UT3 twists our arms like that, and forces us to make that choice, because there really was no good reason for it, UT3 could easilly have had the missing options, and we could all have moved on and enjoyed it.

ok ok....i agree with you and brizz. the lack of customization was pretty annoying. I guess I just forced myself to adjust.

 

[pinnacle]

Well it would be stupid of them not to do another game considering how much work is pretty much already done for them. The engine is getting more and more refined by the day and UT3 already shipped, so it would be a lot easier for them to focus on making a good game on top of an existing framework and refined engine rather than making a game the framework, and the engine at the same time.

Honestly I really want UT3.5 so that I can play with all the new engine features, mainly the Ambient Occlusion filter. Look what Ambient Occlusion can do for Crysis (without the filter on left, with the filter on right):

[screenshot]http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1546/ao3ff5.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/8773/ao1nv9.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7227/ao2nb3.jpg[/screenshot]

As you can see the filter makes for greater contrast and definition, things that many people would agree UT3 needs. If you look closely at the bushes in the second shot, the filter makes them go from fake and uniform to realistic-looking and varied. Assuming that Crytek's and Epic's techniques for implementing Ambient Occlusion are somewhat similar (which they should be), this should be a really fun tool for people to play with.

 

[Vitamin-Carrot]

Well it would be stupid of them not to do another game considering how much work is pretty much already done for them. The engine is getting more and more refined by the day and UT3 already shipped, so it would be a lot easier for them to focus on making a good game on top of an existing framework and refined engine rather than making a game the framework, and the engine at the same time.

Honestly I really want UT3.5 so that I can play with all the new engine features, mainly the Ambient Occlusion filter. Look what Ambient Occlusion can do for Crysis (without the filter on left, with the filter on right):

[screenshot]http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/1546/ao3ff5.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/8773/ao1nv9.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7227/ao2nb3.jpg[/screenshot]

As you can see the filter makes for greater contrast and definition, things that many people would agree UT3 needs. If you look closely at the bushes in the second shot, the filter makes them go from fake and uniform to realistic-looking and varied. Assuming that Crytek's and Epic's techniques for implementing Ambient Occlusion are somewhat similar (which they should be), this should be a really fun tool for people to play with.

HUH?

 

[pinnacle]

HUH?

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_6002_en.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion

 

[MonsOlympus]

I'm not sure if I worded myself correctly, I should have elaborated a bit, the 360 version turned out best IMO because the community is behind it 100%. No one is bashing the game because maybe expectations were lower? There isn't much to compare it to really, the last game Xbox had that was comparable was Unreal Championship what almost 6 years ago?

Yeah I guess thats a point, us PC peeps have 3 UT games to compare it to with UT2k3 or UC seeming to be the worst of the lot. UC2 really does stand on its own and alot of people have been comparing UT3 to 2k4 for whatever reasons.

Now you might not like this bit but do you think games could suffer quality because console players are more willing lower expectations and not only that pay more for those games? Im not saying everyone who raises their expectations is right but there has got to be something to pushing the industry forward.

 

[WHIPperSNAPper]

I have no real suggestion that I truly believe will fix UT because I don't ever think 99ers,2k4'ers,and newcomers will ever play together and be happy because there is no happy medium between the games themselves.Yes they are all primarily the same game,but gameplay dynamics are pretty different imo.Epic had a very tall order and I'll admit it was near impossible to do it all for everyone so they chose newcomers (more money) and the 99 crowd because it was their time.Those 2 groups outnumbered 2k4'ers so we were thought of last or not considered much at all.Understandable,but judging from what I still see on browser it was not a wise decision.

The problem wasn't that they catered to the UT99 crowd over the UT 2004 crowd and axed the dodge jump and UT 2004's consequent emphasis on hit scan ability. I play both UT99 and UT 2004 and I think the fragging feels much better in UT99. Consequently, CTF was a huge hit in UT99 whereas the games that people play today in UT2004 are less on-foot fragging based (Onslaught, Invasion, CTF servers are empty). The UT99 crowd and the ProUnreal crowd liked the Demo and they were excited for UT3. However, when they discovered that the retail release = Beta Demo, they completely lost interest.

The basic UT3 gameplay is fundamentally fine (minus the translocator throwing limit) but the colors are a little too dark and washed out and everything that surrounds the game is bad (the user interface, the server browser, the map voting, how the game handles downloading custom content, ability and ease of tweaking settings, lack of ability to do keybinds, few skins, awful taunts, no location ID tags, having to load the Main Menu and the inability to pull up the server browser while in a game, etc.) Basically, it was released as a buggy beta and to this day has yet to be polished. People expected a better user interface and server browser (why wouldn't they?). Normally, when you go to buy the a later model of the same make of car, you expect the newer model to be upgraded and to have more features. Epic would have been much, much better polishing the game and fixing all of those problems and releasing a much improved beta demo this month along with the game UT3 should have been. The game also needed a few more game types.

Perhaps one day the real story about UT3 and why it was allowed to go out the door in the state it was in at a time when other big name FPS games were being released will come out. My hypothesis is that Midway essentially put a gun up to Epic's head and said: "WTF do you mean it isn't done yet ?!?!? You've been working on it for three #$%&@! years! I wanna see boxes on the shelves! Get it out there by Christmas!" My guess is that many of the people at Epic secretly feel malevolent about it but didn't have much choice. Again, that's just my hypothesis and I'm not claiming it's true.

 

[WHIPperSNAPper]

Well it would be stupid of them not to do another game considering how much work is pretty much already done for them. The engine is getting more and more refined by the day and UT3 already shipped, so it would be a lot easier for them to focus on making a good game on top of an existing framework and refined engine rather than making a game the framework, and the engine at the same time.

Excellent point.

 

[WHIPperSNAPper]

Yes. UT3 is a kid's game. With lovely happy bunnies frolicking in the sunshine and singing merry songs of rainbows and gumdrop candy.

I wasn't referring to the game's subject matter but rather to the types of options it offered players. Adults have the freedom to do the things they want to do whereas children generally don't have many options and are told what to do. (Compare UT 2004's options to UT3's options--compare the user interfaces.) A game that caters to adults would be all about custom content and online multiplayer and freedom--which was a big part of the UT franchise. In contrast, a game that caters to kids (like console games) would offer little freedom and custom content and few settings options. Grobut's post, quoted below, elaborates on this a bit, too.

The problem is that alot of this is not just "pre-game", the fact that some options are missing or broken actually determines how the game is played "in-game", this would not bother people who happen to like the way things are set up in UT3, but for thouse of us who don't, the fact that we cannot change them like we used to makes the game incredibly frustrating, even with its good gameplay mechanics, there's just a whole bunch of other things that constantly annoys us about it.

Its just very unfortunate that UT3 twists our arms like that, and forces us to make that choice, because there really was no good reason for it, UT3 could easilly have had the missing options, and we could all have moved on and enjoyed it.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Excellent point.

Yeah I didnt say that a few pages back either, infact I said it in relation to fixing up UT3 as well. Either way youre going to be porting engine or game code, take your pick!

 

[Trynant]

Perhaps one day the real story about UT3 and why it was allowed to go out the door in the state it was in at a time when other big name FPS games were being released will come out. My hypothesis is that Midway essentially put a gun up to Epic's head and said: "WTF do you mean it isn't done yet ?!?!? You've been working on it for three #$%&@! years! I wanna see boxes on the shelves! Get it out there by Christmas!" My guess is that many of the people at Epic secretly feel malevolent about it but didn't have much choice. Again, that's just my hypothesis and I'm not claiming it's true.

The UT3 Post-Mortem at GDC 2008 sums things up nicely. Here's a Gamespot article on it.

I wasn't referring to the game's subject matter but rather to the types of options it offered players. Adults have the freedom to do the things they want to do whereas children generally don't have many options and are told what to do. (Compare UT 2004's options to UT3's options--compare the user interfaces.) A game that caters to adults would be all about custom content and online multiplayer and freedom--which was a big part of the UT franchise. In contrast, a game that caters to kids (like console games) would offer little freedom and custom content and few settings options. Grobut's post, quoted below, elaborates on this a bit, too.

Firstly, I was addressing unbecoming, but since you brought up the adult/kid analogy I guess there's no worries. Second, the degree of freedom and customization going into the exterior of a game, to me, has little to do with the target audience it's aimed at. Example: Bioshock. Very little freedom in settings, no multiplayer and not custom content, and in fact was pretty "consolized" with it's interface. Yet it definitely is not aimed at children.

Of course one could argue that UT3's gameplay is not aimed at an adult audience, but then UT2004 and UT have almost the same type of play--they'd be catering to kids as well.

I'm not saying that UT3 lacking customization that its predecessors had is a good thing. I'm trying to say something more on the line that I think Crotale's analogy is more accurate to what UT3 is compared to others in the franchise.

Good post, but I disagree on the analogy. In my book, it is more akin to giving a factory-assembled Corvette owner a racing version. It's a Corvette, but it does not have power windows/doorlocks, not does it have the kickass sound system or leather appointments. But it does go faster and handles better, well, at least on dry pavement.

 

[end0rphine]

Seems a bit more people have been playing lately. I was stoned all weekend and played non-stop... I even took off work last Friday to play. I think if the community keeps making stuff, the players keep playing, the game will recover!

 

[WHIPperSNAPper]

The UT3 Post-Mortem at GDC 2008 sums things up nicely. Here's a Gamespot article on it.

Yeah, that's what they've said in public. It was nice to see Morris acknowledge the user interface problems. However, the real story of why they pushed it out the door in such a sad condition at a non-strategic time is what I'd like to learn more about. You get the sense from reading the article that they weren't really happy with it and felt they were rushing. Obviously they wanted to get it out a couple weeks before Christmas--but why couldn't they wait another six or seven months. What really went on behind the scenes? What kinds of discussions did they have. I'd love to hear the details about that. I don't expect any info of that kind to come out for years.

As I've said before, my hypothesis (not saying it's true) is that Midway put pressure on them release it a couple weeks before Christmas even though Epic might not have wanted to release it for a couple more months. Maybe Epic would be better off with a publisher like Stardock (publisher for Sins of a Solar Empire).