Death Warrant Forums

Bitch bitch bitch.

Back in the day I used to write server IPs on a piece of paper.

Back in my day, companies didn't release Beta software as gold (unless they were MS).

Wasn't there for the first but played it after the fact , UT has always had it's problems until after SP1. Is this shit fixable ? Thats quite the list all look like they should be fixable , nothing to out of line. Maybe they needed another 6 month's but just out of time .

Does game play just suck ass or what ? Havn't had the pleasure.

Well, that is the funny thing. I can deal with the gameplay. However, we have no idea what WAR is really like, so I can't say on that.

However, everything surrounding the game is pretty crappy. Server broswer, Servers, friends, menus, settings, gamespy, etc. From the studios that brought you Gears of War has found a new money maker, I fear... Consoles.

My interest in this game has greatly diminished. I am now regretting my video card upgrade. I guess I will be able to play TF2, Crysis, and CoD4. Never thought I would say that.

This reminds me of when MS release Office 6.0 for the Mac in the mid nineties. It was a port of Office from Windows. Crappiest piece of software I ever had the pleasure of supporting.

Ugh.. my dad said when UT3 came out, he would uninstall UT-better-than-3 and just put UT3 on, for space issues on the hard drive. I think I'm gonna see if I can talk him out of it. I mean, c'mon, no favorites? That shoulda been first on the list!

yeah, favorites is kinda helpful. i don't see why they shouldn't be able to change some of this stuff within a week of its release. can't be that hard can it? they've already done it before on other games.
anyway, i just want those stupid extras that come with the special edition thing. they have video tutorials! maybe i can just get them on ebay. :compress:

Hmmm, to a certain extent I think people are blowing this out of proportion. Ok the menus suck blah blah blah. Its a new UT which always needs patching to sort stuff out, the important bit is the game play which is pretty solid.

and none of us have played warefare yet which is what we were all waiting for !

according to a top ons player, warfare is meant to be really good :D

Well, I think that I am going to take the MS approach. Wait for a couple of patches. If it is anything like the demo, the game is dead before it hits the shelves. If it takes six months before it is acceptable, then no one will purchase it, no matter how good it is then.

And the other thing that everyone keeps forgetting... When are they going to have time to patch it? They still have to punch out the XBox360 and PS3 versions. Which they have already pushed back and Midway already said in their financials how much of a hit they were going to have to take because they are missing their release date.

I have a feeling that there is going to be a UT4 that complements UT3 like UT2004 did for UT2003. Either that, or they become an engine company.

kaeolian wrote:Hmmm, to a certain extent I think people are blowing this out of proportion. Ok the menus suck blah blah blah. Its a new UT which always needs patching to sort stuff out, the important bit is the game play which is pretty solid.

Years ago when Hotmail was brand new, I remember having seen a print ad for it in a university newspaper. There was a photo of a guy sitting on a toilet seat desperately grasping for a roll of toilet paper on the floor in the stall next to him and being unable to reach it. The caption was something like this:

"What good is it if you can't get it?"

I think that describes the situation with the server browser aptly. The game play might be great, but UT3 is intended primarily as an online multiplayer game and the server browser is the window to the online multiplayer world. What good is the solid game play if you can't identify servers that you want to play on? What good is it if you can't make a list of Favorites? You're going to end up being reduced to having to write down server IPs in a logbook and then opening the console and typing: Open <IP>.

Is this concern over the worst server browser in the history of the UT games overblown?

I hope so and I hope that Epic will quickly release a patch to fix the server browser's deficiencies. However, it still raises several questions:

1. After having gotten it right in UT99 and UT 2004, how is it possible to go backwards with the server browser?

It's not like trying to get the chemistry of subjective weapon balance and movement correct; the functionality and features of a server browser are easy to determine. Surely Epic must have known that players would want to be able to create a list of Favorites and that they would want the browser to function properly. So why didn't they fix it, especially after having received a barrage of negative feedback from players after the release of the Demo? How has it been affected by their relationship with Gamespy?

2. Will Epic patch UT3 at all and if so, will they fix the server browser, and when?

Right now Epic's main priority is to hurry up and finish work on the console versions of the games, which is where the real money is. Let's face it, both the Demo and the German release are rife with evidence of the influence of the consoles. The game play itself is good, but the user interface screams "ported from a console". Given this radical (and rather understandable) change in priority, will Epic even release a UT3 patch at all? Will they release the patch before newcomers to the series give up on the game after having been frustrated with the difficulty of finding and remembering good servers?

3. Does Epic still care about PC online multiplayer?

The current server browser may serve as evidence to the contrary. Earlier, during an interview, an Epic spokesman mentioned that with UT 2004 they discovered that only half of the CD keys ever went online, perhaps because people were afraid of e-jerks and that for that reason they wanted to increase the quality of the single player game. That's fair enough, but it does imply a decrease in the emphasis and value of multiplayer gaming. Also, UT3 will not have a built-in IRC browser (which helps introduce new people to IRC and the clan and enthusiast community) and it's shipping without Webadmin (they say they're going to include it in a patch). Furthermore, consoles are inherently single player platforms.

4. Was Epic just badgered by Midway into rushing the PC version to the presses so that they could hurry up and finish the console versions?

I suspect that this is what actually happened and that Epic used the little bit of time it had between the release of the Beta Demo and the (beta) full version to fix the worst bugs and incompatibility issues. I hope that that's what really happened and that they feel remorseful about the quality of the PC game. Let's just hope that they're still committed to getting it right and that they're already working on a patch to fix the PC game's problems.

5. How should Epic's almost complete lack of communication about these issues be interpreted?

Should we interpret it to mean that the PC game is the PC game and that that's what we're getting? It has been suggested that a webadmin would be added with a patch, which does suggest that they'll release a patch at some point. However, Epic's silence about the other issues in the face of tremendous concern and angst amongst its fan base is deafening. Why couldn't someone from Epic take five minutes to fire off a short post saying:

"We aren't completely satisfied with the server browser and the user interface and we really wanted to send the game to the presses. We understand players' concerns and we're planning to remedy them with a large patch."

Instead, all we're seeing are locked and deleted threads. One such thread was the Server Browser Poll, whose finally tally was:

Hate it: 316
Love it: 4
Not bothered by it: 18

http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/showth ... p?t=581872

In summary, I'm not sure what to believe. I want to believe that they were just rushed in releasing the gold version and that they are feeling tremendous financial pressure and pressure from their partners (Midway, Gamespy) and that they fully intend to fix the game. However, at the same time, I'm concerned that this is no longer the same old Epic and that they no longer care too much for the PC version and/or online multiplayer.