Whats is the plan to revive ns2?

waflzwaflz Join Date: 2012-09-07 Member: 158459Members
When Ns2 first came out we had a huge amount of players, over the months we have been reduced to mabey 500 players at some peak times.

Does the Ns2 devs have a plan to revive the game?

Ns1 died but not nearly as quickly as Ns2 seems to be.

Its really unfortunate , Its really sad, but im wondering if there is going to be a master plan?

TBG is already shutting down one of their servers due to the lack of interest.

Comments

  • GrimfangGrimfang Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13086Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    I still see plenty of full servers, I still play and enjoy the game. I don't think the game needs to be revived, it just needs a few news once in a while. My opinion is that it is getting these news and updates. there are tournaments almost every week, the game gets updated often, I think it look good. But on top of this it's soon summer, and that often means less people playing, nomatter which game, so it will come back again when it gets colder.
  • YMICrazyYMICrazy Join Date: 2012-11-02 Member: 165986Members
    edited May 2013
    NS1 was a free HL mod in a time where many had Half life. I am guessing the plan is working on performance and a content patch. Let's be honest despite all the balance issues the game has no one wants to play a game that requires a super OCed cpu when they can turn to something that runs better on their average PCs. There is also the BT mod but does anyone honestly think it will bring in more players in it's current state? The mod is basically influenced mostly by advanced/experienced players and imo will complicate the situation. On the other hand the current vanilla game is already in the low 900s and that is only at a peak with the number dropping after. There are stacking issues as well as hackers.

    http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=4920

    Though I will say the current player count seems pretty stable as it has been around 900 for a while and could possibly fall into the high 800s soon. Not dead yet so there is a good chance it can make a comeback. If it does not work out maybe they will move on to another game but at this point they are in a tough spot since supporting a game with money, time, and other resources when it is not growing is not very profitable. I would say F2P is a last effort to revive the game if it gets to the point where there are barely any players because that is a better alternative to an empty game. But I doubt it will get to that point this year.
  • waflzwaflz Join Date: 2012-09-07 Member: 158459Members
    Keep in mind that most free singleplayer games that have less advertizing have more people playing on a regular basis.

    That could be due to the nature of the game, which really does suck.

    I found that most people try ns2 and get turned off when they die constantly playing a skulk.


    Whatever happens i hope this game continues on, i hope we get up to 3000 players again, or else , like you said, no money, no players = no game or no support.
  • kespeckespec Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172279Members
    they can maybe abandon their competitive oriented designs. like *shotgun*yes
  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited June 2013
    Sweet summer child.

    Things in development that have been announced:
    luajit work
    Biodome Map
    Female Marine
    Balance Mod intergration
    New DirectX11 and OpenGL Renderer

    Things not announced but community has found through lua files:
    Grenades

    Unnannounced features:
    XXXXXXXXX
    XXXXXX <- This will be awesome
    ns2_XXXXXXX
    XXXXXXX
    Oh and dont forget:
    XXXXXXX.

    saba-troll-face-sml.png

    Plenty to look forward to! :)
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES&#33; FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS&#33; Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    How do you revive ns2?
    Infantry portals.
  • ScatterScatter Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
    This is probably the last chance people will give the game so the performance and game play must be correct this time.

    Also, female marine reducing immersion lmao.
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    Obraxis wrote: »
    Sweet summer child.

    Things in development that have been announced:
    luajit work
    Biodome Map
    Female Marine
    Balance Mod intergration
    New DirectX11 and OpenGL Renderer

    Things not announced but community has found through lua files:
    Grenades

    Unnannounced features:
    XXXXXXXXX
    XXXXXX <- This will be awesome
    ns2_XXXXXXX
    XXXXXXX
    Oh and dont forget:
    XXXXXXX.

    saba-troll-face-sml.png

    Plenty to look forward to! :)

    They also found a matching service or a find player service ;p
  • JektJekt Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited June 2013
    That was just a pipedream Hugh posted. I doubt any development time has actually gone into any sort of match making system.
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    Jekt wrote: »
    That was just a pipedream Hugh posted. I doubt any development time has actually gone into any sort of match making system.

    but there's a find player file :(
  • billetbillet Join Date: 2012-10-02 Member: 161318Members
    I agree with scatter and that if the next update does not hit the sweet spot, NS2 will be lost forever.
    The NS2 scene in Australia is dead. There are no clans (but one). There are no scrims. ENSL and CyberGamer just finished and I doubt very much if there will be another season. RIP AUS NS2
  • XaoXao Join Date: 2012-12-12 Member: 174840Members
    Fuck Australia.

    So ns_eclipse and biodome are confirmed? Was honestly hoping both would be out the door next whenever...

    Really hoping BT mod gets out the door, knowing UWE the fact they haven't even offered up a release date which typically gets delayed after being announced at least once is starting to worry, I don't even see public servers lasting till the end of June in Aus.
  • waflzwaflz Join Date: 2012-09-07 Member: 158459Members
    Its unfortunate that the League play is out the window, I say balance it for 10v10 or something a bit more pub friendly.

    Ns1 was an amazing game but it fell behind its time. Ns2 is a great game but 90% of pub plays are ending 10min in due to stacking or people leaving. The game needs more.

    Nades

    When they added nades into ns1 it didnt add more players it just changed the gameplay abit.

    - Most of what the previous people posted are blanked out by an admin unfortunatly, They will not get more players blanking out plans.
  • measlesmeasles Join Date: 2007-02-26 Member: 60122Members, Constellation

    I don't know about internationally. But, I haven't been active primarily due to the cramming on 18+ plyr servers which are not the official servers.
    10 plyrs is a good game. give or take 4 or 5..
  • shriikeshriike Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184461Members
    You can't deny that ns2 is slowly declining in activity. I joined the first free weekend of ns2, and since then it's gone done a lot. You at least definitely can't confirm it's gotten more active.

    ns2 needs something to keep players here. I had a friend that I used to play ns2 with all the time, and he no longer wants to play because the game doesn't contribute to any kind of investment into it.

    ns2 needs to incorporate gathers into the matchmaking. Something similar to CS:GO. Along with a ranking system and leaderboards which match you with other players similar to your rank. Maybe unlockable appearances like armor, or effects (tracers/ability effects). A quick join for pubs would be cool too.
  • abluemanablueman Join Date: 2013-09-09 Member: 188045Members
    shriike wrote: »
    You can't deny that ns2 is slowly declining in activity. I joined the first free weekend of ns2, and since then it's gone done a lot. You at least definitely can't confirm it's gotten more active.


    This ^ comment is a little silly (no offense).

    Most games will "start" with a spike in traffic. Then they drop to a plateu. If you look at the all time steam graph thats exactly whats happened. You can see the daily spike and trough and to me it looks like that has stayed fairly constant. I dont think NS2 is declining, its just not climbing, part of that being slow will be the lack of funds to market and promote, dont forget this is a small game in the grand scheme. It doesnt have nearly the budget of the bigger titles.

    If they can just expand on NS1 and make money it will give them a chance to get a bigger budget. That will involve community driven promotion and modding they can only promote so much with their budget.

    They are developing the game and they arnt introducing the microtransactions what many smaller games rely on for income. This will mean that they have to find the money elsewhere or develop in another way.

    Its a hard line they are walking.

  • SpiritwindSpiritwind Join Date: 2008-04-20 Member: 64116Members
    edited September 2013
    At the time of writing this post, steam shows 799 players currently in NS2, with a peak of 1,381. While yes, this isn't fantastic, it isn't necessarily bad either, given the amount of servers there are.

    I have seen a gradual almost constant increase in player counts since the Gorgeous Update and the free weekends. The devs are actively working on new content, making it easier for new players, and doing promotional material often like discounts and free weekends.

    Personally, I think we can expect to see full servers and a decent amount of players over the next year or two, however, unless they can do something that brings a drastic amount of players, I can see it settling down to maybe one or two full servers after that period of time.

    You can personally help by inviting your friends, recommending the game on steam, and joining gaming communitys and writing a recommendation for the game on the forums, and also requesting that they get a server for it. If everyone who played ns2 at its peak hour today invited a friend and they played, then the peak would have been over 2,000, and that would be higher than 75% of the other games on steam.

    I think one thing the devs should do; is work towards something that will get them features on PC Gaming magazines like Pc Gamer, and then work in coop to give them the special details of what will be in it before they release it. Make it exclusive to them, so they feel special and will put it as their headline. They should also talk to facebook groups about possible advertising, as the pc gaming world for some reason dosent really know what NS2 is.
  • Madkow990Madkow990 Join Date: 2013-09-10 Member: 188108Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I think the best thing that we can do as a community to help NS2 survive & grow is broken down into three things;

    -Give constant feedback to the dev's for improvements on game play mechanics and performance issues.

    Self Explanatory

    -Dedicate our time to retain more rookie's through training and empathy.

    The game needs more commanders, (half the time my server empties it is due to a lack of commanders so we need to train them) This might be one of the top selling games on steam, but with a high learning curve if we don't give rookies a good experience when they first play, they will most likely close down the game and never come back. All the promo events like the free weekends/sales won't do squat if we don't help retain customers.

    -Talk about the game and all the improvements the dev's have made with our friends, random people on other games, and on social media. (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch)

    Shit half the time I check twitch to see if there are NS2 streams to watch while relaxing, there may be only one or two live channels. If people try to see what kind of game NS2 is on twitch, they are definitely missing all the fun many of us are having and will continue on to the next thing. (we need to create a raging fervor around this game)


    If we can do all these things as a community, then I believe NS2 will have a bright future. I am trying my hardest right now to do my part within my gaming community to start writing really fleshed out gameplay mechanics/ strategy guides for players and commanders. Right now they are slowly being organized and posted, but when they are complete it is something I am going to show in the general forums for rookies and existing players to look at to try and develop the player-base.

    What do you guys think?
  • iClearSkiesiClearSkies Join Date: 2012-09-22 Member: 160359Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    Well it should be put more in retrospect that there isn't anything that needs to be ADDED to the game. The thing that sold NS1 in Particular was the amount of users who contributed to the MOD-BASE. Now don't get me wrong we have a really good mod base with some of the order core mods coming back to NS2 (IE Combat, MvM Mods, Texture edits) but there is a majority of mods that just Paint up what UWE has made, sure anyone can change a texture, lighting scheme, but I remember when I played NS1 I had a ****-TON of mods that helped me out Client side rather then server side (IE SFX, Particle Effects, Sounds, UI Interfaces, Custom messages [Bind X "Say Commander I have %h and %a and im Currently in %l awaiting orders."]) I see too much game communication and not enough player communication which NS1 and the HL1 engine was based around, fun ideas that typically were hilarious with meta-mod like Confetti weapons and sparkle explosions were fun and added a hilarity to the game which kept the game partly fresh but removed from the monotony of "Great, in a new server, do this and this rinse wash and repeat.....Boring" Instead of working on new content I highly suggest that as a community we help UWE and dust off those old script books and bring some ideas to the table.

    As for me im going to be working on client side projects that will include some excluded LUA codes and some interesting concepts using the IMPROVED TEAM HUD on the workshop. but my main goal is to work on CLIENT based mods (not just TEXTURES) that can help newer players get accustomed to the game as well as tools for better skilled players to help improve their game.
  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    Well it should be put more in retrospect that there isn't anything that needs to be ADDED to the game. The thing that sold NS1 in Particular was the amount of users who contributed to the MOD-BASE. Now don't get me wrong we have a really good mod base with some of the order core mods coming back to NS2 (IE Combat, MvM Mods, Texture edits) but there is a majority of mods that just Paint up what UWE has made, sure anyone can change a texture, lighting scheme, but I remember when I played NS1 I had a ****-TON of mods that helped me out Client side rather then server side (IE SFX, Particle Effects, Sounds, UI Interfaces, Custom messages [Bind X "Say Commander I have %h and %a and im Currently in %l awaiting orders."]) I see too much game communication and not enough player communication which NS1 and the HL1 engine was based around, fun ideas that typically were hilarious with meta-mod like Confetti weapons and sparkle explosions were fun and added a hilarity to the game which kept the game partly fresh but removed from the monotony of "Great, in a new server, do this and this rinse wash and repeat.....Boring" Instead of working on new content I highly suggest that as a community we help UWE and dust off those old script books and bring some ideas to the table.

    As for me im going to be working on client side projects that will include some excluded LUA codes and some interesting concepts using the IMPROVED TEAM HUD on the workshop. but my main goal is to work on CLIENT based mods (not just TEXTURES) that can help newer players get accustomed to the game as well as tools for better skilled players to help improve their game.

    Well, it's pretty hard to make lua mods pass consistency, especially ones that involve GUI files, but good luck!
  • 1dominator11dominator1 Join Date: 2010-11-19 Member: 75011Members
    I am sure female marine will bring the public flocking back.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    I was going to say revert to 249, but ironhorse gets mad at me every time I do.
  • NeXuSNeXuS US Join Date: 2013-10-13 Member: 188681Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    I didn't realize NS2 needed reviving. Hmm
  • GhoulofGSG9GhoulofGSG9 Join Date: 2013-03-31 Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
    edited December 2013
    NeXuS wrote: »
    I didn't realize NS2 needed reviving. Hmm

    Have you looked at the date of this thread? May 28 ... Let the dead (Squad5) rest in peace ;)
  • twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Squad 5, assemble! We need a plan!
  • DecoyDecoy Join Date: 2012-09-11 Member: 159037Members, Super Administrators, Playtest Lead, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts, Retired Community Developer
    ...

    I'm sinking this thread. We don't need to constantly re-necro it. If someone has something to add to the discussion, please start a new thread in the appropriate place (perhaps general discussion)
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