What Does Veteran Mean?

Young_Trotsky · April 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">And how do you become a veteran?</div> I've seen lots of people who's group is "Members", then of course there are the "Forum Moderators" and "Forum Admins" and the much-envied "Playtesters". I was just wondering, what does "Veteran" mean? Is it someone who's had something to do with the creation of the game or what?

andyaml · April 2003

As far as I know, these are people such as serious clanners, some server ops, site admins, but basically people who are dedicated to NS.

abtm · April 2003

As explained to me by MonsE, Veterans are "A group of clanners, players or server ops who are heavily involved with Natural-Selection" further "The Veterans group will later play Natural-Selection 1.1 to ensure they find no problems or balance issues with Natural-Selection 1.1 and give the final OK on the release" so there you have it of sorts, I don't remember his EXACT words, but that's extremely close. Just hang-out, talk on IRC and play the game actively, you may be choosen, who knows; you may not it's not the end of the world -- nor is being a "Veteran" anything other than a title.

coil · April 2003

Flay realizes that while the playtesters certainly have organization higher than most pubs, we may not have the straight-up FPS skills of competitive clanners. Thus, he's having some of them - the Vets - test NS 1.1 to make sure it's suitable for both public play *and* clan play.

Young_Trotsky · April 2003

Thanks. However, I'm from the UK and hence I connect to QuakeNet rather than GamesNet seeing as that's where al;l the European clans are so I'm not in #naturalselection <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'>

Ph0enix · April 2003

The veteran group is comprised of members from the tops NS clans. If you look on the stickied 1.1 info thread it has a link which explains it more but as I understand it:

The PTs will test it initially, to iron out any bugs, make sure any additions/changes are viable and get rid of any obviously god-awful ideas. When they're happy with it and the game 'works', the Veterans will test it it. Their job is to take NS apart from a strategic point of view, to make sure it's got strategic depth to it and no broken strats. For example something the PTs may think is fine may turn out in intensive clan gaming to be too powerful.

In other words, all the 1.1 "OMGZ, fadez are overpow3red!!!1" threads will be the veteran's fault <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

criticaI · April 2003

From the main-page news of April 7th, posted by Flayra:
</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>In other news, NS v1.1 goes into testing for the first time this week. The playtesters will get their hands on it first, and will give all the initial high-level feedback on the new features, the new resource model, etc. Once all the huge problems are out of the way, it will begin playtesting with the newly-formed "veterans" group. This group is made up of the most skilled competitive NS players in the community, along with tournament and ladder organizers, and a few game theorists. Then it will move on to the beta server operators, who will make sure this new version has improved performance, compatibility and is server-friendly.

Together, the playtesters, the veterans, server ops and the NS team will make sure that NS v1.1 plays great in public play, organized play, and everywhere in between. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The Veterans group is simply in place to add yet one more perpsective to 1.1 pre-release feedback.

The Playtesters/NS Staff have been working devilishly hard on v1.1 already with just the few sessions that they've held. To my understanding, they have already worked through/identified a larger number of bugs. They'll continue working until they have a stable release version. Once a stable release version is obtained, I'd expect that the Veterans group will take a look at NS and begin trying to make the game as competitive as possible.
One of the most important goals for us is to make sure that all 3 alien upgrade chambers are equally viable, in any order. I know we are all getting tired of the same old DEFENSE-MOVEMENT-SENSORY order. The key aspect of Veterans testing on the marine side, will be assuring there is no "all-powerful" strategy such as the Jetpack + HMG combo of v1.0.
This, of course, is simplification.

After the Veterans have done their job, the Beta Server Ops will be getting a hold of the v1.1 server-side DLL
In order to really put the server-side of things to the test. I think/hope that we'll be seeing some new server options/variables available and those will certainly need testing. Once the server ops are satisfied, v1.1 should be ready to go.

I hope this helps everybody understand things a bit. If you have any other questions, I'd encourage you to get on IRC.GAMESNET and head over to #naturalselection.
If you are interested in getting involved with the clan scene, I'd try #findnsscrim (The official, unofficial meeting place US clans). You can meet people from the most competitive clans in that channel.

If you are euro and interested in the clanning scene there, try #ns.search on IRC.QUAKENET, they are allied with #findnsscrim on IRC.GAMESNET.

Khaim · April 2003

He pretty much said it all, the PTs are going to do what they can to do general balancing and bug testing/fixing then we get to hand it over to the vets to check out and make sure there arnt any 'uber strats' and whatnot. (general clanplay issues)

Kenichi · April 2003

Young Trotsky, sorry but i doubt anymore aditions to the vet group are being made anymore.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>In other words, all the 1.1 "OMGZ, fadez are overpow3red!!!1" threads will be the veteran's fault </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

hahahhahahahaha. We know <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'> but if we mess up we suffer for it too, so we will try our best.

abtm · April 2003

This is another thread that's a terrible waste of bandwidth/database

Young_Trotsky · April 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kenichi @ Apr 14 2003, 10:41 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Young Trotsky, sorry but i doubt anymore aditions to the vet group are being made anymore.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
I had no idea what the veterans group was seeing as im too lazy to read through all the info that gets thrown around, now that i do know what veteran means i highly doubt id ever be accepted anyway, being the humble casual clanner that i am <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>

Renegade · April 2003

Would I be considered a vet? I've been with NS from the beginning and I'm very involved with the community.

Pretty pretty please! I'll be your bestes friend!

Young_Trotsky · April 2003

Yup, sure you can be a veteran, you just need to send your credit card details to us at <a href='mailto:youngtrotsky@mail.com'>youngtrotsky@mail.com</a> so that we can confirm your identity <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>

What Does Veteran Mean?

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