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UT3 Won't Feature Cross Play Capability
Next Generation is reporting on comments from Epic's Mark Rein, who participated in an IRC chat with some members of the Unreal community recently. In the chat, Rein revealed that Unreal Tournament 3 will not feature the ability for PS3 and PC players to compete on the same servers. Said Rein, "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 this would not be in the best interests of our very loyal PC userbase because we would constantly be holding on to updates to wait until they passed cert on the console platform. 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 accommodate cross platform play."
So, does this mean that they don't "have a lengthy certification process" for PC patches? What is the real problem anyway? If they need feature and update parity between PC and console versions, then just keep doing what they already do: don't let systems with different versions play each other, but if users (Xbox360, PS3 and PC) have the same version, then let them play! Also, they plan a linux client version. Will linux users not be able to play against PC users either?
The proposed brick wall between the different platform users would make this a pointless purchase for me because I would want to play against some friends that use consoles. I wonder if this would also mixed prevent lan play?
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
That console owners wouldn't have much fun getting owned by people that are playing with kb/mouse - so it also makes sense.
:(
On the other hand,
Honestly, it's not fun to play against mouse users with a controller. I prefer controller FPS's, since aiming is more of a challenge and I feel strategy comes into play more than point-click.
Also worth thinking about is that responsiveness with a mouse keyboard is far greater than with a game pad. This would give anyone using a PC a definite advantage over console players.
I seem to remember hearing that when they ported Halo to the PC they had to take out a delay the enemies had in firing so it would be more challenging.
The first time a group of fairly talented console players meet up with a group of fairly talented PC players in a first-person shooter, the limitations of a console controller versus the flexibility of a mouse are going to become painfully obvious.
When I played Halo on an Xbox (not a lengthy play session, admittedly), it felt like I was playing wearing mittens.
There's something to be said about having your mouse set almost fast enough for the cursor to register your pulse - because in an FPS, being able to do a quick 360 in midair in a fraction of a second is the difference between getting a kill and being a kill.
This could lead players to assume that the PC is the platform to be on, much to the detriment of console game sales and rentals.
I don't have a use for consoles - I dislike the limitations and the controllers have been horrendous since the days of the Atari 2600 and don't care much for the kind of games that consoles do better than PCs, so while I admit I might be short-changing the console side a little, that's my take.
Well, that and the fact that PC gamers would either utterly OWN console players, or they'd have to add in such an aggressive and compensatory aim-assist in the consoles that the PC players would refuse to play.
Of course, the tinfoil hatter in me speculates that the console MAKERS wouldn't have much incentive to support/encourage a product that would illustrate to their players how really crippled they are by the control systems....but that's just nuts, right?
No, no, I'm SURE it's just about them supporting their loyal fanbase and not wanting to wait for console-certification. Sure it is.
-Styopa
...that PS3 UT3 players are not limited to the SIXAXIS controller. So there will still be keyboard-over-controller domination.
All the "well you wouldn't want them to compete anyways, because keyboard 0wnz controller" posters would do well to remember that keyboard/mouse support has already been confirmed for the PS3 version of UT3.
You're all absolutely correct about mouse versus joystick for aiming and turning.
The other point to consider is that the entire Unreal series has been heavily modded by the PC gaming community...I recall nude skins and even black skins (invisible in the dark, except for the sniper bullets that fly off you), Simpsons mods, Mario Brothers mods, The Matrix mods, Aliens mods, etc.
Imagine the Republican uproar in Congress (e.g. Lieberman, McCain, et tu Clinton?) or the Florida courts (Jack Thompson) about little Johnny seeing a nude girl jumping around and shooting him while playing on his console...I say screw that. Keep the kiddies with their consoles locked in the original games and make them pay for mods using the Microsoft pay-for-download model...who cares if those clowns don't get community-based mods? EPIC is going to give us the PC version we want, with no filters or limitations, the way they always have.
What Epic actually said is they're going to get the 2 code bases stable first, solve any cheating issues then work on it.
It was plain to see when Mark Rein gave this interview it wasn't going to be put in: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/03/joystiq-interviews-unreal-tournament-3s-mark-rein/ Me and a couple of friends had a chat with him literally right after he did this interview at devcon judging by that pic, he got about 10 feet before we pounced on him lol. Very friendly guy, we just walked up to him and he chatted with us for a bit despite just having done that interview and probably already answering all the dumb questions we asked him 3 minutes previous. I think his exact words were "whats the fucking point?" when someone mentioned cross platform play. The guy's right, there is basically no benefit for either group of users (xbox, pc or ps3) in being able to play the others. Why do I care if the guy I just shot / who just shot me was playing on an xbox or ps3? The pc version runs a little quicker game speed wise, ie players run / rockets fly a bit faster, and you're either going to have to slow down or speed up the game on one platform to sync with the others. Doesn't sound like a great idea to me. Lots of effort to get it working, for basically no real benefit for the end user.
http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=9625
The PS3 omgpowerhouse looks less and less powerful...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
This is a good thing for the console gamers because it means they won't have to be victims of the various cheats and hacks that the PC gamers inevitably find and exploit.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
At first I read this as 'UT3 Won't Feature Cosplay'.
If only we could have been so lucky.
UT, UT 2003, UT 2004, UT 3?? what happened there?
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Gears of War uses the UT3 engine, or at least is based on an earlier revision.
Will GoW not have cross platform when it's released to PC? I've always suspected it wouldn't.
I have GoW for 360, and I have a lot of friends with PC's that refuse to pay for an expensive
console that I'd like to play with.
I was planning on getting UT3 for PC anyway since it's supposed to support Linux and I have a
box that's up to the task, and playing an FPS with a control pad is painful to me. (GoW seems
to have been designed with a pad in mind, so while aiming isn't as precise, I think overall
I prefer it with a pad).
...because all us mouse/keyboard users would completely dominate anyone using a console controller.
Once again, at risk of being redundant, the PS3 players can use a mouse and keyboard.
i've heard there's a multiplayer tower-defense flash game in the making somewhere, guess this could maybe used on a console as well? ;)
[i have an opinion and i am not afraid to use it]
Damn, I was SO looking forward to pwning some console jockeys, too.
The Xbox360/MS Vista game they're calling Shadowrun centers around PC and console deathmath-type game types. From what I understand, Microsoft did a large amount of testing and balancing. They did a pretty good job at it. I saw a lot of 4 on 4 matches going on at PAX with computers on one side and 360s on the other.
I still cringe at it being called Shadowrun, though. I'll have to accept that FASA's dead one of these days.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Unified online?
Final Fantasy XI
I agree; FFXI has set a major precedent for cross-platform online gaming. As far as I'm concerned companies like Epic, Blizzard, EA, etc; should look at the effort that Square puts in to support 3 major platforms.
I for one could do with some less flashy graphics and less frequent patches, just to have 100% cross-compatability. The only (though major) downside to all of this is; you have to design TRULY to the lowest common denomonator. Which in the case of FFXI; 360 and PC users want an engine update, but are stuck with the PS2's hardware limitations. S-E won't even do a small update to support even in meager amounts like HD output - the PS3.
The PS2 can (and does) support HD resolution, up to 1080i. The problem is since HD sets were less common until like "right now" games were usually not programmed for it since it takes additional work. As far as I know, no square-enix game on the PS2 supports greater than bog-standard NTSC resolution, not even 480p or 720p.
A similar situation exists in regards to the PS2's ability to output sync-on-green VGA.
> "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 this would not be
> in the best interests of our very loyal PC userbase because we would constantly be
> holding on to updates to wait until they passed cert on the console platform. 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 accommodate cross platform play."
"Also, mousers destroy controller users, and we don't want our much larger console market userbase to feel like chimpanzees."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.