seeing the performance hit looking at a room with a few shaded structures, i'd really like for them not to add anything else transparent, unless that isn't the cause.
seeing the performance hit looking at a room with a few shaded structures, i'd really like for them not to add anything else transparent, unless that isn't the cause.
I don't think you understand. Transparency isnt possible in the engine right now. Any current form of it is a really cheaty, hacky method that doesnt really work. So any performance hits you are feeling is CERTAINLY not from transparency.
I don't care about the what. Details of what will be done with faster development will come as they are known. Nothing has really changed as far as I know, but everything will just happen faster. I am not concerned about that.
Maybe I am nosy, but I want to know why UWE made this decision at this point in time. Back when they left Ns2 it was for financial reasons. What has changed? Why not do this, or something like this, before the CDT was formed? I think @hugh is the only one who can answer what CTTEE and I are asking.
“Thousands of concurrent players, tens of thousands of people engaging with NS2 every week, and millions of dollars of yearly revenue.”
That is a vague but ambitious goal, especially the millions of dollars in yearly revenue part. I think that is a key statement even if it is just a vague goal.
Why does UWE think that now is the time in which they can turn ns2 into a million dollar a year franchise? What has changed internally to pursue this?
All these blog posts have mostly been directed at answering the how. It has been said that the what is not known. Hugh made a proposal to UWE, probably Flayra, to pursue this project. Hugh is a smart guy. I am sure he had some very sound reasoning in this proposal. Flayra is a smart guy running a business. He would not have approved this project if it did not have sound reasoning. There must be a "what" that was clearly defined somewhere along the way.
What are the details of Hughs proposal? What opportunity does UWE see that we don't know about?
@Soul_Rider Ah, well there was no "exodus" of employees during that time frame, so I don't know where he got that impression?
Development on FP was put on hold its developers moved over to assist with SN full time, with the exception of Brian Cronin who left for greener pastures.
For example, notice the new water and lighting effects in SN's experimental branch? That's Max's doing.
I believe UWE wants to complete or get close to completing SN before focusing on FP again.
They should of realised this to begin with, when I first heard the news of FP being announced I was like "Wtf? Why are they concentrating on ANOTHER game, NS2 was left in a unoptimized, broken & unbalanced mess, ok thats a financial deadweight I get that, so Subnautica is their next lovechild, which is going really well for them in focusing on a real strong single player experience why pull members from that team to start work on a third?!".
I wonder what they can do to the game to evolve it, gain user base and get in larger crowds.
I had Ai commander in mind that would eliminate half an hour long waiting times in ready rooms, but then you'd also cut away a large strategic portion of the game. Having Combat part in the game would also be a benefit instead of separate game because you can quickly have some shooting and training without waiting, but that would conflict with the standalone game.
There are so many things that could be done, but they also prety much always lead to collapse of the existing game ecosystem, so I really don't know what they'll be able to do that CDT wasn't able.
@lussebull I don't know what it is, but yes, they look delicious. (I hope they're not secretly something gross)
Ill give you a clue my name on this forum is the name of the pastry in another language...
And my name on ns2 is the close english Word for the pastry.
Welp... that's it then. It'll be something gross, you'll see. Fish eyes perhaps...
And BeigeAlert
It's not something gross at ALL!
It more DELICIUS than all of you donuts in USA!!!!! (Assuming you're from the United state's of America)
It's actully made of saffron (obviously)
And rassin and some other things i can't remember.....
@Ironhorse - I am fairly sure @meatmachine is referring to the exodus that required the abandonment of development on Future Perfect around May/June of this year.
If that situation has been rectified, and the Subnautica team grown and expanded, why has development on FP not resumed?
We had one programmer who left early in the year to actually work outside of the game industry. They were not working on Future Perfect. Another programmer left about a month or so later, who was actually enjoying working on Subnautica, but Google came calling with an offer they couldn't refuse. Future Perfect was put on hold, for a variety of reasons, largely because a lot of the core tech needed to be worked out and it was creating a bottleneck that was preventing other people on the team from working effectively. And Subnautica was taking off and really needed the full focus of our team. When the decision was made, we lost another programmer because they didn't want to work on Subnautica. Hardly a big exodus, and those departures did not lead to why the FP project was put on hold. And, as Ironhorse mentioned already, we've since refilled those positions with some very talented individuals who are hard at work on Subnautica.
They should of realised this to begin with, when I first heard the news of FP being announced I was like "Wtf? Why are they concentrating on ANOTHER game, NS2 was left in a unoptimized, broken & unbalanced mess, ok thats a financial deadweight I get that, so Subnautica is their next lovechild, which is going really well for them in focusing on a real strong single player experience why pull members from that team to start work on a third?!".
One game at a time UWE... One game at a time.
That's not how things work. We are making games for the love of making games, and that means that we want to branch out into new projects to keep things interesting. We had worked on NS2 for many years and were all burnt out on it, so regardless of financial considerations, we wanted to take some time to work on something fresh and new, to recharge our batteries. If we were making games for just a paycheck and not creative fulfillment we could go spend years working on an endless franchise like Call of Duty or something. Sometimes we are focused on one project, and sometimes, for scheduling purposes and for employee satisfaction it makes sense to have several projects going at the same time.
I have spent nearly 2,500 hours of my time over the last three years playing Natural Selection 2. It is the only multi player game I actually like or ever loved. I have never invested time in a game until Natural Selection 2. This game has done so much for me over the last few years. I have listened to the average gamer's complaints and the main complaints of rookies or players who left the game early on and returned much later in the game only to find it less fun and quit again.... Here is the general consensus of the complaints I always get:
1: The CDT focused only on Competitive play and not the general gamer that only plays for fun who actually keep games alive financially! (I have no issue with Pro matches however the average gamer was completely ignored in most CDT patches! Both Promised DLC and many general player needs were not addressed properly)
2: "Games need to return to a slightly slower pace for rookies. Somewhat closer to the older style builds 250 and 249.beta were like so that average rookies whom only play for fun have an actual chance to learn the game without being insta-gibed so much their first hour they quit forever and to make average games more epic once again as they should be!!" It is hard for a rookie to learn anything when they struggle to do what You ask them only to get instantly killed every time before being able to complete a task by some veteran! Rookies need this!( Do You remember when it was a very rare sight to play a game long enough to see Onos and fade on aliens and Exo's and Jetpacks on marines? Every one of those games felt epic but also gave rookies a better chance to learn as they played which was needed! Some people may disagree, however I base this comment off of what people constantly tell me! A new game mode for this style of play should be added as I listed below.
3: Also I understand removing gorge tunnels from vents. I agree with that, but "How is a rookie supposed to be able to at least have fun gorging when You ruin basic ground tunnel placements for them" or everything else gorges used to be able to do in order to feel useful as a rookie?" Rookies say aliens are difficult to learn and they are at first. Rookies always fallback on gorging until it became so much harder and felt far less important being one for them.
Gorge tunnels need to be allowed on any ground level at the very least so rookies or average "play for fun" gamer's with older PC's can have a bit more fun until they can learn to play other creatures. "Possibly give a single point or an assist for a gorge healing a cyst to maturity to make them feel useful". Average rookies need to feel some reward to keep trying or they will quit the game!!!If They need time to learn, at least let them be clever with their tunnels to keep them motivated to play.
4: "The general game options for ns2 modes needs an optional separate balance more focused on 10v10 average players instead of only 6v6 professional player matches similar to something like this.
Selectable game modes:
IE:
NS2 Classic Mode"[for 10v10 and larger servers focused on average players and drawing rookies into games that they can have more time to actually learn instead of instantly quitting because of frequent immediate difficulty vs gradual difficulty over the course of an hour]"(games start off slower and gradually build up to more epic games. This gives the average player time to learn the game as they go rather than being instantly slaughtered every time they try to follow a direction early on. "Games last much longer and are far more rewarding to players who make it to a game involving fade, onos, exo suits and jetpacks like this!" "Gorge tunnels place-able on any floor surface again." Older builds balance system can be adjusted for the framework of the game mode suggested) ,
NS2 Competitive mode (What it is currently as that works just about perfectly.),
NS2 Combat Mode (same thing is is now essentially but reintegrated back into the game. It can be done even though it involves some work)
None of these optional things would hurt the competitive mod or competitive play. It simply adds new and or more depth to a game that once had it natively to help bring more players to the game that would normally just quit.
5:"A new optional balance system that allows rookies to be balanced easier when more than 2 join a server." Based on last three average games for each individual team. (may also include individual skills per each map to further balance if needed)("hive skill balance wont work with many rookies on still sadly")
6: "Combat should be reintegrated as it was a free mod and it was taken away making the average players feel financially extorted at first eventually leading to NS2:combats collapse."
7: "Shadow Fade and Onos are long overdue! No one denies this in pro or public servers." (after donating 206$ to the reinforced program only to have this promise practically abandoned, I feel screwed as well so I feel Your pain)
8: "selectable mouse settings for each side. Marine and alien so people can stop complaining about having to change mouse settings manually for each team." ( I have no issue with this but almost 80% of players complain about this not being included in basic options. )
These are only polite suggestions based on the most common complaints I hear from average gamer's and old school Ns2 players who quit when the fun of most games went downhill with newer builds and balance changes for the competitive mod integration that leaned towards competitive players only...
Unfortunately in my experience the CDT did not seem to care about the average gamer experience much and only cares primarily about the professional player base. Recently however they have done some good for the general population by fixing load times, packet handling and restoring alien vision to a playable form(even if it took them forever on the latter). I am hoping they continue to divide their attention equally to help resolve the dwindling 200 average monthly player base they helped to initially create. When financial gain requires happy consumers, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. New game modes solve many peoples complaints about many of the games changes to integrating competitive play for both rookie and veterans alike. This will help bring in more rookies and get old time NS2 players back in the game who quit after all the recent changes chased people off! Adding the things people have been waiting years for will solve many complaints about basic mouse options and missing skins and game modes being removed or lost.
Fingers crossed things can be salvaged but do not hold Your breath. This is Unknown World's and the Community Development Teams last chance to save Natural Selection 2 from extinction within the next few years. If they fail, our goal becomes clear. Wait, wish and hope for Natural Selection 3! Good luck Guys. I wish You all the best of luck. You will need it!
7: "Shadow Fade and Onos are long overdue! No one denies this in pro or public servers." (after donating 206$ to the reinforced program only to have this promise practically abandoned, I feel screwed as well so I feel Your pain)
8: "selectable mouse settings for each side. Marine and alien so people can stop complaining about having to change mouse settings manually for each team." ( I have no issue with this but almost 80% of players complain about this not being included in basic options. )
#7 is planned and coming. It will be here soon.
#8 is functionally in the game. Have you heard of the mod ns2+? Well it is on nearly all ns2 servers. That mod allows you to set team specific sensitivities.
These are my personal opinions which i as myself have come to know about NS.
1: [citation needed[citation needed][citation needed][citation needed][citation needed]], they didn't focus only on competitive play, as far as the trello is concerned they focused on fixing performance issues and releasing new maps which obviously weren't wanted by the majority of people who play NS2 these days due to being widely different environments and often not very fun to play on due to balance issues. Public and competitive players are one in the same and play to have fun when not on comp servers, i dare say it the people who seeded this community were competitive players from NS, there's no difference between your state of mind and there's, winning and not having fun + winning and having fun vs losing and having fun (you) and there's nothing wrong with that.
2: For the first part, i would address this issue about the greens being insta-gibbed with a working match-making system which is currently being implemented. Also average games are usually more epic it just depends how you are and your skill level, long games are a part of NS culture, often games leading over 90minutes to occasional 6hour games back in the day, but these days long games often last 1hour or more, it can often be a struggle to keep people in the game because it's mostly a turtle.
3: I disagree the reason why tunnels were removed from vents is because earlier builds of NS2 had poor ladder and mapping support for vents which allowed marines to enter(take a look at various revisions of say ns_veil or other maps like eclipse whereby you could theoretically have placed a tunnel and they would never have been able to be accessed unless the marines had jetpacks, thus it was unfair for tunnels to be dropped inside of them. I would say the reason why gorge is difficult to learn is because the actual physics they implemented for gorge isn't "complete" in the sense it has terrible air control, i suggest for this issue we re-implement gorge bunnyhop to atleast give people who know how to move there mouse with basic movements a chance to bunnyhop or even glide there way out of gunfire?
4: not even going to bother with this one, you shouldn't ever control game-mode type server splitting just because a server has 20 people doesn't mean it is any more rookie friendly then say a 16player, actually i'd argue that on a 16player a rookie will learn faster then a 20player because 16players tend to gravitate towards a more competitive type gameplay and most of those rookies can look and learn, become friends with those people. Labeling is useless when people are new to a game.
5:Skill system, hive system is all in review and is currently being worked on and upgraded, i wouldn't be surprised with the next planned patch that the CDT was working on will re-implement the upgraded system.
6: "Combat should be reintegrated as it was a free mod and it was taken away making the average players feel financially extorted at first eventually leading to NS2:combats collapse." (only thing i agree with you on) It should be rewritten from scratch to match the balance values of regular natural selection 2 as people use it as a training tool, it was perfect for NS1.
7: It's coming, read the trello.
8: It's part of NS2+ which most servers that actually matter use, actually i don't know of any server with a population that isn't running NS2+ (poor mendasp a++ person )
NS2 is still fun if anything it has become more fun in recent times due new mods coming out from the working, game-types, models and skins + crosshairs + maps to performance upgrades and general bug fixes, and most of those people you call NS2 old schoolers aren't NS2 old schoolers, they were rookies who played for a year and left then came back every once in a while to see if the performance has been fixed then realise there isn't a pure population base to enjoy the game.
You're wrong the CDT didn't favour any one faction of player, they took comments from everyone and worked through that. I personally don't like some of the CDT but they actually did do some good.
I hope that Unknown Worlds Entertainment will take up the way of the frontiersmen and release a "back to the TSA" patch and starts to realise that some of the people complaining are so out of touch with the communities at large
This might sound a bit heavy handed.. but looking over the 'team', I get the impression that gameplay improvements are not actively being targeted.. I would be curious as to why that decision was made if it indeed was.
In regards to Shadow fade and onos skins, I can only surmise we will see their completion in due time since @rantology has since made the new ns2 dev team and fat stacks of cash are thrown her way... one can hope.
In regards to Shadow fade and onos skins, I can only surmise we will see their completion in due time since @rantology has since made the new ns2 dev team and fat stacks of cash are thrown her way... one can hope.
The models are not made by rantology, she is only texturing them.
And I have seen the shadow onos model, it's awesome.
In regards to Shadow fade and onos skins, I can only surmise we will see their completion in due time since @rantology has since made the new ns2 dev team and fat stacks of cash are thrown her way... one can hope.
The models are not made by rantology, she is only texturing them.
And I have seen the shadow onos model, it's awesome.
The CDT has done a great job making it so that servers and desktops can actually host/run this game without requiring a 20Ghz cpu. These performance improvements have vastly improved gameplay from the lag fest that it was in the past and made the game more accessible to users who simply could not even run it before.
Performance improvements were something that felt largely ignored by UWE but felt like a priority to the CDT, I just hope that now with UWE back in the driver seat we will continue to see a focus on performance and not a bunch of side show updates like dlc packs focused on cash grabs.
Still though the largest pending issue present in the game is the total lack of server side demo recording. This is a feature common in source engine and many other games which is very important for catching hackers. There is a world of difference between in game video capture and having an actual demo. Even if the demos break every update just being able to have them long enough for a few admins to look it over is great to finally catch hackers. Removing hackers and other "bad" players from servers is an important part of enriching the NS2 experience for everyone. We just need the tools to catch these people and server side demo recording is the best one.
My head is exploding with the sheer ammount of gold posts i've been seeing lately!
Just gonna throw out my 2 cents on what a focus should be (as far as getting/keeping new players)
1. Global and Regional chat box within client to aide in seeding servers
- Let players at the main menu talk to each other without being in a server (I'm talking a simple chat-room)
- Separate by Region, with a Global option, this will help build a community feeling outside the forums, and can get people to group together on a single Server, reducing seed time.
- Add a competitive sub-channel, if comp players feel the need for it.
2. A "Scripted Tutorial Match" for both Marines and Aliens
- Pretty self explanatory, and has been talked about for years.
Heres hoping that official backing can get more ambitious improvements going!
This might sound a bit heavy handed.. but looking over the 'team', I get the impression that gameplay improvements are not actively being targeted.. I would be curious as to why that decision was made if it indeed was.
I agree with the observation that it would seem gameplay improvements are not actively being targeted, but I also think that Hugh covered that in his posts. I may have inferred it, but the general idea of this new team is looking at ways of facilitating the quick implementation of new ideas, rather than actually implementing new ideas.
Essentially, I think cleaning up tools, improving ability for custom content to be created etc.
I have an ability for reading between the lines which is as sharp as a brick (I have Aspergers), but I would personally infer that they are looking into the viability of making new content additions easy enough, within this 3 month time-frame, to facilitate a move to maybe, paid content on the workshop, and thus allowing, maybe the opportunity to test a F2P model.
That, if you look at the team, would fit rather neatly.
This might sound a bit heavy handed.. but looking over the 'team', I get the impression that gameplay improvements are not actively being targeted.. I would be curious as to why that decision was made if it indeed was.
I'd suppose because an extremely strong core game-play experience isn't at the heart of any successful game with a concurrent user-base of thousands of players of which many are willing to spend significant money on cosmetic content
within this 3 month time-frame, to facilitate a move to maybe, paid content on the workshop, and thus allowing, maybe the opportunity to test a F2P model.
That, if you look at the team, would fit rather neatly.
The secret is cs:go skins "obviously" (p.s. sarcasm), though the timing for that couldn't be worse with what is going on with Killing Floor 2 and Payday2.
While it may incentivize players, the current community backlash going on for those games is intense to say the least.
The big skill gaps are a good thing. When you put time and effort into playing this game you should become a better player, so you should be able to stomp if the difference is too high. This is a reward for playing. Otherwise there is still CoD or Battlefield for those who want the reward to be cool DLC equipment unlocks instead of skill improvement.
I agree that playtime needs to be rewarded and skill should show.
I got my 400+ hours playtime and i liked how good i had gotten, but getting stomped by a single player in a team effort to bring him down was not fun. Atleast for me. And with that, the most important aspect of the game was suffering for me: the teamplay. The teamplay made it awesome, whether you won or lost, but then it had to feel like the teams were really head to head.
Feeling like a child trying to fight an adult and then gently getting ended after the marines had round up all their tech and carefully secured everything under the guidance of 1 superior player was just not fun.
Thats what kinda made me stop playing NS2.
Comments
I don't think you understand. Transparency isnt possible in the engine right now. Any current form of it is a really cheaty, hacky method that doesnt really work. So any performance hits you are feeling is CERTAINLY not from transparency.
Maybe I am nosy, but I want to know why UWE made this decision at this point in time. Back when they left Ns2 it was for financial reasons. What has changed? Why not do this, or something like this, before the CDT was formed? I think @hugh is the only one who can answer what CTTEE and I are asking.
NS2 Hats and microtransactions confirmed.
They should of realised this to begin with, when I first heard the news of FP being announced I was like "Wtf? Why are they concentrating on ANOTHER game, NS2 was left in a unoptimized, broken & unbalanced mess, ok thats a financial deadweight I get that, so Subnautica is their next lovechild, which is going really well for them in focusing on a real strong single player experience why pull members from that team to start work on a third?!".
One game at a time UWE... One game at a time.
I had Ai commander in mind that would eliminate half an hour long waiting times in ready rooms, but then you'd also cut away a large strategic portion of the game. Having Combat part in the game would also be a benefit instead of separate game because you can quickly have some shooting and training without waiting, but that would conflict with the standalone game.
There are so many things that could be done, but they also prety much always lead to collapse of the existing game ecosystem, so I really don't know what they'll be able to do that CDT wasn't able.
Welp... that's it then. It'll be something gross, you'll see. Fish eyes perhaps...
And my name on ns2 is the close english Word for the pastry. And BeigeAlert
It's not something gross at ALL!
It more DELICIUS than all of you donuts in USA!!!!! (Assuming you're from the United state's of America)
It's actully made of saffron (obviously)
And rassin and some other things i can't remember.....
That's not how things work. We are making games for the love of making games, and that means that we want to branch out into new projects to keep things interesting. We had worked on NS2 for many years and were all burnt out on it, so regardless of financial considerations, we wanted to take some time to work on something fresh and new, to recharge our batteries. If we were making games for just a paycheck and not creative fulfillment we could go spend years working on an endless franchise like Call of Duty or something. Sometimes we are focused on one project, and sometimes, for scheduling purposes and for employee satisfaction it makes sense to have several projects going at the same time.
1: The CDT focused only on Competitive play and not the general gamer that only plays for fun who actually keep games alive financially! (I have no issue with Pro matches however the average gamer was completely ignored in most CDT patches! Both Promised DLC and many general player needs were not addressed properly)
2: "Games need to return to a slightly slower pace for rookies. Somewhat closer to the older style builds 250 and 249.beta were like so that average rookies whom only play for fun have an actual chance to learn the game without being insta-gibed so much their first hour they quit forever and to make average games more epic once again as they should be!!" It is hard for a rookie to learn anything when they struggle to do what You ask them only to get instantly killed every time before being able to complete a task by some veteran! Rookies need this!( Do You remember when it was a very rare sight to play a game long enough to see Onos and fade on aliens and Exo's and Jetpacks on marines? Every one of those games felt epic but also gave rookies a better chance to learn as they played which was needed! Some people may disagree, however I base this comment off of what people constantly tell me! A new game mode for this style of play should be added as I listed below.
3: Also I understand removing gorge tunnels from vents. I agree with that, but "How is a rookie supposed to be able to at least have fun gorging when You ruin basic ground tunnel placements for them" or everything else gorges used to be able to do in order to feel useful as a rookie?" Rookies say aliens are difficult to learn and they are at first. Rookies always fallback on gorging until it became so much harder and felt far less important being one for them.
Gorge tunnels need to be allowed on any ground level at the very least so rookies or average "play for fun" gamer's with older PC's can have a bit more fun until they can learn to play other creatures. "Possibly give a single point or an assist for a gorge healing a cyst to maturity to make them feel useful". Average rookies need to feel some reward to keep trying or they will quit the game!!!If They need time to learn, at least let them be clever with their tunnels to keep them motivated to play.
4: "The general game options for ns2 modes needs an optional separate balance more focused on 10v10 average players instead of only 6v6 professional player matches similar to something like this.
Selectable game modes:
IE:
NS2 Classic Mode"[for 10v10 and larger servers focused on average players and drawing rookies into games that they can have more time to actually learn instead of instantly quitting because of frequent immediate difficulty vs gradual difficulty over the course of an hour]"(games start off slower and gradually build up to more epic games. This gives the average player time to learn the game as they go rather than being instantly slaughtered every time they try to follow a direction early on. "Games last much longer and are far more rewarding to players who make it to a game involving fade, onos, exo suits and jetpacks like this!" "Gorge tunnels place-able on any floor surface again." Older builds balance system can be adjusted for the framework of the game mode suggested) ,
NS2 Competitive mode (What it is currently as that works just about perfectly.),
NS2 Combat Mode (same thing is is now essentially but reintegrated back into the game. It can be done even though it involves some work)
None of these optional things would hurt the competitive mod or competitive play. It simply adds new and or more depth to a game that once had it natively to help bring more players to the game that would normally just quit.
5:"A new optional balance system that allows rookies to be balanced easier when more than 2 join a server." Based on last three average games for each individual team. (may also include individual skills per each map to further balance if needed)("hive skill balance wont work with many rookies on still sadly")
6: "Combat should be reintegrated as it was a free mod and it was taken away making the average players feel financially extorted at first eventually leading to NS2:combats collapse."
7: "Shadow Fade and Onos are long overdue! No one denies this in pro or public servers." (after donating 206$ to the reinforced program only to have this promise practically abandoned, I feel screwed as well so I feel Your pain)
8: "selectable mouse settings for each side. Marine and alien so people can stop complaining about having to change mouse settings manually for each team." ( I have no issue with this but almost 80% of players complain about this not being included in basic options. )
These are only polite suggestions based on the most common complaints I hear from average gamer's and old school Ns2 players who quit when the fun of most games went downhill with newer builds and balance changes for the competitive mod integration that leaned towards competitive players only...
Unfortunately in my experience the CDT did not seem to care about the average gamer experience much and only cares primarily about the professional player base. Recently however they have done some good for the general population by fixing load times, packet handling and restoring alien vision to a playable form(even if it took them forever on the latter). I am hoping they continue to divide their attention equally to help resolve the dwindling 200 average monthly player base they helped to initially create. When financial gain requires happy consumers, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. New game modes solve many peoples complaints about many of the games changes to integrating competitive play for both rookie and veterans alike. This will help bring in more rookies and get old time NS2 players back in the game who quit after all the recent changes chased people off! Adding the things people have been waiting years for will solve many complaints about basic mouse options and missing skins and game modes being removed or lost.
Fingers crossed things can be salvaged but do not hold Your breath. This is Unknown World's and the Community Development Teams last chance to save Natural Selection 2 from extinction within the next few years. If they fail, our goal becomes clear. Wait, wish and hope for Natural Selection 3! Good luck Guys. I wish You all the best of luck. You will need it!
8: "selectable mouse settings for each side. Marine and alien so people can stop complaining about having to change mouse settings manually for each team." ( I have no issue with this but almost 80% of players complain about this not being included in basic options. )
#7 is planned and coming. It will be here soon.
#8 is functionally in the game. Have you heard of the mod ns2+? Well it is on nearly all ns2 servers. That mod allows you to set team specific sensitivities.
1: [citation needed[citation needed][citation needed][citation needed][citation needed]], they didn't focus only on competitive play, as far as the trello is concerned they focused on fixing performance issues and releasing new maps which obviously weren't wanted by the majority of people who play NS2 these days due to being widely different environments and often not very fun to play on due to balance issues. Public and competitive players are one in the same and play to have fun when not on comp servers, i dare say it the people who seeded this community were competitive players from NS, there's no difference between your state of mind and there's, winning and not having fun + winning and having fun vs losing and having fun (you) and there's nothing wrong with that.
2: For the first part, i would address this issue about the greens being insta-gibbed with a working match-making system which is currently being implemented. Also average games are usually more epic it just depends how you are and your skill level, long games are a part of NS culture, often games leading over 90minutes to occasional 6hour games back in the day, but these days long games often last 1hour or more, it can often be a struggle to keep people in the game because it's mostly a turtle.
3: I disagree the reason why tunnels were removed from vents is because earlier builds of NS2 had poor ladder and mapping support for vents which allowed marines to enter(take a look at various revisions of say ns_veil or other maps like eclipse whereby you could theoretically have placed a tunnel and they would never have been able to be accessed unless the marines had jetpacks, thus it was unfair for tunnels to be dropped inside of them. I would say the reason why gorge is difficult to learn is because the actual physics they implemented for gorge isn't "complete" in the sense it has terrible air control, i suggest for this issue we re-implement gorge bunnyhop to atleast give people who know how to move there mouse with basic movements a chance to bunnyhop or even glide there way out of gunfire?
4: not even going to bother with this one, you shouldn't ever control game-mode type server splitting just because a server has 20 people doesn't mean it is any more rookie friendly then say a 16player, actually i'd argue that on a 16player a rookie will learn faster then a 20player because 16players tend to gravitate towards a more competitive type gameplay and most of those rookies can look and learn, become friends with those people. Labeling is useless when people are new to a game.
5:Skill system, hive system is all in review and is currently being worked on and upgraded, i wouldn't be surprised with the next planned patch that the CDT was working on will re-implement the upgraded system.
6: "Combat should be reintegrated as it was a free mod and it was taken away making the average players feel financially extorted at first eventually leading to NS2:combats collapse." (only thing i agree with you on) It should be rewritten from scratch to match the balance values of regular natural selection 2 as people use it as a training tool, it was perfect for NS1.
7: It's coming, read the trello.
8: It's part of NS2+ which most servers that actually matter use, actually i don't know of any server with a population that isn't running NS2+ (poor mendasp a++ person
NS2 is still fun if anything it has become more fun in recent times due new mods coming out from the working, game-types, models and skins + crosshairs + maps to performance upgrades and general bug fixes, and most of those people you call NS2 old schoolers aren't NS2 old schoolers, they were rookies who played for a year and left then came back every once in a while to see if the performance has been fixed then realise there isn't a pure population base to enjoy the game.
You're wrong the CDT didn't favour any one faction of player, they took comments from everyone and worked through that. I personally don't like some of the CDT but they actually did do some good.
I hope that Unknown Worlds Entertainment will take up the way of the frontiersmen and release a "back to the TSA" patch and starts to realise that some of the people complaining are so out of touch with the communities at large
edit:(added in mods)
The models are not made by rantology, she is only texturing them.
And I have seen the shadow onos model, it's awesome.
But when?!?!?!?!? The next branch?
Performance improvements were something that felt largely ignored by UWE but felt like a priority to the CDT, I just hope that now with UWE back in the driver seat we will continue to see a focus on performance and not a bunch of side show updates like dlc packs focused on cash grabs.
Still though the largest pending issue present in the game is the total lack of server side demo recording. This is a feature common in source engine and many other games which is very important for catching hackers. There is a world of difference between in game video capture and having an actual demo. Even if the demos break every update just being able to have them long enough for a few admins to look it over is great to finally catch hackers. Removing hackers and other "bad" players from servers is an important part of enriching the NS2 experience for everyone. We just need the tools to catch these people and server side demo recording is the best one.
Just gonna throw out my 2 cents on what a focus should be (as far as getting/keeping new players)
1. Global and Regional chat box within client to aide in seeding servers
- Let players at the main menu talk to each other without being in a server (I'm talking a simple chat-room)
- Separate by Region, with a Global option, this will help build a community feeling outside the forums, and can get people to group together on a single Server, reducing seed time.
- Add a competitive sub-channel, if comp players feel the need for it.
2. A "Scripted Tutorial Match" for both Marines and Aliens
- Pretty self explanatory, and has been talked about for years.
Heres hoping that official backing can get more ambitious improvements going!
@xDragon
I agree with the observation that it would seem gameplay improvements are not actively being targeted, but I also think that Hugh covered that in his posts. I may have inferred it, but the general idea of this new team is looking at ways of facilitating the quick implementation of new ideas, rather than actually implementing new ideas.
Essentially, I think cleaning up tools, improving ability for custom content to be created etc.
I have an ability for reading between the lines which is as sharp as a brick (I have Aspergers), but I would personally infer that they are looking into the viability of making new content additions easy enough, within this 3 month time-frame, to facilitate a move to maybe, paid content on the workshop, and thus allowing, maybe the opportunity to test a F2P model.
That, if you look at the team, would fit rather neatly.
I'd suppose because an extremely strong core game-play experience isn't at the heart of any successful game with a concurrent user-base of thousands of players of which many are willing to spend significant money on cosmetic content
The secret is cs:go skins "obviously" (p.s. sarcasm), though the timing for that couldn't be worse with what is going on with Killing Floor 2 and Payday2.
While it may incentivize players, the current community backlash going on for those games is intense to say the least.
Fall 2009.
I agree that playtime needs to be rewarded and skill should show.
I got my 400+ hours playtime and i liked how good i had gotten, but getting stomped by a single player in a team effort to bring him down was not fun. Atleast for me. And with that, the most important aspect of the game was suffering for me: the teamplay. The teamplay made it awesome, whether you won or lost, but then it had to feel like the teams were really head to head.
Feeling like a child trying to fight an adult and then gently getting ended after the marines had round up all their tech and carefully secured everything under the guidance of 1 superior player was just not fun.
Thats what kinda made me stop playing NS2.
OR BE DEVOURED.
*nom nom nom* *pffftttt* *weapon clang*