UE2.5 landscapes aren't all that great: They really can only do rolling hills, they still severly lack draw distance, foliage layers (and i mean once that actually work an not just pop up 20 meters in front of you) and most of all: details such as vegetation. Other game engines do landscapes much better. The best maps in RO are still set in a urban or semi-urban setting. Once they rely solely on landscapes, they feel... empty (e.g. Krivoi Rog). That also turns most firefights into "hunt the enemy pixels", because they seriously lack cover.
What do you expect? its 2003 tech, ofcourse it doesen't measure up to more recent engines, thats a given! but it can do more than rolling hills, add in static meshes and you can make mountains if you want, or any number of other things, the terrain is supposed to be used togeather with static meshes to make a more detailed world.
And RO is not a great yard stick for what can be done with UED 2.5 tech terrain wise, simply because of its setting, Russia is not the most diversive of places, the endless plains are pretty much.. well barren really.
You can do much more with the tech, but RO could not do so without loosing its Russia feel.
And foilage too, yes it only draws stuff like grass to a certain distance, but that doesen't stop you from making bushes and whatever using static meshes, and thouse will allways draw.
The engine is certainly showing its age, that is to be expected, but still, the very fact that it can and will do terrain instantly makes it a better choice for a TS than Source.
But lets not forget that UED 3.0 is right around the corner, and i for one am looking very much forward to seeing how far it can be pushed in this direction! it'll be interesting to say the least.
But for the record, i have never, ever, said that the Unreal engine has the best terrain, where are you getting that!?
All this stuff about how pings greater than 100 are still acceptable in RO is rubbish: Maybe you won't warp a lot, but you can still tell there's a lot of delay, making bolt-actions a no-go. Not to even mention the strange irks that come with it, like tank shots disappearing and stugs being forced to always shoot straight. With the source engine i at least find a lot more servers giving me a ping of <80.
Your standards are way too high, i can play with Bolties with a 150 ~ 200 ping, yes there's a few quirks to it, i never said it was smooth as butter, but it works, and you can play! not so on Source, and thats the point, Source's "Anti lag" features make it unplayable if you ping high, because its just plain bad design, other games are much more forgiving.
Hell i used to play Infiltration with a 300 ping or higher, back in my dial up days, it was not all roses, but i was playing!
A bad connection will allways be a bad connection, but how the engine handles it does differ, Source handles it very poorly indeed, UT rather well, but i have seen better still.
That is just plain bull****. Unreals weapons are mostly hitscan, and the only weapons that fire projectiles, fire very slow ones and have a low rate of fire:
*sigh* where have i ever said anything to the contrary? i said Unreal has been able to do it since the origional (the Stinger!), and supports it quite well, also evidenced by mods like Serpentine and Infiltration, and ofcourse, RO.
But this is not really about the Unreal engine, there are many other engines that also make a prime candidate for a TS, nor is it about RO, this is about the Source engine beeing a very poor choice for any realistic shooter, with Source you will have to jump through countless fiery hoops to get an end product that even borders on the realistic, and in the end it will fall short in many aspects.. so why choose it when there is no shortage of other engines that are infinately more suited for that kind of game?
