lol what are you talking about, this patch was great for marines.
-can get out of exos (meaning self-repair, able to build things, etc)
-dual railguns which are OP as shit
-increased strafe jump speed completely negates backpedal speed penalty
-amazing jetpacks that fly forever
-grenades
-cat packs
-phase gate prediction (aka no more half second of being frozen coming out of a phase)
-no fade egg drops til bio 9
Dual rails and grenades are shit, jetpacks are now what they should be.
Everything else you mentioned doesn't help win any games.
I've played for 12 hours straight on both teams and Aliens clearly dominate in every match, the only saving grace from this latest patch is that fades ain't op anymore.
Onus is the new op unit.
I find it funny that they balance out the exo's but give more to Onus.
You've played for 12h with/against hopeless greens. Do you really think that's a good indicator of balance?
Green Marines are awful at attacking, of course they're going to lose more.
NS2 doesnt need updating, it needs fixing. Let the modders add balance mods. Wht should anyone bother sinking time into modding if each huge patch breaks them? There isn't an effective framework such as metamod so everyone re learns each patch.
You are destroying your own playerbase by polarising the community each patch.
NS2 doesnt need updating, it needs fixing. Let the modders add balance mods. Wht should anyone bother sinking time into modding if each huge patch breaks them? There isn't an effective framework such as metamod so everyone re learns each patch.
You are destroying your own playerbase by polarising the community each patch.
By all means wait for the rookies to disappear or get better, i'm pretty sure the result will be similar.
The first time i saw the new abilities of Aliens, i was like, oh god that's going to be OP and turns out i was right.
I would buy one, but I never bought skins.
If they make an GORGE Bundle, with the Gorge Plushie, Gorge Skin and somethingelse , for like 50$ or 60$. I would buy it.
biz maby they have other expences than food and coffee or whatever video are saying but i still think making 2 maps so called free maps and asking for half a million is a little bit overboard.
The most subscribed person on YouTube has a charity goal of 250,000 that has been up since July, is just coming close to the goal and it is to provide water for 3rd world countries... so i doubt donations for this game will even come close to 550,000
now to decide to go the elite assult merine or the black ops merine (preorder limted ed)
too bad they cant make the new skins in black so people know that they denoated AND also paid extra at the start before NS2 was released way back in the day
I ended up with the Shadow Tier simply because the Onos was sold out. More tiers would have been great, I would have easily given 150+ if there was something above Shadow available. I've also been around since NS1, the fan base behind Natural Selection is amazing. I would love to see development continue, even if it means donating again or buying more than the 4 copies i've bought already.
p.s. can't wait for the "new project" twitter to be opened up.....it made me actually make a twitter acct....my first Social Networking account ever....
@Benson
Ya know, you don't really need a twitter account. If you know their twitter handle you can get all their tweets sent to your mobile phone. That's what I do.
I'm hanging out for high-quality maps and mods being released in the future by the community. There are some nice ones already!
Hopefully when I get time I can work more on my old project.
No F2P, PLEASE. Don't you see what happens to the game everytime UWE makes a free weekend? You want THIS as a permanent situation?! no! .... NO! The game is so reliant on team play that just doesn't happen on pubs at these times. playing in one of these is like flipping a coin. No fun at all. You need a solid skill based matchmaking system in place to go free to play. So that rookies will not be dicouraged and vets not be annoyed. In both cases you'd loose players. The rookies wouldn't donate that much for a skin in a game they bareley use. You forgott that you need to overcome the learning curve first to ignite for this game. many many rookies on free weekends go in to it like it'd be TF2 and leave as fast as they came. Changing that would seriously damage the game. It just needs to be propper communicated as the sport that it is. How long do you think you'd play Star Craft if you would be thrown in one pool with the TOP koreans? Yeah... You just are not ABLE to go against the first league when you never kicked a ball before.
Besides... If you calculate it in tripple A titles, where the average play time is around 10 hrs. and they take 50 EUR AT BEST from you.... with your average play time of 700 hrs. in this piece of awsomeness... you'd be 3500 EUR lighter... so you owe 'em! ^^ Purcesable Skins would be pretty dope, though
No F2P, PLEASE. Don't you see what happens to the game everytime UWE makes a free weekend? You want THIS as a permanent situation?!
You have a misconception about this situation. TF2 is free to play and you know what happens?
The experienced players in TF2 congregate on specific servers and there's hardly any rookies that get in. This would eventually happen in NS2 as well. (In fact there are already a couple servers that start to lean that way). I guess you could make the argument that since there aren't a whole lot of NS2 servers to begin with that more rookies would get into the servers the experienced players play on.
With as small of a player base as this game has.... all I can say is... good luck with that, you'll be waiting a long time.
However, if you make the game free to play, you may have shot of achieving that goal much quicker and your playerbase would expand.
Going F2P would COMPLETELY destroy this game. It would open the floodgates for not only troublemakers, racists, and general trolls, but it would also give hackers free access to the game (got banned? oh just make a new account)
Quantity does not equal quality. Every single game I've played that went F2P has been completely and totally destroyed. They may have more players now, but they have fewer players interested in actually playing the game.
I'm happy I donated to UWE.
I started playing NS when it was version 1.04 all the way up to the final version of 3.2. I'm not sure how many hours I've clocked on the game only but I'm quite certain it is a lot!
I've been following the development of NS2 when it was only an idea with the concept art from Cory.
When NS2 was finally confirmed for development I remember listening/watching the podcasts and videocasts every week when it was available on the website. I never bothered signing up to the forums back then because I wasn't much of a forum user but always read the discussions back then from the hardcore player base. (Any one remember that the concept of the taser was going to replace the knife/axe but was shot down from the players?)
My only regret is that I did not have enough money to purchase the Special Edition Alpha package when it was available...
When the Reinforce Program was released I didn't hesitate to 'reinforce' the Onos Badge.
People can do all the math they want, it still boils down to one simple fact:
UWE is charging like $15 for a decal and like $20 for a playerskin.
Now ask yourself: Are these prices low enough for "impulse buys"?
Do these prices offer a good price/content ratio for "non-fanboys"?
The answer to both these questions is a simple and resounding: NO
This is like the worst way to do "Microtransactions", well they are actually "Macrotransactions" it's still the worst possible approach to secure funding.
Only the most hardcore fans gonna pay these prices, these very same fans you have been depended on since the days of NS1, once again you are just channeling the "powers" of the most avid fans for a one-time money infusion. How is that supposed to help in the long term? How is that supposed to attract new players?
New players who might enjoy the game and want to spent money on content, they will look at the prices and go: "They want $40 for a Marine skin? Wtf! That's more than i paid for the whole game! Fuck that!" and not spent any money at all. Worst case: He might see it as a sign for a greedy/lazy developer, people do not read the small print, and that's gonna be real bad word of mouth.
Yes Spark might lack the groundwork for an account-system (but it knows the SteamID of people), yes getting "real microtransactions" will involve a lot of effort (Valve has a lot of experience with that and they are known to be helpful). But tbh i can't see any of that being worse than the "reinforcement program".
With a real Microtransaction system UWE could secure NS2 funding for years to come!
Small prices, constantly added content (even simple recolored skins will do fine for $2-3 a pop), that way even Regular-Not-Giant-UWE-Fanboy-Player might be enticed to spent some extra money.
The game does not even need to go "F2P" for this, you don't need to be "F2P" just to have Microtransactions.
People can do all the math they want, it still boils down to one simple fact:
UWE is charging like $15 for a decal and like $20 for a playerskin.
Sorry but you seem to have your facts confused.
You are not buying a decal or player skin, you are donating. Technically UWE is not "charging" us for anything, they are giving the decals and player skins as a thank you to people who donate.
You are not buying a decal or player skin, you are donating. Technically UWE is not "charging" us for anything, they are giving the decals and player skins as a thank you to people who donate.
Yes, you keep telling yourself that, it won't change the fact that 99,9999% of the gaming population won't care.
UWE is selling content and they are charging a price for it, end of story.
The majority of gamers and customers do not think further than that, and they don't want to.
You can put all the "you are donating!"spin on it you want, it won't bring new players to the community or convince any sane people to pay $40 for a Playerskin.
Because that what it boils down to: People work for their money, as such they want something of value for their money.
If people want to give away money, because they are "so nice", they go and look for a charity, not a videogame company.
That's a little known fact that got completely forgotten around here: UWE is not doing us a favor, UWE is a business, as such it should start behaving like one instead of constantly depending on the goodwill and "donations" of the community.
Around here this whole "you are not buying something, you are donating!"spin might work, but the people you need to convince, and win as actual customers, are not on these forums. The people you need to convince are not the fanboys that already gave you $XX for a constellation icon or bought an $333 Onos Badge.
The people you need to convince do not read this forum, the people you need to convince want to "buy someting" and not "donate to something for that warm feeling in the belly".
But hey i already know the answer to all of this: "We don't want those people in our community!"
That's fine and all, but then don't complain about a shrinking community!
well then it's a good thing the majority of game users stays out ^^... everyone who dips into that game and deepens thier experience will find him-/herself sooner or later confronted with the ideology of UWE and thier player base. Vets that help rookies over the first hurdles. Everyone who listens to a single word that Hugh or other members of UWE said will act that way if listened to... THATS where it kicks in! You can't be nice to dicks. I've never experienced so much trolling and bullshit than at the free weekends and I'm not allone with that. Some of my Clan flat out say, they HATE rookies. But what they actually hate is people being jerks and not listening to a word you say. Every one who payes for this game embraces a helping word and kindness to get over the initial learning curve after a short iritation. (maybe some of them come from CoD, LoL or even WoW. They are not used to help and kindness) You enhance the experience of others by playing WITH them insted of against them on the scoreboard. And so YOUR experience will be better too. Try to do that on Free to Play basis... it would be the downfall of this sweet community.
Everyone who understands what's at stake and is involved in the community will gladly give some of thier money to UWE to keep it alive and coming. I'm not saying reasonable microtransactions would be bad... the opposite is the case, but I understand that this stuff is not crafted over night. I'm shure if they had more to offer us atm they would include even more stuff as rewards in the donation tiers. But let them time and reach the big goal with all of us and there WILL be more awsomeness coming our way.
I'd pay for more awsome models (no reskins! thats mod stuff I'm not interested in), new voices, taunts, replay system, maybe even a model customization system... that would be cool stuff for a generally finished game to add. IF we make the 550k... Just the few of us! rookies won't donate so much anyway, 'cuz they are not invested enoght.
Everyone who understands what's at stake and is involved in the community will gladly give some of thier money to UWE to keep it alive and coming. I'm not saying reasonable microtransactions would be bad... the opposite is the case, but I understand that this stuff is not crafted over night. I'm shure if they had more to offer us atm they would include even more stuff as rewards in the donation tiers. But let them time and reach the big goal with all of us and there WILL be more awsomeness coming our way.
Absolutely false, lots of the old school community are completely jaded by the way UWE has handled itself with NS2 (and even before). I admit I was happy to buy the deluxe edition pre order to support them from the fun I had in NS1 and while I don't regret it I certainly won't be pumping anymore money into them. Especially in this thinly veiled cosmetic addition micro manner.
BUS, Source, Fall 2009, Rolling out broken patches for testing (or if you would prefer, screwing over paying customers to hopefully attract new ones) , Pay2Fix, where does it end?
I get that they're Indie and probably could have sold to a bigger studio and resisted but I'm done.
Fine.. Y are you posting? Don't ruin our experience then. We like the fact that it's no rusty half life one mod anymore. It's a real game now and they did a REALY good job on it. I don't think anything is broken just because I don't understand it jet. It's actually the most ballanced multiplayer game on the market... compareble to SC2... I'm sure there will be some changes to even out the bumps (ballance wise) but at some point you start crying on a very high level, don't you think?
I'm still on the fence. I'd like to donate, but none of the rewards really matter to me except the shadow skulk and the shoulder badge. I already own the black armor, so offering two more marine skins is a moot point entirely. $75 for essentially shadow skulk is kind of a lot, to be honest. I'm tempted, and might still do it. But, it would be an INSTANT-BUY if shadow badge gave shadow skins to ALL alien lifeforms. I wouldn't even second guess it. If I donate now, then decide to get shadow, I'd have to pay the full price again, sinking more money into it. I loved NS1.. but I only just like NS2 in its current form, so I don't know if I'll end up playing enough NS2 to justify all that money on-top of having paid for the game originally.
I think a lot of people are probably in a similar boat... they like what's going on, but just aren't entirely convinced.
tl;dr: I'd insta-buy shadow tier if all alien lifeforms were granted shadow skin variants.
Comments
You've played for 12h with/against hopeless greens. Do you really think that's a good indicator of balance?
Green Marines are awful at attacking, of course they're going to lose more.
You are destroying your own playerbase by polarising the community each patch.
By all means wait for the rookies to disappear or get better, i'm pretty sure the result will be similar.
The first time i saw the new abilities of Aliens, i was like, oh god that's going to be OP and turns out i was right.
If they make an GORGE Bundle, with the Gorge Plushie, Gorge Skin and somethingelse , for like 50$ or 60$. I would buy it.
I want the "Gorge Plushie" so bad.
I miss the constellation badge tho :P
and thats why I did not enter my forum id.
too bad they cant make the new skins in black so people know that they denoated AND also paid extra at the start before NS2 was released way back in the day
Coming very close to my idea of the perfect game.
Ya know, you don't really need a twitter account. If you know their twitter handle you can get all their tweets sent to your mobile phone. That's what I do.
Hopefully when I get time I can work more on my old project.
You have a misconception about this situation. TF2 is free to play and you know what happens?
The experienced players in TF2 congregate on specific servers and there's hardly any rookies that get in. This would eventually happen in NS2 as well. (In fact there are already a couple servers that start to lean that way). I guess you could make the argument that since there aren't a whole lot of NS2 servers to begin with that more rookies would get into the servers the experienced players play on.
Going F2P would COMPLETELY destroy this game. It would open the floodgates for not only troublemakers, racists, and general trolls, but it would also give hackers free access to the game (got banned? oh just make a new account)
Quantity does not equal quality. Every single game I've played that went F2P has been completely and totally destroyed. They may have more players now, but they have fewer players interested in actually playing the game.
I started playing NS when it was version 1.04 all the way up to the final version of 3.2. I'm not sure how many hours I've clocked on the game only but I'm quite certain it is a lot!
I've been following the development of NS2 when it was only an idea with the concept art from Cory.
When NS2 was finally confirmed for development I remember listening/watching the podcasts and videocasts every week when it was available on the website. I never bothered signing up to the forums back then because I wasn't much of a forum user but always read the discussions back then from the hardcore player base. (Any one remember that the concept of the taser was going to replace the knife/axe but was shot down from the players?)
My only regret is that I did not have enough money to purchase the Special Edition Alpha package when it was available...
When the Reinforce Program was released I didn't hesitate to 'reinforce' the Onos Badge.
Also...
UWE is charging like $15 for a decal and like $20 for a playerskin.
Now ask yourself: Are these prices low enough for "impulse buys"?
Do these prices offer a good price/content ratio for "non-fanboys"?
The answer to both these questions is a simple and resounding: NO
This is like the worst way to do "Microtransactions", well they are actually "Macrotransactions" it's still the worst possible approach to secure funding.
Only the most hardcore fans gonna pay these prices, these very same fans you have been depended on since the days of NS1, once again you are just channeling the "powers" of the most avid fans for a one-time money infusion. How is that supposed to help in the long term? How is that supposed to attract new players?
New players who might enjoy the game and want to spent money on content, they will look at the prices and go: "They want $40 for a Marine skin? Wtf! That's more than i paid for the whole game! Fuck that!" and not spent any money at all. Worst case: He might see it as a sign for a greedy/lazy developer, people do not read the small print, and that's gonna be real bad word of mouth.
Yes Spark might lack the groundwork for an account-system (but it knows the SteamID of people), yes getting "real microtransactions" will involve a lot of effort (Valve has a lot of experience with that and they are known to be helpful). But tbh i can't see any of that being worse than the "reinforcement program".
With a real Microtransaction system UWE could secure NS2 funding for years to come!
Small prices, constantly added content (even simple recolored skins will do fine for $2-3 a pop), that way even Regular-Not-Giant-UWE-Fanboy-Player might be enticed to spent some extra money.
The game does not even need to go "F2P" for this, you don't need to be "F2P" just to have Microtransactions.
Sorry but you seem to have your facts confused.
You are not buying a decal or player skin, you are donating. Technically UWE is not "charging" us for anything, they are giving the decals and player skins as a thank you to people who donate.
You saw the plushie... It's going to be the "purple gorge" not "shadow gorge"
Yes, you keep telling yourself that, it won't change the fact that 99,9999% of the gaming population won't care.
UWE is selling content and they are charging a price for it, end of story.
The majority of gamers and customers do not think further than that, and they don't want to.
You can put all the "you are donating!"spin on it you want, it won't bring new players to the community or convince any sane people to pay $40 for a Playerskin.
Because that what it boils down to: People work for their money, as such they want something of value for their money.
If people want to give away money, because they are "so nice", they go and look for a charity, not a videogame company.
That's a little known fact that got completely forgotten around here: UWE is not doing us a favor, UWE is a business, as such it should start behaving like one instead of constantly depending on the goodwill and "donations" of the community.
Around here this whole "you are not buying something, you are donating!"spin might work, but the people you need to convince, and win as actual customers, are not on these forums. The people you need to convince are not the fanboys that already gave you $XX for a constellation icon or bought an $333 Onos Badge.
The people you need to convince do not read this forum, the people you need to convince want to "buy someting" and not "donate to something for that warm feeling in the belly".
But hey i already know the answer to all of this: "We don't want those people in our community!"
That's fine and all, but then don't complain about a shrinking community!
Everyone who understands what's at stake and is involved in the community will gladly give some of thier money to UWE to keep it alive and coming. I'm not saying reasonable microtransactions would be bad... the opposite is the case, but I understand that this stuff is not crafted over night. I'm shure if they had more to offer us atm they would include even more stuff as rewards in the donation tiers. But let them time and reach the big goal with all of us and there WILL be more awsomeness coming our way.
I'd pay for more awsome models (no reskins! thats mod stuff I'm not interested in), new voices, taunts, replay system, maybe even a model customization system... that would be cool stuff for a generally finished game to add. IF we make the 550k... Just the few of us! rookies won't donate so much anyway, 'cuz they are not invested enoght.
what would you pay for after the shadow tier?
Absolutely false, lots of the old school community are completely jaded by the way UWE has handled itself with NS2 (and even before). I admit I was happy to buy the deluxe edition pre order to support them from the fun I had in NS1 and while I don't regret it I certainly won't be pumping anymore money into them. Especially in this thinly veiled cosmetic addition micro manner.
BUS, Source, Fall 2009, Rolling out broken patches for testing (or if you would prefer, screwing over paying customers to hopefully attract new ones) , Pay2Fix, where does it end?
I get that they're Indie and probably could have sold to a bigger studio and resisted but I'm done.
They already did that a long time ago. They are owned by Perfect World, they just never announced it to keep capitalizing on being "indie".
I think a lot of people are probably in a similar boat... they like what's going on, but just aren't entirely convinced.
tl;dr: I'd insta-buy shadow tier if all alien lifeforms were granted shadow skin variants.