Indie Developer Tells Epic To F**K Off

[fayzaan]

EPIC? they hardly make any good games anymore...they EPICally failed a long time ago

 

[ares1214]

EPIC is still around? hmph, maybe i forgot about them, they havent made a good game since...hmmm...?

 

[Guest]

Too bad he only blogged it rather than saying it to his face ¬_¬

It's true what they say about the big game companies, though. A lot of my favorite games were made by small studios. Alas, most of them no longer exist, or they were absorbed into the corporate goo.

 

[vaughn2k]

EPIC FAIL!

 

[Guest]

Maybe his studio wouldnt still be micro if hed stop going after customers 1 at a time.

 

[lawlthegamer]

[citation][nom]veryed[/nom]Business people (with no development background) just don't get it and usually just see customers as dollar signs.[/citation]

Nah, were fish, the games are the bait to the dollar signs in our pockets
_______________________________________________________________________________


Rockstar is no different, how many thousands of people have complained about the fact that there is NO way to control people who cheat in any of the online GTA4 multiplayer, yet Rockstar doesn't give a ****
I know there are many others, but il stick against Trashstar since I bought their lazy port, upgraded my cpu+gpu just to play that game, then I get shat on by a company that's proved they support cheating, support being the worlds leader in garbage porting, and support ruining a good franchise.
Seems like Epic is no different considering what someone posted about UT3.

So yea, listening to your consumers will go a long way, ask cdproject (the witcher), since I am sure GTA5 will not sell as well at all on pc due to the masses in the pc market who got shafted by GTA4, something just a little listening would have fixed.

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]No no no. The saying actually is:"The bigger they are, the harder they kick your ass."I actually agree with the Epic guy. Communicating with a single customer to try to land a sale, is all fuzzy feely and all, but it's not going to improve profits that much. Support your product well, and answer questions that your gaming community might have, but answering to each individual customer is a waste of resources that should be used to target a larger audience.[/citation]

not if say you hrie some one soley for that kind of job. hell why not .. there is a such thing as tech support ,i see no reson why a game company can'thire a single (1) person to jsut reply tocustomers and give feedback to the team on waht customers are saying. granted i can see it beign a waste of time if teh developers have to constantly do such replies them selves since that coudl keep tehm away form makign the game. if i was runing an indie studio though , i'd definitely hrie at elast one employee that did nothgin but take feed back from customers and relay said info to the team , after all , despite the current industry belief , devs make games for gamers not themselves.

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]znegval[/nom]I usually have more fun playing decades old games than the stuff they make today. It's too movie-like for my taste. Now they just make a half-assed story, insert some good looks (awesome looks, given), voice acting and that's it, the game gets played by millions of people for sure. I don't know about you guys but no game in the last five years or so made me have more fun than the old Marios, Final Fantasies and others. But it's no wonder it's that way. As soon as a game is finished someone gets in with millions of dollars and say "make a sequel already".[/citation]

i agree with you, while i ahve ran acrioss afew "gems" in the more reccent blockbuster games (fable 2 and fallout3 mostly) nothing has really impressed me from the big names since bioware did the original PC baldur's gate (1 and 2) of coruse that was before bioware became teh big name they are now , hell most the team they have now were not teh guys that did BG series any way. but getign on a tangent , point was the last game that jsut really floored me with wow factor was baldur's gate 1 and 2 (and expansions), and no i dont mean that crappy offshoot they did on teh ps 2 , i'm talking the original 2d sprite based art work, isometric view , tactical RPG that was released in 1998 (and 2001 for bg 2)




that said now for something on topic here ... UT engine is great Epic's games .., just mediocre seriously i dont see why every one acted like GoW was the second coming , i found the series bland at best ,possible halo wanna be at worst (minus the FP view). that aside more and more i hear about these dev'sdoing rather rude ,childish ,unprofessional actions at public gathers ...makes me abit concerned aboutt eh industry i'lbe going into getting out of school... seriously the way Mark Rein acted reminded me of high school bull---- ,not the way i'd expect a so called professional to act in what is one of america's largest industries

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]maestintaolius[/nom] I liked the original unreal because it was so much more colorful and vibrant than quake and quake II and the razor blade shooting gun, 8ball rocket launcher and flak gun were just great, not realistic but still fun.[/citation]

The original Unreal and another game that was kind of like Descent but way more colorful - were the reasons I bought a Voodoo1 video card. They colorful eyecandy was cool. UT3 is still quite colorful compared to the likes of Battlefield, COD and other real-location themed war games. As you said, Quakes were nothing but shades of ugly grey and brown...

And as you say, the Razor blade and Flack guns were FUN, sure some didn't like it- as it gave newbies a fighting chance. But in CTF, if you had a few enemies camping in the flag room, it was FUN to unleash dozens of razors into a room... or even others shooting them at you.

With UT2004, I pretty much retired UT-classic. I still have all my Unreal and UT games. I have hundreds of maps. UT3, I have about 150+ user maps, many are very good... the problem? NOBODY to play them with. What few humans there are, its on standard servers. Even the TITAN packs would be a help as they include many excellent maps.

UT3 could have been great. The engine is solid, the movements are good... menu, options, crappy maps etc ruined what could have been great.

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]San Pedro[/nom]I get the impression you don't like UT 3.[/citation]

Er... do you SEE anyone actually PLAYING UT3? I'm talking about the PC version of course. I have no idea what goes on with the PS3/360 versions.

Last I looked (5+ months ago), there were about 20 WAR (ONS) servers, with about 5 or so with humans. Custom map servers were few and empty... cause it SUCKS to spend 10min DL maps that suddenly cut-off because the server has changed maps.

There are more people playing OLDER UT than UT3.

UT3 could have been great for the reasons I stated. Go ahead, DL the 16K ZOOM mod that re-activated the feature that is like UT2004. When I run the MOD and play on my own PC, its makes the GAME FUN - you can SEE where you firing and what you're doing. The game looks better too. It sucks to have a RAPTOR sucking up 1/3rd of your screen so when you're shooting down - you're guessing. And if you have human players wanting to hitch a ride... YOU DON'T KNOW! And thats is one of the IMPORTANT features of UT3... giving RIDES. Can't do it if you can't see! Its completely STUPID on Epric's part.

Crappy maps... 2/3rds of the maps are simply crap. pretty. But still crap.

If there is no one to play, you don't bother checking online either. So this is EPIC FAILURE.

Back in 2000~2002, there used to be well over 1000 UT servers, many were full during prime-time. Lots of clans - which I used to be part of. UT was so much fun. When a rocket launcher would blow you into tiny bits or a razor blade would cut off your head... yeah, fun! UT2004's ONS was a blast, still is. UT3's WAR is almost as good. The ORB thingy can instantly change the balance of a battlefield but also can make it near impossible to fight back.

I haven't played any UT for over 5 months since I installed Windows7... My UT2004 is corrupt and needs a re-install. I have my key, not disc. Audio is "speedy"... and with UT3, I've lost my key... well, the manual is somewhere and I'll find it someday if I make an effort.

Robot Unicorn is fun.

 

[dEAne]

Yeah that's true. . .

 

[Regulas]

[citation][nom]wawa sxm[/nom]once upon a time gamers could identify with the developers....the fairy tale is over its all about maximizing profits on very commercial games...and not about the art[/citation]
Ditto, ID software (John Carmack) had almost a cult following for years at the beginning as did others before they were gobbled up by the big money studios.
Look at how sucky Blizzard is fast becoming, No LAN support for SC2, how's about no SC2 for me.

 

[sincreator]

It's funny... I have been a member of Epic's forums for a nice few years now and I can tell you what happened to the Unreal series. Gears of War is what happened. Before GOW, Mark Rein, Cliffy B,Tim Sweeney...etc used to all frequent the forums to answer questions and give general help to their fans. After GOW came out, it made them that much money that they pretty much just ditched the Unreal series to the curb. Now you only EVER see them posting in the GOW section. Poor Flak(moderator) was pretty much left alone to handle the UT3 forums and what a mess that was when UT3 came out. To this day they are still in answering questions for GOW 360. Years ago Epic was considered to be one of the most player friendly companies around, and that was what got them to where they are today IMO. Too bad it's all about GOW now.

PS: I seriously think if they are to release another Unreal Tournament someday, they should do a major overhaul of what Unreal has become. Sure the new transformers game "War for cybertron" is more of an Unreal than what UT3 was. Abilities(adrenaline basically), Powerup pickups(megahealth etc.), almost exactly the same type of weapons(scrapmaker=stinger and more like that), the same movement/camera control as Unreal Championship 2, the same engine(UE3), and a hell of alot more fun to play than UT3. Too bad TWFC was so badly ported to the PC, it would of been a blast with voice chat/text chat and above 30fps. lol. Glad I got a 360 too! I'm still buying it for the PC though because it still looks awesome on PC, and I want to play the campaign on PC with a few of my PC buddies. Thank god I have a ventrilo server for the chat.

 

[sincreator]

BTW, if any of you guys were Transformers Gen 1 fans you may want to check out TWFC. The story for the game is about the "Great war on Cybertron" that was discussed in the Gen 1 cartoons.It's about 7-8 hours long and not just "players vs. bots like UT3 was. Lots of cool cinematics/cut scenes. They have how alot of the Transformers met up, like how Megatron first met Starscream for example. Very cool game, and addictive as **** online.

 

[bustapr]

I think Valve is the only big company that does this right.They listen to the people and are constantly fixing bugs and updating their old games, no matter how small they are. Its no wonder every indie is moving to steam. The perfect DRM and the system makes it easier for indies to communicate with their customers and potential customers.

 

[Guest]

Communicating with the players does a lot! Take CCP for example, the creators of EVE Online. They have the players elect a group of players to represent them and their views on what is wrong with the game. They then fly these people out to their development studios and have them sit in and give input on development meetings. This input makes it into the game. Pretty neat stuff.

 

[Haserath]

The only games I've purchased in awhile were Valve games. TF2 is awesome as they keep the experience really fun and update occasionally.
And who can ever forget the ending song to Portal

 

[FloKid]

Epic don't care how you run your beeswax, just as long as you pay them 25% lol

 

[Regulas]

[citation][nom]chaoski[/nom]Arrogant stupid rich people is what's ruining this country AND the gaming industry.Agreed with atdhe, game quality (not graphics) has been on a decline.[/citation]
Yup and every last Democrat in DC (Socialist Hack) destroying this country with their Nazism and Union bosses are all rich.

 

[Mysteic]

After reading this I realized that while I play a couple of games with Epic's Unreal Engine for rendering, not a single one was developed by Epic or their subsidiaries.

So while I give credit to Gears of Chest High Walls being a game that apparently is very good, I have no desire to play it because it was (are you listening Epic) a terribly uninteresting concept.

 

[jsm6746]

typically, you don't sink to their level... neither of them went about the correct manor of voicing their opinions... and it doesn't make you look any more credible to start calling them names afterwords...

although tom's swing on this was much better than the actual thing...

 

[cj_online]

[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]I forgot to add (SORRY).So UT3 should have included at least 100 maps. That could have saved your hide.And vehicle zoom control? What retard decided to disable that? Yeah, theres a MOD to turn it back on and what do know.. UT3 becomes a lot more fun, rather than FRUSTRATING. EPIC is stupid... the only thing that will make them worse is when/if they start doing the DRM crap like EA and UBI.[/citation]
Great... u had to say it.... now we gotta prepare for a DRM crack sometime soon...

 

[Guest]

And with Epic not caring about the individual customer, I can say that, as a customer, I have never thought Epic games were real stand-outs. Pretty run of the mill, esp after running Unreal into the ground. I will not by their games after the idiot spoke so arrogantly.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]stm1185[/nom]Maybe his studio wouldnt still be micro if hed stop going after customers 1 at a time.[/citation]
No joke. The real story here is that he's pissed because he's been doing it for 13 years, one customer at a time, and he's still nowhere. How dare a successful developer like Mark Rein act like he knows how to be a successful developer! He obviously has no experience in being successful, what with all that success holding him back.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I've never bought an Indie game for the PC, well unless you count Telltale games. The PC isn't really an Indie developer place anymore, the iPhone app store is where Indies should go. Don't get me wrong, Mark Rein sounds like an ass and UT3 was a traversty compared to earlier UT games. But why would I want to spend my money on an Indie game when there are so many good big studio games out? I.e. Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Mass Effect. AC2 and both MEs have been just as enjoyable if not more than the great games of old were. I don't have time to play thousands of games a year but I find there are more than enough great AAA games out there for me to play before considering an Indie game.