Why is UT4 still in PRE-alpha?

Discussion in 'Games, Gaming & Game-demos' started by Serotonin, Apr 12, 2017.

  1. Serotonin

    Serotonin Ancient Guru

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    Has anyone else been following the (extreme lack of) progress over @ Epic with this turd? I was SO excited for this....in 2014 when it started....

    Here we are in 2017, the game has made very little progress, still only offers a handful of maps, the game play has somehow been destroyed with slow movement and unbalanced weapons...meanwhile, while this thing has been stuck in limbo, Epic pushed out Paragon, the VR title they just made and announced several other titles...(fortnite still wins their vaporware award)

    To throw more salt in the wound, Quake Arena comes out of nowhere and is already leaps and bounds ahead in progress.

    WTF is going on at Epic? UE4 isn't catching on the way UE3 did. If their engines can't sell they're in trouble, because they forgot how to literally make games.

    /rant (I love UT and Im pissed)
     
  2. Stormyandcold

    Stormyandcold Ancient Guru

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    UE4 is doing fine. However, the number of people playing UTA tells the whole story tbh. I don't think the interest is there and in terms of DM gameplay, I honestly think that Doom's DM already beat it, nevermind Quake Champions. I've been following it since 2014 as well, but, progress has been slow and I think right now, there might just be 1 or 2 people working on it while the rest of the team works on bigger projects.
     
  3. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    Because everyone who was interested in the game lost interest when the UT99 community (dragon guy or whatever his name is) started injecting all their bad ideas and overriding any modern gameplay mechanics.

    Turns out no one wants to play a game that was designed in 1999. Go figure.

    Also this is the fourth time you posted negative stuff about UE4. All three previous times I've responded to you with pretty well sourced/well worded responses that you always ignore. Unreal Engine 4 has more titles, both AAA and indie then UE3 did in the same timeframe. It's also getting a number of high profile AAA releases this year. So I really don't get what you have against UE4 and why you continuously feel the need to voice your displeasure for it.

    The engine is fine and is doing fine. Epic's game development on the other hand is a giant mess. Not sure what's going on with that. Fornite is terrible. UT4 is terrible. Paragon is average.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2017
  4. JonasBeckman

    JonasBeckman Ancient Guru

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    UE3 saw a pretty good number of game releases even during the initial years though it still took around 6 years until it peaked in the period of 2012 - 2013 and then it dwindled down a bit again.

    Going by Gildors compatibility table UE3 and UE4 are pretty tied for their two first years but then UE3 picked up a bit in 2008 whereas for UE4 2016 didn't see that many releases but we're still very early on in 2017 so who knows what will happen in the future.
    http://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel/compat
    (Not all games, in particular some of the smaller indie UE3 and UE4 games might not be listed.)

    Still not gone entirely though, Outlast 2 is still on UE3 even if it's been customized a bit as is another game I forgot the name of at the moment.



    EDIT: Development wise though engine updates and hotfix builds and even overall community involvement seems a lot bigger for UE4, they're already at something like 4.15.x which is really impressive.
    And then there's Unity but it's how it is, Cry-Engine also hasn't had much activity since the Cry Engine V update but Crytek had some issues and Lumberyard from Amazon might perhaps be how that code ends up though Crytek isn't done in just yet.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2017

  5. Serotonin

    Serotonin Ancient Guru

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    I think the UE4 engine is amazing. Not sure where you get I hate it? I question it's attachment rate to devs vs. UE3. Again, you can continue to supply me with your lists, and I'm certain of those lists of games...maybe 5 at max have seen a release. I'm not interested in "down the line" because these days, until a game is available, it can be canned at anytime, moved to a different engine for a different console, run out of funding, etc.

    I think it's a great engine, much less limited than UE3, which is why I don't understand the low adaption rate. I'm sorry I only judge products available and not hypotheticals. You speak in hypotheticals and have no ability to listen, only to wait for me to post so you can make your counter-argument, which is why I typically ignore your posts. But this I had to say something about because I enjoy the engine.

    I think Epic is slowing falling apart, and yes, I'm displeased with that. They were my favorite dev growing up. I hold a lot of fond memories. If their engines don't sell, they lose funding to keep games in alpha for years. Lol :infinity:
     
  6. Serotonin

    Serotonin Ancient Guru

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    Crytek is a fantastic example of what I foresee with Epic. Unfortunately.
     
  7. ScoobyDooby

    ScoobyDooby Guest

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    Unfortunately the main problem with UT4 as far as development and how far or not far along they are is largely based on the small team that is behind it. Epic hasn't prioritized the game.. it largely is a side project that they haven't placed any real emphasis behind, and this is the reason for it being in a constant state of Alpha.

    They have spent a lot of time throwing things in to "see how they play" and then removing them next patch, rinse repeat.

    There are tons of community made maps that have yet to make it into the game, which is something I still fail to understand.

    Largely its the small team and the decisions being made that make it tough to swallow for me. I am a huge UT fan, played 99 and 2k4 in clans and was pretty good in my hayday.. I have been playing Quake Champions in closed beta and so far enjoy it, but can also see some flaws in that game as well.

    At the end of the day it comes down to what people want out of an Arena shooter, and the thing I have learned over my gaming lifetime is that this is as varied as could be. Some people think the idea of classes is an absolutely travesty, while others think it is more modern.
    Some people think that Epic should keep every weapon in UT4 the same as in older versions, others think that they need to modernize and change them all. Some people won't even open UT4 until they feature new game modes, while others only care about CTF and could give a F about any other mode.

    Truly, everyone has an opinion and many believe that they want the game to be a new UT'99. IMO I have no problem with a new style game and I really hope that the arena games will make a triumphant return, but so far the water is lukewarm at best.
     
  8. Serotonin

    Serotonin Ancient Guru

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    What were your likes and dislikes regarding Quake Champions? I have entered the beta, no key yet, but my focus has moved toward that game as UT4 just isn't doing anything for me. Even if you put aside the stagnant development, the game simply isn't any fun right now.
     
  9. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    This.




    About more games, well there is a big list over 70games, but most better ones 2017-2018+.. I expected sooner adoption rate as well, but guess it takes more time.

    https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Category:Games
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2017
  10. GeniusPr0

    GeniusPr0 Maha Guru

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    Isn't UT4 freeware?
     

  11. XenthorX

    XenthorX Ancient Guru

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    Unreal Engine is the best game engine available to mainstream game dev out there, with full code access straight. UT4 lacks innovation on top of the old game mechanics of UT, it's also highly community driven, for maps at least.

    Epic game priorities right now are on Fortnite, Paragon, VR, and staying at the peak of innovation with Unreal Engine, to remain competitive against Unity for instance.

    As an Indie game dev, i spend a lot of time inside the unreal engine code every day for a while now, with daily updates from developpers if you want the last tech available, i love it.
     
  12. Damien_Azreal

    Damien_Azreal Ancient Guru

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    Agreed.
    Guess we can see why People Can Fly wanted to go back to being an independent studio.
    Not only did Epic and EA cancel Bulletstorm 2, after PCF started work on it, and shifted them to a new Gears of War title.

    After that, instead of letting PCF work on their own project... Epic had them work on Fortnite. Which... PCF had zero interest in being any part of.

    I get the feeling Epic don't really want to do anything with Fortnite either. A project Cliff started, then left the company. Seems the main push behind it was him, now Epic just don't know what to do with it.
     
  13. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    Fortnite had potential back in like OT 3/4 - when the classes were more diverse, you could get them all at the start and the skill trees actually allowed you to make them feel unique. Now the characters unlock in a linear progression and each skill tree is like a straight line with one or two minor deviations that don't even really have an effect on the way the characters play.

    Then the farming/grind got way worse with outpost missions, which are basically only there as time-sinks to delay endgame. They aren't fun at all, it's annoying that you have to do it for each person you play with, it delays getting to the higher difficulties and the early difficulties are way, way to easy. So it's just grinding a boring, easy game in hopes that a more difficult level will add fun - but it doesn't because there are like 5000 other design issues.

    The game would be fixable but there is a feedback loop on the forums. The only people still left playing the game and providing feedback are people that enjoy farming for hundreds of hours in a game that's trivially easy. Which is a similar problem that UT has. The only people left contributing feedback to UT are the people that ruined it's ability to get off the ground in the first place and thus no one plays it or cares about it and probably never will unless Epic changes direction.
     
  14. anxious_f0x

    anxious_f0x Ancient Guru

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    This games been doomed from the start with all the UT99 players sticking their noses in.

    But as has already been mentioned the team behind UT4 is tiny so progress is slow and a lot of experimentation is currently happening with game modes, weapon balance and mechanics.

    They need a decent version of Team Arena Master.

    I'll just stick with UT2004 like I have been for the last 12 years.
     
  15. RealNC

    RealNC Ancient Guru

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    I loved UT. However, it's not as good as I remember it...

    I gave the new UT a shot. It's not as fun anymore. Deathmatch doesn't cut it anymore. Back then, it was awesome, because I never played anything like that before. Online gaming was still a new thing.

    Now, I have so much stuff available. Counter-Strike, Overwatch, Battlefield, Paladins, Team Fortress 2 (and the last two games are free, even), you name it.

    UT4 is not a bad game. It's just getting drowned now by the other ones.

    And they lost their brand recognition advantage. Everybody and their dog knew Unreal Tournament. As the years passed by, less and less people cared. Now too much time has passed and "Unreal" as a brand been mostly forgotten. Nobody cares anymore.

    They simply waited too long. It might be too late now to resurrect the brand.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2017

  16. No1True

    No1True Guest

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    Why is UT4 still in PRE-alpha - because DEVS consider alpha release to be final release. And later patches as updates.. :) ut4 is buried in the past.. what a shame..
     
  17. Serotonin

    Serotonin Ancient Guru

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    Same thing I've been doing. I remember back when people HATED 2k3/2k4 because it wasn't UT99. People claimed it tried being too much like Quake 3 Arena. I never found that to be true. Loved it.

    I honestly think the series died with UT3, epic blasted the PC community at that time, blamed poor sales on piracy (failing to mention the poor sales of the same game on ps3 because it didn't help their agenda to move to console)and waited a year to give the game a face lift and new content....then act shocked that after a year of silence, the community went dead.

    I'll say this much, at least UT4 was dead from the start, my hopes never got as high as they did for UT3. But now the realization that Epic is no longer epic is hitting me, the same way it did with ID after Quake 4.
     
  18. Damien_Azreal

    Damien_Azreal Ancient Guru

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    Even though ID didn't develop Quake 4. ;)
     
  19. anxious_f0x

    anxious_f0x Ancient Guru

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    Totally agree about UT3, really was a slap in the face to the community, horrible game, my clan made the move to UT3, we were one of the top teams on Clanbase in EU but few stayed with it, still managed #1 on the Warfare ladder but there wasn't much in the way of competition.

    Oh how I miss Clanbase!
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2017
  20. Damien_Azreal

    Damien_Azreal Ancient Guru

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    My wife got me UT3 as a gift. Cause, while I hate MP... I do enjoy UT. Be it the odd campaign mode, a friendly "for fun" match between me and her, or just me mucking about with bots.

    But, UT3... felt more like they wanted to show off the engine instead of make the next UT.
    The campaign was a joke, even by UT standards. The idea of it being a "tournament" was thrown out the window in favor of some crap story they were trying to push.

    And, the majority of the game looked like it was covered in wax. It didn't look shiny, but... didn't look real.
     

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