What would revive the UT franchise?

[brdempsey69]

Count me in as one of those "die-hard" fans of of the Unreal series, although I'd be less than honest if I said I was entirely satisfied with the direction that it went.

Speculation. Let's say for the moment, that Epic did develop UT4 and it had every element that you could think of from original UT & UT2004 & UT3 ( which would require mutators out the ying-yang, but personally I think that's OK, although opinions may vary ) and with the type of polish we saw in UT & UT2004, how much of a revival would we see? I'd love to see it happen, so that we'd all get a chance to find out.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

It would still fail. UT suffers from schizophrenia quite badly. Making that even worse isn't going to make the game more successful. People are moving on to games that feel the same no matter what you're playing and don't have a wide range of experiences based on whatever server you happen to join.

 

[JohnDoe641]

It would still fail. UT suffers from schizophrenia quite badly. Making that even worse isn't going to make the game more successful. People are moving on to games that feel the same no matter what you're playing and don't have a wide range of experiences based on whatever server you happen to join.

That's the saddest part. People don't want to have to work for doing well at a game. The UT and Quack series probably take the most amount of work to be semi-decent of any FPSer and a ridiculous amount of work to be considered good. I love that, I love the fact that I wasted hours becoming really good at UT, I'm proud of the fact that a lot of people hated playing against me because they couldn't kill me once. That's not ego boosting, that's pride in becoming really good at something. Now I see games that don't require this and what makes me really sad is that this new generation of lazy gamers whine and moan about learning and all they want to do is pew pew and win without trying.

This is why a new UT that's anywhere near the rest of the series as far as skill goes will be completely doomed from the beginning. :tdown:

 

[brdempsey69]

Given both of your analysis, JD & Sir_Brizz, I have to agree, UT is just too fast paced & overwhelming for a vast majority out there.

10 years ago, it filled a void, but the void doesn't seem to be there anymore.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Well, really, they championed the "good online multiplayer tournament arena shooter". All games have followed suit in simpler ways and now the market is simply overcrowded.

 

[BlackCheetah]

Given both of your analysis, JD & Sir_Brizz, I have to agree, UT is just too fast paced & overwhelming for a vast majority out there.

10 years ago, it filled a void, but the void doesn't seem to be there anymore.

Fast Pace? UT1 speed was perfect... reason is it has smooth movement. UT2k4 walkspeed is actually faster and UT2k4 is faster paced, but the dodge jumping makes targets very easy to shoot down. UT3 I hate so much I am sick, the first time I played it, it felt so bad, the walk speed is way too fast for the weapons, The link gun primary is almost useless with this speed, the shock rifle shock combo can actually be outrunned, and I always find myself shooting a rocket and someone outruns the position I shot it too.

What annoys me the most is how much players lean when strafing, leaning like that way they do means they are using dynamics from falling towards that side, in real life, you got to be running freaking fast to do this or be in a great wind.

The movement of UT3 is not like original at, I don't find myself in certain UT1 positions where this gun is useless at all. The FlakCannon and minigun are babies compared to original, they dont seem a threat at all.

Reason why games are so slow these days is because there is so much bloom and shadows, fast paced games look so fake because you can see everything, its what I noticed in fast paced games these days, the animations are so smooth and slow, killing someone at the speed of light looks slow.

Its not fun seeing every inch of motion, if you move your hands in front of you very fast you dont see each single point of space your hand has touched. Basicly graphics are so much that unrealistic running speed looks way too false and ridiculous.

 

[UBerserker]

UT3 I hate so much I am sick, the first time I played it, it felt so bad, the walk speed is way too fast for the weapons, The link gun primary is almost useless with this speed, the shock rifle shock combo can actually be outrunned, and I always find myself shooting a rocket and someone outruns the position I shot it too.

Wait a moment, I thought it was the opposite of all of that. I felt slower and heavier, Link Gun and Shock Combo were a cheap-killers in the middle of the battles.
Except the Rocket of course, it's so good in maps such as BioHazard.
The UT3 Stinger is as annoying as the old Minigun as well, if not even more (and cooler-looking, as well).

 

[Benfica]

The fact is UT isn't dead, it may be dead for some peole, but not as a whole.

This. The player base is just too fragmented, playing different versions, different ways, etc...

Somewhat OT: where can I get UT player counts throughout the day? http://www.game-monitor.com only shows UT2004 and UT3

 

[brdempsey69]

Just saw this article over here:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/106/1067716p1.html

2nd paragraph it says "a new shooter being developed by Epic Studios and co-published by EA".

Not sure what's coming down there, but I can't help but wonder what does it mean for the UT series?

 

[UBerserker]

That's good news. Epic be better do something new. Shadow Complex was satisfying.

 

[WedgeBob]

Pfft, if it weren't for such games like Counter-Strike Source, UT3 would've been far better off, admit that. I'm not knocking CS:S, but I'd much rather play UT3 more than that, there's more variety of gameplay, it's better in graphics and physics than the Source engine, and you don't put up with a bunch of annoying 12-year-olds trying to ruin your experience, and make your hair turn grey. I'm 29 myself, and there's more people my age playing the UT franchise, since we go back to when multiplayer games were actually GOOD.

 

[Northrawn]

I think that the whole dilemma started with making UT2003 out of the original Unreal Championship.
It was too different in movement, weapon-strength and visual feel. A few liked UT2003 better and a lot liked the original UT better. So we got a split fanbase. And this time not between mutators or gametypes but two different games.

Then UT2004 came along fixing (or at least going in the right direction with) some things like weapon strength, and visual feel. Still it was UT2003 with tweaks when you look at the gametypes that had been in UT2003.
Additionally it introduced ONS and reintroduced Assault. The former had a huge impact, although it wasn't perfect because of map design and some mechanics.
So we now had a playerbase split between mainly UT2004 and UT (and a few for UT2003) which are still completely different.

Now UT3 was released. It had again a completely different visual feel, neither being close to UT nor UT2k3 or 2k4. The movement was also different from UT, although closer to it than UT2kx. So we have still people saying UT3 doesn't feel like UT. THe UT2k4-lovers love the 2k4 movement and the others love either the UT3- or the UT- movement.

Another mistake, IMHO, was the complete change of ONS into Warfare instead of improving what the ONS community wanted and putting it into an ONS2.0. WAR should have been an addititional gametype as it was first described in Conquest.
This complete change split the former UT2k4 ONS-fanbase with some preferring WAR while others still preferred ONS.

So, since Ut2k3 we got split, split, split, split...

A franchise that allows so many different playstyles even within one iteration MUST NOT IN ANY CASE change the basic game-mechanics too much in the vanilla version compared to the previous version, because the changes already will take place within one iteration itself via mutators etc... ...improvements are necessary, additions are welcome, but changes in basically every aspect of the game is an absolute NO.

Unfortunately the past cannot be undone. The only chance I see to revive a multiplayer-franchise with the name Unreal in it would be a few years of not releasing anything and then making a new Unreal MP title which is not named Tournament.

 

[brdempsey69]

^^Agree with Northrawn 100%.

 

[BlackCheetah]

^^Agree with Northrawn 100%.

You are the reason UT died, brdempsey69. YOU DID IT.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm proud of the fact that a lot of people hated playing against me because they couldn't kill me once.

I'm proud of the fact that I actually killed you once.

A new Unreal MP really sounds like a good idea.

 

[brdempsey69]

You are the reason UT died, brdempsey69. YOU DID IT.

That's right, I shot it full of so many holes it looks like Swiss cheese.

 

[JohnDoe641]

I'm proud of the fact that I actually killed you once.

CURSES!!!!!@

 

[rmcollins3]

PC gaming is dead.

This! It's not really about reviving the UT community. There is really no way to revive a community when the primary method of playing the game, when it was at its peak of popularity, is no longer cost effective and is damn near obsolete.

With the advent of the PS3 and XBOX360, PC gaming and in effect the Unreal series as well, went bye bye imo, along with most PC game series. Why would anyone spend twice as much $$ for a comparable PC to play a game when they could spend half as much for a more stable, equally performing platform that they can play whilst sitting in their lazy boy? And do it on a screen twice the size.

Is there really any wonder that you can buy a $79 graphics card nowadays which would have cost you well over $500 just 5 years ago? There is simply very little demand.

I would love to see the best of both worlds....the ability to play AND DEVELOP content with ease AND SHARE IT EASILY (and FREE!) all on one platform. It can't be that hard to accomplish.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Another Unreal MP? Why MP? Why not having MP and SP at one, like it was a tradition back in the days.

 

[GreatEmerald]

This! It's not really about reviving the UT community. There is really no way to revive a community when the primary method of playing the game, when it was at its peak of popularity, is no longer cost effective and is damn near obsolete.

With the advent of the PS3 and XBOX360, PC gaming and in effect the Unreal series as well, went bye bye imo, along with most PC game series. Why would anyone spend twice as much $$ for a comparable PC to play a game when they could spend half as much for a more stable, equally performing platform that they can play whilst sitting in their lazy boy? And do it on a screen twice the size.

Is there really any wonder that you can buy a $79 graphics card nowadays which would have cost you well over $500 just 5 years ago? There is simply very little demand.

I would love to see the best of both worlds....the ability to play AND DEVELOP content with ease AND SHARE IT EASILY (and FREE!) all on one platform. It can't be that hard to accomplish.

PCs are universal. I'd never, ever switch to console gaming. PCs are the most compatible, all-around devices for doing everything - playing games, listening to music, writing in this forum etc. Why would you want to have a separate device for playing games that has a lousy controller, can only play games that are made especially for that console, and gets obsolete after a few years without any hope of reutilising it?

Another Unreal MP? Why MP? Why not having MP and SP at one, like it was a tradition back in the days.

Quoted for truth!