{GD}Ghost said:
If their goal is online entertainment for its past, present and future fans, they need to tailor the INF goal to include some of the newest gaming features that are included in some of the newest games. People are expecting more from games these days. A game that only uses maps the size of a few city blocks are beginning to be a thing of the past. Many people want the feel of a real military unit in the field....a field in which you cannot see off the edges or reach the ends of during regular game play.
I feel very sad about the fact clans/players leaving the community as well. Beeing stuck offline with a crappy dialup since INF 2.71 I waited forever to get DSL (and release of 2.9) just until some month ago. I was looking forward to get fully involved into online gaming, cosindered joining a clan etc., just to find out the community is rather dying than making a huge breakthrough with 2.9. I also feel very sorry for the team, their work not getting the attention and success it deserves.
But I partly disagree with all this demand for a new engine. Of course fully polished INF 3.0 on FarCry or UT2004 engine will attract a lot of people in the first place, but the release is at minimum 2 years in the future (when people will be atracted by even nicer visuals/features) and until the new INF matches 2.9 gameplay ways, the community will spit up between 2.9 and 3.0. Just look at some other MODs:
CS is based on an even older engine and it has no unique features to offer. Compared to INF the whole visuals and the entire package is definitely subpar. Still CS has about the number of leagues we have clans and more clans we have players! Not everything about the CS community is something to be envious of, but beeing able to play any variant of the game at any time of day and night on a large variety of servers is something very admirable. Hell people can make a living solely of playing CS and the INF Dev team is hardly getting a penny for all their efforts! Life can be so unfair
Same with TO. Beeing basically a pure CS clone on the same UT99 engine we are stuck with atm they have way more players. A German gaming mag is currently running 4 league events: TO, CS, BF1942 and Warcraft 3. Not Farcry, UT2003/4... etc. It can't be just the engine!
Although not beeing extremly mainstream compatible INF deserves to do a hell of a lot better. I guess the team knows they have not been 100% lucky with timing and therefor with PR and Reviews in Game Mags. I believe there are a lot of hardcore 'realism shooter' fans (however youz define that) out there that haven't even heard of INF. On my private little crusade I tried to drag every gamer I know to INF on lanparties etc. After a 15 minute instruction mostly everyone was pretty much excited and able to enjoy INF (even very occasional gamers). Sadly none joined the online community yet (they are mainly LAN/offline players)
So IMHO instead of us whinig about the situation we should try to do our small part to make INF a success: Promote it wherever we can, beeing helpful to noobs and play INF! Furthermore a INF tutorial like Kettch/ geogob/Anonymous suggested here
http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=135708 could be really helpful to recruit new players, unfortunately I am lagging all the necessary abilities and the time to learn them...
Cheers