Low Player Population
earth007
Join Date: 2012-12-07 Member: 174424Members
Join Date: 2012-12-07 Member: 174424Members
I picked up the game a couple of days ago and so far my clan and I are loving the game. However, one of the concerns we have about the game is low player population. In my opinion, NS2 and shootmania have the best chance of being popular in competitive shooters atm. It's got the basic tools to achieve that as well. ie. mod tools, dedicated servers and a dev team that's really passionate. So, I was wondering if anything is being done by the dev team to spread the word about the game, because I don't think the casual gamers are even aware that an awesome game like NS2 exists. If one of my clan mates wasn't playing it and if I hadn't come across ESL NS2 finals stream, I probably would not have known about the game. This game really needs some more exposure. :)
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Comments
Ummm, ok?...
Competitive play it's VERY fun though imo, just not enough people yet to create a scene like ns1 had.
Competitive play it's VERY fun though imo, just not enough people yet to create a scene like ns1 had.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once the devs add some more features into the game and make some of the alien classes more fun to play as (see NS2:Classic for ideas), gamers will come back into the game.
And i honestly believe more tournaments won't help at all. Those people that quit playing are not into the competitive side of the game, they are mostly the casual "i just wanna play for a couple of rounds fun" players so that kind of stuff won't appeal to them at all/won't be even noticed.
Tbh at this point i think the game needs another huge content patch, something that adds massive new gameplay to the game, similar to the Gorilla build during beta or the inclusion of co_ with NS1. Stuff like that attracts some media attention and motivates people to visit the game again. But nobody will start playing again just because Exertus is playing Archaea for the felt 234345. time...
Right now the game is going through some growing pains, but it's not unlike any other title I've worked on. There is always a sales burst upon release, then it eases off. What will happen next is that once the game gets some tweaks to help fix issues that are holding it back, it will likely go on special and you'll get a whole new whack of people entering the game. If UWE can get something ready by Christmas, they may be able to have it as a boxing day special.
The team are working on it though, and people need to remember this isn't a developer with 100 staff on hand that can plow through changes. UWE has roughly a half-dozen staff working full-time under Charlie's direction for the game itself. NS1 survived for MANY years just as a mod, NS2 will be able to do even better once it hits its groove.
The only problem I see is that the full 20+ player servers are sucking up lots of players -- but that is a minor issue.
P.S. I agree performance issues are still keeping gamers away. However, NS players are resilient and the problem with hopefully be solved over time -- at which point those players will come back. Even if that takes a while, people recycling their old PCs for new ones over the next year will solve many of the performance issues.
Right now the game is going through some growing pains, but it's not unlike any other title I've worked on. There is always a sales burst upon release, then it eases off. What will happen next is that once the game gets some tweaks to help fix issues that are holding it back, it will likely go on special and you'll get a whole new whack of people entering the game. If UWE can get something ready by Christmas, they may be able to have it as a boxing day special.
The team are working on it though, and people need to remember this isn't a developer with 100 staff on hand that can plow through changes. UWE has roughly a half-dozen staff working full-time under Charlie's direction for the game itself. NS1 survived for MANY years just as a mod, NS2 will be able to do even better once it hits its groove.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, this game is def not dead. With a Hardcore fan base and a great dev team, I think the game will do fine for years. However, I think this game has the potential to do more than just fine. It has all the tools to be one of the most popular games in e-sports scene. Hopefully they'll try to get the game more exposure after the next patch. Also, one of the main gripes I have about this game as a beginner is the clustered feeling of all the maps. I think they really ought to clean out the maps a lot and make them look less clustered. Sometimes I get stuck on random small objects. :P
There is also a challenging curve to this game. And if people stick to it, they find a great game, but are the casuals able to suffer through the intial "wtf am I doing?"
I totally agree this game is great for competitive play. But I also want to see further expansion of new lifeforms, weapons and tech. It has been a rough road just balancing and improving what is already in game.
1. got hitman absolution (free with new gpu)
2. got far cry 3 (free with new gpu)
3. tf2 is still my favourite game (mainly because i play on the same servers with people who i've played with for years)
to summarize, i got bored of being unable to find decent pub servers where the players were fun to play with (i think my average kdr is probably about 5:1 and would be 10:1 if it wasn't for some terribad teams i've been forced to drag along). there's no real fix for this except let time pass until players improve (i don't want to play comp, don't like playing on a schedule).
i really do love ns2 as a game, however if you're being realistic then 1500 concurrent players is a healthy number. i believe the game is good enough and will most definitely grow if the performance/optimizations, bugs and 'user friendliness' continues to improve (still a long way to go to be equal level to counterstrike or tf2 etc).
That being said, UWE still has quite a few options to boost playercount down the road including
- Steam sale
- Free weekend
- Popular tournament (e.g. ESL)
Aussies do seem to love themselves some NS. I wish it would be as popular here in America. Although it is fun to go onto almost any NS2 server and have a good shot at hearing a comm with that accent belting out orders.
I just pretend the TSA does a lot of recruiting in the outback, due to all the scary exotic creatures in Australia, they figured the Kharaa won't scare em much. :P
PS2
far cry 3
assassins creed 3
TWD
hitman 5
I know where my time has been spent...
PS2
far cry 3
assassins creed 3
TWD
hitman 5
I know where my time has been spent...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is an interesting point. NS2's system requirement has put the game in the cross fire of every AAA game hitting the market, as the kind of people that have a machine that can run NS2 smoothly, almost definitely also like playing other games on their PC.
It's not that the Kharaa won't scare us. It's that going on an interstellar journey to fight mutant space creatures that are trying to murder you at every turn is safer than being here in Australia.
Have a Container to represent NS2.
Have holes in the Container to represent the problems with the game (performance/gameplay/bad design elements)
Then pour in water, representing the finite amount of players that would be interested in NS2.
And the result is a leaky container, ie. bad player retention.
Most games fail due to the publishers pushing for the release of the game before its ready, yet the Irony is that UWE has done it to themselves. Sure they may have been low on funds, but theres allways a way, hell i would of thrown money at them if they sold gorge plushies or onos keyrings, or asked for donations in exchange for something similar to the pax logo that only shows in the ready room (maybe a pair of angel wings or a halo to represent an angel investor ?
The crux of the matter is that this game and the engine needed more time to be done right, and what UWE have done is sold a beta product to the world in the guise of a complete game. I would literally cringe when devs would say "we will add/implement/fix it Post 1.0" , that pretty much told me that the game wasnt ready. Same goes for the huge changes they did to the engine 2 weeks prior to release, nobody does that to a game thats about to be launched (unless the game wasnt ready)... and even with the 40% extra performance that gave us (not to mention the red plug of doom that pissed off many people)... and performance still isnt where it needs to be at. The 3rd bit of evidence that shows the game wasnt ready for release ... is that we are still using BETA build numbers ... the game IS 1.0 right ????
Make no mistake about it, this game is very much a work in progress (ie. a beta), the real tradgedy is that UWE has wasted the free press/hype that comes with the launch of a game, and the community is worse off for it.
Make no mistake about it, this game is very much a work in progress (ie. a beta), the real tradgedy is that UWE has wasted the free press/hype that comes with the launch of a game, and the community is worse off for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep and since it's still Beta, yet was released to people that paid for it, the sweeping game play changes that tweak things too far pokes yet another big ol' hole right in the bottom of the container.
Don't screw with core game mechanics within the first month of release. A simple cork in the Early Onos hole would have sufficed, but the other fundamental changes have made NS2 uncertain and it's making things really hard on people who are legitimately trying to learn the game mechanics. You can't learn how to wall jump right now, it's a waste of time. It changes with every release it seems, and with such uncertainty why play when the skills you develop are going to be moot in the next update.
I see a lot of people making excuses for UWE. Not enough people, not enough money, not enough time, all games patch things after release. All that is true enough, but excuses don't retain a player base. When you fix a major problem, then introduce a dozen other problems, it doesn't make people feel good about a $40 dollar investment.
Especially when, as others have pointed out, there are massive seasonal Steam sales along with AAA title releases coming out for the Christmas season. It will be <i>very</i> easy to get lost in the shuffle of the season for NS2 without a strong, good build released before then.
I hope UWE is up to the pressure of finally finishing NS2. If they don't do it soon, there's a very real chance that the population it has is the population it gets. Long term, that means a slow shrink and a preponderance of modded servers. (Servers that, I might add, take a beast to run NS2 that equals a higher cost per server than almost any other game on the market. That includes AAA titles. That also doesn't bode exceptionally well.)
Pretty much this. Let's not forget UWE gave out 45,000 <b>free</b> copies of NS2. I doubt a free weekend or any kind of sale is going to help when its clear the problem is with player retention due mainly to performance.
I plummet to 20-30fps in anything but light combat, whenever an exo is firing, or whenever grenades are exploding on an overclocked i7. I don't even want to imagine what its like for people with average cpu's. You feel the sensitivity loss, the input delay, and the animations jerking around.
Server performance actually seems alright though, or atleast reasonably accessible with commercial hardware now. Monash was running 45ish players on combat at stable 30 ticks. Granted its combat so there wasn't any inmmerstation.
Lack of a meaningful tutorial puts alot of new players off, especially in the hand holding game generation
Badly thought out mechanics once you start to learn the game cut alot of the 'strategic choices' out completely
Essentially the game is still no better than it was in beta, which on release has a tendancy to cause a spike in players which rapidly subsides. What you're seeing now
<!--quoteo(post=2041740:date=Dec 7 2012, 11:03 PM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Dec 7 2012, 11:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2041740"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I plummet to 20-30fps in anything but light combat, whenever an exo is firing, or whenever grenades are exploding on an overclocked i7. I don't even want to imagine what its like for people with average cpu's. You feel the sensitivity loss, the input delay, and the animations jerking around.
Server performance actually seems alright though, or atleast reasonably accessible with commercial hardware now. Monash was running 45ish players on combat at stable 30 ticks. Granted its combat so there wasn't any inmmerstation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, the problem isnt that high end machines cant run it, nor that lower spec machines cant, its that it's completely random. I run a standard 3.4 clock I5 and get 40 fps in combat on mostly full settings, yet you, with a clearly better rig, get worse? Its just a result of using their own engine. I mean, its incredibly impressive, but a dumb move to do.
As for the server performance, lag and bad hit detection are pretty rampant, its just masked by most people not getting good enough performance to notice them.
- performance
- no direct reward for kills (Res for Kill for example)
- no Hive teleport
Yes, I'm serious about that.
EDIT: the fourth reason may be the Aliens spawn system which often has long waiting times.
That's more stillborn, really no one ever played it period outside of one free weekend. NS2 was only stillborn competitively.
NS2 might be switching from fast population crash to slow at 1.5k and thus stick around in the Steam top 100 games for another few months thanks to the Euro pop.
<a href="http://www.steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920&from=1350450000000&to=End+Time" target="_blank">http://www.steamgraph.net/index.php?action...amp;to=End+Time</a>
Lack of a meaningful tutorial puts alot of new players off, especially in the hand holding game generation
Badly thought out mechanics once you start to learn the game cut alot of the 'strategic choices' out completely
Essentially the game is still no better than it was in beta, which on release has a tendancy to cause a spike in players which rapidly subsides. What you're seeing now
Actually, the problem isnt that high end machines cant run it, nor that lower spec machines cant, its that it's completely random. I run a standard 3.4 clock I5 and get 40 fps in combat on mostly full settings, yet you, with a clearly better rig, get worse? Its just a result of using their own engine. I mean, its incredibly impressive, but a dumb move to do.
As for the server performance, lag and bad hit detection are pretty rampant, its just masked by most people not getting good enough performance to notice them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Derp, maybe the randomess is bcuz pplz dont know that i7 is not necessarily better then i5 nevermind clearly better -.-