Well one thing Im pretty certain on is this expansion will be centered around PC then moved over to consoles if possible. I really dont see where making an expansion comes in, in regards to console gaming at all. Theres plenty of other words like pay DLC for eg which mean a very similar thing, Im kinda using common terms out of Epic to gauge what this "expansion" is all about.
We could very well end up with a UT4 in the end, after all UT1 started as a botpack didnt it
Im fairly certain that disc swapping not being an issue on PC will come into play when choosing which platforms to support with an expansion. As I said though UT started out as a botpack so this could end up a larger pay DLC piece, perhaps 1 part of 2 pay DLC's or it might console might miss out entirely as a HDD requirement might not go over so well..
Still cant believe console makers have the nerve to pimp 10yr old hdd's for quadruple what they are worth
Anyways, there might be some negativity around this game and I actually got told the other day we shouldnt play it simply cause its not popular (pop-gaming here we come
) I still enjoy DM, CTF and the like. I dont require coop but its a nice touch if the developer wants to add alittle more (nazi zombies) Infact its gone so far Im missing out on team based MP (PvP) because of all the coop action.
I do think some people are alittle hard on Epic but most arnt saying anything about this game thats not getting said about other popular games as well. As long as people are spittin it real thats all that matters, no need to get bent out of shape unless its straight up offensive.
I enjoy UT3, do I think it could be better? Yeah I do! Then again I might have set my expectations too high, Epic isnt a small company anymore so to me the way GoW and UT3 shipped on PC is pretty unacceptable. There were bugs which it shouldnt have been there at all for a gold disc.
If this expansion can get some more people buying purely because its a patched up UT3, I guess thats a good thing but those of us who paid the full release price for the CE are probably wanting alittle more. Theres still parts of the source totally undocumented by Epic so going into an expansion I still have no clue what to expect from updated source in regards to porting my code.
Having had to port some from 2k4 and from 2k3->2k4 I might even be happy to stick with UT3, a UI enhancement is good (who uses it anyways?) but I think there will need to be more to it then that. UT3 was cross platform developed much like 2k3/UC, perhaps even more so, which I do believe will get in the way of refining UT3 on PC as an expansion.
Im just so up in the air, honestly I could go on happily modding if Epic didnt make the announcement and now its another waiting game *sigh*
I see UE3 lasting a fair old while, it wouldnt surprise me if half of Epics licensee's dont move over to UE4 when its on the table for the simple fact is they'll have codebases built up for the previous version which require no work to get up to par.