I hope people will understand that this is a "as I see it" rant and should not be taken as fact. If you have corrections,please leave any insults out. It helps me focus on your point.
Unreal Tournament 1: This game was recommended by my friend Lee. He's got a good grasp of gameage so I trust his opinion. This was well after release and it was 20 buck so I went for it. Turned out to be the best 20 bucks I ever spent. UT1 was fast paced and fun. You could be deadly with everything,even the default weapons. Maps were maze like and challenging while still being quick to learn and easy to use to an advantage. Spawn camping could be a problem,but you were never completely helpless.
I used to practice by playing team deathmatch against a team of bots by myself. And won. You simply can't do that anymore. Because the weapons were weakened,that means if one guy attacks a group of guys,he's going to lose because he can't kill them as quickly as they can kill him. If it takes 3 shots of a weapon to kill someone and one guy attacks 3 guys,who's going to die quicker? Sure,you can *try* to dodge,but they can also fire in more than one direction. And they can dodge too. They're just going to have an advantage.
You may have heard of Quake Live. It's the free browser based version of Quake 3 that id's putting out to raise brand awareness. It launched recently and I signed on. And,once I began to actually play against the trainer bot to determine my "skill",I remembered why I hated Quake 3. The weapons SUCK! It takes too many hits to kill someone. Compared to the fast kill,fast thrill combat of UT1,Q3 was just boring. Positioning means little more than who gets the first shot. And most fights were resolved with who has the rocket launcher. Unfortunately,it was the basis for most new FPS multiplayer games.
So,given the choice of Q3 and UT1,I choose,as many did,UT1 and it's hardcore,fast paced kill-fest. I liked UT1 so much,I bought the anthology pack just to have a new copy on DVD. And to try out UT2 and U2. Not impressed with them much.
UT2/2.5: By the time UT2 came out,I was a rabid UT fan. I'd been waiting and watching and hoping. Then the demo dropped. I played and was disappointed. The "slow kill" ideology of Q3 had spread to UT2. The weapons were nerfed and I just couldn't kill as fast and as easily as I once did. Sure,it meant noone could kill me quickly,but the "everything's deadly" system was gone. Now you have to learn how to use the "right" weapons the "right" way in order to kill quickly,creating a learning curve that sucked all the fun out of the experience. You couldn't just log in,pick up your favorite weapon,and just frag. Now you had to learn who to use certain weapons,certain ways,and at certain times. This was not the UT I fell in love with.
2.5 was just a complete *** reaming by the company on an already bad game. This was just a colossally bad set up. First off,it's basically just an expansion. But it's not sold like an expansion. It's sold as a whole new game. It was basically just an upgraded UT2,but for the price of UT2 all over again. The vehicles were a good addition,but in the end,the gameplay still sucked because the weapons were still weak. The addition of a weapon named after a craptastic pop star did NOT help. So the whole thing came off as just one big middle finger to the game buying public. And then Epic wonders why it didn't sell well.
UT3: So here we are at UT3. Although the weapons are better than UT2.5,it's not by much. Nowhere near as good as UT1. The vehicles are interesting and all,but not enough to save the game. Maps and graphics are over done and at the sacrifice of larger maps and better performance. In the end,UT3 has forsaken what made UT1 better than Q3 to become just like Q3. All graphics and packaging,none of the play and fun.
If I wanted Quake,I'd buy Quake. As I haven't,I obviously don't want to play Quake. I want to play UT1 with all the bells and whistles of UT3. Or even just UT2.5. I want sizable maps with all kinds of cover and places to duck to avoid snipers and vehicles that can get me across a map quickly or with a lot of firepower. I want jetpacks and the old 8-ball. I want miniguns that can kill WITHIN 50 rounds. I want something that DOESN'T reach out to the "cool skater" demographic,instead appealing to the "I'm gonna rip your brain out and make you eat it" demographic.
And that's just my problems with UT. It seems the idea of "weapons that don't kill people" has spread to many other games. If you've played Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2,you probably know what I mean. Supposedly,it's supposed to make people "play as a team". All it really does is reduce the game to numbers. If they have more than you,you're dead. No exceptions for skill. No means to out smart them. You just die.
Team Fortress 2 has recently released the Scout pack. Which introduces automatic dodging and stun effects! At what point did people become so obsessed with MMORPGs that we gave up all pretense of skill and just have the game play itself for us?
So that's my story. That's what bugs me about FPS games these days. Nerfed weapons and "teamplay" mechanics that force people to rely on others to do ANYTHING. If you really want to make a game that's "different" as that one guy said in an interview,how about about starting here with the weapons. Go back to the UT1 well and give us dangerous weapons that hurt people. That's what UT1 was about for me.
Unreal Tournament 1: This game was recommended by my friend Lee. He's got a good grasp of gameage so I trust his opinion. This was well after release and it was 20 buck so I went for it. Turned out to be the best 20 bucks I ever spent. UT1 was fast paced and fun. You could be deadly with everything,even the default weapons. Maps were maze like and challenging while still being quick to learn and easy to use to an advantage. Spawn camping could be a problem,but you were never completely helpless.
I used to practice by playing team deathmatch against a team of bots by myself. And won. You simply can't do that anymore. Because the weapons were weakened,that means if one guy attacks a group of guys,he's going to lose because he can't kill them as quickly as they can kill him. If it takes 3 shots of a weapon to kill someone and one guy attacks 3 guys,who's going to die quicker? Sure,you can *try* to dodge,but they can also fire in more than one direction. And they can dodge too. They're just going to have an advantage.
You may have heard of Quake Live. It's the free browser based version of Quake 3 that id's putting out to raise brand awareness. It launched recently and I signed on. And,once I began to actually play against the trainer bot to determine my "skill",I remembered why I hated Quake 3. The weapons SUCK! It takes too many hits to kill someone. Compared to the fast kill,fast thrill combat of UT1,Q3 was just boring. Positioning means little more than who gets the first shot. And most fights were resolved with who has the rocket launcher. Unfortunately,it was the basis for most new FPS multiplayer games.
So,given the choice of Q3 and UT1,I choose,as many did,UT1 and it's hardcore,fast paced kill-fest. I liked UT1 so much,I bought the anthology pack just to have a new copy on DVD. And to try out UT2 and U2. Not impressed with them much.
UT2/2.5: By the time UT2 came out,I was a rabid UT fan. I'd been waiting and watching and hoping. Then the demo dropped. I played and was disappointed. The "slow kill" ideology of Q3 had spread to UT2. The weapons were nerfed and I just couldn't kill as fast and as easily as I once did. Sure,it meant noone could kill me quickly,but the "everything's deadly" system was gone. Now you have to learn how to use the "right" weapons the "right" way in order to kill quickly,creating a learning curve that sucked all the fun out of the experience. You couldn't just log in,pick up your favorite weapon,and just frag. Now you had to learn who to use certain weapons,certain ways,and at certain times. This was not the UT I fell in love with.
2.5 was just a complete *** reaming by the company on an already bad game. This was just a colossally bad set up. First off,it's basically just an expansion. But it's not sold like an expansion. It's sold as a whole new game. It was basically just an upgraded UT2,but for the price of UT2 all over again. The vehicles were a good addition,but in the end,the gameplay still sucked because the weapons were still weak. The addition of a weapon named after a craptastic pop star did NOT help. So the whole thing came off as just one big middle finger to the game buying public. And then Epic wonders why it didn't sell well.
UT3: So here we are at UT3. Although the weapons are better than UT2.5,it's not by much. Nowhere near as good as UT1. The vehicles are interesting and all,but not enough to save the game. Maps and graphics are over done and at the sacrifice of larger maps and better performance. In the end,UT3 has forsaken what made UT1 better than Q3 to become just like Q3. All graphics and packaging,none of the play and fun.
If I wanted Quake,I'd buy Quake. As I haven't,I obviously don't want to play Quake. I want to play UT1 with all the bells and whistles of UT3. Or even just UT2.5. I want sizable maps with all kinds of cover and places to duck to avoid snipers and vehicles that can get me across a map quickly or with a lot of firepower. I want jetpacks and the old 8-ball. I want miniguns that can kill WITHIN 50 rounds. I want something that DOESN'T reach out to the "cool skater" demographic,instead appealing to the "I'm gonna rip your brain out and make you eat it" demographic.
And that's just my problems with UT. It seems the idea of "weapons that don't kill people" has spread to many other games. If you've played Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2,you probably know what I mean. Supposedly,it's supposed to make people "play as a team". All it really does is reduce the game to numbers. If they have more than you,you're dead. No exceptions for skill. No means to out smart them. You just die.
Team Fortress 2 has recently released the Scout pack. Which introduces automatic dodging and stun effects! At what point did people become so obsessed with MMORPGs that we gave up all pretense of skill and just have the game play itself for us?
So that's my story. That's what bugs me about FPS games these days. Nerfed weapons and "teamplay" mechanics that force people to rely on others to do ANYTHING. If you really want to make a game that's "different" as that one guy said in an interview,how about about starting here with the weapons. Go back to the UT1 well and give us dangerous weapons that hurt people. That's what UT1 was about for me.
) that are irrelevant. 
lol
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