<!--quoteo(post=2016345:date=Nov 8 2012, 10:27 PM:name=hate)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hate @ Nov 8 2012, 10:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016345"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->He didn't say it should've been fixed, he said we haven't heard anything about them even TRYING to fix it. Which is true.
I don't really know why people are getting bad performance, I can get a constant 60 fps with the shadows and occlusion turned down, and the computer I have isn't that great (i5-2320 @ 3.0ghz, Geforce 550ti). But clearly it's a problem that's affecting some people.
Patching is great, but they didn't have to release when they did. The game probably wasn't ready for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly.
I don't expect them to patch and fix everything within a week. However as an active team, large or small, in this day and age I <i>do</i> expect some kind of P.R. communication. Even if it's a hollow pat on the back saying "Yea, we're working on stuff" that might take them months to fix, just the fact they'd reach out and communicate that can go miles with a lot of consumers, and fans. But looking at the tech support subforum, and other community areas you don't see that.
You don't see the devs really stating much of anything. Sure, we got a little write up on Build 228, but other than that? A fluff piece on world wide stats and some competitive league play. Not exactly something to assure customers that they are working on things. As some have pointed out, yea small tidbits of info are on their Twitter page but why is it we need to follow them on a third party social networking site, yet there's not really any new information on their own website?
<!--quoteo(post=2016347:date=Nov 8 2012, 10:29 PM:name=godrifle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (godrifle @ Nov 8 2012, 10:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016347"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Voice Comm chat on same level as General Sound Level: Disagree? I thought there were three sliders: Sound, Music, Voice Chat volume.
Alien Wallhax are OP, and power node light outage: You said they're wallhack-like, but I'm hoping you know that it doesn't actually go through any walls. You also state that it's OP. It's not OP. It's not deciding games. Onos Egg before 8 minutes is OP... but while aliens can see Marines better, they can't see them VASTLY better to the point where Marines should be complaining.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Voice Comm does have it's own "slider" but even if you max out Voice, unless you have the overall game Sound slider at a certain level you cannot hear voice comms. Then you run into the situations I describe where even with Voice Chat maxed, the game sounds are overpowering. There needs to be a different option where Voice Comm remains at whatever level you want that is independent of game sound. NS1 did this, as did a lot of games on the HL1 engine (Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, TFC, etc) yet NS2 can't do this simple yet vital feature?
The Alien wallhax are OP. A Marine cannot see through a wall. Even if it's a short duration and only when other aliens are around, it's still a significant leg up. It doesn't have to "decide a game" to be OP, OP just means it's giving a large advantage compared to what the other side has in comparison to have the <i>potential</i> of shifting the odds in their favor. It's not winning games outright no but when one person can see through a wall and see where you are at, and you cannot do that (at least not without scanners and limited range) it's a bit unfair for the side that can see through walls.
What do you mean P.R. communication!? Your ignorance is astounding. You made all that time to complain and didn't even bother to try to find out whether or not they actually try to communicate with us?
Well I'll spare you the work and tell you theres a developer Q&A every teusday at 11:30 pacific time I think. The devs actually take the time to get on webcam every week with fans of the game and tell them whats going on and whats in the upcoming patch. I'd call that "PR communication". Check it out on their twitch channel.
Voice comm not having its own volume slider is a nit-pick, not a reason to hate the game.
<!--quoteo(post=2016406:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:06 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 08:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016406"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The Alien wallhax are OP. A Marine cannot see through a wall. Even if it's a short duration and only when other aliens are around, it's still a significant leg up. It doesn't have to "decide a game" to be OP, OP just means it's giving a large advantage compared to what the other side has in comparison to have the <i>potential</i> of shifting the odds in their favor. It's not winning games outright no but when one person can see through a wall and see where you are at, and you cannot do that (at least not without scanners and limited range) it's a bit unfair for the side that can see through walls.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But Marines have an even BETTER option. The radar can show alien units in a larger radius. Not to mention the scan will reveal them anywhere as well. Not to mention that the 'wall hack' has to be specifically shot at someone and hit them. Which completely negates any kind of surprise or ambush. Its actually far more limited than what the scanners can do. It doesn't really give any sufficient advantage, since it basically ruins an ambush. It also can be removed extremely easily, has an extremely short range and duration.
There are OP and UP things in this game, but that isn't one of them.
<!--quoteo(post=2016410:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:12 PM:name=ChickenOfWar)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ChickenOfWar @ Nov 8 2012, 08:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016410"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What do you mean P.R. communication!? Your ignorance is astounding. You made all that time to complain and didn't even bother to try to find out whether or not they actually try to communicate with us?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> great idea in concept, except the Q&A just glazes over all of the important questions and answers questions like "gorge plushies". I love the game just as much as anyone else, but the developers really aren't addressing a lot of the larger concerns, and Maverickk brings up a lot of decent points.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The Alien wallhax are OP. A Marine cannot see through a wall. Even if it's a short duration and only when other aliens are around, it's still a significant leg up. It doesn't have to "decide a game" to be OP, OP just means it's giving a large advantage compared to what the other side has in comparison to have the potential of shifting the odds in their favor. It's not winning games outright no but when one person can see through a wall and see where you are at, and you cannot do that (at least not without scanners and limited range) it's a bit unfair for the side that can see through walls.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> completely disagree with this, though. you can't really just make blanket general statements like "one side has the ability to go invisible, the other side doesn't, this is OP". there's different and there's better. marines benefit much more from wallhacks than aliens do, because the entire way aliens attack is based off of marines not knowing where they are. without the wallhacks, the entire flanking, counter-attacking, positioning element of playing aliens is completely gone. I am a huge fan of its implementation in NS2.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=2016406:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:06 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 08:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016406"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->expect some kind of P.R. communication. Even if it's a hollow pat on the back saying "Yea, we're working on stuff" that might take them months to fix, just the fact they'd reach out and communicate that can go miles with a lot of consumers, and fans. But looking at the tech support subforum, and other community areas you don't see that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Uh... yes you do? I'm also in there doing whatever i can and constantly forwarding important things to them and saying that i am? Where have you been throughout the development of this game? These devs are more communicative than 90% of game dev teams?? I literally cant count the amount of times they have said through every single avenue of communication that they are working on performance. It never stopped being a priority or being communicated.
@OP: This is the latest interview recorded (on a weekly basis) with the devs. It was posted 2 days ago, and it talks about what's coming next with the game. Skip to around 7:00 for the start of the interview.
<a href="http://play4dead.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://play4dead.com/ns2/</a> There's a dev tracker for you. You'll notice the devs do actually communicate unlike you would like to claim.
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2</a> And here's there twitch page where they do a live Q&A weekly.
And just so you know they game has already received a patch improving performance within the first couple days and another patch is slated for this week.
<!--quoteo(post=2016270:date=Nov 8 2012, 07:36 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 07:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And performance, for either side, is abysmal. Read the tech support subforum. There are people out there with massively powerful desktop pc's, that even being custom built would rank up in the thousands of dollars to build, are getting horrible performance. We're talking people with 4.4ghz hexacore CPU's, SLI GPU's (such as Nvidia 680's or 90's), 16+ GB DDR3 ram, water cooling all that snazzy stuff getting 30 or less FPS during any part of gameplay. And it's not just "a few", TONS of people with high end systems have the same or similar issues. It's all over the Steam forums, all over reddit, even here. I'm sure UWE worked hard on the "Spark" Engine but at this point your choice to move from the Source engine was a poor choice, very poor. It may not have the latest and greatest eye candy like the Cry3 Engine but some modern Source games like Left 4 Dead 2 can still look good on all high settings. Was it a monetary issue? UWE couldn't afford to license the Source engine? As a small team you thought it better to go build an engine from the ground up?
I agree actually as i have a comp that runs skyim, diablo 3 ect on MAX settings no fps problems what so ever 90-100 frames. Yet with this game with a lot of the settings turned down i only get 30-50 fps max, with the correct resolution...i actually lowered my proper resolution because it gave me 70 fps. I understand that UWE is a small indie company and have high respect for what they have done with this game. Really good game i might add. This however is an issue that needs attention.
this is stuff so many veterans have been harping on for years and years. it's sad, but a lot of basic logic seems to have disappeared when making some of these decisions.
for example, the alien commander change makes sense to fix balance at varying playercounts, but it also makes the game less asymmetrical (which is what a lot of people found fun about the first). UWE also failed to do anything really interesting with the alien commander, relegating him to sitting around staring at his screen for most of the game.
walljumping is an absolute joke, and pales in comparison to bunnyhopping in every shape and form. it is neither more intuitive or more flexible. whereas bunnyhopping was inherent to every class in the game and in most areas, walljumping is limited to one class, requiring you to be near a wall, and is no easier to learn than bunnyhopping.
i mean the thought behind the changes make sense, but the benefits for these changes NEVER outweigh the positives.
i can go on and on about these horribly illogical changes, but what's the point? it's not like they're going to change anything. i would have loved to actually have a truly different and upgraded experience to NS1, but instead i got broken NS1 gameplay with a graphical update.
I have no idea why you would think the "wallhax" are OP, since every alien form except 1 has to get around in LOS to actually do any damage. It actually fits with the hivemind lore of the Khara, since you're seeing marines that are being seen by alien structures/beings. Plus, skulk parasites have enabled vision since NS1.
That's not what spores are for, they're for area denial. Marines aren't typically just going to walk into a spore cloud, usually they'll go around, wait for it to clear, or use a flame thrower to clear it.
OP, I think you have a false premise on all PC games that have been released and will be released over the next few years. What I mean by this is that I can't think of any game that has been released that did not have a ton of bugs IE Diablo 3, Starwars TOR, WoW, Rift, Skyrim, COD when the engine was some what new ex.... We are in a point in software development not just for video games but across the spectrum where the disconnect is no longer the hardware but rather the code that is ran across the hardware.
This is just the nature of the beast it takes teams time and resources to fine tune these engines. Yes, their are alot of things I would like to see added for tactics and alot of fixes to sound and performance but this game is defiantly worth the $30 I spent. For gods sake a McDonalds BigMac meal is like $10 now.
I'm sure that the engine performance will be drastically increased since UWE now has some capital. Also look forward to seeing additional game play modes which will spin up over time. Siege, combat/XMENU, Marine VS Marine, KIckball. I would even pay extra 10 bucks if they packed this and sold it.
One more thing welcome to the 21st century where nothing is free not even the water in your toilet.
<!--quoteo(post=2016449:date=Nov 8 2012, 08:41 PM:name=Lastdon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lastdon @ Nov 8 2012, 08:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->OP, I think you have a false premise on all PC games that have been released and will be released over the next few years. What I mean by this is that I can't think of any game that has been released that did not have a ton of bugs IE <b>Diablo 3, Starwars TOR, WoW, Rift, Skyrim, COD </b>when the engine was some what new ex.... We are in a point in software development not just for video games but across the spectrum where the disconnect is no longer the hardware but rather the code that is ran across the hardware.
This is just the nature of the beast it takes teams time and resources to fine tune these engines. Yes, their are alot of things I would like to see added for tactics and alot of fixes to sound and performance but this game is defiantly worth the $30 I spent. For gods sake a McDonalds BigMac meal is like $10 now.
I'm sure that the engine performance will be drastically increased since UWE now has some capital. Also look forward to seeing additional game play modes which will spin up over time. Siege, combat/XMENU, Marine VS Marine, KIckball. I would even pay extra 10 bucks if they packed this and sold it.
One more thing welcome to the 21st century where nothing is free not even the water in your toilet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those games have FAR more content than NS2. Of course they're gonna have bugs. Of course NS2 is gonna have bugs. I think part of the problem is that what they were calling a "beta test" was really more of a "give us money and you can ###### around in here while we're working on it," which is fine. But Beta tests are for bug smashing (or maybe i'm mistaken). And when a game comes out of a beta that was over a year long, the expectation is that the bugs have been smashed. In reality, this game has only been feature complete for a few months (if that) and they spent most of the beta working on content instead of bug fixes. Which is pretty standard these days, to be honest. But it can cause some confusion when release day rolls around.
<!--quoteo(post=2016449:date=Nov 8 2012, 11:41 PM:name=Lastdon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lastdon @ Nov 8 2012, 11:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->OP, I think you have a false premise on all PC games that have been released and will be released over the next few years. What I mean by this is that I can't think of any game that has been released that did not have a ton of bugs IE Diablo 3, Starwars TOR, WoW, Rift, Skyrim, COD when the engine was some what new ex.... We are in a point in software development not just for video games but across the spectrum where the disconnect is no longer the hardware but rather the code that is ran across the hardware.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And that is why I really don't play those games you mention (other than WoW a few years ago). Skipped D3 cause of poor choices and RMAH, SWTOR was a great single player story but beyond that failed it's own hype, Rift never interested me, Skyrim just seemed like Oblivion with dragons and I've never cared for the CoD franchise (generic FPS number 3898480 pretty much).
The difference between those titles and NS2? I had faith in UWE. Their previous game was a stellar hit and earned them a lot klout with the gaming community. Hence why NS2 was a day one purchase for me. The developers of the games you mention? Most of them have released at least one bad game at some point thus already tainting their image and potential consumer purchases for the future. i.e. Blizzard lost me from the Starcraft franchise when they split SC2 into three different games and lack of LAN play. Bioware had already lost me prior to Mass Effect 3 coming out cause SWTOR was pretty much a let down (as was Dragon Age 2). You see the pattern here? UWE had yet to release a "bad game", their image was pretty spotless for many of us that were fans of NS1.
And to those pointing out the Q&A's and such, again how would the average person know to go over to a <i>third party website</i> to find out all this information? If you look at the main website, none of the news posts say "Hey we're doing a live thing on this website to answer questions". All you see are posts talking about various patch notes, and various videos about stuff such as the Exosuit video. Not every gamer has their 'ear to the ground' so to speak, following a developer on facebook, twitter, myspace or whatever social venue the kids use these days. I don't have a facebook account, I never had a personal need to use twitter, so you can see how for some of us, we need an extra helping hand to point us to just where the P.R. communication, as I call it, is actually at. Some of it is on the forums but not a lot, and not very frequently. I've been doing online gaming for close to twenty+ years now, I should be able to go to the developers website and get the latest news, I shouldn't need to jump through hoops of bookmarking a twitter page or facebook page or any of that to get news about a game. Patch notes on the site are great but the <i>upcoming</i> stuff, that we care about, is the real nuggets of information we seek.
People are free to disagree, as always. Your mileage may vary.
Sorry you're having trouble with the game. Maybe you should step away for a month or two and come back; things tend to resolve themselves over time and you'll probably calm down a bit and enjoy yourself more when you haven't worked yourself into such a frenzy.
It's a shame to see you give up on your old hobbies of Natural Selection (although I never knew you at all). Maybe you can try it out again in a couple of months or so and see if you have a different idea about the game then. Until then, have fun doing whatever it is you do.
As for the people arguing against the OP. Just stop. He's made up his mind. He has his reason and beliefs, be they right or wrong that's what his decision was based on. Questioning him isn't going to leave any better of an impression.
Let's just give a little wave goodbye and drop this thread for now.
<!--quoteo(post=2016503:date=Nov 9 2012, 01:07 AM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 9 2012, 01:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016503"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And to those pointing out the Q&A's and such, again how would the average person know to go over to a <i>third party website</i> to find out all this information?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the twitch Q&A's are always announced on the twitter feed, at least 2-3 times the day of, and sometimes the day before, they happen.
there also happens to be a twitter feed on the front page, AND in the game.
I was actually going to make a topic saying how overwhelming shocked I was at how flipping amazing NS2 was. UWE did an incredible job and I'm just blown away by the product as a whole. The alien commander and personal marine res help the meta so much. I love the entire thing, and I'm an old school player for sure. Your rant seems pretty nearsighted and picky. Giving aliens a commander and marines a personal resource system makes this game so much better. Flamethrower is great, HMG is now hard tied to the exosuit to eliminate jp+hmg combo. Dynamic infestation is great, marine base building is fantastic, the overall aesthetic of the game is right on the money and the lighting engine is just superb for a game like this. I can't see how anyone can complain about balance when games won by both aliens and marines hover at virtually 50/50.
edit: I get performance hiccups here and there, but for the most part it runs really, really well on all max (except for vsync and ambient occu).
<!--quoteo(post=2016550:date=Nov 8 2012, 09:40 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Nov 8 2012, 09:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016550"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the twitch Q&A's are always announced on the twitter feed, at least 2-3 times the day of, and sometimes the day before, they happen.
there also happens to be a twitter feed on the front page, AND in the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's no twitter feed on the front page for me at all. It says "Twitter Updates (Follow)" on the front page inbetween NS2HD and the email address input bar, but it's just one line of text with a link, there's no actual feed. Twitter isn't a substitute for updating your website, or at least making a forum post about it.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
<!--quoteo(post=2016503:date=Nov 9 2012, 04:07 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 9 2012, 04:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016503"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And that is why I really don't play those games you mention (other than WoW a few years ago). Skipped D3 cause of poor choices and RMAH, SWTOR was a great single player story but beyond that failed it's own hype, Rift never interested me, Skyrim just seemed like Oblivion with dragons and I've never cared for the CoD franchise (generic FPS number 3898480 pretty much).
The difference between those titles and NS2? I had faith in UWE. Their previous game was a stellar hit and earned them a lot klout with the gaming community. Hence why NS2 was a day one purchase for me. The developers of the games you mention? Most of them have released at least one bad game at some point thus already tainting their image and potential consumer purchases for the future. i.e. Blizzard lost me from the Starcraft franchise when they split SC2 into three different games and lack of LAN play. Bioware had already lost me prior to Mass Effect 3 coming out cause SWTOR was pretty much a let down (as was Dragon Age 2). You see the pattern here? UWE had yet to release a "bad game", their image was pretty spotless for many of us that were fans of NS1.
And to those pointing out the Q&A's and such, again how would the average person know to go over to a <i>third party website</i> to find out all this information? If you look at the main website, none of the news posts say "Hey we're doing a live thing on this website to answer questions". All you see are posts talking about various patch notes, and various videos about stuff such as the Exosuit video. Not every gamer has their 'ear to the ground' so to speak, following a developer on facebook, twitter, myspace or whatever social venue the kids use these days. I don't have a facebook account, I never had a personal need to use twitter, so you can see how for some of us, we need an extra helping hand to point us to just where the P.R. communication, as I call it, is actually at. Some of it is on the forums but not a lot, and not very frequently. I've been doing online gaming for close to twenty+ years now, I should be able to go to the developers website and get the latest news, I shouldn't need to jump through hoops of bookmarking a twitter page or facebook page or any of that to get news about a game. Patch notes on the site are great but the <i>upcoming</i> stuff, that we care about, is the real nuggets of information we seek.
People are free to disagree, as always. Your mileage may vary.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your expectations seem incredibly high (having high standards is a good thing for sure, otherwise we'd just be stuck with CoD games over and over hah) but, now I'm curious as to which games you have enjoyed recently?
<!--quoteo(post=2016567:date=Nov 8 2012, 09:51 PM:name=Onii-chan)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Onii-chan @ Nov 8 2012, 09:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016567"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just use the dev and news stalker: <a href="http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, that's kind of the problem lol. I shouldn't have to go to a third party site to get information about the game. I've noticed a lot of developers are doing this recently though so maybe it's standard now. I know I'm not alone on this though.
The argument that we can't have NS1 improved because they need to appeal to noobs makes no sense. Are you telling me the original Gorge wasn't noob-friendly? Noobs playing Alien now really don't want to play Gorge because it's boring as hell, so they get forced into playing the rest of the Alien lineup, which is relatively more difficult to the Gorge and to the Marine team as a whole. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gravitated to Gorge for that very reason in the original; because it gave me something to do without having to do the sick leaps and dives of the rest of the lineup.
Adding an Alien Commander? Was that more noob friendly? The Alien Commander doesn't really issue orders as much as he plays a machine-like role of expanding the base and getting upgrades in order, so you can't argue that the every man for himself structure the Aliens originally had was detrimental to beginners when it's sorta like that already, except there's now a roadblock in the way to being totally self-sufficient. I could pick and choose my upgrades based on which lifeform I wanted to play in the original. Now I have to wait until the com gets around to my preferences. For an example of why this is bad, In a game last night, the com took for-######-ever to get Blink, because no one plays Fades in pubs, it seems. By the time he got it, I had already wasted two Fade mutations and couldn't afford another. I asked for it at an opportune time. I didn't get it. He had other priorities, like spamming Onos eggs because Aliens are ######' gimped, and yet we still lost.
The Marines were always noob friendly, though, so it's less that people are arguing the Marines are too noob-friendly but that Aliens aren't too noob-friendly. You can lower the skill floor without bringing down the skill ceiling. It's a common misconception that the two are connected. Either make Marines more skill-reliant or give Aliens a break. As for the OP, I agree with some of his points, but the rest never even bothered me in the transition. I like the power mechanic for Marines. I don't think Alien Vision makes it easy to see people and can be compared to a wallhack. Really, though? NS1's hive sight was more wallhackish, so I don't see where you're going there.
<!--quoteo(post=2016558:date=Nov 9 2012, 01:46 AM:name=hate)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hate @ Nov 9 2012, 01:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016558"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There's no twitter feed on the front page for me at all. It says "Twitter Updates (Follow)" on the front page inbetween NS2HD and the email address input bar, but it's just one line of text with a link, there's no actual feed. Twitter isn't a substitute for updating your website, or at least making a forum post about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
any one of the following links would take you to announcements made by the devs. it could be more readily apparent, but it's there. i think this is a symptom of the modern entitled gamer: they want it, they want it now, and they want it handed to them on a silver platter.
<!--quoteo(post=2016270:date=Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Kharaa now require a Commander? The strength of the Alien faction was always the unique sort of every-man-for-themselves approach to working as a team. Wanted defenses, you had to be Gorge. Wanted tanky destruction you went Onos. Now they require a Commander to put down creep to expand a base? (Yes it's creep, at least before it could have been a vague tongue in cheek homage to the Starcraft franchise but now we're just inching over that line). Now they require Eggs to spawn? Was someone at UWE high the day they decided to "revamp" the Kharaa into this ######ized version of what it once was?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> so you're complaining about this... for no reason? I don't see how you rationalize it being bad, because it's different? Because there's some magic mood to the game that is now changed?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Kharaa get this epic semi-infrared vision that makes things a lot easier to see, with a built in short range wallhack-like see through ability as well?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Because they move faster and darkness is supposed to be their advantage.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I know the Rines' get a minimap on the HUD but considering it'd be super easy to mod one in for the Kharaa this just gives them a hard coded in-game unmodded ability that is a bit overpowered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I see you haven't discovered the 'c' key.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Especially now that the other side is dependent upon "power" to fuel every single thing they build so knocking out power makes them use their relatively weak flashlights compared to pretty much heat seeking nightvision? (Yea, it shows random unimportant things like fans but still its by far over powered).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->You're complaining about this like anyone agrees with you. It's a feature of the game, why the hell do you consider it "overpowered"? Anything can be balanced to make work, what is wrong with vision changes as a feature? There ARE problems with the game, even when you talk about the alien flashlight there's issues with it, it's ugly, it's a bit disorienting (because all of a sudden your landmarks are all the same color) but it's a REALLY bizzare claim that it's "overpowered"!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do Frontiersmen now have a dual resource system? Not only can the Commander spawn weapons and items for players but the player can "purchase" these items? In theory, on paper, this sounds great right? If the team is low on Resources, spending them on one or two good weapons could be a bad choice but if the player spends his or her own Resources it could be good. Sounds great in concept, much like certain political systems in the real world that sound good on paper but in practice are not. From all the playing I've done, yes in "Pubs" not in super efficient omgleetz organized tournament play, I've always encountered "stingy" Commanders, whom won't give the team weapons even when we're sitting on a surplus of resources, thus requiring the player to spend their Resources for upgrades. And seeing as how you earn Resources on a personal level, at a much slower rate than a Resource Node could churn out, spending that X Resources on a Shotty (that you drop when you die..) pretty much depletes a players resources faster than you can re-earn. Considering the bulk of the game's playerbase will be people playing on pubs and not the uber skilled organized players whom are on ladders or in tourneys, you have to look at it like a pub perspective. Not all Commanders will be good, obviously. But dipping into a personal Resource that is earned at a much slower rate is not a good design choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Did you even think at all before you wrote this? What else are you going to do with your p-res? Invest in apple? It's there so you can BUY GUNS, it doesn't do anything else what so ever. Why would you NOT use it?
It simplifies the game in pubs, allows everyone to try every gun. You don't get the thing where if you're a bad player and I'm the commander I'm never going to let you have a gun. It adds an aruguably unnecessary layer of depth to competitive play, but it's not supposed to be a competitive focused feature anyways. I can't IMAGINE that you are complaining about this for any reason asside from "it's different and it scares me"
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Frontiersmen get one new weapon, that appears to have replaced another? The flame thrower is great and all, but even firing it in short controlled bursts, makes tracking a skulk with celerity difficult as your field of view is momentarily taken up by flames. Why did this replace the HMG? I'd trade in the Flame thrower any day of the week for the more powerful HMG, even with it's slower reload times (which was the trade off for the LMG).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> all the marine guns are now sidegrades. No gun replaces any other gun for every situation. The AR is the best long range gun, the shotgun the best general combat gun, the flame thrower is great anti-structure and support, grenade launcher is anti-anklebiter and siege gun. The HMG is gone because it was a direct upgrade of the LMG in NS. Exo's now have an HMG style weapon, but exos have the heavy disadvantage that they cannot move quickly and cannot be beaconed back to base.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why are the Frontiersmen now completely power dependent? As said compared to Kharaa, a skulk or two taking out a power node can completely HOSE a Marine team. Why? Because it all becomes pitch black and even with "emergency lights" on, is still virtually dark. Maybe if the Marine flashlight was much much brighter or offered a wider range of illuminating the area I wouldn't have a problem. But the small cone of light a single Marine can generate compared to how insanely fast the various Alien mutations can move make being power dependent such a huge nerf to that entire side of gameplay. Even with Aliens requiring Eggs, and Cysts to respawn and advance on the map, their nightvision and short range wallhack vision really totally outweighs the negatives so much to the point that the Marines are at a huge disadvantage right out of the gate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> the dark isn't that bad. I personally agree though, the powernode thing is silly in it's current state. I think it potentially can be a useful balance point, but it's more annoying than anything else right now. To some small degree it counters the marine's ability to turtle unfairly... but that really isn't fixed still, and there's a dozen things in the game that power nodes hurt. I don't really see the logic behind why it's needed either.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And performance, for either side, is abysmal. Read the tech support subforum. There are people out there with massively powerful desktop pc's, that even being custom built would rank up in the thousands of dollars to build, are getting horrible performance. We're talking people with 4.4ghz hexacore CPU's, SLI GPU's (such as Nvidia 680's or 90's), 16+ GB DDR3 ram, water cooling all that snazzy stuff getting 30 or less FPS during any part of gameplay. And it's not just "a few", TONS of people with high end systems have the same or similar issues. It's all over the Steam forums, all over reddit, even here. I'm sure UWE worked hard on the "Spark" Engine but at this point your choice to move from the Source engine was a poor choice, very poor. It may not have the latest and greatest eye candy like the Cry3 Engine but some modern Source games like Left 4 Dead 2 can still look good on all high settings. Was it a monetary issue? UWE couldn't afford to license the Source engine? As a small team you thought it better to go build an engine from the ground up?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->this is half true, and it's unfair. You don't require a obsidian cube to run NS2. I'm running a 6 year old machine that does a pretty good job with NS2.
Yes, there is a developmental dev team side to this issue. NS2 is running on a custom built engine made by 1 guy. They don't have the R&D team that most game companies have to quickly and efficiently polish out all the bugs. These performance issues will be addressed, it will just take some time. Try to be patient with a 3 man dev team on issues like this. They're not EA, they can't afford to assign 15 people to bug hunting the day after launch.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And that really leads me to think that within seven days, UWE has dropped the ball. We've had one patch in that time, that didn't really fix much. Soooo many people have some form of performance issue, and we've yet to see really ANYTHING in terms of communication from the UWE team in the tech support subforum. There's a few sticky threads on common issues people are having but at this point someone from UWE publicly saying "ok we see X Y and Z are issues we're working on them" would go so so much in their favor but all we see are one or two of the player testers just telling people to post their log files and such (which really, uploading a 50MB file as a forum attachment is getting a bit out of hand. Pretty much all of us are broadband users but not everyone's ISP, which may be their ONLY option for an ISP, have unlimited data plans so asking people to upload a file that can be large is not good. I believe one users log file was over 100MB...).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->So basically, you've played the game once and what you're really mad about is that it's not working quite right yet, and you're an impatient git who had to waste everyones time with irrelevant completely thoughtless complaints. 50 megabytes is negligable, I was uploading that kind of data on dialup ffs. It took an hour then, but you're not talking about half a gig here.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So for years, I've looked forward to NS2. Every now and then I'd get an email from UWE pointing me to new screen shots, or a new video showing off this or that. I was eager for it. I loved NS1, if you looked at my Xfire profile I played close to 500+ hours of it (logged time) over the years. NS2 has been a huge disappointment. If I could get Steam to refund me, I would. But Steam does not do refunds. So I guess I'm S.O.L for the $30 I spent.
Caveat Emptor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Jesus, I'm so mad at you right now. Don't let the goddamn door hit you on the way out!
<!--quoteo(post=2016577:date=Nov 9 2012, 12:59 AM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Nov 9 2012, 12:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016577"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your expectations seem incredibly high (having high standards is a good thing for sure, otherwise we'd just be stuck with CoD games over and over hah) but, now I'm curious as to which games you have enjoyed recently?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Recent releases I have really enjoyed?
Torchlight 2 was great. Awesomenauts was a surprise hit for a 2D moba, and while it may be old for some the PC port of Castle Crashers was good. I enjoyed Guild Wars 2 for the first month or so but my guild is very small so after hitting end game wasn't much to do (still a great game overall though).
That's just recently. In the last year or so, I'd say other great indie titles such as Binding of Isaac, Magicka, and Ravaged have been very enjoyable.
I tend to lean towards more indie titles than I do larger "AAA" titles, some are hit n miss while others knock it out of the ballpark.
Comments
Yes, and for this I am glad. Wouldn't want to spend money on a game that literally only looks different (CS:GO, lookin at you)
<!--quoteo(post=2016270:date=Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM:name=Maverickk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Maverickk @ Nov 8 2012, 09:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The performance is bad!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They know, and they are working on it. You should've played it a few months ago. Boy was it worse then.
I don't really know why people are getting bad performance, I can get a constant 60 fps with the shadows and occlusion turned down, and the computer I have isn't that great (i5-2320 @ 3.0ghz, Geforce 550ti). But clearly it's a problem that's affecting some people.
Patching is great, but they didn't have to release when they did. The game probably wasn't ready for it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly.
I don't expect them to patch and fix everything within a week. However as an active team, large or small, in this day and age I <i>do</i> expect some kind of P.R. communication. Even if it's a hollow pat on the back saying "Yea, we're working on stuff" that might take them months to fix, just the fact they'd reach out and communicate that can go miles with a lot of consumers, and fans. But looking at the tech support subforum, and other community areas you don't see that.
You don't see the devs really stating much of anything. Sure, we got a little write up on Build 228, but other than that? A fluff piece on world wide stats and some competitive league play. Not exactly something to assure customers that they are working on things. As some have pointed out, yea small tidbits of info are on their Twitter page but why is it we need to follow them on a third party social networking site, yet there's not really any new information on their own website?
<!--quoteo(post=2016347:date=Nov 8 2012, 10:29 PM:name=godrifle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (godrifle @ Nov 8 2012, 10:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2016347"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Voice Comm chat on same level as General Sound Level: Disagree? I thought there were three sliders: Sound, Music, Voice Chat volume.
Alien Wallhax are OP, and power node light outage: You said they're wallhack-like, but I'm hoping you know that it doesn't actually go through any walls. You also state that it's OP. It's not OP. It's not deciding games. Onos Egg before 8 minutes is OP... but while aliens can see Marines better, they can't see them VASTLY better to the point where Marines should be complaining.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Voice Comm does have it's own "slider" but even if you max out Voice, unless you have the overall game Sound slider at a certain level you cannot hear voice comms. Then you run into the situations I describe where even with Voice Chat maxed, the game sounds are overpowering. There needs to be a different option where Voice Comm remains at whatever level you want that is independent of game sound. NS1 did this, as did a lot of games on the HL1 engine (Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, TFC, etc) yet NS2 can't do this simple yet vital feature?
The Alien wallhax are OP. A Marine cannot see through a wall. Even if it's a short duration and only when other aliens are around, it's still a significant leg up. It doesn't have to "decide a game" to be OP, OP just means it's giving a large advantage compared to what the other side has in comparison to have the <i>potential</i> of shifting the odds in their favor. It's not winning games outright no but when one person can see through a wall and see where you are at, and you cannot do that (at least not without scanners and limited range) it's a bit unfair for the side that can see through walls.
Well I'll spare you the work and tell you theres a developer Q&A every teusday at 11:30 pacific time I think. The devs actually take the time to get on webcam every week with fans of the game and tell them whats going on and whats in the upcoming patch. I'd call that "PR communication". Check it out on their twitch channel.
Voice comm not having its own volume slider is a nit-pick, not a reason to hate the game.
But Marines have an even BETTER option. The radar can show alien units in a larger radius. Not to mention the scan will reveal them anywhere as well. Not to mention that the 'wall hack' has to be specifically shot at someone and hit them. Which completely negates any kind of surprise or ambush. Its actually far more limited than what the scanners can do. It doesn't really give any sufficient advantage, since it basically ruins an ambush. It also can be removed extremely easily, has an extremely short range and duration.
There are OP and UP things in this game, but that isn't one of them.
great idea in concept, except the Q&A just glazes over all of the important questions and answers questions like "gorge plushies". I love the game just as much as anyone else, but the developers really aren't addressing a lot of the larger concerns, and Maverickk brings up a lot of decent points.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The Alien wallhax are OP. A Marine cannot see through a wall. Even if it's a short duration and only when other aliens are around, it's still a significant leg up. It doesn't have to "decide a game" to be OP, OP just means it's giving a large advantage compared to what the other side has in comparison to have the potential of shifting the odds in their favor. It's not winning games outright no but when one person can see through a wall and see where you are at, and you cannot do that (at least not without scanners and limited range) it's a bit unfair for the side that can see through walls.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
completely disagree with this, though. you can't really just make blanket general statements like "one side has the ability to go invisible, the other side doesn't, this is OP".
there's different and there's better. marines benefit much more from wallhacks than aliens do, because the entire way aliens attack is based off of marines not knowing where they are. without the wallhacks, the entire flanking, counter-attacking, positioning element of playing aliens is completely gone. I am a huge fan of its implementation in NS2.
most of the other points in OP I agree with.
Uh... yes you do?
I'm also in there doing whatever i can and constantly forwarding important things to them and saying that i am?
Where have you been throughout the development of this game? These devs are more communicative than 90% of game dev teams??
I literally cant count the amount of times they have said through every single avenue of communication that they are working on performance.
It never stopped being a priority or being communicated.
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/338341441" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/338341441</a>
I hope it answers some of your questions.
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2</a> And here's there twitch page where they do a live Q&A weekly.
And just so you know they game has already received a patch improving performance within the first couple days and another patch is slated for this week.
Caveat Emptor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree actually as i have a comp that runs skyim, diablo 3 ect on MAX settings no fps problems what so ever 90-100 frames. Yet with this game with a lot of the settings turned down i only get 30-50 fps max, with the correct resolution...i actually lowered my proper resolution because it gave me 70 fps. I understand that UWE is a small indie company and have high respect for what they have done with this game. Really good game i might add. This however is an issue that needs attention.
for example, the alien commander change makes sense to fix balance at varying playercounts, but it also makes the game less asymmetrical (which is what a lot of people found fun about the first). UWE also failed to do anything really interesting with the alien commander, relegating him to sitting around staring at his screen for most of the game.
walljumping is an absolute joke, and pales in comparison to bunnyhopping in every shape and form. it is neither more intuitive or more flexible. whereas bunnyhopping was inherent to every class in the game and in most areas, walljumping is limited to one class, requiring you to be near a wall, and is no easier to learn than bunnyhopping.
i mean the thought behind the changes make sense, but the benefits for these changes NEVER outweigh the positives.
i can go on and on about these horribly illogical changes, but what's the point? it's not like they're going to change anything. i would have loved to actually have a truly different and upgraded experience to NS1, but instead i got broken NS1 gameplay with a graphical update.
just because they win 50% of the time does NOT MAKE THE GAME FUN.
crop duster spores... really? shotguns, sentries, grenades, and you want the lerk to fly into marines to do a little damage? THINK.
This is just the nature of the beast it takes teams time and resources to fine tune these engines. Yes, their are alot of things I would like to see added for tactics and alot of fixes to sound and performance but this game is defiantly worth the $30 I spent. For gods sake a McDonalds BigMac meal is like $10 now.
I'm sure that the engine performance will be drastically increased since UWE now has some capital. Also look forward to seeing additional game play modes which will spin up over time. Siege, combat/XMENU, Marine VS Marine, KIckball. I would even pay extra 10 bucks if they packed this and sold it.
One more thing welcome to the 21st century where nothing is free not even the water in your toilet.
"WAH IT'S HARD TO PLAY!"
"WAH WHY DON'T I GET 100FPS ON MY TOASTER?!"
Also, did you just capp Aliens OP? L-O-L
This thread really reminds me of the gamespot review.
This is just the nature of the beast it takes teams time and resources to fine tune these engines. Yes, their are alot of things I would like to see added for tactics and alot of fixes to sound and performance but this game is defiantly worth the $30 I spent. For gods sake a McDonalds BigMac meal is like $10 now.
I'm sure that the engine performance will be drastically increased since UWE now has some capital. Also look forward to seeing additional game play modes which will spin up over time. Siege, combat/XMENU, Marine VS Marine, KIckball. I would even pay extra 10 bucks if they packed this and sold it.
One more thing welcome to the 21st century where nothing is free not even the water in your toilet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those games have FAR more content than NS2. Of course they're gonna have bugs. Of course NS2 is gonna have bugs. I think part of the problem is that what they were calling a "beta test" was really more of a "give us money and you can ###### around in here while we're working on it," which is fine. But Beta tests are for bug smashing (or maybe i'm mistaken). And when a game comes out of a beta that was over a year long, the expectation is that the bugs have been smashed. In reality, this game has only been feature complete for a few months (if that) and they spent most of the beta working on content instead of bug fixes. Which is pretty standard these days, to be honest. But it can cause some confusion when release day rolls around.
And that is why I really don't play those games you mention (other than WoW a few years ago). Skipped D3 cause of poor choices and RMAH, SWTOR was a great single player story but beyond that failed it's own hype, Rift never interested me, Skyrim just seemed like Oblivion with dragons and I've never cared for the CoD franchise (generic FPS number 3898480 pretty much).
The difference between those titles and NS2? I had faith in UWE. Their previous game was a stellar hit and earned them a lot klout with the gaming community. Hence why NS2 was a day one purchase for me. The developers of the games you mention? Most of them have released at least one bad game at some point thus already tainting their image and potential consumer purchases for the future. i.e. Blizzard lost me from the Starcraft franchise when they split SC2 into three different games and lack of LAN play. Bioware had already lost me prior to Mass Effect 3 coming out cause SWTOR was pretty much a let down (as was Dragon Age 2). You see the pattern here? UWE had yet to release a "bad game", their image was pretty spotless for many of us that were fans of NS1.
And to those pointing out the Q&A's and such, again how would the average person know to go over to a <i>third party website</i> to find out all this information? If you look at the main website, none of the news posts say "Hey we're doing a live thing on this website to answer questions". All you see are posts talking about various patch notes, and various videos about stuff such as the Exosuit video. Not every gamer has their 'ear to the ground' so to speak, following a developer on facebook, twitter, myspace or whatever social venue the kids use these days. I don't have a facebook account, I never had a personal need to use twitter, so you can see how for some of us, we need an extra helping hand to point us to just where the P.R. communication, as I call it, is actually at. Some of it is on the forums but not a lot, and not very frequently. I've been doing online gaming for close to twenty+ years now, I should be able to go to the developers website and get the latest news, I shouldn't need to jump through hoops of bookmarking a twitter page or facebook page or any of that to get news about a game. Patch notes on the site are great but the <i>upcoming</i> stuff, that we care about, is the real nuggets of information we seek.
People are free to disagree, as always. Your mileage may vary.
As for the people arguing against the OP. Just stop. He's made up his mind. He has his reason and beliefs, be they right or wrong that's what his decision was based on. Questioning him isn't going to leave any better of an impression.
Let's just give a little wave goodbye and drop this thread for now.
Because this is NS2.
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/ns2highdesign" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/ns2highdesign</a>
Did you expect NS1:HD? If so, it seems to be you should've asked for your refund years ago.
Have fun playing NS2:C. I, on the other hand, am just about to fire up NS2 and have some fun :-P .
the twitch Q&A's are always announced on the twitter feed, at least 2-3 times the day of, and sometimes the day before, they happen.
there also happens to be a twitter feed on the front page, AND in the game.
edit: I get performance hiccups here and there, but for the most part it runs really, really well on all max (except for vsync and ambient occu).
there also happens to be a twitter feed on the front page, AND in the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's no twitter feed on the front page for me at all. It says "Twitter Updates (Follow)" on the front page inbetween NS2HD and the email address input bar, but it's just one line of text with a link, there's no actual feed. Twitter isn't a substitute for updating your website, or at least making a forum post about it.
<a href="http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/</a>
The difference between those titles and NS2? I had faith in UWE. Their previous game was a stellar hit and earned them a lot klout with the gaming community. Hence why NS2 was a day one purchase for me. The developers of the games you mention? Most of them have released at least one bad game at some point thus already tainting their image and potential consumer purchases for the future. i.e. Blizzard lost me from the Starcraft franchise when they split SC2 into three different games and lack of LAN play. Bioware had already lost me prior to Mass Effect 3 coming out cause SWTOR was pretty much a let down (as was Dragon Age 2). You see the pattern here? UWE had yet to release a "bad game", their image was pretty spotless for many of us that were fans of NS1.
And to those pointing out the Q&A's and such, again how would the average person know to go over to a <i>third party website</i> to find out all this information? If you look at the main website, none of the news posts say "Hey we're doing a live thing on this website to answer questions". All you see are posts talking about various patch notes, and various videos about stuff such as the Exosuit video. Not every gamer has their 'ear to the ground' so to speak, following a developer on facebook, twitter, myspace or whatever social venue the kids use these days. I don't have a facebook account, I never had a personal need to use twitter, so you can see how for some of us, we need an extra helping hand to point us to just where the P.R. communication, as I call it, is actually at. Some of it is on the forums but not a lot, and not very frequently. I've been doing online gaming for close to twenty+ years now, I should be able to go to the developers website and get the latest news, I shouldn't need to jump through hoops of bookmarking a twitter page or facebook page or any of that to get news about a game. Patch notes on the site are great but the <i>upcoming</i> stuff, that we care about, is the real nuggets of information we seek.
People are free to disagree, as always. Your mileage may vary.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your expectations seem incredibly high (having high standards is a good thing for sure, otherwise we'd just be stuck with CoD games over and over hah) but, now I'm curious as to which games you have enjoyed recently?
<a href="http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://www.play4dead.com/ns2/</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, that's kind of the problem lol. I shouldn't have to go to a third party site to get information about the game. I've noticed a lot of developers are doing this recently though so maybe it's standard now. I know I'm not alone on this though.
Adding an Alien Commander? Was that more noob friendly? The Alien Commander doesn't really issue orders as much as he plays a machine-like role of expanding the base and getting upgrades in order, so you can't argue that the every man for himself structure the Aliens originally had was detrimental to beginners when it's sorta like that already, except there's now a roadblock in the way to being totally self-sufficient. I could pick and choose my upgrades based on which lifeform I wanted to play in the original. Now I have to wait until the com gets around to my preferences. For an example of why this is bad, In a game last night, the com took for-######-ever to get Blink, because no one plays Fades in pubs, it seems. By the time he got it, I had already wasted two Fade mutations and couldn't afford another. I asked for it at an opportune time. I didn't get it. He had other priorities, like spamming Onos eggs because Aliens are ######' gimped, and yet we still lost.
The Marines were always noob friendly, though, so it's less that people are arguing the Marines are too noob-friendly but that Aliens aren't too noob-friendly. You can lower the skill floor without bringing down the skill ceiling. It's a common misconception that the two are connected. Either make Marines more skill-reliant or give Aliens a break. As for the OP, I agree with some of his points, but the rest never even bothered me in the transition. I like the power mechanic for Marines. I don't think Alien Vision makes it easy to see people and can be compared to a wallhack. Really, though? NS1's hive sight was more wallhackish, so I don't see where you're going there.
any one of the following links would take you to announcements made by the devs. it could be more readily apparent, but it's there. i think this is a symptom of the modern entitled gamer: they want it, they want it now, and they want it handed to them on a silver platter.
*edit* forgot pic
<img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/4t4odc.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
so you're complaining about this... for no reason? I don't see how you rationalize it being bad, because it's different? Because there's some magic mood to the game that is now changed?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Kharaa get this epic semi-infrared vision that makes things a lot easier to see, with a built in short range wallhack-like see through ability as well?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Because they move faster and darkness is supposed to be their advantage.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I know the Rines' get a minimap on the HUD but considering it'd be super easy to mod one in for the Kharaa this just gives them a hard coded in-game unmodded ability that is a bit overpowered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I see you haven't discovered the 'c' key.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Especially now that the other side is dependent upon "power" to fuel every single thing they build so knocking out power makes them use their relatively weak flashlights compared to pretty much heat seeking nightvision? (Yea, it shows random unimportant things like fans but still its by far over powered).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->You're complaining about this like anyone agrees with you. It's a feature of the game, why the hell do you consider it "overpowered"? Anything can be balanced to make work, what is wrong with vision changes as a feature? There ARE problems with the game, even when you talk about the alien flashlight there's issues with it, it's ugly, it's a bit disorienting (because all of a sudden your landmarks are all the same color) but it's a REALLY bizzare claim that it's "overpowered"!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do Frontiersmen now have a dual resource system? Not only can the Commander spawn weapons and items for players but the player can "purchase" these items? In theory, on paper, this sounds great right? If the team is low on Resources, spending them on one or two good weapons could be a bad choice but if the player spends his or her own Resources it could be good. Sounds great in concept, much like certain political systems in the real world that sound good on paper but in practice are not. From all the playing I've done, yes in "Pubs" not in super efficient omgleetz organized tournament play, I've always encountered "stingy" Commanders, whom won't give the team weapons even when we're sitting on a surplus of resources, thus requiring the player to spend their Resources for upgrades. And seeing as how you earn Resources on a personal level, at a much slower rate than a Resource Node could churn out, spending that X Resources on a Shotty (that you drop when you die..) pretty much depletes a players resources faster than you can re-earn. Considering the bulk of the game's playerbase will be people playing on pubs and not the uber skilled organized players whom are on ladders or in tourneys, you have to look at it like a pub perspective. Not all Commanders will be good, obviously. But dipping into a personal Resource that is earned at a much slower rate is not a good design choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Did you even think at all before you wrote this? What else are you going to do with your p-res? Invest in apple? It's there so you can BUY GUNS, it doesn't do anything else what so ever. Why would you NOT use it?
It simplifies the game in pubs, allows everyone to try every gun. You don't get the thing where if you're a bad player and I'm the commander I'm never going to let you have a gun. It adds an aruguably unnecessary layer of depth to competitive play, but it's not supposed to be a competitive focused feature anyways. I can't IMAGINE that you are complaining about this for any reason asside from "it's different and it scares me"
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why do the Frontiersmen get one new weapon, that appears to have replaced another? The flame thrower is great and all, but even firing it in short controlled bursts, makes tracking a skulk with celerity difficult as your field of view is momentarily taken up by flames. Why did this replace the HMG? I'd trade in the Flame thrower any day of the week for the more powerful HMG, even with it's slower reload times (which was the trade off for the LMG).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> all the marine guns are now sidegrades. No gun replaces any other gun for every situation. The AR is the best long range gun, the shotgun the best general combat gun, the flame thrower is great anti-structure and support, grenade launcher is anti-anklebiter and siege gun. The HMG is gone because it was a direct upgrade of the LMG in NS. Exo's now have an HMG style weapon, but exos have the heavy disadvantage that they cannot move quickly and cannot be beaconed back to base.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why are the Frontiersmen now completely power dependent? As said compared to Kharaa, a skulk or two taking out a power node can completely HOSE a Marine team. Why? Because it all becomes pitch black and even with "emergency lights" on, is still virtually dark. Maybe if the Marine flashlight was much much brighter or offered a wider range of illuminating the area I wouldn't have a problem. But the small cone of light a single Marine can generate compared to how insanely fast the various Alien mutations can move make being power dependent such a huge nerf to that entire side of gameplay. Even with Aliens requiring Eggs, and Cysts to respawn and advance on the map, their nightvision and short range wallhack vision really totally outweighs the negatives so much to the point that the Marines are at a huge disadvantage right out of the gate.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> the dark isn't that bad. I personally agree though, the powernode thing is silly in it's current state. I think it potentially can be a useful balance point, but it's more annoying than anything else right now. To some small degree it counters the marine's ability to turtle unfairly... but that really isn't fixed still, and there's a dozen things in the game that power nodes hurt. I don't really see the logic behind why it's needed either.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And performance, for either side, is abysmal. Read the tech support subforum. There are people out there with massively powerful desktop pc's, that even being custom built would rank up in the thousands of dollars to build, are getting horrible performance. We're talking people with 4.4ghz hexacore CPU's, SLI GPU's (such as Nvidia 680's or 90's), 16+ GB DDR3 ram, water cooling all that snazzy stuff getting 30 or less FPS during any part of gameplay. And it's not just "a few", TONS of people with high end systems have the same or similar issues. It's all over the Steam forums, all over reddit, even here. I'm sure UWE worked hard on the "Spark" Engine but at this point your choice to move from the Source engine was a poor choice, very poor. It may not have the latest and greatest eye candy like the Cry3 Engine but some modern Source games like Left 4 Dead 2 can still look good on all high settings. Was it a monetary issue? UWE couldn't afford to license the Source engine? As a small team you thought it better to go build an engine from the ground up?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->this is half true, and it's unfair. You don't require a obsidian cube to run NS2. I'm running a 6 year old machine that does a pretty good job with NS2.
Yes, there is a developmental dev team side to this issue. NS2 is running on a custom built engine made by 1 guy. They don't have the R&D team that most game companies have to quickly and efficiently polish out all the bugs. These performance issues will be addressed, it will just take some time. Try to be patient with a 3 man dev team on issues like this. They're not EA, they can't afford to assign 15 people to bug hunting the day after launch.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And that really leads me to think that within seven days, UWE has dropped the ball. We've had one patch in that time, that didn't really fix much. Soooo many people have some form of performance issue, and we've yet to see really ANYTHING in terms of communication from the UWE team in the tech support subforum. There's a few sticky threads on common issues people are having but at this point someone from UWE publicly saying "ok we see X Y and Z are issues we're working on them" would go so so much in their favor but all we see are one or two of the player testers just telling people to post their log files and such (which really, uploading a 50MB file as a forum attachment is getting a bit out of hand. Pretty much all of us are broadband users but not everyone's ISP, which may be their ONLY option for an ISP, have unlimited data plans so asking people to upload a file that can be large is not good. I believe one users log file was over 100MB...).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->So basically, you've played the game once and what you're really mad about is that it's not working quite right yet, and you're an impatient git who had to waste everyones time with irrelevant completely thoughtless complaints. 50 megabytes is negligable, I was uploading that kind of data on dialup ffs. It took an hour then, but you're not talking about half a gig here.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So for years, I've looked forward to NS2. Every now and then I'd get an email from UWE pointing me to new screen shots, or a new video showing off this or that. I was eager for it. I loved NS1, if you looked at my Xfire profile I played close to 500+ hours of it (logged time) over the years. NS2 has been a huge disappointment. If I could get Steam to refund me, I would. But Steam does not do refunds. So I guess I'm S.O.L for the $30 I spent.
Caveat Emptor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Jesus, I'm so mad at you right now. Don't let the goddamn door hit you on the way out!
Recent releases I have really enjoyed?
Torchlight 2 was great. Awesomenauts was a surprise hit for a 2D moba, and while it may be old for some the PC port of Castle Crashers was good. I enjoyed Guild Wars 2 for the first month or so but my guild is very small so after hitting end game wasn't much to do (still a great game overall though).
That's just recently. In the last year or so, I'd say other great indie titles such as Binding of Isaac, Magicka, and Ravaged have been very enjoyable.
I tend to lean towards more indie titles than I do larger "AAA" titles, some are hit n miss while others knock it out of the ballpark.