Do All Servers Run At The Same Speed?

bji · July 2005

<div class="IPBDescription">Newbie question about the game</div> Hey all. I read about Natural Selection in someone's post to Slashdot and I thought it sounded really cool. So I went out and bought a copy of Half-Life (they're still selling this 1998-era game for $20!!!), and downloaded and installed the Natural Selection mod. No problems getting it up and running, and I went to a server at random to observe the games to see how they worked.

My first impression, while "watching" some alien players via 1st person observe mode, was that I couldn't tell what the heck was going on. Was my system dropping frames? Because everything was moving so fast that it felt like I was watching a sped-up movie. I watched some marines and still couldn't tell what was going on.

So after watching for a little while I decided that I wasn't going to be able to tell very easily how to play the game (yes I've already read the manuals, but there is no substitute for actual experience) without just playing. So I joined the marines team.

Then I figured out why everything was going so fast when I was watching an alien in 1st person observe mode. The aliens were ridiculously fast. Usually I'd only see them for a frame or two before I'd be dead.

Unfortunately I didn't have much time to observe or play, only about 10 minutes, so I couldn't get a really good handle on the game.

But what I'm wondering is, do all servers operate at the same "speed"? Because the speed that the server I was playing on was ridiculously fast. I'm not bad at 1st person shooters and typically pick up on a game pretty quickly but the aliens moved so fast as to not even be possible for me to aim at. I died instantly and repeatedly. To be honest, it wasn't much fun. I was expecting a game where I would sneak around, looking for aliens, maybe in a group of marines, and then when combat occurred, it would be the marines trying to shoot and kill the aliens before they could get close enough to do damage, while the aliens tried to jump and dodge while trying to get up to the marines. Instead it was an experience of, run down a hallway, see an alien for a split second as they rounded a corner, fire as rapidly as possible in their general direction, and then die before you really even had a chance to see them coming.

So are all servers like that? Or was I playing on a server where the aliens had some kind of hyper speed enabled?

The game that I played alot that I thought was alot of fun was Jedi Academy. In that game, everyone moves "slowly" enough that you have a chance to aim, to duck and dodge and weave, to switch weapons, etc, while shooting at and battling it out with your opponent. But with Natural Selection, it felt like the aliens were just guided missles which came flying at you from random directions and killed you instantly. No ducking, dodging, weaving, strategizing during the fight. Just run headlong in and hope the shots you are firing hit something before you die.

So is that what it's supposed to be like?

Also, for what it's worth, the other players were incredibly rude and insulting. I was trying to ask some newbie questions and all I got was insults in response. I can only hope that this is atypical because I see no point in trying to get into this game if a) the gameplay isn't to my liking and b) the other players are rude jerks.

Thanks for listening,
Bryan

XCan · July 2005

There are two modes in NS. Usually they are called Combat (CO) and the original mode (NS). If you happend to join a CO map facing against heavily upgraded aliens you would have a hard time. There are upgrades in the game that involves speed (celerity) and also one that makes the aliens able to leap. The fastest one however is a fade, it's a humanoid alien that by engaging a secondary attack can fly at high speed through the map at a cost of energy. But granted if you come straight from many of the new "combat sims" you'll find NS to be a very fast paced mod. However if you come from the quake-series you shouldn't have much trouble with the speed.

bji · July 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (XCan @ Jul 11 2005, 03:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>There are two modes in NS. Usually they are called Combat (CO) and the original mode (NS). If you happend to join a CO map facing against heavily upgraded aliens you would have a hard time. There are upgrades in the game that involves speed (celerity) and also one that makes the aliens able to leap. The fastest one however is a fade, it's a humanoid alien that by engaging a secondary attack can fly at high speed through the map at a cost of energy. But granted if you come straight from many of the new "combat sims" you'll find NS to be a very fast paced mod. However if you come from the quake-series you shouldn't have much trouble with the speed.</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Thank you for your response. So if I read correctly, you are saying that some game modes combined with experienced players who know how to use the speed upgrades to their best effect will make the game harder for a newbie to follow and play.

So I guess I have to find a server which plays the "Natural Selection" mode (which I would prefer, the RTS strategy sounds like a very interesting part of the game), and which caters to a newbie audience.

I'll search around and see what I can find, and try the game out again.

BTW when I was using first person observe I was definitely seeing through the eyes of aliens that were just flying around the maps very quickly, it was super hard to follow. I wonder if there is a server out there that disallows some of the mods that make the game harder for newbies to play and follow ...

Thanks again!

Raza. · July 2005

Maybe these players where bunnyhoping (a common strategy to gain more speed by doing a kind of strafe-jumping).

Or you joined a CO-Server with an extraplugin that allowed aliens/marines to upgrade their speed.

If you want to get into Natural Selection i recommend to play on ns_ servers, co_ is basicly just deathmatch.

Ah and ignore these dumb persons who are flaming newbies. NS needs new players.

Isamil · July 2005

You could record a demo if you still think they're moving to fast.

overwater · July 2005

Its quite hard to aim in natural selection not only because of the fast speeds, but also because of the fast up and down movement in the z-axis (moving upwards vertically and down), which most shooters rarely have rapid movement in. Combine this with the fact that experienced skulks (the small ambushing aliens) will try and get behind you so you cant see them and strafe around you making it incredibly difficult to aim. And then combine this with the other abilites such as silence (which makes you unable to hear them at all with 3 movement chambers) and cloaking (makes the alien invisble while walking, or while running near a sensory chamber unless there is an observtaory nearby or the commander scans the area.) aswell as the small size of the skulk compared to most other things you shoot at it makes it very difficult.

My first suggestion is that you increase your mouse sensitivity in your options if you haven't done so already. Try to set it to at least 12, increasing it generally helps if you can get used to controlling it.

Secondly, although firing as soon as you see an alien and then trying to track it holding down the fire button is likely to make you cause more damage to the alien before dying (as a new player), it doesn't help you learn to aim as much as only firing when you are confident you are aiming at the alien, even if you can hear the alien munching at your legs, resist the temptation to fire randomly instead quickly scan the area for the alien, aim , then fire. Try playing with the pistol as it encourages you to aim rather than go full auto and hope for the best.

Thirdly to begin with try to stay a foot or two behind a more experienced marine, this way you can actually see the alien and practicing aiming without rapidly spinning your aim around your feet hopelessly.

Fourthly (only on ns_ maps) do whatever the the commander tells you to do, hold c to bring up a map and look for a flashing blue circle with a kind of crosshair, this is a waypoint. Move to these "waypoints" and your chances of victory are greatly increased.

Fifthly (if you are interested) watch demos of people who are very good at ns playing

<a href='http://www.nsinvitational.com/schedule.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.nsinvitational.com/schedule.htm</a>
<a href='http://www.ampednews.com/?page=demos&filter=ns&q=&type=team&rpp=50' target='_blank'>http://www.ampednews.com/?page=demos&filte...ype=team&rpp=50</a>

right click save as the demo, then extract it to programfiles/valve/steam/steamapps/yourusername/half-life/ns, the go into the console by hitting the ` key and type "playdemo demoname", if you dont know the name of the demo type "viewdemo" and click on the little menu icon on the left for a list of demos in your ns/ folder

Also there are no popular plugins which increase alien speed, and I find it unlikely that your server is playing at a faster speed than normal. Natural selection is just a very fast paced game.

Oh yeah and
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Do All Servers Run At The Same Speed?

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