A Cryin' Shame
I popped in my Unreal Tournament III disc just a little bit ago. While it was fun, it's also giving me some heartburn becuase the community, at least on the PS3 version, is damn near non-existent. You can count the number of populated servers on your fingers, and the number drops even more if you're looking for those populated with a reasonably large number of people. I mean, c'mon, Capture the Flag isn't exactly fun with just two people. Reduce that further by servers that allow keyboard and mouse and you're lucky to find even a handful of servers across all game types. The best game type, Vehicle CTF, is pretty much dead at this point.
What happened here? When did people stop liking fun games? Why, why, why does Halo have millions of users and a classic, genre-defining franchise like UT3 can only draw hundreds? I have a few guesses. For one, the franchise has been dormant for four years. On top of that, the last iteration(s), UT2003/2004, didn't hold the weight of the original, and therefore didn't command the long-term community to hold it over until the next iteration. Finally, I have to blame Midway for timing the launch of the game so poorly. Releasing it right up against games like Call of Duty 4 was a terrible move. Plus, advertising started as the game was released. There was little hype building up to the release, so only older fans were prepared for it. They should have been able to build some pre-release hype if they played the "from the makers of Gears of War" card.
I can always play with bots if nothing else, but it's not the same as playing with real people. The game is so good in so many ways. It "feels" more like UT Classic than 2003/2004 did, while keeping some of the newer ideas in a more refined fashion and adding some of its own. I don't know what's not to like.
I'm afraid this may be the end of the Unreal Tournament franchise. It's was a good ride while it lasted.... I think I'll re-install UT Classic on my PC and see if there is still a community of old-schoolers there. It's still one of my favorite games of all-time.