Have people read this article on piracy?

[T2A`]

1. Crysis is a special case. It only sold at all because of its graphics.
2. Crysis hasn't sold that well. Beating UT3 in sales is no feat whatsoever.
3. HL2 Episodes 1 and 2 have updates to the engine and it looks realistic enough. UT3 is hyper-realistic and thus unrealistic. Plus, if you take away the post-processing, it hardly looks better than anything else out there.
4. Compare UT3's sales and performance to games people can actually run -- TF2, CoD4, et al.

But this is a dead-end argument. If you honestly think UT3's graphics help the game in any way then you'll never be convinced otherwise. A lost cause, if you will. I would much prefer four-year-old graphics for a fun game that the average person can actually play.

 

[Anuban]

Selling over a million copies and consistently placing in the top 10 and top 20 of PC games sold means that quite a few folks liked Crysis and it did damn well. Especially compared to UT3 PC. And Crysis is really an exceptional game. I just laugh when people say otherwise (just like UT gamers laugh when people say UT games are boring and one dimensional) ... besides having the best PHOTOrealistic graphics ever seen in any game it has gameplay in spades. Contrary to popular belief among the UT3 crowd the game also sold well because of the Nanosuit and the game mechanics it implements. I never get tired of cloaking, running up on a group of four soldiers, grabbing one and using him as a meat shield take out two others, cloak again, grab dude, go max strength and toss him 30 feet killing him. I love that even more than I love giving a bot a face full of Flak.

BTW: I don't know why people think Crysis has performance issues. It did when it first came out but that has been solved with patches. Now Crysis in DX9 mode 1680x1050, everything high, no AA runs just as well as UT3 with the same config. It is silky smooth on my system getting into the high 50s in terms of fps ... and DX10 mode with everything Very High is almost just as smooth ... but I prefer the added fps at the cost of a little bit of visual fidelity. And this is a fair comparison since UT3 has Zero DX10 code.

 

[GGA_Nate]

1. Crysis is a special case. It only sold at all because of its graphics.
2. Crysis hasn't sold that well. Beating UT3 in sales is no feat whatsoever.
3. HL2 Episodes 1 and 2 have updates to the engine and it looks realistic enough. UT3 is hyper-realistic and thus unrealistic. Plus, if you take away the post-processing, it hardly looks better than anything else out there.
4. Compare UT3's sales and performance to games people can actually run -- TF2, CoD4, et al.

But this is a dead-end argument. If you honestly think UT3's graphics help the game in any way then you'll never be convinced otherwise. A lost cause, if you will. I would much prefer four-year-old graphics for a fun game that the average person can actually play.

I think Anuban answered number one pretty well. Crysis is a really great game and although I'm sure its graphics helped sales, I don't think it would've sold as well as it has if it didn't offer excellent gameplay.

By the way, Crysis has sold well for a pc game. According to EA, Crysis has sold over 1 million copies world wide. http://www.incrysis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=612

I guess it's a matter of personal preference regarding the Source engine. I think it looks dated. You don't.

UT3 runs just as well as COD4 on my pc, with my ****ty ATI 2600 graphics card.

Lastly, I never stated that I thought UT3's graphics engine helped the game. I simply stated that it's not affecting sales. If Crysis, a game with steeper requirements, can sell a million copies world wide, then I don't see how UT3's engine is holding it back. Obviously, based on sales numbers for Crysis and COD4, the average hardcore pc gamer should be able to run UT3. It's really a dead end argument.

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

Guys. You're practically arguing about what you find, personally, fun and pretty. To me, even very simplistic games with a stylistic edge look good to me. I don't consider photorealism to be the end point that every game has to meet, but that simply graphics need to convey a certain message to me. If I look at something on the screen, I should be able to recognize it for what it is.

• Oh, that's a stone, it is in my way and my guy has no muscles in his legs.
• Oh, that's a baddie, and I have to whack him with my black jack.
• Oh, that's a vehicle I can ride around and pump the hydraulics.
• Oh, that's some uber weapon I can use to destroy the world with.

Focusing back on to maybe one of the reasons why UT3 did not do so well (in comparision to previous iterations). I feel that one of the major issues with UT3,that may be people haven't realized yet, is that the continuity of Unreal Tournament has been lost.

For a start Unreal Tournament 3, doesn't actually even feature a tournament in it ... or at least from its story. You start the campaign as someone who is out there to wipe out his own sister, not much of a tournament.

Second, most of the weapons look radically different from the previous generation of games. Take a look at the Flak Cannon. From U1, UT, UT200x . They all look similar in shape and design. UT3 (while very cool) looks very different. And the same goes for the other weapons ...

Established characters are now either gone, changed or mutilated. There is no Xan from what I can see from UT3. The big, bad 'team' is the Necris, who were a very small team back in UT. They didn't even feature any more than two player models (or so) in UT200x. Xan was the token bad guy. UT200x tried to introduce a new character (Gorge) and it did not work. Why try again? And let's just leave the abomination that they did to Malcolm.

The level design and appearances while awesome and top notch, no longer scream Unreal to me anymore. You don't have these weird and varied worlds anymore that Unreal itself was so good at doing. The fact is, Unreal 1 was so damn awesome because it had these weird and wonderful worlds and color schemes. Quake 1 / 2 paled in comparison because they were just shades of brown (I do realize that this was a design choice, and not an engine limitation) and now we've got UT3 which has dark, dank lighting and all the wonderful variations of boring color schemes. It may be a step towards realism, but the whole fact is ... we're talking about Unreal here. It's supposed to be unreal.

While I could go on, I understand that Epic wants / needs to expand their franchise. They don't want to be stuck doing the same game over and over again. But the fact is, Unreal Tournament and it's sequels are sequels for a reason. Sequels use the previous game's lore and universe. As we all know, the Unreal universe does not strictly belong to just Unreal Tournament, and that Unreal Tournament just uses a specific portion of it. In my belief, if they had wished to use another section of the universe, don't name it as Unreal Tournament. Name it something else, Unreal Redemption or whatever marketing can come up with. Sure, you may not hold the same audience as those who played Unreal Tournament ... but if your wanting to do a different game, then they probably aren't your audience to begin with.

This is why I applaud CliffyB here. He is a great game designer. He may be crazy (like myself) with his ideas, but he knows when he sees something that is going to be fun. He also knows what aspects he can change and what he can't. He knew that Gears and his ideas for it, were not going to fit within the Unreal universe, thus he created another one (the proof of which, is that there are Gear references littered within Unreal Tournament 2004, as well as what I believe are prototypes of Gears). I see this in some of the older games he also designed, notably Jazz Jack Rabbit here. He knew what worked in Jazz Jack Rabbit 1, and he stuck with the majority of them in Jazz Jack Rabbit 2.

Unreal Engine 3 is a great engine. There is no denying that. With excellent visuals and tools, there are very few other game development packages that meet the same standard and quality. Unreal Tournament 3, just happens to be not a great sequel.

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

+1

Has anyone tried posting it on the epic forums yet?

Why bother? It will just get locked.

 

[-Jes-]

I wonder if StarForce's going to pull the same "accident" on Sins that they did on GalCiv2.

Also Snake's Long post is Long. But Win.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I think you're in the wrong thread, Brizz. As far as I can recall, nobody specifically requested this to be a next-gen game. I'd almost say the opposite, as most people (if not everyone) agreed that gameplay outshines visuals.

Of course nobody requested UT3 to be built on the same engine as UT200x, but it could have been done...easily. It just wouldn't look so dazzling as it does now (still...UT2004 doesn't suddenly look ugly, does it?)

That's hardly the point, right?

Epic is a cutting edge company. Even when UT2004 came out you couldn't play it at the max settings on the newest hardware well. That, coupled with the fact that the difference between the low end and high end is more dramatic than ever this generation, only makes it so that you either have to limit your target audience or not be on the cutting edge. It's easy to see what Epic is going to choose based on what they have always chosen.

I was mostly talking about the gameplay anyway, but I think a lot of the "high system requirements" people are complaining about with UT3 is just a lack of education or higher expectations than in previous generations. People want their games to look better than ever on their 4 year old hardware. It makes no sense. Turn down the settings, and you get a good framerate. Imagine that!

 

[T2A`]

Even when UT2004 came out you couldn't play it at the max settings on the newest hardware well.

I could. On my computer from 2003. I even played it with AA and AF. Sure, it wasn't skipping along at 100 FPS, but it was easily playable.

Tale, you're forgetting that Epic is an engine company before they are a game company. UT3 looks pretty because looking pretty sells their engine. Doesn't matter if the game bombs, as the engine is their main source of revenue.

 

[[SAS]Solid Snake]

Tale, you're forgetting that Epic is an engine company before they are a game company. UT3 looks pretty because looking pretty sells their engine. Doesn't matter if the game bombs, as the engine is their main source of revenue.

I think UT3 is an alright game. Comparing it to UT200x, UT is where the problem is. And besides Gears of War was a good game (in my humblest opinion).

 

[T2A`]

Well, I was just making a general statement. UT3 has sold some copies and GoW was definitely a hit of some magnitude. But even if they stopped making games completely they'd still be rolling in the money from engine sales.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Guys. You're practically arguing about what you find, personally, fun and pretty. To me, even very simplistic games with a stylistic edge look good to me. I don't consider photorealism to be the end point that every game has to meet, but that simply graphics need to convey a certain message to me. If I look at something on the screen, I should be able to recognize it for what it is.

Yeah just imagine if artists had stopped creating works of art once the camera was avaliable.

 

[Taleweaver]

I was mostly talking about the gameplay anyway, but I think a lot of the "high system requirements" people are complaining about with UT3 is just a lack of education or higher expectations than in previous generations. People want their games to look better than ever on their 4 year old hardware. It makes no sense. Turn down the settings, and you get a good framerate. Imagine that!

That's exactly what I said earlier: who ARE those people that want their games to look better than ever? Sure, they exist and generally roam forums like this one...but the majority of people - indeed - rather have their game run on 4 year old hardware.

I installed the demo on my work PC. It was like T2A said...despite it being an average PC (today's standards), the game looked and performed worse than UT2004...and that was with lowered settings.

I installed UT2004 on an average PC as well (well...what was "average" back then)...it performed quite good, with only a couple tweaks.

Tale, you're forgetting that Epic is an engine company before they are a game company. UT3 looks pretty because looking pretty sells their engine. Doesn't matter if the game bombs, as the engine is their main source of revenue.

Yes and no...of course I realise that Epic wants to showcase their engine. But that's no different than when the earlier Unreal-related games were released...or even less, as Gears of War kinda took over the role of Epic's showcase game.
Also, the whole engine thing could begin backfiring onto them, as Epic still needs to sell it to developers. And why would a gaming company buy the engine to build a next-gen game if a current-gen game is both easier to develop AND has a larger customer base?
I bet quite a few developers are thinking why Sins of a solar empire sells so well...

 

[Peregrine]

*Other text deleted to keep quote short*


Scenario: I upgrade my pc. My former PC goes to my brother (who uses it more for office applications than gaming). His former pc goes to our dad (who uses it for e-mail and solitaire). His former pc (actually my former former pc) either goes to the junkyard or gets donated to a friend who doesn't yet have one...or who had his own pc die out on them and didn't had the money for a new one.
PC's are more than just for games, and that is exactly the reason they stay around much longer than consoles. Every student now has his/her own pc, and they're NOT all top-of-the-line. They're just enough to run office applications decently, which means they do very well with just one CPU and "just" a gigabyte of RAM.

Far and away the best post I have read yet in 2008.

I have an AMD64 3200+. I have a gig and a hlaf of RAM. I have the best AGP video card that was available a year ago (6800 ULTRA).

UT3 runs OK, but I can't jack everything up. This game is far from GORGEOUS in my opinion. Looks almost cartoony some times (and not in a good way like TF2). COD4? Pretty. Not gorgeous. Supposed to be one of the most photo-realistic games out there. Bioshock? Ran like crap.
So, even though my PC is rock solid. Can handle anything I throw at it (except the latest games at high res of course), I am thinking about upgrading so I can see these games in all their prettiness. Am I crazy? Yea....
AND OF COURSE I can't JUST buy a video card. Ono. I have to buy a new mobo with a PCI-E slot. and OF COURSE that's going to mean I need different RAM now. Hopefully I can find something that will take my proccy....

It's getting old....

 

[Dark Pulse]

Far and away the best post I have read yet in 2008.

I have an AMD64 3200+. I have a gig and a hlaf of RAM. I have the best AGP video card that was available a year ago (6800 ULTRA).

UT3 runs OK, but I can't jack everything up. This game is far from GORGEOUS in my opinion. Looks almost cartoony some times (and not in a good way like TF2). COD4? Pretty. Not gorgeous. Supposed to be one of the most photo-realistic games out there. Bioshock? Ran like crap.
So, even though my PC is rock solid. Can handle anything I throw at it (except the latest games at high res of course), I am thinking about upgrading so I can see these games in all their prettiness. Am I crazy? Yea....
AND OF COURSE I can't JUST buy a video card. Ono. I have to buy a new mobo with a PCI-E slot. and OF COURSE that's going to mean I need different RAM now. Hopefully I can find something that will take my proccy....

It's getting old....

When it's too old and full of outdated standards, it's time to bite the bullet and simply get a new system entirely, if you're planning on gaming with it. I had to do it because I knew the usefulness of my Athlon XP 3000+ would be just about none for modern games. Throw in only a gig of RAM, AGP videocard... and you get the idea.

I got mine for about a thousand bucks and it plays UT3 excellently on maximum settings.

Of course, one of the sticks of RAM died shortly thereafter and I spent $100 on 4 GB of DD2-800... and next month I'm likely buying dual 750 GB SATA Hard Drives to replace the dual 300 GB IDEs I currently have...

At least now if I need to upgrade, most of my stuff could transfer over to a new system, as opposed to my soundcard and hard drives (and some peripheral stuff like mouse, keyboard, etc.) which are all that I was able to use in my new system compared to the old one.

 

[Crotale]

The fact that some gamers still use five year old computers to play new games should be a minimal factor when a developer creates a game. Most computer owners upgrade every three to four years simply out of necessity to have sustainable equipment and keep up with all the new software, regardless of whether that software consists of games or office utilities, multimedia, etc.

If game devs use only current production engines over and over and do not use the "next-gen" engines, new technology will never emerge. At best, it will be very slow to emerge. Sure, there are games that have used slightly older engines and they still look great and play great, but the way some of you guys talk on here, it sounds as if you are bashing Epic for creating and using Unreal Engine 3.

 

[haslo]

Being a Sins fan myself, of course I read the article

Here's the recent outcry of game developers at the GCD. One of many, too many. As a paying customer, I feel treated like dirt by many big companies, and in fact I've refused to buy Valve games, and only very reluctantly bought Bioshock (and meanwhile do regret it) because of their restrictive DRM. If I would still pirate games, it wouldn't be those that have an open policy like Sins, quite the opposite.

I think many of those who bought Sins also did so to make a point, and rightly so.

On the other hand, I have to give you right as well, Crotale. It's about target markets as well. But it has to be said that many of my friends who might have bought UT3 for the sake of the old times didn't because they simply didn't have the computer for it.

 

[MonsOlympus]

I must admit, UT2k4 on high still doesnt have the atmosphere of UT3. All you need is the volumetrics enabled and its like a timewarp back to UT. Dynamic lighting is still just as heavy as it was if not more so than 2k4 because of the per pixel lighting. The self shadowing helps alot as well, 2k4 just isnt even in the same ball park graphics-wise as UT3. The particles as well run alot better but as always decals have a fair big hit, this time around though there is more static decals which seem to save CPU.

My PC runs it fairly decent, its around 3-4 years old now being a 915 intel chipset and a p4 3ghz. Sure I dumped alittle more ram and a 7950gt in there so I got 2gb of ddr2-800 instead of 1gb ddr-400 and a 6600, that cost me all of acouple of hundred AUD but I had to overpay for the 7950gt since it was the only one in stock.

Anyways I would say hardware makers are just as much to blame as developers (like epic, not crytek) when it comes to getting a game to run. Most people would know the 7950gt outperforms the newer 8600gt in newer games and it might even do better than the gts. If hardware makers actually supported their lines for any extended period of time then people could have got 7950gt's for $50 instead of $200 (which was still cheaper than a 8600gt for awhile).

I can understand pushing graphics to look more real back in the quake or commanche days but now, theres just no use, developers might as well choose which features they "need" and use those to their fullest extent. I dont even think UE3 uses all its potential so I wouldnt diss Epic too much, they could have easily used up all the extra fps they get on the dual quads with sli 9800gx2's but they didnt. Take a look at crysis' benchmarks on that and tell me Epic aimed too high!

 

[Anuban]

I must admit, UT2k4 on high still doesnt have the atmosphere of UT3. All you need is the volumetrics enabled and its like a timewarp back to UT. Dynamic lighting is still just as heavy as it was if not more so than 2k4 because of the per pixel lighting. The self shadowing helps alot as well, 2k4 just isnt even in the same ball park graphics-wise as UT3. The particles as well run alot better but as always decals have a fair big hit, this time around though there is more static decals which seem to save CPU.

Finally someone that makes sense and gets that the graphics in UT2k4 in no way match up to the graphics in UT3. When people say otherwise I have to laugh and shake my head ... even without the bloom the differences are enormous. Especially in the detail of the models (character, vehicles, weapons) and the detail of the static meshes. The texture quality/depth blows UT2K4 out the door. I play them both at least once a day and man it is shocking. And lets not even talk about the realistic movement of the bots now (look at them run with weapons and compare that to how the bots in prev games look when they run and of course hopping while they are running.

There is no normal bumpmapping in UT2k4 and that makes a huge amount of difference in how the weapons look ... in UT3 they look "heavy" and real ...and battle worn. Not in UT2K4. And enough can't be said about the differences in the lighting sub-engines between the two. In fact in this area there is flat out no comparison. Combine that with HDR and UT3 blows UT2K4 out the water graphically ... as it should ... this is three years later and things have advanced.

When people say UT2K4 is just as good looking as UT3 I have to remind people of Gears of War ... now if someone can say with a straight face that UT2K4 looks as good as Gears they have a lot of nerve (not to mention they are lying and they know it) but the truth it of course it doesn't, and if UT3 looks just as good (or even better in some aspects) as Gears as the vast majority of gamers and critics agree it does then of course this also means there is NO comparison in the visual fidelity of UT3 to UT2K4.

 

[MonsOlympus]

Well yeah some of the animations in UT3 are good but I'll admit it is alittle lacking so I dunno if I should report some bugs. There is no standing still rotating anims like 2k4 (walking/run etc are always right leg first for some reason) and the bots now they taunt their legs arnt moving for me when they do that and it looks really wierd (1.2 patch). UT3 has the correct footstepping though for stairs and such which looks pretty damn kewl, so its not all bad but the foot together standing rotate really gets to me. Even if they were like 2k4 which kinda slid I wouldnt mind.

I havent had much luck with texture details myself but it is possible to turn normal maps to like 1pixel and leave the rest at really high. The self shadowing will still work but it might give you some spare memory in which to fit higher res diffuse and specular.

Its a shame object bloom and map bloom arnt different passes though, I can understand that because of performance reasons. Also using the sourced player shadows is heaps slower than the dynamic shadows of UT3. The virtual displacement seemed to go unused totally in UT3

By not the same ballpark I am referring specifically to:

2k4
DX8.0: Pixel Shader: 1.0, 1.1; Vertex Shader: 1.0, 1.1;
DX8.1: Pixel Shader: 1.2, 1.3, 1.4; Vertex Shader: 1.0, 1.1;

UT3
DX9.0: Pixel Shader: 2.0; Vertex Shader: 2.0;
DX9.0a: Pixel Shader: 2_A, 2_B; Vertex Shader: 2.x;
DX9.0c: Pixel Shader: 3.0; Vertex Shader: 3.0;

Im not sure exactly what each of these means for all the features in each game but I sure as hell know UT3 can do a ****load more with materials.

 

[Anuban]

I just love how the models look so realistic when they are moving out in a team formation. And I love how realistic my character's movements look when he is running toward an enemy with a stinger using ActionCam. I know that some animations still need tweaking but for the most part they are heads and tails above the work in UT2K4. When you play these two back to back as much as I do you can really tell the difference in realism among the bots (at times). Now with that said the bot AI is still really poor sometimes. As an example I will tell you about the time I set up 4 bots to guard the flag and one lone blue bot killed them all and took the flag and scored (I was on the other side of the level battling a DW) ... now that ticked me off ... and its something that didn't happen in UT2K4. One bot could never beat four bots with similar stats ... And they do spend too much time not noticing the flag stealer in VCTF and CTF (heck they sometimes are just looking down at the ground or staring far off into some imaginary space until I actually grab the flag then they start doing something ... this is next gen and I would expect them to react the moment you are in their LOS and yet no dice. So that would be nice to go along with such detailed and real looking character models their behavior should match that so that the gamer achieves a greater level of immersion while playing.