-How many time it will take before epic release a pach that balance the weapon (primary asmd, secondary flack, better rocket splash) ?
-How many time to make a good spectator/demo system mode ?
-How many time before we can have some nice and playable TDM map ?
-How many time to make the game playable with less than 50 fps
-How many time to correct the 4 rocket bug and some other strange and incredible bugs ?

omg i just wake up... it was a dream.

Epic does not care too much imo. Nonetheless, I think they should consider a little bit of tweaking, especially that they are not game-play specialists and that they plan to release UT200X (which means the game-play will be evolving anyway).

true !

have you guys even tested the new patch?

The flak secondary fire rate has been reduced and the primary shock rifle damage is 0. Hows that for balance? Maybe they were so sick of people whining about the damn balance all the time they just made it so the shock rifle did no damage. Honestly, I'm getting sick of all this complaining myself.

I think they are so noob that they can't make a patch without bugs (i talk about the f1 ping = totally fucked f6 ping, thx last patch)

I just think it's really unfair how people bad mouth epic so much, especially with phrases like they don't care and they never listen to the community. They have fixed and changed alot of things people complain about. It's just a matter of time and it's unrealistic for them to do it in a few weeks.

And I believe they have only released 2 patches so far. Q3 is up to point release 32. StarCraft took 2 years to balance. Warcraft is still not well balanced. Half-life CS still has amazing bugs after like 3-5 years. Diablo took years too, even though its a simple point and click game and it is rumored that another patch is in the making. So I wouldn't expect miracles like Epic being able to fix EVERYTHING and make it fun for EVERYONE in such a short amount of time. Especially with the fact that a portion of the community wants the game to be like this and another portion wants it another. They have made it clear which side they have chosen in the matter, so is it so wrong?

They COULD well not include bugs they carried through from UT to UT2 (centerview for head shots and more).

There have not been 32 point releases for Q3, there have been maybe 5. 1.32 is just (I assume) a development number.

Treating the patches genuinely released AS beta builds (e.g. 1.27f/g/h)) as one version, the significant ones were 1.16, 1.17, 1.27, 1.30, 1.31, 1.32.

April 2000: 1.17, which we were on for about a year, and it was good. No gameplay changes from the original release.

March 2001: The 1.2x series arrived (the ones with all the Team Arena crap in them). There WERE some gameplay changes that bled over with this build, but they were all extremely minor, and clientside, which meant everyone just turned them off. :)

July-August 2001: 1.29 and 1.30 were basically a testbed for an additional netcode layer that compressed traffic a bit better. 1.29x had some really crappy intermittent problems; 1.30 fixed them. Still no gameplay changes.

Dec 2001: 1.31, fixed a couple of bugs, made EXE hacking a bit harder, still no gameplay changes.

Oct 2002: 1.32, PB, a couple of bugfixes, and a couple of extensions to the engine. No gameplay changes.

By no stretch of the imagination is that a frenetic release history :P, or any sort of "ongoing rebalancing project". Q3's gameplay is admittedly flawed in several areas, but at least it was good enough for players to make something out of it and didn't obviously NEED patching immediately after release just to get to a state where it was playable even by the "junor FPS circuit".

id also didn't have to go and panic-repair ABSURD bugs ("here's an extra rocket" - are you fucking kidding me?!) that ANY sensible level of testing would have found, or that competent developers would have avoided or squashed internally long before the game was released - err, make that "before the game was rushed out for Xmas sales and a CPL deal".

Horrendously crap code, and gameplay so shitty that it didn't even last 2 months?
"Yay Epic for fixing it"? I don't think so. How about "DO YOUR FUCKING JOB the FIRST time round"?

That there are people not merely willing to tolerate the game in its current state, but to actually PRAISE Epic over it (WTF?!) just goes to show how stupidity and desperation trump reality in some people's worlds.

Dont forget 1.25 with its non-fps dependant physics (removed later) and the thrufloor 'fix'. I think this patch also changed the mouse sensitivity.

Thing is, there's only 1 John Carmack around. Expectations just become blown out of proportion because people are comparing mortals to the god of 3d programming.

And it's not like UT2k3 becomes totally unplayable because the enemy can shoot 1 extra rocket. So what do you call strafe-jumping in Q3 or bunny hopping in CS? What's so absurd about being able to fire an extra rocket compared to being able to gain an incredible speed and movement advatage over your adversaries? I'm not saying that epic is so great or anything. I'm just wondering why they're receiving so much shit for things like this when so many other major gaming companies make similar mistakes.

How come I don't see any whining about why the movement physics are slightly different at differing fpses in Q3? So isn't it the same story whoever has the better rig has the advantage in both Q3 and UT2k3?

How come there wasnt an entire community of people saying things like "I hate blizzard so much because SC > WC3". Or "They're so damn stupid they can't even get the scout tower to upgrade properly". Or "I'm gonna burn my copy of WC3 because upkeep is gay". Or "The spells are so damn spammy, I can't even click on my units. How do I tweak the game so I can remove all the details so I can see the enemy better? Maybe make them glow neon green too so its even easier because eye candy has nothing to do with gameplay. Being able to click on the enemy without the unecessary distractions should be the only skill needed."

What about CS? There were those that were so sure that the jumping changes in 1.5 would completely destroy the game. So certain that other players would share the same point of view. So certain that Valve knows nothing about competitive and fun gameplay. Yet, CS still probably gets more players than every other fps on the planet put together.

It's pretty damn stupid of Epic not to include replay recording and playback in the retail release. But, perhaps they have some valid reason which they cannot disclose. Perhaps they don't. But it's not like they'll never ever be demo recording.

And if Q3 really never needed any gameplay changes, then why does CPMA exist? What are the makers of CPMA trying to imply?

So what makes you smarter than everyone out there? More specifically, what makes you smarter than epic. If you were a programmer at epic, what makes you so sure that you would get it right the first time? So what if you wrote flawless code, tested so extensively it would never have a 4 rocket bug? Will the perfect game that you have coded even have a glimmer of hope of dethroning CS, a game filled with more bugs than a bowl of rotting noodles?

And if Q3 really never needed any gameplay changes, then why does CPMA exist? What are the makers of CPMA trying to imply?

iD released the game they wanted to put on the market with Q3, they didn't need to make extreme changes to the game, adding features which should've been there in the first place etc.
Not everyone needs to like it, and that's where promode comes into play (arQon pretty much "is" cpma so he should be able to explain it a tad better ;)
they tried to make a game more fitting to "pro" play then Q3.

So what makes you smarter than everyone out there? More specifically, what makes you smarter than epic. If you were a programmer at epic, what makes you so sure that you would get it right the first time? So what if you wrote flawless code, tested so extensively it would never have a 4 rocket bug? Will the perfect game that you have coded even have a glimmer of hope of dethroning CS, a game filled with more bugs than a bowl of rotting noodles?

He has "made" a mod that is hardly bug filled (and he didn't let cpma go gold before he was sure it was good enough (took long enough though :f ).
Epic has missed the boat on quite some things on UT2003, obvious bugs from UT are in UT2003 again (not to speak of the shitload of big bugs still in UT after more then 3 years)
missing some important features on release etc, I'm starting to like the game now I have fps which are okish, but still it's hardly gonna be something I'll play as much as I have played UT and Q3 (cpm is taking that throne atm)

Even if epic were staffed by a bunch of retards, people shouldn't bite their heads off for it. It's not like other gaming companies have not made similar mistakes. I doubt they had the luxury of taking their sweet time to extensively test their game because it's pretty clear they released it early. Was there a real and valid reason why they did so? Well, I really don't know. But was it really necessary to condemn them for a game which they thought was good enough for a casual gamer.

Oh and congrats arQon for your recent release of CPMA 1.0. All the best to you.

> Thing is, there's only 1 John Carmack around.

Yeah. The work he and Cash did originally for Q3 had its share of bugs, but the quality of the code unquestionably dropped by a shocking amount when the "second-string" guys took over for TA. Don't worry: I've given them far more shit for THEIR mistakes than I ever have Epic. :P

Code Is Hard. I understand this. I'm well aware that often people are either out of their depth or simply too sloppy in their work to produce something of acceptable quality, and there's almost always a near-complete overlap of those two groups. (The "obsessive" types progress MUCH more quickly, because they make sure that the mistakes get fixed and that they don't make them again). The difference is that good companies fire people who belong in that second group or move them to projects where they do less damage: i.e. if your gamecode guy sucks, you don't let him write gamecode - you put him on something like Radiant/UnrealEd instead.

> What's so absurd about being able to fire an extra rocket compared to being able to gain an incredible speed and movement advatage over your adversaries?

Strafejumping is (in Q3 at least) DESIGNED behaviour. Firing 4 rockets instead of 3 is, well, pretty fucked up. :)

> How come I don't see any whining about why the movement physics are slightly different at differing fpses in Q3?

Because Strider and I fixed that years ago. :P

> And if Q3 really never needed any gameplay changes, then why does CPMA exist?

Ah. No. VQ3 didn't need gameplay changes *within the context of VQ3*. There's a difference between a BAD game, which VQ3 is in MY eyes; and BROKEN one, which VQ3 is not but UT2K3 is ATM.

> what makes you smarter than epic.

Genes make me smarter :P, but years of hard work and holding myself to higher standards is what makes me a better developer, which is what you're really asking.

> Even if epic were staffed by a bunch of retards, people shouldn't bite their heads off for it.

Yes, they are (as always, Polge is excepted from that comment); and yes, we should. It's bad enough that their product is defective to a degree that you wouldn't even CONSIDER tolerating in, say, a television; but their "maybe we'll fix it, maybe we won't" attitude to bugs is disgraceful.
The bottom line is that the state of the game AT THE TIME THAT THEY TAKE YOUR MONEY FOR IT should be acceptable, and if it isn't then you have every right to rip their heads off. Clearly, UT2K3 is a LONG way from that state.
We put up with people releasing shitty software these days because we CAN patch it over the net. That hardly means that it's a desirable situation, or that we shouldn't take companies like Epic to task for what is outright fraudulent behaviour.

> Oh and congrats arQon for your recent release of CPMA 1.0. All the best to you.

Cheers. Take care.

agreed for the TA team and everything that followed that, until now, on.

Q3 is so much based on Q2 which is so much based on Q1 that Q3 being a fixless game was no real surprise. Besides the thrufloor bug there was no much (even if the unwanted effects of its blind fixing remain here and there and will forever).

I think UT2 aswell as Q3 is a good engine, it works.
I know Epic doesn't care at all about the game UT2003 itself.
The UT2 engine is much more sophisticated than Q3 and its complexity makes it a better achievement codewise than Q3 is : => Q2 + shaders.

Coding a gameplay is noob work but it will always be full of bugs when first released *unless* you don't start it from scratch and use a well working base and tweak it.
To that high standard FPS games need testing that usual testers you can hire don't and cannot provide.

yea good points

but we knew it all, tho good hypothetical questions in the end

just for the record, i forget who the player was (krogoth maybe?) but i think their bitching was actually more about polish settings (cessrail) than it was about cpm itself.

not that it matters that much. or at all. just a bit of pop trivia for you. or something.

Actually, the polish setting are what CPM used to be in early days (kinda). I mean fastrail and weaponrespawn 5 were standard settings in CPM 1.0.

And AFAIR the bitching started earlier.

Well, it does kinda matter... :)

Yes, that's what happened, and why, and it fits exactly with CarMac's point about the ONE thing that can ruin a game more than any other: the "superweapon". In the particular case of cessrail, it's a combo rather than a single weapon, but it's the same basic deal: you have a single aspect of play that trumps all others, all the time. As a result, everything else becomes secondary, and at a high enough skill level the secondary aspects of a game become meaningless.

Gameplay design is NOT a trivial exercise, despite what most gamers think. It's very easy to say that we all "know which elements of the game create good game-play", and indeed most of us, but the thing that CarMac's managed to realise (yay) that very few people do is that it's how those basic elements INTERACT that actually matters. Companies like Epic not only don't have ANY clue about that second level: they're still struggling with the first part.

CPMA has had more expert thought and testing put into its gameplay design than not just any single FPS before it, but EVERY other FPS combined. It's taken years to be refined to its current point, and even with some of the best gamers in the world contributing to that design and playtesting it at levels that companies can't even dream of, it's still been an incredibly tortuous process.
Playtesting for Epic and id consists of a few hundred FFA games played by the staff, which is to say near-total newbies; then maybe a month of games by the public that occasionally result in minor tweaking (and in the case of UT2K3 were just ignored because "we know better than you do", gg Mark Rein).
Playtesting for CPMA totals tens of thousands of games played over YEARS by world-class duellers, with huge strides taken in movement and strategy in that time. The game's survived (and actually thrived) because the things that were flawed in the original design have been addressed, and the ceiling is still a long way off. CPMA will ALWAYS be a better game for skilled players than anything else as a result.

The "campy-snipy" style of play, and the removal of as many skill elements as possible to make games supposedly "newbie-friendly", are very much dominant in the industry at the moment. UT2K3 is just the latest installment of that trend. As gamers, we can only hope that the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way, and that some company will actually try to make a GOOD game for good players, rather than just a pretty one that they can play with their fellow newbies. When that happens, hopefully CPMA will still be around to show them where to start.

unbalance is the key !

Arq is the man! *applaudes*

I really hope you will continue your work when doom3 is released :)

I'd say CPMA is an excellent mod but it's designed for the people who play it, if you get my meaning arQon, i.e. ex-QWers, Q2ers, bored Q3ers. Not what the doctor ordered for CSers, TFCers, UTers etc... but I think Capturestrike would be amazingly popular if people knew about it :)

CTF, CTFS, 1v1 and 2v2 in CPMA are lotsa fun. Don't rate TDM tho... going off what Mame's said.

Yeah, it's very much a Deathmatch-based game rather than an objective-based one. I've been tempted recently to start a new but related project down the TFC path, but can't bring myself to go through it all again just now. :P

wrt TDM, Mame has no idea what he's talking about. Check out the US's Q3Alliance league for something actually grounded in reality.

I remember the whole 'tweaking CPMA TDM' thread on promode.org which was very long and reiterated a lot of what Mame said. A lot of the suggested modifications did sound good but were never followed through AFAIK.

BTW, is my memory playing tricks on me or didn't Hoony or someone write a column that included the soundbite something like "an engine no more complicated than Quake 3 would be needed " for a competitive FPS.

I want to finally make a start on my column on the Mod engine thing I kept on going about this time last year

A lot of the suggested modifications weren't that great tho :p
With the new maps coming out designed with cpma in mind and the powerups going from 60 sec -> 90 sec, 120 sec -> 180 sec and RA going from 200 to 150 to balance out that change there has been changed enough for a couple of TDM-cups/leagues to try out.

haha

surely something that obviously bothers you this much has struck a nerve somewhere?

BTW I think that the way CPMA TDM is evolving it's a lot better now than it was before, but its still more FFA then vQ3. The difference is that now people drop weapons well and group at powerups.

mame rocks :)

A one-sentence reiteration of your ignorance of TDM hardly indicates "something that obviously bothers (me) this much".

What DOES bother me is that there's at least one person trusting enough to not realise how full of it you are, who you've managed to scare off the game simply through the combination of your stupidity and his poor judgement in considering you credible.

Even BEFORE the TDM rule changes, although your own skills generally let you do reasonably well, your team lost in BWCPML whenever you tried to "just FFA it" against good clans, and dropped from the league before the end of the first season.

As the rules were refined and teams learnt more about the sytle of teamplay needed to do well in CPMA, the gap between the "real" TDM squads and the FFA'ers got wider and wider, showcased by the (usually outpinged but famously strat-heavy) Abuse winning most of their Q3Alliance matches by over 100 frags.

Your take seems to be that having all your players constantly either camping the RA room or rushing it cessing their MGs like monkeys is "good teamplay" because all 4 of them are in the same place. You're welcome to your opinion of course, but it's not one that many share: least of all the people who *defined* VQ3 TDM in the first place, and who now play CPMA TDM exclusively.

(add)
This has gone way off-topic...

well yes it matters...i know what i meant :P

just not sure now what that was exactly... :)

i doubt epic will change anything with the gameplay, so just play ut2003 with ttm and that's it.

real sports have always historically changed slightly rule-wise upon their creation, basketball for instance. That said, computer games are not real sports - they're the offspring of imagination, attempting to create the ultimate sport that simply isnt possible in reality.

I believe the coders should program the game, test for bugs, and make sure everything is working smoothly, thats about it. Then leave it to gamers' ingenuity to decide which direction(s) the game goes in. Now epic has done just that, and gamers just complain that it doesnt have such-and-such a feature as *insert game here*. You like strafe jumping? Play quake. You like camping? Play CS. Dont complain when they set down rules and you dont like them, adapt or choose another game.

No, i dont play UT2k3, I like strafe jumping.

The gamers complain that the game will soon be shock-prim / minigun prim only. Not that they want something like strafe jumps (of course Q3 players do miss that).

but couldnt that be the direction of strategy? for instance for TDM/1v1 the goal would be to secure shock+mini+shield. Then the other team has to be wary and have a good game plan to go about killing people with these infamous weapons, no? Of course, if this is next to impossible then epic is to blame.

Well, it might appear so but if the '3D' weapons are uselsess the skill curve will flatten.

why have 10 weapons if only 2 are used. weapon balance means pros and cons for ever gun imo.

In my oppinion, the gameplay of a game should not be changed after the game hits the shelves. It's a really bad habit. Make the public beta long enough, let the gameplay evolve and after you've made the majority of the community happy go sell it.

Edit: Also, game reviewers ought to begin to review the ability to change the gameplay through mods. If modmakers aren't able to change the splash of a rocket, let us know before we buy the game.

if this happened CS wouldnt exist

.... come to think of it i can live with ut and q3s faults if cs never existed

Exactly, major gameplay adjustments (removed jumping etc...) in a retail game leave a lot of customers with a game they possibly don't want to play anymore. And there's no way for them to get their money back since the evolution of gameplay doesn't give a damn about the expiry date of their money back guarantee.

the developers changing the game would require them to accutally follow it. i wonder if epic know how hitscanish ut on lan is

haha, i bet they follow snail races more :P

such a mod is UT2003's only hope

well then go for ttm and epic will face that they have no xperience in gameplay and its true no one where this will lead us

but it will take more improvements to get me away from q3 :D

The thing with UT2003 (and UT) is that most weapons are deadly in the right hand (which actually helps in finding balance) I have heard complaints about every single weapon being too strong. Add the need to have some sort of balance between LAN----->200 ping (one could argue that you should never try to balance stuff for the 200 pingers of course, but overall more people play with 56k than LAN).

Now it is pretty clear that you could make some small modifications to the weapons in UT2003, and it would play better (for some that is, for others it would play worse). The problem is you have to pay the prize of alienating a sizable portion of the players (and even more potential players). And with UT2003 current community size in mind, you don't really want to split things up at this stage. Perhaps when it is bigger.

Anyways, the main point I wanted to make (something both Carmac and arQon touched upon): balance (or inbalance) does not come from design primarily, but from use. If the basic design allow for an ok counter to pretty much everything (as is the case with UT2003) then we the players will naturally balance everything out. Might not be a balance everyone likes of course, but that is life. IF UT2003 did have a "fastrail" weapon the need to fix things would be more urgent, but if anything UT2003 has 7 "fastrails".

UT2003 is fine in terms of design minus a few weapon problems. It needs some new features for demos and spectating that is obvious. I don't think anyone (yes, that includes Epic) thinks otherwise.

For the weapons, here are the changes that are the most commonly "suggested". I don't agree with all of them, so I explain what I think about them since this is my post:

1. Slow the shock rifle primary - people don't like that it fires so fast, making sniping easier. Well folks, learn to use the shield cannon or snipe better than the enemy and it won't bother you. This is just fine as it is now.

2. Slow the flak secondary - One of the changes I'd agree with. A small decrease in speed would still make it a very viable weapon, but decrease the chaos it causes on public servers or even on the smaller maps.

3. Make assault rifle primary more accurate - The grenades are nice, very useful at short range and for spamming. The assault rifle on the other hand... sucks. Beyond short range, you'll be lucky to hit one our of five or six bullets with perfect aim.

4. Make link gun primary partially useful. I swear I see more shield cannon kills than link gun primary kills. The thing moves so slow that avoiding it can be easy to do. Speeding up the projectile while reducing the damage slightly will actually make the fire mode useful.

5. Fix link gun secondary. Quake 3's lightning gun is very useful in online play. On LAN play, it's even better. The Link gun's secondary is nearly useless even with good online pings due to it's nature to not apply damage until after you're targetting the enemy for at least a half second. On LAN, the delay is smaller but still makes it difficult to do decent damage with.

6. Rockets. A lot of suggestions. Some people want lower damage from rockets, smaller blast radius, slower rocket charging... there are a lot of ways Epic can tweak them and for this fact alone I don't expect anything to be changed. Personally, I'd like to see slower charging of rockets because nothing is more annoying then getting a lot of armor only to be blown apart by three rockets at your feet.

7. Minigun. The secondary fire isn't accurate enough to warrant it's major decrease in speed and higher damage. Sure, each shot does twice as much but for the accuracy of it you'll end up doing less damage than the minigun's primary fire. Why not shrink the firing spread a bit?


Personally, I do feel Epic should make minor tweaks to some of the weapons and I expect one or two to actually get done. My bet is a slowdown of the flak cannon, possibly to primary and secondary.

The more important thing the game needs is more depth in the map pool, because right now 1v1 is down to two good maps and a few decent maps. TDM has even fewer.

OMG! How can you state something like this ...

> UT2003 is fine in terms of design minus a few
> weapon problems.

... and then enumerate 7 changes to weapons. Heck, changing the reload time of the railgun by 100ms can be a major change in gameplay, and you're suggesting 7 changes that can (possibly?) have a greater impact.

Things don't work like that. It isn't a matter of let's just add more damage here, or remove splash damage of weapon X. Locally, that might solve the problem. But when putting things into the big picture, you might have upset any existing balance, offset gameplay in undesired manners, inadvertantly created some super-combo.

As arQon clearly stated, and has been stating for the past two years for those that bother listening, pro games are achieved through feedback. Play game, feed the developers, repeat. And keep repeating.

Now Epic not only ignores gamers feedback, but clearly states their arrogant stance: "This is our game, not yours". UT2 will not go far. At all.

- smack

Who said anything about me supporting these changes? I just said this IS the feedback that has been floating around for the past month or so.

The game is fine minus a few minor tweaks the weapons could use, but even without them the game is still very fun and very competitive.

this is also most of the feedback that about a month ago you were telling ppl to stfu about.

Can i ask why the sudden change in direction ?

I said a few times now that I don't agree with all of the changes I listed, but the ones I agree with are ones I came to my own conclusion for. I don't think the rockets are overpowered because some person says they are, nor do I think flak cannon secondary is too fast because some player posted a thread about it.

I play the game, and I make the determination for myself.

I wish more people would think for themselves, otherwise you get masses of people demanding the nerfing of the rocket launcher or spreading rumors that aimbots are running rampant.

I personally think the assault rifle primary should have a smaller firing spread due to playing a lot more of TDM, and in TDM you tend to have less weapons at your disposal meaning the assault rifle and shield cannon are more important than ever. Right now, the assault rifle is only good to spam an area with grenades and quickly run away with the shield cannon.

Previous weapon "tweaking" mutators were created because the author felt it was right. Little consideration was done for the overall balance of things, or even trying to realize the intent and use of the weapon (yes folks, bio rifle is meant to be a spam or comeback weapon... look at the weapon description in the menu).

When people were complaining about the minigun sucking or rockets being overpowered or lightning gun being too slow, they weren't speaking from true personal experience. Some were comparing it to UT and what they were used to, and some were just hearing UT vets and agreeing with them on the sole fact that the vets must be right.

The guns are fine as is, but a few MINOR tweaks could not hurt. I personally think flak secondary, link primary/secondary, minigun secondary, and assault primary could use some minor tweaks. If they don't happen, I'll still enjoy the game and support Epic.

A month ago, people really didn't have the knowledge to make statements about the overall balance of things. Now that the CPL has been completed and TDM competition has picked up as well as other competitive leagues, it's a lot more experience guiding balance discussions unlike the knee-jerk statements that were common the first months after the game came out.

about the bio - yes its intended as a spam weapon, we can all tell that, by why so god damned powerful.

i get ppl using it like a flak cannon sometimes in melee fighting when they have better (imo) weapons for the situation.

hey ffs !

I remember you from AO :)

You were such a lamer ;)

What a buggy game it was .......

Then maybe after experiencing such a buggy game, you'll see that UT2003 really isn't in such bad shape afterall.

i don't play ut2k3. And i'll never do.

It's the maps holding back ut2003 right now. Even the good retail maps suck compared with the converted DM6.

There's just too many static meshes in the way most of the time.

alt flak is powerful but it has weaknesses that help balance it out. e.g. it becomes useless at long ranges.

A skilled rocket player can easily take out a flakker. mainly because the rockets give a slight bounce and stun, whereas flak doesn't, so in theory a rocketer can stop the flakker from setting up an aim.

I agree, but dm6 still needs some "eye-candy" too do trick jumps against... its too open and flat. with some more, i dunno, rocks and maybe some 1-2 feet walls or somethin, so it's possible to do some good jumps around the map..
And idea would be to make a way to get up to the health packs at sniper from the pulse/50 armor... using thoose stairis is a bitch =)

i personnaly would like some more "eye-candy" on the ground to maybe hide behind, jump up on and do jumps against, which would make the gameplay of the map ALOT better.

This was the opinion of an entire community, which one i dunno thou :D

latest patch slows flak alt fire rate quite noticably. About 20% i heard 1 guy say.
Trouble is, ive patched (beta patch) and most ppl havnt, so my flak fires slow, and everyone elses fires much faster :(
also the sound is now slightly out of sync with the firing, so it feels like u are kinda lagging (when u actually arent) when u hold the fire button.
It defo feels like a very nice change tho once everyone has it.

id also agree about mini alt fire, make it as accurate as in UT.

Fire rate of weapons are serverside. If the server is patched all have slower flak (if that is the case with the new patch, haven't tested) and if it's unpatched all have faster flak.

the patch is out? havent seen it... you sure?

anyway, better maps and slower rof for the 2nd flak fire and this game will be just fine. :>
Though most people wont be able to enjoy it for a while since most people dont have 2ghz 256mb ddr and a gf4 :p

edit: oh the flak's nerfed you say? jeuj!! :D

just need maps and fps now then.

edit2: for all of your saying primary shock is too fast, you should have seen the sniper rifle in UT then. :p
pretty much just as fast and took you down from 100 to 33 with one shot. Not to mention you could do instant kills via headshot. The shock rifle is just fine if you've played UT with the sniper rifle. :>

Some personal conclusions:

Gameplay cannot be designed, it results chaotically from basic elements.
Gameplay is only known empirically (testing)
The basic elements are maps, weapons, movement, and rules (eg ffa, ctf..).

Good gameplay is rich gameplay. Creating good gameplay is:

Tentatively choosing complex basic elements which will hopefully generate rich results.
Fixing obvious defects.
Extending via modular basic elements (maps and rules).

In general, this is a trial and error process. Its timescale is proportional to the quality of the result.

This is an interesting subject, someone could write a column about it..

Someone should dig up Onslaughts columns about permutations on XSR v2.:) Perfect example of approaching this from the wrong angle.

i have them on my disk, should i post them?

(can't believe what a virtual messie i am ;)

yeh why not..

Onslaught hit the nail on the head and the fact that so many people now use his terms in gameplay discussions shows it wasn't wrong, the language was just a bit sophisticated for the average XS reader.

The problem IS that Epic is keeping their eye on UT2k3,
like with the blocking of tweaks and tweaking the guns

I guess a bit like valve and how they managed to make CS every time more newbie-friendly
I've seen it in CS, a lot of ppl whining but the majority will adapt and keep playing. It was also so for Q3 a lot of whining in the beginning but when someone finally released a tweaked version, everyone was already adapted and they smacked it down for several reasons.

Also ppl that started with Q3 or UT2k3 would not see the need to change because they really don't know any better :p

Ow yeah, gameplay in Q3 WAS changed (spawn-system changed from "not nearest" to "random furthest"

Here a snippet from some Epic-irc-logs, tremble in fear for not to lose that boost-jump ;)

[23:41] <Trapoon> DrSiN, i heard that ppl with the leak have already discovered a huge jump with the shield gun and got FAR distances without taking off any health
[23:41] <Trapoon> fix that please
[23:41] <Trapoon> :)
...
[23:41] <DrSiN> Trapoon maybe..
...
[23:42] <DrSiN> that's not really cheating though..
...
[23:42] <DrSiN> but if anyone wants to tell me how it's done.. I'll stop it.
[23:42] <Trapoon> its considered the most lame thing in UT competition
[23:42] <Trapoon> :P
[23:42] <DrSiN> I know.
[23:42] <DrSiN> that's why I'll stop it.

DrSin he's a funny man ;)

that moron trapoon is even funnier. help me doc, i can't jump. don't let the others jump either :P

Patient: Doctor, doctor i feel like a n00b.
Doctor: Take 3 doses a day of UT2K3, you should be fine.

I think a lot of the problem is that when Epic playtested it, they played for fun instead of trying to exploit every flaw there is. Online gamers will exploit the weaknesses in the logic of the game, and they should have tried to do the same either by themselves, or by playtesting with a large group of capable gamers.

If Epic didn't playtest it much with "malicious intent" then they made a mistake. Most game testers are expected to do things that could be exploits, especially in multiplayer games where it could essentially damage the popularity of a game. Game testers are very capable gamers. Gamers who play in beta tests or stress tests almost all tend not to actually test the game, but just want to have some fun and when they find exploits many don't even report them and abuse them until that popularity makes Epic realize there's a problem. Open betas rarely are required for games with small-scale multiplayer, as most situations can be adequately tested with only a few testers around at a time.

The problem lies with the limits of the amount of time they had, as testing every possible case is impossible to do. Good testing involves testing all reasonable types (1,2,3... are numbers; even or odd are types of numbers), and most expected exploits or mistakes. No software is bug free, and considering the dedication of cheaters or hackers, they will almost certainly find them. From the release, I think it's safe to say the testers did their jobs. Most all weapons are nearly perfect in balance, and I cannot think of a game breaking bug. Sure, unfinished features... but that's not the testers fault. Heck, I'd say that's not even Epic's fault as they weren't the people who forced the game to ship a month or two early.

I find it humorous when people make statements about what Epic did when making the game as if they were there in the offices being briefed every week by Mark Rein himself.

CaptFallout I base it on the fact that they didn't find glaringly obvious exploits in gameplay up till the last minute.

Things like the shield jumping bug for speed and the 4 rocket bug, shock speedup when going through meshes, etc... All of these would have been found so fast if they were trying to exploit game mechanics. That is why I believe they didn't test in this manner.

Not sure who'd want to exploit the shock core bug, as you can't actually do combos with the cores that touch the meshes but I can see what you mean. The four rocket bug is a very simple thing to test (mouse 1 shoots a rocket, mouse2 shoots up to 3... make sure you can't combine them), but for a project of that magnitude I don't see that few exploits as a sign that Epic really screwed up.

Actually, you can combo the shock balls if you are above the ball, just not when shooting upwards.

god help us if they only tested the maps for "fun"

oh wait, they did. like in ut

you can tell this from the bugs in the demo, to the ones which carried over into the full game.

The testing process on Epics side seems very pants.

Especially the shock speedup bug, thats a very obvious one. it is possible they knew about it however, but were unable to fix it at the time.

about the flak alt being slower in the 2175 beta patch, its client side cos ppl are blatently firing their flak faster than mine will allow me :/
Dont get the patch until u need it if u like ur flak balls :)
once a server is patched with it, i would assume it will force everyone to fire slower too, otherwise nobody will be patching at all lol

good to see epic have addressed the flak alt issue tho.

More boring stuff (coz I'm bored @ work :p)

What about tweaks for example?
Could it really have taken them so long to make a stupid "highest-visibility/good-fps"-cfg and said
Look tweakers this is the most extreme you can get, or look crappy-pc owners how is your fps now?" and "We dont't think this is cheating"

Almost every MP-game has had it share of tweaking-issues, hell I've seen a 800-post thread about how cg_bobup in CS is cheating :p

Limiting new exploits each day will piss ppl off, and it could get rid of a lot of pointless discussions in the first place
(/me hopes that CaptFallout agrees or we will get another one of the discussions :p)

"help me doc, i can't jump. don't let the others jump either :P"
That is just how it is in the real world, most casual peeps won't say "wow, how did you do that?" they are like "damn faggot cheaters!!" :p
To get rid of these irritations for the major part of your buyers, you have to keep your learning-curve as humanly low as possible.

same shit, diffrent game :>

navy seals are pussie's olé olé !

Introspective analysis of a peripheral matter, comparitively speaking in relation to apocalyptic prophecy and tangible evidence to demystify said event, is subject to ones amusement, that one being the individual posting a reply to the relevant column.

In other words..

Get a life sucker!

Carmac can you say TTM?

ut2k3 pfffft

cpma is what it says on the box: The Final Evolution Of Deathmatch.

If so, then Darwin was wrong.

UT2003 is infinitely more fun than CPMA ever will be, and the gameplay promotes defensive or offensive play strategies due to things like shock combos, the flak cannon, and shield cannon which are much more versatile than Quake's vanilla weapons.

Deathmatch is evolving, and as UT2003 shows and what Quake 4 will show CPMA is behind the times. If CPMA was "the answer", then we'd all be playing it, now wouldn't we?

Just curious: How many games of cpma have you actually played?

UT2K03 is highly evolved to suit newbies since that's it's natural environment.

if anything ut2 is more defensive than offensive

which is better?

personaal taste i guess, but offensive aggressive games would be more "interesting" on the whole

not necessarily. cpma is not newbie-friendly.

developers don't care who buys their game, only how many copies it sells. that's why many prefer creating campy-snipy games with a low skill curve. cpma, on the other, is a challenging mod for gamers, no commercial product.

the n00b is strong in this one.

he talks much, yet says so little which actually makes any sense.

one word

fanboy.

"UT2003 is infinitely more fun than CPMA ever will be, and the gameplay promotes defensive or offensive play strategies due to things like shock combos, the flak cannon, and shield cannon which are much more versatile than Quake's vanilla weapons." - Capt. Fallout

I have no idea what kind of drugs you're on, but it has to be some pretty powerful stuff. Do you even know what CPMA is? I really doubt you have even seen one CPMA game. If by some chance you did play a CPMA game you probably got raped so badly it hurt your pride. Which is why you would stick up for a game that makes it all too easy for rookies.

Even though UT2003 has all those guns with different functions, the gameplay is still very amateurish. That is why we keep seeing the same spam tactics (yes.. spam not prediction) every game with charged rockets, spammed shock combos and spammed flak secondary.

I'm not going to even address the sound or map issues since it is obvious to everyone how shitty UT2003 is in that department. And the armor system? Weak! Compared to VQ3 or CPMA it is easier to maintain control. Which is why everyone got beat by fatal1ty at the CPL. I won't bother to explain it to you, but if you don't know the differences in the armor systems in VQ3, CPMA and UT2003, you most likely will not know why it is easier to maintain control in UT2003. And if you know the differences and can't understand why it's easier to maintain control in UT2003, then you should never speak as if you truly understand the gameplay in VQ3 or CPMA.

What you need to understand is that there is a lot more to gameplay than guns with multiple functions. UT2003 was designed/tested by the newbies for the newbies. CPMA was designed/tested by the hardcore for the hardcore. Which is why even though there are no major money tournaments people still play it. Once there is no more money in UT2003, almost everyone will drop the game immediately. When that time comes, will you be as supportive of UT2003 as you are now?


xil-chiMera

"THE FINAL EVOLUTION OF DEATHMATCH"

rofl are you shitting me? :) Hilarious.

the new beta patch did have weapon tweaks in (stealth nerf)..

the flak secondary got slowed down (not enough imo), and although the shock primary is broken (0 damage), it makes u wonder if they were actually doing something to it, like slowing it down.

personally i think shocks fine.. and im not a UT shock zelot (not a UTer period), so im not just defending it because its "sacred in any form".

as someone said, shield totally stops shock, like the link it doesnt even take ammo off... i dont think id be too bothered if it did get slowed down, but im not bothered if it doesnt.

biggest gripes, weapon wise (my opinion but shared by quite a few):

grenades: stupid damage for a starter weapon promotes both spam (high rof) and suicidal tactics (ie grenading their face off, dying, then running back to finish the job either thru more grens or whatever.
needs either lower damage, or slow down the ROF..

biorifle: my god, what a cheap ass weapon requiring no skill above holding down the secondary fire... on open maps it isnt a prob but on closer maps its just a cheap killing machine.. damage on both primary and secondary way down, and a lesser max charge on secondary.

flak secondary: needs to explaination, too fast by far, needs slowing down to the same speed if not slower than a rocket (does more damage with better splash, why the hell does it shoot faster?).

linkgun secondary: doesnt feel right.. the damage is fine, its just the actual shaft doesnt feel to hit right.. a ut/q1/q3 style would be alot better, even if the damage needed lowering to compensate (doubt it would, wouldnt be any more devestating than the mini at hightick).

minigun secondary: totally useless? afaik it is, increased accuracy isnt worth the speed decrease, and how many times are you gonna be miniing someone from that long a range? even on Ant its better to either get closer, or use the lg/shock.. making secondary totally worthless. definetely needs some form of tweaking as in its current state, its spot the newbie using secondary :/

being honest, its only the flak and bio that really annoys me at the end of the day.. could live with grenades, but flak is downright stupid, as is bio on close maps..

cant remember who it was, but they made a weapon balance mutator which addressed practically every gripe most of us have :)

the above stuff isnt game breaking, but its definetely game winning.. seen a clan full of grenade/bio/flak exploiting spammers? extreamly annoying, stuff thats the least skillfull, is actually the easiest to kill with.. something definetly wrong there.

I agree with most of what you say (mostly the link gun and minigun tweaks) but I like the biogun the way it's at.

Yes, it is very cheap to be able to do about 300 damage with one hit. Still, it takes a few seconds to charge that much, the projectile is slow, and fires in a tricky arcing trajectory.

biogun as a comeback weapon is fine, if it was only able to load slowly and fire a big green blob into the face of a stacked enemy chasing you. that looks spectacular and might change the score.

only biogun *designed* as a spam weapon (from another post here)...
how can one deliberately put a spam weapon into a game. and with that snot flying pretty far, fast, sticking everywhere and doing a lot of damage. yuck.

What a load of arrogant crap

ut2k3 isn't really based on bad ideas but it wasn't designed well(if you understand me). lots of unique weapons with very varied properties would probably make for a remarkable game if done right but i don't know if that's possible. a game like ut2k3 gets so hard to balance as more variables get into the mix. the most dynamic dm games of all time qw/cpm produce gameplay which is much more than the sum of their parts(in reality qw/cpm are much simplier than they seem, only the interactions are complex while the things remain relatively simple). compared to ut2k3(complex things with complex interactions by comparision), which i think most people will agreed is less than the sum of all it's parts.

even more damning to ut2k3 is it's has a lot of problems atm - sometimes you can overlook weak design if certain parts are enough ahead of the old games where the part becomes itself a temporary anchor for the gameplay(even if it's not really that important for competition). ut2k3's movement could have done this but as mentioned elsewhere it's different than quake but i doubt most would say it's obviously superior(in fact i'd say it's obviously worse but that's another topic). the fact that so many weapons operate in the same fashion is another example where ut2k3 falls short(the least epic could have done was steal ideas from that esr column describing possible weapon properties!). argh, i had another really good point but it just jumped out of my mind!

my opinion on gameplay is you want simple and easy to understand weapons which are very general usage yet lend themselves to specific tactical situations; coupled with easy to use but next to impossible to master movement(which is found in unlimited speed bunny hopping!). imo weapons/movement makes up a much bigger part of the game than armor/health/powerups which add to it but are not part of the base. armor/health/powerups/etc are basically things that change map to map and mod to mod but only tweak the underlying gameplay dynamics, not change(unless it's a major mod).

btw, what are you playing lately if it's not ut2k3 carmac?

Good observation.

Simple weapons interacting produce seemingly complex results. Complex weapons interacting produce even more complex results.

That means that balancing these complex weapons is much more difficult as many more factors are involved than with simple things as the railgun or rocket launcher from Quake 3.

"simple things as the railgun or rocket launcher from Quake 3"

You should look at the bigger picture.
Balancing sth "simple" as the railgun is not that simple as it first seems.You also may need to change the spawn-health or armor-system and because of that you may need to change the other weapons to balance it out "again"
Also the map may need to be redesigned because of these changes etc, etc, etc...

linkgun, shield-weapon, combo-weapons all good ideas, but when they "don't work" or are inferior to some easily obtained hitscan weapon it won't matter. then the game would ge too one-sided and all-aim giving simple results

i think you somewhat understood me, but not all the way. ut2k3 is harder to design just because the numbers of it's weapons but that doesn't mean it should be as it is. the sheer number of weapons which are hitscan(read: instant hit weaps) or explosive is confusing and uninhibited. you basically have to do math problems to figure out which ut2k3 weapon is best for each situation as it's so complex. quake weapons are pretty obvious as each one is different enough so there is no confusion yet quite obvious in there usage. most people probably figure out the basic weapons tactics of quake within a few hours of playing. i doubt that happens in ut2k3 since many weapons are quite close in ability.

if ut2k3 was going to have so many different weapons, and fire modes, each should have been substantially different in it's properties. a few crossovers(meaning guns which are the same in usage) are ok but ut2k3 has too many. good examples of easy to understand crossovers are the shotgun->super shotgun in q1 and nailgun-> super nailgun in q1(this is all the crossover q1 had). both of the super versions are obvious more powerful versions of the same gun with minor changes. i can't even remember all ut2k3 guns but a simple example is like this - in q1 you could see more bullets being shot faster with the super nailgun compared to the regular nailgun and with the super shotgun you saw more bullet impact marks than the regular shotgun so you could easily tell they were more powerful. in ut2k3 you have your starting machine gun, then 2 modes of minigun fire(are there any other guns like these?, i can't remember). there isn't much difference really until you start doing math problems and get into their complex properties(rate of fire, damage per hit, ammo consumption, damage done, how easy they are to aim, do they shake the screen, etc). even after figuring all of that out you still will most likely not have a clear favorite for every situation and will have to continue to use each in different situations.

I don't know for UT2 coz I haven't pld it so much but the variety in UT was a GOOD thing.

i've spent probably ~50 hrs in ut and ~20hrs in ut2k3 but ut seems to have much less crossover.

cant remember who it was, but they made a weapon balance mutator which addressed practically every gripe most of us have :)

:)

More tweaking: UT2k3-WeaponBalance-2136

Less tweaking: UT2k3-WeaponBalance-2166

aye thats em :) wp, shame Epics too arrogant to take on those changes completely :(

get life

I like the flak as it orginally was, faster spam :P stops ppl diving into u

get wife

HARHAR I MAED FANY

[+] foe j00!!

!!!!111

You guys have been playing UT for like a week in my book.

I've been playing qw since its inception and even now I'm learning new stuff about the only maps that are actually played: dm2, dm3, dm4, dm6.

I'm still learning to use the physics better and use the guns smarter, I'm also starting to make use of weapons discarded earlier as obsolete for good kills: boomstick, ng, and awesome pine aim =)

Give the game some time...

impressive how good the original quake1 maps are. if every new game had that map quality out of the box...

The changes you guys (and me) want in ut2k3 is not patch-changes, it's another game, closely!, I don't like UT, the console, the graphic, why not a "[tab]" console with a lot to change :) like quake3, quake3 is plain, no extra functions and very good maps, that's why it's alive today.
Good 4on4 abilities on good maps with speed/bunny-jumps.. and the movement in ut2k3 sux..
and when is the new "quake3" comming?
will it be duke, quake4 or doom3 or something else?
I don't belive in duke, and doom will be more like a "sneak in dark environment game" <-- my english roxx
quake 4 is my hope ..

There is only a few things I'd like to see changed in UT2003.

- Make primary fire faster after secondary on shock. I would like to be able to do almost suicide-combos.

- Fix the goddamn movement. It's way to jerky and un-fluid. Make it more old-CS/Q3 like or whatever, YES I KNOW THIS IS UT and not Q3/CS but that doesn't mean you should feel like you are being jerked of by someone with a prostesis for an arm.

- Remove eyecandy and static-mesh bs so it becomes more of an aim/rawskill deal than OMGISAWACOLORFLASHBETWEENALLTHEWONDERFULLOBSCUREOTHERMILLIONCOLORS.

Nice one with the suggestion on faster combos. I allways wanted that for UT. The suicide risk makes up for the added power, wouldn't know for sure thou. Suicide-combos does rearly happen in UT, because of lag/PL or fast jump/falling action.

I would say avoiding jerky and unfluid movement making it pretty is a skill in UT/UT2003. Took me like forever in UT to say this. It need to look good even if it isn't direcly affecting efficiency =)

Yeah there probably be some tweaks on the weapons to make less spammy and so on, but i really miss one thing that makes the game less skilled and less fun.
Its the BUNCH from the rocket explotion, nutting happends when u hit a enemy. thats makes the game a whole lot less fun imho. Everyone knows it fun shoot your enemy across the whole mape whit 3 wellaimed rockets at his feet.
i can't belive Epic has missed this.
they a truely noobs.

no new columns? :F

I think that the problem with games is just the same as with commercial vs. noncommercial software opposition.
If we look at windows which is powerfull commercial system but sucks to linux which was made by internet community of developers and is free.
The same if UT2003 say vs. CPMA. UT2003 is technically more advaced but gameplay lacks experience.
CPMA is developed only on enthusiasm of arQon but it has great gameplay both tested and approved by community.
The problem I think is only that big companies think they are smarter than some huge group of people...

Right now, CPMA runs rings around UT2K3 as far as the technology goes... :)

well, if that isnt the big cheese himself =)

i would be playin alot of cpma if there were some non-ra3 servers in germany.. the only cpma thing we got here is ra3.. on lan i like playin 1on1 on cpm3 for example... but ra3 suckz

Given the number of euros playing the game, I can't imagine that there really aren't any. Look at Toxter ffs. :P
ASE it, or join #promode on QN and ask.

clan octagan has 3 servers. 1 is definately 1v1, at least one is tdm, the other may well be rghey3. also x-pec i think is a german 1v1 box.

x-pec is norwegian :)

so it is :)

lol easily, ut2k3 is just a load of graphical guff, but hey we all know graphics are far more important than gameplay...

By "technically advanced" I wanted to say "has better gfx" :)
But excellent gfx is nothing relative to perfect gameplay.

epic is not known for mainly focusing on gameplay. so this ultimate gameplay you guys want will probably be ignored.

If the game has modability, any changes to gameplay can be made in them. Mods are a way of Evolving Standard Platforms. Mods are the way to go.

Gfx affect gameplay. Locking out tweaking is fucking the guy with the old computer over. Locking him out from playing new games.

If Epic ignore gameplay issues then gamers will ignore Epic games. I know I've managed the ignoring bit so far. :D

ut/ut2 isn't THAT bad. With the right mods being supported by Epic it could be great. Any other road leads to limbo.

Q3 CPMA 1v1 is an aim mod.

OSP 1v1 is a strat mod.

OSP TDM has (the possibility for) both.

Nothing wrong with having 48 mods. Just make the engine right, and make it tweakable and modable, and leave the gameplay bit to us map makers/gamers/mod makers.