[Tidus]

Hi there,

I was advised by Barbatos to post this on UrT.info instead of UrT France as it will be more likely to be read and acknowledged by the dev team rather than only a few, French, FS members.

Now before you go on and read what I have typed below, I will just ask you to believe me that this post has been typed with the best of intentions and that I am trying to provide valuable feedback, however it will be a rather negative post. Also long. I will also ask that you try to think about the fact that UrT has had a somewhat dwindling player base in the last year(s?) or so (maybe because of the splits between 4.2 and 4.2 players) and that new players are always a very important resource to any multiplayer-based game, but, I believe, even more so for a completely free game such as Urban Terror. I am also convinced that Frozen Sand's aim is to have more players and even more success with UrT than they have had so far (why bother working so hard if not for that).

What I would like to talk about here applies mostly to new and/or returning players, not your current competition playing user base which might be happy enough with the way things are going right now.

After a long inactivity, I wanted to try UrT again just after the 4.2.013 release, quickly set my controls up and launched a quick local server just to see some of the changes and improvements since the last time, only to be greeted by this:



Now I know that, for a lot of you, this might seem like an ok screenshot, however here are a few things that irks me:

First of all, the background of the map shows us a very bright city background on an ultra sunny summer day with a beautiful blue sky. The walls off the map itself however are not only VERY dark, but the fact that the lights are on all around the map indicate that it is/should be night time. And then the ground textures indicate that it is in fact daylight. Somehow even the Mac-11's lighting feels wrong to me and doesn't look like it is being lit up by the same sun that lights up the rest of the map. I will ignore the textures of the map as this is an old map and I am aware that you can not edit turnpike without the mapper's permission. I will not however ignore the very smudgy-looking texture/model of the Mac-11 or the hands. Nor can I ignore the fact that the folding stock on the back of the Mac-11 does not look anything like a functioning, moving part as it should: (instead of i.e this: http://goo.gl/VQK97 ). I'm sure it is very difficult to model this kind of moving part, but if an iPad game can do it ( http://i.imgur.com/dvHUtLd.png ), surely the quake 3 engine can. If it's too difficult to do then it should simply not be here ( http://goo.gl/wkiHd ). Please note that, as a European, i know very little about guns, but somehow this still jumped to my eyes when looking at the model.

I know that you guys are dealing with an old engine, however I also know that the people from True Combat Elite, a game with a lot less players than you have managed to produce models like this: http://wilibre.homel...og_00086_01.jpg The texture is still somewhat smudgy, but the model in itself looks a lot sharper than what the Mac-11 looks like and the textures on the characters hand are also A LOT sharper and detailed than what is on UrT. The TCE guy created that model ages ago, the Mac-11 is a few days old and already looks outdated.

The 7 people behind Warsow (which is on the quake 2 engine) manage to produce better looking textures: http://www.warsow.ne...0/hd/game28.jpg

This, as a returning player or to people I introduced to UrT feels like a game with no artistic forethought/direction. One of your most played, most popular maps is very confused. I know that the lighting on TP was changed to remove some the photocopy wall bug but the map was very very far from broken and surely that bug was not game breaking enough that it was worth making the map look this confused. The MAC-11 model also looks so rushed.

I'd also like to mention a nifty little effect that I've recorded here: http://youtu.be/dXAnzbDpmZY

Seriously, what is wrong with the weapon's lighting here? I'm pretty sure this is supposed to look like CoD4's Deagle/golden weapons specular ( http://youtu.be/KNN2l8k6Yxo ) but here it just looks like random lighting effects that happen at an incredibly fast rate when moving. The only lighting on TP is the sun, why does it produces such crazy, fast moving, effects?


I'll finish with a quick other example:



Why does it looks so dull and yellow? Where are all the colors gone? Casa used to look like this:



Why in heavens does it look like some kind of yellow filter has appeared all over casa? Where are the contrast and vibrancy, the orange bricks/rooftops? What's up with the dodgy looking tufts of grass? I also can't stop myself from mentioning the butt-ugly skin of the colt 1911. Whilst the model actually is pretty good, the skin in itself doesn't really feel right.

Even if you wanted to avoid the classic 1911 look in favour of a silver one surely you'd go for something like this instead of the tasteless Colombian drug lord silver-plated version?

Now I know a lot of the people who visit this forum do not play this game for its presentation but for the great core gameplay within the game. However the first thing that will attract people is the art & design of the game, however I really feel like UrT is losing a lot of it's identity and artistic flair in these new versions. Barbatos said that the new weapons were created for the HD version and then imported to 4.2 which decreased the quality of their model/skins a lot. If this is the case, why are you guys happy with incorporating sub-par versions of your models to 4.2? What is the actual rush to suddenly add 4 new weapons when you always refused to do so in the 8+ last years? The game is losing a lot of its artistic coherence (that games such as warsow which have a much more limited dev team manage to have) and I doubt this is actually benefiting the game.

Surely you guys want to attract new players and not keep the same player-base? You WILL NOT achieve this by completely ignoring the needs of potential new players to feel like the game has a clear vision behind it and is not rushing everything it has for every update.

Another example is the new dmaHD sound that has been added in the latest version, like many other players who had not heard of this, i thought the sound was absolutely terrible when I first launched the game. Luckily a few people mentioned it on UrT France and i adjusted my settings and it is now just fine. However, a lot of the more casual players will NOT know this because there is simply nothing mentioning dmaHD after an update (please don't answer with the changelog). There is nothing that explains the settings to new players and the only page I found was this one: http://www.urbanterr...w-sound-system/ and that is because i even knew it was called dmaHD.

Can you honestly tell me that this:

Quote

/dmaHD_interpolation
This will set the type of sound re-sampling interpolation used.
0 = No interpolation
1 = Linear interpolation
2 = 4-point Cubic spline interpolation
3 = 4-point Hermite spline interpolation
(This option needs a total game restart after change)
Default: "3"

/dmaHD_mixer
This will set the active mixer:
10 = Hybrid-HRTF [3D]
11 = Hybrid-HRTF [2D]
20 = dmaEX2
21 = dmaEX2 [No reverb]
30 = dmaEX

Would mean anything to anyone who is not well versed in sound systems? How is anyone to know what settings to use for their individual setup? Why even add such an advanced sound system if you do not find a way to help people set it up so they actually profit from it? Why is there not some sort of default setting that would work for the vast majority of people? I also believe that the new weapons' sounds really feels wrong/unrealistic/muffled and lack of any oomph, particularly when compared to those of the LR/M4/SR8.

Barbatos also mentioned that this will be really useful to make sure that the new weapons are well balanced and that most new features introduced will be debugged when HD is available. But surely, surely, this is what the QA team should actually be used for? Balancing and debugging? Of course they can not catch everything, but your primary player-base should NOT be used as a test bad for new features/weapons. I am aware that having a voluntary QA team makes thing more difficult in this regard, but surely with some organisation you should be able to organise enough test sessions (and why not use those test sessions as a bit of PR/Streaming to show off new coming features/weapons coming in HD and also to motivate your QA team because their work will be in the spotlight). This would also allow you to show your high quality models coming for HD and keep a lot more stuff for the HD release instead of adding loads of new weapons to 4.2.

I feel like this post has gone on long enough but I hope you guys can see where I am coming from. You guys can not forget that 4.2 is your latest publicly available version. The version that any new and/or returning player will be downloading to try out your game. You guys can not forget that both new and actual players will make your game live in the long term and that they need to have a good impression from the start but also a lasting one. It and your player base should not be a test bed for new features, it should strive to be as easy to set up as possible and it should look like there is a clear vision and cohesion in the game's design/look. There should be more pros to any fix/change than cons (i.e the photocopier bug does not outweigh the weird turnpike lighting). Surely, somewhere in the long list of new features you have, there are some things relating to design, art and usability. You guys should probably bump those things up by a few notches. FS has always been criticized for not adding features/weapons/stuff to their game. It is very good to see you guys work so much on these new versions but please do not go too far into the opposite and create a hodgepodge of features/fixes just for the sake of it.

[MajkiFajki]

Yeah, seems like I have to say few things here.

Urban Terror is using idtech3 engine. This engine is from 1999, was used with Quake3 Arena.

1999

In terms of video games, this is like eternity. And it affects EVERYTHING in Urban Terror. It limits EVERYONE on the team.

idtech3 lacks tons of basic features of modern game engines. That's why you can't compare UrT to anything else than game using same engine as we do. Warsow is using quake2 derivative, QFusion Engine. It was so heavily modified, that it doesn't look like one anymore.

They have no better textures, they have better lights. They have better material possibilities.

Everything you complain about is addressed in Urban Terror HD. With new engine, we can start to look modern. But we won't spend our very limiting man power on improving unimprovable.

I was working with idtech3, it's madness. In 1999 it was cool stuff, but these days, it's very limiting and time consuming to make anything in this. Right now I do not work too much in id3 and I can tell you will full responsibility, that eye candy will come in HD, but not in 4.x.

Sorry, but you can’t get blood from a stone.

And last but not least, we are not that type of team:

[<PWC>YAY5637]

I agree to the no help for setup part, as i dont know my optimal settings myself.
Maybe there could be a "Gamesetup" forum in here, where people can share the knowledge.

like this:
Forums
> URBAN TERROR 4.2 TECHNICAL SUPPORT
> 4.2 Bug ReportsGamesetup

(to make it clear)

[Tidus]

MajkiFajki, on 02 July 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

Yeah, seems like I have to say few things here.

Urban Terror is using idtech3 engine. This engine is from 1999, was used with Quake3 Arena.

1999

In terms of video games, this is like eternity. And it affects EVERYTHING in Urban Terror. It limits EVERYONE on the team.

idtech3 lacks tons of basic features of modern game engines. That's why you can't compare UrT to anything else than game using same engine as we do. Warsow is using quake2 derivative, QFusion Engine. It was so heavily modified, that it doesn't look like one anymore.

They have no better textures, they have better lights. They have better material possibilities.

Everything you complain about is addressed in Urban Terror HD. With new engine, we can start to look modern. But we won't spend our very limiting man power on improving unimprovable.

I was working with idtech3, it's madness. In 1999 it was cool stuff, but these days, it's very limiting and time consuming to make anything in this. Right now I do not work too much in id3 and I can tell you will full responsibility, that eye candy will come in HD, but not in 4.x.

Sorry, but you can’t get blood from a stone.

And last but not least, we are not that type of team:

>> basic activision troll here <<

I'm sorry but this just feels like a quick hot-headed response to my post and feels like you barely even read what I typed or what i was trying to pass accross. You also have addressed none of my other points or examples. First of all, warsow's textures, not on the weapons but at least on the maps are of better quality than those used on, say, the MAC-11. It is NOT only lighting based eye candy. But sure, i am willing to remove warsow of the equation since Qfusion has more features than idTech3. It is still largely ancient tech though. You can't however choose to ignore the fact that most of their map and more importantly their art design have actually been carefully crafted to be coherent.

I gave another example, using a screenshot from True Combat, which uses idTech3, which shows a weapon with a better quality model and textures than, again, the Mac-11. You chose to ignore this one.

My post was not only about eye-candy but the lack of coherence in the art on, say, Turnpike's lighting or the totally cartoony skins compared to the entirety of the rest of the game which has a realistic look. The dullness of Casa's yellowness compared to your own old Casa versions. The tasteless skin that was picked for the Colt-1911 which doesn't fit in the game's universe or the lack of basic detail on the Mac-11's model, which is quite poor, even compared to your own new models such as the 1911/Spas or an iphone game. The random lighting effect that looks anything but pleasant that is present on the spas/colt/etc on the short video I posted. Or also the addition of complex features such as dmaHD with no explanation whatsoever to the users on how to set up their game to benefit from it or why it even benefits them. I also spoke of the lack of general usability. Or the fading coherence of the game because of what is actually being implemented to the game or the lack of thought that appear to have been made before implementing unimportant bug fixes such as the one which renders Turnpike's ligting such as it is. You chose to ignore all that. I also spoke of the accessibility of the game, which has barely improved since its mod days. I could also add that the only requirement to noticing that the handles of the Colt and Mac-11 goes through the hands of your character is to not be blind; but that would be petty now wouldn't it?.

I have no doubt the technology is limiting you guys, however i can't stop but doubt that there is an actual unified vision behind what is happening at the moment. You can not tell me that all of the above is limited by your technology.

Instead you decided to focus on one very specific part of my post and pretend that I am comparing you to the likes of Activision when I have done none of this in my post, I purposefully chose independent games/mods such as TCE or warsow because they do not have the might of a publisher behind them and they are, in some ways, similar to FS's dev team, although on an actually smaller scale (7 developers on warsow, not many on TC when it existed), there are many other independent developers, some of them with even less of a workforce than FS has who have to deal with technology that is even worse than idTech3 but who still manage to create artful things with the limit of their technology. You also chose to pretend this is all down to technology when it clearly isn't. So please don't come up with that kind of thoughtless post, I would rather not get an answer from FS than having yours.

I am willing to believe everything that I "complain" about is absent of Urban Terror HD. However HD is NOT the version you are serving to everyone. This is NOT the version new, arriving players will see. They will see 4.2, they will see the problems I have highlighted.

Saying that you are not willing to spend man power on improving unimprovable, whilst adding a plethora of complex new features and bug fixes, some of them adding major changes to gameplay and balance (i.e weapons, new hit zones, dmaHD, skin colors), to the same version that you do not wish to work too much on, and which happens to be the only thing that showcases what you guys are capable of and could allow you to grow, is highly cynical. That you are not willing to spend an indecent amount of time on 4.2 because of HD is fair enough, but this is no excuse to be sloppy.

Guess I better come back for HD.

[FS Frankie V]

Tidus, on 02 July 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

What I would like to talk about here applies mostly to new and/or returning players, not your current competition playing user base which might be happy enough with the way things are going right now.

After a long inactivity, I wanted to try UrT again just after the 4.2.013 release, quickly set my controls up and launched a quick local server just to see some of the changes and improvements since the last time, only to be greeted by this:

Guess that says it all.

Personally if I was just one of the boys I would feel rather insulted if I stuck with the game I love to play and then some old timer came down from the mountain and only looked at how bad things are.

Tidus, on 02 July 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

I will not however ignore the very smudgy-looking texture/model of the Mac-11 or the hands. Nor can I ignore the fact that the folding stock on the back of the Mac-11 does not look anything like a functioning, moving part as it should: (instead of i.e this: http://goo.gl/VQK97 ). I'm sure it is very difficult to model this kind of moving part, but if an iPad game can do it ( http://i.imgur.com/dvHUtLd.png ), surely the quake 3 engine can. If it's too difficult to do then it should simply not be here ( http://goo.gl/wkiHd ). Please note that, as a European, i know very little about guns, but somehow this still jumped to my eyes when looking at the model.

Oh you mean weapon models like this?

http://www.urbanterr...nkiev/mac11.jpg

Or how about this?

http://www.urbanterr...rankiev/uzi.jpg

Yeah we tried upping the weapon detail but I'm sure “may” around here can tell you what happened when we did that to just the Dessert Eagle.

Maybe instead of just jumping back into the mix after a long absence you should have used the time you spent on your post to see whats been going on here in just the past year. You might have even found our YouTube channel where we show off weapons designed for HD that sorry to say can't be used in 4.2.

Oh and welcome back.

P.S. I'll put the problems with the Max11 texture resolution in our bug tracker.



Oh just to add I found it interesting that you would hold “this” up as an example of doing it right.

http://wilibre.homel...og_00086_01.jpg

With out using the model in “real” time game play I would have to say it has a reallllllyyy bad smoothing group problem.

[diRf!Nikki]

I'd like to add that all the new options (like dmaHD) should be disabled by default because it's been known to cause problem. If you're not going to disable it by default, then your Manual should be updated as soon as it's released and/or as soon as problems are fixed. If it's a "no one has time" thing, perhaps you should consider setting someone up with that one specific task. We do have the forums to comb through but it's a pain having to go through thread after thread because the search picked up the correct terms but not in the context needed.

This post has been edited by Nikki: 02 July 2013 - 04:28 PM

[Tidus]

Frankie V, on 02 July 2013 - 04:02 PM, said:

Guess that says it all.

Personally if I was just one of the boys I would feel rather insulted if I stuck with the game I love to play and then some old timer came down from the mountain and only looked at how bad things are.

That says it all? I played this game since 1.27, stopped at 4.1 about 3 years ago. This, means I have played UrT almost 10 years. This also does not mean that the game has been off my radar, considering I have still been strongly involved in the French community and shoutcasted the latest Nations Cup matches and a couple 4.2 matches. Sorry if you feel "some old timer", who has played 10 years, organised 3 Nations Cup and an Open Cup and was one of the few working forces behind what is probably now your biggest community site (UrT France) should not give his opinion after a couple hours play of your newest version. I'm sorry that people who might have "stuck" with this game in the last 3 years feel offended by my post when i "stuck" with the same game for 10. This is just irrelevant and i just can not understand why anyone would feel that someone's opinion is more valuable because they have played recently. Surely you actually care about returning and/or new players? Yes, UrT has plenty of good stuff to offer, but i thought you would be more interested in what you can improve than in fruitless brown-nosing? Was i wrong?

Frankie V, on 02 July 2013 - 04:02 PM, said:

Oh you mean weapon models like this?

http://www.urbanterr...nkiev/mac11.jpg

Or how about this?

http://www.urbanterr...rankiev/uzi.jpg

Yeah we tried upping the weapon detail but I'm sure “may” around here can tell you what happened when we did that to just the Dessert Eagle.

Maybe instead of just jumping back into the mix after a long absence you should have used the time you spent on your post to see whats been going on here in just the past year. You might have even found our YouTube channel where we show off weapons designed for HD that sorry to say can't be used in 4.2.

Oh and welcome back.

P.S. I'll put the problems with the Max11 texture resolution in our bug tracker.

Oh just to add I found it interesting that you would hold “this” up as an example of doing it right.

http://wilibre.homel...og_00086_01.jpg

With out using the model in “real” time game play I would have to say it has a reallllllyyy bad smoothing group problem.

Yes i meant models like that. Sure upping the deagle detail resulted in terrible performance. Sure the technology might not let you have your beautiful HD models in 4.2, but then that doesn't mean it justifies the need to add the current, sub-par model, with all of its flaws instead of trying to find solutions to these flaws or simply not adding a sub-par weapon now does it? As for the comparison to the TC model, I never implied that it is perfect, but somehow with that smoothing problem it still looks better than the Mac-11 despite it's age (i will add, in my opinion).

But again i repeat myself in saying that the stuff you have prepared for the HD version or 3D rendered is not the stuff we get to play with at the moment and that the current version is what your audience gets. It should matter a lot. This is also a small point you address of my original post out of everything i mentioned, btw. But if you'd rather i spend my time watching videos of stuff that is not available as of yet and not post feedback of what I think feels wrong in UrT right now (which is not necessarily stuff that i'd expect FS to be able to for 4.2 but i thought could be useful for HD), then so be it. Please at least work on the game's usability.

Whilst i am at it, i would also like to mention the shadow bug near the turnpike side doors on my screenshot. Also please look at Nikki's post above.

[FS Barbatos]

Nikki, on 02 July 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

I'd like to add that all the new options (like dmaHD) should be disabled by default because it's been known to cause problem. If you're not going to disable it by default, then your Manual should be updated as soon as it's released and/or as soon as problems are fixed. If it's a "no one has time" thing, perhaps you should consider setting someone up with that one specific task. We do have the forums to comb through but it's a pain having to go through thread after thread because the search picked up the correct terms but not in the context needed.

DmaHD wasn't supposed to be activated by default, that's a behavior that will be fixed in the next version.
The documentation will be updated as soon as possible.

[Banned b1naryth1ef]

There was definitely some confusion with the engine updates, something that should be better explained in the future. Although dmahd is really awesome and powerful, it needs tweaking and configuration to work right. Unfortunately right now the engine and game are very disconnected, and although updates get pushed to the engine, it's sometimes hard to coordinate testing on that front. Again, I think this is something that could be improved in the future.

I'm not going to comment on any of your other points because I don't know enough about whats going on to discuss them. However I will say my best friend was on the TC team, and TC ended in much more than a disaster. Something UrT has avoided so far.

[FS Frankie V]

Tidus, on 02 July 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

Stuff.

Oh sure I read your post in full but do you really want “me” to respond to each point in turn?

Personally I do enjoy a good rant as it's a good indication that we are at least doing something right as far as what some would consider as being important. If no one around here said anything then we would be in big trouble.

But

If you have been here since the release of 4.2 then you should also be aware that things are changing, we hope for the better, and if quality issues are your main concern than you are more than welcome to apply for a position on the QA team.