NS2 "remastered" in 3~4 years?
MisterYoon
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
Although there are still enough players playing the game, it's hard to expect that this amount of players (app. 0.5k concurrent weekends) will stay till end of next year.
There are some reasons why so many people left the game like some of balance / stomp / hardcore issues. But most importantly, as everyone has always noticed, the main reason was the poor optimization/engine performance of NS2.
No doubt NS2 has superb gameplay which other games have never had or won't have. It is more than special and despite of possible complication around this kind of gameplay, dev team and CDT dev team have done very good job. No doubt the game is a masterpiece. This is why i miss so much the first one and half year where NS2 was so alive that we experienced competitive plays etc. which we'll not see for quite of while.
So i really hope to see remastered version of ns2 (probably/better converted to another engine) in the future,, when the game becomes completely dead. So that people who haven't heard of this game, or people who got serious disappointment from early broken stage of the game will gain interest again and try the game. As the game at the moment is already quite stable(has been stable for quite long time already though) which will make the remastered version of NS2 not suffer anymore from tremendous amount of refund and loss of players just like the launch on 2012 and also as noone would doubt the gameplay will still be fresh and awesome enough to interest many new gamers in the future, NS2 would probably gain superb success if once gets remastered and republished.
I would gladly give my money for that if needed.
There are some reasons why so many people left the game like some of balance / stomp / hardcore issues. But most importantly, as everyone has always noticed, the main reason was the poor optimization/engine performance of NS2.
No doubt NS2 has superb gameplay which other games have never had or won't have. It is more than special and despite of possible complication around this kind of gameplay, dev team and CDT dev team have done very good job. No doubt the game is a masterpiece. This is why i miss so much the first one and half year where NS2 was so alive that we experienced competitive plays etc. which we'll not see for quite of while.
So i really hope to see remastered version of ns2 (probably/better converted to another engine) in the future,, when the game becomes completely dead. So that people who haven't heard of this game, or people who got serious disappointment from early broken stage of the game will gain interest again and try the game. As the game at the moment is already quite stable(has been stable for quite long time already though) which will make the remastered version of NS2 not suffer anymore from tremendous amount of refund and loss of players just like the launch on 2012 and also as noone would doubt the gameplay will still be fresh and awesome enough to interest many new gamers in the future, NS2 would probably gain superb success if once gets remastered and republished.
I would gladly give my money for that if needed.
Comments
Also, why not stick to what we have? CDT has been promising so far. Ideally, this game will continually evolve over time. Eventually, UWE may even make NS2 free.
This game wont die as long as the CDT keeps doing great work. Performance has gotten a lot better in recent CDT patches. In the next patch there should be more performance improvements. If you watch trello you can see that the CDT has some pretty big plans that look really exciting.
Please stop saying this. NS1 had superb gameplay. NS2 had elements of NS1, but all the new stuff has for the most part been a complete failure, and NS2 over the years has been moving back toward the features of what made NS1 great. The terrible power node/cysting mechanic and static hive/chair locations will always be a limiting factor though.
Everytime you praise NS2 for being "assymetrical" or "unique" for being a "RTS/FPS hybrid", NS1 already did this (and much better). NS2 is for the most part is just a bastard child of NS1 where they tried to fix some of the perceived issues (by adding an alien commander, balancing across low and high server populations, etc.) but ultimately failed in the end.
Hey at least UWE got experience making their own engine right? Good for their resumes I guess.
I'm a little attached to the NS2 movement mechanics though, they'd have to stay :X
If they liked the game enough to stick around then they would have. The only thing to bring in more players and get them to stay is optimization and a matchmaking system but unfortunately, not really feasible. Additionally, new maps, hats and skins, an actual meaningful progression system would help but the fundamentals need to be in place to casual players for enjoy it.
This game is essentially StarCraft 4v4 where you have players ranging from bronze league, never played an RTS before to people who are top tier koreans who dominate even foreign (outside korea) professionals. This is what the feasible skill-range in NS2 is on any given server during a sale, it can be that ridiculously imbalanced. If a rookie happens to come across a server with a few hardcore, skilled veterans and some rookies, average players, he would have a seriously negative impression of the game and won't stick around. I can't see how any sort of modern competitive game would be able to justify that.
I only hope that a remaster or a sequel of NS implements a proper matchmaking system, I don't care if you like the server based stuff, any competitive game that doesn't want to die in the space of a few years NEEDs this type of environment for people to play especially in games that are very complex like NS2. A dedicated server list could still exist but have the option to queue into matchmaking.
It's tricky. Kind of a Catch-22. We need matchmaking to get more players... but matchmaking simply cannot work without more players. I mean... first of all, you'd probably be waiting for matchmaking in the ONLY queue for a good 30mins - 1hr, then get thrown into a match with the only other 15 people who were in the matchmaking queue. Not exactly balancing anything.
but i think the biggest problem is that a team-based RTS is being shoved into a FPS-style server system and it just doesn't work consistently enough
matchmaking doesn't need to involve xbox-style matchmaking. RTS/TBS games with minuscule player counts have had some sort of team-setup match-formation process for decades. it just means getting the basic things right like playing full matches instead of joining games in the middle and having some organized way to make teams so that they don't completely suck.
looking back, i don't really think any of the gameplay/balance changes mattered too much. every game is still fun/unfun based on how the teams end up. i had terrible games in 2012. i had fun games in 2012. i had terrible games in 2014. i had fun games in 2014. as long as most games are effectively over and decided within the first 5 minutes, it just doesn't matter what the balance of mid-game/late-game tech is like or if the game has twice as many maps
ignoring the teams and just enjoying killing things might be fun for a while, but i don't think that approach works on this engine or in anything that is a RTS
I'll assume you missed the "remaster or sequel of NS" part because I already stated that implementing into NS2 is a waste of time at best. If a sequel is to be made then I simply cannot understand why you would not have a proper matchmaking system if the population of players is sufficient enough to sustain that design.
I've played and analyzed many other games that have huge growing audiences and I think if the NS2 devs would apply similar meta-game mechanics to their game, they could have a game that was a lot stronger and more commercially successful.
Suggestions:
- Integrate cosmetic unlocks properly (not what UWE is currently doing with the steam store and purchasable skins). This would include things like receiving credits in between rounds (probably more credits for wins than for losses), where players could use the credits to purchase in-game cosmetic items within the game, such as new marine heads (several male, female, maybe robot/droid head options), weapon skins, new weapon models, new marine body models/skins, marine badges, alien skins, new alien models, voice packs, etc. Attribute a rarity to each cosmetic unlock. Consider allowing the purchase of battle crates which contain a random cosmetic unlock with a higher chance of getting a rare unlock. Players could also, optionally, spend real-world money to buy cosmetic items instead of using their earned in-game credits to buy them with.
Play games like CS:GO, Payday 2, Warframe, Battlefield 4/Hardline to see examples of these types of meta-game mechanics that are used to attract and keep players interested in your game.
- Integrate after-round progress mechanics. Again, this one is pretty much a must have to keep players playing your game. Basic stuff like XP that is gained after each round and each player having a persistent player level should be implemented. The player level would be linked to the available options of cosmetic items that can be unlocked at a particular level (for example, the marine head with the beard and battle scars might only be unlockable by players at Level 10).
- Remove commander on both sides (gasp, I know right?). Give players team res, similar to how the gorge worked in NS1 (there was no alien commander in NS1) but also allow them to have their own player res. Imagine an NS2 world where pub play didn't involve 5-10 minutes of down-time in between rounds as one side (or both sometimes!) tries to find a commander (as we've seen by now, no amount of telling people to do the commander tutorials will fix this). This one is huge. As much as it sucks to get rid of the commander, the down-time on public play and new-player drop-off that it causes is the game's own worst enemy.
- Go free-to-play. After a proper meta-game has been integrated, free-to-play is the quickest way to open up your game to the masses and see how many of them feel your meta-game and base game is strong enough to keep coming back to. Without implementing the aforementioned points, going free-to-play would probably have about the same player drop-off rate as the paid game.
That's a start, at least.
I wish we had Melee HD. IMO SSB4 was worse than brawl and melee. (diddy kong, dodge roll frames, counters, rosalina)
I think those who have advocated for "NS1 with a graphics update" never really understood the reasons why that would have been financially a poor decision for UWE.
I think we can all agree that NS2 is inherently a niche product that is difficult for new players.
That being said, NS2 is far friendlier to new players than NS1 ever was, from the much improved UI, hints, tech tree, movement, to actually getting to experience shooting a shotgun, to not accidently single handedly ruining your team's economy, to lack of RFK etc etc.. The list is long.
NS1 - for all that it did right - was not without its modern day gamer appeal inhibiting flaws.
Did NS2's performance woes hurt it? More than likely.
Did its mechanics on launch alienate some of the core audience? More than likely.
Would a $25 NS1 port to source engine have been as successful as NS2? Highly doubtful.
Today's gamers / customers are a different crowd.
On that note, if some core players disagree and think it would have been successful, then why didn't NS2C go anywhere? I mean beyond competitive use. Why aren't these large player count servers running it if that gameplay was superior?
Moreover, why hasn't someone made an NS mod on an engine of their choosing?.. I just can't help but suspect rose tinted glasses with all this talk in here from familiar faces. I see flaws with both games, as well as things I love from each, but I can't deny what makes money on the market.
Difficulty in maintaining doesn't seem to be the determining factor in popularity, provided there's someone involved still.
The remakes of old 90's games are only popular because the resolution and GPU processing ability increased significantly, and because of nostalgia. Textures mostly really looked significantly like crap in the late 90's compared to today. In 10 years, I can't predict what it will be like, but my feeling is we'll be moving more towards "massiveness"/scale and arguably more elaborate shaders/light realism (raytracing tech etc.)/particles stuff than better textures/moar polygons. Increasing polygons and making textures better has pretty badly diminishing returns, although (some gameplay and other choices aside) RAGE's textures were pretty damn sexy for their time, and still are in some ways. Carmack was onto something there.
Even if the resolutions go to 64K or whatever K, and maybe there will be entire walls of houses as "screens" (Fahrenheit 451 much) I think doing an update for the purpose of "better textures/more detailed models" on this game will be laughable.
They have made HUGE improvements to the game, and if the optimizations listed in the CDT trello are as good as they seem, it may be worth it to let some of the people who stopped playing know that the game runs and plays better (both server and client wise), and that they should come back. (5/5 people I bought the game for said that they stopped playing due to either server or client performance issues)
We don't need to sell more copies, or rerelease the game, we need to bring back existing players.
p.s. What is the "Prize for Valvetime" card all about?
Sure. Much better to market a whole bunch of new features and new engine, but run out of time/money to fine-tune it and release it before its ready. Then watch the majority of the player base leave because the game was still mostly a clusterfuck at release and even after the Gorgeous update. Talk about biting off more than you can chew.
You're right, I don't understand that. Enough people were buying NS2 just based on the "hey cool a marines/aliens FPS/RTS hybrid". Remember, NS1 was like 10 years old at this point. More important to get a long-awaited sequel right. I was embarrassed that almost every FPS player I introduced NS2 to said "wow palagi this game runs like shit" and I had to be like "ya, do you know how to overclock a CPU?".
I disagree. I still think it would have been successful even launching in 2012, but not optimal. But you know what would have really made some money? A NS:Source engine port in like 2009. According to GameSpy, NS1 was one of the ten most played Half-Life modifications in terms of players. Then UWE could finetune Spark and really define their vision for NS2, and we could have seen an even more successful launch of NS2 in say, 2015.
Did you just compare NS2C to a potential NS:Source port? Because those are two vastly different things. NS2C in my eyes was extremely limited by how bad the base game was at the time. Lipstick on a pig. The good news is the NS2 we have today is a far superior product because of the influence of things like NS2C. I just wish more people were around to enjoy it.
I wasn't talking about tablet-like artificial stat addiction gaming experiences. At all.
I was referring to meta-game experiences that exist in popular games such as CS:GO, Payday 2, Team Fortress 2, DOTA2, Warframe, Battlefield, etc. Experiences that create large communities that feel like they are moving towards something.
With all respect to the developers, NS2C had equivalent gameplay to dozens of free-to-play browser-based shooters. Using the existing NS2 assets (models, sounds, etc.) and still charging a $15 price tag seemed anti-consumer.
You're right, performance was abysmal. It hurt NS2, most definitely. No one would argue that.
(The casual focused game mechanics at launch did not, however.)
I still attest a direct port of ns1 to source wouldn't have gone anywhere. It would first have been met with hostility for being a familiar scenario of a "free mod that is now charging money for a graphics update". Then the unfamiliar masses would have tried it and been even more lost, stomped, and frustrated than they were in NS2... And that's saying something.
So yeah, the outcome has not been ideal and it has been rocky to get to the point where we are now, but NS2 was definitely not a failure by any means.
This is especially true if you consider how riding off the coat tails of popularity doesn't really help, contrary to what you stated. Just look at the staple of FPS, relaunched on steam, for free - Quake Live - it now has about the same amount of players as NS2 despite only being 5 months old! It did no better the years prior without steam, too. And what's more is that this is no odd exception, there's plenty of examples out there of niche shooters that have a dead community despite doing everything right, like Nexuiz, Warsow, Shootmania, or brand new Toxikk - all of these combined still don't match NS2's current playercount. (which is low right now)
It's safe to say that today's gamer is just different.
While the long term sustainability of a game requires that hardcore customer base, the real money is undeniably in the hands of facebook Farmville types.
So while I definitely agree in the importance and difference of performance between NS2 and NS1, there's also far more to consider for me to just say "NS1 is superior" across the board.