@Thorondor you can do the vauge math by the spikes in the free weekends vs the pickup after the free weekends. The problem is it's a very hard game to learn and appreciate the little things. The performance increase in the last patch should significantly help though!
Then compare it with others games... you'll see that it is not so much different, look at Chivalry for example which is a much more easy game to learn.
I'm a noob. I never, ever, would have tried this game if it hadn't have been for the free weekend. It looked cool, but I'm not going to spend $25 on a game I haven't even tried. The free weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out, and it was on sale as well. Pretty simple decision.
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
The pre free weekend average was around 1500 concurrent players. I'm guessing it'll be at around 2.5 - 3k for the first week or so and then gradually lapse to about 2k. (Hopefully not much further below that for a while, which is a pretty decent for a MP FPS game to be honest)
Not too hopeful about the conversion rate myself. Almost every game I've played in since the free weekend started has been an absolute mess. Maybe some of the new people will enjoy that kind of thing though I suppose.
UWE, I think you need to pay particular attention to this post! I totally agree with this statement. The veterans tried our best to make the games fun but its so hard with such total noobs! I think next time you do a free weekend, if you really want to capture these people and get them to buy it you need to find a way to give them a glimpse of what the game is REALLY meant to be like. I think very few noobs got to see this side of the game, and the awesomeness that lies within a properly matched game. I think if everyone got to see that, a lot more people would have bought the game.
In the future, I'm not sure what could be done, but an idea I had would be something like making it so noobs were stuck in "rookie" mode for at least 1 hour of gameplay. And while in rookie mode, they are forced to auto-connect to very specific servers where the game environment is a little more scripted. Possibly make it so if the commander is doing absolutely nothing, the game will step in and help him out a little - like drop a few res nodes and auto-instruct other players to go build them, auto-drop important structures but have a voiceover explain why it did that and why it is important. Sort of like a live tutorial.
And for the standard marines / skulks, it should be more interactive with helping them understand what is happening around them. If the commander drops something, it should pop up a little clip explaining what to do, and if they don't do it, temporarily take control of their character to show them how to do it once.
Also we need to make sure the rookies arent getting steamrolled by veteran players! I'm not sure you guys understand how crippling and demoralizing to a new player. I personally saw dozens of noobs get stomped again and again by a few veterans until they just rage quit. About 25% of them even typed in or spoke on their mic something to the extent of "this game is terrible, I just die instantly" and they rage quit with a record of 0 & 25 and probably never came back. I think it would be critical to force players to stay in these rookie servers for an hour or 2 so that they can learn to play with other rookies and not get steam rolled so badly. Maybe even throw in a couple bots on each team that would roam the map and do constructive things like build structures and gorge up areas but not really be that effective at killing anybody - but they would at least allow the game to progress somewhat normally in the absence of any veterans.
Staying in rookie only servers would prevent them from encountering helpful players who can show them the ropes. Your two goals seem to be conflicting here - playing with all rookies doesn't show them anything about the "real" NS2. I agree there could be better tutorial prompts, but I think the fact of the matter is that NS2 does have a steep learning curve, and in order to succeed in the game you have to be willing to commit yourself to learning it for a little while. If someone is going to get frustrated and give up after an hour or two because they're not doing well, this game probably isn't for them. The fact that the game has landed solidly in the Top 10 after the end of the free weekend shows that there are plenty of people willing to do that.
For reference, the most popular game on steam (Dota2) has 5% of active/concurrent players. The #2 game has 1%, and it goes down fast from there. There are LOTS of games to choose from on steam, and NS2 is doing very well to be in the top 100 (#36) after the free weekend is over. Retention after two weeks will tell a better story, but I'm hoping for/expecting perhaps 500 more players in the evenings than pre-free-weekend.
For reference, the most popular game on steam (Dota2) has 5% of active/concurrent players. The #2 game has 1%, and it goes down fast from there. There are LOTS of games to choose from on steam, and NS2 is doing very well to be in the top 100 (#36) after the free weekend is over. Retention after two weeks will tell a better story, but I'm hoping for/expecting perhaps 500 more players in the evenings than pre-free-weekend.
Which if that comes true is like a +33% which is huge.
The pre free weekend average was around 1500 concurrent players. I'm guessing it'll be at around 2.5 - 3k for the first week or so and then gradually lapse to about 2k. (Hopefully not much further below that for a while, which is a pretty decent for a MP FPS game to be honest)
I'm a noob. I never, ever, would have tried this game if it hadn't have been for the free weekend. It looked cool, but I'm not going to spend $25 on a game I haven't even tried. The free weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out, and it was on sale as well. Pretty simple decision.
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
I'm a noob. I never, ever, would have tried this game if it hadn't have been for the free weekend. It looked cool, but I'm not going to spend $25 on a game I haven't even tried. The free weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out, and it was on sale as well. Pretty simple decision.
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
Yeah, I've messed around with other alien classes as well, mostly in Explore mode. Lerk is fun. But in public matches, I still spend most of my time as a Skulk.
I'm a noob. I never, ever, would have tried this game if it hadn't have been for the free weekend. It looked cool, but I'm not going to spend $25 on a game I haven't even tried. The free weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out, and it was on sale as well. Pretty simple decision.
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
obviously you do.net fully appreciate the lerk then. you can fly.... let me repeat that flyyyyy
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
Yeah, I've messed around with other alien classes as well, mostly in Explore mode. Lerk is fun. But in public matches, I still spend most of my time as a Skulk.
quick tip ground lerk is a dead lerk. only perch if you're healing or chewing something down, and spiking is secondary fire for a reason. 2solid bites + 2spikes will kill a0 marines. and spores are phenomenal for delaying ground reinforcements.
I'm a noob. I never, ever, would have tried this game if it hadn't have been for the free weekend. It looked cool, but I'm not going to spend $25 on a game I haven't even tried. The free weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out, and it was on sale as well. Pretty simple decision.
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
obviously you do.net fully appreciate the lerk then. you can fly.... let me repeat that flyyyyy
Oh, trust me, I do. Lerk is a very close second in my opinion. In fact, I often refuse to play Onos even when I have enough res because I like Lerk/Fade so much more. Yeah, Onos is better, but it's kind of boring...
onos is probably the most boring alien to play... it's legitimately my least favorite life form.
I find this to typically be due to the time at which the Onos comes out, and in that way, it suffers in much the same way vortex does.
If the alien team gets an Onos, its typically because they are winning rediculously easily. At such a point, running around stomping level 1 marines and goring them is pretty boring, I agree. If you've ever played an Onos in a close game, as what is essentially the linchpin of the entire team, its far more entertaining, at least from my perspective.
Basically, if you are running around attacking dudes with the Onos, chances are you're doing it wrong. 90% of your time should be spent attacking nothing but structures, running away the moment marines reinforce, and quickly relocating to another location. That's how I play it anyway.
The Onos is a disposable bullet magnet/shield/stomp machine to cover Gorges and Skulks biting a powernode while Fades and Lerks disorientate the marines!
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
Yeah, I've messed around with other alien classes as well, mostly in Explore mode. Lerk is fun. But in public matches, I still spend most of my time as a Skulk.
quick tip ground lerk is a dead lerk. only perch if you're healing or chewing something down, and spiking is secondary fire for a reason. 2solid bites + 2spikes will kill a0 marines. and spores are phenomenal for delaying ground reinforcements.
I personally always fly right past the marines, they think they're safe until my teammates come around the corner and they find out I've farted all over their only escape route.
Not too hopeful about the conversion rate myself. Almost every game I've played in since the free weekend started has been an absolute mess. Maybe some of the new people will enjoy that kind of thing though I suppose.
UWE, I think you need to pay particular attention to this post! I totally agree with this statement. The veterans tried our best to make the games fun but its so hard with such total noobs! I think next time you do a free weekend, if you really want to capture these people and get them to buy it you need to find a way to give them a glimpse of what the game is REALLY meant to be like. I think very few noobs got to see this side of the game, and the awesomeness that lies within a properly matched game. I think if everyone got to see that, a lot more people would have bought the game.
In the future, I'm not sure what could be done, but an idea I had would be something like making it so noobs were stuck in "rookie" mode for at least 1 hour of gameplay. And while in rookie mode, they are forced to auto-connect to very specific servers where the game environment is a little more scripted. Possibly make it so if the commander is doing absolutely nothing, the game will step in and help him out a little - like drop a few res nodes and auto-instruct other players to go build them, auto-drop important structures but have a voiceover explain why it did that and why it is important. Sort of like a live tutorial.
And for the standard marines / skulks, it should be more interactive with helping them understand what is happening around them. If the commander drops something, it should pop up a little clip explaining what to do, and if they don't do it, temporarily take control of their character to show them how to do it once.
Also we need to make sure the rookies arent getting steamrolled by veteran players! I'm not sure you guys understand how crippling and demoralizing to a new player. I personally saw dozens of noobs get stomped again and again by a few veterans until they just rage quit. About 25% of them even typed in or spoke on their mic something to the extent of "this game is terrible, I just die instantly" and they rage quit with a record of 0 & 25 and probably never came back. I think it would be critical to force players to stay in these rookie servers for an hour or 2 so that they can learn to play with other rookies and not get steam rolled so badly. Maybe even throw in a couple bots on each team that would roam the map and do constructive things like build structures and gorge up areas but not really be that effective at killing anybody - but they would at least allow the game to progress somewhat normally in the absence of any veterans.
Staying in rookie only servers would prevent them from encountering helpful players who can show them the ropes. Your two goals seem to be conflicting here - playing with all rookies doesn't show them anything about the "real" NS2. I agree there could be better tutorial prompts, but I think the fact of the matter is that NS2 does have a steep learning curve, and in order to succeed in the game you have to be willing to commit yourself to learning it for a little while. If someone is going to get frustrated and give up after an hour or two because they're not doing well, this game probably isn't for them. The fact that the game has landed solidly in the Top 10 after the end of the free weekend shows that there are plenty of people willing to do that.
Just because the free weekend brought in a lot of sales, does not mean it couldn't have done better. I personally encountered players - some who were long time gamers- who got too frustrated with the game, said theres no way they will buy it, and rage quit. You can't expect every player in the world to have Zen-like patience who will be willing to get obliterated for hours on end by veterans. Its just not fun and you know it.
Personally when I was learning in NS1 I had to join server after server until I found people of lower skill levels so that I could stay alive for more than 5 seconds to actually learn how to play. But during this free weekend, I think many players did not get that chance, they were thrown into the meat grinder, chewed up and spit out never to return.
The free weekend gave ame a good chance to improve my commanding. With none of the new players wanting to do it I simply hopped in and did my thing. It was a good opportunity for exsisting players also in my opinion
Comments
So far I really like playing Skulk. I'm typically a skulk-only alien because I die a lot and skulks are free. I'll probably die less when I get this installed on my other computer, since this computer gets really low framerates. I'm glad I got to try it out, this is a great game.
For now it looks like this
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=4920&from=1363627300
The pre free weekend average was around 1500 concurrent players. I'm guessing it'll be at around 2.5 - 3k for the first week or so and then gradually lapse to about 2k. (Hopefully not much further below that for a while, which is a pretty decent for a MP FPS game to be honest)
Staying in rookie only servers would prevent them from encountering helpful players who can show them the ropes. Your two goals seem to be conflicting here - playing with all rookies doesn't show them anything about the "real" NS2. I agree there could be better tutorial prompts, but I think the fact of the matter is that NS2 does have a steep learning curve, and in order to succeed in the game you have to be willing to commit yourself to learning it for a little while. If someone is going to get frustrated and give up after an hour or two because they're not doing well, this game probably isn't for them. The fact that the game has landed solidly in the Top 10 after the end of the free weekend shows that there are plenty of people willing to do that.
Which if that comes true is like a +33% which is huge.
I think averaging over 2k after two weeks would be a nice boost.
Edit: NS2 also back up to #3 on Steam Top Sellers
And at a regular price too! So the combined efforts of UWE and the community seem to pay off. Awesome!
http://www.steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=219640q4920&from=1356984000000&to=1364155200000
I think if anything it shows that NS2's player retention rate is pretty stable once it hits around 1.5 - 2 k.
willkommen
Welcome! It's great to have you, and I'm sure your appreciation of the game will only increase the more you play. I'm just now reaching the point where I can command without destroying my team's chances, and as I've learned more about the game I've grown to love it even more. Try out the other aliens when you get the chance to - I personally think playing Fade is about the most fun you can have in almost any game.
I will assume this means 'welcome, man', to which I say, "Thank you!".
Edit: Oh, just googled this. It's German for 'welcome'. Well, close enough. I still say, "Danke!"
Yeah, I've messed around with other alien classes as well, mostly in Explore mode. Lerk is fun. But in public matches, I still spend most of my time as a Skulk.
obviously you do.net fully appreciate the lerk then. you can fly.... let me repeat that flyyyyy
quick tip ground lerk is a dead lerk. only perch if you're healing or chewing something down, and spiking is secondary fire for a reason. 2solid bites + 2spikes will kill a0 marines. and spores are phenomenal for delaying ground reinforcements.
Oh, trust me, I do. Lerk is a very close second in my opinion. In fact, I often refuse to play Onos even when I have enough res because I like Lerk/Fade so much more. Yeah, Onos is better, but it's kind of boring...
I find this to typically be due to the time at which the Onos comes out, and in that way, it suffers in much the same way vortex does.
If the alien team gets an Onos, its typically because they are winning rediculously easily. At such a point, running around stomping level 1 marines and goring them is pretty boring, I agree. If you've ever played an Onos in a close game, as what is essentially the linchpin of the entire team, its far more entertaining, at least from my perspective.
Basically, if you are running around attacking dudes with the Onos, chances are you're doing it wrong. 90% of your time should be spent attacking nothing but structures, running away the moment marines reinforce, and quickly relocating to another location. That's how I play it anyway.
I personally always fly right past the marines, they think they're safe until my teammates come around the corner and they find out I've farted all over their only escape route.
Just because the free weekend brought in a lot of sales, does not mean it couldn't have done better. I personally encountered players - some who were long time gamers- who got too frustrated with the game, said theres no way they will buy it, and rage quit. You can't expect every player in the world to have Zen-like patience who will be willing to get obliterated for hours on end by veterans. Its just not fun and you know it.
Personally when I was learning in NS1 I had to join server after server until I found people of lower skill levels so that I could stay alive for more than 5 seconds to actually learn how to play. But during this free weekend, I think many players did not get that chance, they were thrown into the meat grinder, chewed up and spit out never to return.