UT3 Postmortem

[fuegerstef]

No neither I just don't remember the game getting patched early on or users complaining a lot about bugs (or me encountering any bugs). But like I said if they did patch the actual game through automatic means it was transparent to me. I did play the game pretty quickly so maybe these patches came out after I was already done?

The game was and is constantly patched. And it (or the source engine) had a lot of (mainly technical) problems to be fixed from the start. The first patch was about 40 days after release though (where I already had completed it too). And how could you miss the sound-stuttering-uproar for example?

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Half-Life 2 Thread of Release (Shacknews Comments) 1
Half-Life 2 Thread of Release (Shacknews Comments) 2
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Besides, A MP needs more patches than a strict SP game because the SP only runs on ONE client with one player in an otherwise computer controlled environment:

If you take HL2 DM into consideration (which you probably did not) you'd see it is still patched and had much, much more stuff needed to be patched.

Patch from November 2007(!!!) of a 2004 game (excerpt):
"Fixed Half-Life 2: Deathmatch crowbar swing speed difference between Windows and Linux servers"
"Fixed Half-Life 2: Deathmatch chat bug on Linux servers"


The good thing about Steam is that a patch gets applied automatically (if you don't uncheck that option) and so there is not as much need to collect a lot of changes into one major patch.

 

[Anuban]

I recall seeing the fixes that had to do with the online portion of the game ... I don't recall the sound stuttering-uproar because I never encountered the bug. I finished the game in the first three weeks I had it IIRC so yeah I never saw bad bugs ... after than I never played the entire game again ... just certain parts of the game ... I dunno I was never affected. But okay. In any event UT3 is far more exciting and even with bugs a way more enjoyable for me. For example I still haven't finished HL2:EP2 but I play UT3 almost everyday ... I have to be seriously ill or out of town that day for me not to play UT3 ... seriously, I am that addicted to the gameplay and the graphics. I really like playing this game.

 

[fuegerstef]

My post wasn't about liking UT3 or not. I like parts of UT3 too. It was maily to show how much harder it is to release a MP game than a SP game without the need to patch it. (If you happen to have the whole Orange Box you could look up the fixes and patches of TF2 and certainly see that it needed more fixes than you and me would have ever thought).

 

[Grobut]

Well, all I have is this...if you have such a strong distaste for UT3, why do you stick around this forum bitching about it? Why not move on? In all sincerity, every one of you who perpetually bitch about how bad this game is need to get a life. It appears to me that some of you have made it some personal mission in life to chase away everyone who might like the game. Way to go. IMO, you guys are doing more of a disservice to the game than Epic could ever have done, because your actions are a result of malice.

BS, i am here because i love UT, and i allways have, and i am "bitching" because i desperately want UT3 to be good, i want it to succeed! if i didn't care about it, i would have moved on a long time ago, it would just be yet another game on my shelf that didn't turn out well.
But it is still on my HDD, even though i haven't been able to play the game for months due to the .exe crash problem (i can't play at all, this bug has really hit me hard), its still there, i haven't been able to uninstall it, i just dont want to let it go, i want to love the game.

No problem was ever solved by ignoring it though, so i press on, and yes, sometimes it sounds like i am just slamming the game, but that is because people like you are constantly demanding that i "back up what i say", and i have to go into long winded posts about all the things i see are broken with the game (and also Epic's way of handling PR and community relations as of late), i have to proove to you guys that something is infact broken before i can finally say "thease things needs fixing!" which is my whole point to begin with, but ofcourse, you guys just ignore that last part and only read the negative.

Admittedly though, this has at times worn me out and i have said some things that i really could have worded better or in a nicer way, but that's what happens when you have to fight tooth and nail over every opinion, and every argument.


The irony is, we are actually all on the same page here, we all want the same thing, but instead of rallying around UT3, and doing something good, conflicts are made between the people who cry out for fixes, and the people who misinterprit this as an attack and go into "must defend game at all costs" mode, and the situation has really spiraled out of control now, and everything is allways a bloody fight.

 

[BooGiTyBoY]

I'd just like to remind everyone here that there is an EDIT button on each of your own posts. *cough Anuban *cough Fuegerstef *cough

No need for double or triple postings...

And to stay on topic I shall reiterate my previous post.

I'm not saying UT3 is a bad game, it's just not up to Epic's previous games quality. Even the games people didn't agree were great were still "solid" and "fully-functional" upon release.

 

[Mozi]

This was the last GDC talk I went to. It was quite well done.

Not sure when but soon I will have access to audio recordings from GDC talks, though I am not sure if I am allowed to post them online, because I would really like to share this one in particular with the community.

However, about the current UI, yes it is not the best, but the UI Concept they had planned for UT3 that they showed us was even worse. The concept involved looking from the inside of the Warfare power cores, the whole UI is spinning and on one of the plates of the power core was a UI menu. Once you selected an option let's say new game, that power core plate would be shot off and fly away, then UI would rapidly spin to a new power cower plate with more options... this process repeats many times till you have all the settings you need to play a game... Hopefully this made some sense but I am so glad that this 'power core' UI fell through the ground and never saw the light of day, well until GDC at least, but I assume now it is buried for sure.

Nonetheless got to meet Mike and Jeff, had them sign the little UT 3 art book that came with the collectors edition and traded business cards with them.

 

[zeitgeber]

You should question why a handful of people invest so much time and energy talking about something that makes them angry. The ignore feature of this forum can help .

dedicating 8years to the series, being told the game is "PC first", "PC gamers are our bread and butter", "when its done" blah blah blah only to get a "****ed" game in the end tends to do that to you. I bet if it wernt for the whiners, you would have looked and at the sales numbers and said "yea the game was perfect... its just that PC gaming is dead, just listen at Brizz he thought he game was great and best in the series"

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Most people aren't referring to the "game" part of the game when they say it isn't up to par.

 

[brdempsey69]

now stop whining and lets get all those issues you didnt have time to finish and polish going for UT3.5 Xtreme Edition!

If I read into that correctly, it sounds like you're wanting Epic to re-release a finished version of UT3, in which case you and I would have to pay them again.

Don't you think that it would be better for Epic to simply just fix UT3, which you've already paid for? Especially since it's barely 4 months old?

The damage has been done for a lot of folks and a re-release in the form of UT3.5 isn't going to restore their faith.

What's really needed is for Epic to fix what's broken with UT3 and fill in the missing pieces.

If these rocket scientists, game designers that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off their fans cant implement a custom crosshair feature even after their 2nd patch, pffft, they aint getting my money.

I still have'nt bought the game and still dont care to unless I see a serious overhaul of the UI. I can't stand having to put my favorate mutators in everytime I load the game, having to wait to load after every match everytime just to get to an optionless, featureless menu system. I have no patience of a massive step backwards menu system just to play an instand action match that last almost as long as the menu loads.

I don't blame you at all. I really hate it that my Instant Action settings aren't saved as well as any Setbind keys and I have to reset the motherf*ckers everytime I start Instant Action. Instead, since I have 4 desktops, I use one as a dedicated server and play with bots that way -- which still haven't been entirely fixed yet, BTW.

 

[EdWinchester]

Nice for them to speak up abit about it all, but seriously its to late.

I might have missed this news spot on beyondunreal, but according to the interview with joystiq from GDC 2008... Now linux UT3 client is just a pet project...

From day one I was told i could play this game on linux.. this has been stated several times.. among this post Mark Rein

Seriously.. thats a joke

...The ignore feature of this forum can help ...

thx for the hint, you have been added.. to bad mods cant be added.

 

[kafros]

I would like to remind BooGiTyBoY that he has left this forum.

 

[Deapblade]

Nice for them to speak up abit about it all, but seriously its to late.

I might have missed this news spot on beyondunreal, but according to the interview with joystiq from GDC 2008... Now linux UT3 client is just a pet project...

From day one I was told i could play this game on linux.. this has been stated several times.. among this post Mark Rein

Seriously.. thats a joke

Isn't the client already out? I believe I read that somewhere. Anyway if it is not it is indeed bad. I always found that Linux support was one of the things that made quality games stand out from ordinary games (and yes I used Linux for about 2 years).

Also, have you tried running it with Cedega?

 

[Raynor.Z]

This was the last GDC talk I went to. It was quite well done.

Not sure when but soon I will have access to audio recordings from GDC talks, though I am not sure if I am allowed to post them online, because I would really like to share this one in particular with the community.

However, about the current UI, yes it is not the best, but the UI Concept they had planned for UT3 that they showed us was even worse. The concept involved looking from the inside of the Warfare power cores, the whole UI is spinning and on one of the plates of the power core was a UI menu. Once you selected an option let's say new game, that power core plate would be shot off and fly away, then UI would rapidly spin to a new power cower plate with more options... this process repeats many times till you have all the settings you need to play a game... Hopefully this made some sense but I am so glad that this 'power core' UI fell through the ground and never saw the light of day, well until GDC at least, but I assume now it is buried for sure.

Nonetheless got to meet Mike and Jeff, had them sign the little UT 3 art book that came with the collectors edition and traded business cards with them.

I'm glad you got a chance to meet and talk with them. I guess they ditched that powecore-UI with a reason, but I still remember early UT "Envy" days talk about "in-game lobbys" and "waiting rooms" that supposed to play some sort of role in user interface.

 

[BooGiTyBoY]

I would like to remind BooGiTyBoY that he has left this forum.

No, I left the UT3 forum, not BU entirely, so try adding something constructive to the thread next time.

It's also because of people like you and your comments that I no longer frequent said forum.

Have a nice day now.

 

[ShredPrince]

Yeah, what's weird is they got it right in the article propper. Well, since that's my father's name, it sounds like he just got some game jouralism ink!

WAZ UPPPPPPPPPPP Mike

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

Four pages of posts, and the question is still unasnwered:

Is it going to be fixed, or are we only getting an admission of mistakes?

 

[ShredPrince]

Postmortem:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postmortem

post·mor·tem
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin post mortem after death
Date: 1832
1 : done, occurring, or collected after death <postmortem tissue specimens>
2 : following the event <game release>

~Note that most will take it a definition 1, as I did.

 

[Spank$hot_BT]

Most people aren't referring to the "game" part of the game when they say it isn't up to par.

Your kidding yourself, there are a great many of us that think the 'game' part is a huge step backwards. In isolation it is a respectable game, compared to 2k4 its a huge step backwards. The UI/browser issues simply overshadows the 'game' issue.

The game was and is constantly patched. And it (or the source engine) had a lot of (mainly technical) problems to be fixed from the start. The first patch was about 40 days after release though (where I already had completed it too). And how could you miss the sound-stuttering-uproar for example?

Audio Stuttering (Steam Users Forum) (1,700+ posts, 200,000+ views)
Audio Problem with HL2 (Halflife2.net) (760+ posts, 81,000+ views)
Game Skipping (Half-Life Fallout Forums) (110+ posts)
Audio Problems (Halflife2.net) (60+ posts, 6,000+ views)
Anyone get small 'stuttering' in HL2? (Halflife2.net) (50+ posts, 5,000+ views)
Half-Life 2 Tech Thread: Loading Tweak p16 (Penny Arcade Forums) (650+ posts, 27,000+ views)
Half-Life 2 stuttering issue (Rage3D Forums)
Half-Life 2 Thread of Release (Shacknews Comments) 1
Half-Life 2 Thread of Release (Shacknews Comments) 2
Games: Half Life 2 Stuttering Bug Official (Slashdot) (300+ posts)
What we know about the Half Life 2 stuttering issue thus far ([H]ard|Forum) (90+ posts, 2,600+ views)



Besides, A MP needs more patches than a strict SP game because the SP only runs on ONE client with one player in an otherwise computer controlled environment:

If you take HL2 DM into consideration (which you probably did not) you'd see it is still patched and had much, much more stuff needed to be patched.

Patch from November 2007(!!!) of a 2004 game (excerpt):
"Fixed Half-Life 2: Deathmatch crowbar swing speed difference between Windows and Linux servers"
"Fixed Half-Life 2: Deathmatch chat bug on Linux servers"


The good thing about Steam is that a patch gets applied automatically (if you don't uncheck that option) and so there is not as much need to collect a lot of changes into one major patch.

Just out of interest fuegerstef, was there a wall of silence, willy nilly banning, thread locking and general heads in the sand from valve about these issues?

...but that is my opinion and I feel like I am entitled to it.

Good for you Anuban. This 'ignoring' extension of the epic forums is getting a little tiresome. If the epic boards are anything to go by then i'm sure that there's only a few of us here that he isn't ignoring.

 

[ShredPrince]

Most people aren't referring to the "game" part of the game when they say it isn't up to par.

Wrong Brizz. Those people just did'nt buy it, so no reason to complain, cause they were'nt blinded by fanboiness enough to get burned AGAIN. No offense to you, it's your job kinda to buy UT3.

 

[haarg]

Postmortem:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postmortem

~Note that most will take it a definition 1, as I did.

In the context of games (and game mods), it is always referring to the first second definition. You being unable to figure out what they are taking about doesn't change their intentions.

As far as complaints about the 'game' portion, that is a totally different type of complaint that about lack of polish and the like. Complaining about the gameplay is like complaining that CoD4 doesn't have a flak cannon. Maybe it didn't match what you want, but it matches what Epic intended and still wants. Aside from changes in Warfare over the course of development (which they touched on in the postmortem), it also matches very well what Epic claimed they would deliver.