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UT2004 Shows Upgrades, Spaceships, Onslaught 44

Posted by simoniker from the getting-better-all-the-time? dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their hands-on preview of Unreal Tournament 2004, checking out the PC FPS title that's due out this Xmas. This latest upgrade "...will ship with vehicles, new weapons, two new game modes, and more new maps than all the maps UT2003 shipped with", and a new space level has you "...piloting small Wing Commander-style space fighters [before] the action switches to more traditional-style combat." The novel 'onslaught' mode, in which competing teams use vehicles and special weapons to "...control a series of nodes connecting your base to theirs" was the "clear favorite of the day" for the author, and IGN PC has another hands-on report that suggests these new modes introduce a "surprisingly satisfying strategic layer" to the upgrade.
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UT2004 Shows Upgrades, Spaceships, Onslaught More

UT2004 Shows Upgrades, Spaceships, Onslaught

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  • Uhhh...yeah (Score:2, Funny)

    by gazbo ( 517111 )
    Sounds great, except that I read somewhere else that this "upgrade" will take the hardware requirements up so that the *minimum* spec machine will be a P3 with 64MB of RAM.

    Now for office apps I can understand needing that number crunching power and storage, but for a game? I can understand needing a good graphics card, which is why I bought an S3 Savage 4 for Unreal Tournament, but those specs will just price it out of the market for people like me.

    • Re:Uhhh...yeah (Score:5, Informative)

      by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Thursday September 11, 2003 @10:07AM (#6930830) Journal
      When UT2003 came out last year the bar for system hardware was raised ten fold. The graphics engine alone was/is awesome, then you throw in the whole Karma engine for real-time physics you have to upgrade your CPU AND vid card for this game...not to mention more RAM to support the HUGE maps and 64bit textures (textures require video ram, so a 64mb card is a good start)

      Looking at UT2004, I'm still wondering why this requires a new release and not something like a "mission pack" or "expansion" for UT2003. It is the same engine, the vehicles are only new because they did not bother to make any for UT2003 (the code is there, just unused expect for the demo) the new game types are great, but they are just umods added into the already existent engine...the only cool thing is if you have been putting off getting UT2003, UT2004 is what you want to get now. For those of us that got UT2003 have a slight feeling of being ripped off...
      But hey, it really doesn't matter much at all since both UT2003 and UT2004 ship with a Linux installer and support! Wahoo!!


      Oh, and if any of my facts, thoughts or opinions are incorrect...please correct me!! =)

      • Re:Uhhh...yeah (Score:4, Interesting)

        by darkwhite ( 139802 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @11:02AM (#6931693)
        Because it's Epic's new business model. They keep the money coming by releasing yearly installments of the series, essentially shortening the release cycle, while continuing to integrate awesome new technology directly from the engine development team. This has been known since the release of UT2003.
        • Actually, it's Epic's old business model. Unreal and UT use the same engine, with modifications of course. They could have released UT as a mission pack to Unreal with a little work, but why do that when people will pay for it like it's another game?
          • They could have released UT as a mission pack to Unreal with a little work, but why do that when people will pay for it like it's another game?

            With a little work you can get Unreal to work in UT. The amount of content and additions in UT make it a bit much for a mission pack, though (iirc you can get the Unreal mission pack to work in UT as well).
          • The distinction of the new business model is that it uses yearly installments, like football games that are updated each season and such. Epic has obviously been far more devoted to its fans than any other FPS vendor, building unmatched expandability and scriptability into the engine and producing free expansion packs and patches which add large technical and artistic value. With this in mind, their decision to use this model is easily defended. Personally, I think Epic is the best, most fan- and technology

      • Re:Uhhh...yeah (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Locky ( 608008 )
        This is really an unfair comment. If you knew the community at all, you'd know that by making a single post pointing out a bug, or a requested feature, you'd sure as hell see it in the next patch. Epic are one of, if not the most responsive gaming company in regards to their customers.

        UT2004 Adds significant gameplay additions, this isn't Secret Weapons of WW2, which everybody seems happy with paying full price for an expansion pack that mimmicks the freely distributed Desert Combat.

        The new onslaugh
      • Well, naming the game UT 2003 was a dead giveaway that they planned to go the way of EA's TLA 200x line.
      • I read in a GameSpy article about a month ago that they were working on a rebate for UT2k3 buyers. I don't think it will take all the pain away, but it will make it hurt a little less... Cliffy B gets Unreal - GameSpy [gamespy.com]

        GameSpy: Last year, you mentioned that UT would not become an upgrade treadmill like most sports titles, yet here we are with UT 2004 shipping in around two months. Will this be a full-price product? Will there be an upgrade path for owners of UT 2003, or perhaps, a downloadable upgrade for

    • Re:Uhhh...yeah (Score:5, Informative)

      by Miles ( 79172 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @10:08AM (#6930855) Homepage
      I seem to recall that the Epic said that they had improved their engine so that it would now take less horsepower--they even included a software renderer for those without the graphics card.

      The minimum specs for UT2003 were
      CPU: Pentium III or AMD Athlon 733MHz processor (*Pentium(R) or AMD 1.0 GHz or greater RECOMMENDED)
      Memory: 128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM or greater RECOMMENDED)

      But I think the requirements are still the same, but with DirectX 9, according to this thread in the BeyondUnreal forums:
      [beyondunreal.com]
      http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t= 11 2165&highlight=requirements

      • The software renderer, which you can download [epicgames.com] and try (it also works for UT2003) and read about here [radgametools.com], is really built more for people who buy computers with integrated (i.e. crappy) 3D graphics from the big manufacturers and still want a taste of the game. Framerate and graphics quality-wise, it really is just a taste--on my P4 2.4 GHz, I don't get more than 20-30 fps at 640x480 (actually rendered at 320x240 and scaled up, except the HUD). There's just too many polygons for a CPU to handle all by itself.

        St

      • True passing minimum specs for a game is important as the first factor to playing the game, but anyone whos ever pushed their computer beyond their expected lifetime can tell you that minimum specs are the first things you stretch to the limit. (I still use a 6 year old computer for gaming, I'm sure there are other Slashdotters who use even older ones.)

    • Re:Uhhh...yeah (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rhakka ( 224319 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @10:40AM (#6931327)
      I assume you are joking. You have to be. I wouldn't even play the original Unreal Tournament with less than 128RAM, and ram is cheap as hell.

      If a what, three year old processor and 64M of ram puts this out of your reach, then you are not one for current 3-D technology. Stick with tetris.
  • I can't understand one bit why they're releasing this. Hardly anyone plays the first one, and what servers are up are generally populated by bots, more often than not.

    If the Star Wars mod wasn't in the works, I'd probably have traded in the game LONG ago, and may still do so. A complete waste of $50. I certainly don't plan on making the same mistake twice.

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jilles ( 20976 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @01:53PM (#6934522) Homepage
      I think that has more to do with the requirement to have a valid key. As a consequence, people who leached the game can't play. As a consequence of that, the game servers are mostly empty save for the few weeks of hype that accompanies a game release.

      A game like ut2003 stands or falls with a community. If there's a critical mass of users (legal & illegal), mods will appear, levels be written and people will just continue to play and buy the game. That never really happened with UT2003. A few people bought the game, went online and found a handfull of other people who bought the game. Then a few of them bought another game and after a few months almost nobody played ut2003 online anymore.

      I understand that gamecreators want to protect their stuff. However, their actions are actually hurting their revenue because nobody buys their games after the hype is gone. What use is an online only game if the online community has moved on to the next game? Right none. Worse then hurting the revenue, they are also hurting the few people who do buy the game. These people are eager to play and after a few months their expensive game is worthless because nobody else plays it.

      So here'a a suggestion. Release the game with the usual restrictions. Geeks will drool over the screenshots and buy the game no matter what. After a few months, when revenue starts to decline, remove all restrictions. By then the game will have been cracked&distrubuted anyway. Now rather than withering away, the gaming community will stay alive. You will continue to sell copies (new gamers & converted leachers) and maybe a few upgrades. This will last as long there is a community.

      Quake 1 & 2 and Doom 1 & 2 continued to sell years after their release. They didn't have any restrictions. Quake 3 sold lots of copies based on the popularity of its predecessors (and the unrestricted demos that had been ciculating for months). It wouldn't have gotten that far on its own.
      • I think the cycle of releasing a new version every 12-18 months in the series will, in the long run, also hurt the game a bit. When UT2003 came out, there were still people working on UT mods. Now, UT2004 is coming out, and if there is anyone working on UT2003 mods, they'll most likely wait for 2004 to come out to test it against that engine, and maybe add some things. The people that were waiting for the mod either buy 2004 for it and hope it comes out before UT2005, or leave the game looking for something
      • There's a couple things that go into copy protection - CD keys for one, anti-disc copying for another. Unfortunately, those anti-copying measures can severely interfere in performance. Some companies don't care. Companies like Rockstar/Take-Two Interactive who, when finding out that SafeDisc was lowering framerats by significant margins, removed the copy protection check from the PC version of GTA3, clearly care about their customers.

        I think your idea is pretty darn great. I'm currently playing BF1942,

  • We don't need vehicles (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mattgreen ( 701203 ) on Thursday September 11, 2003 @11:23AM (#6932025)
    Personally, I think vehicles will be the next fad in FPS games. Meaning, all the latest releases will have them, but they won't improve gameplay significantly. They seem especially problematic in ground-based FPS games. Usually you can kill people by merely running over them or even just brushing them.

    Several games have actually suffered from the inclusion of vehicles, such as Tribes 2. The vehicles ended up detracting from the gameplay and turning what could have been an exciting game into one where you often had to wait to get on a vehicle to get around. If I wanted to rely on other people to give me a ride somewhere I need to be I'd put myself back in high school.

    Done right they can be fun, but they should be very careful that the vehicles add something unique to gameplay and don't become essential. The second they become decently powerful they become essential to survival, and then it becomes no fun when you have to board a vehicle to get somewhere.

    I do agree that the current crop of FPS games is mostly very lacking in the gameplay area, but I don't see vehicles improving the picture much. Tribes 1 provides enough challenge for me to keep playing it to this day.
    • Perhaps you don't need them, but I think they add alot in the right game. Do yourself a favor and play Battlfield 1942. Vehicles make that game. And you could of course play all of the maps except those with vehicles if you wanted to.
    • Despite all its other problems, not the least of which are the incredibly steep system requirements-- BF1942 has FANTASTIC vehicle integration. And because of it, I love that game. Normal FPSes are so boring now.

      I strongly suspect that BF1942's success has spurred the "vehicles in games" fad. Tribes tried, but it was lame. In BF, the games are integral. I think it helps that they're all semi-realistic vehicles that people used to driving cars can intuitively drive and use. None of this "8-passenger h
    • Like a few others have mentioned, BF1942 has made vehicles very popular in large FPS games. This is not only because its a cool concept, but when you start getting games with up to 64 players (or several thousand like in Planetside) vehicles become a necessity. A game with that many players would be no fun in the large playing space you'd need to accomidate them all. Additionally, they add many new strategic elements. Speed, a third dimension (aircraft), fire support, transportation, armor, etc. So jus
      • Yeah, but is driving around in a vehicle all day your idea of fun?
        • Actually, flying around those levels is my favorite part, whether it be in a helicopter, jet, or prop plane. It's just a very cool feeling to fly overhead and know there are real players fighting below you, and then shooting all of them. I dunno, I'm sure many people are either in the infantry camp or in the vehicle camp, I'm a vehicle man myself, but to each his own.p.
    • But what about Tribes 1? Probably the best multiplayer team game to date, and they had vehicles (but all just ships).
    • Just imagine what Halo would be without vehicles... sorry, but vehicles improve gameplay a lot
    • I think mixing close-quarters combat with open-space combat can help. By creating a balanced map (enough space for driving and enough space for running without worrying too much about being run over), this problem can easily be solved.
  • will occur when they hybridize the genres of spaceship combat and planetary combat in the same game.

    The first such game will involve levels like a star base and planetside bases that must be conquered, with offensive capabilities being divided between troops, spaceships that can assault troops/other spaceships or transport them to bases, and base weaponry that can attack spaceships or troops just outside the door.

    As bandwidth becomes cheaper and more available, eventually games similar to Master of Orio

    • Ummm.... haven't you heard of Planetside? It's a well balanced and beautifully designed MMOFPS (the first of it's kind I believe). In a sense, it's similar to Tribes 2, in that there is a wide range of vehicles, troop configs and roles (engineer, grunt, heavy armour, medic and hacker). The full version has a $15 subscription fee and even though I was initially dubious about the fee, I found that it was well worth the money. I remember boring my mates silly in the pub with anecdotes from the front. Since
  • With all these 'killer' games coming out, I've lost all sense of release timeframes.

    Does anyone know a site that regularly updates release dates for pc games? Gonegold.com used to have a nice little chart, but it has now Gonemissing..

  • UT2K3 servers don't have very many people playing. There are almost as many as UT still has. Maybe they should think about where they failed between UT and UT2k3.

    • I'm not sure they did. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is my impression of UT and UT2003 after playing both extensively:

      UT2003 offered little in terms of gameplay over UT, and moved away from the science fiction-fantasy theme toward a more gothic, testosterone feel reminiscent of Quake. This gave existing UT players little reason to upgrade to UT2003. It simply wasn't worth the extra $50 for essentially the same thing with better graphics and slightly better AI. Those who like UT didn't get enough incentive, and those who were turned off by the move in UT
  • You mean like a McGriddle?

    Read the Newspost, too. [penny-arcade.com]

    Before you go off on the "mindless drone linking PA again" tangets, I noticed this before the PA folks did, and they just happened to make a comment about it. Check out IGN.com's front page. They've whored themslves out worse than the Gamespy folks did to N-Gage and Infinium.
  • Will the opengl wrapper be tuned, i'm wondering if they did that, for the performance in Linux.

    It's very nice they make it available for linux, no question about that, a bit tuning would be nice.
    • The whole reason I paid retail for UT2003 is because it runs on linux. I have never and never will install the game on Windows. No desire whatsoever. Works great under linux and hopefully 2004 will too. I'll certainly be buying if it does. Otherwise it can sit on a shelf until it's under $20 :)

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