11 years passed... seriously!?
Holy crappers, 11 years since joining this community and the first time logging in since '05, I had to make a post to reach out and see if any of the old crew still hang around, people like Fangs, Lerky, Kyliegirl, SSJ-Rene, CplDavis and shitloads of others. Another special shout out to any NSRadio contributers! Man, the stories and experiences shared here a decade ago, can't believe it is all still here... seems like a good time to start again!
Comments
But we do have bendable TV screens. Close enough.
Some of the NS Radio stuff is online still. One day I should make downloads for it all.
SO MANY OLDE PEOPLE! RUN AWAY!
Seems this is a thread for the old school. We should be using the old school jokes.
Mostly this thread could use a little MonsE and Nem0 but I suppose that's not likely to happen.
Anyways, yep, still here.
Hah, the nostalgia
NS2 is cool and beautiful but it's not fast/dynamic enough to satisfy my urges these days.
That is the original "hovaring scorpian" by smartbomb though
--Scythe--
Through the magic of the way back machine you can find out from the original manual/fronteirsmen new recruit primer thing: http://web.archive.org/web/20031005110143/http://www.natural-selection.org/manual/introduction.html
Also, random nostalgia:
Going by your join date you joined when NS 2.0 had been released.
NS 1.0x played very, very differently from NS 2.0 and onwards. It wasn't better, but it was so different you could almost say the original NS died when 2.0 was released, and was replaced by a very different game with the same art work. I knew a few people who left and never came back because 2.0 wasn't the same game they loved.
All the maps were very much darker and had higher contrast. NS 2.0 and onwards introduced quite bland lighting to prevent people from gaining an advantage by tinkering with gamma.
In NS 1.04 the gorge recieved 3 times as much res as the rest of the team and was the only alien that could recieve more than 33 res on the first hive. You almost never saw more than 1 gorge at the same time. I think hives cost 80 res. Other aliens were capped at 33 on the first hive, 66 on the second and 99 on the third. You could not get fades on 1 hive, you could not get onos on 2 hives. If aliens had 33 res, the spare res overflowed to the gorge, which resulted in OC/DC walls of lame and if the marines locked the aliens down on one hive without managing to finish it outright.
Many rounds started with a skulk rush, at least in public, because only one gorge was needed to build.
Mines had lasers, like trip mines from HL.
Marines HAD to lock down at least one hive or the were done. Aliens HAD to prevent marines from locking down two hives, or they would have great difficulty taking down the turret spam in each hive.
I can't remember if aliens could use the phasegate in 1.04, but they could in 1.03.
Turret spam was rife. But turrets were also a lot weaker; they didn't track aliens very well. Often you could circle strafe them or find a blind spot, or pick of the TF with spikes and clean it up with skulks if marines were not defending.
The lerk flight model was pretty terrible. Lerk had spikes and bite (almost unusuable) on 1 hive. Second hive unlocked umbra. Third hive unlocked ridiculously effective spores that stacked and did damage even to heavies.
If aliens got a second hive, but not a third, the game preceeded to the mid game. Marines would try to take the hive down with JP and HMG if they had decent players, or heavies if they were a bit rubbish. HMG did full damage to structures and was absolutely lethal.
Aliens would unlock fades. Fades slash and a teleport style blink, which often got them stuck in grates. They had acid rocket, which had high damage and splash range (not the "vinegar splash" rockets of later versions). Third hive unlocked bilebomb, which did massive damage to marines and structures.
Aliens pretty much won if they managed to take down marine spawn without an effective relocation or gained the third hive. Marines won if they managed to take down the second hive.
If aliens got the third hive, they unlocked the onos. Which had a tiny 32x32x64 unit hitbox (the player hull of a marine). It was difficult to hit because it was mostly air. There was no devour; instead it had gore, paralyse (ranged stun, similar to parasite), charge and primal scream. When aliens got onos they almost invariably crushed the marines, even if they managed to take down the third hive.
When NS 2.0 was released, Nancy and Bast, which played well and were very popular in NS 1.04, were broken due to clip hull changes for the onos. The map sources had been lost and they were only painstakingly remade; but they never played as well or were as popular as before. NS_nothing never played as well either IMO.
NS 2.0 speeded things up. In NS 1.0x there used to be what was described as epic games, which see-sawed back and forth, sometimes for hours. Today I think they would be described as tedious; and they would end in 20 minutes due to concede instead of an "epic" series of base trades, relocates into bizarre places like vents and unexpected rushes and comebacks lasting 5 hours; with people leaving for dinner and comming back to discover the same game they left was still going on etc.