XMP Update

[PF Prophet]

From everything I've seen Microsoft is TOPS when it comes to publishing games (count the number of patches needed for their games - ignoring their MMORPG)... compare to other publishers.

I really don't see what ANYONE else sees in XMP.

Graphics are crap (huge step backwards from UT2003, even Tribes2)
Sound is crap (UT2003 is great, 1942 is awesome)
Gameplay is subpar (muddied controls, unintuitive hud)

Really, what's there to like? No one really can say, they just say, IT'S UBER! Uhh... k.

umm try moving the graphix slider the the right that shoulld help
controles are fine once u get use to them
only thing i miss from tribes (on a dayly basis that is) is the little tags telling u where ur enimy is those are helpfull hehe

 

[Prophetus]

At first Epic gotta finish Unreal Warfare, doesnt it?
And then, UT2006 is heading towards us. DUH! (Nah, ok, they can split the work between DE and the `lost` people of Legend which can join Epic/DE for a achange )
Author's note to the sentence in brackets: </sarkazm>

If you are suggesting those are the two new titles, then no. They are working on something else as well. In one interview, Tim stated their first full 64 bit game would not be based on the Unreal title (note, he didn't say it would NOT be an Unreal engine game). This game is scheduled to be announce or released in 2005.

 

[Da RicK]

That was rather harsh

doc has a reputation i guess


anyway
ill avoid the complete u2xmp/ut2003 sucks thing
each their own, some like things fastpaced, some like it slower
whatever, play what you like, let others game in peace

now for the real thing this news is about
legend closing down
thats horrible, im really sorry for all the people who worked their. I cant be the only person when i say that i really think you did a great job on many games. Be proud of yourself.
Those pictures really made my heart stop for a sec. The facial expressions. It's your ***** life's work they're ruining. I hope you all find nice new homes at other gamecompanies. (isnt scion still hiring?)
good luck in the future guys

 

[CiD]

yes,best of luck to legend,and thanks for the outstanding games.

 

[PF Prophet]

From everything I've seen Microsoft is TOPS when it comes to publishing games (count the number of patches needed for their games - ignoring their MMORPG)... compare to other publishers.

I really don't see what ANYONE else sees in XMP.

Graphics are crap (huge step backwards from UT2003, even Tribes2)
Sound is crap (UT2003 is great, 1942 is awesome)
Gameplay is subpar (muddied controls, unintuitive hud)

Really, what's there to like? No one really can say, they just say, IT'S UBER! Uhh... k.

humm halo pc dosnt boad well for MS putting out polished software out of the box its buggy and lacking fetures then u patch it and it gets a little better then u patch it agin and it get just slightly better

if u think tk'er are bad in XMP try halo there are whole groups of them that melee kill there own team insted of PLAY the game as it was ment to be played

and the gfx are nothing grand eather all in all the xbox ver was better out of the box
i dont have xbox but one of my fiends dose and we stomped thru legendary mode in 2 days
if anything ms has adequet support halo lost its head designer he QUIT so the next patch may take even longer to get out and who knows whats gonna get changed from patch to patch

really i feel i was raped the moment i BOUGHT halo pc

i wish some group like GarageGames or the guys who made seirous sam ?croteam?would get a shot at making an unreal title at least when i have asked for help from them i get a responce
ms email they auto respond with links to things that if you have a clue u have alreaddy read

i know Serious sam is old but thats one thing they supported it grate and it wasnt EXPINCIVE like it would have been from other groups
hell if i just wanan frag it the one i install lotta people still MP it and its got most of the bugs worked out

cant wait to see Serious Engine 2 based games from what i have read they have done some serious work on the engin making it far more powerfull 100x the poly count with good perf hope that pans out

maby somebody like that will get smart and pick up the unreal2/xmp lagacy and give all those who like these games a reasion to hope for a new game to buy/play/like/love

till then i guess we just gotta wait and see what happens

 

[G-Lite]

I quickly skimmed over this entire thread which has explosively grown over the last couple of days and, Rooster, I'd just like to go back to your first post here because I think you're fundamentally wrong there:

I'm not surprised given how much Unreal II and XMP sucks.

It feels & plays like a $5 bargain basement game. Totally undeserving of the Unreal title.

Legend is dead. Long live Epic.

The thing is, what deserves the Unreal title? When we look back at the original Unreal, it was a single player game where you crashed along with a prisoner transportship on an alien planet.
Did Unreal Tournament have anything to do with that? What about Unreal Tournament 2003? Not at all. The tournament part was lousely knit to the actual Unreal universe just so they could create a multiplayer game. Not to say it sucks, on the contrary, I like both UT and UT 2003. Great games. Still play them every so often.
The actual Unreal multiplayer though, was the multiplayer in Unreal itself. Though fundamentally alot like UT, it really was just multiplayer Unreal while UT can be seen as something different.

Unreal II is the sequel to Unreal. Epic gave Legend the rights to create this sequel and it was up to Legend to decide on the story.
Unreal II was either a flop to alot of people or those people just managed to get their voice out more aggressively than the others that did like it. I'm one of the people who did like Unreal II. It was new. I'm also a quick learner.

What I don't understand is: what is there not to like about Unreal II then?
For a single player game the HUD works perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with the gameplay. I liked it, it was very cool. Great athmosphere, etc.
Probably the only other reason I heard was that it was too short.
Well, let me tell you: games like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, though totally unrelated, are seriously overhyped compared to their length then. It took me way shorter to finish that game for example.
So long for those arguments, right?... I'll get back on that later.

XMP followed. If you've played through Unreal II you can tell it really just is multiplayer Unreal 2. Just like Unreal's multiplayer was compared to Unreal itself, except XMP came seperate.
I'd really like to know what is wrong with the HUD right now, UT 2003's HUD looks way chunkier and I actually think U2's / XMP's looks better.
But fundamentally, XMP really is Unreal II, the game isn't as fast paced as UT but that was to expect. I'm not quite sure what you expected anyways?

Either way I'd say XMP perfectly deserves the Unreal title and if any of the Unreal series games doesn't, it'd be UT and UT 2003. They rocked, but they are probably the most unrelated to the entire Unreal series.

I'd like to advise you, before you start a real flamewar, not to state your opinion as if it were a fact. A game sucking is just an opinion. You didn't like XMP, others didn't like UT 2003. You can't see a reason, others can. Nobody is the same, simple as that. So what I was going to say in relation to XMP: I may have taken down all those arguments and I can almost bet you and other people can come up with a bunch more, it is not a fact that XMP doesn't suck. That's just my opinion too, because obviously, you think it does.

You're a reasonable type, Rooster. I know that. But I have to agree with several others that this is just trolling. A game company just died and that's not really a moment to barge in and say something like: "XMP sucks anyways, everyone knows that!"

IMO and in alot of other people's opinion, Atari made a huge mistake to do this. If every publisher treated their dev studios like this I'm suprised games like Tribes are still around.

 

[TWD]

It was my understanding that all future games created by epic after ut2004 will be published by microsoft. I'm too lazy to go searching to find out if that's really the case.

If microsoft publishes the next PC Unreal game I woudln't worry about it. Remember Microsoft won't be MAKING the game, just publishing it. Many believe the reason for the change to microsoft was that atari pushed ut2003 out quickly because they needed sales. Microsoft is a huge corporate giant. Hence epic would be able to release the game whenever the want. The publisher would hardly bother them at all.

 

[[ToS]Schumi[GER]]

there are also other good games with the unreal code

73 Honor AA [df-schumi@lycos.de]
Play Americas Army it makes fun fun and fun. and is better then al other Games and it cost nothing. (every 3 month new better bigger Versions ) ( you must pay nothing)

Unreal 2 (with the new MP)was better then Unreal 2003 and will be better then UT 2004

 

[Prophetus]

[ToS]Schumi[GER], we should meet up sometime in the AA servers. I play it all the time and love the game. I stick to mostly the SF maps (Csar and Sandstorm) on the Elite servers. I use the same nick as here.

 

[the_f_word]

Hi G-lite, I think you made some good points in your post. If UT is worthy of the unreal title, XMP most certainly is also.

but to address the reasons why i think U2 was a failure, personally I believe that the game has nice graphics however the movement seems slightly slow like you are bogged down (i have also heard this comment from a lot of other people). Other than that, I think it's just that peoples expectations for games have risen a lot and missing the multiplayer element was a very bad move IMO for the developers (this of course was probably not their choice, but rather a compromise as XMP would not be here if that was the case.). I believe an example which illustrates that point is ID Softwares decision to include multiplayer in doom3 when from original plans it was clear they were to only produce a single player game. Now as you all no doubt are aware they intend to focus on the single player, yet include a multiplayer mode also. Multiplayer adds another attractive element to games, which many of us rate more importantly than the singleplayer side of games and by not including this feature U2 effectively shot itself in the foot. On a side note, including the multiplayer aspect can force a lot of players who would have simply pirated a game to make the purchase since they require a cdkey for online play.

The atmosphere and graphics of the game are fine IMO, but there just wasn't anything over and above other titles which made the game stand out.

 

[Saito]

Really I found only some gripes with U2
1.Slow as hell, but on the same side thats fine for a single player game. You don't need the acrobatics of 2k3 for that so I can't really fault it for that.
2.To short, once again, what was there was pretty good, but as soon as I was hooked it was over.
3.No multiplayer, and I think this was the biggest failure of it.

It seems fps games live or die on thier multiplayer content. When XMP came out I was thrilled, it was better than I had hoped in every way. If xmp had been released with U2 I would say that it would have done better than it did.

For me personaly (and several in the clan I am in) xmp breathed life back into unreal. Simply put we took 2k3 BR IG LG 1.35 to the max level, the players hit a sick level of ability with clans we played but it reached the point where there was nothing left. Then xmp hit, it was a team based game, had much more depth, and the potential for team interaction and cooperation is staggering. So much so that I know many BR/CTF players that since XMP haven't been playing much 2k3 at all. Take it or leave it XMP has sucked some of the top 2k3 players into it for what it had to offer in complexity that 2k3 didn't, furthermore the sheer scale of the game is incredible.

If I can' fault xmp for anything, its the bad pings and FPS that seem to be universal, but a patch can fix that so the issue really isn't vaible as it is only a temporary one.

If anything is a testament to how great XMP has done, its that after the massively negative reaction to u2, allot of people have been forced to eat thier own words and play xmp. Going from a flop to a hit is very hard, the fact that legend did that speaks volumes for thier potential, and thier commitment to persevire.

The true tragedy in all this is that its really nothing more or less than another tragedy in the unreal franchise. The orginal unreal was a sucess, UT was a hit, 2k3 some how or another missed the mark, u2 flopped, and then xmp hit it out of the park. Now as soon as things are going good, this crap happens and the plug is yanked on the first widely liked unreal since UT. It puts allot of pressure on 2k4.

 

[SGT.SKINNER]

oneirotekt,

Are these pictures really from the Legend offices? If so, can somebody identify the people in the first pic?

XMP should have never been cut from Unreal 2 to begin with. But hey, somebody didn't want it to compete with UT 2003. It needed to have a clear path around it. Heh. We'll be the judge when Warfare comes out. Learn from your mistakes....mistakes like UT 2003.

Anyways, this sucks bigtime. I'm very sorry to hear this Legend. You're all very talented people and I'm confident you'll find good work. Thanks for everything.

- Brian

 

[rhakka]

Sup Rooster

From everything I've seen Microsoft is TOPS when it comes to publishing games (count the number of patches needed for their games - ignoring their MMORPG)... compare to other publishers.

I really don't see what ANYONE else sees in XMP.

Graphics are crap (huge step backwards from UT2003, even Tribes2)
Sound is crap (UT2003 is great, 1942 is awesome)
Gameplay is subpar (muddied controls, unintuitive hud)

Really, what's there to like? No one really can say, they just say, IT'S UBER! Uhh... k.

Hey Rooster, long time no see.

First off, I have to say one major problem with your opinion here is slamming Legend over this. You are comparing a game that was released in a nearly unplayable state.. completely unplayably competitively in team deathmatch... and has had a year of patches to bring it up to snuff vs a free add on for a game that didn't do so hot in sales to begin with, which hasn't had even a single patch yet. You would do well to keep that in mind. Legend did a simply amazing job with this free add on, releasing it in a far better state than 2003 was at it's release, by a long, long shot. A free add on of higher quality than a major release game is nothing to shake a stick at.

1. graphics != gameplay. I would expect you to know this. I see everything fine, and the graphics have to be tuned down for the huge player loads and levels we're dealing with here. I've had no problems with the graphics. Sure, we may not have uber reflective ragdolls with zippy awesome crap, but you know what, if we did the first thing I'd do is turn them off anyway so who gives a ****?

2. Sound; no idea what you are talking about. The sound cues in this game are fine, not awesome, but fine; you seem to be forgetting 2003's sound was absolutely ****ED for the first six months the game was out, making it nearly impossible to pick out directions of gunfire, hear footsteps appropriately, etc. Legend wins again.

3. Gameplay is deep, with a wide variety of ways to contribute to your team's effort. It's balanced between the classes very well. This "no difference" between newbies and vets you speak of is utter horse**** as well; there just aren't any real vets yet, it's a new game, like when UT first came out. Note I said UT, not UT2003, because the UT skillset transferred very easily over to 2003 (which is the reason why you had no learning curve in 2003, not the reasons you mentioned. anyone who can play UT well can start off in 2003 far above an entry level player's skill, no problem). There are things for high and low pingers to do, but no one class or ability completely blows the others away. You say the HUD is unintuitive, and I say you have no recollection of what it's like to be a new gamer in FPS's.. ALL huds are unintuitive for a new player.


this is not to say XMP is perfect, it's obviously missing a ton of features a full release game should have, but as far as being a solid contribution to the Unreal franchise, XMP blows 2003 out of the frickin water if you compare it apples to apples (on release to on release, not on release to after a year of patches), ESPECIALLY when you take into consideration it's a free add-on, it's nothing short of amazing. Epic has never released anything this solid and robust as an add on for one of their products, unless you are a real big "invasion" fan or you think the "camoflauge" adrenaline combo is just wildly cool. Unless, of course, graphics is the only thing that matters to you. Frankly I couldn't give a **** about that end as long as I can see what's going on and it's remotely immersive.

If Epic doesn't cannabilize at least the concepts used here for future unreal releases, it will be quite a shame; this game is what assault could have been. Legend did a fantastic job of releasing a solid, playable, original take on the unreal series, and while it may not be your cup of tea, you have to give the coders some props for that. Unlike Epic who dropped every ball possible with 2003 and took what should have been a blockbuster release and turned it into a disastrous dissapointment to the community. I played that game for a year and liked it just fine, but I'm a drooling fanboy, and even I had to grit my teeth for the first few months with some of the staggerring oversights, bugs, and imbalances in that fully funded, major release. On the flip side I have wholeheartedly enjoyed XMP from the first game I played of it, and have yet to find a situation where whatever tactic I run into can't be counter balanced by another, a bug which grinds my game to a halt or makes it horrible to play, or a problem finding populated servers.

two weeks after I installed this game, 2003 came off my hard drive.

I've crossed crosshairs with you many times throughout the years man, I have nothing but respect for who you are and your contributions to the Unreal community over the years, and it's fine if you don't like this game, but you have GOT to give the guys at legend their due; they did a fantastic job here for what XMP is and the resources used to get it out. As developers, I'd say they've proven themselves several times over with this release, and I sure hope it helps the team members find work they deserve in the industry again. Maybe not writing storylines but designing deep, well balanced multiplayer experiences.

**** epic. Long live Legend. At least Legend understands the value of BETA TESTING their programs.

 

[CiD]

rhakka and g-lite,great posts

 

[Sir_Brizz]

It was my understanding that all future games created by epic after ut2004 will be published by microsoft. I'm too lazy to go searching to find out if that's really the case.

If microsoft publishes the next PC Unreal game I woudln't worry about it. Remember Microsoft won't be MAKING the game, just publishing it. Many believe the reason for the change to microsoft was that atari pushed ut2003 out quickly because they needed sales. Microsoft is a huge corporate giant. Hence epic would be able to release the game whenever the want. The publisher would hardly bother them at all.

You didn't understand it very well. In fact, I never heard hard evidence that any game from Epic themselves would be published by Microsoft. Not that I would mind them moving there (since MS can't possibly be as stupid as Atari) but from what I can tell, the announcement was more for Scion Studios' benefit than Epic. The fact that Epic owns themselves and Scion Studios suggests that they can release whatever they want where ever they want however they want. That's some pretty excellent power to have in the market right now, especially when you are selling games that are netting in the millions.

 

[Rooster]

Rhakka & G-Lite, I got carried away. I apologized and I'm still sincere about it.

Y'all that know me know I don't normally get off-kilter, but I guess it can happen to anyone.

 

[SirYawnalot]

Mmm, great posts here. Tasty.
I won't hop on the Bash Rooster's Poorly-Thought-Out Comments bandwagon as he was big enough to apologise, but I have to ask what exactly is wrong with XMP's HUD?
You can't really expect to decipher everything onscreen the minute you drop into a game, but anyone can figure out that looking at the compass and heading for blips in the enemy's colour will point you in the direction of a fight. And watching how your actions affect the various gauges should mean you'll have the entire HUD figured out in around three/four days, which ain't bad for a game of this complexity. Plus it's unobtrusive and not ugly by any means.

Oh yeah, and how can anyone say UT2003 is prettier than Unreal 2?! Both are pretty stunning, but U2 has a more natural look whereas UT03 has a habit of looking overly polished, even in dirty maps like Ruination and Magma. Maybe it's the engine or maybe it's the map design, but either way, my eyes will take Sunset Beach over Seppuku Gorge any day.

 

[hal]

Unreal 2 was disappointing for a number of reasons. First off, I think we can all agree, that the story was rather bland.

Second, the game was far too short. The levels too small for the most part. That really took away the 'exploration' feel that Unreal had.

Third, many of the enemies were downright uninspired. Spiders ought NEVER show up in a fps adventure shooter in this day and age. Those floaty things at the end were downright annoying and decidedly unfrightening. Before you point out that Unreal had a few 'throwaway' enemies as well, I will remind you that I am not comparing the two games... Unreal 2 exists in a time when there is no room for gunning at cookie-cutter foes. Here's a quote from a review:

The most memorable monsters are packs of hooting space monkeys in the first part of the game. By the time you're facing the dreaded bio-mechanical super evil aliens at the end of the game, you'll fondly recall what it was like to shoot at things as animated and vivid as the hooting space monkeys. Hooting space monkeys, we hardly knew ye.

The Atlantis was a great idea, but turned out to do little more than force you to wander around clicking until you heard all of the conversations. It just didn't work well and mainly served to slow down the action.

There were inspired parts of Unreal 2, though. It wasn't all bad. The defensive missions were solid gold (an not surprisingly the basis for XMP), the weapons were very cool, and some of the levels were nicely done.

Had XMP been in the game when it shipped, there is no doubt that Unreal 2 would have enjoyed much better sales. It's a shame that didn't happen, as taking away a very important part of Legend's game left little more than a generic shooter with flashes of brilliane. Just not what you'd expect from Legend or Unreal.

 

[PF Prophet]

Unreal 2 was disappointing for a number of reasons. First off, I think we can all agree, that the story was rather bland.

Second, the game was far too short. The levels too small for the most part. That really took away the 'exploration' feel that Unreal had.

Third, many of the enemies were downright uninspired. Spiders ought NEVER show up in a fps adventure shooter in this day and age. Those floaty things at the end were downright annoying and decidedly unfrightening. Before you point out that Unreal had a few 'throwaway' enemies as well, I will remind you that I am not comparing the two games... Unreal 2 exists in a time when there is no room for gunning at cookie-cutter foes. Here's a quote from a review:



The Atlantis was a great idea, but turned out to do little more than force you to wander around clicking until you heard all of the conversations. It just didn't work well and mainly served to slow down the action.

There were inspired parts of Unreal 2, though. It wasn't all bad. The defensive missions were solid gold (an not surprisingly the basis for XMP), the weapons were very cool, and some of the levels were nicely done.

Had XMP been in the game when it shipped, there is no doubt that Unreal 2 would have enjoyed much better sales. It's a shame that didn't happen, as taking away a very important part of Legend's game left little more than a generic shooter with flashes of brilliane. Just not what you'd expect from Legend or Unreal.

duno the scarr where fun to blast least for me bit nasty and could acctuly hert u unlike the anamated space monkys that well they where fun to blast lets leave it at that LOl

 

[Bazzi]

I'm missing some pro's of Unreal2, so I'll throw one in (it applies to both U2 and XMP):

THE WEAPONS.
IMO the strongest point of UII, while UT just mainly refreshed U1 waepons, UT2003 refreshed UT weapons and 2k4 - surprise - refreshes 2k3 weapons, UII had all-new ones. Plus, it has reloading, to me UT fights are rather dull. For example, compare the 2003 RL to the XMP Rocket Launcher. The XMP one is *way* better done (and would IMO even solve the UT problem that UT RLs are always too strong).
The Assault Gun, I mean how the **** could they include such a crappy weapon into UT? The XMP one is way better in terms of look and feel. Those ones were the comparable ones, I roughly think the same about the other ones.