Impressions?

[|Robot|Bender]

I think the only gamestyle in UT2k4 that is worth anything is the Onslaught. And in the case of this gamestyle, i do believe it RULES!!!

I am going to buy the game just for THIS game style. A little BF1942 w/ a little UT thrown in together. Just having too much fun!

[MadMikey]

Yup, it's pretty fun. The vehicle code is SOOOOOO much better than what is found in XMP, and the weapons are much better than they were in 2k3.

So far, I like it. :D

[SFT]

Onslaught!

[SuperDank]

i like too

[Hort]

Onslaught is OK... netcode seems solid. Shock combo kill radius is way too big.

[SFT]

I was in a game the other night and I could hear these two guys talking to each other. There's some kind of teamspeak type thing built into the game. Has anybody tried this speak thing yet?

[SoBeiT]

I did too last night and the voice just kept saying "good, you can hear me".

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

I heard voices too. What I like most about 2k4 is the silky feel to the gameplay I guess is the effect of the new engine, and that they've reincorporated some of the UT99 feel while not going back to it but rather forward. Onslaught could be really cool but it's going to involve some serious teamwork which will be great on ladders but might be a struggling point on open servers. Then again maybe not cuz it's simply fun. :D

[StealthDP]

I hear voices all the time.... is that wrong?

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

I hear voices all the time.... is that wrong?

LOL! I don't know. Who'd the voices pick to win the superbowl this year? That's a good indication. :lol:

[stapuf]

The fun is starting to wear off on ONS/2004...sorry.

[SFT]

The fun is starting to wear off on ONS/2004...sorry.

I went out and bought a case of nice German beer, so maybe I can extend the fun for one more night. I figure if I'm tanked maybe my skillz will be inline with the netcode.

If UT2k4 is supposed to bring back the feel of UT99 they pooched the goose.

[Phanataz]

One thing that i've never understood about ut2003/ut2004 is how people can play this online. Offline, the players (bots) walk and run smoothly. But on any given server, the players move jerkish-like. Doesnt matter what computer i'm on or how many upgrades i go through. And doesnt look like UT2004 has improved. UT2003/04 is the only game that i've played that does this. Very strange.

[SFT]

Yes, it's very jerky. I'm guessing they send the placemarker information out in burst so that's why you see the avatars suddenly snap to a different position. They might even have an algorithm guesses an avatar position by previous movement (if an avatar is running in one direction it continues to run) and then corrects its position once the directplay code is received. I read an article about that idea written by a half-life coder a couple years ago as an attempt to smooth out play for people with high pings. Unfortunately, the low ping players get hurt by this also. Remember, that mod for UT (I think it was called zp) that helped high ping players. Kinda the same idea. Essentially, its the computer guessing while it doesn't know the exact play position data. And yes, the result is jerkiness regardless of your ping/hardware.

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

Strange I haven't noticed jerkiness except when we had a Linux server where most of us pinged slightly over 100. Had to finally give up that server even though it was only a private 12 player for practice. Was jerky as hell. It seemed to smooth out a bit after the first minute or 2 but still never quite got there. Otherwise I don't see any jerkiness in 2k3. 2k4 seems even smoother to me. I only played 2k4 online for a few minutes on a server where I was pinging in the 20s so I can't say there is any real experience there, but from offline play I'm guessing 2k4 will be better.

As for german beer..ooooooooh yea. I lived in Munich. Never had beer like that before or since. Weissbier, helles, dunkles, damn.

[HailtheGoat]

Funny, I don't see any of this jerkyness as you guys are stating, I might be just lucky. The game runs very very smooth for me, high or low ping. I have no real complaints about it. I've been playing like a madman day and night and every game mode, cept BR. I think this game is a winner.

Of course it's not UT but close enough for me, I could do without the dodge jump but that's trivial.

[Creeper]

Onslaught could be a lot of fun if they let us use xlocs. Otherwise it's a combination of MarioKart and Track-n-Field.

[FiX]

-I'm slightly offended at the limitiatons of being a Militant African American with the hair models of dred locks, or big afro. Not like you can see a whole lot when in vehicles or running around shooting each other..
-The map tracking of team mates is nil as far as I seen.. I can't tell where my guys are on the map. I can see who are my guys in game I think as they get the same color triangle marking as me, but often I don't think many understand what that color coding means and start shooting anything that moves, and that was on the GA server, not a TK server.
-I got the "UT2004 Master Server could not be reached. Please try again later" message which limited my public server play Sat night at around 10:30 pm CST. Other games were working so it was not my connection to the internet that was bad.
-I did like the multi-weapon statios that were in the map so you did not have to pick up single weapons, but got a good spread on one spot.
-I agree, the vehicles are really nice so far although does anyone else feel really small after riding the scorpion?? Seems like you get shrunk, or is that just me?
-I know I need to read more about the game, but so far so good minus the master server drop.

[Paladin]

I had that jerkiness on one public server the other night, but the GA server has been smooth for me. I'm still more of a CTF fan than I am anything else in the demo. Onslaught is an interesting idea, but you need a crowd to make it play good. With few people, it's just too easy to wind up in a hole you can't get out of. I also don't like having multiple weapons in the same slot (I think the grenade launch and flak overlap on mine). I do like the minelayer and grenade launcher though. I haven't found the sniper rifle on the Onslaught map, and on the Assault map it was too jerky for me to test it out, so the jury is still out on that one. I wish they'd killed the lightning gun and gone soley pack to the rifle though. The lightning gun is pointless itf the rifle is worth anything. Actually, the lightning gun is pretty pointless anyway...it takes forever* to reload or zoom.

* Forever may be an overstatement, but lets just say you're far more likely to get only one shot off with it before being sent to eternity than you are with any other weapon in the game.

Fix: Other teams will be available in the full game, including all those from UT2k3. Also, the Skaarj will be a playable team, and Xan's back.

[SFT]

I had some fun playing tonight but over all I'd have to say this game sucks. It looks good and the strategy of Onslaught is good but everything else sucks.

Did I mention the game sucks.

UT2004-->sux

[Phanataz]

The player movement is jerky..the game runs pretty smooth - if that makes sense. When Im running around, the screen moves alright..but trying to lock on to an opponent is difficult. Its weird.

GA has been by far the smoothest server so far. I think it must be a server setting. Maybe theres a tick rate or whatever that was in the UT server configuration.

[FiX]

But tell us how you really think of it!

Almost all pub demo servers are playing Onslaught.. not really able to get a good feel of the other game modes as of yet.

Phan, try enabling Auto aim to help with the jerkyness.. Not all that much of a cheap assist, as you still need to aim near the person but it helps with some of the really fast movers.

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

I actually experienced something like that because of auto aim. I normally have it off but reinstalled 2k3 once and forgot to untick it. Couldn't hit a thing. The reason, I'm guessing, is that I use the sniper rifle 99% of the time. Headshots are where it's at with the rifle and auto aim probably tries to place body shots. I couldn't frag a keg of health with auto aim on. :D

UT99 was and still is such an awesome game which in part is why a lot of people didn't make the switch to 2k3. Eventually we got most of the players in our clan to come over kicking and screaming, but we still run 1 UT99 server. Others like myself were sold on 2k3 from the start. I still love 99 too.

Here's the thing. One of our clanmembers who for example took a long time to start playing 2k3 and only in the last 8 weeks is saying he likes it, loves the 2k4 demo. He says it feels a lot more like 99. I think that "feel" is going to bring a lot of people over.

There are a segment of players who say they hate 2k3 but what it is really is that their boxes can't handle the graphics so their way of dealing with it is to say they hate it. I've seen some get new computers and suddenly they like 2k3. From what I've heard the 2k4 engine is more cpu friendly. That will help.

Some players hate the "eye candy" of 2k3. I don't understand that. I love it but point taken. It's a matter of personal preference. From the few maps we've seen in the demo the eye candy is there but somehow different, more subdued maybe? There is something elegant about the look and definately something more 99 overall.

Some players just love ut99. We all do. The game was and still is that great, and for some people...if it ain't broken don't fix it.

eZs will be adding a 2k4 server as soon as a zark mutator is available, maybe even sooner. Eventually we'll have 3 2k4 servers when our 2k3 servers get converted.

I hope quadjumping stays. Everyone's gotten so good at it and especially with zark, you literally have to dodge bullets. :lol:

Again I woke up this morning thinking about 2k4. So what the hell am I doing sitting here typing all of this instead of playing??? Boring the hell out of you all. :p

[The_Stranger]

I played it once and it was OK. Onslaught is kinda fun as a gaming mode. I had a lot of difficulty telling friend from foe-- from any sort of distance, everything kind of blended together into confetti. Perhaps my hardware isn't good enough for it.

It didn't really catch my interest.

[MadMikey]

The fun is starting to wear off on ONS/2004...sorry.I have to say that I'm really liking what I've seen so far.

There are a lot of valid points in this thread. For me, the game is running very smoothly, and I enjoy the Onslaught gametype quite a bit. Yes, running the same map over and over is getting pretty old, and it's a long way until the final release (If I remember correctly, there was only a week between the 2k3 demo and its final release, which makes the anticipation a little easier to deal with).

I'd recommend switching the gametype to CTF, but that map kinda blows. :D The bombing run map isn't too bad, and they've fixed what, in my mind, was the largest flaw in BR. After throwing the ball, your Xloc is disabled for a few seconds. Now you don't have a handful of guys acting as individuals instead of a team.

I'll get a poll started and see if we'd like to switch the GA server to a different gametype. Believe it or not, the Assault map is pretty cool even if it is one-sided toward defense. :D

[Hort]

Offline I thought the AS map sucked but online I have had several great games. Found a server full of good teammates and then forgot to add to my fav's... :cry:

I hope some of the complaints are addressed in the final- though they are only adding a few ONS maps so, if the community doesn't get behind it, it'll die.

[SFT]

I haven't tried any other types yet, so I'll go out and do that now before I vote in the poll.

[SFT]

Assault is pretty good.

[stapuf]

There is no option for none, CoD, or DC? :)

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

I voted for CTF but just ignore me. I'm a big CTF guy but I know Assault and Onslaught are fresher for everyone.

[Salyavin]

Offline I thought the AS map sucked but online I have had several great games. Found a server full of good teammates and then forgot to add to my fav's... :cry:

I hope some of the complaints are addressed in the final- though they are only adding a few ONS maps so, if the community doesn't get behind it, it'll die.AS was excellent as a gametype in the original UT but it was much harder on newbies than TDM or CTF. That gave it more of a 'leetist feel because experienced players can usually win in a very short time. I liked it at first because of the objectives and focus on teamplay, but it quickly got old because there were only a few AS maps around (probably because it was so difficult to create maps for). After a while, the only AS players left were those who liked playing the same maps over and over and finding the "perfect" attack on each one. Unless Epic has made making AS maps a lot easier and there's a lot of support from the mapping community, it'll probably go the same way as before.

Onslaught faces the same challenge. The design has some great features, especially focusing the action at specific places by the node linking system and limiting vehicles and combat to completed nodes. However, the nodes ands vehicles are also the biggest flaws of ONS: the team that gets ahead first will tend to stay ahead as long as the sides are even. If the maps are too hard to design to give the team that's on the defensive a fighting chance, it'll become the domain of the elite, where the side that knows the tricks on each map will always win. Torlan (the demo ONS map) definitely has this flaw: the first one to grab the Raptor, take the 'deemer on the middle pillar, and destroy the other team's starting node will almost always win. The other flaws of ONS, like the difficulty of telling the teams apart (how did they make this mistake again? It was the number one complaint about UT2K3), can be addressed in the full version or a patch. But without good maps and the tools for the community to create good maps, it might end up as nothing more than a gimmick.

Cheers,
Salyavin

[SoBeiT]

Something has been bothering me about ONS..maybe Sal got it "the difficulty of telling the teams apart.


After playing BF for this long, I found myself needing to wait that extra sec to ID the player and end up dead...again. So after awhile I'd just shoot till the player would tell me same team :p

[Creeper]

I farkin HATE 2k3, and I assure you it's not due to a slow computer. What I hated about it was how freakin' cheesy it all was. The cartooney models, the pac-man powerpills, the double-dodge-backflip crap, the slow xloc, and the nerfed guns. It LOOKS amazing.. but plays like crap.

2k4 has moved in the right direction, but not very far from the demo anyway. The movement is not as silly, there's no power-pills in ONS, (or xloc.. which it badly needs) and the models dont' look as bad as they used to, though still a bit on the cheesy side for my tastes. The weapons are still Nerf, and the game just doesn't have the pace that UT had.

[Hort]

I farkin HATE 2k3, and I assure you it's not due to a slow computer. What I hated about it was how freakin' cheesy it all was. The cartooney models, the pac-man powerpills, the double-dodge-backflip crap, the slow xloc, and the nerfed guns. It LOOKS amazing.. but plays like crap.

2k4 has moved in the right direction, but not very far from the demo anyway. The movement is not as silly, there's no power-pills in ONS, (or xloc.. which it badly needs) and the models dont' look as bad as they used to, though still a bit on the cheesy side for my tastes. The weapons are still Nerf, and the game just doesn't have the pace that UT had.
Have I told you lately how much I love Call of Duty?

[Blackshado]

ONS and CTF only for me.

I see ONS being beyond anything UT has ever been, but only if mappers get behind it and lots of people play.

If the netcode is good enough, and enough interest is there, I can just imagine 15 or even 20 node ONS maps for epic games. Just the sheer amount of strategies possible in that mod. I've found alot of stuff, little things, in the past week that just make me smile. Like finding that sweet spot up in the mountains to launch AVRILs at the core, or the spot at mid where you can primary shock the 2 nearest enemy nodes to stop them from spawning there. Or even piling 2 guys on the manta and stopping the other team from even completing their first node...

Ahh the good times to come.

I think in ONS the nerfy weapons won't be such a hindrance. And they're not all nerfy, just the shock and pulse. Its time for Mini and Flak 101, and I'm taking notes! See ya out there!

[{eZs}Homer Simpson]

I loved 2k3 right from the start. It is a great game that has improved with various mutators and patches. It's easy to forget that ut99 went through the same kinds of fixes, patches, and mutators to make it the tailorable game we love. I think Epic came out with this amazing and awesome looking followup to UT called UT2k3, listened to feedback from the community, and are coming out with 2k4 which is combining everything to be better than ever. Time will tell on that but they have made an obvious show of bringing back ut99 elements.

I go all the way back to Unreal which, although it was only single player, was totally awesome. In fact when Unreal Tournament first came out it was quite a disappointment for me. It didn't have the same magic as Unreal. And the UT themesong sucked compared to the Unreal themesong LOL. Anyway, if I am not mistaken, Unreal was the first game ever to give users the tools to create their own worlds. Now we have mapper legends:

Chris 'Plutonic' Blundell, El Chicoverde, TheMadMonk, Teddie 'Tappabod' Tapawan (that [FUT] dude), ZS-Fastbak, Hawkwind , NYA-Mike, Jeremy 'Faceless' Graves, Rich 'Akuma' Eastwood, Willhaven, Sidney 'Clawfist' Rauchberger, Bastiaan, DavidM, Brigzy, Inoxx, PsychoP@t, Angelheart, Hoontek, Juergen Vierheilig (Zahltag), Judas Sinn (Dogtown), Bad Karma,....to name a few.

Then you have the skinners. What would the clan I'm in have been without Radman. {eZs}Zygote and {eZs}Dubya will still always look like Jester in my mind. And of course the legend Homer J. Simpson :lol: and now Bender!

Then you have the people that make mutators like zark, rocketjump, Strangelove, Jetfighters, Jailbreak, Deathball,...

and Voicepacks!!! "WHY YOU COTTIN PICKIN ARGHHHH!!!!" :)

This game might've died a long time ago had someone at Epic not come up with the idea of sharing tools with the community to see what we could do. I think we've impressed Epic just a little bit :D and Epic has given us a lot back.

[Phanataz]

I could really do without the voices in 2k3/2k4. Sounds like all the players have marbles in their mouth and trying to yell out taunts at the same time.

[SFT]

Late last night I was messing around with UT2k4 with a friend from Noo Yawk and another friend from Noo Joisee. Well, the guy from NJ tried to set up a server and realized one of his Chinese hacker neighbors was piggybacking onto his wireless router. Wonder how long that was going on?

Played some more Onslaught and Assault. Almost got a godlike in onslaught (had to settle for a dominating - most with the base turret gun. Try the turret guns on the assault map also. Have you tried the bio-gun yet? It's pretty powerful.

[SlothTheShovel]

Something has been bothering me about ONS..maybe Sal got it "the difficulty of telling the teams apart.


After playing BF for this long, I found myself needing to wait that extra sec to ID the player and end up dead...again. So after awhile I'd just shoot till the player would tell me same team :p


I had the same problem, had a difficult time with who was who.

[IHopeToGod]

I go all the way back to Unreal which, although it was only single player, was totally awesome. In fact when Unreal Tournament first came out it was quite a disappointment for me. It didn't have the same magic as Unreal. And the UT themesong sucked compared to the Unreal themesong LOL. Anyway, if I am not mistaken, Unreal was the first game ever to give users the tools to create their own worlds.

You are mistaken. I think game Editors were out a couple years before that :D . Even Duke Nukem 3d had an editor ....

[StealthDP]

Yeah, I used to have a couple of hundred .wad (level) files for Doom and Doom 2.

[{RA}SKYFURNACE]

i used to make Castle Wolfenstien levels :)

[The_Stranger]

Anyway, if I am not mistaken, Unreal was the first game ever to give users the tools to create their own worlds. Marathon Infinity (i.e. Marathon 3) shipped in 1996 with level-building and modding tools. Users were able to build maps, change textures, alter physics, create new monsters, weapons, player models, and so on. A couple of nice near-total conversion mods came out of it. Since it was a Mac-only game, however, it's not so well-known in the game community.

Incidentally, there are at least two, UT-based, Marathon mods, and one popular UT map--Waldo World--that is a copy of a Marathon I map.

<--will mention Marathon in any thread if given the thinnest excuse

[SFT]

Yes, hundreds of maps out there. It would be nice if somebody built a conversion tool for those old maps. Even the old 2.5D maps could be converted to 3D. I'd love to play those old DOOM and DOOMII maps on a real 3D engine.

[Switch]

i used to make Castle Wolfenstien levels :)
For Apple][? :D

[SFT]

Hmmmm. Now that the knuckleheads have either left or are learning how to play, some of these onslaught/assault games are pretty good.

[SFT]

I guess I shouldn't call them knuckleheads. They're regular people like you and I, right? Wrong. They're knuckleheads.

However, I've been playing 2k4 again after taking a week away from it and I've suddenly noticed people seem to grasp the concept. They're playing like teams and not like a bunch of morons. Not that the games onslaught and assault are overly complicated but from what I witnessed after the demo was released was embarrassing and the game seemed pointless.

Now, I think the game may have some hope. If the final release feels more like UT99 then I'll be very happy.

Oh, and the game is Onslaught. CTF is dead. With new maps it should be good. I'd like to see more inline maps rather than the maps of the circle jerk variety.

[StealthDP]

Of course, you are playing on the GA server, right?

:D

[SFT]

Of course!

[SFT]

Campers:

[SoBeiT]

hahaha Shirl...nice work :)

[radio667]

Agreed :)

[SFT]

I didn't do that (found it at the Atari forum), but thought it was funny.

I need to go back and read the manual again. I just realized you can teleport from controlled node to node in Onslaught. Stand on the node, hit E and when the map comes up choose a node (owned) you want to tele to. Doh. That only took me 2 weeks. :)

[SFT]

We need an inline Onslaught map. If the game doesn't ship with one then I'll build it. I'm thinking 5 nodes in a long line between bases nested within a deep valley.

[SuperDank]

Assult kicks ass...

when UT99 came out...

thats all I would play at firts.... then I found stealthdp.com (it was the low ping - its always the low ping)

[0|Legion]

onslaught / CTF owns all............. :bow: :rockon: