Have WE UT Fanatics FORGOTTEN Why? ...

[Hook]

Have WE UT Fanatics FORGOTTEN Why? ...

UT HAS pretty much ALL it needs now. REALLY!

Except one thing... (That we Seem to have Forgotten about)
What is it that Any Possible NEW players look for when they decide to "PLAY" a game? (hint hint)
They do NOT look for New mods, New maps, New textures, etc. - nothing like that at all.
We have TONS of all of that and some of it is good and some of it is Not good! ...
... (ie "Not good" -> S3TC Texture Debate or Debacle for one)

The Over Whelming Single Most thing I hear from NEW players is -
- They Look to see IF, and more importantly, HOW MANY Players are PLAYING the game online! (still)
They LOVE the idea that there are Still Players PLAYING UT online and then wish to get UT and PLAY it!
This is what WE all NEED to do MORE of to keep UT99 alive!
The more people that PLAY it - the more people that WILL PLAY it!
We generally Like the game Because others Play it also! Me too!
I see more and more people creating things for UT but by far, More and More UT people Not PLAYING UT as much or anymore at all!
Again, I am talking about people that ARE Still INTO UT but don't PLAY it!
WE/They hang around forums a lot and map and make more mods and "fix" things, etc., etc. - But we aren't PLAYING UT or at least Not very much or as much as we would LIKE to!!!
I am guilty also of not PLAYING UT as much as I want to or Should be playing it!!!
Have we Forgotten WHY we got into UT in the first place? (I think I did)
I plan on remedying that as much as possible!
So - PLAY UT online and PLAY it much more often. - I am going to!
Let's Have some FUN with this Great Game before it is too late - Let us PLAY it!!!
That is the MAIN KEY to keeping UT alive!

NOTE: I know that some of us DO play quite a bit - this isn't aimed at you anymore than to say KEEP it Up!
But, a LOT of us UT Fans don't play as much as we should - or at all!

[editor Dave]

Well, I, for instance, started "playing" UT because I wanted to explore the new possibilities from UED 2 because the time before I only had UED 1. My only aim was to map some landscapes and buildings, I never wanted to play excessively. In addition, I'm more into Singleplayer than Multiplayer so this is another fact why I don't play that often.
Again, this is only an example of someone who is involved in UT but doesn't play it, I just wanted to raise my points

[papercoffee]

Ok Hook ...where do you play? ...and what game type?
Maybe I join in.

[Feralidragon]

Basically, all people have different reasons to play, map or even mod for this 10 year old game, some are just still around for the nice community still alive for so long.

My reasons:

- Play:
The game is just that awsome after 10 years, but I play mostly in modded servers, although I would like to play more single player maps, but until now I only had true interest and time to play in ONP (tried also Xidia but I had not time to play it so far).

- Developing:
1) Since this game is very old and limited, I like to challenge the engine and try to extract the best of it as I can. Not only that makes some works look nice enough in this game (which in newer ones most of them would suck visually), as when I achieve some effect or functionality no one has attempted before or was told to be not possible or simply no one remembered that before, that makes me really happy as a developer.
2) It's one of the best bases to learn what Object Oriented Programming is and doing something trully enjoyable in a 3D engine.
3) By being limited, incomplete and buggy, it frustates any developer, but at the same time any developer learns to think outside the box even for other games or applications (what should I do now? what I have to avoid and still achieve the same at the lowest "price" possible?).
4) You can do stuff that looks even better than newer games (I think today games abuse too much on postprocessing, it makes my eyes hurt).
5) Even someone without any skills can do something minimally enjoyable (that was my main problem that made me prefer this engine to start with). If I moved on to another engine, my stuff wouldn't be that good LOL
6) And I can always help keep the community up, although I am just a little pawn in the whole thing

And considering that today people are still releasing unbelievable good stuff, that's one more motive to either play and even develop.

Yet, I am not a really "UT-fanatic" of any sort, it just happenned to me like the developing on this engine and the best mods released for any game ever, and I don't plan to develop anything more for this engine after I complete my last 2 projects, since they will take some time anyway.

[Shade]

I don't play that much too. I was never a good DM or CTF player. the last years, I mostly played on Bunnytrack or Monsterhunt servers.
I have no time anymore to play every day or every week. Well, I may have time, but its too much for me. Other games want to be played too and there are so many other things I can do in the same time. Maybe this sounds like I dont like UT anymore, but thats not true. If I play UT, I do it because some other person(s) I know are playing atm too. Then I join their game. Thats what I like in UT and thats one of the biggest reason I still play this game: I meet friends and have fun with them.

Maybe a community play-day would give some people a push to play. It would give me a push to play other gametypes again, if I play with people I know.

[TheDane]

I'm sorry to disapoint you Hook by not playing the game that much. But I think you got it wrong. I myself love to developed, I hate to join a server where OMG ... do they use mapvoteLA13? and OMG do they use AMLP_HaSM? ... those servers look exactly the same in my eyes, and as an "artist" in this game I play on servers where I see a little difference from the rest. Time goes by, you or anyone else can't stop it, if development stops, so does the game. All that will be left are the old fools like you and I stuck in this old game.

To all developers of UT who likes to make new stuff : !!

The truth is that there a way too many servers made public, cook a mutator that will put all servers into classes, sorted by gamestyle, and only have the top 20 displayed on the server list, that will crowd the servers.

[Hook]

Ok Hook ...where do you play? ...and what game type?
Maybe I join in.

Oh, YES!!! A PLAYER has come forth!
My kind of person!
Well, just check on my site - Click on my sig banner!
We need More Players!

I still think what I said in my first post is true - New Players look for other Players playing.
That is my point!