Unreal Tournament 3 - Why is it not popular?

[johnnyfiive]

I had a good question this morning that I had to ask, why isn't UT3 more popular? It looks great, runs great, has plenty of modes to keep people intrigued, why don't A LOT of people play it? It's got dueling, team deathmatch, capture the flag, the list goes on. Where is everyone (Especially duelers like myself) !?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I don't know. The original Unreal really started all this for me and I played UT a lot as well. I tried the UT3 demo a couple times but it just didn't grab me. I want to say we are tired of the same old twitchy frag fests with better graphics but then again I can't really think of any other shooters I love right now that are revolutionary in any way outside of the destructible environment in BC2.

 

[Black Haru]

UT99. the only answer I have.
by adding a "plot" it ceased to be unreal tournament. if you want true UT play the UT99-GOTY and get some mods. (I like monster hunter)

ut3 was the same game mechanics with updated graphics and annoying plot characters.
(I didn't care for UT2004 either)


in short, its the same old thing we've had for 10 years. it is fun, but I could have the same fun on the original, (which I do) with less hardware requirements and a better mod community. /end rant

 

[RejZoR]

I can tell you why. At first, there was UT99. It had many new interesting modes and addicitive gameplay. Then it came UT2003 and UT2004. Both upgrading everything UT99 offered at first.
And then UT3 came. And they chopped half of the fun part off. Sure you have Warfare like mode, but where is Assault mode? Domination mode? Ball match? All 3 just gone. Evaporated. Transcended into another dimension... Why have they done that, i have no clue. But these 3 modes were the most innovative and fun to play. The tension of holding or attacking in Assault modes, massive maps, the tension of holding domination points or just rushing after the ball.
Only fun mode in UT3 was "Greed". With health regeneration mutator. And Rocket Arena mutator.
This is the only fun thing really. Otherwise, UT2004 is just better and offers more. If there is a Greed mode for UT2004, let me know. Coz that will make the game nearly perfect.

 

[qubit]

I've played UT, UT2003 & UT2004 avidly for years. They're fantastic games, each with their unique graphics and gameplay merits. Nowadays, I keep switching between UT & UT2004.

But UT3 hardly gets a look-in. Why?

Because of the feel. While it has a technically superior rendering engine, it just doesn't feel as nice or engaging to play. The characters just make an annoying agressive sound and the artwork on the maps just isn't as pleasing on the eye. The standard maps tend to look very dark and lack colour, so aren't nice to look at.

When I go to LAN parties, it's always UT2004 that we play, so I'm not the only one that's noticed this.

Funny how after all this time the original UT still plays very well, not losing any addictiveness and still looks smooth and impressive - even more so with quality settings maxed out and high res modes on modern hardware. And those DX7 graphics actually have quite an appealing retro look to them now, while still looking awesome. And best of all, it now costs a pittance to buy! Just check out the Steam UT bundle.

 

[WhiteLotus]

I prefer UT2004 over UT3. It is UT3 that i play but it just gets boring. They got to the stage where it's the same game with different graphics.

 

[MilkyWay]

UT3 there isnt a thing wrong with it, its just unpopular. No real reason at all, some people 'think' UT2004 is better but its not its just the same really, same game on a different engine.

I dunno i got the special edition UT3 for £10 and its alright, i actually might install it again and give it a few rounds.

The fact it has a single player with bots means jack, thats a stupid example thats like saying Bad Company isnt really battlefield because it has single player.

Im not really good at those type of games but i still play them occasionally, you need a trigger finger soon as you see someone blam

 

[RejZoR]

I also got my UT3 for 9,99€. And for that price, it's fun imo. But i also got Unreal Anthology for the same price. And that one includes UT99 and UT2004. Better value imo.

 

[Disparia]

All of the above

I played through the SP game, then never played it again. Got it in a Steam pack when it was on sale, so the price was good though!

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Ut99 was great,i loved the hall of giants map.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Maps, extras like adrenaline pills, and overall movement, etc is the reason why from what I recall. UT was never a traditional 1st person shooter.

 

[mdsx1950]

UT3 is a great game. I guess due to graphical requirements and other stuff it didn't become popular. If we consider counter strike... anyone can play it... even with On-board Intel Graphics... Plus UT3 didn't get so popular because there are awesome multiplayer FPS like BFBC2 and COD4 and many more......

 

[a_ump]

i played UT3 on pc for a while. it was sorta fun but they need more maps for it imo. I also am not too fast a trigger finger, i was getting better but its a very fast paced game. Series like CoD and BF have taken over FPS for PC and are much slower paced so i believe that has something to do with it also.

 

[Black Haru]

Like I said, the older UTs had many more modes/maps (hundreds if you count the extensive mod community) I think that was the big difference. I love UT99, but I did not like the way UT3 played, especially considering it was a lot more hardware challenging.

 

[DeathByTray]

There are 2 major reasons.
1) Whether it's UT, UT2004 or UT3, they all have a rather steep learning curve. The steeper the learning curve, the bigger the frustration.

2) UT > UTxyz.
Kickin' nuts since '99!

 

[DigitalUK]

thats a hard one, i have every Unreal ever made the original Unreal Tournament was something else (i even brought a voodoo3 just to get everything looking amazing), i remember playing all night many many times and just couldnt leave the server (there wasnt so many little kids on then) i think as its gone on its turned more and more into a console game,leaving the pc gamers who made epic what they are out in the cold. i still play UT3 now every so often but it does feel more like a shell of what it once was.

i went camping last year and took a small laptop with me with old geforce2 card in and installed Unreal Tournament before i left and couldnt believe how many people were still playing the original, the other day there couldnt have been more that 50 players total on UT3

just to add kieranD is 100% correct, theres nothing really wrong with ut3 as a game, but when the original unreal tournament first came out there was not much in the way of superb FPS back then you were either into UT or Quake

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I think UT99 has to be one of the best games i have ever played period. First time i played it, it was at a mates party & we were playing a TDM map where your up in a space station or something. anyhoo - It made me throw up as I was pretty drunk at the time.

but later on I Obtained the GOTY edition, had a CD full of hundreds of maps & mods from a pc gaming magazine

I played it in high school - I played it in college, fuck i even played it at work on a 200mhz IBM thinkpad that was left lying around where I was posted during the Era when i doing a little security work. & I totally love it & I will continue to love it & i love it more then the additions that followed.

I enterd a tournament while in college doing TDM & KOTH games vs a different part of the campus & out of 20 people playing I came top but i just about scraped it. I almost came second.

---

personally i find UT99 a lot better then all the ones that came after it. when I first played UT2003 I was shocked at how slow the gameplay was in TDM & it bored the hell out of me - the graphics were nice though but somehow the gameplay just didnt feel as chaotic as it did compared to UT99.

I have played UT99 online a few times but last time I played it was full of hackers so I never went back to it - next thing call of duty or something came out so I went to play that in stead

 

[epicfail]

same reason i play tons of new games and just go back to good old css.

 

[johnnyfiive]

All I know is, it HAD the potential to be the next mainstream FPS game. Quake 4 failed because it didn't have the community support like Quake 3 Arena had, hell, QuakeLive is alive and thriving because people loved Quake 3 so much (like me, i love q3 and qlive). I played all the UT games and UT3 just seemed to be completely skipped by the community. QuakeLive really needs more maps to keep the gaming fresh but complaining is wrong since its free to play.

I miss that fresh FPS shooter feel. It would be great if a game dev would look at QuakeLive and create a similar styled game with current graphics.

 

[newconroer]

i played UT3 on pc for a while. it was sorta fun but they need more maps for it imo. I also am not too fast a trigger finger, i was getting better but its a very fast paced game. Series like CoD and BF have taken over FPS for PC and are much slower paced so i believe that has something to do with it also.

It really is dark days in gaming development, when titles like Call of Duty are considered 'slower paced.'

I had a healthy chuckle at that one

 

[a_ump]

It really is dark days in gaming development, when titles like Call of Duty are considered 'slower paced.'

I had a healthy chuckle at that one

lol well one can't deny that UT is must faster paced game. Maps are smaller, making confrontations sporadic and occuring much more often. I own CoD 4, MW2, and UT3. and CoD def has a MUCH larger community than UT3. I don't find it far-fetched that due to the massive FPS community being fans of CoD and BF, when UT style game-play comes around and its much fast paced most will revert to their CoD/BF gameplay and forget UT3 like has been done. Just my hypothesis XD

 

[Nick259]

Well UT3 is missing many of my favourite maps such as face classic (the new one is crap) and bridge of fate. It is also missing invasion and has a lot less characters to choose from. Not forgetting the removal of double jump!

 

[shevanel]

i had more fun playing ut3 vs bots than i did vs players.. i dont know why but it's always the game i break out whenever the internet is down or im somewhere that internet isnt available..

@nick... you can still double jump unless it was removed in the past few months.

 

[Chryonn]

i think it's because UT3 came out at a time when we were getting used to the idea of co-op and teamplay based gaming becoming the norm in FPSs. TF2 is a prime example of that. was there ever an Unreal Fortress 3 mod?

 

[roast]

From time to time, I decide to fire up UT3 - the Multiplayer is solid, and suprisingly the singleplayer is pretty decent. But I always keep going back to UT99. I've been playing it since it was released and I dont think Epic will ever better it. I find it more appealing - things just got complicated with UT as time went on and it lost its instant-pick-up-and-play factor. Shame really, because the Unreal 3 engine is very well optimized, and very pretty.