Spiders

[fuegerstef]

Wouldn't it be nice if UT2007 some day found its way into your 400+ list?

No... ...I want it to become number two in my MP list, replacing UT2004.

[Xyx]

Wouldn't it be nice if UT2007 some day found its way into your 400+ list?

[fuegerstef]

Good bye to the online community, you mean. Some games do not even have an online aspect and still thrive.

Playing with a woman (and she playing with you) is far better than only playing with yourself.


It may sound weird to you:
But for a MP game* I expect to last the online community longer than the offline community.


*) and a MP game is what we are talking about. I have 400+ SP games installed on my PC. From the newly released 3D game Pray** back to 1978's PacMen**. ANd I still find some joy in most of them for SP experience.

**) Names changed for forum rules.

[Xyx]

Good bye to the online community, you mean. Some games do not even have an online aspect and still thrive.

And who knows, maybe some casuals like the game so much they become involved enough to host a server.

[fuegerstef]

They pay as much as I pay.

To EPIC maybe... ...but:
The casuals do not provide public servers or even clanservers which costs money and time.
If you lose these people, because of the things mentioned above... ...good bye to the game as you will not have a lot populated servers. And this is what I care about... ...if I wanna play offline I'd buy a different game.

[Xyx]

UT2007 is already planning their game to lower the gap between noob and l33t players

Do you believe that? I think that's just sales propaganda. Epic uses unskilled players for playtesting. How do they know what l33t players will be like?

You mean the those casual gamers that hop to the next game a few weeks later anyways....

They pay as much as I pay.

[fuegerstef]

And that is why the game needs mines.

A game where only skilled players can have fun will die. Everybody starts out more or less equal when the game is just released. Only a few weeks later, there will be a noticeable skill gap between the "OK" and the "played every day now I'm l33t". Most players that buy the game after that small warmup period will get pwnd and feel useless online. The results are a drop in sales and the schism we see right here. Nobody benefits from that except the small group of "I'm too l33t for mines" players.

You mean the those casual gamers that hop to the next game a few weeks later anyways.... ...no matter if we had mines or not?

OK, I am talking about those that look for a game that doesn't annoy them and stay with the game.

The miners will move on. No matter what weapons are there. The gameplay-freaks will only stay when there are better worked out weapons without so many flaws.

So after a certain period of time you will have the casuals moved on... ...and hopefully the caring people stayed... ...or you suffer from great sale losses, because there are no populated servers.

[da ghost]

Spidermines can be annoying at times, but so are the biorifle, flak, link secondary, and old-school UT whiners

still, no reason to remove the stuff.

[iron12]

I say keep them because they are kind of silly and I like that. I would like to see them more spider like though. Maybe not run around so fast but able to walk up walls and ceilings and lower themselves down on unsuspecting victims. I want to get that creepy crawly feeling with the spiders.

[Jake-SF]

And that is why the game needs mines.

A game where only skilled players can have fun will die. Everybody starts out more or less equal when the game is just released. Only a few weeks later, there will be a noticeable skill gap between the "OK" and the "played every day now I'm l33t". Most players that buy the game after that small warmup period will get pwnd and feel useless online. The results are a drop in sales and the schism we see right here. Nobody benefits from that except the small group of "I'm too l33t for mines" players.

Yeah, the mines (and onslaught vehicles like the tank) are the only thing bringing random people to the game, allowing them to kill here and there and "have fun" without the needs of 10 months of intensive play.

And, it was discussed a lot in the Atari forums, it is definitively considered a reason why UT2004's community is relatively small compared to game like Counter Strike, where you can shoot anywhere and luck may put a SINGLE bullet in your ennemy's head and kill him.

Mines contributes to this, but not much : its not really going to change anything for this. And UT2007 is already planning their game to lower the gap between noob and l33t players, so I don't think this is what we should consider when talking about mines.

[Xyx]

And that is why the game needs mines.

A game where only skilled players can have fun will die. Everybody starts out more or less equal when the game is just released. Only a few weeks later, there will be a noticeable skill gap between the "OK" and the "played every day now I'm l33t". Most players that buy the game after that small warmup period will get pwnd and feel useless online. The results are a drop in sales and the schism we see right here. Nobody benefits from that except the small group of "I'm too l33t for mines" players.

[Hawke]

That problem is not as much related to spidermines as it is to all the "l33t crutches" the game is filled with, the things that give a player that is twice as good a quadruple advantage: combos, timed powerups, long range hitscan, trickjumps. Rebalancing any of those things would even out the odds a whole lot more than keeping or removing spiders.

What you described aren't "crutches," they're skills that take time to develop. Nobody goes into a game able to hit every combo, time every powerup, hit players at long range with the LG and trickjump well. Everybody goes into UT2k4 able to plant a few mines.

[Xyx]

Yeah, but you can lay them while moving towards the action. They'll have to deal with them instead of doing something useful.

[Luseferous]

sfunny, opinions differ even on whether spiders are a boon or an obstacle for unskilled players.

Depends on which end of the gun they are on

[Jrubzjeknf]

It still takes time to deal with the mines. If you spread the mines around as you go, and three players take five seconds each dealing with them, you just bought your team five seconds.

That'd be approximately the same amount of time you need to lay them btw