UT2004's devastated community and UT2007's future

[kafros]

naliking ask yourself these simple questions:

1. Would you join an empty server or a server with only 1 player?
2. Would you join a server that has 6 players if you had an indication on the server browser that they were all bots?

Let me guess No, No.

As it is now you can join and after a while the human players replace the bots. If not you quit. But at least there is a chance that someone will join.

 

[Zur]

How about fixing the bots/player issue as follows :

6(4)

Meaning 6 players are real and 4 are bots.

 

[naliking]

I'm going to address Taleweaver's theory and Kafros at the same time.

First off, if you want a one on one match wouldn't you join a 1-on-1 server where the player count is restricted to only two players. Otherwise any server you join may suddenly end up with more players than you bargained for

At any rate Taleweaver's theory and (Kafro's observation) is actually a pretty good theory and is plausible but Taleweaver your account still supports the intent to deceive notion and Kafro's observation supports it as well. There is NO way around that as you will see

While there can be a benefit to seeing how crowded a server is and showing all players on it including bots in the server browser, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT MAKING IT IMMEDIATELY CLEAR WHICH PLAYERS ARE BOTS AND WHICH ARE NOT. It is quite clear from complaints that the average player will not be clicking on names to see what is a bot and what is not. AZURA has shown quite easily how this can be corrected.

While this may or may not have benefits in the server browser, THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO SEND THAT DATA TO A QUERY THAT ASKS FOR THE NUMBER OF PLAYERS on a server and certainly they should not allow that data to end up in the hands of well known stat sites. What is shown in the Server Browser does not have to be dependant on what is sent out in regards to a query.

Now we cannot forget the outcry in the community of people complaining about connecting to a server and then they end up playing bots. People don't want that feature. It annoys them. Epic was aware of that in UT2003 and they were aware of people complaining about Gamespy stats and the same bot counting feature remains in UT2004 after 3 years of complaints for obvious reasons, and they have never responded publicly to any of the complaints for obvious reasons. 3 years is more than enough time to correct the Gamespy stat issue and fix the bot counting as players issue which showed up in UT2003 coincidentally around the same time it was clear the Unreal Franchise was falling apart

 

[Selerox]

Gameplay needs maps.

That was digital extremes. DE made the sucka** UT2003 and then Epic, seeing the horror, tried their best to fix it so it didn't ruin the Unreal Tournament name. Needless to say, Epic is doing this next one themselves.

I stand corrected. No idea why the hell Epic came to mind then

DE make great maps and great artwork, but I really don't think they "get" gameplay. I think the fact that UT2004 was overall a far better game (IMO anyway) than UT2003 bears that out to some extent.

I'm slightly worried about UT3 for one reason. I think the gameplay will be solid as a rock, but I'm worried that the maps won't be up to scratch. Most of the best maps of UT2004 were DE rather than Epic. One plus-point on this is that CliffyB has nothing to do with UT3.

 

[Steyr]

One plus-point on this is that CliffyB has nothing to do with UT3.

Plus point as in "reason to justify my worry" or plus point as in "whew, good, I was worried that he would mess it all up"? Personally I love CliffyB and his works, especially his old UT map DM-Compression. Anyway, he does have a part in UT3, a big part. He's overseeing the whole thing. Not as the designer, but as a step above that. He's like the ideamaker who doesn't have time to manage all the distribution of work and stuff like that. He's also overseeing Gears of War the same way.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

My understanding is that you connect to the Master Server list to get a list of servers. Once you have those server IPs, you can make your query directly to those servers to get the data that you want. This means if you only want to monitor a select group of servers and you know their IP, you don't have to go through the Master Server in order to create a statistic summary regarding number of players and whatever other data the game gives out.

The problem is judging what you actually have based on that information. AFAIK, player numbers aren't counted in the server browser by how many PlayerController's are actually in the game, but (if there are people on the server) the number of bots minus the number of players. Otherwise the bots aren't counted, period.

Discord a UT2004 admirer has already backed up my claim that hand counting UT2004 players more often than not matches up with www.csports.net data. The difference between me an you is that I along with friends have very often counted UT2004 players by hand. Wait t'il 2AM USA time and then count the players yourself. I already demonstrated to you that it is easily plausible for UT2004 to have 7000 bots and only 1000 players

How accurate is your hand counting? Not very, I would guess. I don't know what kind of friends you have that their idea of a fun Saturday night is sitting around in the UT2004 Server Browser counting one by one every person playing UT2004. The numbers I have seen on GameSpy are pretty accurate. Also consider that GameSpy counts vanilla gametypes, as well as mods. There is not really a thorough way to count every single person playing UT2004 by hand. If CSports is only counting Vanilla gametypes (minus ONS/AS/VCTF/ and mods) then I might agree with their numbers more.

Actually my opinion comes from real world observation and actual participation in validating the data myself. Your opinion and remarks are just the typical knee jerk reaction of the typical fanboy.

Actually, my information comes from real world information. I PLAY UT2004. You very apparently do not. I know what the player numbers look like, and it's not 7000 bots and 1000 players. No matter what you "say", that is an astronomical overexaggeration. Considering the way that bot counting works in UT2004, it is next to impossible for 7000 bots to be appearing in the server browser when there are only 1000 people playing.

Perhaps Epic is working on creating a bunch of dummy fictional servers for UT2007 which nobody can connect to in order to play, and those servers will always appear to be full. However they will be full of A.I bots with PINGS, pretending to be real players and those servers will then broadcast false data in order to inflate UT2007's player count. Then no filter will be able to detect a bot from a human player .

Maybe they will filter you out of the internet. OH CONSPIRACY :tinhat:

I find Taleweaver's theory to be the most reasonable. It isn't really creating false information. If anything, it is giving a big F U to every stats site out there that cares about player numbers, because everyone would ALREADY KNOW THEY WERE FAKE. Is there anyone that thinks Gamespy's numbers are accurate? Because I don't. But I don't trust CSports anymore than I trust them. And I'd rather play a game or do any one of a million other things I have to do before I start sitting around counting players in the server browser.

 

[hal]

Afaik, Cliffy isn't working on UT2007 at all.

Steve Polge is the project lead and Jim Brown is the lead level designer. Cliff may very well sit in on the meetings, play-test, and throw in his .02, but he's heavily involved with Gears of War as its project lead.

Taleweaver makes some good arguments in favor of a non-conspiritorial theory. Let me throw a few more things out that I believe further discount a willful deception:

1) There is more than one stats site. What's the point in "trying to fool" just one?
2) How would Epic possibly know that UT2003 players numbers would eventually dwindle? As I recall, the player numbers were pretty decent for the first few months.
3) Assuming that they were "willfully trying to fool" a single stats site, and having just poured their heart into UT2004, believing it to be a much better product and seeing the enormous numbers generated by the UT2004 demo... why continue to "be deceptive"?
4) Anybody can click on a server that shows player numbers and see for themselves how many human players there are. Bot names are not displayed.
5) From a sales standpoint, what kind of impact does gamespy's stats page really have? The vast majority of people that bought UT2004 (and many "multiplayer" games with a single player aspect) never play online.

I agree completely that Gamespy stats for UT200x are incorrect, but isn't that Gamespy's fault? CSports counts the unique players and does just fine. While I'd like to see a better definition in the server browser totals of actual people playing and a more accurate count on Gamespy's stats page, it ultimately doesn't matter to me if it is right or not as long as I can find a game that I like.

 

[shadow_dragon]

Here's a possibility. Maybe EPic never fixed this problem because no one ever really cared? Possibly a few anti UT Quake3 fan boys cared but? Seriously? Why should epic go out of their way to fine tune the reports that Gamespy, (Read, someone else) tells everyone.
Personalyl i avoid gamespy liek the plague, gamespy's sites are always a mess and whenever i get linked to something to do with them i get irritated fairly quickly.

Personally, when i buy a game and, i would liek to think that most people do too and i know everyone i know does this, but personally, when i buy a game, when i go out and purchase a game that i want to play or order a game online i check to see how it looks and check to see what it does and how well it does it. People bought UT2004 ebcause it's got goodplay and good graphics.
NOT even when Epic or UT spokespersons let information go about their game or upcoming games do they quote gamespy stats to my memory. THey know that all people care about is THE game.

I don't care if Gamespy doesn't report things correctly myself and i don't see why server admins would be so outraged as to "complain" as much as Naliking suggests they do/did. Does it harm them?

Most of this thread has turned into a conspiracy theory and it's not the first time it's been provoked by Naliking. Surely you should've made your point by now old man?

 

[naliking]

1) There is more than one stats site. What's the point in "trying to fool" just one?

Their intent was most likely to fool ALL stat sites, and they DID. They also fool other 3rd party tools which connect to servers.
www.csports.net was fooled for the longest time. In fact csports was so fooled by UT200X false data, that they even did feature articles about the stunning number of players that were playing UT2003 (or was it UT2004?) and were not aware of how quickly the number of players dropped . In fact I think csport's main administrator is a UT200x modder. I think he posts here some times.

After a number of complaints csports did something about it, which no doubt unmasked the UT2003-4 bot scandal of the 21st century
Gamespy on the other hand admits they became aware of the issue on the atari forums but does nothing about it

From a sales standpoint, what kind of impact does gamespy's stats page really have? The vast majority of people that bought UT2004 (and many "multiplayer" games with a single player aspect) never play online.

With regard to many multiplayer games are played offline. This is true but after UT99, UT2003 and UT2004 are largely recognized as online only games because their single-player is so poor. A few people will play offline to practice against bots and many will play through the single player aspect once, but most people familiar with the series probably bought it for online play.

Let's assume there was no deception involved whatsoever. Why would they avoid answering the question for 3 years, about the bot issue. It would only take half a second to say. Yes its true or No its not.

The reason is because the Unreal Series benefits immensely from this deception because even though they cannot retain players they get tons of publicity from websites and magazines that continually say that UT2004 is at the top of the heap in online games, and they use Gamespy stats to back that up. "Buy UT2007 the sequel to UT2004 which is the 3rd most popular online shooter according to Gamespy!"

In the end, when they finally do answer the question, I'm sure they'll probably make up an excuse similar to Taleweaver's fictional account, but they will never be able to deny, regardless of however the bot scandal got started, that they intentionally used it to fool the public into thinking this was a popular game.

 

[PsychoMoggieBagpuss]

I think you need to stay away from the meths or even better, find a game you like and then post in their community.
Your entire post record at BU consists of either posts rubbishing the games in the U-engine series, talking about csports and how the player numbers are a fix or suggesting that we are part of big conspiracy to get people to buy Pariah.
If you don't like the Unreal games then what are you actually doing here in the first place (apart from trolling)?

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I've never seen any of UT's PR even mention GameSpy stats. I've never heard a ranking associated with UT unless it was "Best Multiplayer Game ever" from Epic. Why would you admit you were only the 3rd most popular online game? If there is any deception it's in the markleting (which, I might add, doesn't even reference GameSpy stats) when they say that a certain game is the most popular game of all time. But why would any respectable company say anything else??

 

[Discord]

Since Sci-Fi shooters arent the most popular genre Epic needs to make UT2007 shine and shine brightly.

That is absolutely true, and it's probably the one good thing that will ever come out of a thread like this.

UT2004 is a really good game IMO... it's relatively bug- free for at least a decent majority of users, it's got more content than you can shake a stick at, the weapon balance is awesome, the classic gamemodes (DM/CTF) came out really well this time, ONS is obviously unfinished but still pretty fun, the GFX are nice, the features are plentiful (hell, it has crossplatform voice chat, you can't beat that with a stick), it's nothing to sneeze at this UT2004.

But just being "really good" isn't going to cut it any more, mostly due to the franchise's age and the overall decline of the genre. The next UT is going to be called on to take it to the hole, so to speak, in every conceivable way.

I'm usually somewhat pessimistic by nature, so I don't know if Epic can pull it off this time out. I definitely know I'm not going to complain if they do, though.

 

[captainrad]

Your opinion and remarks are just the typical knee jerk reaction of the typical fanboy.

someone is a csports fanboy.. wont let that site go for a moment. not to mention sterotypical

 

[naliking]

I think you need to stay away from the meths or even better, find a game you like and then post in their community.
Your entire post record at BU consists of either posts rubbishing the games in the UT franchise, talking about csports and how the player numbers are a fix or suggesting that we are part of big conspiracy to get people to buy Pariah.
If you don't like the Unreal games then what are you actually doing here apart from trolling?

Of course you would have no problem if my entire post history consisted of gloryfying UT200X's amazing rise to the top of the first person shooter list based on false data. I guess if posting facts and truths to the contrary is trolling then I'm one of the biggest trolls on this forum

If you say I hate all Unreal games then you don't know my post history. I do like one Unreal title, but I'll let you guess which one that is. I've also made one or two posts about what is good about the Unreal Series...I think

Most of this thread has turned into a conspiracy theory and it's not the first time it's been provoked by Naliking. Surely you should've made your point by now old man?

Yes I think I've made my point, but my intentions for posting was simply to clear up some misconceptions that keep coming up concerning UT2003/UT2004's claim to popularity.

Is it just me or is this environment a bit hostile? - hehe

Here's hoping UT2007 is a successful game provided they do things honestly. That should calm the fanboys down

 

[naliking]

I've never seen any of UT's PR even mention GameSpy stats. I've never heard a ranking associated with UT unless it was "Best Multiplayer Game ever" from Epic. Why would you admit you were only the 3rd most popular online game? If there is any deception it's in the markleting (which, I might add, doesn't even reference GameSpy stats) when they say that a certain game is the most popular game of all time. But why would any respectable company say anything else??

I never mentioned UT's PR mentioning Gamespy stats. They probably have, but they don't need to because others will do it for them. I have however seen magazines and news sites and review sites mention it. This is no different from game publishers and developers quoting review sites about how their game scored 9/10 or 10/10 and believe me there is plenty of that. . You cannot forget all the magazines that look at Gamespy's stats and claim UT2004 is a top game but they don't bother mention Gamespy in their article, but Gamespy influenced them to come to that conclusion.

There is also the added benefit that sometimes statistics actually influence reviewers who believe that if tons of people are playing a game, then the game can't possibly be bad

 

[hal]

Most of your posts have nothing to do with facts but are just your theories. You've taken a handful of things and tried to link them, adding in a hidden motivation, of which you know nothing about. Keep trying though.

Oh, and yes, the vast majority of people who buy UT games do not play online. Certainly not every day, possibly not every month. Figure out the sales versus the online numbers. Yet again, another conjecture on your part.

I'm glad you like UT - I really am. I like it to. But let the wild unsubstantiated theories go. Or at least don't pose your opinion as fact.

 

[nuttella]

With regard to many multiplayer games are played offline. This is true but after UT99, UT2003 and UT2004 are largely recognized as online only games because their single-player is so poor. A few people will play offline to practice against bots and many will play through the single player aspect once, but most people familiar with the series probably bought it for online play.

You're wrong about that. There's not much to the single-player Tournament, but many people, myself included, continue to play primarily or only "practice" matches. The UT series' bot AI is quite simply the best FPS AI there is. Clearly Epic recognized the popularity of offline play by putting the work into creating the best bots on the planet. And "people familiar with the series" are well aware of the quality of botplay...

 

[shadow_dragon]

Yes I think I've made my point, but my intentions for posting was simply to clear up some misconceptions that keep coming up concerning UT2003/UT2004's claim to popularity.

There is no misconception. UT(number) is popular.
Popularity=Selling lots of games and people playing game and liking it!
Popularity doesn't = What Gamespy says.

 

[T2A`]

I'm slightly worried about UT3 for one reason. I think the gameplay will be solid as a rock, but I'm worried that the maps won't be up to scratch. Most of the best maps of UT2004 were DE rather than Epic. One plus-point on this is that CliffyB has nothing to do with UT3.

My thoughts exactly. I really wish they'd get some maps from DE... We need more of their skill to get cool maps lronic, and we need a retail Soma map or two! They really should get contract work from the best community mappers like Hourences again. Very good decision for UT2004.

 

[Plumb_Drumb]

My thoughts exactly. I really wish they'd get some maps from DE... We need more of their skill to get cool maps lronic, and we need a retail Soma map or two! They really should get contract work from the best community mappers like Hourences again. Very good decision for UT2004.

i think whoever made the UC2 maps should make some maps for our new game.
Those maps are incredible, for the most part; far surpassing most maps in UT2004.
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