Editorial: My Thoughts on a Mod

[The Joelteon7]

I thought I'd help the forums along with some thinking on my behalf. Starting off with my personal thoughts on a popular mod. Any guesses?

In deed, Ultimate Universe has been described as the "mod to save Legacy", but can/has it really done that? Does its current and potential content show that that is what can be? Personally, no. I don't think so.

So here's why.

The idea's in it, are for the best part, flawless. It's the implementation that is something of an upset. With long loading times, for small tasks that do not require such times, as based on my own experience for loading in Armada 2, with larger maps taking longer to load. Yes, UU DOES have larger maps with more content in, but, considering the nature of the game, considering the fact that there is no need for larger maps...why are they even there? Warping away is meant to be a secondary speed, not to jump you across the map, purely to prolong the inevitable.

However, long loading times I can understand. More content tends to mean better and in some of the cases, this is certainly true.

It's the physical (or virtual) content that bugs me. As said, the ideas are fantastic, but the placement of items is not well done. Anybody can get the map editor, plonk a few ships down and call it "Armada mode", it's taking that and going further with it, to make it more. What about added ships (note, they're hugely Federation. Why they were the only ones to recieve such a huge amount of ships in the demo is beyond me, when surely you'd want a taster of everything you're providing, not just one race?) that have nothing to them other than lots of weapons...too many weapons if you're the Federation, as they just begin to look messy. How about the Scimitar? It was easily possible in Armada to make it a thing of mass-destruction, would not a short view on coding made it that bit scarier, that bit much better? I don't think it would've taken too long, considering we do know that special weapons work in game (see the Chain Reaction Pulsar that was added to the Akira. Heck, see the cloak, that's a special weapon along with self destructing, long range sensors and the tractor beam). I just feel more could have been done.

That's not to take away from the graphics of the thing. They're shiny, truly, there are. But, as the modern games are discovering, more and more people want less graphics, more gameplay. What does this add? Map edited pieces with singular ships. Granted, it provides the 1 vs. 1 that people have been wanting, but again, far too long on loading times for SINGLE ship combat (I can let it go for Armada mode, but nothing shorter then that).

I know this is based only on the demo, but to me, it's just a novelty compilation mod, with a "bit of this", a "bit of that" and a bit of "hmm, that looks lovely" on the side to make it look even shinier. Making the radial menu look prettier might seem like a priority, but I assure you, it REALLY isn't. How about changing the radial menu, as to remove it and map the buttons elsewhere. This is possible, as we know the key buttons can be changed (was it not IKS Yo Mama who enabled such a featured and is in deed on LF?).

From what I'VE seen, the mod will be good. It will be, but as the "mod to save Legacy", nah, I just don't think it has anything new. What I first saw when loading up the mod's instant action was "oh...look...it's a load of ships....taken from Legacy Files...put together...hmmmm." which wasn't the sight I was expecting to see. Ports from other games is fantastic, but what about other races? Yes it's a demo, but are we only to know of the Federation in such an excessive force? I'd like to think not, considering many more races can be added and from what we've seen, will be added. My only concern though is seeing what was done to the Vulcan's is if the same will be done to the other races to be added, which I wouldn't like to see.

So, compilation mod or the saving grace for Legacy? Feel free to discuss, civily. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but rude or directional comments will simply be deleted.

[Steakboy]

After reading your somewhat lengthy [gigantafricingly humongous!!!] post, I would agree with what you're saying here. The ideas behind it were great, but there was some quality lacking in it. Several ships were not quite up to par and the some maps were a tad . . . off . . . the V'ger cloud was extremely bright, but that's mostly Legacy's fault because I dislike the nebulas. There was a lot of "stuff" in it, but nothing really drew it together into a whole or unified entity. Your use of "compilation" was a good one as that's what it seems like to me.

Some of the ports (like the Scimitar) were awkward in gameplay, as they still used the Armada weapons and hardpoints, so it was really weird to use in-game. Better weapons would have been a plus.

Klingons completely got jipped if I recall too.

STILL! It was an entertaining mod for what it was. As for saving Legacy all on it's own, not yet. BUT, I will admit that UUmod WAS one of the driving forces behind me making my own large mod (120 new textures, 3 new variants on ships, 7 new weapons, etc. so far) because I knew there were some things that I would have liked to have seen, so I just decided instead of complaining about it that I'd do something. So in that respect, in that it could inspire others, sure, THAT could save Legacy.

[gdata]

I do not quote this [I think you know why] and I agree with everything you said. What I think is a bit strange are the nebulas on some maps which look like a nebula cube.
I think it is a step in the right direction, with the lack of creativity. When downloading it (350MB....3 Hours, if you cannot download it from a European server and have a slow connection) I thought it would make Legacy much better and I was dissappointed. I took some ships from UUMod and put them into my personal mod, but that was all I am using.
But I think they and we can learn from this and know now what has to be done. I will try to put in action as many of your suggestions, Joelton, with the Trek Battles Mod (maps aren't that huge and we added several missions for several races; ships will be added) and in future mods!

Originally Posted by Steakboy

STILL! It was an entertaining mod for what it was. As for saving Legacy all on it's own, not yet. BUT, I will admit that UUmod WAS one of the driving forces behind me making my own large mod (120 new textures, 3 new variants on ships, 7 new weapons, etc. so far) because I knew there were some things that I would have liked to have seen, so I just decided instead of complaining about it that I'd do something. So in that respect, in that it could inspire others, sure, THAT could save Legacy.

Right!

[IKS]

Firstly I am one of the people who was anticipating this mod greatly. I wasn't disappointed at the end result more puzzled.. why? Because in my honest opinion it was talked up so much and stated what it was going to achieve but honestly didn't reach some of it's goals in the first attempt (I am confident they will complete the mod successfully).

I agree with Joelteon to a large extent but what we have to realise is this :

1. The level of anticipation for the UU Mod was intense and as we all know the greater the level of anticipation the more the product (and I use that term vaguely) has to be 100%. It's a general rule in life that if you set standards and tell people about them then you have to meet those standards/requirements you have set yourself.
2. A lot of advertising went into this and to be direct with you - it was all worded wrongly. For instance, look at the UU Team positions.. there is a director, advisor/contributor, Director of Cinematography, Website/Webmaster, GFX Artist and a Official Representative for Germany , to name a few. I work in a large communications company and I can tell you we don't have positions that specific... It sounds like a movie production crew not a modding team. I think that worked very badly against the UU Mod as people saw these positions which make it sound like a brand new game and thought this is gonna be something special. The DEMO tag is NOT A GOOD IDEA, it gives the impression that the next version of the release is going to be a game-like Total Conversion... Bad move in my opinion.
3. A lot was promised and not fulfilled. For instance,Armada Mode was totally misadvertised in the stated mod objectives.. It's a map with a lot of ships.. That is not a mode in my opinion. Mode is an Operation in technology/software which changes the direction/operation of a programme/machine. Armada Mode - should have been an option to change the gameplay to command a large scale fleet..
4. Some aspects of the game were buggy. Example: I really liked the quick loading time for Legacy, it was one of the only things to work correctly in the stock version but the UU loading times for some maps/missions are dreadfully slow... I appreciate this facet of the mod as alot of objects are in the process of loading. But it is a bit annoying to be honest

Therefore I will say a few things...It is a compilation mod slash Full Race addon. It is not quite a Total Conversion JUST YET. I think it is A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. I also think it only a beta and we will hopefully see a TOTAL CONVERSION for it in later versions of the UU Mod. I also believe that alot of work went into it and I'd like to thank the folks of UU MOD for taking the time to compile this mod and I wish them the best of luck in completing the mod....

- eagerly anticipating the next installment of UU, IKS -