Epic: Future of Unreal Tournament [UT4]

[Cronoloop]

I'm pretty sure Epic is not serious about this
I mean it's just another way to show off their engine

[Carbon]

This post is long and the narrative fragmented. Stream-of-thought writing here, so forgive my doubling and redoubling of statements.

I believe that what we are seeing is an experiment that has gone wrong or at least out of control.

There are many good people associated with the project; many old UT devs are working hard and so far, they have managed to create something of very high quality and a worthy successor in the UT lineage. Yes, even now, in pre-alpha, it is a good game. It needs much work yet, but fundamentally, it is fun and a good game.

Where is the error? What is out of control?

Too many people involved. They are listening to too many people who are not helping, but creating doubt, insecurity and are a stumbling block to the process. The game should no longer take the route it is; building this game by further consensus has to end. Epic need to take control and get this thing moving forward, fast.

They have lost the early momentum now. People were hyped, looking forward to the game, but the energy is dying. People are playing the pre-alpha along the way and it is like being able to play with your Christmas gift in January, a year before it will be formally 'given' to you. When the day comes that it is yours, it has lost its' magic; you no longer care about playing it, even though it is now yours.

I honestly believe that they need to halt the community collaboration and close the doors. Get some more people on the project and get it 90% finished before opening the door again. This will be hard, maybe even seem impossible, but they need to take it on the chin. They might alienate people, but who are the people they will alienate? A comparatively small group of old school people; those very same people that are actually hurting the process by being too involved. What will they gain? More than they will lose, by far. Going dark will create a new anticipation in the gaming community; if people know that things are moving along quickly and solidly, the release will be anticipated more. As it is, it is in danger of being dead before it was ever really alive. Over exposure already. And who are all of these 'contributors'? I don't mean those who have really done something tangible, but all of these voices being listened to? Who are these people? Not devs, just players, who don't even seem to know what they want themselves. Speaking just to hear their own voices because they have been given a soapbox, it seems.

Too much talk, endless alpha....how long did they think this could go on and still keep up some hype, excitement, mystery and anticipation. What is there to really anticipate? You can download it now, get a pretty good idea of what its about and then it soon become passe, yesterday's news. Too many small iterative updates that most people don't even really notice. Like checking in on a skyscraper daily; the changes are too small to care after a while. No big progress; a map every few months, a movement tweak that pleases a handful of people while bores the majority to tears, not even noticing or really caring about these trivial things.

Not trivial?

They are. People are micro-scoping this thing to death and Epic are pandering to an insatiable crowd. And they are in danger of losing this thing completely for the average person. And it is the average person who will play, become freshly engaged, buy stuff on the marketplace, make a new clan, get competitive and make a classic game for a new generation. The risk of alienating the comparative few - who will come around once they find easy modding tools to change all aspects of the game - far outweighs the potential gains of getting this thing done and out there to the masses. The yare acting like they are making a retail game here! They have already stated it will be free, so why all the big fuss over a few people? It's free! People will play it if it is good and the current process is simply not making that a sure thing, so why bother continuing this slow rate of progress? What is the benefit? It's called loss-cutting and while it might sting, it will be better in the long run.

So much focus on the minutiae, people arguing about things that could just as well end up as mods in the game, on the marketplace or even just options in a menu. Reading the forums there is just tiring these days. One idea comes up and there are 15 pages of debate but no resolution. Boring. That is where this thing is going right now....straight off a cliff into boredom.

Release it and they will come. Make a good game - which Epic are very capable of doing. Get Cliff back. Seriously. The man knows how to design a fun game and this - people like him - is what Epic need right now. To close the door, knuckle down, inject something new into the mix, make it new and fresh then get it out there for a Christmas 2016 release. Hire back Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, let Clawfist go crazy with Gooba, pay a few of the contributors to generate ideas....bring back some of the old, inject some of the new and make a great game.

Epic have a good idea what people want; they don't have to listen so closely anymore. Its time to take all of the feedback so far, close the door and get it done. Then, when it is in a late beta, open the doors again and make a few changes, but nothing substantial.

There are too many cooks in the kitchen and the recipe is strangely getting too busy and oddly tasteless.

Just make the game and let people mod the heck out if it. That was the secret of UT's success over the years. Make an imperfect game and give people the mod tools - relatively simple mod tools to make it better, different or just how they like it. UEd was Tim Sweeney's genius...what happened to that kind of toolset? The kind that let the game be popular and grow, change, morph into 50 games...where is that simple recipe for success? Overwrought and tripping over itself. Don't like the movement? Mod it. Don't like the weapon balance? Mod it. The original UT was far from perfect and it too a whole community - a fragmented community, but still rallying around the game - to make it the timeless classic it remains today. This was the secret sauce of the original.

The process is too complex right now, too many voices speaking at once. Lock it down - trust yourselves Epic - simplify the game and tools, make it highly moddable, open up a good version of the marketplace and let it go.

Along post but I really believe this is the way to go. We'll see, but I think the future will agree.

[papercoffee]

Just to make something clear (sorry Carbon I didn't read you whole post) ...I am active there in the Art section and the Devs learned their lesson there. "Don't listen to every minor complain" ...they have the new policy to show milestones and wait for suggestions from the community. Then the go dark again and present the next milestone month later without trying to please everyone. The Skaarj player model was heavily criticised and deemed not worthy from the UT-veterans.
The Devs didn't care and told people to create their own model they would even help to implement it. Now exists a newer more savage Skaarj design and the older player model is accepted as a Skaarj Hybrid by the fans.

I don't know how far community involvement goes in the other sections ...but in the art section they listen to the community but not entirely. Time consuming Nitpickers are generous ignored.

The whole thing is about modeling, buying resources like static meshes and selling meshes

You don't have to sell any of your mods and models ...but if you want to have 20 cents for your awesome hat you created and people buy it... well ...I wait till someone makes a replica for free. Or I make my own coffee-cup helmet.

[Cronoloop]

Carbon: very nice post, now I'm scared (or happy?) that the devs might actually close the project or even worse just abandon it
Honestly, I'll stick to '99, call me nostalgic or whatever, that feeling will never go away

[sektor2111]

To summarize, declare NON-HardCoded values (changeable) and let community to run what they want.
Examples:
- GameSpeed - configurable;
- Bot attitude - changeable in Mods;
- Projectiles - changeable not hard-coded.
So to speak let community to work. Making values and rules hard-coded leads in hard time for modder. Allow wise people to manage things and this UT(whatever) won't die.

Edit: If they are smart enough will make a boolean configurable bUT99Like=False or True and let me know what will set there community, LOL. THIS is the test not other brain-farts.
As long as they want something different then topic's title is wrong by default UT4 is NOT future of Unreal Tournament because it looks like won't be that way.
So if we want to talk about another game then let's see: Doom, Quake, Starcraft, Warcraft rather than UT which is no longer UT.

[Red_Fist]

I think it's a good thing, it will create a new generation of game makers, new tools, progress.

But if I knew all of it I would be making a UT99 with a little bit of Quake 1 built in, and have the modern things to make it LOOK better.
If you look at the ammo pickups in UT4, it's overkill modeling, and has no good added for anything. It's just showing off a model, rather have the older less goofy looking ones. I mean how many ways can you incarnate a box of bullets same for skins, UT2003 reminded me of playing in a cartoon, like Transformers, (the movie) bulky and stupid looking.

They keep making things look more real life, hair, and details, lip synch, then create these awful kiddyfied looking things.
Same for the sounds, and I believe in UT2003 is when the ESRB came on the scene, all for kids and left our badass UT behind.

[Hellkeeper]

If you look at the ammo pickups in UT4, it's overkill modeling, and has no good added for anything. It's just showing off a model, rather have the older less goofy looking ones.

This is exactly why I could never get into UT3 and I doubt I'll get into UT4. Too much polygons just for the sake of it.

I think UT2003/2004 was a happy medium between UT's crude modeling with pointy characters and messy mangled texs (because honestly...) and UT3's hardcore mix of bloom, halos and confusing modelisation.

However, it looks like this UT4 has at least learned about UT3's mistake about overused bloom, fog and other shitty filters. Most pictures I've seen so far have been crisp and clean.

[EvilGrins]

UT4 updates to "Screenshots for Fun" over on the official forum · https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournam ... FUN!/page5

[rjmno1]

Maby its indeed just like carbon reaction in this post is that epic games must be more involved in this project
What i wanna see in this project is a remake of unreal tournament 99 but ofcorse with higher resolution and the same sort of music.
The movement of ut 4 is good its olmost the same as ut 99.
And if you wanna make a good game it just cost more of the time of everyone who is involved with this project.
But i,m afraid that people who growed up with ut 99 they gona compare that with this new game.
It has has olso something todo in wich year you was born.
People of mine age looking with a sort of nostalgi to the old ut99.
Well maby they make a descent mod in ut 4 for ut 99 and nobody complainse anymore.
the older games we all love are olmost al availeble in the wayback machine of the internet.
Kids from 15 or 16 years old have much more choise between games there are also alot of games avaleble on game computers like playstation 3 and 4.
And ofcourse xbox consoles.
They have more choise.
We are all looking to it like a older game with very high specs to the old 99 back in those days.
With this game i mean ut99 was his time alot ahead on the minimum hardware specs.
Now everybody has a computer and the engine is not so picky depending on the hardware specs.
There are alot of games wich where made with unreal ed and udk.
Some levels wich made by someone looks very good, that kind qf quality i like to see in ut4 also.
Textures quality very high please, just looks like real.



And this:new games will come with the time in the near future and will be more eyecandy then this one.
New engines will be programed with new enhanched hardware and software.
Think on the new 4k displays and new upcoming videocards with new hbm 2 memmory on it.
samsung is already busy with the production of the new ati videocards with those new type of memmory.
While envidia goes on with ddr5s memmory modules for the new upcoming videocards.
New pieces of software will be programmed.
and everything is highend with textures you never seen before.
Yes we all know that the computer technology is in this days still groing and just like the hardware industry always envolving.
new directx versions will be programmed for the more highend videocards.
Processors are going to be faster and with more cores,harddisk will be bigger because the windows versions going to be bigger also.
Intern memmory will be faster and more ramm will be added to the near upcoming motherboards.
That is where the whole technologie is built on.
Because thay want you to buy the newest hard en software because the older versions does not support it anymore.
And before u know it we are all victim of the upcoming new stuff wich produched each year with newer hard and software.
Yes we are all victims from marketing strategy.

http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_topics/8

much regardz:rjmno1

[Gustavo6046]

This UT4 did only one good thing to me: picking up old UT99 disc again and putting it inside my PC

I feel dirty now.

Calling UT dirt, huh!

[papercoffee]

This UT4 did only one good thing to me: picking up old UT99 disc again and putting it inside my PC

I feel dirty now.

Calling UT dirt, huh!

PC is used sometimes as an abbreviation of my user-name by other member.
Think before you assume something. Ask next time.

[EvilGrins]

On of the forums I frequent, that I log into the least, is http://www.prounreal.org/forums/index.php where they have a scathing hatred of UT4 as a failure... even though it's still in development they really don't see the point of the thing.

They may be ranting for the sake of ranting, though.

[papercoffee]

On of the forums I frequent, that I log into the least, is http://www.prounreal.org/forums/index.php where they have a scathing hatred of UT4 as a failure... even though it's still in development they really don't see the point of the thing.

They may be ranting for the sake of ranting, though.

Ah ...yes ...the competitive PRO player. Of course they don't like it.

Well, "to be profesional" is a term from the world of employment and doesn't fit into the world of gaming ...because games are for fun.

Meh...

[rjmno1]

Carbon is right on his opinion there are just to much people envolved.
With as an individual more idea,s,and everyone knows it bether.
Whit i final result lacks they will becoume on no decision,and on the end of the day nothing is edited and make.
So i think indeed that epic games must be more envolved with the project , or is just to make up there mind on editing and making maps.
Problem number 2 is that if someone making a mod you must buy it en maby the servers are up ta date to that mod so you canot play on that server becouse
You didn,t bought it.
I juyst wondering how much time it takes to make ut 4 finished.
I hope this project will be a very healthy end, and people actualy talking to eachother.
This is why imo this project takes just to lang for releasing the final release.

[EvilGrins]

Whatever you think of UT4, the folks on ProUnreal hate it with an unholy passion· http://www.prounreal.org/forums/viewtop ... highlight=

That link is to their review of Lawbreakers, which included 2 vids like the following:
rnnfvLiNOmg

This is Cliffy B's new game, which is apparently much more playable, according to PU, than UT4 is.