Natural Selection 2 F2P?

245678

Comments

  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    AurOn2 wrote: »
    I think he meant the topic, not so much the discussion itself.
    @pelargir there isn’t thanksgiving anywhere but murica.

    I know, but I'm living in France. I'm waiting for you to visit our country by the way.

    You can debate about F2P but I really don't think the quoted games are relevant. I even don't think there's any game that can prove anything here 'cause there isn't two similar games and NS2 can't be added in their category.

    This is just sad to know how the things are usually turned away. People only want to play against more competitive teams. That's all, right?
  • PelargirPelargir Join Date: 2013-07-02 Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
    Obraxis wrote: »
    Just going to put this here.

    F2P is not being worked on right now. It's not in any plans we have at this moment in time and the CDT are not working on it. However, if the playerbase drops to dangerous levels, it's something that can't be taken off the table and we would be negligent to do so.

    However, for now, I dont see it being needed. It is always great to have options though, rather than no choices. Glad we're in a spot where this is possible and we can discuss ideas.

    Exactly. But I have just no idea what "dangerous levels" mean for you. Even if we all agree to say this is not now anyway.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Vindaloo wrote: »
    Just a thought, maybe offtopic. Why bring new players when there is thousands upon thousands of people who already got the game, but had bad performace, got significant others, had to game less, etc. They might be in completely different situation now, new PC, personal life, etc. Why not try to bring those back? Mass email to inform of new stuff, small reminder. People tend to forget pretty quick. There could be incentive, ilke play at least 4h this weekend and get this weekend badge/skin.

    Bring back old players and have do something to retain those players.
  • ZeroEarThZeroEarTh Singapore Join Date: 2014-07-01 Member: 197126Members
    i think DOTA 2 and Teamfortress 2 , both goes Free-2-Play and developers got a huge success

    Balance between Casual and competitive like Counter Strike GO for example >> if you want casual cheking server list

    >>> if you want match making for Competitive >> join lobby to search 10 players and start
  • SebSeb Melbourne, AU Join Date: 2013-04-01 Member: 184576Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Retired Community Developer
    AurOn2 wrote: »
    ...have you ever been around in F2p weekends? I'm not particularly saying anything against newbies, it's just the way the community reacts to it.
    In australia, 90% of the vet population.. ups and dissapears.
    Excepting maybe comp players for our league, who kind of have to play a game a week to keep the admins away, right @bonage?

    Most of the Australian vet community is already disappearing though, with people sticking around to run it. Most players that are playing league games don't even play public anyways. Idk what you are talking about with the last sentence though.
  • RysskRyssk Join Date: 2012-12-18 Member: 175441Members
    So to summ up all the answers so far (i may be missing a few comments, sorry for that)

    Pros:
    Bigger playerbase
    Servers more filled
    More teams in Competitive
    Bigger community and maybe "livestream"

    Cons:
    Toxic,Hackers
    UWE may loose money (But could be fixed with skins or more fun modes)
    Many players may troll or just be bad and ruin for other members
    Maybe it could also involve more work for the CDT team to adjust all the opinions people have

    Am i missing something? Please add in, and i will fill in the 1st post.. This is just a first "sketch" of what i've collected so far :)

    Have a lovely weekend everyone! And happy thanksgiving for the others across the atlantic
  • MoFo1MoFo1 United States Join Date: 2014-07-25 Member: 197612Members
    edited October 2014
    Well to be fair...

    Bigger player base is really the only pro since the other 3 are more or less a direct result of having a bigger playerbase...
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    Boils down to the active playercounts imo. At current levels, it's fairly low, but still enough to fill up pub servers every night and have an enjoyable competitive scene. However, when the playerbase starts dropping to a "near-extinction-level" I wouldn't mind NS2 going f2p in the hope of extending the game's lifetime.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited October 2014
    This thread's demise summed up:
    7f0ceec851031c22c74744baab4f9d9aaede2a279d3fab942a9a4e01b13f2676.jpg

    I was about to say that.
    ehhhhhhh-y-u-read-my-mind.jpg
  • lwflwf Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58311Members, Constellation
    No one seem to address maybe the biggest blocker for F2P; how should NS2 be monetized when it's free to download?

    There's a system in place for skins, would investing in lots of skin DLC and hope that sells better than the game be a sane thing to do? There isn't much else you can do without ruining the integrity of the game or splitting players into small groups.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    Ok ok.. lets do this topic again. I do not believe it will work with f2p.

    * Bigger playerbase: perhaps.. but the barrier is usually people not putting in time to learn.. Not the money.. I doubt, strongly, that the playerbase would grow THAT much.
    * More teams in Competitive. The barrier for this is already quite low. Which is a good thing. But if I doubt that many new players join, the same goes for competitive.

    * Toxic, Hackers: Yes, this has a far bigger chance. Like people said.. even ns1 wasnt 100% f2p because HL1 cost money.
    * UWE may loose money (But could be fixed with skins or more fun modes): uwe would have less income on f2p.. of course.. Skin packs in the past have not reached that high sales to warrant a lovely income. Also many MANY clients already run into issues AS IS because their texture memory maxes out. Adding many many more high res skins will only amplify this problem. And who is going to make these skins? Making stuff costs time.. lotsa time. And I strongly doubt the profit from sales would exceed costs. Especially if you add more and more skins.

    Its been said before..
    * If you want to retain more players you need to have a easier time for rookies while keeping the vets interested. Thats hard.
    * Also performance (always) needs to be adressed. You will know if the game is free many MANY people who dont even remotely have the system specs required will try to run the game. They will then experience issues and complain. Who will handle the enormous surplus in support? DO you want to play in teams where half the folk can barely keep 15fps? Because why would they check specs? Its free.. if it doesn't work they lost nothing.

    Also I find your view on the CDT extremely disrespectful. Yes many in the community add lots of time to run servers, help rookies, keep games going, run NSL etc.. But do you really think the CDT is doing useless work? First off they do a lot of work.. a lot a lot.
    Second the work they do is NOT useless. Seen the bugfixes? I did.. Seen the long term performance gains? I did. Seen the new quality of life features? Yes, yes I did.
    You may notice that many vets actually request these features and are very happy it gets included in the game. Their work is just as important as folk who run the NSL, train rookies etc.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited October 2014
    Ryssk wrote: »
    So to summ up all the answers so far (i may be missing a few comments, sorry for that)

    Pros:
    Possibly Bigger playerbase (doubtful)
    -Possibly Servers more filled (refer to above)
    -Possibly More teams in Competitive (refer to above)
    -Possibly Bigger community and maybe "livestream" (refer to above)


    Cons:
    Toxic,Hackers
    UWE may loose money (But could be fixed with skins or more fun modes) (too expensive to make for a lack of possible return)
    Many players may troll or just be bad and ruin for other members
    Maybe it couldIt would also involve more work for the CDT team to adjust all the opinions people have
    Player retention is poor
    -Game is too hard for most gamers (even if we absolutely LOVE it)
    -Ns2 is a niche game that does not have mass appeal
    -Does not bring in the hundreds of thousands who bought the game but don't play
    Possibly smaller playerbase
    -Possibly Servers less filled
    -Possibly Less teams in Competitive
    -Possibly Smaller community and maybe less "livestream"

    Am i missing something? Please add in, and i will fill in the 1st post.. This is just a first "sketch" of what i've collected so far :)

    Have a lovely weekend everyone! And happy thanksgiving for the others across the atlantic
    I corrected it and is shown by italics.
  • Maxx11_v2.0Maxx11_v2.0 Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172221Members
    lwf wrote: »
    No one seem to address maybe the biggest blocker for F2P; how should NS2 be monetized when it's free to download?

    There's a system in place for skins, would investing in lots of skin DLC and hope that sells better than the game be a sane thing to do? There isn't much else you can do without ruining the integrity of the game or splitting players into small groups.
    F2P games would also require some sort of income model, Reinforced is all well and good but the transactions aren't "micro" enough to entice new players to cough up money. There's also very little to gain in game from buying a Reinforced tier (other than the bloody shadow skins. I don't care what anyone says, for me, they are harder to see than the regular ones).
    Games like Dota2 and LoL do indeed make most or all of their money from cosmetic changes, but those games have a ton of premium stuff to choose from as well as an engine built to support it (as far as I know, NS2 would have a hard time dealing with so many varying sound, skin and model assets).
    The last thing we want is a bs Pay 2 Win variant, like "extended weapon clips", "additional weapon slots", "personal res packs" etc.

    Long story short, as far as I know the engine wouldn't be able to handle so many varying assets. Someone from the CDT could confirm this though.
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    edited October 2014
    Spoilerized all pictures.
    There is absolutely no cause for alarm.
    The wings are NOT on fire.
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    Long story short, as far as I know the engine wouldn't be able to handle so many varying assets. Someone from the CDT could confirm this though.

    I'm fairly certain this is un-true.
    Arent all the ingame models rendered individually?
  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    I think the main problem was that they were pushing the memory limit, though for simple weapon skins this should not be a problem anymore if I recall correctly. I'm a bit hazy on the details though.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    Since we already have too many threads about this (and the devs already told us it would not happen), can we close this?
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited October 2014
    @Obraxis‌ should be banned from the forums for being too sensible.

    With Combat Standalone coming soon and NS2 game still having a great group of regular players I don't see the point of F2P. I agree with Obraxis that if there are down to the last few people then F2P will inject life back into the game, but I hope we are a long way off from that.
  • OtsOts Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18577Members, Constellation
    With the release of NS:Combat, you should make NS2 F2P, to drag in players who want to experience the original. Ultimately the game will not achieve anything but fixes to current meta/engine, so why wait for the "last ditch effort", instead of solifying the current number of players?

    This current ENSL season is a good example how teams are slowly becoming less and less interested to play the game, we are repeatedly nudging teams from lower divisions, to higher, just to keep the sizes of the divisions the same, even though nothing has changed regarding the teams skillwise.

    At some point, you have to stop "trying to improve the game", and resort to methods like F2P. Who knows what kind of impact NS:Combat will have for NS2, we will see. But it is simply a naive and self destructive notion to ignore F2P as an option for the reasons posted before by people in this topic, we want more people to play this game, no we are not happy to simply have some servers with players.
  • RoobubbaRoobubba Who you gonna call? Join Date: 2003-01-06 Member: 11930Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    @Ots I'm kind of on the fence about f2p for NS2, but you make an important point for discussion about the release of NS2:Combat. On the one hand, bringing more players into NS2 from the release of combat is an excellent and achievable goal. However, making NS2 f2p might cause problems for combat (which will not be free) - why buy combat when you can download the 'original' and more complex game (also with a combat mod) for free? It wouldn't be my view, but I can see it being a consideration for many propsective NS2/NS2:Combat buyers!

    A sale on NS2 to coincide with combat would be a very sensible idea - or even also a discount pack where you can buy both at a good discount (the discount being on NS2, so combat still gets their asking price, if UWE would be amenable to that).

    I worry about toxic players on the F2P model, but it isn't always the case that games suffer irreparably from this problem. With careful management, that could work - but that management takes resources and therefore funding to support the model would be required. And that means hats, basically. This is where I have the biggest issues with NS2 going free to play, but maybe they can be worked out?
  • OtsOts Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18577Members, Constellation
    It's something to consider, at some point you need to stop worrying about the worst outcome, and just go for it. F2P could be one way, package deals as you mentioned could be another, this does not have to happen now, today, but in the near future, it should.

    I doubt we can ever really resort to 'hats', we're running on a voluntary staff at this point regardless, does UWE really care about the income from NS2 anymore? Isn't their main focus on other things at this point for 'income'. I doubt this is about finance anymore. It feels more about a healthy sized community, at least for me.
  • DuivelDuivel Duivel.gk@gmail.com Join Date: 2014-05-21 Member: 196161Members
    1- Matchmaking, skins and F2P
    2- ???
    3- PROFIT
  • METROIDMETROID Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165171Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    1 - Simplify gameplay
    2 - F2P
    3- ???
    4- Ops, we got Shadowgun: Deadzone again!

    Another try.
    1- Add skinz/hatz
    2- F2P
    3 - ???
    4 - Ops, we got TF2 again!

    Also F2P doesn't mean the game is totally free, there must be some payments in the game, I'm really doubt UWE wants to kickout NS2 totally free in the wild. But it will require a big job to be done: new paid content, ingame balance, fixing bugs and many many other things, or people will start the game, play for 5 min, and delete it. Also CDT won't handle all that stuff, and also the won't develop the game for free. And UWE have no time/money for it either.
    But not only that. UWE will have to pull out their servers (to rent, of course), cuz more then 50% community servers will be locked down from influx of noobs. Yeah, you can tolerate noobs on NS2's sales, but you can't tolerate them forever, so expect more "passworded or rookie-not-friendly" servers and less community "green" servers.

    Or there is another way for UWE.
    UWE likes to experiment! Like they did with Kodiak DLC or the upcoming NS2:Combat. UWE can also make a standalone NS2:F2P (or hire a 3rd party for that like Faultline Games). NS2:F2P can be somesort of demoversion: no mods support, less maps, only UWE's servers, only vanilla mode, less graphics options. But it will also be very stable.
    And only very major and stable things can be implemented to NS2:F2P from original NS2.
    People can play and learn with NS2:F2P and if the liked it, they can buy full version NS2.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    I would like to see something longer than a free weekend if possible falling in line with combat release. Like all of november free. Let people play, get hooked.
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    edited October 2014
    ...can we wait till the ausns2 league is over, first, at least?
    maybe NSL Season 5?
    ...that way all the dissenting vets can go on a holiday. :)
    i was joking seb
Sign In or Register to comment.