UT3 Titan Pack in Escapist Show

[Miker]

PEW PEW PEW!

 

[JohnDoe641]

POO POO POO!

 

[Wail of Suicide]

I think it's pretty obvious that UT3 has War on Terror overtones. I mean, really, it's just coincidental that we've got the Twin Souls/Towers, being attacked by a bunch of characters with an obvious Muslim-inspired belief system?

The out-of-the-blue injunctions to "Not turn this into a holy war?" Even though Reaper's motivations are obviously not religiously motivated in any way, but merely vengeful?

The stepping in of the NEG / International community, and the widely-condemned but-not-stopped unilateral invasion of the Middle East / Necris homeworld?

I'm not sure that these parallels are intended, but they exist. There was, at the very least, something "in the air" when Mike Capps scribed the Miltonian masterpiece describing the meteoric rise and fall of that brightest of roided-up-space-wrestlers, Reaper.

 

[Benfica]

You complain about "naive or censored" taunts, then you say mild profanity isn't OK. (Back to carebears in wonderland?). Are you trying to say a couple curse words is the end of the world, or are you trying to say that it either needs to be there in full force or not at all, the problem is the fact that they're partially sanitized rather than eliminated or fully utilized?

No, it's exactly the opposite. I like both violence and profanity, my point is that it's lame to keep one and be afraid of including the other.

...
Ok Dark Pulse, I'll copy/paste this part again and put a few things in bold to make it easier for you:

I can identify what gave me that "bad feeling" in the beginning, and still would if I didn't manage to ignore, get rid or workaround all that crap.

Red is not pink. Ever.

Rofl. Post a screenshot with (R=255,G=0,B=0)

The hit effects are nice. They provide visual feedback, and likely can be disabled within the INI options if you don't like it.

There's enough visual feedback on the game if you have a clue. You didn't need them on UT or UT2004.

Depth of field is about the only remotely legit complaint that is here, but it doesn't screw with me that much, and I'm practically one-eyed for all intents and purposes. Learn to adjust or wear some glasses. Or disable it, if you don't mind things looking a bit bland.

Worked-around. On the new UI, set "World Detail" to low iirc.

The grungification is an improvement compared to 2kx's ultra-sterilized look. Dark and gritty is what more players wanted, and it's what they got. Now you're going to complain about it?

I love lightmaps or bump-mapping. IIRC the UE2 flat look is because NVidia Geforce2 didn't support bump-mapping back then, so they needed to resort to detail-textures. But it's obvious you see it as another excuse to rant and show your UT200x hate. I'm just saying that it's overdone and maps are usually too dark. I tweaked settings on the graphics card driver control panel to work around it though.

The fact that the SP is a war has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Including real-life events. Quit trying to find "justifications" for your weak arguements. It's a war because it'd make for better SP, rather than "Hey, you moved up in a ladder, kill these guys now."

Sure it doesn't And now you are even against the idea of a tournament ...

"Aggressive and Unfriendly?" What do you want, fields of poppies and happy little trees painted by Bob Ross? It's a bloodsport. It should look like a bloodsport. The loading movies can be disabled if you hate them that much, and the UI is now a black-blue as of Patch 2.0.

Ok, it's hard to describe, but when I played mature games, I did so because of "blood boiling" violence and/or tension, but providing me immersion and gratification. Quake 1, Bioshock and UT in a way do that, UT3 looks like a mindless stereotyped attempt to be "badass" that doesn't feel right

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. UT has always been a newbie-unfriendly game, but the most populous gametypes are the ones where they can actually kill people - VCTF and Warfare.

Well no, it didn't. I'm not talking about "killing people". I'm talking about a worthwhile challenge vs something that makes them feel powerless, even if it takes a while to start fragging. And what's more, you shouldn't have a steep learning curve in the very beginning, the point of skill is to tell average players from the good ones. You have that on UT and UT2004

Of course, nobody "good" will play them, since tanks one-shotting a pro is "lame" and "stupid". As opposed to, you know, strategizing to take out the tank without it hitting you?

Guess what, some people are not scared to be "pwned by a n00b". There are lots of players out there that aren't pros or play to "pwn". Some people don't care about owning, they care about winning which is something different.

The Orb actually made Warfare more competitive. In 2k4, on Torlan if your prime node went down and the enemy got every node up, the battle was essentially over for the team whose prime went down...

UT2004? wtf does it have to do with my point, which is noob-bashing, rants and degraded online experience.

Really? So I guess you missed Jester shouting "I don't want that
**** in my hair!" then? There's swearing. And one of the things I like the most about UT3 is the gore. At least people explode into gibs again, rather than leaving most of their torso and their thighs no matter how bad of a shot they took.

Ok fine. Still my point was the other way around: when I said mild profanity wasn't OK, it wasn't ok for them. What sense does it make avoiding "Combo Whore" and "Holy ****" etc.

See above for my explanation on how you "tried" to tie the SP into modern-day events.

Whatever, each to his own here.

Seriously... most of your complaints are of the incredibly stupid variety, and mostly **** not worth bitching over. Some of them are flat-out WRONG!

Where was I even trying to convince you of anything on that post or try to state opinions as facts ? I was describing my personal view, first impressions, and that it took a while to tweak the game the way I like.

 

[Dark Pulse]

Rofl. Post a screenshot with (R=255,G=0,B=0)

Won't happen, for one reason - Flat out 255/0/0 would look completely flat. That said, several of the screenshots I went over damn well sure had a Red value of 255. Shades of red and pink are necessary to present the illusion that lights are in the models. The actual model skin color is more red than pink, so it's red. Don't ****ing nitpick.

There's enough visual feedback on the game if you have a clue. You didn't need them on UT or UT2004.

Sure you did. UT would turn damn near your whole screen red if you got hurt real bad, i.e; a headshot. 2k4 did far less here, settling for colored chevrons approximating the direction.

Worked-around. On the new UI, set "World Detail" to low iirc.

Fair enough. It'll look like crap, but it solves your problem.

I love lightmaps or bump-mapping. IIRC the UE2 flat look is because NVidia Geforce2 didn't support bump-mapping back then, so they needed to resort to detail-textures. But it's obvious you see it as another excuse to rant and show your UT200x hate. I'm just saying that it's overdone and maps are usually too dark. I tweaked settings on the graphics card driver control panel to work around it though.

While I do feel 2kx is the least strong of the entries, I don't unabashedly hate on it every chance I get. But far too many maps looked too clean... it didn't "feel" right. I believe you are correct in why that stuff wasn't in there... I do know that later on someone invented a method to fake bumpmapped textures, but it was quite resource intensive and only worked on 256x256 textures, due to him using IceTextures IIRC.

Sure it doesn't And now you are even against the idea of a tournament ...

Was it in the back of their minds? Probably. Did they say "Hey, let's make UT3 a commentary on the Iraq War!" Probably not. And I'm not against a tournament-like setting, but when you get to the gist of it, it's still glorified botmatches - the only difference is now there's sometimes little story bits. To be fair, you really can't make the SP too much more than glorified botmatches, but people wanted a more involved SP... and this one tanked. I'm against something like this happening again more than another simple tournament ladder.

Ok, it's hard to describe, but when I played mature games, I did so because of "blood boiling" violence and/or tension, but providing me immersion and gratification. Quake 1, Bioshock and UT in a way do that, UT3 looks like a mindless stereotyped attempt to be "badass" that doesn't feel right.

You're really nitpicking here. Especially since these are about the menu and the loading screens. Patch 2.0 just came out, and that makes the menu less EXTREME. You might like it better. Loading screens will remain, though those can, again, be removed or even replaced if you so choose.

Well no, it didn't. I'm not talking about "killing people". I'm talking about a worthwhile challenge vs something that makes them feel powerless, even if it takes a while to start fragging. And what's more, you shouldn't have a steep learning curve in the very beginning, the point of skill is to tell average players from the good ones. You have that on UT and UT2004

UT always has been one of the most complex FPS games to play, and simply put, there's no way you could really reduce that without removing things like walldodges, altfire, and a whole bunch of other stuff that would make UT stop feeling like UT. If people practice enough, they'll eventually get good. Most people, however, want something simpler, and that's why TF2 has tons of people.

Guess what, some people are not scared to be "pwned by a n00b". There are lots of players out there that aren't pros or play to "pwn". Some people don't care about owning, they care about winning which is something different.

Regardless, the stereotype remains that somehow VCTF and Warfare/Onslaught are "inferior" gametypes in the minds of some. These people will refuse to play these gametypes on that basis, because all they'll see is the Manta running them over, or the scorpion homing in on their Viper, or the Goliath one-shotting them, conclude it sucks, and never play it again.

UT2004? wtf does it have to do with my point, which is noob-bashing, rants and degraded online experience.

Noob bashing and rants are, sadly, always going to happen. (Look at what we're both doing for a good example.) Competitiveness, however, has went up - the orb makes it possible to hold a key node or to push an attack harder. It makes Warfare considerably more balanced than Onslaught ever was. I've been on the end of many one-sided Torlan matches in 2k4, on both ends. They rarely happen in UT3.

Ok fine. Still my point was the other way around: when I said mild profanity wasn't OK, it wasn't ok for them. What sense does it make avoiding "Combo Whore" and "Holy ****" etc.

More nitpicking. "Holy ****" was a stupid kill level anyway, the same way "Wicked Sick" was a stupid spree level. Perhaps they were trying something different, rather than going "HAY LETZ TAKE PROFANITY OUT OF TEH GAME LAWLLLLL."

Whatever, each to his own here.

Couldn't agree more.

Where was I even trying to convince you of anything on that post or try to state opinions as facts ? I was describing my personal view, first impressions, and that it took a while to tweak the game the way I like.

And I am describing my personal views as well - that a lot of the stuff is mostly rather silly things to get hyped up over, especially Red/Pink and the Menu/Load screens being too "extreme." In my opinion, the only real legitimate complaint is the depth of field one. The rest sound like half-hearted attempts at arguing some feature that they added or removed, tiny things to nitpick over, and attempts to rationalize the SP into real life events.

 

[hal]

Sorry- I know it's old, but...

 

[Renegade Retard]

This thread is serious!

[OT]hal, have you been to bed at all???[/OT]

 

[Miker]

SRS BZNESS GAIZ

 

[Benfica]

Won't happen, for one reason - Flat out 255/0/0 would look completely flat.

No, it will look intense, but that isn't the point. The point is that Epic made an artistic effort to create a stunning work, textures, scenery, models, and then degraded their own work? What's the point?

Shades of red and pink are necessary to present the illusion that lights are in the models. The actual model skin color is more red than pink, so it's red. Don't ****ing nitpick.

It's not nitpicking. It's a matter of visibility (I had to increase color intensity on the NVidia control panel) immersion, and that you have too many people giving the finger to the game because of this "nitpick". It's the same as some guys complained about the opposite on UT200x, too much color, too cartoonish. btw, is this it??? They had to do it, because some people complained about it? Am I nitpicking then?

Sure you did. UT would turn damn near your whole screen red if you got hurt real bad, i.e; a headshot. 2k4 did far less here, settling for colored chevrons approximating the direction.

You didn't need this exageration. For me it's a distraction instead of focus. It's beyond me why you consider nitpicking, something that made people have headaches and other stuff. This and DoF. It took a while to know how to disable

Fair enough. It'll look like crap, but it solves your problem.

No, I'm not talking about the slider "World Detail"=1 on the old UI. I'm talking about one setting called "DetailMode" that goes from 0 to 2, in utengine.ini, under [SystemSettings] and other that I don't remember atm. It makes DoF pretty acceptable

While I do feel 2kx is the least strong of the entries, I don't unabashedly hate on it every chance I get. But far too many maps looked too clean... it didn't "feel" right.

Oh, it didn't "feel"? What the hell are we discussing here and what's the point of my 1st post? UT200x was for you and the existing fanbase, what UT3 was for me and other players in the beginning. I could also say that folks here and elsewhere were nitpicking then.

Was it in the back of their minds? Probably. Did they say "Hey, let's make UT3 a commentary on the Iraq War!" Probably not.

I didn't say that, it doesn't go so "deep", but yes I'm claiming that it has some influences. I just expected that UT would stay as it was, free-for-all and futuristic, not influenced by external events. Look, I always hated such games, it has been like that since CS.

And I'm not against a tournament-like setting, but when you get to the gist of it, it's still glorified botmatches - the only difference is now there's sometimes little story bits. To be fair, you really can't make the SP too much more than glorified botmatches, but people wanted a more involved SP... and this one tanked. I'm against something like this happening again more than another simple tournament ladder.

Well, waste of resources. Mike Capps is a good manager and software engineer, but it's clear that he screwed up when tried to shoehorn his mindset here.

You're really nitpicking here. Especially since these are about the menu and the loading screens. Patch 2.0 just came out, and that makes the menu less EXTREME.

If you think I'm being "weak" when you say extreme, you are missing the point, 1) nobody needs, cares or likes that junk, except a narrow demographics. If they wanted the game to look "badass", that's a wrong approach to say the least 2) doesn't bother me a single bit, except when I'm tired and then it stands out, it's one of those things that gradually starts to get on your nerves.

UT always has been one of the most complex FPS games to play, and simply put, there's no way you could really reduce that without removing things like walldodges, altfire, and a whole bunch of other stuff that would make UT stop feeling like UT.

Why do new players pick UT2004 so easily then, and are motivated to learn? I like a few things about UT2004, but it's also beyond me why is that crappy hitscan paradise so popular. It's the most complex of the series on movement and it's where they score less frags on DM. And then why do you see too many people saying that you need to give time to UT3, that someone needs practice a lot to start enjoying the game? People should be worried about giving input that rewards skill AND doesn't alienate newbies. Unless you want UT3 to stay as a niche, and you can't get new people in tournaments or ladders.

If people practice enough, they'll eventually get good. Most people, however, want something simpler, and that's why TF2 has tons of people.

Whatever, you tend to believe that people are dumb, don't like skillful games and only noobish stuff can be popular. BS. People have motivation to practice as long as they see at least slight progress. Games that reward skill (fast eye coordenation, fast-paced, experience, etc...), can be very popular because younger guys can have those reaction times, bright and creative people are quick learners. This game is not rewarding, not noob friendly, I bet it's based on the input of the competitive scene that would get pissed if it were "noob-friendly", "dumbed-down", and consider that "retards shouldn't get frags". People should worry if it were pro-unfriendly instead, isn't it??? Again a matter of f'ed up mentality where someone considers that only gets advantage at the expense of others.

Regardless, the stereotype remains that somehow VCTF and Warfare/Onslaught are "inferior" gametypes in the minds of some. These people will refuse to play these gametypes on that basis, because all they'll see is the Manta running them over, or the scorpion homing in on their Viper, or the Goliath one-shotting them, conclude it sucks, and never play it again.

It's not that, it's about being afraid to be fragged, defending domination over others, playing for frags and not plain winning. But you know, I don't care. I play WAR because it's fast paced, not because I feel the need to "pwn" someone else or get pissed when I get fragged. I don't mind playing an inferior gametype, I can top-score or contribute to the team, due to experience even being owned and playing with ping 200.

Noob bashing and rants are, sadly, always going to happen. (Look at what we're both doing for a good example.)

Yes, but people must stop pouring fuel on this fire. This is not CS where you have a larger online than all other FPS combined.

Competitiveness, however, has went up - the orb makes it possible to hold a key node or to push an attack harder. It makes Warfare considerably more balanced than Onslaught ever was. I've been on the end of many one-sided Torlan matches in 2k4, on both ends. They rarely happen in UT3.

Yes and no. Look I'm not an Orb hater, it's a nice idea but I don't have to like it's disadvatages. About Torlan : it's default node setup changed, now the tank node drains when the prime is down. Since you picked the popular Torlan, I pick Downtown. When pushed to the base, how are you going to comeback? The Orb locks the node when defending. Without Orb, making the node flash prevents respawns there, with it shielded you can't get rid of defenders one by one.

More nitpicking. "Holy ****" was a stupid kill level anyway, the same way "Wicked Sick" was a stupid spree level. Perhaps they were trying something different, rather than going "HAY LETZ TAKE PROFANITY OUT OF TEH GAME LAWLLLLL."

Missing the point again, it's about way of thinking, not the fact itself.

The rest sound like half-hearted attempts at arguing some feature that they added or removed, tiny things to nitpick over, and attempts to rationalize the SP into real life events.

No, it's about design decisions are not due to limitations, bugs, lack of time, saving Midway, etc... I can understand all this. btw I defended them as strongly as I could like a fanatic, when it was hard for them and everybody was bitching and insulting them, with the old "Epic fail" $hit. I only feel confortable to talk about this now that UT3 is going to have the success it deserves with the Titan pack and only amongst people here on BuF that like the game and don't lose motivation due to what I'm talking about. What's more, I have reasons to defend devs, artists, creative people and otherwise anyone that works passionately. However even though I don't get personal or arrogant with those folks and I still conside the game 9/10, I don't defend or like "smart ass" approaches or obvious lame and suicidal decisions.

This could lead to a decent discussion , I have much more stuff on my mind, but since people consider that it's "wierd" at best and I have 4(?) admins frowning upon it, screw all this...

 

[hal]

Why do new players pick UT2004 so easily then, and are motivated to learn? I like a few things about UT2004, but it's also beyond me why is that crappy hitscan paradise so popular.

Wat?