ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
This looks pretty cool, and it's good that you're pushing it in a direction that is more meaningful. That was one of my principal issues with combat is that it was just about two masses of players colliding and the leftovers pushed forward a little bit, while you seem to be offering different game modes with this standalone which is great.
On the issue of the standalone itself, I have a range of questions:
*Being a standalone, is it built from the ground up or does it still contain a lot of irrelevant-to-Combat NS2 code?
*If it is built from the ground up, can you comment on the performance difference and therefor the ability for people with lower end machines to play in addition to server performance?
*Will there be a separate workshop and modability like NS2 has?
I'm curious how and if this will work out. What will hinder us from playing the regular and broken combat as ns2 mod? Will NS2:Combat cost money? If yes, how much? Will a game which is basically a "smaller" version of a pretty niche indie game successful? (And on what maps are we going to play?)
Anyway, good luck!
Yes, NS2:Combat will cost money, I can't speak on the price at this time.
We hope it will be a success, but that is for you and gamers outside this community to decide if they want to support us or not.
Will Faultline Games also tweak/tune Spark itself, so NS2 will benefit from it?
no promises, we are using a standalone SDk so we wont be working on NS2, but IF we do get some cool tweaks done I don't see why we wont share it with UWE.
And will our mountain of cosmetic dlc and badges be accessible between the two? If I can't show my black armor and emblems I don't know how I'll make it. :P
While they do share some code, engine, art assests and the NS2 universe it is still a standalone game so the chance of that are slim.
@Karnaj
Spotted it like a boss! you are right about most of those buy menu elements
As of now it looks like we will ship with co_core, co_pulse, co_sava, co_kestrel and co_nest, we are working closely with those mappers to polish up those maps from the old combat, since we had to do it on such a short notice, we got the message from Charlie "Flayra" only in February of this year and while we would love to have new maps its just not possible at this point, after release we are in talks to some mappers to create new maps, we are not sure how many right now but I'm guessing it will depend on how well the game will do. fyi I do love those fall maps from the original combat so they might make a come back
In the current pre alpha version you are still required to kill the CC/hive to end the round but that could change along with many other things.
As for the upgrades the whole tech tree is opened so you can for instance buy regen and carapace, I do realize that it could get crazy with all these upgrade combos that you can do and I assure you that balance will be an ongoing process just like old combat.
Yes you will have to pay for this standalone version, we have talked about the idea of giving free copies of NS2:Combat to existing NS2 players but it just wont work for us, you see the reality of things is that we just formed our company and we want to survive and continue doing what we love to do and fund our next project, giving away around 500 000 ( I think this is the NS2 total sales that I read somewhere? ) free copies is just not viable.
Will all owners of NS2 receive a free copy of NS2:Combat?
EDIT:
Yes you will have to pay for this standalone version, we have talked about the idea of giving free copies of NS2:Combat to existing NS2 players but it just wont work for us, you see the reality of things is that we just formed our company and we want to survive and continue doing what we love to do and fund our next project, giving away around 500 000 ( I think this is the NS2 total sales that I read somewhere? ) free copies is just not viable.
We've been playtesting Combat for quite some time. The Combat Devs @ Faultline have done amazing work! It's really fun to play and they have been listening to feedback from both an old skool perspective and the needs of today's gamers. It's running on the same engine as NS2, but they are doing their own thing, and it's awesome.
Can't wait for you all to see it!
So when can we expect a full release? And will it be F2P? It sounds fun, I quite enjoy playing Combat when it is hard to find a good server to play on.
This looks pretty cool, and it's good that you're pushing it in a direction that is more meaningful. That was one of my principal issues with combat is that it was just about two masses of players colliding and the leftovers pushed forward a little bit, while you seem to be offering different game modes with this standalone which is great.
On the issue of the standalone itself, I have a range of questions:
*Being a standalone, is it built from the ground up or does it still contain a lot of irrelevant-to-Combat NS2 code?
*If it is built from the ground up, can you comment on the performance difference and therefor the ability for people with lower end machines to play in addition to server performance?
*Will there be a separate workshop and modability like NS2 has?
It uses some code from Xenoswarm as that was our up to date code since last we worked with anything NS2 related, but in large we have re-written good junks of it and added to it.
In general Combat always ran much better than NS2 for reasons like smaller maps, no commanders, no buildings ( at least not as many ) and no
infestation to name a few, and we will continue to tweak things whenever we can.
We would love to have that but we haven't brought that up with UWE atm, we are currently only focused on getting this thing in a better shape for release, so wish us luck
I'm enjoying these Q&A so keep the questions coming!
@Zalamael hopefully release will be around mid 2014, no it wont be a F2P game
Cool, thank you. That sounds great to me. The good part is, NS2 players can buy it and get the game up and running from day one. The bad part is, brand new players will get spanked silly by NS2 players that already know how to use each weapon/lifeform. I hope the devs have some kind of system in place to either segregate the NS2 vets from the new players, or servers (more likely I would think) so we can organise our own matches to leave the newbies in peace.
EDIT: Oops, my bad, didn't realise you were one of the guys behind it
@deathshroud It wont matter if you already have NS2 or not, Combat will be standalone as in another game sold separately that doesn't require pre-purchase of NS2.
We plan on adding cool stuff to it I just can't reveal that yet, some stuff might be there day one and others will be added after the initial release.
Have you talked with UWE about offering discounts on purchasing Combat with NS2? (so current NS2 owners can get a discount?) This might benefit both of the companies involved.
Ofc, I'm just trying to weasel a discount out of you, and will buy combat either way
Truthfully, I'm probably not gonna pay money just for combat... Let's take a free mod that has been running somewhat successfully in the game (rare for ns2), take it away from the players who play it, then force them to pay to keep playing it? Plus what of all the maps combat mod uses? Will any of those community mappers be compensated for their work in your game? I know you've said you've been working with them, but if it's being sold for profit, and there are no official combat maps, are you just taking the work community members have done and puttin $$ on it? Or is this something that has been sorted out, or is a non-issue?
I realise a substantial amount of work must have been done, and coding is a beefy task, but honestly I'm questioning why at this point. Also, being 2 separate games... IMO I'm not attracted to the idea of opening up COMBAT and launching it if I wanna practice, then closing game, gettin NS2 goin and searchin for servers... Lots of steps, worth the time? Seems like there's already enough of an issue finding servers I can join w/ decent ping in ns2 alone...
Have you talked with UWE about offering discounts on purchasing Combat with NS2? (so current NS2 owners can get a discount?) This might benefit both of the companies involved.
Ofc, I'm just trying to weasel a discount out of you, and will buy combat either way
It really should work the other way around aswell..
This inbred small community is making me sick, need fresh blood / dna.
Truthfully, I'm probably not gonna pay money just for combat... Let's take a free mod that has been running somewhat successfully in the game (rare for ns2), take it away from the players who play it, then force them to pay to keep playing it? Plus what of all the maps combat mod uses? Will any of those community mappers be compensated for their work in your game? I know you've said you've been working with them, but if it's being sold for profit, and there are no official combat maps, are you just taking the work community members have done and puttin $$ on it? Or is this something that has been sorted out, or is a non-issue?
So, since a number of the Combat devs are busy at PAX, I'll fill you in on what I can @2cough
Your reaction was pretty much spot on my initial reaction, too. I was like really? I used to play this for free and now players have to pay for it? This is dumb. Who is going to do that?
I was really not onboard when I found out I'd be PTing Combat, but after playing it a bunch and talking with the devs, I'm 100% behind them. Seriously. It will be worthwhile. They're filling it out a bit more and balancing it and everything. It's gonna be awesome.
I don't know what/if mappers are being compensated - That is between the mapper and the devs and none of your business Some mappers just enjoy making maps for fun and don't want compensated. However, I do know that they are NOT using maps without mapper's consent. We've had a number of mappers show up in PTs and talk about their maps and where there's issues and what they're thinking of changing.
As for the combat devs - they're not some greedy bunch of dudes who are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and steal a few bucks. Not at all. They're a genuinely good group of people. They're great to work with and they really want what's best.
@Decoy, thank you for the fill-in. To start, I never suspected the Faultline people to be greedy or anything like that, and I appreciate all the work that has gone into combat mod and this upcoming stand-alone. I just wanna clear that up first if that was at all relayed in my post.
Anyways, mostly my questions come from curiosity and... well doubt over whether or not this will separate the small community or indeed bring in new players. It makes total sense to me that Combat should be a stand-alone, builds often break mods as we all know, so having stability there is a great thing, but seems like there's so few people playing nowadays anyways. And from my understanding, it's not for a lack of owning the game.. I know a bunch of people who own the game, or are familiar w/ it but dont or won't play. It's a niche game that, unfortunately, most gamers dont stick with.
I hope that this is a successful project, but my fear is that all this hard work will go unnoticed (organized play system anyone?) by the vast majority of gamers out there who have already given up or moved on from ns2. I'm just not sure having another game w/ another transaction to play is going to help much vs. a mod that currently I can only ever find maybe 1 - 2 servers w/ people playing in.
I know people like this mod and it has a very small following, but why should people be paying for essentially a variant game type for a game they already own? I mean, wasn't NS2 made in mind to make modding easy for the modders, yet here we are with a mod branching off and going paid because maintaining it within NS2 is a hassle. This doesn't make much sense to me personally, especially when you look at the NS2 player base size.
Any scrumptious details you can give about how this combat differs from the one in ns2?
Do you have any future plans for game direction? If so what?
What level of support will this receive for the months following release?
Well I'd like to know if mappers are getting paid purely because one of the maps they're shipping with is a remake of one of my maps. Because that changes things.
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
@2cough I tend to agree with you. In my opinion, I don't really understand why NS2 players would like to buy a standalone of Combat Mod.
Yes, on NS2, that's one of the most important & interesting mod playable at the moment, especially to train his own skill, I know that many competitive players use this mod on their private server only to train (even if there's some diffference with the vanilla game like the % speed of celerity).
We can find public servers aswell with this mod, sometimes it's very boring because rookies or few players use Combat Mod to win, that's all, not really to improve their skill level. But then, what really is the audience you intend to attract with this game? Why NS2 players would buy it while Combat Mod works fine on NS2 itself? Other players, they only need to buy NS2 few dollars with Steam sales & hop, they can play both games in just one.
So yes, I think Combat Mod is one of the most interesting mod to be developped for a standalone (maybe Marines vs. Marines too), but I don't really see the interest for NS2 players to buy something already present in their previous purchase, NS2. Innovations or not? new features, maps, anything else I don't know and I do not feel that this is actually planned do not justify such a purchase for me, truly, but that's only my opinion.
@2cough I tend to agree with you. In my opinion, I don't really understand why NS2 players would like to buy a standalone of Combat Mod.
Yes, on NS2, that's one of the most important & interesting mod playable at the moment, especially to train his own skill, I know that many competitive players use this mod on their private server only to train (even if there's some diffference with the vanilla game like the % speed of celerity).
We can find public servers aswell with this mod, sometimes it's very boring because rookies or few players use Combat Mod to win, that's all, not really to improve their skill level. But then, what really is the audience you intend to attract with this game? Why NS2 players would buy it while Combat Mod works fine on NS2 itself? Other players, they only need to buy NS2 few dollars with Steam sales & hop, they can play both games in just one.
So yes, I think Combat Mod is one of the most interesting mod to be developped for a standalone (maybe Marines vs. Marines too), but I don't really see the interest for NS2 players to buy something already present in their previous purchase, NS2. Innovations or not? new features, maps, anything else I don't know and I do not feel that this is actually planned do not justify such a purchase for me, truly, but that's only my opinion.
Probably because what has been developed is of interest in itself and not simply a tool for skill improvement like the combat mod is. Surely if there are multiple game play modes and other things of value available then it is worth the money.
Moreover, a tonne of people were willing to pay for the promise of NS2 alone (may not have ended up existing) and you ended up with less than you had with ns1 initially. So really you don't want to fork over less than 20 dollars for this even though it doesn't just represent the Combat mod thrown onto its own launcher? ??
So wait, does this mean Combat Mod on NS2 will be stopped/banned? I didn't play it that much but it was fun once in a while. To play it again, do we have to buy the Combat game?
Combat will feature a matchmaking system, where you and your friends can queue up and play against equally skilled opponents. This means there will be room for competitive gaming, as this mode is a ranked-play mode with a ladder system. We're adding abilities to the game you've never heard of, creating additional content and weapons, creating additional maps, providing additional gameplay modes like Capture The Flag (Quake 2 style with powerups). We're looking into purchasing and renting servers to make sure the matchmaking system is always online. (That costs a lot of money you know?)
I'd love to share something with you guys:
Yesterday was our first day at PAX. We were very nervous. We expected no press, and nobody to come to our booth and check our game out. We thought we were surely a small fish in a sea of octopi. Then, something happened that we did not expect. The doors opened, and we did not sit down or take a break until the event closed. We had feedback surveys that people would write their ideas down on, telling us what they thought the game was worth, and giving us feedback. Every single survey we went through (and I sincerely mean every single one of them) were positive. People rated our game so highly hat we thought they were rigging the surveys or something. We were absolutely astounded. At that point we knew we were doing something right. As someone who goes to lots of conventions, I can tell you that nobody lies on a feedback survey. In fact, they are really, really, brutally honest. That's exactly what we wanted. It took us the entire night to accept that every single feedback form was positive. We even thought about making an entirely new survey because we just couldn't believe that every single person would say they had a blast playing.
I want you to know that Combat is something we're really proud of right now, and we definitely feel that it's worth every single penny you pay for. That being said, we have no plans on making Combat free, free 2 play, or discounted for NS2 owners.
Combat will feature a matchmaking system, where you and your friends can queue up and play against equally skilled opponents. This means there will be room for competitive gaming, as this mode is a ranked-play mode with a ladder system. We're adding abilities to the game you've never heard of, creating additional content and weapons, creating additional maps, providing additional gameplay modes like Capture The Flag (Quake 2 style with powerups). We're looking into purchasing and renting servers to make sure the matchmaking system is always online. (That costs a lot of money you know?)
I'd love to share something with you guys:
Yesterday was our first day at PAX. We were very nervous. We expected no press, and nobody to come to our booth and check our game out. We thought we were surely a small fish in a sea of octopi. Then, something happened that we did not expect. The doors opened, and we did not sit down or take a break until the event closed. We had feedback surveys that people would write their ideas down on, telling us what they thought the game was worth, and giving us feedback. Every single survey we went through (and I sincerely mean every single one of them) were positive. People rated our game so highly hat we thought they were rigging the surveys or something. We were absolutely astounded. At that point we knew we were doing something right. As someone who goes to lots of conventions, I can tell you that nobody lies on a feedback survey. In fact, they are really, really, brutally honest. That's exactly what we wanted. It took us the entire night to accept that every single feedback form was positive. We even thought about making an entirely new survey because we just couldn't believe that every single person would say they had a blast playing.
I want you to know that Combat is something we're really proud of right now, and we definitely feel that it's worth every single penny you pay for. That being said, we have no plans on making Combat free, free 2 play, or discounted for NS2 owners.
Matchmaking? :O -> Great!
Are there any videos about combat available yet? E.g. from pax?
Comments
On the issue of the standalone itself, I have a range of questions:
*Being a standalone, is it built from the ground up or does it still contain a lot of irrelevant-to-Combat NS2 code?
*If it is built from the ground up, can you comment on the performance difference and therefor the ability for people with lower end machines to play in addition to server performance?
*Will there be a separate workshop and modability like NS2 has?
We hope it will be a success, but that is for you and gamers outside this community to decide if they want to support us or not.
no promises, we are using a standalone SDk so we wont be working on NS2, but IF we do get some cool tweaks done I don't see why we wont share it with UWE.
While they do share some code, engine, art assests and the NS2 universe it is still a standalone game so the chance of that are slim.
@Karnaj
Spotted it like a boss! you are right about most of those buy menu elements
As of now it looks like we will ship with co_core, co_pulse, co_sava, co_kestrel and co_nest, we are working closely with those mappers to polish up those maps from the old combat, since we had to do it on such a short notice, we got the message from Charlie "Flayra" only in February of this year and while we would love to have new maps its just not possible at this point, after release we are in talks to some mappers to create new maps, we are not sure how many right now but I'm guessing it will depend on how well the game will do. fyi I do love those fall maps from the original combat so they might make a come back
In the current pre alpha version you are still required to kill the CC/hive to end the round but that could change along with many other things.
As for the upgrades the whole tech tree is opened so you can for instance buy regen and carapace, I do realize that it could get crazy with all these upgrade combos that you can do and I assure you that balance will be an ongoing process just like old combat.
Yes you will have to pay for this standalone version, we have talked about the idea of giving free copies of NS2:Combat to existing NS2 players but it just wont work for us, you see the reality of things is that we just formed our company and we want to survive and continue doing what we love to do and fund our next project, giving away around 500 000 ( I think this is the NS2 total sales that I read somewhere? ) free copies is just not viable.
EDIT:
People with badges?
So when can we expect a full release? And will it be F2P? It sounds fun, I quite enjoy playing Combat when it is hard to find a good server to play on.
It uses some code from Xenoswarm as that was our up to date code since last we worked with anything NS2 related, but in large we have re-written good junks of it and added to it.
In general Combat always ran much better than NS2 for reasons like smaller maps, no commanders, no buildings ( at least not as many ) and no
infestation to name a few, and we will continue to tweak things whenever we can.
We would love to have that but we haven't brought that up with UWE atm, we are currently only focused on getting this thing in a better shape for release, so wish us luck
I'm enjoying these Q&A so keep the questions coming!
Cool, thank you. That sounds great to me. The good part is, NS2 players can buy it and get the game up and running from day one. The bad part is, brand new players will get spanked silly by NS2 players that already know how to use each weapon/lifeform. I hope the devs have some kind of system in place to either segregate the NS2 vets from the new players, or servers (more likely I would think) so we can organise our own matches to leave the newbies in peace.
EDIT: Oops, my bad, didn't realise you were one of the guys behind it
if we do have to buy it then i expect it to come with a complete set of unique maps and more than the standard ns2 equipment and abilities.
We plan on adding cool stuff to it I just can't reveal that yet, some stuff might be there day one and others will be added after the initial release.
Have you talked with UWE about offering discounts on purchasing Combat with NS2? (so current NS2 owners can get a discount?) This might benefit both of the companies involved.
Ofc, I'm just trying to weasel a discount out of you, and will buy combat either way
I realise a substantial amount of work must have been done, and coding is a beefy task, but honestly I'm questioning why at this point. Also, being 2 separate games... IMO I'm not attracted to the idea of opening up COMBAT and launching it if I wanna practice, then closing game, gettin NS2 goin and searchin for servers... Lots of steps, worth the time? Seems like there's already enough of an issue finding servers I can join w/ decent ping in ns2 alone...
How different is standalone gonna be from mod? Will it be very similar or as different as NS2 is from NS1?
It really should work the other way around aswell..
This inbred small community is making me sick, need fresh blood / dna.
Hah, we all know where our allegiance lies. No worries!
So, since a number of the Combat devs are busy at PAX, I'll fill you in on what I can @2cough
Your reaction was pretty much spot on my initial reaction, too. I was like really? I used to play this for free and now players have to pay for it? This is dumb. Who is going to do that?
I was really not onboard when I found out I'd be PTing Combat, but after playing it a bunch and talking with the devs, I'm 100% behind them. Seriously. It will be worthwhile. They're filling it out a bit more and balancing it and everything. It's gonna be awesome.
I don't know what/if mappers are being compensated - That is between the mapper and the devs and none of your business
As for the combat devs - they're not some greedy bunch of dudes who are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and steal a few bucks. Not at all. They're a genuinely good group of people. They're great to work with and they really want what's best.
Anyways, mostly my questions come from curiosity and... well doubt over whether or not this will separate the small community or indeed bring in new players. It makes total sense to me that Combat should be a stand-alone, builds often break mods as we all know, so having stability there is a great thing, but seems like there's so few people playing nowadays anyways. And from my understanding, it's not for a lack of owning the game.. I know a bunch of people who own the game, or are familiar w/ it but dont or won't play. It's a niche game that, unfortunately, most gamers dont stick with.
I hope that this is a successful project, but my fear is that all this hard work will go unnoticed (organized play system anyone?) by the vast majority of gamers out there who have already given up or moved on from ns2. I'm just not sure having another game w/ another transaction to play is going to help much vs. a mod that currently I can only ever find maybe 1 - 2 servers w/ people playing in.
Time will tell.
Any scrumptious details you can give about how this combat differs from the one in ns2?
Do you have any future plans for game direction? If so what?
What level of support will this receive for the months following release?
Yes, on NS2, that's one of the most important & interesting mod playable at the moment, especially to train his own skill, I know that many competitive players use this mod on their private server only to train (even if there's some diffference with the vanilla game like the % speed of celerity).
We can find public servers aswell with this mod, sometimes it's very boring because rookies or few players use Combat Mod to win, that's all, not really to improve their skill level. But then, what really is the audience you intend to attract with this game? Why NS2 players would buy it while Combat Mod works fine on NS2 itself? Other players, they only need to buy NS2 few dollars with Steam sales & hop, they can play both games in just one.
So yes, I think Combat Mod is one of the most interesting mod to be developped for a standalone (maybe Marines vs. Marines too), but I don't really see the interest for NS2 players to buy something already present in their previous purchase, NS2. Innovations or not? new features, maps, anything else I don't know and I do not feel that this is actually planned do not justify such a purchase for me, truly, but that's only my opinion.
What he said
Probably because what has been developed is of interest in itself and not simply a tool for skill improvement like the combat mod is. Surely if there are multiple game play modes and other things of value available then it is worth the money.
Moreover, a tonne of people were willing to pay for the promise of NS2 alone (may not have ended up existing) and you ended up with less than you had with ns1 initially. So really you don't want to fork over less than 20 dollars for this even though it doesn't just represent the Combat mod thrown onto its own launcher? ??
I'd love to share something with you guys:
Yesterday was our first day at PAX. We were very nervous. We expected no press, and nobody to come to our booth and check our game out. We thought we were surely a small fish in a sea of octopi. Then, something happened that we did not expect. The doors opened, and we did not sit down or take a break until the event closed. We had feedback surveys that people would write their ideas down on, telling us what they thought the game was worth, and giving us feedback. Every single survey we went through (and I sincerely mean every single one of them) were positive. People rated our game so highly hat we thought they were rigging the surveys or something. We were absolutely astounded. At that point we knew we were doing something right. As someone who goes to lots of conventions, I can tell you that nobody lies on a feedback survey. In fact, they are really, really, brutally honest. That's exactly what we wanted. It took us the entire night to accept that every single feedback form was positive. We even thought about making an entirely new survey because we just couldn't believe that every single person would say they had a blast playing.
I want you to know that Combat is something we're really proud of right now, and we definitely feel that it's worth every single penny you pay for. That being said, we have no plans on making Combat free, free 2 play, or discounted for NS2 owners.
That's when it's released, but what about ordering in advance?
Matchmaking? :O -> Great!
Are there any videos about combat available yet? E.g. from pax?