Ryan Gordon On Linux UT3: "still on its way"

[L33F3R]

i agree. u99 set the benchmark for other games.

[Irritant]

I'm just curious, what portions of UT3 do you guys feel are mediocre or "crap"?

Now I loved UT99 as much as anyone when it came out, but when I play it now it feels like what it is, and that is very dated. I also think that Q3 was far more polished a game for it's time, especially in respect to it's artwork and level design.

[Dragonlord]

Graphic wise of course it's better. After all you should expect this from a shader based rendering engine. The problem is though in various gameplay related problems.

For one the weapons have shifted away from the well balanced UT99 ones. They are still the same by definition but their functioning has been altered and not in a good way. They are very sluggish right now. The redeemer is just one big joke. The UT99 redeemer had been fun whereas the UT3 reincarnation is totally clueless about what it wants to be in the end. Other guns also totally lost their balancing. The chain-gun turned into a crappy stinger which has a now a slot rotating secondary fire mode ( which stinks ) instead of a high rotation one ( which actually had a good use ). The rocket launcher also turned into a laugh-piece. In UT99 this had been a 8-loader beast with which you could dish out 8 grenades and explosion radius had been lower to compensate. Now it's a 3-loader and bugged like hell. In half the time it misfires since it doesn't recognize properly when you want to load up or single shot. In fact single shot is like trying to fiddle your dick through a needle hole. So in general funs are a mess.

Another point is the killing of Assault and Domination as game modes replacing them with this Warfare hybrid annoyance. Warfare is supposed to be a merge of Assault and Domination but fails at it. It's one huge mess on each map and dominated more by luck than actual skills.

Furthermore adding vehicles killed the game big time. It's though not the only game suffering from this vehicle-hype which once upon time hit games and suddenly any developer had this gruesome idea of putting vehicles in the game just because you can.

Eventually while the graphics are of high quality the levels are often bad. Now what means bad? A rule of thumb is if you take a screenshot of each spawn point you should immediately know where you are on the map. UT3 horribly fails at this. Maps are overloaded with shiny bits and pieces of level geometry making them look similar around all corners. No real flow builds up due to this similarity. For example in UT3 there is this famous dock map known from UT3 and UT DM. Now although in UT99 the map is bland compared to UT3 in a graphical view it had been well defined visually. In UT3 now it is like all maps totally overloaded with level geometry crap. I played dock to death and know it inside out but in UT3 I got totally lost in the map since each part of it looks the same ( shiny... shiny... stop this fucking shiny-ness! ). It's the very same map just beefed up graphically and it has been totally ruined with it. Not all maps are totally bad though. Some smaller maps have an actual flow and are well designed but the majority is not.

So it's a sum of a couple of design problems which kills the game. It's not crap, that's not the case, it's just mediocre because it killed the original UT99 design with shiny upgrades.

[Irritant]

Some good points there, some I do agree with, some I don't. I won't elaborate too much, because it's probably some things we would never agree on, which is quite natural and fine.

[Svartalf]

Some good points there, some I do agree with, some I don't. I won't elaborate too much, because it's probably some things we would never agree on, which is quite natural and fine.

Heh... His is a game developer's perspective of the game. Developers tend to hold games to a bit higher standard (Their own even if they're honest with themselves... ) and he's holding it to the same standards I am- with me having similar thoughts to his on the matter. It looks "pretty"- but considering that there were vastly more people playing the earlier versions on the servers than with UT3 currently, one wonders if either they tapped out the idea (unlikely) or it's just not as much fun to play as the previous iterations of the concept...

[Irritant]

Heh... His is a game developer's perspective of the game. Developers tend to hold games to a bit higher standard (Their own even if they're honest with themselves... ) and he's holding it to the same standards I am- with me having similar thoughts to his on the matter. It looks "pretty"- but considering that there were vastly more people playing the earlier versions on the servers than with UT3 currently, one wonders if either they tapped out the idea (unlikely) or it's just not as much fun to play as the previous iterations of the concept...

Um, yeah, LOL, mine is also from a game developer's perspective as well

The playerbase issue is more likely another one - which is that a very large percentage of gamers still lack the neccesary hardware to run modern games at good enough framerates for online deathmatch. In my experiences as a developer, and supporting a similar game, I am completely amazed at how many people are still using ancient hardware, or crappy integrated Intel chips.

[Svartalf]

Um, yeah, LOL, mine is also from a game developer's perspective as well

Sorry... Forgot about your involvement in things of that nature... The comment was made just as I was getting up and sometimes tidbits like that elude me until I've had my first couple of cups of coffee...

Perhaps I should have made it a bit tighter. "From a engine developer's point of view..." might have been a better statement.

The playerbase issue is more likely another one - which is that a very large percentage of gamers still lack the neccesary hardware to run modern games at good enough framerates for online deathmatch. In my experiences as a developer, and supporting a similar game, I am completely amazed at how many people are still using ancient hardware, or crappy integrated Intel chips.

Oh, I don't know. Consider that it shipped for Windows, X-Box 360 and PS3. It's not done anywhere near as well as it ought to. And, you'd think that with there being no concerns for resources on the 360 and PS3, there'd be more people playing than there is.

Moreover, I don't think your assessment is 100% for gamers lacking the hardware. That game was decently playable with a 7600GS and above. Most of that audience happen to have that class or better of card because all the other games do well to good on it. Yes, you don't get all the eye candy with anything less than a G90/R700 mid-end card or better, but if the game's no fun without the eye candy, then it wasn't much fun to begin with, right?

Don't get me wrong. The engine itself is amazing with wonderful potential for the studios that can afford the thing and can utilize it to it's fullest potential. I just don't think UT3 itself is much of a game at this point because they missed a few bets along the way.

[Irritant]

You're correct about the Xbox and PS3 factor, I hadn't really considered that aspect. I'm not sure what percentage of players they expected to get from those platforms, but yes, that should be considered disappointing.

Anyway, I've been a long time fan of the series, and deathmatch games in general, and I find it to be my favorite. Of course that is one man's opinion, and because I am developing a game of that genre, sought out the reasons why some here didn't care for UT3.

Thanks for the responses

[Svartalf]

You're correct about the Xbox and PS3 factor, I hadn't really considered that aspect. I'm not sure what percentage of players they expected to get from those platforms, but yes, that should be considered disappointing.

Heh... I knew there was something a bit amiss with the game before I'd ever laid hands on a controller for the PS3 version. When your audience isn't overall interested in buying you need to look for answers why. And oftentimes it's not "lack of hardware".

Anyway, I've been a long time fan of the series, and deathmatch games in general, and I find it to be my favorite. Of course that is one man's opinion, and because I am developing a game of that genre, sought out the reasons why some here didn't care for UT3.

My suggestion (fwiw...) would be to find the happy medium between the gameplay fun of UT99 or UT2k3 with what they DID do right in UT3 (I'd have to play it again to point my thoughts on them out to you- but there was quite a few things...they're just not sticking out in my recollection right at the moment...).

It's not so much "didn't care for" and more "meh..." in my case. While there are good things about UT3, they lost it in the pursuit of "balancing" the weapons and the eyecandy they piled onto it. It's become more of an engine demo to me than the game I fell in love with 2 revisions back.

And, you're welcome.

[mirv]

I think you hit the nail on the head there Svartalf: UT3 is a good engine demo, but it's more that than a game.