Mark Rein Interview

Well, I have to say that I'm pretty damn diapointed that U2 won't have multiplayer... That really really sucks the more I think about it. I think that's going to hurt their sales quite a bit. I really want U2, but I've stopped buying games without multiplayer componnents to them after Max Payne. I installed Max, beat it in one sitting (about 8 hours on my day off) and that was it, no multiplayer, nothing to do with the game after that but unintall it. $45 for 8 hours worth of entertainment.

Now Rein said that they're going to try and deliver a longer, more polished single player experience, which I'm all for, but chances are they're going to boost the length of the game from about 8-10 hours (at best) of play to maybe 10-12 at the very outside? That's just not worth it. If they were adding so much content that it was like Final Fantasy X, and there were dozens of hours of side quests, like 60-80 hours worth of gameplay, then I'd say go for it, with my blessing. I thought U2 was going to be a game that would be on my hard drive till U3 came out, but without multiplayer, I fear that it will reside there for a month at the most. (and most of that time will be spent seeing if there's some hidden branch of the dialoge trees that will earn you a lap dance from Aida. :)

All I have left to say is this. If DE finsishes UT in June, have THEM work on the multiplayer content of U2 for the 5 months or whatever till U2 comes out. From what I hear UC is practically finished and is waiting for the launch of the Xbox broadband network. There wouldn't be any time wasted while they learn new tools or anything, and as he said, there are existing multiplayer assets, so all they'd have to do is add more content and polish, and it would give U2 more than 10 hours of playability.

i dont like how UT2 looks at all. doesnt look anything like U2. and i dont like how they dropped the space theme as in first unreal.

I really hope Unreal 2 will have a coop mode. The only reason why I still have Unreal 1 on my hard drive is for playing coop. It just kicks ass. Great graphics plus gigantic fantasy atmosphere = teh own

It's always nice to see that Epic is still a "me too" to everything id software does. This way we'll have id/Epic flame wars for the forseeable future!

I'm a little leery about U2 not having a multiplayer component either. All Legend would have to do really is include standard deathmatch in the singleplayer levels with the singpleplayer game assets (models, skins etc). Thats all the rudimentary multiplayer I want out of a singpleplayer game.

So basically Epic took Unreal 2, ripped out the multiplayer, and decided to sell it separately? Count me out.

Mark sure can spaz a lot of spew in an interview. Just remember all the crap he said about Unreal before it was shipped. heh. I'm not really excited about either of these games at the moment. We'll have to wait and see.

polygon count isn't everything, efficient uses of polygons plus texturing, lighting and rendering is more key then massive polygon counts. If wanted something bloated and slow then yeah, work on nothing but polygons.

People with 3d programs, make a sphere that's 200,000 polygons, and then use a geosphere (3dsmax) with only 1000, notice the lack of difference between the two.

Anyone can make bloated objects and spout out numbers.

The separation of the single player game from the multiplayer game was a wonderful idea. Its a bit much to expect of anyone to produce a competent sp and mp game all from the same box. Lets face it, we've come to expect a lot more since quake1. I found q1 multiplayer mildly interesting just because of the technology. The story was hardly reason to play. wtf is the "Quake"? heh. Where was he? Why wan't he at the end of the game? gg id.

Back on the topic though, since singleplayer doesn't matter to some few, why buy that and install a few gigabytes of maps and movies? To the folks without a web connection, the multiplayer doesn't matter.

Of course those of us who want both end up paying twice the amount. Its great for epic anyway. We still get the mp early though.

I'm so glad the Unreal tech exists. Its nice to have something non-quake to keep things interesting. The engines really nice I think and I'm very intriqued by large outdoor areas. Unreal2 is gonna ROCK.Unfortunately I think Q3 is just more fun that UT. I spent a month playing nothing but UT, even learned the editor and made a map. Then went to Q3 and it was just instantly more fun.
Weird.

hmm, this all reminds me of something I've heard before...

Unreal 2 will make you my bitch -Mark Rein

Unreal Tournament 2... well let's just say we tried our best.

Mark Rein - Unreal Tournament 2 was not anticipated at any time during the design of Unreal2 nor during much of the development. Now that we have UT2 clearly in the picture, and ready to go before Unreal 2, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the dev team to expend their time and energy polishing multiplayer when they can use that time to polish an exceptional single player experience. The market has proven that this approach makes more sense and I don't think anyone will be disappointed by this once they've had a chance to play it.

More sense to rip off your customers!

What they might be trying to do is, to sell you the main game engine, with a few small multi player maps, in June.

Six months later, in December, they sell you the same game engine, with a few large single player maps added.

Perhaps the December, U2 version will have online gaming capabilities for co-op or something as well.

the moderators sure are censor crazy on this site

Waaaait a minute.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/19094/

According to Rein, Unreal Tournament 2 should be released before the end of June, while Unreal 2 should be released before Christmas.

Today: "When the game gets released we'll not only release most of our tools along with it but we'll also release some of the documentation on the Unreal Developer Network. This not only has implications for Unreal Tournament 2 but also for Unreal 2 which is coming a few months later."

A few months later than the end of June != Christmas. What's going on here?

Looking forward to playing the UT2 demo/test..

well that sux. i wont buy u2 without multiplayer. i figure i'll finish sp in a couple of days if i can get really into it which would be a waste of my money. ut2, i have doubts since i didnt like the first one too much. as long as it comes out before wc3 ill check it out. ill definetly get UC tho. need a new fps for xbox cuz halo multi is too slow for my taste. there's too much unreal coming out this year P=

I was kinda interested in Unreal2 for its multiplayer which looked kinda cool maybe, but now I've lost interest in it. I think I'll get UT2 instead, although I was more impressed by the pics of U2, but UT2 will hopefully be cool (I'm not exactly excited by the whole "you spawn with all the weapons" thing, RA != DM; they are completely different and I wanted both).

so its a $100 for Unreal with single and multi player game? (u2 and ut2 at $50 each...)

Yeah, all the interviews with the Unreal 2 people, they have just been overzealous rants and raving of their product. They are trying to hype it up like its the next HUGE thing and nothing will be like it. I hope they realize its anti-consumer. We can see straight through you =)

Unreal 2 will make you my bitch -Mark Rein

Unreal Tournament 2... well let's just say we tried our best.

toot, toot, tooting our own horn with impossible (and pointless) numbers...

everyone remember back before Unreal? "We're taking so long, because we dont want id to rip us off in Quake2, blah blah..."

sounds like fun. just 2 more games I cant wait for this year.

I think this is good.

Too many games waste time on multiplay instead of polishing singleplay to perfection.

U2 = win

Are there any pics of UT2? all Ive seen are U2 pics...

I am disapointed that Unreal 2 will not have the multiplayer features that were talked about earlier and may not have any multiplayer at all.

I dunno; the setup of all the Id games has always seemed more logical to me. Unreal just seems goofy when I look at it, but then that's because I haven't spent years learning C/C++. Perhaps I should someday.

lets wait and see

frost pist!