It IS fun....

[Hideinlight]

Well, there were a bunch of games that were shown at E3 last week that may excite the PC gaming community a little bit (let's hope), and I know that I'm looking forward to everything for the PC that have been unveiled and/or about to be released within the next year. Doom 4, Rage, Crysis 2, Deus Ex 3, Bulletstorm, Red Faction Armageddon, etc...all looks good.

Not in the multiplayer scene, that's ruled by HoN, SC2, Dota and even LoL...
That's where all the competitive players, prize money and sponsors went. The only games thus far that's been able to compete against COD and Cstrike. All of the above games will only last a month or two before the online numbers start dropping.

That's what I predict anyways.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Who cares about those competitive scenes? They won't move to new games anyway.

 

[Hideinlight]

Who cares about those competitive scenes? They won't move to new games anyway.

A pro player can bring a big portion of an entire community along with them.
And a lot of the players in that community has friends who have friends.

Pro players can only exist though if there are big events, like dreamhack and WCG

HoN was at dreamhack (Worlds biggest LAN)
LoL somehow made it to upcoming WSG 2010

This is where the masses is heading, leaving the rest of the games with extremely small playerbases. Combine this with a lack of interest for companies to host servers for these game and the difficulty of finding players in your location to play with because of a lackluster multiplayer platform. You'll get a very unpopular game and if your lucky it'll have a small dedicated playerbase.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

That's nice, but we want to have fun!

 

[Hideinlight]

That's nice, but we want to have fun!

It also brings in new blood and gives them the ability to try out new things without getting pwned by bored seasoned players...

 

[WedgeBob]

Then there's us that want to reinvent the wheel with games multiplayer games that don't get as much respect by the mass market, whether it works or not, that's unclear.
Besides to UT franchise, the game franchise in my avatar clearly needs to be reborn, too. Well, I have Q2 in my avatar, but Q3A and ET:QW are the ones that I'm really referring to.

 

[Hideinlight]

Then there's us that want to reinvent the wheel with games multiplayer games that don't get as much respect by the mass market, whether it works or not, that's unclear.
Besides to UT franchise, the game franchise in my avatar clearly needs to be reborn, too. Well, I have Q2 in my avatar, but Q3A and ET:QW are the ones that I'm really referring to.

I kinda like the quake levels made for UT3 more than I like them in quake...
At least the quake wars devs is working on Brink which looks promising. They also backed up by Bethesda which is a good thing, but it's not been getting much attention lately. Maybe people gave up on all fps shooters that doesn't have "call of duty" attached to it's name.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

A pro player can bring a big portion of an entire community along with them.

Yes, can. How often does that happen? Almost never.

And a lot of the players in that community has friends who have friends.

Lots of people who play UT3 still have friends, too.

This is where the masses is heading, leaving the rest of the games with extremely small playerbases. Combine this with a lack of interest for companies to host servers for these game and the difficulty of finding players in your location to play with because of a lackluster multiplayer platform. You'll get a very unpopular game and if your lucky it'll have a small dedicated playerbase.

Most people don't even know that WCG exists and couldn't care less what the people playing there do. The masses aren't heading anywhere, they are staying with what they always stay with. Counter Strike, Starcraft, Call of Duty... The version of the games change but the games themselves don't.

It's pointless for any company to develop their game targeting the events and the people that visit them. Only a select few games go there, and even fewer people bother to play the games that end up there. Lots of people think fatal1ty is a cool dude, but none of them ran off and started playing Painkiller multi when he was doing that.

 

[DannyMeister]

HoN and LoL are fun. Strategy games cater to the competitive types these days more than twitchy FPS games. What does this conversation have to do with... UT3 IS fun? (It is!)

 

[WHIPperSNAPper]

The masses aren't heading anywhere, they are staying with what they always stay with. Counter Strike, Starcraft, Call of Duty... The version of the games change but the games themselves don't.

It's a crying shame that you cannot add "Unreal Tournament" to that list with a straight face. I loaded up UT99 for the first time in months last night and played it for about an hour and thought to myself, "This game still feels great. It's game play is still almost perfect."

 

[WedgeBob]

It's a crying shame that you cannot add "Unreal Tournament" to that list with a straight face. I loaded up UT99 for the first time in months last night and played it for about an hour and thought to myself, "This game still feels great. It's game play is still almost perfect."

Seeing the logo in my avatar, Quake 3 Arena would most likely be another one that people would go back to...but that was because I didn't know how much better the Unreal franchise was back then, I've always followed id's games from 1995 until 2002 or so, as well as Apogee/3D Realms. It wasn't until UT2003 came out that I jumped on board Epic's bandwagon. Don't ask me why I originally went with Carmack over CliffyB, but...as of a few years ago, I did learn my lesson.

 

[Lostsoul]

Don't ask me why I originally went with Carmack over CliffyB, but...as of a few years ago, I did learn my lesson.

I am going to say that Carmack and company of done an ass load for PC gaming, more than CliffyB for sure.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I am going to say that Carmack and company of done an ass load for PC gaming, more than CliffyB for sure.

I wouldn't exactly say that, at least not in comparing the proper principle individuals in each company. Epic Games really helped shape the foundation of PC gaming in the mid-90s and they continue to do so today.

id was and still is more like Crytek, trying to push boundaries but not really changing the industry as it is.

 

[Lostsoul]

I love the UT games, more than anything iD has ever put out, but I don't think Epic has had near the impact on PC gaming as iD has. iD has pushed boundaries and that is why they have changed PC gaming and set the bar so high at times, not to mention QuakeCon. As a competitive player, when I was playing, I would have killed to see some support from Epic. Instead Q3 dominated competitive gaming because iD supported it.

 

[JohnDoe641]

Hey, demorec is cheating though, right?

 

[WedgeBob]

I love the UT games, more than anything iD has ever put out, but I don't think Epic has had near the impact on PC gaming as iD has. iD has pushed boundaries and that is why they have changed PC gaming and set the bar so high at times, not to mention QuakeCon. As a competitive player, when I was playing, I would have killed to see some support from Epic. Instead Q3 dominated competitive gaming because iD supported it.

True, iD loved Q3A so much, that you had Team Arena expansion for it...and they kept releasing patches for it up until around 5 years ago, iirc, just before the release of Quake 4.
Of course, nowadays, I do like UT3 more than Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Quake 4 multiplayer doesn't seem to be as fun as UT3, either. Q4 was more like a Q3A port with id Tech 4 engine.
Of course, ET:QW and Q4 were done by third-party, so can't vouch for that...but Doom 3's multiplayer was done through id themselves, too. Whether that was any better, that was up in the air.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I love the UT games, more than anything iD has ever put out, but I don't think Epic has had near the impact on PC gaming as iD has. iD has pushed boundaries and that is why they have changed PC gaming and set the bar so high at times, not to mention QuakeCon. As a competitive player, when I was playing, I would have killed to see some support from Epic. Instead Q3 dominated competitive gaming because iD supported it.

id may have given their games more support, but I don't think they have effected the face of PC gaming more than Epic has. Epic has pushed technology forward several times themselves, and they have given some games great support.

Frankly, Epic abandoned the competitive community after UT2003 when the competitive community rejected the game they had been asking for for years even though Epic put in tons of time making features just for them. I do think they would have success with an event like QuakeCon, but, for all we know, they'd be sold to Bethesda by now if they spent a bunch of money throwing one of those every year

 

[Beelzebud (Satanas)]

Team Fortress 2 has proven that you don't need a hardcore group of "pros" to make the game popular. It was released around the same time as UT3, and has retained a loyal fan base.

 

[JohnDoe641]

Team Fortress 2 has proven that you don't need a hardcore group of "pros" to make the game popular. It was released around the same time as UT3, and has retained a loyal fan base.

TF2 is still actively being worked on with bug fixes and support from Valve unlike UT3 which was abandoned in an alley like a prom date abortion.

 

[Northrawn]

TF2 is still actively being worked on with bug fixes and support from Valve unlike UT3 which was abandoned in an alley like a prom date abortion.

When UT3 still got it's Patches and Bonus- and Titanpacks the playercount already had dropped far below (and rose for a week only, after the black-patch and Titan Pack).