🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:54:26 +1200, Aaron Lawrence
<aaronlNOSPAM@NOSPAMconsultant.com> wrote:

>On a pleasant day while strolling in 
>alt.games.unreal.tournament, a person by the name of 
>Folk exclaimed:
>> The quiet may be due to the demo sucking in so many areas.  And
>> judging from the time between release of buggy demo and showing up in
>> stores (see above) most folks aren't holding out much hope that all
>> issues will be addressed.
>Yes, that seems likely, unless they already fixed them 
>all before and just released an earlier build...
>
>> I'll buy it, but quite frankly I'm not
>> holding out much hope that the gametype I'm waiting for (Warfare) will
>> actually be worth the wait.
>
>Really? Why? I have a bad feeling about it too (ONS 
>seems so slick that it would be hard to improve on it, 
>as a concept balancing team and invidual play) but I 
>cant say why...

If Warfare had been a finished product, then it would have shipped
with the demo.  ONS was the previous flagship gametype for UT2004 and
now that has morphed into Warfare.  The only reason you would *not*
ship your flagship gametype in the demo is if it was broken. 

If you go back a couple of years, Epic's explanation of what Warfare
was supposed to be is really nothing like the version that people
played at the various expos held recently.  So, instead of having a
grand plan of exactly what they wanted the gametype to be, they've
tried "A" and rejected it, tried "B" and rejected it, etc., etc.  As a
systems designer, I know full well that a system that is gradually
morphed into being after trying a bunch of different ideas is nowhere
near as sound as one that was well designed, well thought out and then
simply coded to spec.  So from that aspect, it sounds like Warfare is
a patch job.

In addition to that, the time between the release of the demo and the
release of the game to manufacturing was laughably short.  The demo
was absolutely riddled with bugs and major shortcomings... undoubtedly
the worst demo that Epic has ever released and I played them all.  The
UI sucked and the server browser was a joke.  Basic options like throw
weapon, suicide, ability to finely adjust mouse sensitivity, showing
the ping of other players, etc. etc. were all missing.  These are
things that mean nothing to console gamers but are important to online
PC gamers.

And you have to factor in the reality of what GoW did to/for Epic.
>>From here forward, Epic's best talent and resources have switched
irreversibly to the console side and I can't say that I really blame
them, but one look at the GUI and missing features in the demo and
it's obvious that this is essentially a console game ported to the PC.
Given all of the above, how in the hell could Epic have possibly
released a polished product?  Answer... they couldn't.  Sure, they can
patch it up over time, but if the game doesn't win people over from
the get-go then it's a lost cause, given the stiff competition that's
out there right now.  People will just move on to CoD4 or TF2 and pass
on UT3 altogether.  The console crowd will eat it up (given their low
expectations) and the PC side will either be forgotten or just get the
scraps provided by the less talented developers, just like we're
seeing now.

IOW, my expectations are justifiably low.