Epic: Shocked at id's Acquisition

[exfileme]

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski said that id Software's acquisition blew his mind.

Epic: Shocked at id's Acquisition : Read more

 

[roofus]

Epic did a masterful job of disappointing their UT fanbase with games that never measured up to UT99 in playability. Piracy didnt kill their pc game sales, they did. Instead of focus on a product that would keep the buzz generated about the greatness of the game, they turned the series into a demo for ther game engine.
I could be way wrong but that is the general sentiment to alot of us that were loyal and poured money into our computers preparing for the next one, hoping it would somehow get back to the game play of the original.

 

[eklipz330]

epic will sink in the pc gaming section seeing how they are treating us... but i don't think they'll do too bad in the console section

 

[belardo]

Sure Unreal3 engine is quite good...

Too BAD that UT3 game kind of.... SUCKS. They screwed it up. The 2.0 patch fixes a lot of things. They need a UT3.5 and FIX the bloody game... include at least 100map. Out of the 32 maps included UT 3, only 2~3 maps out out WAR and CTF did NOT suck.

And the removal of Vehicle Zoom was completely retarded. We know the game has the ABILITY to do it, because someone made a MOD file (about 50k) that turns it on and makes the game FUN! Seriously, making it difficult to see around the back-end of your Raptor = NOT fun... how are WE supposed to SEE who are are pulling IF WE CAN'T see behind ourselves!! Much less SHOOT what is in front and below us because we Can't ZOOM to a cockpit view! I D I O T S!

I have UT3, it plays good in 1920x1200, I have DL every good map from what FEW servers are out there to a total of 80 or so... And still, UT2004 is still a better game.

 

[belardo]

Oh yeah... UT3 =

EPIC FAIL

It could have and should have been a better game.

 

[ColMirage]

I have all UTs (Yes 2003 too) and I enjoy them all, however while it is true that UT3 was disappointing, I still have fun with it once in a while. Of course, none of them beats the 10 year old original in terms of DM/TDM/CTF/DOM gameplay.

 

[Ryun]

As far as I'm concerned Epic "sold out" long before id Software ever did. UT the original was great, I remember really wanting a PC that could play it but always just ended up playing it my friends house. UT3 was okay (I paid $10 for it on Steam, and frankly would have felt cheated paying any more than $30). Gears looked like it could have been Epic's return to greatness, then Gears 2 came along and pretty much took a dump on that idea (though horde was fun).

Oh and they're whole, "We're going to develop for the PC less because of pirates." is horse crap. Way to smack your original fan base across the face to make an extra buck.

 

[doc70]

I played the hell out of UT and UT 2003 and 2004; UT3 never appealed to me so I just let it collect dust somewhere on shelf. Too bad they blame pirates for their own failures and look for excuses to go the console way...

 

[megamanx00]

I liked UT3. I just love using the boost in the buggy to blow up and run over whatever while I'm jumping out. Of course maps without the vehicals aren't as fun. The last patch fixed alot of stuff that should have been fixed long ago, but at least it got done, unlike Duke .

The original UT is still good too. Of course UT and Q3 were just so far ahead of everything else that was out at the time that it's pretty hard for any game to match that kind of "WOW" factor now.

 

[Guest]

You just have to leave UT3 sink in . It is a really great title...I too am nostalgic after ut99 but the games are so good that all you can do is update the graphical engine. As much as I enjoyed UT series...Quake3 was better than it's UT counterpart. I love them both

 

[Chetou]

I agree with roofus. UT99 was/is a brilliant game. It is still played today and hasn't aged a bit. Everything Epic had done since has been utter crap. They abandoned and changed everything that made UT better than Quake and the rest.

 

[palmer169]

UT3 ran great, had a few nice ideas, but still a terrible game. They took out the only way to travel decently, dodge jump and then didn't improve on movement at all, so the game was crippled and stale. That and they were too lazy to make a PC version, just a straight console port including GUI.

 

[belardo]

I've bought UT since the first game. UT3 was better than UT2003... but it was such a disappointment compared to the tech demos (of huge cities) and game types that didn't show up. Beautiful maps that are badly designed and basically not fun to play.

There are now hundreds of users maps, and I've played about 50 of them that are easily fun and better than what came with the game... but game play still sucks with VEC Zoom control. Until they FIX it and make it a standard - it will be another reason that UT3 will continue to suffer. Duh, we have a MOUSE wheel there that isn't being used. Screw the "direct port" laziness... Epic has disrespected the UT name.

 

[siunit]

Someone should headshot Cliffy B. Not only does he talk nonsense about PC games and gamers he flat out admitted they don't concentrate on PC anymore. He is definitely some kind of marketing robot. We can then rebuild his head if they enable anti-aliasing in UE3.

 

[cliffro]

I don't know too much about Cliffy but what I know I don't like.
I too would like to see a way to make AA work on UE3 games, I recently purchased UT3 on Steam for $10 and have been playing it quite a bit, AA works or atleast it looks like it does. Is it the 3rd Party Dev's that are too lazy/unfamiliar with the engine that are to blame? Reason I ask is games like AA3 and Frontline Fuel of War, AA doesn't/didn't work or caused bugs when it did.

 

[cliffro]

To elaborate on my last sentence, AA3 if you force it on, the HUD disappears, FFOW shadows/fog get messed up, at least with my old 2900 Pro. I haven't played it in quite some time though...so it may work but I doubt it.

 

[anamaniac]

Intersting article, and even decided to follow up and read the interviews in the links.

It'll be interesting to see were both id and Epic go in the next few years. I love both companies.

 

[majorlaggg]

roofus said: "...Instead of focus on a product that would keep the buzz generated about the greatness of the game, they turned the series into a demo for ther game engine."

I hate to burst your bubble guy, but Unreal (which sucked) and Unreal Tournament, like id's Doom and Quake engines, and even Monolith's Lithtech have always been tech demos that were always intended to sell licenses. In fact, there would be no Half Life, No Call of Duty, No anything really if they hadn't done things that way. Time and money are of the essence for these companies. id, Epic, Monolith, and even good old 3D Realms built the industry you see before you with licensing of their engines and technology and even helpful nurturing and cooperation with smaller devs. It's far too expensive and I would say nearly impossible to find genius like John Carmack to write you a 3D engine from scratch everytime you want to release a game. Not to mention it's pretty stupid when you can use existing, off-the-shelf stuff and tweak or modify it to make numerous games over the course of several years before having to go (full time) back to the drawing board for a new engine. I hope things don't change anytime soon either, or we won't be playing any "new" games anytime soon.

By the way, who the hell are all of you people? You all act as if you are all programmers, artists and developers with 15 years of game development experience and 10 AAA titles under your belts. This is an extremely complex business and you all just spout off like you make 3d engines in your sleep. Such arrogance and disrespect... ridiculous.

 

[roofus]

You miss the point completely majorlagg (big surprise considering how much effort you spent ripping people). I get the money is to be made licensing the engine which believe it or not didn't get past anybody here. My point is they had a built in customer base (pretty large one) that they squandered and instead of blaming themselves, they blame "piracy". Is that so hard for you to understand?

 

[majorlaggg]

Ripping? I wasn't ripping anyone. I mean no real harm. I just think it's funny that people who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper internet cafe have so much to say about the depths of game development and publishing. Or that anyone even cares at all about what "Cliffy" (who calls himself that anyway?) B has to say about anything. I mean are we really that interested in what that 80's reject, poser surfer wannabe turned mar-hack-eting TOOL douche has to say? Ooops I was ripping just then, sorry there "Cliffy".

(my gosh... it just sounds so... well you know... "fruity").