Come on, we all know what's REALLY behind this announcement. The NS2 World Championship tournament is just a thinly-veiled scheme to resurrect Breakfast Klub and Archaea.
Let's see if it works
P.S. - While I understand everyone's frustration with the poorly worded hype and the ostensible lack of interest in performance/balance, I still think this is cool. But then again, I'm a nerd--what do I know!
Come on, we all know what's REALLY behind this announcement. The NS2 World Championship tournament is just a thinly-veiled scheme to resurrect Breakfast Klub and Archaea.
Let's see if it works
P.S. - While I understand everyone's frustration with the poorly worded hype and the ostensible lack of interest in performance/balance, I still think this is cool. But then again, I'm a nerd--what do I know!
If it was just presented as something that Wasabi, Reddog, Zefram, et al put together, I would think it was pretty cool that community members were putting together something like this, although I'd have my reservations as to whether the 30,000 goal could really be reached. After all, this thing is only really going to benefit a select few members of the community (the organizers, the members of Snails, Sauna, Titus, and Team X, the one person who wins the raffle) but it requires everyone else to shell out for it.
The biggest problem with all this is that they went to Hugh and UWE in an attempt to raise interest in the event, which by itself isn't a bad idea. But having Hugh build this thing up as some monumental event in NS2's history that will have a dramatic affect on the life of anyone who plays the game was undoubtedly going to end up in a lot of discontent and disappointment. It would have been hard enough to raise the money without that whole debacle, with it things might get even more difficult.
I thought it appropriate to chime in here just to make some things clear. First off thank you to everyone for the kind words towards myself and the other community members involved in this effort. Please realize this is NOT UWE asking for money, this is ME saying I would like to see a specific type of event that could really be enjoyable and something new for our community. However, I knew there was no way I could find enough sponsors and backers to go it alone. UWE was very generous in agreeing to cover the studio expenses should we reach our goal. You are not donating more money to UWE or changing any focus on its development. Through your support we can make this event happen and rest assured there is still great things on the horizon from the DEVs with regard to NS2 updates. If this isn't your idea of a good investment I appreciate your feelings, but please don't blame UWE or throw mud at them for it. This is and will continue to be a Community Organized Event. Thanks -WasabiOne
Well, UWE if you don't mind I would like to use your game/website to have your player base pay for my vacation/ gaming event to another country!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is just a joke reminds of those kids who came around selling magazines trying to get me to pay for their college tuition. Go out and get a job if you want to go to school.
Also am I confused or isn't there this thing called the world wide web. It cost no money to utilize outside of you monthly internet cost.
If you want to have Riot game level events then do a better job at marketing. So the viewers(advertisement) alone pay's for the event.
I refuse to donate my hard earn cash to some kids to go play a video game on another continent, and any one that actually donates cash to this well I have bills that need paying since you are handing out money.
Days like today that make me wish I had not gotten addicted to NS back in 2003. Love the game play style, like a lot of the community, appreciate what UWE tried to do, but at the end of the day I guess I wish NS2 was made but some huge game company where this wouldn't happen.
It's going to be a bit awkward if it doesn't make the goal after being hyped like that. I'll be amazed if people voluntarily donate $30,000 to anything run by wannabe esports personalities. Just how many fanboys are out there though I don't know.
If it does, how will the people feel who donated to reinforced only for $30,000 to be squandered by UWE on this tourny.
People can do whatever they want with their money. Don't shame them because they want to help create something that you don't care about. You wouldn't ask someone who donates money to a library to instead give their money to pay your bills because you don't like reading. Some of the posts in this thread are just obnoxious.
I think it's fair if you feel let down by the hype, though.
I remember Hugh saying during the stream that events like this get massive exposure and bring in more players, and yes this is completely true. However, the big ticket (I believe) is in retaining these new players- this has been the problem in NS2 since the beginning. Sure the game looks amazing watching the pros play on their top-end PC's performing all their crazy strategies that this game allows, because it is amazing... but when people jump into a choppy (sometimes buggy) game with a learning curve akin to a cliff face, they tend to drop it shortly thereafter. I would imagine an astronomical amount of people own this game, but as many may know, this game struggles to peak <1000 after "things die down".
I am all for competitive play to further this game, however at this point I don't think it would do very much to benefit the game as a whole. Personally I would rather just donate again to Reinforcement to further the development that this game does in fact need (i.e. working matchmaking).
NS2 might have the weirdest graph i've ever seen. I start playing NS2 from time to time....then i stop again. Why? The same reasons since beginning: Performance ( BF4 on low runs as good as NS2 on low ....), Servers, Public-Playing.
While the performance really has gotten better, it is still not very good ..... a competitive eSports Title needs to have a good performance. 1. to appeal to a brighter audience and 2. to run freaking smooth obv.
I know UWE is a small studio etc. etc. ....but: BF4 beta with everything on low runs as "good" as NS2 with everything on low. Like....srsly?! And BF is not even a competitive eSports Title.
Next thing: playing public is not fun most of the times. Commanders not knowing how to play, people playing alone ...and and and. NS2 is highly depending on teamplay, which mostly doesn't work on publics. ( on this note: you should really add a quick-tip section to the loading screen .... )
I hope your matchmaking/gather system will be really good, cuz that might get me back to NS2.
There's another problem really if they're hell-bent on making it an e-sport - the game isn't engineered to take players through the harsh learning curve to competitive play. Take a look at Starcraft 2 - the single player campaign is basically one huge tutorial for the online play, and when you go to play online game there's a whole bunch more of tutorials to steadily ramp you up. This blessed isolation isn't possible with the (Excellent) team nature of the game.
The team nature of the game brings in the second problem - balance. It's been notoriously hard to bring in, and whilst Starcraft 2 has the tens of thousands of competitive (or at least hard-core multiplayers) to give feedback on balance, there aren't enough people at the moment. Then also bring in the other complication of team play - is it because of unbalanced teams or the mechanics? And you have the beautifully impossible job of making this game fine-tuned and balanced enough for e-sports, which the studio isn't big enough for right now.
Rather than committing funding and time to the sporting event (i.e. paying for the Cologne studio, shipping UWE employees there), they should really be looking to improve revenue streams through merchandising, DLC (yes I'm actually in favour for DLC if NS2 is going to survive longer), and of course NS3 and other projects the team could be interested in. Merchandising is the no-brainer right now - it brings in money and heightens the exposure of the game, whilst also simultaneously remaining a reminder of hte game on their tables/mantlepieces/beds. Really can't understand why the store isn't pushed more, and why you don't use some of your earlier concept art to improve the variety of designs. Plushies I know for sure would sell like hot-cakes, like literally I don't know what the hell we have to do to tell you we want them...
Wow, community members donating their time and energy trying to do something FOR the community/game they love and getting slapped in the face for it.
Remind me never to do anything nice for you jackholes.
Please watch your language. OP said please have a civil discussion. With such statements of frustration either be pro or con the event, you bring nothing forward.
Nobody slaps Reddog, Wasabi or the other involved community members. Most of the people blame Hugh as the UWE PR responsible, which is quite understandable to some point. But i hope the community and especially the disappointed players will start to leave it what it was "A PR fault", where i think Hugh learned his lesson by so much critic. And this will never happen again.
Wow, community members donating their time and energy trying to do something FOR the community/game they love and getting slapped in the face for it.
Remind me never to do anything nice for you jackholes.
I'm not sure I read that anywhere here Bellicose ..
The general sentiment is WasabiOne and crew are doing something brilliant and is off their own back .. the handling of the announcement by UWE was misleading .. thats what people are pissed off with .. it's overshadowed the championship .. but I guess on the up side .. ppl are talking about it
i didn't read the entire thread so I have no idea if my post is going to mean anything
firefall tried to buy its esports scene too, but even after their monthly tournaments of $5,000, weekly $1,000 and a promise of $200,000 (so these tournaments would continue for another couple months), they just couldn't retain the players who did come to the game.
strenx and other big named quake players came over but quit after a week or two because it was a pretty shitty unbalanced game, hopefully NS2 isn't trying something similar.
basically, you can't cover up bad game mechanics with money
What a waste of playing your "Big annoucement" card that was. So many people dissapointed and really losing credit over this.
Dont get me wrong, it is nice that they are trying to boost the game by competative play but it is the wrong way around. Competative play will come automaticly when there is enough drive in the community and the playerbase (and the game supporting it ofc).
Seeing that the fundraiser only got 2K at the time of writing it doesn't look good. Logical the biggest boost is right after the annoucement (espessially the hype one) but seeing that around half of it is from the casters+uwe staff or well known community members it doesn't look promising.
I known sales will jump a bit over this which is always nice for UWE but that is just for a quick fix. The main issue is performance of the game engine and after that the usual game balance.
Imaging how this game would been if it was released on a UT engine (ofc not with current toys/eye candy cause of limitations but that would have been compensated with other ideas). NS1 wasn't a looker but it sure was fun to play/keep playing.
UWE must see some sort of return from the events if they are willing to try again. From what I gather, it feels like this is the cheapest/best value way of trying to improve the current state of the game. I believe Hugh said UWE are matching the 30k - and that 30k isn't enough to hire a programmer.
I do believe this was overhyped for a game that doesn't really have much of a competitive following.
I think we can all admit that the last few Free Weekends have been... poorly planned. They unfortunately coincided with new patches/content releases, so there were a lot of unforeseen bugs plaguing the gameplay, and even new content that the NS2 community itself hadn't even tried yet. What's the point of Free Weekending new content, when new players who hadn't played NS2 before wouldn't even know what is 'new'? The entire game is new to them at that point.
So this is what I think they should do:
IF! this tournament happens--UWE must, must, MUST make sure that the game is a) as bug free as possible, and b) as stable as possible. (I would say "as balanced" as possible, but I think rushing balance changes for a Free Weekend might do more harm than good.)
Next, IF! this tournament happens--UWE must plan to have a Free Weekend, and make absolutelysure that the Free Weekend coincides either with a) the opening rounds of the tournament, or b) the Semi-Finals and Finals in Germany, and just advertise the living HELL out of it on the menu to garner interest in the eSports side of NS2. I'm more in favor of the latter, as seeing top teams like Snails, Sauna, Godar, and Titus playing for the Championship/Grand Prize will be much more appealing.
You have to catch the eye of Free-Weekenders with more than just the game--UWE and NS has always prided itself on its tight-knit Community. Let them see the quality of play at the highest level and how GREAT this game can be, let them see that it was the COMMUNITY that funded this, to see how dedicated we are, and you can retain much more people than you have been before with these Free Weekends.
They kicked up a big fuss about how they were financing the ENSL live event in Cologne, but never once mentioned the benefits to them such as increased sales. It was all highlighted as building the community and growing NS2 e-sports. No. Ultimately it comes down to money and if it wasn't cost effective (or close too), it wouldn't have been done.
If it was monetarily cost effective then why would UWE rely on community money to fund it? There has to be an attempt at gaining value from promoting the competitive/esports side because that fits the game, and Twitch is where those type of games are watched. It's possible that the event didn't make a profit but that UWE aren't afraid to take a risk in trying to build the NS2 brand and prefer to spend marketing $ on an fun event for the community rather than just buying ad space.
oldassgamersJoin Date: 2011-02-02Member: 80033Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited October 2013
Me and some of my community members was watching the stream while being on our teamspeak 3 server. We where all hyped for the big announcement, but once they revealed it, it was a big letdown. Most because we're not compatitive players anymore How about to come with a different approach and be more specific next time? Like "Big annoncement for all the compatitive players on NS2" ?
There where alot of rage on the twitch chat after the announcement.
Wow, community members donating their time and energy trying to do something FOR the community/game they love and getting slapped in the face for it.
Remind me never to do anything nice for you jackholes.
Lol who does this benefit but those that get to go? Oh and uwe might make a few sales then lose those players in a few weeks, don't act like what they hyped up was anything but for their own benefit, getting to fly to another event at our expense and have some fun while we are lucky enough to watch, oh why thank you...
People can do whatever they want with their money. Don't shame them because they want to help create something that you don't care about. You wouldn't ask someone who donates money to a library to instead give their money to pay your bills because you don't like reading. Some of the posts in this thread are just obnoxious.
I think it's fair if you feel let down by the hype, though.
UWE are putting in 50% of the cash. We've technically already donated.
UWE are putting in 50% of the cash. We've technically already donated.
Good point, i wonder how those who donated to reinforced feel now knowing that some of their money they put towards improving the game will actually be going towards giving hugh and wasabi a fun weekend at their expense! :P
I'm actually happy for Hugh and Wasabi to get to do fun stuff off the funds as I think they've done huge amounts for the community. Saying that, I don't think people realise how much effort they have to put in when it comes to running the finals. They don't actually get much time to relax.
My problem with this whole plan is simply that the focus is on the minority again and it really wont affect all NS2 players, as they suggested it will, because a lot of NS2 players do want to commit or don't have time to commit to playing a competitive tourney. Also, no new team is going to be deluded into thinking they'd get close to reaching the final so this makes this tourney no different to joining up to the NSL... people just wont be any more motivated by it. It's a big carrot on the end of the stick but the stick might as well be on Jupiter.
i didn't read the entire thread so I have no idea if my post is going to mean anything
firefall tried to buy its esports scene too, but even after their monthly tournaments of $5,000, weekly $1,000 and a promise of $200,000 (so these tournaments would continue for another couple months), they just couldn't retain the players who did come to the game.
strenx and other big named quake players came over but quit after a week or two because it was a pretty shitty unbalanced game, hopefully NS2 isn't trying something similar.
basically, you can't cover up bad game mechanics with money
You hit the nail on the head here, sir. NS2 is hindered by poorly designed mechanics and awful performance, two things that prevent it from making it big as an esports game. UWE and the community can throw all the money they want at it, but comp NS2 is not going to happen unless those things get cleared up. And with the current state of the competitive scene (teams disbanding every day, forfeits everywhere) those things may well get cleared up too late for it to matter.
Comments
Let's see if it works
P.S. - While I understand everyone's frustration with the poorly worded hype and the ostensible lack of interest in performance/balance, I still think this is cool. But then again, I'm a nerd--what do I know!
If it was just presented as something that Wasabi, Reddog, Zefram, et al put together, I would think it was pretty cool that community members were putting together something like this, although I'd have my reservations as to whether the 30,000 goal could really be reached. After all, this thing is only really going to benefit a select few members of the community (the organizers, the members of Snails, Sauna, Titus, and Team X, the one person who wins the raffle) but it requires everyone else to shell out for it.
The biggest problem with all this is that they went to Hugh and UWE in an attempt to raise interest in the event, which by itself isn't a bad idea. But having Hugh build this thing up as some monumental event in NS2's history that will have a dramatic affect on the life of anyone who plays the game was undoubtedly going to end up in a lot of discontent and disappointment. It would have been hard enough to raise the money without that whole debacle, with it things might get even more difficult.
Well, UWE if you don't mind I would like to use your game/website to have your player base pay for my vacation/ gaming event to another country!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is just a joke reminds of those kids who came around selling magazines trying to get me to pay for their college tuition. Go out and get a job if you want to go to school.
Also am I confused or isn't there this thing called the world wide web. It cost no money to utilize outside of you monthly internet cost.
If you want to have Riot game level events then do a better job at marketing. So the viewers(advertisement) alone pay's for the event.
I refuse to donate my hard earn cash to some kids to go play a video game on another continent, and any one that actually donates cash to this well I have bills that need paying since you are handing out money.
If it does, how will the people feel who donated to reinforced only for $30,000 to be squandered by UWE on this tourny.
UWE doesn't see the money. It's a community event, not run by UWE.
They are paying for the studio. Exactly how much that cost wasn't made clear so I'm assuming they match the $30,000 in donations.
People can do whatever they want with their money. Don't shame them because they want to help create something that you don't care about. You wouldn't ask someone who donates money to a library to instead give their money to pay your bills because you don't like reading. Some of the posts in this thread are just obnoxious.
I think it's fair if you feel let down by the hype, though.
I am all for competitive play to further this game, however at this point I don't think it would do very much to benefit the game as a whole. Personally I would rather just donate again to Reinforcement to further the development that this game does in fact need (i.e. working matchmaking).
NS2 might have the weirdest graph i've ever seen. I start playing NS2 from time to time....then i stop again. Why? The same reasons since beginning: Performance ( BF4 on low runs as good as NS2 on low ....), Servers, Public-Playing.
While the performance really has gotten better, it is still not very good ..... a competitive eSports Title needs to have a good performance. 1. to appeal to a brighter audience and 2. to run freaking smooth obv.
I know UWE is a small studio etc. etc. ....but: BF4 beta with everything on low runs as "good" as NS2 with everything on low. Like....srsly?! And BF is not even a competitive eSports Title.
Next thing: playing public is not fun most of the times. Commanders not knowing how to play, people playing alone ...and and and. NS2 is highly depending on teamplay, which mostly doesn't work on publics. ( on this note: you should really add a quick-tip section to the loading screen .... )
I hope your matchmaking/gather system will be really good, cuz that might get me back to NS2.
The team nature of the game brings in the second problem - balance. It's been notoriously hard to bring in, and whilst Starcraft 2 has the tens of thousands of competitive (or at least hard-core multiplayers) to give feedback on balance, there aren't enough people at the moment. Then also bring in the other complication of team play - is it because of unbalanced teams or the mechanics? And you have the beautifully impossible job of making this game fine-tuned and balanced enough for e-sports, which the studio isn't big enough for right now.
Rather than committing funding and time to the sporting event (i.e. paying for the Cologne studio, shipping UWE employees there), they should really be looking to improve revenue streams through merchandising, DLC (yes I'm actually in favour for DLC if NS2 is going to survive longer), and of course NS3 and other projects the team could be interested in. Merchandising is the no-brainer right now - it brings in money and heightens the exposure of the game, whilst also simultaneously remaining a reminder of hte game on their tables/mantlepieces/beds. Really can't understand why the store isn't pushed more, and why you don't use some of your earlier concept art to improve the variety of designs. Plushies I know for sure would sell like hot-cakes, like literally I don't know what the hell we have to do to tell you we want them...
I think they should've gone for that Plasma rifle. Sounded promising.
Remind me never to do anything nice for you jackholes.
Please watch your language. OP said please have a civil discussion. With such statements of frustration either be pro or con the event, you bring nothing forward.
Nobody slaps Reddog, Wasabi or the other involved community members. Most of the people blame Hugh as the UWE PR responsible, which is quite understandable to some point. But i hope the community and especially the disappointed players will start to leave it what it was "A PR fault", where i think Hugh learned his lesson by so much critic. And this will never happen again.
I'm not sure I read that anywhere here Bellicose ..
The general sentiment is WasabiOne and crew are doing something brilliant and is off their own back .. the handling of the announcement by UWE was misleading .. thats what people are pissed off with .. it's overshadowed the championship .. but I guess on the up side .. ppl are talking about it
And you're absolutely right. I just feel bad that this whole thing has overshadowed their announcement.
firefall tried to buy its esports scene too, but even after their monthly tournaments of $5,000, weekly $1,000 and a promise of $200,000 (so these tournaments would continue for another couple months), they just couldn't retain the players who did come to the game.
strenx and other big named quake players came over but quit after a week or two because it was a pretty shitty unbalanced game, hopefully NS2 isn't trying something similar.
basically, you can't cover up bad game mechanics with money
Dont get me wrong, it is nice that they are trying to boost the game by competative play but it is the wrong way around. Competative play will come automaticly when there is enough drive in the community and the playerbase (and the game supporting it ofc).
Seeing that the fundraiser only got 2K at the time of writing it doesn't look good. Logical the biggest boost is right after the annoucement (espessially the hype one) but seeing that around half of it is from the casters+uwe staff or well known community members it doesn't look promising.
I known sales will jump a bit over this which is always nice for UWE but that is just for a quick fix. The main issue is performance of the game engine and after that the usual game balance.
Imaging how this game would been if it was released on a UT engine (ofc not with current toys/eye candy cause of limitations but that would have been compensated with other ideas). NS1 wasn't a looker but it sure was fun to play/keep playing.
I do believe this was overhyped for a game that doesn't really have much of a competitive following.
UWE really needs to plan ahead this time.
I think we can all admit that the last few Free Weekends have been... poorly planned. They unfortunately coincided with new patches/content releases, so there were a lot of unforeseen bugs plaguing the gameplay, and even new content that the NS2 community itself hadn't even tried yet. What's the point of Free Weekending new content, when new players who hadn't played NS2 before wouldn't even know what is 'new'? The entire game is new to them at that point.
So this is what I think they should do:
IF! this tournament happens--UWE must, must, MUST make sure that the game is a) as bug free as possible, and b) as stable as possible. (I would say "as balanced" as possible, but I think rushing balance changes for a Free Weekend might do more harm than good.)
Next, IF! this tournament happens--UWE must plan to have a Free Weekend, and make absolutely sure that the Free Weekend coincides either with a) the opening rounds of the tournament, or b) the Semi-Finals and Finals in Germany, and just advertise the living HELL out of it on the menu to garner interest in the eSports side of NS2. I'm more in favor of the latter, as seeing top teams like Snails, Sauna, Godar, and Titus playing for the Championship/Grand Prize will be much more appealing.
You have to catch the eye of Free-Weekenders with more than just the game--UWE and NS has always prided itself on its tight-knit Community. Let them see the quality of play at the highest level and how GREAT this game can be, let them see that it was the COMMUNITY that funded this, to see how dedicated we are, and you can retain much more people than you have been before with these Free Weekends.
If it was monetarily cost effective then why would UWE rely on community money to fund it? There has to be an attempt at gaining value from promoting the competitive/esports side because that fits the game, and Twitch is where those type of games are watched. It's possible that the event didn't make a profit but that UWE aren't afraid to take a risk in trying to build the NS2 brand and prefer to spend marketing $ on an fun event for the community rather than just buying ad space.
There where alot of rage on the twitch chat after the announcement.
Lol who does this benefit but those that get to go? Oh and uwe might make a few sales then lose those players in a few weeks, don't act like what they hyped up was anything but for their own benefit, getting to fly to another event at our expense and have some fun while we are lucky enough to watch, oh why thank you...
UWE are putting in 50% of the cash. We've technically already donated.
Good point, i wonder how those who donated to reinforced feel now knowing that some of their money they put towards improving the game will actually be going towards giving hugh and wasabi a fun weekend at their expense! :P
My problem with this whole plan is simply that the focus is on the minority again and it really wont affect all NS2 players, as they suggested it will, because a lot of NS2 players do want to commit or don't have time to commit to playing a competitive tourney. Also, no new team is going to be deluded into thinking they'd get close to reaching the final so this makes this tourney no different to joining up to the NSL... people just wont be any more motivated by it. It's a big carrot on the end of the stick but the stick might as well be on Jupiter.
You hit the nail on the head here, sir. NS2 is hindered by poorly designed mechanics and awful performance, two things that prevent it from making it big as an esports game. UWE and the community can throw all the money they want at it, but comp NS2 is not going to happen unless those things get cleared up. And with the current state of the competitive scene (teams disbanding every day, forfeits everywhere) those things may well get cleared up too late for it to matter.