It's been a while.....how is NS doing?
Jojoshua
NS Guide Professor Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5233Members
NS Guide Professor Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5233Members
<div class="IPBDescription">No, I'm not a ghost</div>Well I don't even know if any of the original players or people are still around, but I would like an accurate description of how NS is doing now. Better or worse since my day?
Grad school has been keeping me sharp, but I have a little bit of time before next semester so you may see me destroying servers in the next few weeks.
How is everyone doing in general, its been...4 years?
Grad school has been keeping me sharp, but I have a little bit of time before next semester so you may see me destroying servers in the next few weeks.
How is everyone doing in general, its been...4 years?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I'll start from when the forums went down.
The forums went down over a year and a half ago while only being public for maybe 8 weeks or so. During the time the forums were down several significant events happened that affected the community.
1. Several server communities went down (some have come back, but do not have the numbers that used to have) such as Fr31ns, Lunixmonster, and NSArmslab to name a few.
2. CAL-NS has folded, there a few non-mainstream leagues out there, but their numbers are significantly limited.
3. Overall player base has shrunk.
The new beta went public on November 21st. There are mixed crtiicisms about it but regardless of that the NS playerbase is still shrinking significantly.
There are major gameplay changes that did turn off some veterans and casual players alike. There are also some aesthetic changes that make the game a little more enjoyable.
Despite all that the player numbers have been lowered significantly, and with each new version that comes out less and less players are playing it.
The game is 4 years old and is no Counter Strike, so that leads me to the conclusion that numbers will drop off and that a majority of the people who played this game will just not care about it anymore.
Of course the reasonings can be disputed, but not to much lengths.
Anyways how is Jane treating you?
try it out, judge for yourself <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
I've broken up with Jane 2 years ago, met an English grad student who I'm with now. She doesn't play video games, but well....neither do I anymore so I guess that works out.
So how about NS2...myth?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.naturalselection2.com" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection2.com</a>
The player base may have shrunk a bit during the site downtime, but what I've seen in the past few weeks is a reaffirmation that the NS community rocks. Ready Room is back. NSRadio is back. And lots of familiar faces (avatars?) are back. The beta version of NS 3.2 is out and the final version is coming soon. News about NS2 has driven a lot of new traffic to the site and hopefully will encourage people to check out the game that started it all.
Max
There's still loads of servers and good ones at that. Veterans can now play in peace and work in teams as they know how the game works. Real players play classic, whilst the n00bs stick to Combat.
NS2 is definitely not a myth. Unless it's one of those really awesome myths where somebody kills a lion with their bare hands -- that I can accept.
The player base may have shrunk a bit during the site downtime, but what I've seen in the past few weeks is a reaffirmation that the NS community rocks. Ready Room is back. NSRadio is back. And lots of familiar faces (avatars?) are back. The beta version of NS 3.2 is out and the final version is coming soon. News about NS2 has driven a lot of new traffic to the site and hopefully will encourage people to check out the game that started it all.
Max
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No offense, but I think the revival of RR and NSR are really miniscule compared to the heavy losses that were sustained due to the lack of forums.
No offense, but I think the revival of RR and NSR are really miniscule compared to the heavy losses that were sustained due to the lack of forums.
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Yeah especially considering most people don't even know what RR and NSR are anymore.
Yeah especially considering most people don't even know what RR and NSR are anymore.
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A valid point as well.
Here's how i witnessed things:
-Seige_Man and not only him saw the impact of NS combat. Well not a bad idea at first; but too simple to give a taste of the real NS. No teamwork, just a testing JP/HA thing. So casual players could not integrate NS unless they were really interested in. A lot more player for a dying game but no NS players. At least devs had a good recipe to grab some dumb players.
-A lot of people say that the game is getting worse every new version. Ok there are always whinners but:
*CO_ gorge can't kill in this new beta.
*The game still have issue about balance at each version. Man !! it's not easy but hey; you don't need a Master Degree in mathematic to get it right. It's all about money (ressource). The system still doesn't apply correctly for different number of player in teams (6vs6 or 12vs12).
*Manual still not updated. >> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/static/Natural_Selection_Manual.html" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/static/Nat...ion_Manual.html</a>
What is it??? '[TABLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION]' Not really attracting for beginners.
*There is still nothing that get the player into NS automatically. Each process i saw (or heard about) was deployed by players. They have been learning to beginners with some kind of NS school servers during 3.0 version. In fact any initiative i saw was from the player community itself.
*Map cycle becomes boring because no new map are introduced. And old maps are just too nerfed sometimes. Look at the vents...
-Some people desperatly tryed to maintain a decent league (ENSL) with less and less people.
*The Number of team reducing each season.
*You can see 'rockstars' on the top team (premiere) and chew toys on the other levels. Apparently the teams number have been shrinking on the top level. So you can imagine what was going on for the rest of the league. The more i see this the more i think it's going to oblivion <a href="http://ensl.zanith.nl/index.php?view=ensl_divisions" target="_blank">http://ensl.zanith.nl/index.php?view=ensl_divisions</a>. Notice the american flags. In a European league THAT is noticeable.
*Some started ANSL (5 teams on vet division). I wich'em luck.
*Other league / cup simply died or stoped.
-Forums went down... for OVER A YEAR AND A HALF.
*Just unbeliveable for a COMMUNITY game.
*Not able to find a PHP programmer ? ? ? Even my grand ma could code PHP!
*People left and satelite (related) sites just ran out of content. No more to see, why stay?
*Other forums where not so much active. Only the community core people did start some thread just to laugh and pick on NS once in a while.
*Big Unanounced Vaporware. As long as it is not out; it's vapor.
*Due to forums outage no communication from devs. exept on the site. But fewer people checked the site.
"may have Shrunk" ? yes. Only a bit ? ? ? Look at the score. "We have 32,756 registered members"; "59 guests, 25 members 0 anonymous members". It's a bit low... But still; it's not bad considering the communication problem "unknownworlds" had.
So please, don't talk to people as if they don't know. Meaning as dumb people. This forum activity clearly sunk. But it's not dead (granted). Don't get me wrong. I'm positive, but realistic.
Still. Wich you best luck for NS2.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />
50% of the people visiting the forums, doing so out of curiousity about the game's progress, nastalgia and a little hope that stayed for NS's future. i think Flayra is completely off the track in making the game that everybody used to love.
in my opinion; the game is taking a bigger step back rather than a step forward. and people slowly losing hope and interest in NS.
i know flayra is working hard on ns and he's one of the greatest just because he put together such a great game as NS used to be. NS was my favorite game and i am still around just waiting for NS to get back on track.
since NS got nothing to lose, i say flayra should change the whole game, change its balance, let some exploits in and some features out, just mess around with it and try to bring back the same old NS everyone used to love and play. because it's not about fixing the bugs anymore. it's about fixing the gameplay which was ruined without noticing.
the game lost 70 percent of its players. i blame <b>bunny hopping exploit</b> and combat for NS's death.
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Rofl, please educate yourself on the issue. Alien bunny hopping was left in intentionally, the game is balanced with that in mind.
edit;
still i think that it's impossible to balance the game with bunnyhopping in it. in addition to know how to play the game you also need to know how to exploit. in my opinion it shouldn't work that way.
if you get a game with a good marine team that know their job well and put them against extreme exploiters who know how to bunnyhop very well, that team will be the one to win. which makes the game to be more focused on the skill to kill rather than tactics and teamplay.
a skulk that can exploit will rush instead of camping and i don't think this is how it's intended to be.
anyways my negative theory and criticism about bunnyhoping is very long and this whole argument can last forever as it usually does. i gave you my opinion, and i believe i have enough knowledge about NS to give my 2cents and i'll leave it at that.
if you get a game with a good marine team that know their job well and put them against extreme exploiters who know how to bunnyhop very well, that team will be the one to win. which makes the game to be more focused on the skill to kill rather than tactics and teamplay.
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okay what? bunnyhopping toward marines is suicide.
probably for you it is because you cannot bunnyhop well.
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Okay I'm just going to flat out say that enigma could probably bhop as well as you can possibly bhop (not that bhopping has some amazingly high skill ceiling anyways though) and he's right in saying that a good marine WILL kill a skulk that bhops perfectly provided that he has 2 seconds to shoot.
Dude, don't mess with him. He's "ex-veteran" and he obviously knows what he's talking about.
lol.