I am unhappy with the UI

[ROBOT]

Well, nobody wants to be a Liandri droid or a Krall... at least choosing a different name or player skin (human of course).

100% agree with OP.

[Kura]

It's completely astounding how oblivious some people can be. Upset that you can only play as the Main Character in the Story mode? What did you expect, being able to swap out Reaper with a Liandri Combat Droid or a Krall Elite or even Akasha herself? I'm sure that'd work out just peachy with the cutscenes and dialogue.

Don't be dumb.

RAWR! hahah that wasn't obvious! I bet that took you by suprise!

[Sharpfish]

In every interview i've seen you said you were focusing more on offline play. Well let's see in ut2004 you could:
- pick a name
- select the character you like
- change your team members
- customize the enemy bots

In ut3:
- you dont have a name, you are "Player", live with it
- in campaign you can only play reaper, instant action you get a random character
- customize your team ? forget about it
- choose enemy bots in instant action ? nope
- at least see what enemyes you will face in the next mission ? nope

Dear god I didn't realise it would be that bad in the final game... It's as if someone other than Epic were in charge of making these decisions, a LOT Of what we have come to expect as standard was due to Epic in the first place being really gamer oriented and knowing what made a good game, and now they take away all the little details that a lot of players really enjoy or want.

That random character in instant action is the one that bugs me the most as I always find a favourite characer and like to play with it online and off and now you say there is no way to choose when playing offline? Why would they do that? Someone who knows more about this should be able to post the reasoning behind that and i'm open to seeing the reasons as 'for the good of the game' if they are but I can't fathom out what they could be right now, other than making it less confusing/nerfed options for console players with controllers that don't work with menus as fluently as a mouse, ie.. consolitis strikes again....

Epic make the best UT in years and then get the small details wrong... which may fly on PS3 and your 'new audience' who don't care but what happened to 'catering to the PC users as they are our bread and butter'... I think we are more like your sheep right now, at least it seems that's what's expected of us.

and and I don't mind the UI in general, it's pretty clean looking, I don't like the layout and lack of options but i'm not so petty as to let that ruin a brilliant game underneath but these small details (and the widescreen FOV, server browser etc) are what makes the difference, the 'Epic' difference... which seems to be missing on this game.

It all sounds to me like this will be our last UT on PC as they are definitely more interested in consoles now, that can't be avoided with all the evidence of UE3 games. From now on we get nerfed games or year old ports and if we don't like it then tough.

[Tasties]

Definitely disappointed with this. I love the game and normaly wouldnt mind stuff like this, but theres a certain level of expectation when I play a Unreal. Things being left out that were in all other UT games just confuses me. Cant see player names in serve? No spectator option from the browser? Mouse sense 1-10? In games now days you'd expect to configure your graphics settings, shadows, weapon effects, and character detail without having to lower texture and world details. I really am shocked that they dumbed the menu down so much.

[AniMuS]

No game is shipped when it's done because then it'd take at least triple as long for it to be released. Epic doesn't have the time to find every last bug in the game, thats what the beta is for, and you also can expect them to fix every single bug in the span of 2-3 weeks, thats what future patches are for. If you are ignorant enough to think that every game is perfect when it is first released then please feel free to list some examples.

Half-life? Half-life 2? Age of Empires? lol

Now your perfect is a bit off reality, because calling this game near perfect for me is being naive. Its very good mainly due to the great gameplay and graphics, but besides that its rubbish. Customization options and UI simply suck hard.

[ROBOT]

Can someone punch me and say "wake up, you're having a nightmare!!!"

[UndeadRoadkill]

It's completely astounding how oblivious some people can be. Upset that you can only play as the Main Character in the Story mode? What did you expect, being able to swap out Reaper with a Liandri Combat Droid or a Krall Elite or even Akasha herself? I'm sure that'd work out just peachy with the cutscenes and dialogue.

Don't be dumb.

I don't care what they do with campaign, that's fine. But axing things about the offline botmatches, things that kept me coming back to UT again and again over other offline games, is inexcusable to me.

[picKLes]

change UI? You and about six thousand other people.

[Dangerdog]

You know what would be mind blowingly awesome? If someone from Epic addressed this issue directly instead of dodging it like they seemingly have since the release of the beta demo.

[stephen_wq]

I agree 100%, and they could go a step further and make it like uwindows as well

In terms of menus:
UT99 > UT2004 & Every other game made > UT3

UT99 Menu + UT2004 Menu = Perfect.
UT3 Menu = Epic fail (no pun intended)

You know what would be mind blowingly awesome? If someone from Epic addressed this issue directly instead of dodging it like they seemingly have since the release of the beta demo.

I would honestly bet $100 on that if i had any spare cash, that they wont do anything about it. I hope i'm proved wrong.

[sephir69]

The gameplay is great so gj on that............

If you've played 99 or 2k4 the UI will be a giant step back in functionality. I don't understand how something so simple compared to the rest of the game could be left out.

[Matfei]

Topic post is full of win and truth.

'Nuff said.

[UndeadRoadkill]

You know what would be mind blowingly awesome? If someone from Epic addressed this issue directly instead of dodging it like they seemingly have since the release of the beta demo.

We're PC gamers, we're irrelevant to them now. They've sold their souls to the console devil, they won't bother to answer us.

[brdempsey69]

It's completely astounding how oblivious some people can be. Upset that you can only play as the Main Character in the Story mode? What did you expect, being able to swap out Reaper with a Liandri Combat Droid or a Krall Elite or even Akasha herself? I'm sure that'd work out just peachy with the cutscenes and dialogue.

Don't be dumb.

Do you really think it would be dumb to be able to have the choice of Reaper or one of his sidekicks to play as in the Campaign? I don't think so.

....axing things about the offline botmatches, things that kept me coming back to UT again and again over other offline games, is inexcusable to me.

Same here. I never even dreamed it would come to that when the game was first announced in early 2005.

[Sharpfish]

The point of offline was to simulate the online experience for those that didn't want to play other people or couldn't. Removing choices for offline players is fairly ridiculous if they had previously stated they wanted to improve things for offline players (their supposed larger audience) - I play nearly as much offline as I do on as it's always been addictive either way but if anything stuff like 'removing character choice' will force me online more, perhaps.... that was their plan

I too don't care about only playing as one character during the 'story mode' or whatever, that's not the issue.

EDIT
See DS3s post next page > I think he's saying it's not nerfed in retail version and you can choose your character for offline play which is good to hear...