UT4 with the new UE4

[Dargon]

Actually I think you may have missed something there. I've said this before, but I think one gimmicky way to raise the profile of UT back up and get people to actually buy the game would be a "Gears vs Unreal Tournament".

In Mike Capps letter, the full quote is: "If you cut me, I think I probably bleed nanoblack and Imulsion. (Wow, just think about what mixing those would do…)". It is the part in parentheses that actually has me wondering if they are pondering a Gears vs UT idea. I hope I get a cut of the sales if it goes on sale LOL!

I don't know, i just don't see something like gears of war vs ut working, how would that work?, i mean the tech (weapon tech, vehicle tech, pretty much everything) in unreal is so far ahead of gear's that the only way i can forsee a vs with it is if gear's is allowed to use unreal tech (unreal has planet destroying to universe changing stuff in it).

I mean there is a universe transporting/collapser weapon (lore wise if it wouldn't be made as a weapon it would be used as a universe transporter,) that exist's (i believe that weapon is in unreal 2). Which hint's of an unreal multiverse.

I suppose it might be possible if unreal is heavily restricted in what weapons/vehicles it can use, but still i don't see a vs possible.

Of coarse im talking about it lore wise within the boundaries of the lore, if you throw all lore/story out just for this one vs game (kind of like those street fighter vs marvel games) i guess it might be doable.

[Slowman]

UT4 best for Beta-testing!

Well folks lets look at this from a technical and pratical prespective! "and keep things simple and minimal"...

UT4 done with a new Unreal engine is a sorte of game that be better for testing purpesses...

...And a more complex game style "like an RPG" be better done with the UT3 engine!...

...Soo make your choose! and pick what kind of game youed like:

Options:
A- simple game play and complex engine, heavy to use in new PCs, bugy and in need of a lot of tunning!!!
B- Complex game play and simple engine, light to use in almost all PCs, tested and tunned with minor bugs!!!

Just make your pick!!!

[Grasshopper]

Does the term armchair quarterback mean anything to ya? .......... <pun intended>

IMO UT3 is still the best competitive FPS there is bar none. First Person Shooter. There will always be a place for this genre.

It may have been a bit before its time with hardware requirements, had a huge bundle of other shooters to compete with, had an already quickly sinking publisher / AKA Midway games, even the entire UT series, the complete GOW realms, all the kings horses, all the kinds men, and Humpty Dumpty himself couldn't have saved them - don't fault anyone for that, if anything Epic did darn good job supporting UT3 considering the publishers are gone from the face of the earth, not to mention a plague of gamespy bugs. These are facts not anecdotal excuses. While the initial consolizated interface did bother me and probably was a shock for a lot of fans, it was hardly a "goal line fumble" and was ultimately corrected.

Epic announced a long time ago they would be releasing periodic installments of the Tournament every so many years, I have never, I repeat never heard them say otherwise. I have a feeling something good is in store no matter how many sensational 'doom' & 'gloom' over the top posts I read. - That's just me though, I respect everyone else's opinions just the same.

Stating that UT3 was a goal line fumble is not arm chair quarterbacking. It's the truth. It wasn't a failure because of competition. It was a failure because it was a lame console port. Epic abandoned their "PC gamers are our bread and butter" base for consoles and it showed. GOW wasn't competition for UT3 on PC. It wasn't on PC. Now I'm sure Epic will jump on the STEAMing pile bandwagon. I watch and hope for a good PC game from Epic, but, I won't hold my breath waiting.

[Ron Paul 2012]

Gears 1 was ported for PC though... But no it wasnt competition for UT3. People were going to buy UT3 regardless of Gears because they love the older UT games just like they will buy UT4 whenever, if ever, it comes out. The issue is how to market a new UT game to people who arent fans of the older games. Most games these days have RPG elements where a player can progress their in game character which I think people like and expect. RPG elements could be added to a new UT game if done right.

[Veggie_D]

Stating that UT3 was a goal line fumble is not arm chair quarterbacking. It's the truth. It wasn't a failure because of competition. It was a failure because it was a lame console port.

I chose the words "goal line fumble" for a reason, but that wasn't it.

I've never been comfortable with crying "console port". That label — like most labels — sounds like yet another semi-religious, shallow oversimplification. Whatever "consolization" exists affects at worst the UI system, and I don't know about everyone else but I spend about 99% of my UT3 time not in the UI. Now I wish as much as anyone that the UI had been more PC-appropriate, but clearly, once you start trading rockets in a server, the game itself is not console-ported in the slightest.

The "fumble" was committed in the end by bad management, bad marketing, and bad executive decisions, all of which squandered a brilliant effort by the rank-and-file talent: the artists, designers, mappers, musicians, and programmers who actually drove the product down the field — and who, frankly, all along have deserved more praise than they've been given.

Most games these days have RPG elements where a player can progress their in game character which I think people like and expect. RPG elements could be added to a new UT game if done right.

No.

You don't succeed over the long term by chasing markets already created by someone else. If what you have is good, then a market currently swaying against you rather portends a coming opportunity — your market will create, or re-create, itself.

The brilliance of multiplayer UT is, and always will be, that it's a compelling, sporting, competitive game where every player is on equal material footing every time they spawn. People are separated only by their knowledge and wits, not by hours logged piloting the hamster wheel of amassing buckets of evermore contrived "stuff".

Success is defined less by good decisions made than by bad decisions not made. Folding any amount of RPG into UT would be a grave mistake. May I suggest instead a thoroughly excellent game involving Vaults and Claptraps that has already neatly carved that niche out for itself.

[Ron Paul 2012]

you disagreed without a thorough explanation. I never said players shouldnt have equal abilities at all times in a UT game. I said RPG elements could be added if done right. These elements do not have to be big dramatic increases in player ability but could be cosmetic only like player skins, weapon skins, or vehicle skins. Or a better and more in depth stat tracking service with stat only awards could be another RPG-like option.

You don't succeed over the long term by chasing markets already created by someone else. If what you have is good, then a market currently swaying against you rather portends a coming opportunity — your market will create, or re-create, itself.

No one game developer alone created current or past gaming markets. They all deserve credit. There is nothing wrong with adapting a product over time for a more broad audience. If Epic had never changed their product there never would have been some of the gametypes in UT3, or vehicles, or a lot of other elements.

[Veggie_D]

you disagreed without a thorough explanation. I never said players shouldnt have equal abilities at all times in a UT game. I said RPG elements could be added if done right. These elements do not have to be big dramatic increases in player ability but could be cosmetic only like player skins, weapon skins, or vehicle skins. Or a better and more in depth stat tracking service with stat only awards could be another RPG-like option.

I would argue against even the slightest increases in player ability on account of RPG style achievements. It's already easy enough to paste lesser players at will, just on account of skill and knowledge; the last thing that's needed is an artificial "leveling" mechanic to further assist the already superior player. (Indeed, in a sense, that core RPG element of leveling has been implemented all along in UT, except for real.)

"Achievable stat-tracking" is less harmful, but still unwise, as it only incentivizes selfish play and hurts teamwork. I'm sure you've played team games like Warfare and Onslaught enough to know at least as well as I do that player scores correlate weakly, if at all, with team results.

Cosmetics, like skins or hats or whatever, are fine, mostly harmless, and maybe a good idea. Perhaps they could be achievable in a single-player mode, and then be brought over to show off in multiplayer, so long as they have strictly no effect on gameplay whatsoever. IMO these things are a pointless distraction, but I accept that a lot people would like that and stick around longer because of them.

So I'll agree with "RPG done right", as long as it amounts to something that, frankly, few would really classify as RPG.

No one game developer alone created current or past gaming markets. They all deserve credit. There is nothing wrong with adapting a product over time for a more broad audience. If Epic had never changed their product there never would have been some of the gametypes in UT3, or vehicles, or a lot of other elements.

Agreed — never changing is bad, and innovative, well-designed additions are good.

Following someone else's lead, though, good or bad, just leads to nowhere — at best a short-lived product.

[Sly.]

Veggie, if you see unlockable visuals as an RPG element, then the Unreal Tournament franchise always had them. Think of Xan for example.

[Grasshopper]

'I've never been comfortable with crying "console port". That label — like most labels — sounds like yet another semi-religious, shallow oversimplification. Whatever "consolization" exists affects at worst the UI system, and I don't know about everyone else but I spend about 99% of my UT3 time not in the UI. Now I wish as much as anyone that the UI had been more PC-appropriate, but clearly, once you start trading rockets in a server, the game itself is not console-ported in the slightest."

It wasn't just the UI, although that was a big part of it. There were many features in UT 2004 that were not in UT3 because consoles were not capable. There were also a lot of "promised" features in early press releases that never got in because consoles were not capable. It was all dumbed down for consoles. The game was designed for consoles with PC gamers being an afterthought. OK, it's a business and they need to go with what's hot, but, if doing that alienates part of your market, what do you gain?

[Veggie_D]

Veggie, if you see unlockable visuals as an RPG element, then the Unreal Tournament franchise always had them. Think of Xan for example.

Hehe. I don't, but I was trying to lend at least some agreement to the RPG idea.

There were many features in UT 2004 that were not in UT3 because consoles were not capable. There were also a lot of "promised" features in early press releases that never got in because consoles were not capable. It was all dumbed down for consoles.

Specify?

I'll agree it was "dumbed down" from UT2004 in a general, but mostly superficial sense. I remember missing many of the nice little knick-knacks — the .ogg player, the voice-command bot call-signs, what else, the IRC thing — but shucks that all is user interface stuff again isn't it.



There is one significant, non-UI bit I can think of that was definitely "dumbed down", and maybe the fault of "consolization" depending on your point of view: no longer being able to use the Link gun directly on teammates to "link" together. What an unfortunate decision that was.

If anything the teammate-linking was a mechanic to run even further with: why not heal teammates too? Why not let an amped/berserked/juggernauted linker feed his powerup juice into a teammate? Why not share the points scored by a linked player with the linking teammates behind him? Why not add a small tension force between linkers and a linked vehicle? (Let's try this on a Raptor ... whoa, just like a hoverboard! Teamwork is fun, weeee! ... oh noes, ran out of ammoooooooooooo *splat*)

These are the "big little things" that add up to a well-received game.



So there's a point I'll concede, and I wish they'd made more creative space for themselves for stuff like this. But really, once you get off the UI and into the game, UT3 is still pretty much Aces all around.

[Sly.]

Veggie, I agree about the improvements on the teamplay part. It's very reasonable and it could be worked on to make online experience even better (not to mention the bots, they need to master the linking stuff which they clearly did not in UT2004 and not in UT3).

Other than that, I forgot to say something:

@the rpg stuff incl. leveling/upgrades/power increase/etc: There is no space for it in UT. UT has "real life leveling" as Veggie said and as the skill gap between newcomers and those who stick to it was always quite big (and the gamer mentality seems to be: If I can't keep up with others, I leave this game), this would just make it worse.

[Slowman]

Veggie, if you see unlockable visuals as an RPG element, then the Unreal Tournament franchise always had them. Think of Xan for example.

Hey! then checkout this game:
http://www.saintsrow.com/

...And you will be inpressed! its what most UT fans are playing!!!

[Ron Paul 2012]

I would like to unlock a ninja skin at level 50 of UT4 dammit! And I want my bullets to be replaced with throwing stars.

[Pancor]

- soz double - post -

[Pancor]

Ah, the Unreal tournament series.

I remember my first game was quake, played it at my cousins' ~1996-97. I couldnt sleep that night, I was having the most vivid of dreams. Geometrical shapes flying around, and for 9 year old kid, the concept of gaming shook the very foundation of my thinking and desires.

Unreal Tournament of 99 had that very same response. My neighbour got a PC by the time UT99 came out, and the only games we had, were Angel of Darkness (from PS1), Need for Speed II (Second Edition), and those games were absolutely amazing, and are, up to date. We severely enjoyed them, but they did not seem to give us nightmares or any other blasphemy...up until UT99 showed up.

What a game it was. We still weren't very good at the FPS genre, little as we were, we didnt know how to move around the map efficiently, which guns were the best or most proper for situations at hand, and we had to seriously put our head into it, in order to move through a single-player level. We had nightmares about it, oh yes we did, daydreams followed as well. We were extremely keen to beat the game.

And no wonder. Unreal tournament had it all - FAST movement, NO BURDENING STORY mode ( just simple deathmatch story - fight for your life son, else we cook ya'), probably the most AMAZING SOUNDTRACK of all games (I often re-listen to ut99 ost when I'm bored, and it amazes me how innovative and inspiring the music was for that time), awesome atmosphere with BLOODTHIRSTY taunts and VIVID CHARACTERS, that work better for the game than any Call of Duty bed-time-thriller story. To add - just think about the GUNS the game offered, HOW SOLID AND RIGHT THEY FELT.
And that's how simple it is. Those are the main things that make Unreal Tournament, what it is.

Since 1996, I've played many games from the bottom of their Singleplayer campaigns, to the horizon of Multiplayer domination. It has been a fun deal, but nothing has camptured the competitive vibe and wish to become a better student of the game, than quake3, Ut99, Project IGI ... and that's it. Those are the games I enjoyed the most, and...looking back, I wonder, why that is ?

Looking back in time, remembering how we used to interact with each other, the gamers, via AOL messenger, vanilla versions of forums and MSN messenger, what was our attitude towards the game...How everything has changed.
Most games have become immensely commercialised milking cows, wrapped around with the muscle of publishers and twitter lies, endless wish to seduce the customers, to give them what they want, so they give back money.

And how wrong it is. Lets take an example of Call of Duty series, that I've played severely up until Cod4, which was an extreme let-down for hardcore vcod and cod2 fans. Look at what they've done. They've single-handedly transformed the fundamentals of console gaming and the whole gaming scene. You may argue, but everyone feels and knows it - it's undeniable.

Ever since Call of Duty 2 came out on xbox, and broke 1'000'000 copy record, which was a first ever for a console, they found a gold mine, and with Cod4 they stepped on THE Gas pedal. They merged the two genres of RPG and FPS games, which was inevitable and obvious, but they did it right, and it propelled the game into unbelievable heights.

The formula worked ! But what is the gold formula, what does it consist of ?

It relies on very well known mechanisms to most advertisers and product developers since the second world war. After WW2, there were a series of publications throughout economical papers and journals, about the new world of Capitalism, and what is it's future.
One of the nails they hit on the head was about products themselves, and I'm not gonna go into it deeply, but the key-stone statement was - if you make a durable, high quality product that lasts forever - how can you make money of it ? One time price wont do - you simply have to make products that look irresistably good, have no endurance and break fast, so you can make money off of them. And look at how this idea has conquered the world - nowadays you cant get a quality product neither from Mercedes-Benz, nor Sony, nor any other quality oldschoolers, who mostly - folded their businesses.

So how does it affect gaming industry, and in particular - Call of Duty ?
These guys are smart, man oh man, they are.
They basicly arrived at a formula:
They took an amazing engine that iD software had developed, which had been proven over and over again, they combined the best ideas from all the most popular games at that time, that were logical and fundamental for a first person shooter ( Aiming Down The Sights from Operation Flashpoint, Gametypes from Counter-Strike and Quake, movement and some gameplay specifics as well ). Another thing they understood very well - whilst developing a game, devs get into a kind of self sauce tunnel vision, where a lot of ideas they like, may prove wrong and often get rejected by the general public and fans. So what they did was, they implemented the games with monitoring software, which allowed them to track everything - what maps people like, weapons, styles of gameplay, etc.
Additionaly, they improved the engine with every release (for instance, for Cod2, they copied (bought?) some code from Doom3, which has to do something with reflections etc.), which was based on eye-candy rather than performance.

And that is how they've re-invented the bicycle. Buy an engine, put out a clone game to the current best-seller, with certain improvements/spins on every feature of the game, make it eye-candy, combine that with superb advertising and heat given by publisher's muscle, and there you have it - a money making machine.

And how wrong is that. Just as wrong as the statement from 1950' about the product quality.
Infinity Ward and Activision have made a product, which since Modern Warfare 2 (Cod6), has travelled from the main game's objective - to work as a military team in succeeding of reaching a goal, into a game, that feed's the player's greed, and is no longer a game, that has an objective of winning a game, but instead, in every single gametype, there's the greed for frags, which earn you killstreaks, which have actually become the main goal in the game. And the game mechanics have been dumbed down so much, that even people, who have rarely ever played any FPS games, come into the game, and the game works so much for them, that they manage to kill you in most bizzare ways, which OH SO MANY TIMES have dropped my jaw to the ground, left me speechless and staring at my monitor, with a disbelief I had never had in my life.
How does it collide with the product-quality statement ? The mechanics mentioned above make the game extremely fun at first glance, they tap into ego's of casual gamers, making them Stars over night, however, the game is extremely shallow because of those mechanics, making the game boring very fast, since there is no real objective in the game - there's no tricks to learn about gameplay, considering maps - there are 100 paths in the maps, spawnpoints are gay, and they backf((k you, there is no point in trying to play as a team, and holding a perimeter - people who are playing are not pushed towards thinking, they're, instead, pushed to rely on UAV's and other tools that dumb down the game. Also, there is no aiming skill to be learned - consoles have aim-assist and zero recoil, same goes for PC - there's no recoil on guns, no skill to be gained. So the games get boring in a year time, but guess WHAT ! They've got another game ready for the next year, which has not changed one bit. The last innovative game in cod series was Modern Warfare 2, which added some extremes to the game. Ever since then, they've been copy'ing content over, putting new meshes and models of mostly SAME (!!!) guns, adding singleplayer story mode changes and THATS it. And what have they been doing ? Earning BILLIONS.


Why am I clinging so much to the franchise of Call of Duty ? Because it has been the most influential game for the past 5-6 years. Developers and game studios have learned of it's success, and oh man - they want a bite.

Look at games nowadays - every single one of them has an XP meter, has Unlockables, has Downloadable Content. And what is more - back in the day, it used to take a lot of time to make a game for a studio, because they actually cared - they tested, renewed, rebuilt, then tested and tested again. Nowadays, what they do is - they buy an engine, buy engineers to manipulate it, hire writers and producers for SP story, and give them all a close deadline.

Today, is the result of that. Unfinished, buggy, soulless games. Infinity Ward's copycat formula with minimal effort, maximal advertising and profits has succeeded. Poor Grant Collier left right after Cod4, he probably saw what was coming.


Back to Unreal Tournament, and other twitch shooters. Why did we have this pro-longed, boring-sand-between-the-teeth-lettuce-in-the-underwear discussion ?

It's our world, gaming world nowadays. I've been going through gaming forums quite a bit lately. And the main theme is - which one is the next competitive shooter ? Which one will give us a challenge, and throw the devs ***-licking out the door ? Who will save us from the money hungry a((holes that the industry is littered with, nowadays ?

And as far as I can tell - people are desperate. They're trying out all kinds of games, even new genres - like League of Legends, DOTA2, Starcraft2...And from what I gather, they dont really enjoy them. Yes, they feel like the change is good for them, its refreshing and all, but they feel very nostalgic about the good old days of twitch shooters, call of duty1/2/4, and they understand, that none of those new games are their SKIN.
They even try games like Rekoil, out of desperation, which basicly plays the master card - they offer dedicated servers, mod-tools and all that goody sandbox stuff, that quake/ut/cod games used to have back in the day, and now is cut out of the games, because developers want to make more money selling you DLC content. Rekoil is buggy, laggy, unfinished, rushed, without soul and care in the world. It almost seems like developers are giving you a program instead of a game, and telling you to build the game yourself with the in-built game tools. The game is THAT horrid in every respect of it.


And that, is where U n r e a l T o u r n a m e n t 4 and Q u a k e 5 comes into play.

These games have always had real talent working with them - Epic Games and ID Software. How much of their souls have the studios sold - is a question, but I do think it will be proven by their next installments.

These games have always had mod tools, dedicated servers and all the support from developers. Mature support.

These games have almost (quake4, ut3) always been challenging, with steep curve of skill in every respect of the game. And if they didn't - it didnt take long for the community to fix it.


I know what you will say - how about quake4 and ut3 - what a flop that was, huh ?!

I agree, in some respects, and it seems that the cullprit to that were a few reasons - giving the development of quake4 to raven studios and not giving a f((k with what they do with the game on ID software's part, and on ut3's behalf - trying to be someone it's not - a console game.
Those were mistakes, yes. But our beloved studios have not lost their plot, I am almost sure of it. They have not betrayed us. Listening to Sweeney or Carmack give a speech on gaming, still gives you hope.

What I think will happen is what happens in most cases, which is basicly a cycle of natural order. The cycle goes like this:

- a "vanilla" version of a game is released. It is the vision of developers, carefully imagined and crafted. It's the virgin, it's the gold. Everybody loves it;
- a "middle"/another version(s) later on is/are released, to continue the franchise of the game, from the very first award winning release. Developers somehow get the feeling, that they have to innovate beyond limits, change up gameplay and mechanics, to keep the game fresh and actually - in development. And how wrong they are - we just want the same gameplay with new graphics. These "in the middle" games usually fail terribly;
- a "back-to-basics" version is realeased, after 3-10 years from the first release...and yesss. They have learned. They have been reading their mail, their forums, and now they understand, that they have to go back to the original game, give it current day graphics engine, leave the gameplay the same, recreate favourite maps, and hug their fans for the first time in a long time.


Looking at this cycle, which is almost in every activity that is linked to creating and crafting, I do believe Unreal Tournament series is in.
Making UT99 the vanilla, UT2003-4 a very good version of the middle, UT3 - a very bad version of the middle, and....Back-to-basics - the upcoming Unreal Tournament release. I do believe somehow, that UT series and Quake series will be going back to their roots, bring back the hardcore gaming back to the field, because everybody is sick of these new games.

Dont get me wrong - I did not hate ut2004 - in fact, I enjoyed it's single player campaign very much, as well as some aspects of online play, I also did not hate ut3 - yes, indeed, it was very slow and sluggish, but the visual experience was unbelievable. Imagine ut99 with those graphics and those fresh re-defined guns...Isn't it exciting ?


We can never be sure of it, of course. Nor when will these game see the day light. But the fact that they're not announcing any dates, any deadlines - gives hope. It's like they're saying in silence - give us time, MAYBE we're already working on those games, MAYBE we dont want to rush them, MAYBE we want them to be well tested and perfect in as many sides of the orb as possible. MAYBE we have some great ideas. MAYBE it's time for a new age.

So here's my proposition - maybe we should cut the developers some slack, give them one more chance, before we all go out into the world of smelly diapers, explanations to our wives why are we late and other jolly stuff. Maybe we will go out with a bang - maybe we'll experience the best Unreal Tournament so far - who knows. Most of us, Unreal fans, who've started with the vanilla version of the game, are now - what - over 25 in nearly every case ? What does that make us ? - That's right - that makes us 3 heads higher than these new generations of popcorn children, who think that everyday trolling is cool and coolofdoody14 is going to be awesome. Let's give our developers a boost - positive feedback. Positive tweets. Heck, if you liked this post - let them know about it.

My suggestion is - go positive. We're at the bottom right now. Of all Gaming history.