[smelly]

Dear reader,

My name is Dennis and I come from the Netherlands. My ingame nicname is Smelly, it has been that way since 1999. I am writing this forum topic to tell you all about the history of Urban Terror and what this game has always ment to me and the concerns I have about the game as it is this day.

Let's start with the history of this fine game. Once long ago a mod for Quake 3 Arena, created by Silicon Ice, there was this diamond in the rough, Urban Terror!
At the age of 12 I found myself in the era of computer games that did not yet know of things like Call of Duty or Battlefield. It was a simple time where first person shooters where thriving with (for the time) awesome graphics, yet the gameplay was very "arcade" like. At this time a mate of mine introduced me to Urbanterror and oh the fun we had for years !

I can still remember the hours and hours of joy me and my mates (and even my old man) had together, shooting till the break of dawn. sniping that one guy who was umping you all the time in richochet or the chaos in trainyard. Yes kids, you think you play this game long but I've been going at it since urt v1.27 (and i don't mean the Q3 pointrelease, heck, you don't know wtf in talking about!). Anyhow, good old times. I really hope every single one of you have had similar experiences playing this games as I had.

This came to a drastic change when UT 2.0 arrived.. I had never felt so much of a grudge againt anything in life as I had for the energy drain by running and jumping. No longer was I able to do what I loved most, JUMP JUMP JUMP SHOOT JUMP KILL JUMP SHOOT !!! But hey, at least they gave us the SR-8 ;) all and all at this point in the development I found a good way to still frag decently and I had a good time playing this version of the game up until pretty recently. I must say, in my opinion all the versions of UT (yes UT, not UrT) that followed 2.0 up until 4.1 have been very very much alike in feel and play to me.

This brings me to the mose recent events in the game's history (ofcourse there has been a change in development from Silicon Ice to Frozen sand (sup with the coldness in the names?) but that aside). I nowadays have not nearly as much time to spend playing this awsome game that is still around for all to enjoy as would like to (gf, job, bla, etc...) Still I sometimes find the time to click that one Icon on my pc screen that has never left in 14 years, only to find out that I have become even suckier than last time but still I enjoy the game.

Now this is the part where I write whats on my mind and what I dislike about Urban Terror as it is today.

First of, What the *@!# happned to the openness of this game ? I mean, from the moment you decide you want to download this game you get forced into setting up an account for some random shit website that you don't want ! what is the purpose ? I tell you, MONEY, what else would drive Frozen Sand to do this kind of shit ? It's absolutely NOT inviting for new players to see a banner that says "play now!" or "download now!" only to see another fkn download site.. MAKE A MIRROR DOWNLOAD LINK.

Next up, The account registration, obviously I've done it, thinking I would benefit greatly in all sorts of ways if I would. Turns out you don't even need one to play? what the hell... I mean, that's a good thing IMO but still, I was under the impression that I NEEDED an account nowadays to play Urbanterror. When I played 4.2 I was really dissapointed. I thought to myself, what this the game I remember? and guess what? NO, this piece of shit plays and feels like a mild tia in my brain. It's just not as good as 4.1. So how come my opinion is like this I asked myself, Well, I think this transision is in none way comparible with the one from 1.27 to 2.0 (people who played back then and read this will know) So I can only conclude that this game is actually getting less good then I used to be.

By now I've typed more words on a forum then ever before, which means this game somehow has a strong connection to me in a nostagic way and I hope this game will get what it deserves, at least a proper development crew with an olskool mindset concerning the promotion of the website and the game as a whole. Also I think is game would absolutely ROCK as a stand alone on let's say xbox network. Pay 5 euro's and u can play this fucker, it'd be great.


So I guess what all this comes down to is that this game has seen better days and the reason for it's degeneration RIGHT NOW is development priorities. So as a few final words I would like to say to Frozen Sand; Get your act together, respect the origin of this game and look at the future, If you ever want to make this francise greater than don't linger any longer. (PS: WHY IN THE NAME OF *@!# HAS NECKSHOT EVER BEN REMOVED????)

To all the players I would like to say; Don't troll this topic and Kill 'em All !

Greeting,

Smelly

[rayne2]

No matter what game you decide to play these days 99% of them will ask you to register on their website and set up a user account.
Now i don't know ho it works on your mountain where you live but in my world that's pretty common practice...

Now if you really have so much anger in you and hate cause of a video game that truth be told hasn't changed drastically in ages then you need to seek some professional help, and meds, lots and loads of meds.

And to be perfectly honest your entire post just reeks of some heavy duty trolling in the deepest of the deep.

[SilverFoxZ]

smelly, on 06 December 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

To all the players I would like to say; Don't troll this topic and Kill 'em All !

[FS Frankie V]

Wow great first post that yet again belongs on the “willing to tell us what to do yet has no skills to provided solutions as to what needs to be done” pile.

First the reality check.

Around and about 2010 all things Urban Terror and Frozen Sand was in the process of shutting down FOR EVER meaning no updates, no ongoing bug fixes, no new content, no web site to come and hang around and chat, no new nothing with everything packed away into coffee cans and buried in the desert next to “ET Phone Home”

Then something strange happened. During the course of finishing up 4.2, the last build, individuals of skill showed up, willing to do instead of talk, and in the process learn what it takes to keep the old girl going when faced by obsolesce by design with out the benefit of a pay check that their skills so richly deserve.

Second you and many are confusing Frozen Sand as being even in the same ball park as other top flight game development companies yet is a group of talented individuals who are more interested in continuing to work on what is in essence a mod to a game called Quake3, for the fun of it, which was abandoned by id in favor of more so called advanced “profitable” game products.

Third there is nothing left to the current rendition of Urban Terror that needs improvement as far as game design goes and as far as I'm concerned is done as in making it play like other games like COD, TF2, or CS and all that is left is to fix the things that needs to be fixed.

Forth EVERYONE tells us that we need to get this game into the mainstream, which we are working one, yet do not take into consideration the evil that others are willing to do as part of their own personal agenda as an interested third party. Pushing to mirrors is a logical choice until one realizes that the giving nature of content in general is a profitable market for others who don't care about the care and handing of the game the same way we do.

I/we hate those miss leading “DOWN LOAD NOW my crappy stuff” tied into our content that makes it difficult to get directly to the good stuff at the click of a button. This is not our fault and is why we are working on providing an one click updater that if you even took the time to read up as to whats going on would realize there is a working solution to what you feel is wrong.

Last Urban Terror is and always will be Free to Play and not Fee to Win, as in repackaging the “DEMO” of a game, were you have to pay for the good stuff if you have any hopes of actually being competitive against another player who wins not because they have skill but has a Visa card.

And yes

It's sad to say it does take real money to run a project this size, and not just a few bucks, but anything done for profit will not be for gain but what is necessary to keep the lights on and not sold by deceit as in you need to buy a “product” to win.

And last of last.

If you are here to troll be advise I troll back. ;)

[FS |HSO|RaideR]

I however do not troll, I am your friendly forum nazi who will ban without remorse... lucky for you Frankie got to you first!

First Come First Served!

[thelionroars]

How exactly were you coerced into making an account on the forums? If it's all about the money, how much actual currency have you paid for this game since 1999 (including the latest version)? And where were you when cheating on this game was rife, and all the cheater had to do was delete their qkey and restart their router to bypass a PB?

[Mod [dswp]JRandomNoob]

thelionroars, on 06 December 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

How exactly were you coerced into making an account on the forums?

smelly, on 06 December 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

First of, What the *@!# happned to the openness of this game ? I mean, from the moment you decide you want to download this game you get forced into setting up an account for some random shit website that you don't want !

I assume you fell victim to one of those semi-scammy ads that are occasionally displayed on top of the pages, especially the download page. No, those have nothing to do with UrT and the lovely gentlemen who put them out are preying on (if you excuse me) gullible people like you. I have no clue how Google ads work but I assume that were FS to get rid of them it would come with some kind of side effects? Anyway, you can download UrT directly as always. From the download page. Using any of those (text) links found there.

As for the game/forum account, when 4.2 came out it was left up to individual server admins to decide whether they want to allow authed players only. To this day most servers have no restrictions — the game isn’t all that well right now and warding off people willing to play on your server would be stupid.

[FS BladeKiller]

Here is a tip for Smelly. Google ads have a little triangle in the upper right corner. If you take the time to look at the ad that just says "Download" you will see that triangle. I see this stupid ad on almost every download site I go to. I think it's a rather reprehensible ad campaign. It should be against Google's ad policy because it is misleading.

BTW, I've an old school dev and player. Been playing since 1.0.

What is silicon ice? why, it's frozen sand. We changed our name when we got sick of "GG SID" all the time by the players everytime we played or watched GTV. It spoiled the name for us.

[smelly]

Hey guys,

I would like to respond to some of the comments you have given on my erlier post.

First, the download page, I went there and I will admit my comments on that part were out of line. I have indeed fallen for the ancient advertisement trick (sigh...) Not much more to say except to offer my apologies about this issue, the page seems to work just fine.

I want to clear somethings up. Some of you think I am a troll and I don't respect all the hard work alot of people have put into this game over the timespan of it´s lifetime, this is not true. I think everyone who spends years working like this without any paycheck deserves a medal. Also, I am no troll... (sorry ~SG Raider, you frensh bastard. you may ban me for this if you please).

My initial intention to make a post like I did was based upon the way I see things now in comparison to how I've always seen them regarding Urban Terror. I just feel like this franchise can do so much more and I guess I am kind of sad that it just isn't getting there.(No offense to any of the developers)

I also would like to clearify the authentication issue, I can not recall saying I hate the idea of making an account for a game I play or a website I visit, yet I get negative response to that, which IMO is ungrounded. Ofcourse I see why you do it and I am not against it. I do however see it as an obsticle I have never seen before in Urban Terror, you see, Urban Terror is sometimes a quickfix for me. I fire the game up and have some fun, then leave it alone for some time. I don't see why I even tell you this but it might shine some light on the way I look at it.

I am not really sure what you mean by pay to win, Frankie V, I know the meaning of it but don´t see the connection of that comment to my post.

I´ll keep an eye out on this forum (unless Raider bans me :P)

Best regards,

Smelly.

PS: Why did you EVER remove the NECKSHOT?!

[FS Frankie V]

smelly, on 13 December 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

Hey guys,


PS: Why did you EVER remove the NECKSHOT?!

Fair enough no harm no foul.

Sorry to say your original post did fall into the “OK here we go again” trap as to what some posts suggest and is totally incorrect.

Pay-to-Win is a sideways reference to the so called Free-to-Play games were some company will make what is in essence is a repackaging of the “demo” or the shareware form of distribution.

Sure you can play it for free but to win you have to buy some element of the game to either move forward in the adventure or even a component of the game, like a gun, to be on a 1-1 footing to win based on skill.

This is not necessary a bad thing if you know what your getting into in the first place but Urban Terror, and I maybe putting my foot in my mouth, no one will ever have to spend a single dime to win and to win will be about skill.

As for the neckshot to be honest I never even knew that there was such a thing but the nature of the beast is stuff is so old that every time we compile a new build something always falls off and has to be glued back on with hot glue and duct tape.