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trigon, <br><br>before you jump to conclusions from the comparison of numbers of UT to UT2k3 servers, i think you should know that UT had precisely the same "slow start". The fact that 3-4 months after release of ut2k3 there are still more ut servers says precisely NOTHING about the quality of the game -- what it says is that BOTH games, at the time of release, demanded top of the line systems in order to play smoothly. As you yourself found out: not any old 2 year old pc will stand up to the requirements of UT2k3 and even now some medium to high end systems struggle!!! Not everyone has the cash to run out and buy a p4 2.5 with a geforce 4 or a radeaon 9700 ... The same was true of UT when it was released -- it took quite a while before the number of servers and players took off ... almost exactly the time it took for computers that could handle the game with ease to become the "norm" that everyone had or was buying. Many people simply cannot play ut2k3 because their computers are too old and hence they must wait to play it until they can afford or justify upgrading. <br><br>As for computer gaming world ... *shrug* personally, i prefer making up my own mind by playing the game intensively over a longer period of time -- a 'review' is just that: a quick play and run over with the game (for a week or two or three???) ... i suspect that the depth of UT2k3 totally eluded the reviewer in this case, but this is, of course, just my own opinion (albeit one formed by playing ut2k3 exclusively and intensively since day of release).<br><br>as for the skins, crying "they suck" doesn't address my one and ONLY point about the skins. Nowhere did i say i personally thought they were "cool" (except for the robots, which are pretty awesome) or that their looks were a great point of the game. Here's the quote: "I fast grew to like the skins in 2k3, for they too make it a richer, deeper, more interesting game" -- note, my comment was about the added dimensions they bring to the game, and said nothing about whether i thought they were good-looking. i said that their very variety and the individual animations they have ADD exciting elements to the game: making it more difficult to master and adding a dimension to gameplay that wasn't there before. as a competitive player, i don't really care that much about what I or my opponents look like, just that I can kill them easily. I have almost all the "eye candy" in ut2k3 turned off, even though my rig would handle it all just fine. I do this because things like foliage, grass, ripples on water, reflections, decals, coronas, detailed shadows and the like only make things visually more cluttered and thus interfere with my shot-making. Every so often i'll play an instant action single-player game with all the stuff turned on just to ogle the scenery and effects, but I'll be the first to admit the single-player game blows -- 99.99% of my games are multi-player/online. FOR ME, it's ALL about the competition and the gameplay ... whether or not the skins are cool or not really doesn't factor into my opinion of the game. I choose my skin entirely for utilitarian purposes: its animations are very deceptive and it fools a lot of people into missing shots in fast-paced instagib games. Were I playing something where hiding and size were more important, i'd choose a different skin entirely, solely on that criteria alone. In any case, this ability to choose skins for tactical situations is a dimension to the game that UT lacked completely -- i'm grateful for the addition to an already rich game... but please, don't confuse my point about adding to the depth of gameplay with saying "the skins are cool" ... whether or not the skins are cool hasn't really ever entered my mind for ut2k3. In fact, the same was true of my assessment of UT: i thought all the retail UT skins were boring as all get out -- same size, same shape, just slightly different hair, skin, outfits ... but that didn't stop me from enjoying that game to the exclusion of all others for 2 full years.<br><br>finally, i think you are absolutely right to say that there will be a community of UT players and servers for a long, long time to come. But it is inevitable that this community will shrink significantly in the months ahead. Competitive players are jettisoning the game for other things (UT2k3) and the UT ladders run by the various gaming leagues are drying up fast. In case you didn't know, a very large percentage of UT and UT2k3 servers are run by clans and competitive players ... Schwantz and Hermskii are NOT the norm in this regard. So, as the competitive players/clans/leagues abandon the game, so the server pool will dry up as well ... who is gonna pay the bills for the servers to stay up as the groups with the financial resources (clans and leagues) stop playing? Sure, there will be UT servers around for a long time -- but not indefinitely and the variety, geographical dispersion, and competitiveness of the players will likely all decrease signficantly too. But none of that will happen overnight -- it'll take about as long as needed for systems that can handle UT2K3 to become common and the norm among regular households I imagine. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>happy fragging (in your game of choice!)<br><br>|qF|Careless ... Saladshooter ... Salmo_salar <p></p><i></i>
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