A bright future of NS2 or Death?
RadimaX
Join Date: 2013-02-05 Member: 182840Members
Join Date: 2013-02-05 Member: 182840Members
How many years took it to make just the engine alone? then the maps? then DLC´s? then 300 updates?
Evolve became a free2play game today after player base got below 200 average players. (8000 now)
Let the legacy live on and more people will discover such grate game rather then plummit down to 0.
Their steam charts are similar to the ones of Natural selection 2 as of now we got ruffly 300 players.
You could get 1$ for this game on a Steam sales but players will not stay due to barely anyone playing it or
get 1$ MANY times over from same players buying skins if game was free & thousands play it all the time.
Maybe that would Increase retention of new players or increase the number of people playing like Evolve now.
i dont like the concept of F2P but got 5000 total hours on ns2, there is no other game i rather play...
However if you "zoom out" and see NS2 in a longer-term view what other options is there really?
Evolve became a free2play game today after player base got below 200 average players. (8000 now)
Let the legacy live on and more people will discover such grate game rather then plummit down to 0.
Their steam charts are similar to the ones of Natural selection 2 as of now we got ruffly 300 players.
You could get 1$ for this game on a Steam sales but players will not stay due to barely anyone playing it or
get 1$ MANY times over from same players buying skins if game was free & thousands play it all the time.
Maybe that would Increase retention of new players or increase the number of people playing like Evolve now.
i dont like the concept of F2P but got 5000 total hours on ns2, there is no other game i rather play...
However if you "zoom out" and see NS2 in a longer-term view what other options is there really?
Comments
Downside is there will be atleast 1% or more who hack and have to be dealt with accordingly (steam got ban feature for this)
I would like to see NS2 get some more improvements before it goes free 2 play. I would really like to see we get the advanced trainings for lifeforms, that were planned at one time. I don't know what happened to that. @BeigeAlert. I would like to see improvements on the hive skill system, which I am told are going to happen now.
At some point, it doesn't matter how much more you do. It won't help anything. We might be there now, but I don't know. Evolve will be a good case study. Let's see what happens with evolve. What did they do well, and what could they have done better?
I think early next year would be a good time to make NS2 free 2 play, but that is just my opinion.
Have a free version of the game, these players can only join whitelisted servers specifically for free players and rookie only free players, but allow players who own the full game to join those servers if they wish to.
These official UWE free to play servers would rotate 3 available maps every week to two weeks, sometimes it could be Veil, Docking, and Derelict, other times it could be Summit, Descent, and Eclipse.
Upgrade all standard edition owners to deluxe edition and make the standard edition the free version, then have the $10 deluxe upgrade basically act as the upgrade to full game, add some flair to existing deluxe owners too if so desired.
NS2: A indie game with always a low playerbase has still over 300 players each day after 3,5 years.
Very comparable, NS2 is much more succesfull here in the long run.
And btw. its funny that someone of the "wooza army" who posted how important a 42 slot server is on one side want NS2 f2p on the other side.
A f2p game need another serverstructure with matchmaking.
So you want a f2p NS2? Then say goodbye to all community servers.
Did you ever play a f2p game?
Looks like you dont understand how this model work.
If you want to play a f2p at full potential you must invest way more than 5$.
Every F2P shooter is just trash and noone cares about Evolve f2p in 3 month anymore.
Retention improved? (im not sure if we cant get more then 300 players? even after steam sales and me giving away copys to friends for free then im not sure whats wrong.
Training courses or trackcourse for every lifeform or regular marine/exo/jetpack would maybe help people to understand it more? forgot what UWE they teach us already.
Yes i played F2P today but in 3 months ns2 will have bigger player base then Evolve because of how successful it is, okey lets see about that...
Woozas Army? that server did not exist the first 2 years i played this game thats why i post my hours its not like i bought ns2 yesterday. 42 players is the maximum slot im not sure about playercount but it must be more then 60 people playing there just not simultaneously without that ONE server im doubtful players search for a nice little 6vs6 but rather stop playing game alltogether, then this community falls back to 240 people (not sure how many rookies but assuming its 100) and out of 140 people some spectating or waiting for game or afk that leaves 100 people active on ns2, i wonder how long community servers would be up for those people not spending a dime to help UWE?
All f2p games are shit because they make the bare minimum just to be able to sell you ingame items and other stuff, but as ns2 is already epic polished game, adding a f2p component is an option not to farfetched unless they want 0 players that is and you cant sell game copys with that player count or dlcs or even skins for that matter...
Sure its a controversial idea to have 8000+ people joining over night (its actually 10914 total now since i made the post) but even if 1% bough a skin that give them more then someone like me who bought a copy of this game like 4 years ago or gifted cuple copys to friends.
Yes i know it seems like alot now, i only said 10.000 in a day because thats litterally what NS2 could have, im assuming 70% stop playing Evolve because its super boring running around with 3 players searching for some monsterdude, but people seem to wanna try a sci-fi alien shooter type of game and it could easily have been ns2, but as a bonus they got all the tactics and strategical components overtime. Assuming only 50% would leave ns2 after trying it when its free just because it is a better game thats thill 5000 potential microtransaction or other ingame item stuff for UWE, not to mention more want to play if its 5000 playercount instead of under 300.
A f2p work like this:
You have to invest ingame money into stuff like better weapons that gives you a slight advantage.
While you dont need this ingame money till you reach lvl12, its much harder to equip yourself the higher your rank goes.
So while your higher rank grants you access to better tech you have to invest REAL money to use this stuff.
In a MOBA you pay for needed item slots for example or more slots for spells.
So a f2p game is basicly a demo where you have to pay nonstop the higher you rank.
5000 hrs in a f2p would be very expensive fun, believe me.
I guess so.
2. Ns2 needs proper matchmaking before going f2p. Once it gets it I'm all for it.
3.
This is not a decision for the combat devs to make. This is UWE's decision. UWE decided against it.
Depends what exactly matchmaking would do. If it means removal of community servers, then gg NS2.
i know its only 11.000 for the time being but if ns2 was free 11.000 new players would not hurt, even if its just a month then drops to 3000, still better then 300 and game over at end of this year.
Player retention has improved, that is how many new players stay after first playing the game. I don't know the actual number that has increased, but player retention did increase.
Going F2P, like evolve has, increased concurrent players. Concurrent players does have an effect on player retention, in that if there are more people playing, more people will keep playing the game.
Matchmaking is tricky. It is a chicken and egg problem. You need the high concurrent playerbase to have matchmaking. You are saying you need matchmaking, to have a high concurrent playerbase.
NS2 has gotten worse over time the hit registration and clipping issues are as bad now as they were pre reinforcement. Allowing all the meddling with the engine by people who are not familiar with it has made server performance abysmal.
Attempting to make connection with any one that has a ping higher then 100 puts RNG into this game. This make playing the game not fun at all.
They add NS 1 features into the game and act as if they have made some great change to the game. They should have left NS2 vanilla alone and made all their changes mod content. Instead UWE gave them the reigns and it has shown how truly bad the Spark engine performance is.
I'm sure the server argument will come out, all that proves is UWE was wrong on their evaluation on what type of game people would rather play. It turns out people prefer the higher player counts.
In NS1, combat and siege modes satisfied this thirst but do to how bad the performance is in the Spark engine those modes are not feasibly playable.
Been saying that since they opted to go forward with the "retention" plans, but alas it's too little too late now...
Also Ns2 is still a far ways away from casual, so even if retention has improved, it still not enough to casualize the casuals during casual time. The game still pisses off way to many newbies who just want a run and gun game with aliens vs marines. But NS2 never was that to begin with, even tinkering the hell out of it to appease both to hardcore quakers and casual TF2/Overwatch gamers, they are quite literally at the opposite spectrum of what they want from a game.
NS2: Official vs NS2: Vanilla
Waiting to see what happens to Evolve's F2P player base might seem reasonable, but remember that Evolve is not NS2. You would be comparing apples to oranges.
Free the game! It would be nice to see more players and more servers up and running.
I think a more pressing issue is the game is rapidly being disassembled and remade by the new b-team devs. A game so old as this needs to stay consistant, counter strike didn't last as long as it has by adding healthbars and messing up the core gameplay loop over and over.
free 2 play games always have a buy wall, but concider the price of ns2 it was 22€ before and now 9€ however that is a price to pay just for installing the game you know nothing about with dying playerbase of 300. Evolve already lost 2000 players since they realized how bad the original game was, they are destined to fail unlike ns2 which still a good solid game.
Nobody reccomends a game like that however they could reccomend a nice free alien vs marine shooter with 5000+ people and sick skins and dank decals to go spend the same money on ingame because they did not get charged upfront, i played f2p warframe but it can still be fun because you are discovering new things even if you dont buy stuff to lvl up.
If you see something im missing plz show me how many players you keep or retain because for half a year this game have plummited
i might be mistaken but explain what im missing when i look on ALL the numbers not only Peak players they speak for themselves:
Avg Players - goes negative
Gain - goes negative
% Gain - goes negative
Peak players - goes negative
I don't think it would bring in enough players to justify all the hackers that will come with.
Having another f2p weekend would be fantastic though. Would definitely give UWE a nice spike in revenue, and the rest of us more scrubs to shoot/eat.
Matchmaking and a server browser are not exclusive. I don't know why everyone keeps thinking that. You can easily have both.
What I mean is that a matchmaking system should be developed and put in place before a foreseeable influx in new players instead of after. Of course it will take some time to balance itself, but then again, so does every other game with matchmaking at release, too.