I don't really hate anybody in the NS community (except for about 2 people), but I sure do enjoy trolling the rest! I'll have to figure out how I want this to look like, then I'll make a new post, and everybody can reply.
I'm down with #nslearn and I'm already running #farmteams. I would like to get a bot up in #farmteams stating who is recruiting who is the leader and yada yada yada. So Kmart if you want to start something with #nslearn I'm game. Even CWAG if he'll be nice!!! <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Um, you forget that #farmteams recruited a lot of teams that didn't know anything about mIRC or the likes of that.
Advertising is the way to go. Hit every forum related to NS as I did with #farmteams. Where the channel name in your name in pubs ie. {LoC}n1.n<#nslearn> or something like that.
Talk to people about it. Go to servers where you know people are new to the game and inform them of it. Takes about 10 minutes a day. WOWO!
I love the posts in here claiming that the NS clan scene needs to be more "welcoming". Such garbage. The CS clan scene is one of the biggest scum holes on the internet, and yet it continues to grow and have amazing turnouts for games. People's attitudes have <b>nothing</b> to do with a game's popularity. People do not play games to socialize. People play games because they like the game.
As to "dumbing down the game." CS is not a simple game. You have money management, incredibly complex system of figuring out where your oppionent's location is so you can shoot him through a wall, in fact the tactics in CS are arguably much more complex than the tactics in NS.
The tactics in CS are so complex, one good player can singlehandedly take down another team of 5. I know my brother told me about this happening at the CPL last year in the final match. One player judged where the other team would go, camped out a good spot, and in one clip of his m4A1, he mowed down five of the other team's best players.
Good luck doing something like that in NS, no matter how well you can judge the other team, you might get lucky enough to take down an extra lerk along with a fade. Or on the alien team, you could get maybe two marine kills as a skulk, or three as a fade before you die or go on an enievtiable retreat.,
Games that go to the CPL aren't the ones that apply to the lowest common denomenator. They are the ones that appeal to the highest common demoninator. Want NS to succeed and go to the CPL? Here's what needs to happen:
1. Put NS on the mygames list, so it is easily downloaded and ready to try by tons of new players. This is the most important step. Most Half-life players have no idea that NS even exists.
2. Super active dev team relations with the NS clan scene, who caters to their concerns. This for the most part has largely been ignored untill as of late. Which really sucks. One might point out that the CS dev team does not listen to their playerbase much. They don't have to. They are already successful and had the advantage of being the first decent HL mod. But if NS wants to catchup, they will have to work harder and do things differently.
3. Stop blaming the NS clan scene for any problems they might have. The average clanner has zero control over who plays the game or not. The reason #nslearn died? Because the majority of the players who got training did not end up putting it to use, or joining with the clan scene after receving training.
The truth of pubbers is that they usually just hump and dump the game, and then leave once they get bored of it. Competetive players stick around and look for ways to make the game better. Appealing to pubbers, therefore, is just another way to kill this game faster. The truth is that all one needs to appeal to is the player who will sink in the most amount of his time to the game. It needs to reward those who learn the nauces of the game by allowing them to truely accell in it. Making the game more complex is the way to increased popularity.
This book right here is a perfect analysis of what I am talking about. It looks as the increasing complexity of video games, TV shows, music, and other things in mainstream culture which become mainstream because of their increasing complexity. Not because they appeal to the lowest common denominator, but the more popular forms of mainstream culture are the ones that break the old threshold into becoming something more complex.
Want NS to succeed? Make it appeal to those who want to figure out the game the best, not to the average idoit who will get bored of the game no matter what you do. You could make this game play itself, complete with aimbots, and that isn't going to make NS more popular or CPL material.
My Games. Fixed (and more featureful) HLTV. Tutorial packaged with NS.
Besides those obvious fixes, I think there's some core issues with NS that stop it from being a popular e-sport, that can't possibly be fixed without re-making the entire game.
Imagine your average HLTV game, sure, they have their interesting moments, but the pace of this game is still very slow compared to others. Not everyone wants to look at some guy holding E somewhere, and not everyone wants to see this skulk wait for a marine while the marine waits for the skulk for two minutes.
Another, is the heavy reliance on a single guy, being the commander. In Europe, off the top of my head I could name 5 or 6 comms that I know, that truly understand the game. Three of them play(ed) for the best two clans. New clans? Yeah, we have people who can aim but oops, we don't want to spend 3+ months learning how this game works, all the while losing as a team.
And lastly, people who play this game are not your average gamers. "Pick Up and Play", games as UT, or CS, you can just pick any server out of hundreds, it doesn't matter, you can still have fun regardless of who you play with. In NS, there's a handful of servers worth playing on, because the fun you can have in this game is directly related to your fellow players. There's a particular server in Europe, that's full 24/7, but not even always due to the community, admins, or awesome hitreg, no, there's just nowhere else even halfway fun to play public on. It's like a damn monopoly.
<!--QuoteBegin-The Finch+Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Finch @ Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 3. What in-game changes are necessary for NS to be acceptable to both public and competitive play? As it is, the learning curve is so steep and community skill levels so stratified that the transition from new player to competitive level is rocky, at best. If you give a fade to NSPlayer, it's a waste of res and they won't be able to use it effectively at all. Give a fade to Mustang or Civilian and watch them grind the entire marine team to a halt. Should the level of play between relatively new player and competitive player be so extreme? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team?
<!--QuoteBegin-Iron Maiden+Aug 6 2005, 12:41 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Iron Maiden @ Aug 6 2005, 12:41 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-The Finch+Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Finch @ Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 3. What in-game changes are necessary for NS to be acceptable to both public and competitive play? As it is, the learning curve is so steep and community skill levels so stratified that the transition from new player to competitive level is rocky, at best. If you give a fade to NSPlayer, it's a waste of res and they won't be able to use it effectively at all. Give a fade to Mustang or Civilian and watch them grind the entire marine team to a halt. Should the level of play between relatively new player and competitive player be so extreme? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well IMO I have nothing against a high learning curve, or very big differences between a good and a new player. This is needed for the game's competetive scene to grow large and healthy. What's needed however is to DISGUISE this somewhat for newer players, so that if they play with people equally as bad, they will be able to "master" the classes on that particular level. The fade is such a class that is impossible to use for a new or bad player, and that is a bad thing. But as I said not because of the large differences in skill possible, but by the turn-off for new players it provides.
<!--QuoteBegin-Spooge+Aug 5 2005, 09:30 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Spooge @ Aug 5 2005, 09:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Want people to join in competitions to increase the branch sizes? Get people to WANT to join in competitions. Promises of glory and bragging rights isn't enough. Don't promise them friendlyness and introduction to the "in" crowd, SHOW them. Practice what you preach and lead by example. Tired of people accusing you of hax and ESP? After an accusation, give them detailed explanations of how and why you check certain corners or why you wait at the end of a long hallway with your reticle resting in a certain spot. These things aren't secrets within the clan community but many pubbers haven't had access to this kind of information. If they had someone giving them suggestions and not orders, along with tactical explanations, combined with genuine humility, the level of respect would grow quickly.
Create an environment where basic players get excited and appreciative to see a vet icon or clan tag next to someone's name on their server. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> this sounds great on paper but it doesn't translate to reality, period
not enough people want to play competitively because ns has a steep learning curve and they're stupid or lazy or they don't think it will be fun, and you can't force someone into seeing what competitive play is about
i've tried, probably moreso than <b>anyone</b> else to get people interested in competitive play, teach new players, and suchandsuch, and i can tell you without a single ounce of doubt that none of it did ****.
there is no magic formula for bringing new people to competitive play or advancing the game. do you think the top cs clans of today were babied and 'showed how to play' by clans before them? no. they played because they wanted to.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>natural selection is a victim of its own ingenuity because it only attracts people who are fans of both rts and fps, and who are willing to learn a very complicated game. in an online world full of 12 year olds with destroyed attention spans, ns doesn't have a leg to stand on.</span>
you can formulate awesome ideas for making a 'better environment' until you're blue in the face but it isn't going to change anything
the only thing that can really help is a massive amount of publicity such as natural selection being listed officially under 'My Games', because the larger the playerbase, the more people to play competitively.
It's naive to blame the issues on the clan scene enviroment, we're a small community, how many **** can we have? Probably 10x less than the public community does. At the end of the day what we have to accept is that NS on the HL engine isn't going anywhere particulary fast. Mistakes were made by both the players and the developers earliar in the cycle, what we have to hope for is that these mistakes are acknowledged and learnt from in future projects. What the developers seem to be aiming for right now as far as i can tell, is a game that is easier to learn and more intuitive to attract more players, obviously a more popular game can only strengthen Flayra's chance of getting investors and provides a solid foundation for him to build his next project off.
When you measure the success of CS do you judge it by how many clueless players they have playing de_dust 24/7? I know I don't, the real measure of success in multiplayer games is at the CPL. Your game isn't a game till it's featured there, e-sports is growing and turning into big money. Why are we pandering this game towards a group of players who frankly couldn't care two hoots. NS has had over 1 million downloads according to the site, but only 20,000 forum members? Probably half of those even visit and post. Do you think the people you're trying to cater to will even realise the changes being made? It's like that BT advert, don't just try and get new customers, take care of your existing customers and reward your valuable ones. Stop trying to pitch the issue onto us and look at your own decisions, as far as I can tell you'd rather have an extra 1000 players running around on 50 level combat than have competitive players have a say in balance.
/menu might well be part of the game through popular request at this rate. Dont get me wrong, I want the game to grow and it needs to grow, but it can grow without dumbing it down and ignoring the competitive scene. Those people will come of their own accord regardless of the learning curve, but when you start trying to cater for them then the quality of the game decreases. It's not the game that stops it growing, it's the fact that no one knows it exists. My games can hopefully fix this and help the community grow. For the competitive community though, we still need a game that is balanced for more organised play and a better advertised competitive community.
Well I have a strong belief that in CS it is from the large playerbase of clueless people who play de_dust 24/7 that the good and well known competetive players have come from. Only a small fraction of new players will start playing competetive, and the absolute number that does it will increase if the number of "clueless" players increase.
So while the success of CS is measured in the amount of publicity t gets, and how much money is being invested in it, those things do REQUIRE a large "clueless" playerbase. Who else will buy the stuff the sponsors sell, or read the news articles of who won the CPL and who didnt.
If you need 100 000 chess players to get one Bobby Fisher, I cant see why the same wouldnt apply to NS.
[Edit] What is the same in all of these incredibly popular games, such as chess and backgammon, is that they are so easy to pick up and play, but offer almost unlimited depth.
NS at the present time offer a limited depth and is very hard to pick up.
TheAdjHe demanded a cool forum title of some type.Join Date: 2004-05-03Member: 28436Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
<!--QuoteBegin-Iron Maiden+Aug 6 2005, 12:41 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Iron Maiden @ Aug 6 2005, 12:41 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-The Finch+Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Finch @ Aug 5 2005, 04:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 3. What in-game changes are necessary for NS to be acceptable to both public and competitive play? As it is, the learning curve is so steep and community skill levels so stratified that the transition from new player to competitive level is rocky, at best. If you give a fade to NSPlayer, it's a waste of res and they won't be able to use it effectively at all. Give a fade to Mustang or Civilian and watch them grind the entire marine team to a halt. Should the level of play between relatively new player and competitive player be so extreme? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Your example simply doesn't hold up. Give a random CS player an M4 and watch them miss a whole cluster of enemies, yet give a CAL-IM/M player an M4 and they'll drop the entire group with rounds to spare. Experience at a game lets people get much better at it than those without experience, that's just how it is. People think NS has such a high learning curve for certain niche units or weapons when it really doesn't. It's the entire game that has a high learning curve, no one turns into a commander overnight, even with RTS experience. The small things don't have any higher of a learning curve than other games, it's the whole picture that takes a while to understand.
<!--QuoteBegin-myrigth+Aug 6 2005, 09:57 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (myrigth @ Aug 6 2005, 09:57 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Everyone shut up and let the problem magically fix itself. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> heh, because that has always worked in the past ::roll::
Great discussion <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> I only had to delete like... 3 posts? Thats a record.
Ive noticed that one major flaw in the development of NS is the focus of new features and leaving the bugs/problems on the back burner.
I think NS might grow a little bit more if we were to implement a competitive combat league for the exact reason that titanium stated. Combat is pretty brain dead and easy to pick up for 13 year olds. The fact is, the current state wouldn't work in CAL or any league. For those people who grow out of combat they join the normal ns league and play there. That is how I really hope to see it in the future. I already submitted my suggestion for how to get combat more competitive but it was thrown in I&S under future patches so we might not see that for a very long time.
I really hope for this community to grow too. Killing clans isn't exactly what I want to do but having jackass clans playing in CAL isn't exactly what I want either. You can have your fun and your drama on your own spare time. When you come to play in this league we expect you to be professional.
but its a league for e-sports amateurs ... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Zephor+Aug 6 2005, 05:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Zephor @ Aug 6 2005, 05:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Killing clans isn't exactly what I want to do <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Go ahead and make a cal co league, and become a hypocrite.
I'll have to disagree with Zephor regarding Combat and making it competetive. I've gotten two plugins developed, one of them Metamod, that would be perfect for league competition. CompetitiveCombat would be ideal for league play.
Of course, when I offered to share this with him and CAL, they weren't interested.
<!--QuoteBegin-Depot+Aug 6 2005, 07:21 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Depot @ Aug 6 2005, 07:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I'll have to disagree with Zephor regarding Combat and making it competetive. I've gotten two plugins developed, one of them Metamod, that would be perfect for league competition. CompetitiveCombat would be ideal for league play.
Of course, when I offered to share this with him and CAL, they weren't interested. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> CAL|NS is pretty hypocritical, we already know man.
one of them needs a few tweaks for balance etc but when it's finished, mwuah <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-TOmekki+Aug 6 2005, 11:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TOmekki @ Aug 6 2005, 11:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> but its a league for e-sports amateurs ... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Amateur in the sense they don't get payed.
Like in Football (UK kind) the difference between amateur and professional IS simply one group plays as a career.
Professional
adj.
1. 1. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people. 2. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior. 2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer. 3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football. 4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.
Amateur
n.
1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession. 2. Sports. An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition. 3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.
Acting professional, and being a professional are two completely different meanings of the word.
Edit - If a governing body, even of an amateur league, expects people to act in a certain way, then the people should act in that way, regardless.
Take these forums for example, the forums admins dictated that a certain behaviour was not allowed, and they punish people for that behaviour accordingly.
<!--QuoteBegin-Lump+Aug 6 2005, 11:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lump @ Aug 6 2005, 11:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> one of them needs a few tweaks for balance etc but when it's finished, mwuah <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> the 5 level combat mod? i'm really looking forward to that, playing it was much more fun than regular co
Comments
Advertising is the way to go. Hit every forum related to NS as I did with #farmteams. Where the channel name in your name in pubs ie. {LoC}n1.n<#nslearn> or something like that.
Talk to people about it. Go to servers where you know people are new to the game and inform them of it. Takes about 10 minutes a day. WOWO!
As to "dumbing down the game." CS is not a simple game. You have money management, incredibly complex system of figuring out where your oppionent's location is so you can shoot him through a wall, in fact the tactics in CS are arguably much more complex than the tactics in NS.
The tactics in CS are so complex, one good player can singlehandedly take down another team of 5. I know my brother told me about this happening at the CPL last year in the final match. One player judged where the other team would go, camped out a good spot, and in one clip of his m4A1, he mowed down five of the other team's best players.
Good luck doing something like that in NS, no matter how well you can judge the other team, you might get lucky enough to take down an extra lerk along with a fade. Or on the alien team, you could get maybe two marine kills as a skulk, or three as a fade before you die or go on an enievtiable retreat.,
Games that go to the CPL aren't the ones that apply to the lowest common denomenator. They are the ones that appeal to the highest common demoninator. Want NS to succeed and go to the CPL? Here's what needs to happen:
1. Put NS on the mygames list, so it is easily downloaded and ready to try by tons of new players. This is the most important step. Most Half-life players have no idea that NS even exists.
2. Super active dev team relations with the NS clan scene, who caters to their concerns. This for the most part has largely been ignored untill as of late. Which really sucks. One might point out that the CS dev team does not listen to their playerbase much.
They don't have to. They are already successful and had the advantage of being the first decent HL mod. But if NS wants to catchup, they will have to work harder and do things differently.
3. Stop blaming the NS clan scene for any problems they might have. The average clanner has zero control over who plays the game or not. The reason #nslearn died? Because the majority of the players who got training did not end up putting it to use, or joining with the clan scene after receving training.
The truth of pubbers is that they usually just hump and dump the game, and then leave once they get bored of it. Competetive players stick around and look for ways to make the game better. Appealing to pubbers, therefore, is just another way to kill this game faster. The truth is that all one needs to appeal to is the player who will sink in the most amount of his time to the game. It needs to reward those who learn the nauces of the game by allowing them to truely accell in it. Making the game more complex is the way to increased popularity.
<a href='http://www.kottke.org/05/05/everything-bad-is-good-for-you' target='_blank'>http://www.kottke.org/05/05/everything-bad-is-good-for-you</a>
This book right here is a perfect analysis of what I am talking about. It looks as the increasing complexity of video games, TV shows, music, and other things in mainstream culture which become mainstream because of their increasing complexity. Not because they appeal to the lowest common denominator, but the more popular forms of mainstream culture are the ones that break the old threshold into becoming something more complex.
Want NS to succeed? Make it appeal to those who want to figure out the game the best, not to the average idoit who will get bored of the game no matter what you do. You could make this game play itself, complete with aimbots, and that isn't going to make NS more popular or CPL material.
My Games.
Fixed (and more featureful) HLTV.
Tutorial packaged with NS.
Besides those obvious fixes, I think there's some core issues with NS that stop it from being a popular e-sport, that can't possibly be fixed without re-making the entire game.
Imagine your average HLTV game, sure, they have their interesting moments, but the pace of this game is still very slow compared to others. Not everyone wants to look at some guy holding E somewhere, and not everyone wants to see this skulk wait for a marine while the marine waits for the skulk for two minutes.
Another, is the heavy reliance on a single guy, being the commander. In Europe, off the top of my head I could name 5 or 6 comms that I know, that truly understand the game. Three of them play(ed) for the best two clans.
New clans? Yeah, we have people who can aim but oops, we don't want to spend 3+ months learning how this game works, all the while losing as a team.
And lastly, people who play this game are not your average gamers. "Pick Up and Play", games as UT, or CS, you can just pick any server out of hundreds, it doesn't matter, you can still have fun regardless of who you play with.
In NS, there's a handful of servers worth playing on, because the fun you can have in this game is directly related to your fellow players. There's a particular server in Europe, that's full 24/7, but not even always due to the community, admins, or awesome hitreg, no, there's just nowhere else even halfway fun to play public on. It's like a damn monopoly.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team?
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well IMO I have nothing against a high learning curve, or very big differences between a good and a new player. This is needed for the game's competetive scene to grow large and healthy. What's needed however is to DISGUISE this somewhat for newer players, so that if they play with people equally as bad, they will be able to "master" the classes on that particular level. The fade is such a class that is impossible to use for a new or bad player, and that is a bad thing. But as I said not because of the large differences in skill possible, but by the turn-off for new players it provides.
Create an environment where basic players get excited and appreciative to see a vet icon or clan tag next to someone's name on their server. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
this sounds great on paper but it doesn't translate to reality, period
not enough people want to play competitively because ns has a steep learning curve and they're stupid or lazy or they don't think it will be fun, and you can't force someone into seeing what competitive play is about
i've tried, probably moreso than <b>anyone</b> else to get people interested in competitive play, teach new players, and suchandsuch, and i can tell you without a single ounce of doubt that none of it did ****.
there is no magic formula for bringing new people to competitive play or advancing the game. do you think the top cs clans of today were babied and 'showed how to play' by clans before them? no. they played because they wanted to.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>natural selection is a victim of its own ingenuity because it only attracts people who are fans of both rts and fps, and who are willing to learn a very complicated game. in an online world full of 12 year olds with destroyed attention spans, ns doesn't have a leg to stand on.</span>
you can formulate awesome ideas for making a 'better environment' until you're blue in the face but it isn't going to change anything
the only thing that can really help is a massive amount of publicity such as natural selection being listed officially under 'My Games', because the larger the playerbase, the more people to play competitively.
When you measure the success of CS do you judge it by how many clueless players they have playing de_dust 24/7? I know I don't, the real measure of success in multiplayer games is at the CPL. Your game isn't a game till it's featured there, e-sports is growing and turning into big money. Why are we pandering this game towards a group of players who frankly couldn't care two hoots. NS has had over 1 million downloads according to the site, but only 20,000 forum members? Probably half of those even visit and post. Do you think the people you're trying to cater to will even realise the changes being made? It's like that BT advert, don't just try and get new customers, take care of your existing customers and reward your valuable ones. Stop trying to pitch the issue onto us and look at your own decisions, as far as I can tell you'd rather have an extra 1000 players running around on 50 level combat than have competitive players have a say in balance.
/menu might well be part of the game through popular request at this rate. Dont get me wrong, I want the game to grow and it needs to grow, but it can grow without dumbing it down and ignoring the competitive scene. Those people will come of their own accord regardless of the learning curve, but when you start trying to cater for them then the quality of the game decreases. It's not the game that stops it growing, it's the fact that no one knows it exists. My games can hopefully fix this and help the community grow. For the competitive community though, we still need a game that is balanced for more organised play and a better advertised competitive community.
So while the success of CS is measured in the amount of publicity t gets, and how much money is being invested in it, those things do REQUIRE a large "clueless" playerbase. Who else will buy the stuff the sponsors sell, or read the news articles of who won the CPL and who didnt.
If you need 100 000 chess players to get one Bobby Fisher, I cant see why the same wouldnt apply to NS.
[Edit]
What is the same in all of these incredibly popular games, such as chess and backgammon, is that they are so easy to pick up and play, but offer almost unlimited depth.
NS at the present time offer a limited depth and is very hard to pick up.
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QFT.
Its really dissapoiting for a nb team to lose to a lonely fade in a pub , when the alien team wassnt that skilled at all. I mean , the learn curve is too hard and owning newbs isnt an impulse for them to learn (in general).
I mean , where is the TP when a <b>single</b> 1337 player owns 6 guys from the other team? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your example simply doesn't hold up. Give a random CS player an M4 and watch them miss a whole cluster of enemies, yet give a CAL-IM/M player an M4 and they'll drop the entire group with rounds to spare. Experience at a game lets people get much better at it than those without experience, that's just how it is. People think NS has such a high learning curve for certain niche units or weapons when it really doesn't. It's the entire game that has a high learning curve, no one turns into a commander overnight, even with RTS experience. The small things don't have any higher of a learning curve than other games, it's the whole picture that takes a while to understand.
heh, because that has always worked in the past ::roll::
Ive noticed that one major flaw in the development of NS is the focus of new features and leaving the bugs/problems on the back burner.
but I really need to say this:
Very good topic indeed. Good comments, good quotes and some very good suggetions. If you read my post, here is my advise: Read the whole topic.
I really hope for this community to grow too. Killing clans isn't exactly what I want to do but having jackass clans playing in CAL isn't exactly what I want either. You can have your fun and your drama on your own spare time. When you come to play in this league we expect you to be professional.
Go ahead and make a cal co league, and become a hypocrite.
Actually you know what? I don't care.
Of course, when I offered to share this with him and CAL, they weren't interested.
Of course, when I offered to share this with him and CAL, they weren't interested. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
CAL|NS is pretty hypocritical, we already know man.
Amateur in the sense they don't get payed.
Like in Football (UK kind) the difference between amateur and professional IS simply one group plays as a career.
Professional
adj.
1.
1. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
2. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.
Amateur
n.
1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2. Sports. An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.
3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.
Acting professional, and being a professional are two completely different meanings of the word.
Edit - If a governing body, even of an amateur league, expects people to act in a certain way, then the people should act in that way, regardless.
Take these forums for example, the forums admins dictated that a certain behaviour was not allowed, and they punish people for that behaviour accordingly.
the 5 level combat mod? i'm really looking forward to that, playing it was much more fun than regular co
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frost: yeaaaaah, i kinda meant that as a joke.