NS2 is on sale. New people are joining. Welcome them!

Martigen

If you're not already aware, NS2 is 75% off atm. We're seeing lots of new greens.

Help them out, tell them about 'c' for map, tell them about 'e' to build, show them the ropes.

Ask one to follow you as you go about the map, to see what you do.

Ask them to ask questions, and be verbose and clear with your answers.

Don't stomp and don't stack


EDIT: and don't concede too early (or at all), give them some endgame, especially if they're on the winning team!

EDIT: Great tip from Calego:

I do think that rookies, when left to their own devices, largely stack marines, causing the more veteran (even if only slightly more veteran) to load up aliens.

So I've been starting to tell rookies to Join aliens to become a better marine, and also to prevent bad games from happening as often.

dePARA

And again all the potential new players ran into the laggy 42 slot clusterfuck trap warping around with half possible fps and ....... deleting the game.
Well, who cares.

meatmachine

Now isn't the time for another sale.

We still don't have the ability to retain new players; all this green wave is doing is making it nearly impossible to get a decent pub game going.

And once they leave, rarely do they return.


All sales do at the moment is fuck up our potential and existing playerbase.

Can we seriously actually wait a couple of months at least before another one? CDT changes look to be coming thick and fast so real gameplay improvements are FINALLY coming, (Someone please correct me if my reasoning is wrong here) but if you start getting new players in now surely we're just setting ourselves up for very poor sales figures in the future, when perhaps we'd have better retention.

Martigen

dePARA wrote: »

And again all the potential new players ran into the laggy 42 slot clusterfuck trap warping around with half possible fps and ....... deleting the game.

Not a single thing in that sentence is based in reality.

Well, who cares.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Martigen

meatmachine wrote: »

Now isn't the time for another sale.
And once they leave, rarely do they return.

Well that's up to us (hence the thread).

meatmachine

I care less and less about rookies every day.

I try to encourage a friendly atmosphere on the server but other players just want to get a decent game going. And that's nearly impossible when more than half the players on the server dont know how to shoot, move or think- The vets, the regulars! are getting bored of this marked decrease in the average quality of games

Please remind yourselves that every sale brings with it a time period where decent games just dont happen.

The new players get a shitty experience, and the experienced players are getting more and more tired and disgruntled at being forced to put up with incompetant teammates and green commanders every single game.

Martigen

meatmachine wrote: »

I care less and less about rookies every day.

I try to encourage a friendly atmosphere on the server but other players just want to get a decent game going. And that's nearly impossible when more than half the players on the server dont know how to shoot, move or think- The vets, the regulars! are getting bored of this marked decrease in the average quality of games

And, how do you think greens become vets and regulars? Have you forgotten you were green once?

Are you actually complaining that people are joining our small community and making it larger so that -- in future -- you can 'get a decent game going'. You realise that's counter-productive to the very thing you want?

I...

What's killing this game is this community. Fuck me.

meatmachine

You are right. Apologies, shit day at work and now I can't go home and have a good game of NS2 makes me grouchy. (trying to admin around clueless rookies + disgruntled regs/vets is exhausting, FYI)

CCTEE

meatmachine wrote: »

You are right. Apologies, shit day at work and now I can't go home and have a good game of NS2 makes me grouchy. (trying to admin around clueless rookies + disgruntled regs/vets is exhausting, FYI)

Tonight we will stand hand in hand against the green tsunami meat.


Edit: but i appreciate a more manly hand then those dudes in the pic.
Edit 2: i guess the right one might be a woman.

joshhh

If you think NS2 has a toxic community... you must be a very sheltered gamer.

Pelargir

Are we toxic?

Calego

For those of us on the East Coast of the US. KKG's captains server is a great place for the vets to hang out. I've been playing almost exclusively there and the games are usually pretty good. 150 hours + only, so you don't have to deal with the greens.

I'll be trying to herd greens this weekend (let's be honest, this is when things will get interesting). If all else fails, comm up and be vocal.

Wlf

Martigen wrote: »

dePARA wrote: »

And again all the potential new players ran into the laggy 42 slot clusterfuck trap warping around with half possible fps and ....... deleting the game.

Not a single thing in that sentence is based in reality.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Actually he is kinda pointing one of the main problem here

sharnrock

I'm not complaining about having sales, but one thing I've noticed is when the entire server is filled with green even the rookie's can't have a good game. When a rookie joins a server full of people that know the game they can have a good time and see the potential fun with the game. When it's just 20-30 people running around doing nothing, it makes for a bad time.

The good news is that UWE is selling games. The future of the series depends on this.

dePARA

Martigen wrote: »

Not a single thing in that sentence is based in reality.

This server goes down to 3 ticks, wich mean: rubberbanding for EVERYONE.
You lose 50% fps compared to an 18 slot server cause doubled entity ammount. Your awesome gtx660 sli system wont help here btw.

This IS reality.

It runs horrible and it feels horrible.
You cant learn the basics (positioning, aiming, mapawareness) on this server cause it doesnt matter.

Its only NS2 dumbed down to the max with min fps and max rubberbanding.
And thats why this kind of servers is one of the reasons of the low average pub-player skill:
They learn the wrong basics from the beginning.

Daveodeth

Martigen wrote: »

If you're not already aware, NS2 is 75% off atm. We're seeing lots of new greens.

Help them out, tell them about 'c' for map, tell them about 'e' to build, show them the ropes.

Ask one to follow you as you go about the map, to see what you do.

Ask them to ask questions, and be verbose and clear with your answers.

Don't stomp and don't stack


EDIT: and don't concede too early (or at all), give them some endgame, especially if they're on the winning team!

EDIT: Great tip from Calego:

I do think that rookies, when left to their own devices, largely stack marines, causing the more veteran (even if only slightly more veteran) to load up aliens.

So I've been starting to tell rookies to Join aliens to become a better marine, and also to prevent bad games from happening as often.

If we actually do see increased numbers (last sale/bundle did absolutely bugger all in terms of player count) then we can help. it's a 2 way street mind, the amount of frustration I've seen on people trying to teach what amounts to a brick on a keyboard is amazing.

Daveodeth

Edit: who do we nudge to get the deluxe upgrade on sale to? full pack is cheaper than the add on. :-S

Martigen

meatmachine wrote: »

You are right. Apologies, shit day at work and now I can't go home and have a good game of NS2 makes me grouchy. (trying to admin around clueless rookies + disgruntled regs/vets is exhausting, FYI)

No worries, and I apologise for my mini-rant, it seems the threads I've been reading today are a downer.

Calego wrote: »

I'll be trying to herd greens this weekend (let's be honest, this is when things will get interesting). If all else fails, comm up and be vocal.

That's the spirit!

Mephilles

I'm not sure about a green wave... last time ns2 was on sale I didn't rly see green people...

meatmachine

Yeah let's upsell these noobs. "Honestly guys, that camo on the kodiak skins is real authentic camo, we wont be able to see you if you get it!"
A different type of green wave :-S

Vetinari

Wait, does the CDT have the defaultly checked anti large server filter on it's to-do list yet? If no, why not?

I don't even give a fuck if it's really necessary or not, I just don't want to read the same debate over and over again.

meatmachine wrote: »

Now isn't the time for another sale.

We still don't have the ability to retain new players; all this green wave is doing is making it nearly impossible to get a decent pub game going.

And once they leave, rarely do they return.


All sales do at the moment is fuck up our potential and existing playerbase.

Can we seriously actually wait a couple of months at least before another one? CDT changes look to be coming thick and fast so real gameplay improvements are FINALLY coming, (Someone please correct me if my reasoning is wrong here) but if you start getting new players in now surely we're just setting ourselves up for very poor sales figures in the future, when perhaps we'd have better retention.

While this logic is sound, and I basically agree with you, I think after so many sales it doesn't really matter anymore.

Martigen

dePARA wrote: »

This server goes down to 3 ticks, wich mean: rubberbanding for EVERYONE.
You lose 50% fps compared to an 18 slot server cause doubled entity ammount. Your awesome gtx660 sli system wont help here btw.

Yes when you go past about 36 players tick rate can drop, but it happens occasionally, it's not constant. Most of the time it's pretty decent. And FPS slowdowns are largely, if any, client side from needing to render more, and that comes down to your personal setup preferences for visuals. Speaking from my experience anyway, I rarely see issues but yes I do have SLI.

Standard servers drop to 3 ticks occasionally too, going by the devicenull logs.

It runs horrible and it feels horrible.

If that were the case people wouldn't be filling them up every night. You and I are both entitled to our opinions, but the facts speak for themselves. People find them fun and enjoyable. And if they do, that's great! They're staying. And then when they join smaller servers, they get a less casual and more serious game and they can choose what style the prefer to play.

CmdrKeen

Greens should be encouraged to play combat mod in the beginning, to get to know all the weapons and lifeforms. There you dont have the RTS element, that usually leads to one side being superior over the other pretty quickly. This distorts the feedback new players get, thinking they do worse than they actually do (just because the enemy economy is superior). Resulting in faster frustration.

lwf

Team Fortress 2, after much failed experimenting with making modded servers (including player count modifications) second class (much like how NS2 treated modded servers at release, but a bit more so) ended up solving the perceived problems with extended player counts while allowing them to still be a popular choice.

First time you join a server with more player slots than 24 players (the NS2 equivalent would be exactly 16) this window is shown:


Maybe something similar could be added by the community dev team to put this to rest?

Calego

CmdrKeen wrote: »

Greens should be encouraged to play combat mod in the beginning, to get to know all the weapons and lifeforms. There you dont have the RTS element, that usually leads to one side being superior over the other pretty quickly. This distorts the feedback new players get, thinking they do worse than they actually do (just because the enemy economy is superior). Resulting in faster frustration.

Thinking about it, that's actually not a bad idea. Plus it will keep the people who want nothing more than a shooter around.

CCTEE

off topic but i rofled, cause its so wrong:

IronHorse

That's not exactly true @Martigen‌
The increased entity count impacts CPU performance, not rendering, so lowering or otherwise adjusting your settings to accommodate larger servers just won't cut it.

Also just for everyone's info : you can track any server and its tick rate here http://ns2servers.devicenull.org
So that anecdotal evidence doesn't have to be given. (ignore tick rates of zero when it coincides with map changes, obviously)

@lwf‌ looks like you haven't been tracking our public trello.. ;-)

ATF

Excuse me! You might want to try a scientific method of measuring server tickrate before you call something evidence.
Else you'd have to be partial about this one, too: http://ns2servers.devicenull.org/servers/273546/66.151.138.182:27085

lwf

IronHorse wrote: »

@lwf‌ looks like you haven't been tracking our public trello.. ;-)

Nope, but I am now.
https://trello.com/c/CtlXDdbH/286-warning-about-performance-for-high-player-count-servers

Can't you reply/comment on tasks as a non-member? I'm new to this thing so I'm not sure what I'm missing.

ATF

You're forgetting to create a school of ghost accounts there, too.

RapGod

Maybe on rookie sales, lower the player count a bit (sorry tick, you're free to do as you like but vets will keep on your ass abt server size).

And, honestly, I don't see these sales hurting anything. If all the greens leave, more will come (and we will still be playing either way). This really only hurts vets' brains for a while.