Harvester on 30/11/2008 at 21:38

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I kind of disagree with the statement that Quake 3 looks better than UT99. I'd say that the graphics themselves are sharper and more detailed, sure, but UT is much more versatile in its environments and has much more personality. Every map in Quake 3 looks the same, they all look like, let's say medieval space castles from hell. The exceptions to that can be counted on one hand. The environments in UT are much more varied and fun. But that's just my opinion.

sh0ck3r on 1/12/2008 at 02:08

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He didn't say it did. :D

Gryzemuis on 1/12/2008 at 12:25

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Exactly. In UT99 you could get online after playing some botmatches on experienced skill-level. You could stay in your base and help defend. And it would be fun. While the good players were doing the flagruns, and having a blast fighting through hordes of mediocre and novice players. Fun for everyone. Especially when FFA servers used to be configured for 8 versus 8 games. Once you got better (especially with the translocator) you could slowly start to try flagruns. Or start helping your flagcarrier get across midfield. There was a path to go from novice to pro. And it was fun. In UT200[34] that path was no fun, as novice and mediocre players get slaughtered all the way until they are finally very very good players themselves. Only then the game started to be fun online for new players.



When Epic was working on UT2003 they said they were talking to "pro players". It turned out those "pro players" were just 1-on-1 DM players. Who played Deck16 1-on-1 30 times a day for 2 years. And those players wanted a game where they would get guaranteed wins against an opponent who was slightly worse then themselves. They wanted to eliminate luck. And Epic listened. As a result, the game was only fun for the top 1-on-1 players. Lack of good CTF maps quickly killed CTF in UT2003. I was in a clan that played UT99 and UT2003 (and UT2004 later). But in UT2003 and UT2004 it was obvious very quickly there just weren't enough CTF clans to have good competitions. I think the TDM competitions went on a little longer. By that time Q3A was more dead, and lots of Q3A players came over to UT2003. And those were DM and TDM players. I think that kept TDM alive a bit longer. Also it is easier to make playable custom TDM maps than to make good custom CTF maps.

People also blamed the fact that you could pirate UT99 so easily, and UT200[34] was better protected. Well, I had played so much UT99 CTF, and was so excited for UT2003, I would have paid 100 euros for the game without blinking my eyes. I think all UT99 CTF players were eager for UT2003.

At the time I did not know that developers could have a fluke hit, and after that never produce a good game again. I guess I did more thinking about what made UT99 fun, or what made certain maps good, then Epic did. I'm pretty sure Cliffy B is just a dumb kid, who excells and making games for other dumb kids. My hero used to be Elliot T. Cannon (aka Mischa the Sleddog). He made Deck16 and CTF-November. And a few other maps, and a bunch of excellent Unreal SP maps. He left after UT99, and works for Crytek in Hungary now.

N'Al on 1/12/2008 at 18:44

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Yeah, but fun literally=fun.

Seriously, what are you trying to get at here?

sh0ck3r on 1/12/2008 at 21:20

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I'm getting at that I don't think dethtoll has a point. And I don't see how fun=fun is anything but trite in this already trite discussion.

But yes, it was a poor choice of words on my part, saatana.