On Mods, Community and Communication - Natural Selection 2

SystemSystem Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
edited March 2016 in NS2 General Discussion

imageOn Mods, Community and Communication - Natural Selection 2

Greetings fellow chompers and frontiersmen, I didn’t want this to be a very lengthy blog post, I’m a fan of short and sweet. However we at UWE wanted to address...

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  • rantologyrantology Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143750Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    only ns2+ or NSL mod aswell?
  • AbsurdonAbsurdon Germany Join Date: 2015-02-09 Member: 201274Members
  • HadesiosHadesios France Join Date: 2016-03-07 Member: 213971Members
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
  • YaluzanYaluzan Join Date: 2013-07-30 Member: 186474Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester
    Mephilles wrote: »
    only ns2+ or NSL mod aswell?

    NSL mod isn't from mendasp, dangit meph:p
  • IeptBarakatIeptBarakat The most difficult name to speak ingame. Join Date: 2009-07-10 Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Mods have always been near and dear to the NS franchise, but in this case it has evolved into something more. Mods have become something more than just mods. They have become a parachute. A parachute for developers, that because features and requests desired by the community were provided through mods, they might not have gotten the attention they deserved from us and thus never implemented into the vanilla game. But they also became a parachute for the community. Because so many requests and fixes were being made by mods, the feedback slowly became channeled much less at developers and much more at the mod creators. This is unfair to our mod creators because these mods should not be receiving such undeserved pressure and high expectations.

    It's nice to hear UWE acknowledge this and I hope everyone doesn't forget about it now that the mods are coming back, otherwise history will repeat itself.

    Hopefully UWE can listen to the compmod folks for balancing discussions so competitive players don't need to play a different ns2 than the rest of the community.
  • Deck_Deck_ Join Date: 2014-07-20 Member: 197526Members
    edited March 2016
    ^Iept- the original post doesn't discuss comp mod integration perhaps for a reason. If UWE is balancing the game for more than 6 v 6 in mind, there might always need to be some differences. That doesn't mean bug fixes and balance discussions can't happen - I just don't know how quick there will be a 6 v 6 mode without a comp mod and still have it balanced for both 6 v 6 and larger player servers.
  • WyzcrakWyzcrak Pot Pie Aficionado Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Thus ends #Moddergate. Hip hip, []! Hip hip, []! Hip, hip, []!
  • WobWob Join Date: 2005-04-08 Member: 47814Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    edited March 2016
    rantology wrote: »
    I want to go ahead and nip this in the bud

    :') Communication :')

    It's happening!!
  • IeptBarakatIeptBarakat The most difficult name to speak ingame. Join Date: 2009-07-10 Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
    Deck_ wrote: »
    ^Iept- the original post doesn't discuss comp mod perhaps for a reason. If UWE is balancing the game for more than 6 v 6 in mind, there might always need to be some differences. That doesn't mean bug fixes and balance discussions can't happen - I just don't know how quick there will be a 6 v 6 mode without a comp mod and still have it balanced as well as on bigger servers.

    There are changes in compmod that are more than just 6v6 oriented, like fixing the absurdity of having silent aliens going max speed with celerity. Since in ns2 they decided to take silence from the movement chamber and merge it with cloaking from the sensory chamber, making the phantom for veil.
    rantology wrote: »
    Thanks IeptBarakat! but I want to go ahead and nip this in the bud because I know there's a lot of passion that springs up when people talk about balance changes. Game balance is a whole other animal and we will approach it in a very different manner- I don't want anyone to get the idea that we're suddenly coordinating with competitive players about game balance- for the moment no game balance changes are planned and when they are discussed, they will be sure to incorporate all levels of play and every corner of our playerbase- not just competitive players.

    The changes referenced in the post from NSL mod and NS2+ will be by and large the big QoL features they bring to the game, which are separate matters entirely from game balance.

    Yeah, I figured this would be the case. I was just hoping for some middle ground in the community as a whole regarding balance, not just to incorporate every idea from competitive players.
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    1. What does this mean for rapid iteration? Will it stay? If so, why? I still don't understand the advantage it provides over a big patch every three weeks or so.
    2. That picture at the top with gorge's ecstatic, zoned out and lazy look while belly sliding reminded me of a drug user and changed my view on gorges forever


    (Make no mistake the part of this post I care about and that you should respond to is 1. but I just couldn't keep that to myself)
  • niitzeniitze Join Date: 2013-07-01 Member: 185839Members, NS2 Map Tester
    edited March 2016
    So what have we learned? Things UWE should do:

    1) Emphasize that players should report bugs etc. to devs not to moddders
    2) Before releasing a patch: test that popular mods, which are used on majority of the servers, work (if you want to keep rapid iterations)
    2,5) (And) dont rely on modders to fix bugs
    3) Listen to and actively ask advice from people who know about the game (in this case 2 modders)
    4) Hire mendasp
  • AbsurdonAbsurdon Germany Join Date: 2015-02-09 Member: 201274Members
    @IeptBarakat you are right there are some nice changes in compmod even nice for non 6v6 but as far as my understanding goes it's balanced with the 6v6 in mind so it might not fit on normal servers were most of the time more players per side
    for the bugfixes implemented by @xDragon (pls correct me if i'm mistaken) was an extra mod without the balancing stuff named ns2 tweaks or smthn like this
    as for the bugfixes implemented in vanilla would be great aswell as some QoL features. but as @rantology said balancing is a whole other shoe so just taking over these will not work and will prbly break the experience on servers far from 6v6

    ps: just played another round with ns2+ finaly back on again. so much better :3 thx @Mendasp
  • 2cough2cough Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Aw.. I was just learning a few new songs. Goodbye real life.

    But I just want to clarify, only ns2+ has returned? Rip hmgs still?
  • 2cough2cough Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    You're a fkn champion, @xDragon. Thank you.
  • MigeMige Join Date: 2005-03-19 Member: 45796Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited March 2016
    So we finally see that a long waited tournament mode since beta days <3 What do we get from ns2+? a long needed performance tweaks, COD disable effects and some round statics? What niitze said also some eNSL members needs more manners to communicate. Thanks dragon for the ENLS support ;) BTW did you finish that NS1:source project?
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    rantology wrote: »
    1. What does this mean for rapid iteration? Will it stay? If so, why? I still don't understand the advantage it provides over a big patch every three weeks or so.

    Rapid iteration will stay, however we're continuously learning and revising ways to make it work better. We're aware of issues brought up about not being able to disable extensions and we're going to be looking into it during our first meeting next week.

    Thanks for answering that; I still wonder what rapid iteration is supposed to be good for, though?
  • GhoulofGSG9GhoulofGSG9 Join Date: 2013-03-31 Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
    edited March 2016
    rantology wrote: »
    1. What does this mean for rapid iteration? Will it stay? If so, why? I still don't understand the advantage it provides over a big patch every three weeks or so.

    Rapid iteration will stay, however we're continuously learning and revising ways to make it work better. We're aware of issues brought up about not being able to disable extensions and we're going to be looking into it during our first meeting next week.

    Thanks for answering that; I still wonder what rapid iteration is supposed to be good for, though?

    Faster iteration or agile development has a a lot of advantages compared to the more classical systems.

    The most important point for you is that development now is very user orientated:
    • By pushing smaller builds each week we can react directly to your feedback. Instead of being unable to do so because given feature has been in development for over 1 month and there are already other features based onto it.
    • It creates transparency and allows you as customer to follow development much easier. No longer will we have multiple pages long change logs nobody even dares to completely read throw nor do users have to wait for a month for a critical patch.
    • Working week to week gives us a developer some more flexibility in matter of focusing on new ideas and feedback of the community instead of keep working on the features we agreed to go into the next build 2 weeks ago.
  • ZycaRZycaR Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8263Members
    edited March 2016
  • VetinariVetinari Join Date: 2013-07-23 Member: 186325Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    rantology wrote: »
    1. What does this mean for rapid iteration? Will it stay? If so, why? I still don't understand the advantage it provides over a big patch every three weeks or so.

    Rapid iteration will stay, however we're continuously learning and revising ways to make it work better. We're aware of issues brought up about not being able to disable extensions and we're going to be looking into it during our first meeting next week.

    Thanks for answering that; I still wonder what rapid iteration is supposed to be good for, though?

    Faster iteration or agile development has a a lot of advantages compared to the more classical systems.

    The most important point for you is that development now is very user orientated:
    • By pushing smaller builds each week we can react directly to your feedback. Instead of being unable to do so because given feature has been in development for over 1 month and there are already other features based onto it.
    • It creates transparency and allows you as customer to follow development much easier. No longer will we have multiple pages long change logs nobody even dares to completely read throw nor do users have to wait for a month for a critical patch.
    • Working week to week gives us a developer some more flexibility in matter of focusing on new ideas and feedback of the community instead of keep working on the features we agreed to go into the next build 2 weeks ago.

    Alright. Thanks.
  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    2. That picture at the top with gorge's ecstatic, zoned out and lazy look while belly sliding reminded me of a drug user and changed my view on gorges forever


    (Make no mistake the part of this post I care about and that you should respond to is 1. but I just couldn't keep that to myself)

    That's exactly what I look like on a sunday afternoon after a big roast dinner. Have you never seen the look on the face of someone who has Gorge'd themselves on food? That's not a drug look, thats a food coma!!
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