What kind of vehicles do you want for the next UT4(if it ever happens)?

[xeanderthal]

I want cars that blow up more easily (maybe a multiplier to increase damage from weapons on vehicles) and debris that doesnt turn invisible until the blocking volume is removed.

[NovaZzZ]

I agree with Random54, in order to bring UT back into the popular gaming scene, we need Epic to focus on some of the core gameplay types such as DM, TDM, CTF, and 1v1 in order to get great e-sports scene going. If not, the game is just going to be another UT3 (No offense to the Vehicle players). Maybe a later released expansion pack or add-on with free mod support that has vehicles after the succession of vanilla UT4.

[Veggie_D]

That is a much more considerate way of putting it.

I agree that a more focused and modular approach could be a good idea, and certainly the place to start would be DM/TDM.

Unfortunately it's not clear what incentive Epic or any company has to attempt to get an "e-sports scene going", in terms of how that could be leveraged into something profitable.

And it bears repeating: for the multitude of reasons already discussed at length elsewhere, there exists no evidence or plausible rumor whatsoever as to the slightest interest from Epic in developing a U3/UT4/U-anything. Chatting about this vehicle or that vehicle or no vehicles may be a bit of idle fun, but it's a moot topic.

[BoofBoof]

it better happen... something like chopper from halo 3 but ut4'd

[NovaZzZ]

That is a much more considerate way of putting it.

I agree that a more focused and modular approach could be a good idea, and certainly the place to start would be DM/TDM.

Unfortunately it's not clear what incentive Epic or any company has to attempt to get an "e-sports scene going", in terms of how that could be leveraged into something profitable.

I hate to bash you on your post, but have you seen Starcraft 2, League of Legends, or QuakeLive? All those games were specifically made to be popular in esports today. IF Epic learned something from these developers, they would have a hit game on their hands, and thousands of players would be attempting to get good. Look at Starcraft 2, for goodness sake.

I'm pretty sure a few vehicle gametypes would be added to attract some Military shooter genre players, but if you look at any arena shooter, especially Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament GOTY, the greatest of them all, you don't see any type of vehicles. UT4 should start off with: DM, TDM, CTF, and other footmodes to generate a competitive community. Then after that succeeds, create an expansion of vehicle modes to attract other players who do not see footmodes as an attraction.

And it bears repeating: for the multitude of reasons already discussed at length elsewhere, there exists no evidence or plausible rumor whatsoever as to the slightest interest from Epic in developing a U3/UT4/U-anything. Chatting about this vehicle or that vehicle or no vehicles may be a bit of idle fun, but it's a moot topic.

[Bl!tz~]

...And it bears repeating: for the multitude of reasons already discussed at length elsewhere, there exists no evidence or plausible rumor whatsoever as to the slightest interest from Epic in developing a U3/UT4/U-anything. Chatting about this vehicle or that vehicle or no vehicles may be a bit of idle fun, but it's a moot topic.

...+1 ...just for the fun to quote this one

[Veggie_D]

Starcraft 2, League of Legends, or QuakeLive

Of that set I'm only familiar with the strict FPS, which is probably the more apt comparison anyway — I do think QuakeLive's business model of ads and later subscriptions was an interesting play, but QL wasn't exactly a financial success for id, which struggled throughout its development to keep the project afloat. It would not be reasonable to expect a profit-seeking Epic to look to replicate that model with a UT-type game, no matter how wildly optimistic we might forecast the number of players it might draw.

At the end of the day, profitability, not community, determines what gets made.

Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament GOTY, the greatest of them all, you don't see any type of vehicles.

True, you don't — but I don't see how some feature not having been invented yet in a couple of 14-year-old games establishes anything. I might just as easily point out that you don't see wall-dodging either, and I'm guessing you and I both think wall-dodging is pretty great.



The narrow definition of "e-sports" is unfortunate. There are aspects to games like VCTF and even Warfare that make full use of one's footwork and DM skills — escape with the flag, fool the defense going low with your hammerjump and boots, down a Viper giving chase in mid-air with your Avril, then strike a pouncing combo on another defender at midfield before landing in behind your teammate's flyer streaking in to tow you the rest of the way back — with skilled teams and players (yes, they're "skilled" too), this stuff can be every bit as thrilling and "e-sporty" as anything you experience in straight DM/TDM.

[ever/ast]

ANYWAY... back to what this thread is actually about (VEHICLES for the next Unreal, if there is one).

For me, i think they've pretty much got it spot on in terms of categories of vehicles (Aircraft, Tanks, Personnel carriers, artillery). Personally, i'd really like the hoverboards to go away.... but that's just my personal preference as a ut2004 fan boy .

My ideas are:

- Water based vehicles?! I'd love to see a vehicle that can drive on land and then when you present it with some water, it then turns into a fast moving submarine type thing.

- Another idea would be to have hover-bikes? Think Star Wars'esque hover bikes with mounted canons or something?

- Lastly, as an addition to the Aircraft category... some kind of Heavy duty bomber/personnel transporter type thing.... Like the ones from Starship troopers. Heavily armored. Why not give it the ability to drop ammo and shields to a node or battlefield area?! That would be sick.

Again, IF (and thats a big if) there is going to be a new unreal tournament.

[Random54]

The narrow definition of "e-sports" is unfortunate. There are aspects to games like VCTF and even Warfare that make full use of one's footwork and DM skills — escape with the flag, fool the defense going low with your hammerjump and boots, down a Viper giving chase in mid-air with your Avril, then strike a pouncing combo on another defender at midfield before landing in behind your teammate's flyer streaking in to tow you the rest of the way back — with skilled teams and players (yes, they're "skilled" too), this stuff can be every bit as thrilling and "e-sporty" as anything you experience in straight DM/TDM.

E-Sports have to be pleasing to spectators. Team games unfortunately have pretty much failed as true "E-Sports". League of Legends gets viewers but they are entirely LoL players (and a very small % of LoL players too). Quake Lives most recent on line tournament (for virtually no money with no names) went on at the same time as the Shoot Mania $100k off line tournament with pro Quake players like Rapha playing in it. Quake Live had 3k+ viewers where I dont think Shootmania broke 2k at any point. Fighting games and SC2 have been popular because non players of those games can watch them. They are easy to follow. Trying to watch a team game of other game doesn't work well because there are too many focal points. If a team game for FPS was going to be a successful e-sport then it would have to be something more similar to bombing run where there is only a single focal point. This would make whats happening much clearer for spectators who don't play the game. Doesn't matter how much skill is involved in your game, if it can't be viewed by people who don't play it will never be a successful e-sport.

ANYWAY... back to what this thread is actually about (VEHICLES for the next Unreal, if there is one).

Agreed. No vehicles. If you want to see the game be a success go back to what works. The reason Arena FPS have gone away isn't due to any fall off in popularity. It's from trying to cater to too many crowds. Every pure arena FPS has been successful (QL is essentially Q3 and should be counted as such). Would anyone play CoD if they added race cars? Would they play need for speed if they added Rocket Launchers? Once you start adding break a genera is the games fail and they fail hard. The only semi successful arena shooter with vehicles was UT2k4. It was essentially successful because it was an improved version of 2k3 in terms of DM and both games fed off the legacy of the original UT. Quake games instantly became unpopular when the added vehicles. IF the devs could some how manage to make a decent arena FPS that stands alone then tacking on vehicles game modes would be fine as DLC. The problem is designing the game around vehicles breaks the other game modes and competitive players (the one's who drive arena FPS communities) won't accept it.

[Veggie_D]

Water based vehicles?! I'd love to see a vehicle that can drive on land and then when you present it with some water, it then turns into a fast moving submarine type thing.

Yes to that. Water was always a whole area left unexplored in UT. Boats and amphibious would be brilliant. Towing a flag-carrier with a jetski ... or dunking him in behind your submarine! That would be pretty cool alright.

Personally, i'd really like the hoverboards to go away.... but that's just my personal preference as a ut2004 fan boy .

Really. Hoverboards were kind of universally regarded as the biggest pure win going into UT3 ... in Onslaught no one enjoyed having to hoof it when a vehicle wasn't handy.

E-Sports have to be pleasing to spectators. Team games unfortunately have pretty much failed as true "E-Sports". League of Legends gets viewers but they are entirely LoL players (and a very small % of LoL players too). Quake Lives most recent on line tournament (for virtually no money with no names) went on at the same time as the Shoot Mania $100k off line tournament with pro Quake players like Rapha playing in it. Quake Live had 3k+ viewers where I dont think Shootmania broke 2k at any point. Fighting games and SC2 have been popular because non players of those games can watch them. They are easy to follow. Trying to watch a team game of other game doesn't work well because there are too many focal points. If a team game for FPS was going to be a successful e-sport then it would have to be something more similar to bombing run where there is only a single focal point. This would make whats happening much clearer for spectators who don't play the game. Doesn't matter how much skill is involved in your game, if it can't be viewed by people who don't play it will never be a successful e-sport.

What you're describing sounds more like a case for realizing the value of more powerful spectating tools — which I could not agree with more. Imagine a spectator mode where you can place cameras around a map, with keybinds to let you cut immediately to any of them, as well as to any player. This wouldn't just befit team and vehicle games, it would raise the production values of livestreams of your 1v1s as well.

The throngs of adoring fans you're imagining are sophisticated enough to focus on more than one thing.

No vehicles. ... The problem is designing the game around vehicles breaks the other game modes and competitive players (the one's who drive arena FPS communities) won't accept it.

Please point to one aspect of DM in UT3 that was broken or even the least bit affected by any vehicle.

[NovaZzZ]

Veggie_D I understand your arguments for backing up Vehicle gameplay in UT, but if you look at alot of the UT3 previews from 2006-2007, the main focus was vehicles. This drove away competitive players because the main focus was on vehicle modes instead of core gameplay.

[Veggie_D]

"Main focus." Main focus. What does that even entail? Are the DM-only crowd really just vying for Epic's attention?

Such a statement has no meaning unless — again — it's backed by at least some substantive account of how exactly DM was harmed by the vehicles it does not include.

We're still waiting.



Meanwhile, the continued vagueness of these arguments begins to suggest the possibility that where they're really stemming from is some imagined entitlement to an elite, exclusive "first-class citizenship of UT-land", owed to certain players by virtue of their "purity" of refusing ever to touch vehicular game-types.

Entitlement, elitism, exclusivity — toward the stated goal of community-building, these are not good directions to be pointing. I'd hope and wish this were just an appearances problem, and not actually the case.

[Corrupt]

I'm pretty sure a few vehicle gametypes would be added to attract some Military shooter genre players, but if you look at any arena shooter, especially Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament GOTY, the greatest of them all, you don't see any type of vehicles. UT4 should start off with: DM, TDM, CTF, and other footmodes to generate a competitive community. Then after that succeeds, create an expansion of vehicle modes to attract other players who do not see footmodes as an attraction.

And it bears repeating: for the multitude of reasons already discussed at length elsewhere, there exists no evidence or plausible rumor whatsoever as to the slightest interest from Epic in developing a U3/UT4/U-anything. Chatting about this vehicle or that vehicle or no vehicles may be a bit of idle fun, but it's a moot topic.

Well Quake 3 was more of a dm, tmd was a slugfest, their ctf gameplay was nothing compare to UT. UT didn't add vehicles because of the engine limitations, I remember reading something about the next UT in a magazine call Gamepro back then, they wanted to add vehicles for the next ut which was in development for the original xbox and the pc that was ut03. More work and time was need it when they finally give birth to ut04.

[Cybis]

It's not fair to diss vehicle game play because "ooh, look - Quake 3 and UT99 were big successes, and they had no vehicles!". Remember that these games came out before the Pentium 2 and most of us were on dialup internet. The technology wasn't quite there yet to make a good online FPS with vehicles.

Anyway, please don't take away my Goliath! I love tanks as much as Polish loves mantas (funny that this leads us to having the same favorite map - Dusk Free Mine). I do agree, however, that the machine gun on top of it kinda sucks. Ironically, I think the reason I like tanks is because they're so vulnerable. Enough firepower to push back an entire team, and yet so easily killed if not well defended.

Scavengers need work too, but they're actually a pretty good offensive vehicle. They do ridiculous damage if you crash them into another vehicle. With skill, they're a pretty good way of killing the tank or dw on Avalanche if nobody tries to avril you. That stupid healing orb thing they shoot is pretty lousy though (but I like the idea of healing friendly nodes / vehicles from a distance).

I do prefer the green rope thing on the UT2k4 scorpion, by the way, to the homing orbs we have now. It required skill to use, but a direct hit at max power could kill anything.

I'm undecided on paladins. They're like tanks with a shield and an EMP, but slower and with a lousy main gun. I'd probably make the paladin something like a "lightweight tank" - increase its speed and firing rate, but decrease the damage (and maybe bring the "push back" of the paladin shot explosions back up to the ut2k4 level).

[Polish]

Honestly, what I would like to see is Warfare mode (including vctf too) released as a stand alone game, with a separate UT title for the non-vehicle classic modes. The reason UT3 didn't do well is because people didn't realize Warfare existed and Epic didn't know to tune it for a console or PC. No matter what you say, the kind of gameplay we've all been seeing on Official Epic Warfare #2 is a testament to how well balanced things ended up being. If the teams are balanced, you get incredible gameplay. All we need are more maps, some bigger, some smaller, maybe an MMO element or a persistent world that teams can fight over for a while, planetside-esque. Thats just extra nonsense though, what is already there is enough for success, it just needs to be presented in a different light. The Titans were a step in the right direction, even though they're not popular in the US servers. I think they're a riot in the EU servers, and more cool stuff like that could be done.

You've got something special with UT3 Warfare, Epic. You should capitalize on it.