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Hey everyone, this is ionize again. This time I wanna ramble a bit about shooters. My gaming background is mainly from Unreal Tournament and that's why I will start a series of blog entries on my experiences with playing an FPS game. I hope you will enjoy it! (^_^)
So first of let's have a comparison of FPS and shooters (or as I tend to call it Why you can't compare flying helicopters with flying a jet fighter! :-P ).
Preface
I played UT ever since 2000 and I quit in December 2010. Until then I've been playing UT rather consistently, with the exceptions of three major breaks which took a total of about two years (I guess). I played UT a lot. As much as four to six hours per day, as often as I could do that. My peak days had about ten hours max in them.
So I started playing when I was 16 years old and quite interestingly I stuck with UT through all those years. It's funny because all of my friends didn't play UT except for LANs, where I teased them into playing. They played games like CS (mainstream anyone?), WC3 ROC, WC3 TFT (years later) and later WOW. I played CS only on LANs and it was no fun for me at all. The only thing that saved my ass every time was my aiming (I come to that later in this article). I tried some WC3 ROC and TFT when they were released, but I always came back to UT. Nothing gave me the fun and excitement like this one.
So where did this comparison arise?
1. The old "CS is more tactical than stupid UT and Q3A" discussion
I had a lot of those. I mean, with all the hardcore CS nerds on our LANs it was inefitable. So I jumped in the fray and tried to defend glorious UT. Back then I didn't shine with a lot of arguments as I still hadn't been introduced to proper league play. But later on I had my fair share of raised eyebrows when I made people at least consider the option that UT is not just bashing keys and out-aiming your oponent. UT is a very tactical game, it might depend on which mod you play, but I promise nothing can get more tactical than a duel for example. CS players with their heads revolving around super slow tactical play tend to miss the spot where a FPS game is not about fast reflexes and aiming, but where psychology and a good strategy come into play.
2. Why the pace doesn't matter, but the underlying currents do
What I realized rather quick was, that people thought UT must be less tactical as it's just so god damn quick and you excecute actions on a whim. CS on the other hand is based on sound and proved tactics which have been practiced into second skin by the team and which will then be excecuted on spot. Once again CSers didn't see the notion that UT might be way faster, but still has a big deal of manouvering involved. "How do I go heal myself up after this shoot down, without my opponent noticing my demise?" "How can I prevent him from taking power up X and still check on power ups Y and Z in the meantime?" "Can I risk a shoot off now or shall I wait a bit longer? How is my opponents condition at this point?"
That's just a number of things you have to keep in mind when playing a duel. And that does not involve having the items timed in your head, knowing the exact position of your opponent and considering your overall position in the game (i.e. underdog vs favored). This might not sound as tactical as a lot of you might think, but hell it's a lot to keep in mind and it's even harder to learn all that stuff and still stay on top of your aiming, reflexes and control. Anybody try me?!
3. Why you can't compare CS and UT and the solution to the helicopter vs jet fighter analogy
UT is a FAST PACED shooter, CS is what I like to call a TACTICAL shooter. By tactical I mean overly tactical as in "I'm barely able to make a quick move without blowing my game up"-tactical. It's the kind of game that's not fun for me. (^_^) These two games cover two completely different genre and there is no better and worse, only choices and preferences of gamers. So please, next time you discuss CS/CoD/BF vs QL/UT keep that in mind.
You won't go up to a jet fighter pilot and tell him "Hey man, you fly that thing dang goo' now go fly that helicopter will ya". It doesn't work like that! That poor pilot abides by the same rules of aeronautics in his F-16, but that won't enable him to fly a Black Hawk, would it? It's that different.
I grand it, he might learn it damn fast, but will it be the same fun for him? 300mph vs 2mach? I don't think so!
Regards
ionize
 
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LOL I go to UT austin and we had some dude with fake shotguns or something like that earlier this week so I though this was about that.
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I wouldn't know. Give me some more details.
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Unreal Tournament InstaGib for life <3
I still get geekchills everytime I hear the menu music. I was pretty good, too. Good old times. I miss them dearly.
edit: 1500th post, 100% worth it!
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Haha, I never played UT competitively so I have no idea about any of that stuff. I just played instagib ctf on 2k4 and deathmatch on '99 on random servers. I guess at that level of play its all about the aiming and movement.
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Back in 2004, my computer was no where near to match the requirement of Unreal Tournament. If only I had money to buy a better video card, I might have tried out Unreal Tournament. Instead, my pc cant only play warcraft 3 with 32mb graphics onboard. Over the years, I did hear about tournaments for UT so it must be competitive if a game is used for championships. I can always go to youtube and see how the gameplay is like.
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@Avius Yeah, Insta rocks hard man! ;-D I used to play it first time I played online at a friends. It was so much fun. Before I quit last year my clan played in at least four Insta mods for Unreal Tournament. Quite a lot of fun.
Congratz to you 1500! ;-)
@ZeaL. Yeah, I had to learn that, too. When I first hit the internet community I felt like the man. I was able to bash all my friends on LAN, but online and in leagues it's a whole new world. I went from being "the best" to "newbe" agai. That was quite an experience, but I will cover that in a later article. ;-)
@soccercop Ah, I know the hardware issues. I was lucky to meed mTw.Crush back in 2004 (as far as I remember) and he taught me something about tweaking Unreal Tournament. Ever since then my low level hardware performed better. It's amazing how much influence a properly set unrealtournament.ini will have on your overall feel ingame.
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Dang, didn't know people still played UT (the original, right?). I played UT mostly in my late high school days, not sure if you were around then.
I was ]sNc[Duo, we were a clan that originated from years of playing UT demo CTF together (Corel facility baby!), so when we finally entered the full version scene we quickly rose to the top 20 of the clan ladder with our years of practiced teamwork and our insane mastery of Corel facility. We were so good at Corel that we even smashed HV (high voltage) so hard on that map in a clan ladder game that they accused us of aimbotting, walling, etc. (they were the #1 clan at the time that hadn't lost a single game of a match over 30 times in a row, until us, so they were quite shocked that a no-name clan out of nowhere gave them a good match). Man, good times, good times ... winning that Corel match 7-3 and pulling off killing sprees against HV was by far my most favorite memory ever.
I would be willing to play you except I haven't played it in over 8 years =P wouldn't even know where to get it, or if I could even install it.
Edit: I see you're from Germany, so maybe you heard of our European ]sNc[ players? Only person I really remember was ]sNc[Methodman who was apparently a beast at Assault and was breaking time records left and right, apparently his secondary flak cannon shot was out of this world and very feared in the Assault community
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@happyft Ah, I fellow competetive UT player. Hats up to you sir! (^_^) The problem is, that the US and EU community bearly got in touch over the years. That's too bad and as UT never hit the global espots community too hard, I mainly know about the EU communities. But sNc... mmmh doesn't ring a bell. I know only of to decent assault players, and I got to know them rather late in my career. The mods I played were: Duel, 2on2 TDM nw, 4on4 TDM nw, CTF nw, saCTF, iCTF, iDOM, 4on4 iTDM, spamCTF, and some others. Duels and TDM were my main line of business, so to speak (^_^") and saCTF one of my all time favorites.
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Used to play Unreal Tournament back in 2000. One of my brothers friends used to be in the #1 UK clan at the time and I used to follow him around...those days.
Such a good game.
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Heh, never was a fan of those mods or TDM, I really felt like the game's weapons, movements and terrain were specifically designed for CTF. The number of tricks and tactics you could do ... the sheer number of flag carrier hammer jumps that were possible in that game; assaulting defensive positions with minigun/flak suppressive fire + teleportation feints + moving ASMD blast; overcoming camping with razorgun; defensively delaying with biogun; etc. etc. It's a pity most people only learn to use rocket launcher and only basic use of ASMD ... every gun had its strength in each specific circumstance! To me there was no "best" gun --- though admittedly ASMD is by far the most versatile.
And don't even get me started on the insane amount of teamwork coordination required. Most clans played 2-1-2 formation -- I played offensive support which often requires me to do most of the killing so the other guy has full health and ammo when he picks up the flag. I then have to secure escape routes and deny alternative interception routes while coordinating with the mid guy to further secure and choose the mid and defensive escape routes. I can't tell you how dynamic this process is, as you're constantly backtracking into enemy territory so you're not running into ambushes/interceptions, at the same time denying enemy powerups/ammo -- and even more dynamic when the enemy has your flag too. There's so many mind games in hiding your FC, positioning your team in both defending your FC in enemy territory while searching for the enemy FC, securing routes, denying powerups, etc. etc. And you get into this weird dynamic where the offense is defending the base and the defense is out assaulting enemy territory to retrieve your own flag and everyone's roles are reversed.
God I loved this game!! :D :D :D
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I remember playing UT as a kid. I just played that one assault map with the navy battle going on in the background over and over >.>.
I picked up UT 3 a while ago when it was on sale on steam for like $10, I played it for like e hours before I realized that literally everyone And every server I played on was bots
Why didn't anyone play ut3? It seemed like a fun game, but I couldn't find a single server with more than 1-2 human players.
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@happyft Oh, you say it. THat sounds like good old tactics to me. ;-) But hey, CTF nw has changed a big deal since you played it. I've played it quite actively (let's say CTF was the first thing that hooked me up in UT and I always kept to my roots, though I prefered TDM mods later on to hone my individual skills). Nowadays you hardly see the ripper in action, too bad. And that covering up you described, with mini.. it won't go as easy nowadays. You ever heard of TIW? It was a compulsory mutator installed on every single server that was used for Clanbase UT tourneys (Clanbase was the only online platform which hosted cups up to date). This mutator changed the pulse gun and mini gun damage so that it no longer was depending on ping (the lower the ping, the higher the damage output), but had a pre-defined damage output. That made use of the mini and pulse obsolete. It's nowadays used very rarely and as pings went ever lower sniper and shock rifle are the weapons of first choice.
@Hakker Yeah UT3 kinda was a big blunder by EPIC. Wrong public relations, wrong patching and it wasn't appealing compared to it's biggest rival Quake Live. At the time of the release I was inactive, as I returned I asked around and my clanmates told me, they tried it, but it was no good. Too bad, the graphics engine of UT3 is tremendous. I hope EPIC ever tries something like what ID (or was it IT?) did with QL.
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agree with your sentiments
people that apply the label of "mindless shooter" to Quake / UT never reached a skill level where thought was actually involved
UT was my first serious FPS. I've since followed UT up with TF2 and BC2, but UT was the only FPS I actually played seriously while TF2 and BC2 was purely for fun. I've tried playing CS and I can't get into it because the speed of UT is so ingrained into my mind that the movement in CS feels too slow to me.
BC2 is also pretty slow but I play at a very high FOV of 105 (default is 55) which helps make everything feel faster.
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1. The old "CS is more tactical than stupid UT and Q3A" discussion
I would rather say the discussion was always Quake 3 vs UT99.
CS is more likely compared to Tactical Ops which began with an UT mod. But there is one thing in the text what proofs me right
->The German "Index" is useless.
Nice read.
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@udgnim Yeah, you say it. The higher the skill level of a player rises the more he realizes how much in depth mechanics there are to any FPS game.
@NcK Mh yes, I remember these discussions as well. Q3A always remained the faster one, but still I count them both on the same site. Both are fast pased, unlike CoD or CS for example. ;-) But what do you mean by "Index"? Are you referring to the "FSK/USK" system and the banning of games on the German market? You can also PN me the answer in German if it's easier for you.
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I can do naught but facepalm when I feel nostalgic and google a bunch of old internet entries of when I used to play UT back in '99-'02 ish. I was such a douche.
Invariably, competitive players find ways to take something mildly competitive and turn it into an amazing contest - it could be a video game, a sport or anything. The depth of the game itself plays a role in the competitiveness, but not as much as the players' drive to find new ways of beating their opponent better and faster. Calling one video game more 'tactical' than another is just childish bickering akin to calling football more tactical than american football. The players themselves, and their ambition of perfection, are what make a contest an amazing sight to behold.
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@Bibdy Good call there. I have to agree to that. Why didn't I think about it, haha! :-D And I just remembered some old bootcamping with one of my duel partner where we had exactly that "how do I friggin' beat him" mentality. We used to play two months straight, 2 hours every day. That was a great time and it made us both better players. But back to your comment, there is realy no way to comparing stuff like that, but still it happens. (~_~")
@NcK Ah I remember. Well UT was not on the index back then. I bought a legally published copy in our local Hertie store. Back in 2000 that was. Q3A is a different story, but you know how games spread on LANs. ;-)
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I barely touched the original UT, but I LOVEDDDD UT2K4. AMAZING! I once played it for more than 24 hours straight with barely any breaks! To say the least, I was obsessed. I remember practicing getting the moving shock combos off, and I always will remember the first time I duelled and manipulated my opponent into following me, where I then quickly set up a moving shock combo as I dodged out of harms way.
I tried getting into UT3 but it never cliqued with me. I don't know why. It just felt "off".
Good read anyways. I also never could stand playing CS but loved UT2K4. I never practiced enough to be good with the timings of drops and precisely knowing where my opponent was, but I did practice my aiming, dodging, and knowledge of the maps very well.
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EPT
