Unreal Tournament 2015?

[Hellkeeper]

I find the idea of Unreal as an MMO game utterly horrible. As for SP, Epic has not made any good SP since 1998, which was clearly a incredible display of chance. And seriously, a war story? After Gears of War and UT3, I think I know how Epic handles war stories and the "darker and edgier" side of things. No thanks.
What made Unreal's SP good was that at the time, SP could be good with no dialog, almost no story etc. Unreal's SP since then has been U2 (ahah), UT/UC championship-tournament ascensions (which basically means no story or the barebone "this is why you fight the next match, IE UC2, which was their best SP since U1) and UT3's SP (oh god!). Let's stick to MP because that's what Epic screws up the less (though it's not spared by no mean).

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I find the idea of Unreal as an MMO game utterly horrible. As for SP, Epic has not made any good SP since 1998, which was clearly a incredible display of chance. And seriously, a war story? After Gears of War and UT3, I think I know how Epic handles war stories and the "darker and edgier" side of things. No thanks.
What made Unreal's SP good was that at the time, SP could be good with no dialog, almost no story etc. Unreal's SP since then has been U2 (ahah), UT/UC championship-tournament ascensions (which basically means no story or the barebone "this is why you fight the next match, IE UC2, which was their best SP since U1) and UT3's SP (oh god!). Let's stick to MP because that's what Epic screws up the less (though it's not spared by no mean).

I wholeheartedly disagree. I don't mean war in the way it has been potrayed in those games. I am not saying it should be MMO I was just drawing a parallel.
Are you aware however that Unreal was originally planned as more of a MMO to begin with? Even more than what I described. When it still had the largely fantasy theme. And then there were also plans for expansion pack of other team which was supposed to happen after death of Skaarj Queen and the civil war that would erupt on Na Pali as consequence.
And that is precisely why it is a good idea, to combine all this, but instead of a remake/reboot of Unreal, which could work but on the other hand you would get complains of the kind, but this isn't like it was in original, where is this and this, why is there more stuff, why this looks different etc. But by continuing the story and adding variety and open ended world and ability to play as more races/sides especially also in multiplayer, this could work out well.
You are just unable to take your mind off the cliches and what you believe would turn out. Such attitude also creates the crisis of game industry as it is. Taking riscs is what should be done, even if it means alienating masses. Because in the end the game would be valued for it and for breaking the chain.

 

[ambershee]

I'm with Hellkeeper. What you're describing sounds like nonsense to me.

 

[Wail of Suicide]

I don't know why people are so enamored with the idea of MMOs. Nothing says, "Lame" like playing with 1000 random strangers, each of whom can have no lasting impact on the game world because the game has to maintain its state for the other 999 people.

Don't get me wrong, I like playing games with friends. But at most I want some 2-6 people playing cooperatively.

There's no reason to believe that a AAA game studio is willing to produce a game that satisfies people who loves the sort of environmental exploration and storytelling that made Unreal fascinating to most people. It just doesn't have the mass market appeal that a straightforward "Listen to the voice on the radio!" war-shooter game is going to have.
Hourences' Solus looks like it might be exploring that genre pretty well though. I have a lot more faith in him than Epic to do that right.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Of course that kind of stuff is a bit too much. I didn't mean MMO as such, I just said semi-MMO and I absolutely despise the likes of WoW so nothing like that at all.
And where did I say i would have faith in Epic to make it? They could pull it out if they really believed in it and tried but I don't have hoped in that. But some more smalltime/new studio could pull it out. Remember when Metroid Prime came out? That combined Unreal/Metroid stuff into one game and did it with grace despite the rush to push the game out in christmas by nintendo and cutting of some areas. The game was consistent and decent, the "sequels" never got near it. But Retro wasn't that chewed out at the time, they were "fresh" guys. Something like that should happen with Unreal.

 

[ambershee]

What you're describing is an incoherent mess, which is why noone is agreeing with you. You're not going to win this one.

There was actually a very long discussion over what Unreal Tournament 4 (or Unreal 3) should probably constitute on the official forums. It's worth a read as the consensus is largely that UT4 wants to be a relatively modern arena shooter that recognises it's roots, and that it would need to be a fairly small product or otherwise find a non-destructive way to do free-to-play in order to remain competitive in a modern digital PC market.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

What you're describing is an incoherent mess, which is why noone is agreeing with you. You're not going to win this one.

There was actually a very long discussion over what Unreal Tournament 4 (or Unreal 3) should probably constitute on the official forums. It's worth a read as the consensus is largely that UT4 wants to be a relatively modern arena shooter that recognises it's roots, and that it would need to be a fairly small product or otherwise find a non-destructive way to do free-to-play in order to remain competitive in a modern digital PC market.

Tell me one argument as to why it is incoherent mess. All I've heard now is that it sounds like nonsense or the arguments of type "NO NO GEARS OF WAR LIKE STORY" etc which is completely missing the point and not at all what it's about. You can only guess what I exactly mean but you are just comparing it to some of those big examples and can't take your mind off it. I didn't play anything new for ages or didn't play anything in particular for months (which also improves my memory and creativity because of less distractions and numbing).
I stopped reading the Unreal Tournament 4 public ideas because they make me cringe in general. And I had my share of that.
Unreal Tournament on itself didn't quite recognize its roots either. It was a sucess but it wasn't way better than Unreal was. Lots of stuff was lost and the game lost any real consistency over that. It might have been great sucess for casual players and gaming otherwise but on itself it was pretty shallow and watered down in many ways.
I'd go ahead and say that Doom 2 suffered the same kind of thing in a slightly different way.
I think as someone who really dug deep into those game developements I can quite outright say that I am in better position to judge roots in this case. You worked with Uengine 4 already, fine, but that doesn't make you aware of the complexity(and simplicity) of Unreal and UT developement. Have you actually taken your time and read through say some "leaked" design documents or asked the developers themselves specific questions? I doubt that.
UT is painting of a not so awesome but passable "botpack" expansion in a new light and trying to sever the roots as much as possible in order to become the market sucess and be liked by the masses. Everything else is just fooling yourself.
In the end it's the marketing and easy acess what made UT sucesful and that any casual player could just drop in, not the inherent quality of the game which made its sucess. But then there are games which have best of both worlds.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Also I believe arguments such as "let's stick to MP because it's what Epic screws up the least" ludicrous. Because Epic didn't really make any SP. The UT3 stuff was a botmatch with a bad pun story through it. And? And Unreal 2's failure cannot be directly ascribed to Epic, it was developed by Legend, who knew what they were doing btw but TPB thought they know better, hence the linearity and removed multiplayer components and a slapped "new" story on top. It makes perfect sense but that was in time when games still didn't suffer that much from it but Legend was unfortunate to be owned by the Infogrames/Atari giant directly and could decide way more than in the situation with Epic simply with deal with publisher.
Gears of War is another story and as you can see by Cliff's post that I noticed, its developement was influenced by microsoft and "focus groups", but it's still a very different kind of game in the end even though it started as Unreal Warfare.
I go to lengths to make nice explanations/posts but you guys still don't get it and equate my ideas with something like the joke i made now in the ut petition thread. Because I guess that's exactly what you guys think I really have on mind and what you call nonsense.

 

[Hellkeeper]

I know Unreal was originally planned with a hub system and nonlinearity elements. I'm not sure it was planned as an MMO though. But whatever the case, I don't think this has a particular bearing on the matter. What counts is what the game is, not what it could have been. For instance, U2 was planned with tons of great stuff and delivered none. What counts is that the game is bad in the end, unfortunately.
Now to go back on the topic, Unreal was never focused on a war until UT3 and we all know what the result was.
To be honest, Epic is just like id Software in this regard. Quake was awesome because of its vague atmosphere. Just like Unreal, even though Unreal had an actual setting. Quake 2 had a war story and sucked. Q3 and UT were great because they didn't have an excuse plot. Just like UT2004, which was great because its "setting" was just a vague collection of stuff in the description of maps, or UC2 whose story was just an explanation of why you're having mad DM. When id and Epic tried to make stories, we got Q4, UT3 or GoW: bullshit Sci-Fi war which were just embarassing to sit through.

If you want to run on the "UT3 wasn't really SP", then fine. Doesn't change the general flavour that Unreal sucks as SP once you get out of Unreal 1. Not the freshest of news. What then is an SP game in the Unreal setting ? U2? Not made by Epic but it sucked. UC/UC2/UT2k3/UT2k4/UT were excuse plots for multiplayer games. So there, let Unreal and Quake remain multiplayer because they can't be anything else. Their SP sucks if you're not making it a linear oldschool 'run and shoot' SP which is no longer how you do games nowadays.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Okay, let me rephrase then. Not war as an ongoing war which needs to be stopped/fight for a good cause, stop a big threat etc. No. None of that. What is meant here is a conflict, tension and war between races and skaarj clans, after death of their queen this is to be expected. But it's not all ravaging war that needs to be stopped and a major plot point. No. It would simply serve as to tie this whole world together and why you would be able to play as those races eventually. Think of open ended Metroid style play with multiple choices/playing as different characters/races and then also taking this concept into multiplayer and coop which is little more tricky.
Do you understand how I mean it? There was war in Unreal 2 as well, but this would be even more subtle. The wars in GoW UT3 are exagerrated cliches. Same with Quake 2, Quake 4.

Unreal was planned as hub based in the later stages of developement, before it was open ended game like some Metroid titles or Turok games. And before that the plan seemed to be more like MMO indeed. If you'd like to see evidence on that feel free to message me and I can tell you in detail.

 

[Hellkeeper]

Though I don't like this idea, I'll agree this sounds better than the previous one.
However, this raises a second concern about a hypothetical SP Unreal game: whatever you do, at least half the playerbase will hate it. The rest will be split between general indifference and liking the result.
Unreal has a very hard playerbase to please, (largely because it's been disappointed too many times), I think there's no way to win.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Yes, but if one would do a remake, and most of the playerbase would end up hating it then you get even worse result than a loosely based sequel which takes place somewhere else but contains lots of unreal elements, or also having another game on Na Pali with the emphasis of it being way after the events of Unreal and players able to play not just as humans but other races too.
That way I think the riscs of alienating the players is way less especially if it will be made to fit the general look/feel of the original Unreal just expanding on it basically.

 

[Carbon]

I will probably get flamed for this, but this is a rough idea of the game I would like to play.

Think Unreal meets UT. The world is Unreal, the story is a linked series of tournaments, each increasing in formal organization opponent skill, weaponry and currency: enough to get you across the alien terrain to the next tournament, with the culmination of your efforts to be to leave the planet; to get 'home'. The tournaments -staged as recreation by your captors (you do the lore) - are a means to an end, as a gladiator who fought to get to Rome and after victory in the Colosseum, was emancipated.

The tournaments are the UT; multi-staged and varying locations (warping/teleported to battle destinations from a central tournament hosting area). They can be replayed independently of the linking sections and can be a multiplayer aspect to the tournaments. The linking sections are Unreal-like; getting from one tournament hosting area to the next requires a trek. This is where XP is gained, better weapons, armor, etc are acquired and could be the open-world/sandbox aspect. This could include side-missions for cash or loot which could also be multiplayer, but with team-based/lone wolf, goal-oriented objectives. 2 distinct kinds of multiplayer in one package.

So, Malcolm, captive, humiliated after the (some) war is given limited freedom or freedom if and only if; to make his way across the planet to seek emancipation or perhaps they just dump him on a planet where all the deadbeats and criminals form the other planets are similarly dumped (the intergalactic Australia of the English imperial past). His jailors- who have enough respect for him not to kill him outright. If he dies, he dies, if he makes it to the final tournament and wins his freedom (a' la' Gladiator), he will be free. They leave him to fate.

1st person shooter/adventure, tournament deathmatch or whatever other gametype could be used in the tournaments (maybe each tournament has multiple maps of a particular gametype: deathmatch with 10 maps, CTF, Assault, etc), open-world adventure, RPG elements. Leveling up means reward money which can be spent on armor, weapons, etc when they boot you out into the world to get to the next tournament. Survive 5 tournaments and you are free.

Unr3al: Tournaments

I would enjoy that kind of game.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

The gladiator stuff reminds me of this kinda: http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=198343
Otherwise not sure what to think of the idea..I'll be honest and say I don't really like it, at least not in that form. But one of the possible ideas i had for Unreal 4 would be that the character from Unreal 3(my version of it), would be captured at the end of expansion/addon and then sent to Skaarj homeworld to be tortured by Skaarj and also use her knowledge to gain acess to certain technology they are after, but their torture would be of course brutal and cruel and perhaps even involve resurrection only to be killed again. But her and another character which would be new, would end up entering a sort of alternate/pocket universe through the technology, close to the homeworld of the long dead race which created it and who's meddling also had to do with creation of Skaarj as such to begin with, indirectly. But in this world there would be a new and very powerful enemy and at one point the characters could be forced to fight as sort of gladiators in there before they could be freed.

 

[NeoNite]

Play as a Skaarj/any type of interesting monster and go kick some alien's ass, such as Nali and humans. Give the player that option. Another perspective.

You could be a solo Skaarj scout or so, some sort of secret mission. Or (some will hate this) attack nali villages with some sort of supersquad at your dispense.
Just go out there, search and destroy. Capture those planets.

 

[Devastator]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/02/e...-reveal-future-of-unreal-tournament-on-may-8/

 

[Juguard]

I just found out about this. Man, I would love a UT comeback. Hope its done right.