Games are already at a terrible quality. A matchmaking putting people of same skill together in a 6v6 environment can only lead to better quality games. It would also help balancing the game wich CANNOT BE BALANCED FOR BOTH COMPETITIVE 6v6 AND PUBLIC ?v? AT THE SAME TIME.
The casual player doesnt like 6 v 6 and it will not work for public since people want and do join and leave whenever they feel like it.
Competitive balance for 6 v 6 should not be a priority given the size of our comp. scene and the fact that (caps attack) COMPETITIVE PLAY IS BASICLY ALWAYS BALANCED SINCE YOU PLAY A ROUND OF BOTH ALIENS AND MARINES AND IN THE END THE SNAILS WIN ANYWAY.
@1dominator1 makes a good point about 'innovation' (skill) diffusion in the community.
The mm system is made for public too. Thats the point, put public players in a good environment of play. And I don't think that the casual player do not like 6v6, he probably doesn't even know what it is. He never had a chance to try it! Could you imagine, if everyone was to play skill balanced, game balanced games everytime? Yeah they'd hate it.
Of course not everyone would like it, some would still prefer to go play on 50players servers, but why balance the game around that mess??
Also I disagree with the join and leave thing. You will always have the occasional leaver, but even casual players who start a mm match know they are supposed to stay till the end and expect the others to do it too, again thats the point of mm. Again look at LoL or CS:GO, not everyone using the mm system is a top competitive player. And it is controllable.
And no, competitive play is not always balanced because you play both rounds lol, that is completly retarded to say. Especially since the tournaments in ns2 have been best of impair rounds, wich in the case of an extremely imbalanced game leads to a cointoss win. Well I guess you are right then, 50-50. But I agree with you, the snails win in the end because they are the best.
ns2 mm is nothing like cs:go for a start, secondly - The community is that small that it will never benefit from Match Making, If i want a pug i'll go onto US mumble, AU mumble or EU TS and go from channel to channel and get 12. Not make a game that i still need to find the players to have a game on a server that has no mods, crappy performance.
Besides in a game like ns2 you want to mix experienced people and newbies, so the latter could learn from the former and improve the community. Ghettoising the newbies will just lead to lower quality games.
You mean like how almost every popular sport on the planet 'Ghetto's the newbies' ? I wonder why they do that ... hmmmmm??? Maybe reality is telling us something about your "theory" ?
I have to agree, it's pretty obvious UWE has done a terrible job. Yeah yeah, I know that ever since release, they have made some massive improvements on the level of performance, server browser, ingame tutorials, gameplay mechanics, as well as provided a ton of new content, promoted competitive tournaments, and that they are still busy polishing the game even further... but...well... shame on them for whatever reason!
that is completly retarded to say. (...) you are right
Ok, maybe slightly out of context.
More importantly: you seem to assume that you know what's best for the pubscene (namely: compstyle 6v6 games).
I firmly believe that those players can and do decide for themselves (namely: 12v12 non-stop chaotic action without to much responsibiliy and chores).
I have to agree, it's pretty obvious UWE has done a terrible job. Yeah yeah, I know that ever since release, they have made some massive improvements on the level of performance, server browser, ingame tutorials, gameplay mechanics, as well as provided a ton of new content, promoted competitive tournaments, and that they are still busy polishing the game even further... but...well... shame on them for whatever reason!
Just had to vent for a second.
The thingy in general has been that there's loads of stuff that looks awesome on paper and a plenty of stuff that actually is quite awesome. However, then there's also a plenty of things that don't go right at all and often seem to be part of a repeating pattern. The outcome is often that the bonkers stuff mixes up with the awesome and the outcome is a mess of really nice stuff that still doesn't feel quite right.
At least I belong to a group that would be shelling money at UWE if I saw only the positives. That's the kind of development I want to support. Meanwhile as long as the negative aspects seem to stick also, I feel really uneasy committing and contributing to the game and supporting the company more than in very basic ways. For example the World Cup Tournament initiative itself is awesome. Meanwhile how the tournament was announced and how some of the earlier PR was handled made me very reclutant to actually give money to it.
Long story short, there's lots of good and there's quite a bit of bad. Fixing the bad stuff would make the good stuff stand out properly, but until that happens at least I remain pretty wary and careful when it comes to supporting the game and the company. In general, I feel they'd get much more mileage out of the good stuff if the bad stuff wasn't there too.
---
As others have put it though, the opening isn't the most constructive start for such discussion.
My largest problem with NS2 post1.0 is (and only problem really), oddly enough, the lack of transparency some times as to what is being released.
I can understand wanting to generate "hype" for marketing reasons, but there has been definitely a number of mis-communications or confusions that have arisen from the lack of more internal focused blog posts in recent months. For example, we are not sure what if any NS2 updates will focus on performance or what content we should expect (if any at all).
In the past, there were blog posts detailing what has been worked on in the month or what is to be expected. Since Reinforced, there has not been much of that.
It would be nice to know what everyone is up to and what kind of updates we should be expecting for NS2 or Spark. Making them known does not mean they have to be set in stone or something if they are tentative. Just some knowledge so people do not tear their hair out.
My largest problem with NS2 post1.0 is (and only problem really), oddly enough, the lack of transparency some times as to what is being released.
I can understand wanting to generate "hype" for marketing reasons, but there has been definitely a number of mis-communications or confusions that have arisen from the lack of more internal focused blog posts in recent months. For example, we are not sure what if any NS2 updates will focus on performance or what content we should expect (if any at all).
In the past, there were blog posts detailing what has been worked on in the month or what is to be expected. Since Reinforced, there has not been much of that.
It would be nice to know what everyone is up to and what kind of updates we should be expecting for NS2 or Spark. Making them known does not mean they have to be set in stone or something if they are tentative. Just some knowledge so people do not tear their hair out.
Agreed. I mean no dev has even commented on the huge issues with last patch. As a play tester I know some of what is coming up next patch but I could only imagine dealing with the absolutely ridiculous skulk sound and RT not flashing bug in servers for over a month and not hearing 1 word from devs on acknowledging the issue or giving eta on a fix.
And more to your point I think you are making all I mean is "hey, we know there is an issue with sound, we hope to fix it next release which will be around "x" month" type of post. Would have taken 15 seconds to do and would have quelled that million page thread on 263 release bitching about skulk sounds. For example the post acedude made about confirming they are working on fixing the hive rankings is a perfect example of the kind of quick feedback devs can make to quiet the complaints.
ns2 mm is nothing like cs:go for a start, secondly - The community is that small that it will never benefit from Match Making, If i want a pug i'll go onto US mumble, AU mumble or EU TS and go from channel to channel and get 12. Not make a game that i still need to find the players to have a game on a server that has no mods, crappy performance.
When I say mm, I am not referencing to the gather system ns2 has right now (wich doesn't appeal to anyone, I don't undertand why they made that). I am referencing to a sadly non-existant mm that would resemble the CS:GO mm or LoL mm or dota2 mm or any proper mm. Also mm is different from a pug, because you don't have to go through your teamspeak/friendlist whatever to play it, it is an official thing with ranking system and stuff that makes it simple and efficient.
More importantly: you seem to assume that you know what's best for the pubscene (namely: compstyle 6v6 games).
I firmly believe that those players can and do decide for themselves (namely: 12v12 non-stop chaotic action without to much responsibiliy and chores).
No, you don't understand what I am saying. I am not saying pubscene should be forced to play compstyle 6v6 (nor do I know that it is the best for it, but I do think so, and more importantly I think it would be the best for ns2), but rather they should have the choice. And mm does that. Right now, you have to go through the trouble of joining a gather or finding/creating a team, arranging pcws etc... if you want to get a feeling of it. A mm system would have provided a quick and easy way of getting that feeling, in a arguably more balanced environement, with better performance. Right now, unless those players already have the required motivation to go through the hassle I jut described, I firmly believe those players don't have to decide between compstyle 6v6 or ?v?, they don't have a choice. And that's not for the best, I would say.
I am not saying pubscene should be forced to play compstyle 6v6 , but rather they should have the choice. And mm does that. Right now, you have to go through the trouble of joining a gather or finding/creating a team, arranging pcws etc...
Being a pure pub player (too busy a life to be part of a team), I do second that. I'd love to get the feel of the real thing. UWE giving us pub players the choice would be nice & definitly good for the game and the comp scene.
What's most sad is that the player base got so irritated and left that a thread like this that six months ago would have brought arguments out of the woodwork has been up for two days and only has 2 pages of comments.
First let me say I'm not your average gamer kid. In fact I'm a C-level executive in a tech company. I have kids older than most of you and a grandson who will be consuming video games in a few years. I don't however pretend to know the game business from any view than that of a consumer.
I left NS2 back after one of the massive "balances" that was done. Something like the fifth one in six months. I liked the game a lot when it first came out. I liked some of the changes along the way, but changing things for the sake of changing things was just too much. This is only the second time I've been back to the forums since last July when I stopped playing as the forums became worse than the game.
I put tens of thousands of hours into the first NS mod for HL, had a few email exchanges back and forth with Flayra back in the day, and even pre-ordered with black armor for something like $50 literally the day it was announced. After waiting and waiting I began to joke that Duke Nukem Forever would be released before NS2. Everyone told me I was nuts to say that. It turned out I was right.
But I'm not coming back to the franchise because of the way developers and forum moderators treated players who came here to voice their opinions. I saw players talked down to, derided, and dismissed for simply stating that they weren't pleased with the direction things were going and suggesting other plans of action. Mostly from the competitive players, but quite often from developers and map makers alike. It didn't matter if I agreed with the player or not - the way people were treated here was wrong.
If you ask me, it's largely that corporate attitude which caused the player base to attrition as fast as it did. UW catered to the core few competitive players and thought that would make an awesome product. Unfortunately that elitist attitude carried over into the forums and scared off anyone interested in sticking with the game. I believe many players lost confidence that UW was taking any feedback seriously, so why stick through a bad balance patch on the slim hope that the game would get back to normal, or hopefully be even better?
From my own perspective I simply realized I didn't want to relearn the game mechanics every other month anymore and just uninstalled last July. I also told my other friends who were considering purchasing it to not bother because the developer wasn't interested in average gamers and the game was just getting worse to play.
Sure, there will always be trolls in forums. There will always be more negative comments than positive. But, it's also one of the best ways to get feedback from the game, especially from new players who are truly interested in the game. Unfortunately the general opinion seemed to be that UW, and the core player group, didn't want to hear from you unless it was glowing praise.
Your best marketing is your player base - players generally have groups of 5 or more friends they play with and if one loves a game they all end up buying it sooner or later. Players can also be your worst enemy when they tell all their friends the game sucks and the company treats their players poorly. It's business 101.
Also, most people buy a game to play it. They don't expect to have to re-learn a new version of the game every month. At most I feel that minor balance tweaks in the primary game and additional maps should have been all that was done. Completely rewriting the skulk movement from the ground up 6 months after release was the last straw for me. If modding was truly a goal, why in the world didn't they just stick to a stable codebase and let the modders take it in the direction that the hardcore players wanted.
And it's because of the above issues that it doesn't matter if NS3 came out tomorrow and was free to play - I still wouldn't install it. Much less install again to play a F2P NS2.
Doors: Extra Entities mod
Breakables: Extra Entities mod
Lifts: Extra Entities mod (slightly glitchy but working)
Weldables: Extra Entities mod
Rest of things Goldsrc had (almost): Extra Entities mod whether partially working or working just as good as goldsrc.
Neat, when can we see them to be added to the editor officially so people actually use it?
Neat, when can we see tons of maps already using them without you even knowing? I can name maps right now that use them. Stargate for one uses many of these. Now that they won't break anything people will actually use them.
Neat, when can we see tons of maps already using them without you even knowing? I can name maps right now that use them. Stargate for one uses many of these. Now that they won't break anything people will actually use them.
Neat, I never knew people these features were right under my nose. It's like they were modded in or something instead of being officially supported.
UWE don't realize that the pessimists/troll/naysayers (whatever you want to call them) are their biggest asset. They are the ones who love Natural Selection so much that after over a decade of playing this franchise they still will login to the forums to trash what they see is wrong.
I've come to the forums saying things like: "alien commander what the fuck retarded idea is that", "still a fucking year later and no bindable mousewheel", "why the fuck are we playing cat and mouse with balance updates when performance is terrible, the input lag for marines is almost having a balance effect itself" not because I get a joy out of raining on UWE's parade, but because I loved NS1 and want to keep coming back for more.
UWE had a small budget, a small team, a small development time and had the biggest balls to produce one of the most unique fun games Ive ever played. I challenge anyone to do better.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2014
@Cyber_Mage - You really don't understand the NS community, most of us are your age, if not older!!!
NS had a large older playerbase because of it's gameplay style back in the day, and many of us are in our 30's & 40's, but we are still here. And we will be buying NS3 when it comes out, because we love UWE, and what they have achieved.
Yes we are disappointed with some things, and yes, most of what we post on the fourms highlights the problems we perceive in the game, but that's what forums are. People mostly post to complain or give feedback about things they want sorted out, making posts of 'This game is great!!!' can only be done a certain number of time before you get warned for spam!!
To say the corporate attitude of UWE ruined NS2, is to completely miss the point. I really hope you are not a C-Level Exec on the business side of things, as you may be out of work soon enough for mis-understanding such basic premises!! UWE had a goal, they had targets, and they had severely limited resources to achieve that. We all understand that, and what they have achieved is nothing short of amazing. If you look at the complaints, they come from both the competitive side, and the public side, no side has been favoured over the over, UWE have made decisions based on what they can achieve which is closest to the aim of the game they were trying to create in the first place.
They have built an excellent engine, that as they did with the HL1 engine, they have pushed to the absolute limit with their game code, there are a few things that could be improved, but their achievements overall are amazing, and as a exec, you should understand that the best way to learn anything is from the mistakes you make. You learn next to nothing by getting everything right, so I would expect future games, and future NS games in particular, to be even more successful than the current games.
We are here and have been here as long as we have because of what UWE has given us through the course of the two games, and we respect that. Most of us (life allowing) will be here through thick and thin as long as there are NS games being made/available to play.
Yes I complain and get frustrated a lot, but it is because I care, and I think I can see issues, or how to solve them, but without being a UWE dev, I am not privileged in being in the space that they are working from, so my comments are just opinions. If they end up being useful, that is great, if they don't, well, maybe I can learn something too.
UWE don't realize that the pessimists/troll/naysayers (whatever you want to call them) are their biggest asset. They are the ones who love Natural Selection so much that after over a decade of playing this franchise they still will login to the forums to trash what they see is wrong.
I've come to the forums saying things like: "alien commander what the fuck retarded idea is that", "still a fucking year later and no bindable mousewheel", "why the fuck are we playing cat and mouse with balance updates when performance is terrible, the input lag for marines is almost having a balance effect itself" not because I get a joy out of raining on UWE's parade, but because I loved NS1 and want to keep coming back for more.
So... "I only hit you because I love you", basically?...
UWE don't realize that the pessimists/troll/naysayers (whatever you want to call them) are their biggest asset. They are the ones who love Natural Selection so much that after over a decade of playing this franchise they still will login to the forums to trash what they see is wrong.
I've come to the forums saying things like: "alien commander what the fuck retarded idea is that", "still a fucking year later and no bindable mousewheel", "why the fuck are we playing cat and mouse with balance updates when performance is terrible, the input lag for marines is almost having a balance effect itself" not because I get a joy out of raining on UWE's parade, but because I loved NS1 and want to keep coming back for more.
So... "I only hit you because I love you", basically?...
I lolled at domestic abuse analogy. More like I'll stay by your side, even if you're screwing up UWE- to tell you about said screw up
well, the sad fact is that even though the product (now) is pretty good, gamers of today don't have the attention span to be looking at a game that's already been out for a year and a half. There are always new AAA releases with all the new shinies to check out.
As far as I can see, it all seems to have boiled down to one thing, and that's sheer lack of communication from and between developers.
How many changes have you noticed in the game that weren't in the changelog? I can think of at least a couple.
And even changes that somehow managing to sneak their way into a build with no apparent review, or nobody even knowing it was going in *cough*skulktaunt*cough*
Have you SEEN the LoL changelogs? They at least give REASONS behind changes that are made, providing some kind of justification to players can empathise with the line of reasoning that has been employed behind a change. Just a couple of minutes extra work could have a literally massive impact on how changes are perceived by the playerbase.
I'm no business mastermind, but the kind of thing I just detailed would be an easy, instant step in the right direction.
Yeah UWE, FUCK YOU for making one of the best games I've ever played
@meatmachine NS2 is one, if not the best, game I've played over my many many years gaming .. the original post was not disputing this .. while this is probably the best game about, the issue with UWEs timing and inability to keep a playerbase is in question
Last patch .. releasing a half-assed match making attempt... I didn't realize NS2 was back in beta stage.. ? They'd have got a better result if made it into a competition for the modding community with a GeoForce Titan as a prize and saved $ for a better end product.. instead of reinforcing the image of NS2 being an unfinished product by including this crap as part of core.
If UWE had half the parle with their modders/mappers and invested some $ into competitions as they had with their competitive teams/players, they'd have seen alot more activity.. there are so many unfinished maps, unfinished ideas etc.
(I'm also worried .. recent twitter mentioned geoforce sent a few things over to the UWE offices .. I really hope it wasn't Titans for their developers .. last thing we need for subnautica is the dev's having shithot machines .. .. they should be forced to test on the minimum spec :P )
Comments
The mm system is made for public too. Thats the point, put public players in a good environment of play. And I don't think that the casual player do not like 6v6, he probably doesn't even know what it is. He never had a chance to try it! Could you imagine, if everyone was to play skill balanced, game balanced games everytime? Yeah they'd hate it.
Of course not everyone would like it, some would still prefer to go play on 50players servers, but why balance the game around that mess??
Also I disagree with the join and leave thing. You will always have the occasional leaver, but even casual players who start a mm match know they are supposed to stay till the end and expect the others to do it too, again thats the point of mm. Again look at LoL or CS:GO, not everyone using the mm system is a top competitive player. And it is controllable.
And no, competitive play is not always balanced because you play both rounds lol, that is completly retarded to say. Especially since the tournaments in ns2 have been best of impair rounds, wich in the case of an extremely imbalanced game leads to a cointoss win. Well I guess you are right then, 50-50. But I agree with you, the snails win in the end because they are the best.
You mean like how almost every popular sport on the planet 'Ghetto's the newbies' ? I wonder why they do that ... hmmmmm??? Maybe reality is telling us something about your "theory" ?
Just had to vent for a second.
More importantly: you seem to assume that you know what's best for the pubscene (namely: compstyle 6v6 games).
I firmly believe that those players can and do decide for themselves (namely: 12v12 non-stop chaotic action without to much responsibiliy and chores).
At least I belong to a group that would be shelling money at UWE if I saw only the positives. That's the kind of development I want to support. Meanwhile as long as the negative aspects seem to stick also, I feel really uneasy committing and contributing to the game and supporting the company more than in very basic ways. For example the World Cup Tournament initiative itself is awesome. Meanwhile how the tournament was announced and how some of the earlier PR was handled made me very reclutant to actually give money to it.
Long story short, there's lots of good and there's quite a bit of bad. Fixing the bad stuff would make the good stuff stand out properly, but until that happens at least I remain pretty wary and careful when it comes to supporting the game and the company. In general, I feel they'd get much more mileage out of the good stuff if the bad stuff wasn't there too.
---
As others have put it though, the opening isn't the most constructive start for such discussion.
I can understand wanting to generate "hype" for marketing reasons, but there has been definitely a number of mis-communications or confusions that have arisen from the lack of more internal focused blog posts in recent months. For example, we are not sure what if any NS2 updates will focus on performance or what content we should expect (if any at all).
In the past, there were blog posts detailing what has been worked on in the month or what is to be expected. Since Reinforced, there has not been much of that.
It would be nice to know what everyone is up to and what kind of updates we should be expecting for NS2 or Spark. Making them known does not mean they have to be set in stone or something if they are tentative. Just some knowledge so people do not tear their hair out.
Agreed. I mean no dev has even commented on the huge issues with last patch. As a play tester I know some of what is coming up next patch but I could only imagine dealing with the absolutely ridiculous skulk sound and RT not flashing bug in servers for over a month and not hearing 1 word from devs on acknowledging the issue or giving eta on a fix.
And more to your point I think you are making all I mean is "hey, we know there is an issue with sound, we hope to fix it next release which will be around "x" month" type of post. Would have taken 15 seconds to do and would have quelled that million page thread on 263 release bitching about skulk sounds. For example the post acedude made about confirming they are working on fixing the hive rankings is a perfect example of the kind of quick feedback devs can make to quiet the complaints.
When I say mm, I am not referencing to the gather system ns2 has right now (wich doesn't appeal to anyone, I don't undertand why they made that). I am referencing to a sadly non-existant mm that would resemble the CS:GO mm or LoL mm or dota2 mm or any proper mm. Also mm is different from a pug, because you don't have to go through your teamspeak/friendlist whatever to play it, it is an official thing with ranking system and stuff that makes it simple and efficient.
That was obviously ironic.
No, you don't understand what I am saying. I am not saying pubscene should be forced to play compstyle 6v6 (nor do I know that it is the best for it, but I do think so, and more importantly I think it would be the best for ns2), but rather they should have the choice. And mm does that. Right now, you have to go through the trouble of joining a gather or finding/creating a team, arranging pcws etc... if you want to get a feeling of it. A mm system would have provided a quick and easy way of getting that feeling, in a arguably more balanced environement, with better performance. Right now, unless those players already have the required motivation to go through the hassle I jut described, I firmly believe those players don't have to decide between compstyle 6v6 or ?v?, they don't have a choice. And that's not for the best, I would say.
Being a pure pub player (too busy a life to be part of a team), I do second that. I'd love to get the feel of the real thing. UWE giving us pub players the choice would be nice & definitly good for the game and the comp scene.
First let me say I'm not your average gamer kid. In fact I'm a C-level executive in a tech company. I have kids older than most of you and a grandson who will be consuming video games in a few years. I don't however pretend to know the game business from any view than that of a consumer.
I left NS2 back after one of the massive "balances" that was done. Something like the fifth one in six months. I liked the game a lot when it first came out. I liked some of the changes along the way, but changing things for the sake of changing things was just too much. This is only the second time I've been back to the forums since last July when I stopped playing as the forums became worse than the game.
I put tens of thousands of hours into the first NS mod for HL, had a few email exchanges back and forth with Flayra back in the day, and even pre-ordered with black armor for something like $50 literally the day it was announced. After waiting and waiting I began to joke that Duke Nukem Forever would be released before NS2. Everyone told me I was nuts to say that. It turned out I was right.
But I'm not coming back to the franchise because of the way developers and forum moderators treated players who came here to voice their opinions. I saw players talked down to, derided, and dismissed for simply stating that they weren't pleased with the direction things were going and suggesting other plans of action. Mostly from the competitive players, but quite often from developers and map makers alike. It didn't matter if I agreed with the player or not - the way people were treated here was wrong.
If you ask me, it's largely that corporate attitude which caused the player base to attrition as fast as it did. UW catered to the core few competitive players and thought that would make an awesome product. Unfortunately that elitist attitude carried over into the forums and scared off anyone interested in sticking with the game. I believe many players lost confidence that UW was taking any feedback seriously, so why stick through a bad balance patch on the slim hope that the game would get back to normal, or hopefully be even better?
From my own perspective I simply realized I didn't want to relearn the game mechanics every other month anymore and just uninstalled last July. I also told my other friends who were considering purchasing it to not bother because the developer wasn't interested in average gamers and the game was just getting worse to play.
Sure, there will always be trolls in forums. There will always be more negative comments than positive. But, it's also one of the best ways to get feedback from the game, especially from new players who are truly interested in the game. Unfortunately the general opinion seemed to be that UW, and the core player group, didn't want to hear from you unless it was glowing praise.
Your best marketing is your player base - players generally have groups of 5 or more friends they play with and if one loves a game they all end up buying it sooner or later. Players can also be your worst enemy when they tell all their friends the game sucks and the company treats their players poorly. It's business 101.
Also, most people buy a game to play it. They don't expect to have to re-learn a new version of the game every month. At most I feel that minor balance tweaks in the primary game and additional maps should have been all that was done. Completely rewriting the skulk movement from the ground up 6 months after release was the last straw for me. If modding was truly a goal, why in the world didn't they just stick to a stable codebase and let the modders take it in the direction that the hardcore players wanted.
And it's because of the above issues that it doesn't matter if NS3 came out tomorrow and was free to play - I still wouldn't install it. Much less install again to play a F2P NS2.
Neat, when can we see tons of maps already using them without you even knowing? I can name maps right now that use them. Stargate for one uses many of these. Now that they won't break anything people will actually use them.
Neat, I never knew people these features were right under my nose. It's like they were modded in or something instead of being officially supported.
Edit: Alright, calling it quits. You win.
I've come to the forums saying things like: "alien commander what the fuck retarded idea is that", "still a fucking year later and no bindable mousewheel", "why the fuck are we playing cat and mouse with balance updates when performance is terrible, the input lag for marines is almost having a balance effect itself" not because I get a joy out of raining on UWE's parade, but because I loved NS1 and want to keep coming back for more.
http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/b/505513617?t=4h38m50s
Still one of the best games Ive ever played.
NS had a large older playerbase because of it's gameplay style back in the day, and many of us are in our 30's & 40's, but we are still here. And we will be buying NS3 when it comes out, because we love UWE, and what they have achieved.
Yes we are disappointed with some things, and yes, most of what we post on the fourms highlights the problems we perceive in the game, but that's what forums are. People mostly post to complain or give feedback about things they want sorted out, making posts of 'This game is great!!!' can only be done a certain number of time before you get warned for spam!!
To say the corporate attitude of UWE ruined NS2, is to completely miss the point. I really hope you are not a C-Level Exec on the business side of things, as you may be out of work soon enough for mis-understanding such basic premises!! UWE had a goal, they had targets, and they had severely limited resources to achieve that. We all understand that, and what they have achieved is nothing short of amazing. If you look at the complaints, they come from both the competitive side, and the public side, no side has been favoured over the over, UWE have made decisions based on what they can achieve which is closest to the aim of the game they were trying to create in the first place.
They have built an excellent engine, that as they did with the HL1 engine, they have pushed to the absolute limit with their game code, there are a few things that could be improved, but their achievements overall are amazing, and as a exec, you should understand that the best way to learn anything is from the mistakes you make. You learn next to nothing by getting everything right, so I would expect future games, and future NS games in particular, to be even more successful than the current games.
We are here and have been here as long as we have because of what UWE has given us through the course of the two games, and we respect that. Most of us (life allowing) will be here through thick and thin as long as there are NS games being made/available to play.
Yes I complain and get frustrated a lot, but it is because I care, and I think I can see issues, or how to solve them, but without being a UWE dev, I am not privileged in being in the space that they are working from, so my comments are just opinions. If they end up being useful, that is great, if they don't, well, maybe I can learn something too.
I lolled at domestic abuse analogy. More like I'll stay by your side, even if you're screwing up UWE- to tell you about said screw up
Pretty sure Gorgeous introduced the brick skulks. That was NS2 at its worst.
Indeed
How many changes have you noticed in the game that weren't in the changelog? I can think of at least a couple.
And even changes that somehow managing to sneak their way into a build with no apparent review, or nobody even knowing it was going in *cough*skulktaunt*cough*
Have you SEEN the LoL changelogs? They at least give REASONS behind changes that are made, providing some kind of justification to players can empathise with the line of reasoning that has been employed behind a change. Just a couple of minutes extra work could have a literally massive impact on how changes are perceived by the playerbase.
I'm no business mastermind, but the kind of thing I just detailed would be an easy, instant step in the right direction.
@meatmachine NS2 is one, if not the best, game I've played over my many many years gaming .. the original post was not disputing this .. while this is probably the best game about, the issue with UWEs timing and inability to keep a playerbase is in question
Last patch .. releasing a half-assed match making attempt... I didn't realize NS2 was back in beta stage.. ? They'd have got a better result if made it into a competition for the modding community with a GeoForce Titan as a prize and saved $ for a better end product.. instead of reinforcing the image of NS2 being an unfinished product by including this crap as part of core.
If UWE had half the parle with their modders/mappers and invested some $ into competitions as they had with their competitive teams/players, they'd have seen alot more activity.. there are so many unfinished maps, unfinished ideas etc.
It was only recently .. hugh mentioned something about servers for modders .. *golf clap* .. too little too late imho http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/133175/modbox-servers/p1 ... november 2013 .. jesus h ch
(I'm also worried .. recent twitter mentioned geoforce sent a few things over to the UWE offices .. I really hope it wasn't Titans for their developers .. last thing we need for subnautica is the dev's having shithot machines ..