Great podcast and very good discussion. I don't share Carbon's sentiment though; I actually really enjoy the more open ended nature of the podcast. Essentially for me the podcast = two or more knowledgeable, experienced and passionate UT fans discussing the latest developments on UT4 and the community in general. It is a nice way for me to catch up with the latest happenings as well regarding UT4 development.
As to the direction of development of UT4, my perspective: I have been playing (and still play) UT since 99, massive addict, very experienced, game is always installed, adore the game, etc. I did play a good amount of UT2004 and UT3, but they were not as good as the original; original just nailed it. Dodge-jumping: not a fan, should not be in UT4; speed: take UT as base, add about 7-10% more speed = perfect; scale (playerpawn to arena): UT is perfect, just copy paste. In terms of movement: add wall dodge, I like it, makes sense and mantling I have no problem with. I completely agree though that 'auto-mantling' is a bit shitty, it’s like auto-aiming. I think there must be some manual mechanism introduced for conducting a successful mantle, BUT it should have a decent amount of tolerance so as to strike a good balance between the fact that you must manually do something to mantle and not taking away from the flow of the battle. Adrenaline part of the core game? WTF...no, just...no, it’s gimmicky and takes away a massive appeal of the game (a pure arena experience, no fucking levelling, special gear unlocks, bullshit…just you, your opponent, your weapon and your twitch skill); as a mutator? Sure. Don't think Epic would be so stupid as to make it part of the core game, so not too worried.
Something I do agree with though is that UT4 must strike a very good (almost want to say perfect) balance between 'hardcore technical pro-gamer elitist' and 'casual just about having a blast fragging fun', though to me that point is obvious to be honest and Epic knows this; UT never was 'super leet hardcore' (not even UT99), it was never about 'absolute perfect balance' between weapons even, it was about crazy fun, balanced yes, but not balanced to boredom...that was what quake was for (far more hardcore and much more conservative with balance/weapon damage, level design, etc.). In short: the 'hardcore tourney' side of UT was never its main point and is not even in the slightest what made UT the insanely massive hit it was and still is. So yeah, great balance between 'tourney level' movement, damage, tricks, etc. and 'casual over the top, crazy fun' movement, damage, tricks, etc. is the name of the game. Is it easy to strike this balance? No...but worthwhile things seldom are.
Great podcast, great chat, thank you. Also: reference to Loque...haha so true...so true, whenever he is in the match I always curse that fucker aim bot! We really do assign personalities to the bots of UT...man what a game.
![[DUF]-Fragger](/data/avatars/s/30/30912.jpg?1424422860){kind=avatar}