I pretty much agree with what Reclaimer said. UT2k4 imo was a good game, but not really amazing for me. The things he listed are just examples where epic could have just added a bit more polish and the game would have felt a lot nicer. Having to wait 2 years for a patch just so we can see splash effects on the water?
Forgetting all the small little touches which I hope epic improves on, here's my wishlist:
Better menu interface
Mainly the game selection screens that annoy me here. I don't want to have to go through 3 tabs just to start a simple game. 1 Giant screen to select a gametype from a big list...why not have a simple dropdown box like ut? I don't need a long description of the gametype every time I want to start a match. If new players need help then just add a button or something that opens a window explaining the gametype or something.
1 giant page just to select the map? Again what was wrong with the dropdown box in UT?
Bot settings on a completely different tab? Why? It's just an added nusance. Go on the game options tab and uncheck "advanced options". Everything you see there should be on the gametype/map selection screen.
Also again, the overal style of the menu is rather boring and uninspired. I'm not a big fan of the "clean techy" look. Like someone already said, ut's darker "underground fighting" feel was much better.
Better AI
Yeah, the ai in UT2k4 is actually pretty damn good and I was super impressed at the big step up from UT, but I do hope epic try and put something a bit more special into the next UT.
I came up with this idea a while back, I would really like to see ai that is more geared to learning. For example, you are playing a 1on1 map in UT2k4. You rely a LOT on the mapper's botpathing, and even when that is decent, after you have played for a while you notice the bots are taking the same routes over and over and it becomes waaay too easy to exploit this.
An example of what I would like to see. You are playing a bot in rankin. You are up by the lightning gun with the rl and a bot is down by the flak cannon. You just fire a couple of rockets down and bam - easy kill. The bot records that it was killed at this position - down by the flak cannon so now it trys to avoid that area, or at least avoid that area when it knows an opponent is near. The pathnodes could be tagged or something. It also notes that the player that killed it was up by the lightning gun so now the bot knows that is a good place to be and it's a good idea to try and control that area. It could also note that the player was using the rl, so it could try and mimic that tactic and hold that top area with rl or flak cannon.
Then exactly the inverse happens when the bot kills a player, it notes where it was and decides that that was a good tactic to be there with that particular weapon. It also notes to try and avoid the area where the player was.
Same thing could happen in ctf, if a team of bots takes a certain route 10 times and every time it gets wiped out within a few seconds then it should learn that the route is to be avoided. And if the bots make a sucessfull capture, then they should try and use that route more often.
It becomes even more obvious with onslaught, bots simply learn which nodes are key to win the map. For example, it's a good idea in torlan to rush for the middle node at the start of the game so you can quickly disable the enemies' "base node".
I'm thinking maps already have .ucl files so data could be stored in some file like that maybe? Then players could also clear the bot records if they become too difficult to beat
Also got no problem with map file mismatches then.
High quality maps with focus on gameplay
I think this one speaks for itself. I am glad to hear epic are working out all the map layouts first before going any further, that's always essential to get a fun map, but I am already concerned, I already saw in one of the magazine scans a map where you have a weapon on a walkway, then some random ammo over a gap which you have to jump. Use your head, I don't want tomb raider style jumping puzzles to collect 10 ammo for the shock rifle
More original weapon models
I'm personally not bothered about seeing new weapons, and the ones that are supposedly being cut out I'm not too bothered about either (ok, the minigun I am a bit bothered about but it might not matter if it's replacement is done well).
I do however; want to see more inspired weapon models. For example, the link gun in UT2k4, it's just another generic techy type gun, doesn't look very interesting at all. Compare it to UT's pulse gun...ok it wasn't a work of genious but it certainly looked a lot more interesting with the spinning barrel on the end and such.
Look at the spider mine launcer, the avril, the grenade launcher, the lightning gun. All the models seem so uninspired and plain. Just some simple unique quirks make things look so much more interesting, such as the gears on the minigun.
Shield gun? Boring! I want the impact hammer back! Smearing someone with a giant piston vs some generic techy gun with a force field in front? Comeon, use your imagination.
The ripper was a good example, yeah it wasn't a good weapon in terms of gameplay, but firing circular razor blades at someone's head sure was fun
(Even better when you search through the utx files and find it was actually originally designed to launch CDs
)
Better music
Already been mentioned. I personally think there are some nice tracks, but UT's were just simply stronger. Some tracks (eg KR-ChemicalBurn, Level7) are just rather boring and repetative. Others (KR-Conduit, KR-Serenity, Level11, Level13...list goes on) I'm just left thinking...why are they there lol
Don't get me started on the UT2k3 themetune...yay, happy sunshine music
Better single player system
Yeah, I know a lot of players aren't even going to look at the single player ladder, but I think with a bit of work it could actually be quite interesting. There's already some vague signs of "sports sim" style play what with injuries and all. While I certainly don't want to see UT turn into a full sport sim, I would really like to see a much more open-ended single player campaign thing. A proper league with fixtures against other teams I think would be really cool (like what deathball is implimenting) rather than "here, play these matches, oh well done you completed the ladder, the end" which is so boring.
errr wiii that didn't take long
was only supposed to be a short post
