How is NS2 faring ??
BlackMoon
Montreal, CA Join Date: 2014-09-03 Member: 198238Members
Montreal, CA Join Date: 2014-09-03 Member: 198238Members
I'm currently going through the process of building a new computer, and had in mind to make it a beast so I could play NS2, which is pretty graphics-intensive.
When I looked at the NS2 website though, it showed "30 people online" and "383 people playing".
Is that the actual stats for the game?
It sounds darn awful. I was a huge NS player back in Half-Life days, and it breaks my heart to hear that the game, despite its great MetaScore and awesome graphics and great-looking gameplay, seems to hardly be making a breakthrough in the gaming community.
So much work went into it, too.
Anyhow, I'd love for someone to tell me exactly what's going on with NS2 these days, how the community and the competitive scene are and all. I'm really interested in coming to the game, even if there's not 25,000 players, and if I do I'll also be getting the Shadow Reinforced pack to support the developpment of the game. However, I'm still not exactly sure because the game looks kind of deadish.
.....
(P.S. I also looked up NS2Stats.com. While it doesn't look like the game is doing quite horribly, in my heart it should get a lot more recognition - being to me the most awesome game as well as the closest to a perfect game I've played.)
Well, cheers, dudes.
When I looked at the NS2 website though, it showed "30 people online" and "383 people playing".
Is that the actual stats for the game?
It sounds darn awful. I was a huge NS player back in Half-Life days, and it breaks my heart to hear that the game, despite its great MetaScore and awesome graphics and great-looking gameplay, seems to hardly be making a breakthrough in the gaming community.
So much work went into it, too.
Anyhow, I'd love for someone to tell me exactly what's going on with NS2 these days, how the community and the competitive scene are and all. I'm really interested in coming to the game, even if there's not 25,000 players, and if I do I'll also be getting the Shadow Reinforced pack to support the developpment of the game. However, I'm still not exactly sure because the game looks kind of deadish.
.....(P.S. I also looked up NS2Stats.com. While it doesn't look like the game is doing quite horribly, in my heart it should get a lot more recognition - being to me the most awesome game as well as the closest to a perfect game I've played.)
Well, cheers, dudes.
Comments
The playerbase, however, continues shrinking. I think we are down to 400 now? Something like that. (...like your post said. That's about average.) And so far, no clear upcoming solution is in sight. (Although the CDT apparently has something planned...)
The players that remain, though, will cling to this game for at least another two years.
So, all in all...
1) NS2 is greater than it ever was
2) The fanbase is smaller than it ever was
3) The fans are as dedicated as they have always been
But why is the water warm hmm :-?
Mmmmm....
With a computer that can handle the game in addition to the recent performance improvements, your experience is likely to be much better than it was before.
400 might not seem like a lot, but really what that means is unless you live on mars, there's more or less always going to be populated servers with an acceptable ping for you to play on.
You'll see a lot of familiar names, sure, but frankly thats one of the reasons NS2 is still the kind of game I like to play- there's a community. Come play, chat, try not to take people raging at you too seriously when tensions are high, make some friends and im sure you'll have a good time.
And for your interest, sir*, I commend and welcome you!
*or ma'am.
but hawken is a free shitgame thouh, so why does Most epic game in world history (NS2) have same numbers?...
you got the money to make subnautica, the cashcow of ns2 has been collected, people donated all they ever could...maby make ns2 free from christmas? so the legend of ns2 could live on again? i honestly never played a better game in my entire life, and no other game prop ever will exceed this unless ns3, but till then let more people get to enjoy it on steam! not doubtfully take a chance on buying it in hopes that there will be someone to play with.
now here i am, with the same old craptop (which now has tape on the powercord and cannot boot anymore with the battery attached), playing the game at a reasonable (though still not entirely fluent) framerate.
tl,dr: the game was optimized several times over the years. it's still demanding, but you might not need a "beast" anymore.
More OT, I think there is a decent player count (for a cheaply priced, niche, and now, kind of old in the gaming business, game). Most nights (in NA) have a lot of full servers (idk about the times for other countries). Weekend nights have a lot more players (and more drunken people.. I've helped in this).
@RadimaX This isn't such a bad idea. Or at least make it free for 2 weeks or something when subnautica hits as advertisement for both. I know the green tide is nauseating (the water gets cold from that one), but I do want to have fresh players coming to this game, and appreciate its beauty in asymmetry game play.
It doesn't need any more.
Hawken's gameplay isn't that great imo and given how TitanFall went.. it seems like people don't really like mech gameplay enough to stick around.
@ OP ns2 is faring well on the development side of things but the player base has dwindled by 50% over the past few months. I'm interested to see how that will be addressed in months to come.
How about you read this and many other articles regarding Devs who have done F2P, and realise that even with F2P, there is no guarantee people will play the game.
It is also possible that the F2P crowd would likely dis-rupt the friendly atmosphere of the game, driving away the one good thing that remains through this game and makes it still enjoyable - the community.
Personally I think F2P is absolutely the wrong choice unless you are designed specifically for it.
Edit- Forgot to post link...
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MickeyBlumental/20140901/224535/The_Other_Reason_to_Avoid_F2P.php
Ppl could just port vanilla over to combat and switch right?
And in ~2years after that playerbase goes down we could make the full circle and wait for the release of ns2:combat:vanilla the standalone. :P
I can't wait to create a ns2:combat:vanilla:combat mod on that.
Remember what the game is like during a sale weekend, and imagine that all the time.
Some measure it by players (average/concurrent/peak), quality of players, development status of a game, enjoyability of the game, etc.
Many of these metrics are perception and opinion.
Sure, our player numbers have been higher, but a good portion of that was from sales and initial release. Since then players giving it a try and deciding if it is for them or not, and some of the more hardcore players moving on, as games do have a shelf life, it doesn't mean the game is bad as only the individual can decide if they've had enough.
Regarding number of players, In my opinion it does NOT matter if there are 400 people or 400,000 people, you still play with 16-24 players at any one time and so long as you can get online, and within a reasonable timeframe play a game with a full server, that seems reasonable to me.
Another game I've really enjoyed is called Guns of Icarus, which during a sale had 300 players, but now it's barely speaking out 69 when I play. But I can get online with some friends and get a game going.
During the 1k+ hours playing Left 4 Dead 2 in the final days I played it had 8000 players down from 161,000 which seems like a tonne, but it took forever to get a game started, and if it started, if one team got dominated in 1 part of the map, they gave up and then I never got my turn to play each side resulting in crummy quality games. While I did enjoy my time, I ultimately moved on when my mates didn't want to play anymore.
Let's face it, the video game industry is rife with so many indy games, casual, mobile, AAA titles, and lately steam early access games (which IMO have been less than enjoyable). With so many options to cater to each and every players "itch" it will ALWAYS make it difficult for NS2 to gain and retain new players, as it serves a very specific "itch" and it isn't a game for the light hearted, frail PC performance or those with the intelligence of a potato.
Back in NS1, most people would flock to games like popular Counterstrike (v1.6b at the time?) TFC, Quake, in a time where consoles offered limited multiplayer, Battlefield was more humble of a game and CoD wasn't what it was today.
If anything the question that should be asked is not why is the game declining, but what keeps it going, it's community.
TL;DR The world, and it's players change quickly with time, if a game lasts as long as it does, it's almost "luck" of the formula. If you love a game play it until you had your fill, it's only Natural........Selection
We might get a boost but we might not, anything to keep servers running, keep the community active as I don't want to see this game die at least before UWE are working on NS3 (which they will, they must!). Then again, NS1 lasted awhile, my old nostalgic favorite AVP2 survived on half as much players as NS2 has now for years and is still going on long after the master servers were shut down.
NS2 combat standalone is going to be pretty important for the future of the franchise, will it be successful like NS2 was? Can we encourage the general combat playerbase that might not own NS2 to buy it and give it a try after learning some basic mechanics in combat?
A hardcore of players are keeping a handful (5-10) servers full in each time zone, most games on pub servers make the newer players ragequit due to stacked teams or the single hero player dominating effect.
This is mitigated a bit if you join a server that enforces ELO based teams (try SEK2000 servers) but there is only ever one of these running as it's not that popular (most people seem to prefer to get into a game fast , especially if they can choose the team with the best player on it).
The thing that would have / could save this game is a matchmaking system for public play, as was achieved for CS with CS:GO, but I've heard nothing about that yet.
NS2 isn't quite in the graveyard of great shooters that almost made it yet (e.g. ET:QW) but it already feels like a very small game.
On the flip side, if you have a clan, and a group of people you can regularly meet up with online to play with it's very good, but that's something usually people develop after playing on pub servers, not before.