Unreal Tournament III Discussion *renamed*

[patsu]

Although more limited, the console mods should be more consistent due to uniformity (since Everyone runs the "same" GPU).

In any case, while I understand the premises, I am somewhat skeptical about Epic's effort so far.

The expectations/goals should not be:
How does console game modding compare to PC game modding ?

Because consoles have different traits, it should be something like:
Can UT3 game modding truly be a selling point versus other FPSes ?
Can console game modding be mainstream (a la Game 3.0 concept) ?
etc.

I hope they put in a decent effort, so that others can take it further.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Everyone might as well stop going to movie theaters.

I you had to sit 100 metres back from the screen then I would agree

 

[pjbliverpool]

A big screen, a nice 5.1 setup and the confort of your living room. For some of us it's all about confort

Sure, comfort is a factor. But thats totally different from saying the game will look and sound better when played on a TV vs a big monitor.

It might be a more comfortable playing experience but its not a better looking/sounding one.

 

[AlNom]

I think it's semantics; he meant a better experience. For instance, you could watch an HD DVD on your computer on some chair or lay back on your couch watching a DVD.

I mean, you could push your face up against the screen and simulate a theater experience, but it's not the same at all. I should think that most people have a surround sound system with their home theater versus a computer setup (obviously, you can have a surround setup on PC, but how likely?)

I you had to sit 100 metres back from the screen then I would agree

Not all theaters are the same size.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I think it's semantics; he meant a better experience. For instance, you could watch an HD DVD on your computer on some chair or lay back on your couch watching a DVD.

I mean, you could push your face up against the screen and simulate a theater experience, but it's not the same at all. I should think that most people have a surround sound system with their home theater versus a computer setup (obviously, you can have a surround setup on PC, but how likely?)



Not all theaters are the same size.

Yeah I know, or at least suspect what he was trying to say. It was more the TV = automatically much better in every way than monitor type attitude I was commenting against.

The fact of the matter is that most people would naturally sit much closer to a 24" monitor while gaming than to a 42" TV. Closer to the point that the monitor actually fills more of their field of vision. I actually have a 40" TV that I play some PC games through yet im planning on getting a 24" monitor aswell (have a 19" at the moment) because I know, at least for me it will be better for some games.

 

[AlNom]

Fair enough.

What should also be taken into account (IMO) is the amount of eye-strain involved to get that same FOV. Nevermind corrective lenses and such. Your biological lenses still try to adjust to an object much closer to your face than far away.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Yes, I have/had an 3-4 year old Toshiba "gaming" laptop (Gigs of RAM, ATI GPU, built-in Bose speakers). After 1+ years, it became the third loudest equipment in my house

Sounds like your fans are stuffed with dirt. Clean them

 

[Acert93]

Indeed, quite the contrary, when the mods are released in their PS3 incarnation, people will start optimising them for use on PS3, because it's a fixed platform so that you can optimise the mod to suite the hardware as best as possible. That could be a big advantage. Let's hope so.

So why isn't Epic optimizing the UT3 levels being cut?

If mods can do it, Epic can do it better.

 

[NRP]

I think that mods (at least in the context that Epic is talking about) for consoles is much ado about nothing. For the UT games on the PC, mods are somewhat necessary because the core game gets boring pretty quickly in my opinion. Mods keep it fresh and alive. And even then, only the best mods. If console mods are gimped in any way compared to the PC, they simply won't have any effect. It sounds good on paper, but that's it.

Moreover, in my opinion, mods introduce things into the game play experience that are counter to what makes playing games on consoles preferable in the first place. I don't believe the majority of console gamers want to search out the best mods, download them, then find servers playing those mods. Nevermind the potential performance and stability issues that inevitably come with user created content. I simply doubt many people will bother, especially when there are much better multiplayer games on the horizon.

 

[patsu]

Sounds like your fans are stuffed with dirt. Clean them

I did try, but didn't help much beyond a certain point.

So why isn't Epic optimizing the UT3 levels being cut?

If mods can do it, Epic can do it better.

I don't know who can do better, but a company will need to allocate its development resources in an optimal fashion. A modder does it out of his own time and will.

 

[jb]

Folks,

being part of the mod scene I am curious about this as well. I am sure a big mod like Chaos may push the PS3 a bit more than normal mods. We tend to have a lot of special effects that put strain on Epic's partical system. How well the mod runs will depend on the mod. A mod that doing all coding changes should not impact the PS3 pefromance. Unless you push it too far. I remember when I was looking at doing Melee with sword axes in UT2004 I had many ways I could make it work. For example if I chose to use per-poly collision then I would get the most accurate hit dection. However that brought my fast box (well back then it was fast) to its knees with just one bot! So could not use that method. Its going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I for one am hoping that the optimizations are easy for us to carry out as the idea of keeping two seperate design/development paths for the same mod (one for PC with higher limits and one for PS3) is not too appealing....

 

[patsu]

Speaking of modding, the Collector's Edition seems to offer some help to aspiring modders:
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?cookie_test=1&product_id=647210

The Unreal Tournament III Collector's Edition contains:
Bonus Packaging:
Exclusive Collector’s Tin
Bonus Content:
Collectible Hard Cover UT3 Art Book
Bonus DVD:
10+ hours of Unreal Engine 3 Toolkit Video Tutorials
The History of Unreal Tournament
Behind the Scenes of UT3

 

[Rangers]

Not sure if it's been posted, but Mark Rein nixed PC/PS3 cross platform play in a recent interview.

Reasoning was interesting, it was that patches can be released immediately on PC, but have to go through a time consuming certification on console. In this way, the only way to keep the PC and PS3 versions in sync would have been to delay patches on the PC until they were certified on PS3, and Epic did not want to essentially punish PC users by doing this.

Absolutely no loss imo, PC/Console play is one of those things I just dont like for balance reasons.

 

[Crayon]

Not sure if it's been posted, but Mark Rein nixed PC/PS3 cross platform play in a recent interview.

Reasoning was interesting, it was that patches can be released immediately on PC, but have to go through a time consuming certification on console. In this way, the only way to keep the PC and PS3 versions in sync would have been to delay patches on the PC until they were certified on PS3, and Epic did not want to essentially punish PC users by doing this.

Absolutely no loss imo, PC/Console play is one of those things I just dont like for balance reasons.

If that's true then it complety sucks. Without that feature my desire for the game drops dramaticly. I'll be waiting for some confirmation or debunking of this alleged neutering.

 

[djskribbles]

unfortunately, i think its true. i read the interview somewhere, ill see if i can dig it up.

 

[StefanS]

unfortunately, i think its true. i read the interview somewhere, ill see if i can dig it up.

It's this one right here

[Epic]IctusBrucks: Matt, Mark?
MarkRein[Epic]: There will not be cross platform play at launch
MarkRein[Epic]: Allow me to elaborate on this one...
* MarkRein[Epic] is getting a can of soda
MarkRein[Epic]: The biggest challenge in doing cross platform play is syncronizing the builds such that the build on the PC is 100% compatible with the build on the PS3. Unfortunately (or fortunately) when you games on console you have a lengthy certification process to go through each time you release anything new... We looked at how this would impact our ability to respond quickly to things happening at internet speed on the PC side of the equation and realized that would not be in the best interests of our very loyal PC user base because we would constantly be holding on to updates to wait until they passed cert on the console platform
MarkRein[Epic] Our PC fanbase is of ultimate importance to us.They are our bread and butter.We can't let them down or compromise their experience in any way to accomodate cross platform play.
MarkRein[Epic]: This doesn't completely rule out adding this feature at some point in the future after the game has settled down and we've been through a few
MarkRein[Epic]: So there you have it.
[bu]hal`: fair enough
MarkRein[Epic] Someone asked about cheaters previously and, while we tend not to discuss anti-cheating policies, keeping flexibility on the PC side of the equation is one of the ways we combat cheaters

 

[djskribbles]

thats the one.

 

[DJ12]

Why not allow it when the build numbers match.

Allow v1 gamers on PS3 to play with PC users that haven't updated their games, then when the PS3 patch is released and they match versions, allow it again.

How hard could that be to implement?

 

[xatnys]

Hard enough that they want to spend some time with it, apparently.

MarkRein[Epic]: There will not be cross platform play at launch
...
MarkRein[Epic]: This doesn't completely rule out adding this feature at some point in the future after the game has settled down and we've been through a few

 

[pjbliverpool]

I simply doubt many people will bother, especially when there are much better multiplayer games on the horizon.

In who's opinion? No multiplayer shooter exceeds UT2004 IMO and thats on PC's. PS3 has nothing to compete with it from were i'm standing.

Ok, slight exageration, CoD4 sounds like it will be great but thats about it.