IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@SantaClaws But you see, those same basic awareness skills are present (maybe moreso given modern FPS' cluttered environments) in FPS games as well..
So the way I see it, you need to have all the skill sets of an RTS player (substituting APMs for mastering 11+ continuous and harmonious key usage) just to be average in an FPS arena.
As for climbing to the top, have you never watched the big duels between the best quake players? There's definitely a culture there of trying to be the best fps arena player. (That's where frag videos came from)
I feel like people fear that ns2 is complex WAAAAAY to much... How is your points going to help NS2 any diffrent, with a pay wall in place instead of a free game?! A lot of people out there actually want an engaging game, that you can improve at over time, instead of all the cookie cutter games out there at the moment over saturating the market.. People would be more disappointed paying for NS2 and run into that wall, than try it for free and do it? It's not like we have seen or will see any more people pay money to run into your "skill wall" of this game.
The entire CDT and UWE is clearly against working towards an f2p model right now, and the "best" thing that they're doing is considering their options and looking at how they eventually can work out the model...
We need something to happen NOW, we have below 200 (143) people online as I write and it's near EU prime, on a freaking friday.
If you stopped being so busy harassing Wooza with the server filters, stopped stepping on people like Pelagir, that spread this game to a lot of people, stopped annihilating my f2p opinions and actually started working together with the few people you have left, something could be done about the longevity of this game. It does seem like that you already made up your mind, I don't know what the hell your plan is, but if it's just keep releasing small fix builds I'll be gone at the end of July and move on from this game. I cba just keep watching it die after 1000+hours, a recommended review and over 800h's of mapping that might never be experienced by others than the SCC and the few ns2 players left.. When you clearly have no intention of evolving this game other than your way, why the **** should we ~500 people left continue to care?
I've stuck around these forums for years, and if you check I've never been heavily disliked or wrong in my statements I post in here. But in this thread, as soon as the focus shift to F2P, every one from CDT / UWE is counter arguing me, like beige get's 10+ awesome's for something that's a blatant lie?! He said it wasn't in the games interest to have a huge surge of players now, and gave a non-existent match making the excuse.. Then he quotes me and leave out the part about the match making, which was my entire point. He did say we didn't need players (we do) and it was because of MM (really bad excuse?!)...
Who said that? That's certainly not what I was saying. I'm saying... you can only "go" f2p once. Better not waste it when the game isn't ready for it yet.
There's still a lot of hurdles to get past before it would even be worth doing. For example, there's no point in having a huge surge of players right now while we don't have a proper matchmaking system.
I am furious about how people that have spent hundreds / thousands of hours entertaining people and evolving this game are treated atm, we are all just left to drop off at earliest convenience, because we all obviously have zero clue on what this game is or needs, only the team behind it knows apparently. You have any idea how freaking shitty my map would have been if I never listened to other people?!
Why are 90% of the "we need f2p NOW" -fraction ns2large players?
Thats kinda interisting.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
F2P should not be NOW but in the next time. The thing the focus of PDT at this point should be 100% making this game ready for it. A complex and big matchmaking system is absolutely not needed though. And IF they really think it is, it should have top priority now to implement. An overpowered bone shield is not what brings in new players.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
Last year at this time we had a lower playerbase than now. Cant remember a drama around f2p that time.
Drama? Yes, i smell the good old "the devs dont listen to the community" again in the air.
So the way I see it, you need to have all the skill sets of an RTS player (substituting APMs for mastering 11+ continuous and harmonious key usage) just to be average in an FPS arena.
Except for switching between many different tasks of varying importance, in the form of micro and macro. I personally find that a bit overwhelming at large scales.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
yes evolve is very repetitive game that takes over 2+ minutes EVERY TIME & a cutsceene before you can even get to play 1 second.
but they gained 50000 players then losing 20000 players that is still 30000+? if ns2 gain 50000 and lose 20000 because maybe the pc cannot run the game or they realize its not a game for them that would still be a greater audience & playerbase making this game last longer instead of dying out.
if you about to go broke and have 300 dollars to your name suddently find 50k dollars but lose 20k would you be happy you got 30k left or want to never find any new money and stick with 300 dollars for the remaining year?
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
yes evolve is very repetitive game that takes over 2+ minutes EVERY TIME & a cutsceene before you can even get to play 1 second.
but they gained 50000 players then losing 20000 players that is still 30000+? if ns2 gain 50000 and lose 20000 because maybe the pc cannot run the game or they realize its not a game for them that would still be a greater audience & playerbase making this game last longer instead of dying out.
if you about to go broke and have 300 dollars to your name suddently find 50k dollars but lose 20k would you be happy you got 30k left or want to never find any new money and stick with 300 dollars for the remaining year?
How is it possible that you still don't understand that what you say, is NOT the way it works... just because the game that is 17 months old that had huge hype brought in 50k people with F2P does NOT mean that the 5 year old indie game with a niche community that has relatively little/no hype surrounding it... ever... would bring the same numbers.
The simple fact is that with F2P, NS2 would be LUCKY to see 20k people join... very lucky.
Then when you mesh the skill gap, the learning curve, the optimization, the balance, the lack of matchmaking or a competitive scene and the incessant bickering about "the right way to play" you can guarantee that a large portion of those that did join, would leave just as quickly.
Let us compare some other stats shall we? you know, because stats are always a great basis for an argument... right?... right???... On release Evolve had 27,403 people at its peak, with an average playercount of 9,030.6... by comparison NS2 has had 9,429 at its highest peak (around 1/3 of evolves release) and NS2s highest playercount? 2,828.2... again, around 1/3 of evolves.
NS2 is an old game that in its prime still only brought in 33% of what a FAILED game brought in. Stop comparing them, A 5 year old indie game with a niche community surviving 5 years and still having a passionate playerbase is a great achievement, but don't be fooled that a mass amount of people are just sat waiting to play for free... they aren't.
Why are 90% of the "we need f2p NOW" -fraction ns2large players?
Thats kinda interisting.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
Seems like you know the whole ns2 community cause you can count it with your fingers
Btw lets sit and wait and make ns2 large a standalone just as the feared too casual for your own good ns2 combat or just sit and wait for some miracle balancing to pop up new players lol
Why are 90% of the "we need f2p NOW" -fraction ns2large players?
Thats kinda interisting.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
35k in the last 24h so not really accurate.. I don't play on Wooza's server, but I never understood why he was hated for paying and hosting a popular server for ns2, that kinda commitment should be supported, not worked against.
Why are 90% of the "we need f2p NOW" -fraction ns2large players?
Thats kinda interisting.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
35k in the last 24h so not really accurate.. I don't play on Wooza's server, but I never understood why he was hated for paying and hosting a popular server for ns2, that kinda commitment should be supported, not worked against.
Just because you have good intent or effort does not mean you will achieve good results.
There's a thought that large servers attract the most rookies (because of their higher chance of being populated and not full) and thus only retain players that like large servers as their experience of the game is limited to those servers and they judge the game from that.
but they gained 50000 players then losing 20000 players that is still 30000+? if ns2 gain 50000 and lose 20000 because maybe the pc cannot run the game or they realize its not a game for them that would still be a greater audience & playerbase making this game last longer instead of dying out.
if you about to go broke and have 300 dollars to your name suddently find 50k dollars but lose 20k would you be happy you got 30k left or want to never find any new money and stick with 300 dollars for the remaining year?
"Sure, the graph describing the playerbase is rapidly going downwards now, but I'm sure it will instantly stabilise at the current number"
i wrote those numbers not because ns2 is 5 years old and evolve is 1 year or whatever i compare to it becuase it was a FREE2PLAY TITLE Recently released
(NS2 chart begins in september 2012 not sure where you got 5 years from maybe because engine took 5 years to develop?)
i did not consider this before i saw more game reviving them selves with this approach, evolve had just 1 week ago lower players nubmers than ns2 thats why i simply said it could gain players by being free instead of people taking a chance on buying a copy then have nobody to play with. so they DONT and fewer people stay. i don't care how many more % evolve that is AAA title like many call it had on its release or ns2 had multiple years ago, it dont matter if evolve loses 80% of the players once again while being FREE, they still gained 20% stop taking everything so literal.
i wrote those numbers not because ns2 is 5 years old and evolve is 1 year or whatever i compare to it becuase it was a FREE2PLAY TITLE Recently released
(NS2 chart begins in september 2012 not sure where you got 5 years from maybe because engine took 5 years to develop?)
i did not consider this before i saw more game reviving them selves with this approach, evolve had just 1 week ago lower players nubmers than ns2 thats why i simply said it could gain players by being free instead of people taking a chance on buying a copy then have nobody to play with. so they DONT and fewer people stay. i don't care how many more % evolve that is AAA title like many call it had on its release or ns2 had multiple years ago, it dont matter if evolve loses 80% of the players once again while being FREE, they still gained 20% stop taking everything so literal.
Yeah. And those are the flaws in your logic that people are pointing out.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
yes evolve is very repetitive game that takes over 2+ minutes EVERY TIME & a cutsceene before you can even get to play 1 second.
but they gained 50000 players then losing 20000 players that is still 30000+? if ns2 gain 50000 and lose 20000 because maybe the pc cannot run the game or they realize its not a game for them that would still be a greater audience & playerbase making this game last longer instead of dying out.
if you about to go broke and have 300 dollars to your name suddently find 50k dollars but lose 20k would you be happy you got 30k left or want to never find any new money and stick with 300 dollars for the remaining year?
How is it possible that you still don't understand that what you say, is NOT the way it works... just because the game that is 17 months old that had huge hype brought in 50k people with F2P does NOT mean that the 5 year old indie game with a niche community that has relatively little/no hype surrounding it... ever... would bring the same numbers.
The simple fact is that with F2P, NS2 would be LUCKY to see 20k people join... very lucky.
Then when you mesh the skill gap, the learning curve, the optimization, the balance, the lack of matchmaking or a competitive scene and the incessant bickering about "the right way to play" you can guarantee that a large portion of those that did join, would leave just as quickly.
Let us compare some other stats shall we? you know, because stats are always a great basis for an argument... right?... right???... On release Evolve had 27,403 people at its peak, with an average playercount of 9,030.6... by comparison NS2 has had 9,429 at its highest peak (around 1/3 of evolves release) and NS2s highest playercount? 2,828.2... again, around 1/3 of evolves.
NS2 is an old game that in its prime still only brought in 33% of what a FAILED game brought in. Stop comparing them, A 5 year old indie game with a niche community surviving 5 years and still having a passionate playerbase is a great achievement, but don't be fooled that a mass amount of people are just sat waiting to play for free... they aren't.
You make some good points here.
The popularity of these games often comes down to the company that publishes it, the money they have, and the amount of coverage they can get on news websites. They're the same reasons kickstarters fail/succeed. Some people think it's as simple as having a great game, but it's not. Advertising is king. NS2:F2P probably wouldn't get noticed much. We're too niche and nobody knows we even exist.
If NS2 was a Valve game it would have a minimum of 5k daily players this many years after release, even if the game was the exact same as it is now.
This is one of the main reasons I think a F2P version of NS should be a new game, or at least renamed/rebranded. From an advertising point of view, it needs to seem like a brand new thing.
This thread is really sickening me. I'm ALMOST sad to have poured this much of my life into this game, if all you can argument with is "ns2large community is toxic" and "usual suspects that whine about the direction of UWE", when it comes to the topic of making NS2 go F2P.. This has nothing to do with who talks with who or who thinks what about NS2. Reason I say almost is because I've loved working on prison and I genuinely love the people playing ns2. I don't agree with Beige for example, but him and the rest that have played with me during all those sundays, on my map and others, is the only positive thing I can say about ns2 today.. I love Beige, I love Wooza, I love Loki, I love Flaterectomy, I love troop and everyone else I forgot to mention, that have been talking to me on steam nearly daily for the past 3 years.
But really... Every other aspect of our game is dying, and if you want to keep clapping your hands over 300 people online internationally in game in 2016, then I will stop clapping in unison. This game is dead, we have the same 200 people engaged in SSC sundays, weekly matches and the comp scene, even on these freaking boards.. UWE's accomplishment of being an "indie" dev, is going the down the drain in my personal view, if they just let their hard achievement die like this, due to inaction on their part.
WHY... ****ING why... Are we not doing all we can to get people into the game with us?! Even if we freaking fail with f2p, it's still a better solution than to lose all the remainder that really love ns2, because we are just letting the game bleed out. I was in fact furious about the low player numbers last year, but I had confidence that the UWE and CDT would find a solution, but all I keep hearing is "the game is not ready", "effort might not be worth it", "ns2 is far from dead (really?!) and "It's the same people whining, the rest of us love not being more than 400-500 people"
dafuq is this shit, really... I'm really speechless about how fold the mentality is. Do you honestly believe you can turn this game around by not prepping for f2p, not going f2p at all? PEOPLE will not BUY ns2 anymore, get it into your heads before steam charts read 80-100 people.. Even if you turn it around by then, you will lose so many hardcore fans, who contribute way more than you know, that in the end we all still end up losing.
EVERYONE in my steam list, and personal life, have agreed that f2p is the last shot ns2 got, no one knew what the game even was, and let alone none would pay a dime for it today, to get into a 500 player community. Reason I'm getting extra pissed now, is that I don't hear any alternatives coming from anyone, everyone is just against what could be a revival for this game, but the current course is by no means any better, so unless I hear a well articulated and constructive argument about what the future would hold, I stand my case that f2p is the best solution to getting more people into ns2 tommorow, if not the only because the team is more busy being naysayers than coming up with something better than f2p then, your "builds" ain't doing **** for anyone but your resume and the few people that adore being naive.
Eh, low player counts are a symptom of the problems (whatever they are) with the game, not a cause in itself. Thats why efforts are being focused on improving retention.
You might make it f2p now, getting a boost for maybe 6 months, but afterwards, the player base will stabilise to similar levels. Maybe a little higher with a slow steady stream of rookies, but it won't be substantially better. I haven't played Evolve, but unless they have made substantial improvements to the game, I'm confident that their average players will fall below 500 players in lets say 3 months. You only get one shot at f2p, you can't re-release as an f2p again. If they/we screw this up, there is no next time.
This thread is really sickening me. I'm ALMOST sad to have poured this much of my life into this game, if all you can argument with is "ns2large community is toxic" and "usual suspects that whine about the direction of UWE", when it comes to the topic of making NS2 go F2P.. This has nothing to do with who talks with who or who thinks what about NS2. Reason I say almost is because I've loved working on prison and I genuinely love the people playing ns2. I don't agree with Beige for example, but him and the rest that have played with me during all those sundays, on my map and others, is the only positive thing I can say about ns2 today.. I love Beige, I love Wooza, I love Loki, I love Flaterectomy, I love troop and everyone else I forgot to mention, that have been talking to me on steam nearly daily for the past 3 years.
But really... Every other aspect of our game is dying, and if you want to keep clapping your hands over 300 people online internationally in game in 2016, then I will stop clapping in unison. This game is dead, we have the same 200 people engaged in SSC sundays, weekly matches and the comp scene, even on these freaking boards.. UWE's accomplishment of being an "indie" dev, is going the down the drain in my personal view, if they just let their hard achievement die like this, due to inaction on their part.
WHY... ****ING why... Are we not doing all we can to get people into the game with us?! Even if we freaking fail with f2p, it's still a better solution than to lose all the remainder that really love ns2, because we are just letting the game bleed out. I was in fact furious about the low player numbers last year, but I had confidence that the UWE and CDT would find a solution, but all I keep hearing is "the game is not ready", "effort might not be worth it", "ns2 is far from dead (really?!) and "It's the same people whining, the rest of us love not being more than 400-500 people"
dafuq is this ****, really... I'm really speechless about how fold the mentality is. Do you honestly believe you can turn this game around by not prepping for f2p, not going f2p at all? PEOPLE will not BUY ns2 anymore, get it into your heads before steam charts read 80-100 people.. Even if you turn it around by then, you will lose so many hardcore fans, who contribute way more than you know, that in the end we all still end up losing.
EVERYONE in my steam list, and personal life, have agreed that f2p is the last shot ns2 got, no one knew what the game even was, and let alone none would pay a dime for it today, to get into a 500 player community. Reason I'm getting extra pissed now, is that I don't hear any alternatives coming from anyone, everyone is just against what could be a revival for this game, but the current course is by no means any better, so unless I hear a well articulated and constructive argument about what the future would hold, I stand my case that f2p is the best solution to getting more people into ns2 tommorow, if not the only because the team is more busy being naysayers than coming up with something better than f2p then, your "builds" ain't doing **** for anyone but your resume and the few people that adore being naive.
To summarize what I told you in steam chat: chill.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
Would F2P bring more players to NS2? maybe
Would this step save the game you love?
Wait
This brings me to another question.
Why do you love NS2?
Did any of the "F2P now" people ever asking this question to yourself?
Playing NS2 with and against people who know what todo is a blast.
Killing a marine much better than you as skulk in an good coordinated engagement is rewarding.
Cause these 2 things i dont need ranks, archivements or whatever modern games has to attract poeple. The game itself is rewarding enough.
On the other hand.
Beeing the only one in the team who knows what todo is frustrating like hell.
Losing every engagement against one good marine cause people dont listen or cant use the map drives me away.
NS2 has already reached a critical level incompetence.
I never played a game before where you had to to explain the game to people in every round.
4 years with "leave the base", "power1st", "shoot the tunnel from the distance", "Use the phase gate", ..
Just imagine 40 full servers (Wow, yess) and the knowledge that you will have horrible rounds on each of these.
Deinstall.
Beeing the only one in the team who knows what todo is frustrating like hell.
Losing every engagement against one good marine cause people dont listen or cant use the map drives me away.
Last times I played, I was already experiencing what you describe and this, for the last 12 months at least.
Just imagine 40 full servers (Wow, yess) and the knowledge that you will have horrible rounds on each of these.
Deinstall.
Do I want to experience bad games on a couple of servers or do I want to live with the same issue on 40 full servers? Answer's quite simple. Also, if the playerbase increases, you might get more chances to find an enjoyable round, and more chances to watch people getting better at this game (with dedicated servers filling this purpose, solutions are plenty). I don't think people pretend that F2P will solve all issue NS2 has, but will certainly solve a few, and major ones.
That's also up to the devs to as they like to say: 'get ready for it with a proper infrastructure'. You think about the problems that may occur, you find solutions beforehand, not once they're already here. The current development does the opposite altogether, thinking about the past issues, fixing them and not tinking about what could arise from their 'solution'. So obviously, thinking that way, F2P will never work on NS2.
Oh, and I picked NS2 because it looked like an original and interesting game, and I sticked around because I had no trouble finding a game quickly and enjoy a few rounds with friends. All that has changed already since I originally bought the game. What made me purchase NS2 and kept playing later on vanished already, so going F2P won't make it worse to me. Not saying I'd love it, but I'd be prepared to give it a go, I don't play NS2 anymore so... if there's any chance I might get back to the game, I'd take it.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
Aeglos just nailed it in his post above btw.
Did someone of you ever checked the Evolve steam discussions?
Even after the huge Dumbdown you see countless "Everything is op", "Hacker everywhere", "Bad performance", ... threads.
What a bright future for NS2.
Did someone of you ever checked the Evolve steam discussions?
Even after the huge Dumbdown you see countless "Everything is op", "Hacker everywhere", "Bad performance", ... threads.
What a bright future for NS2.
I don't mean to derail this, but... in the new Evole I managed to get a 12 game win streak with the monster, whereas I only ever won three games in a row as the hunters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Did someone of you ever checked the Evolve steam discussions?
Even after the huge Dumbdown you see countless "Everything is op", "Hacker everywhere", "Bad performance", ... threads.
What a bright future for NS2.
Yeah, because NS2 has a bright future right now. Oh, and the 'bad performance' threads do not exist either on NS2.
Evolve was shit at release and deserved their initial failure. The game was unplayable for months and people just abandonded it, atleast ns2 was quality and continues to develop into quality. The frustration mostly stems from how far UWE think the game is off being ready for an f2p model. When I honestly believe that, when a shitty game as Evolve can go from ½ our populace to 50k, we can do it as well with a quality game today. There has to be some work around, where UWE can see profits in bringing in new blood, without having to do the "massive DLC x64 upgrade".
ns2 had 91 players thursday last week, im just saying if devs think the game is not ready to be free or cost 0:- because that will upset the new playerbase what makes you think there will be a bigger playerbase than this with even as little as 5 bucks pricetag?
even if 10% decide to buy some kind of skin or audio pack from ns2 if it was free out of a maximum of 10.000 new players testing it (for 5 bucks thats 5000 dollars) in the bank sure its pennies for a company making millions troughout the years but i dont see 5000 being spent among the 91 players left. you think of the game as a business model oh we can only go free once etc have to cover the expenses etc but how much does existing players spend on this game in total? does me yearly buying bundles of 4 giving out to my friends on steam count in hopes they will like it and stick around? that wont hold up in the end.
There has to be some work around, where UWE can see profits in bringing in new blood, without having to do the "massive DLC x64 upgrade".
Care to explain what this would be exactly?
I do not have a qualified guess on another solution, but I'd much rather we were discussing stuff like this, than just sticking our heads down the sand. NS2 is a quality game, but it needs an f2p relaunch or something major for it to gain more people, the question is just how and when. On the opinions on what that will entail, players and devs seems to be in opposite ends of the spectrum currently.
Comments
So the way I see it, you need to have all the skill sets of an RTS player (substituting APMs for mastering 11+ continuous and harmonious key usage) just to be average in an FPS arena.
As for climbing to the top, have you never watched the big duels between the best quake players? There's definitely a culture there of trying to be the best fps arena player. (That's where frag videos came from)
The entire CDT and UWE is clearly against working towards an f2p model right now, and the "best" thing that they're doing is considering their options and looking at how they eventually can work out the model...
We need something to happen NOW, we have below 200 (143) people online as I write and it's near EU prime, on a freaking friday.
If you stopped being so busy harassing Wooza with the server filters, stopped stepping on people like Pelagir, that spread this game to a lot of people, stopped annihilating my f2p opinions and actually started working together with the few people you have left, something could be done about the longevity of this game. It does seem like that you already made up your mind, I don't know what the hell your plan is, but if it's just keep releasing small fix builds I'll be gone at the end of July and move on from this game. I cba just keep watching it die after 1000+hours, a recommended review and over 800h's of mapping that might never be experienced by others than the SCC and the few ns2 players left.. When you clearly have no intention of evolving this game other than your way, why the **** should we ~500 people left continue to care?
I've stuck around these forums for years, and if you check I've never been heavily disliked or wrong in my statements I post in here. But in this thread, as soon as the focus shift to F2P, every one from CDT / UWE is counter arguing me, like beige get's 10+ awesome's for something that's a blatant lie?! He said it wasn't in the games interest to have a huge surge of players now, and gave a non-existent match making the excuse.. Then he quotes me and leave out the part about the match making, which was my entire point. He did say we didn't need players (we do) and it was because of MM (really bad excuse?!)...
We need players and we need them now, MM or not.
because we never got a match making system... (The part you left out beige...)
I am furious about how people that have spent hundreds / thousands of hours entertaining people and evolving this game are treated atm, we are all just left to drop off at earliest convenience, because we all obviously have zero clue on what this game is or needs, only the team behind it knows apparently. You have any idea how freaking shitty my map would have been if I never listened to other people?!
Sorry for the long post, I love potatoes.
Thats kinda interisting.
Btw., Evolve has already lost 20000 players in one week. Lets see how it looks next week.
F2P should not be NOW but in the next time. The thing the focus of PDT at this point should be 100% making this game ready for it. A complex and big matchmaking system is absolutely not needed though. And IF they really think it is, it should have top priority now to implement. An overpowered bone shield is not what brings in new players.
Drama? Yes, i smell the good old "the devs dont listen to the community" again in the air.
And this coming again from the usual suspects.
yes evolve is very repetitive game that takes over 2+ minutes EVERY TIME & a cutsceene before you can even get to play 1 second.
but they gained 50000 players then losing 20000 players that is still 30000+? if ns2 gain 50000 and lose 20000 because maybe the pc cannot run the game or they realize its not a game for them that would still be a greater audience & playerbase making this game last longer instead of dying out.
if you about to go broke and have 300 dollars to your name suddently find 50k dollars but lose 20k would you be happy you got 30k left or want to never find any new money and stick with 300 dollars for the remaining year?
How is it possible that you still don't understand that what you say, is NOT the way it works... just because the game that is 17 months old that had huge hype brought in 50k people with F2P does NOT mean that the 5 year old indie game with a niche community that has relatively little/no hype surrounding it... ever... would bring the same numbers.
The simple fact is that with F2P, NS2 would be LUCKY to see 20k people join... very lucky.
Then when you mesh the skill gap, the learning curve, the optimization, the balance, the lack of matchmaking or a competitive scene and the incessant bickering about "the right way to play" you can guarantee that a large portion of those that did join, would leave just as quickly.
Let us compare some other stats shall we? you know, because stats are always a great basis for an argument... right?... right???... On release Evolve had 27,403 people at its peak, with an average playercount of 9,030.6... by comparison NS2 has had 9,429 at its highest peak (around 1/3 of evolves release) and NS2s highest playercount? 2,828.2... again, around 1/3 of evolves.
NS2 is an old game that in its prime still only brought in 33% of what a FAILED game brought in. Stop comparing them, A 5 year old indie game with a niche community surviving 5 years and still having a passionate playerbase is a great achievement, but don't be fooled that a mass amount of people are just sat waiting to play for free... they aren't.
Seems like you know the whole ns2 community cause you can count it with your fingers
Btw lets sit and wait and make ns2 large a standalone just as the feared too casual for your own good ns2 combat or just sit and wait for some miracle balancing to pop up new players lol
35k in the last 24h so not really accurate.. I don't play on Wooza's server, but I never understood why he was hated for paying and hosting a popular server for ns2, that kinda commitment should be supported, not worked against.
Just because you have good intent or effort does not mean you will achieve good results.
There's a thought that large servers attract the most rookies (because of their higher chance of being populated and not full) and thus only retain players that like large servers as their experience of the game is limited to those servers and they judge the game from that.
...unlike ns2 where you have to wait up to half an hour to find a commander.
"Sure, the graph describing the playerbase is rapidly going downwards now, but I'm sure it will instantly stabilise at the current number"
(NS2 chart begins in september 2012 not sure where you got 5 years from maybe because engine took 5 years to develop?)
i did not consider this before i saw more game reviving them selves with this approach, evolve had just 1 week ago lower players nubmers than ns2 thats why i simply said it could gain players by being free instead of people taking a chance on buying a copy then have nobody to play with. so they DONT and fewer people stay. i don't care how many more % evolve that is AAA title like many call it had on its release or ns2 had multiple years ago, it dont matter if evolve loses 80% of the players once again while being FREE, they still gained 20% stop taking everything so literal.
Yeah. And those are the flaws in your logic that people are pointing out.
But of course !
The popularity of these games often comes down to the company that publishes it, the money they have, and the amount of coverage they can get on news websites. They're the same reasons kickstarters fail/succeed. Some people think it's as simple as having a great game, but it's not. Advertising is king. NS2:F2P probably wouldn't get noticed much. We're too niche and nobody knows we even exist.
If NS2 was a Valve game it would have a minimum of 5k daily players this many years after release, even if the game was the exact same as it is now.
This is one of the main reasons I think a F2P version of NS should be a new game, or at least renamed/rebranded. From an advertising point of view, it needs to seem like a brand new thing.
But really... Every other aspect of our game is dying, and if you want to keep clapping your hands over 300 people online internationally in game in 2016, then I will stop clapping in unison. This game is dead, we have the same 200 people engaged in SSC sundays, weekly matches and the comp scene, even on these freaking boards.. UWE's accomplishment of being an "indie" dev, is going the down the drain in my personal view, if they just let their hard achievement die like this, due to inaction on their part.
WHY... ****ING why... Are we not doing all we can to get people into the game with us?! Even if we freaking fail with f2p, it's still a better solution than to lose all the remainder that really love ns2, because we are just letting the game bleed out. I was in fact furious about the low player numbers last year, but I had confidence that the UWE and CDT would find a solution, but all I keep hearing is "the game is not ready", "effort might not be worth it", "ns2 is far from dead (really?!) and "It's the same people whining, the rest of us love not being more than 400-500 people"
dafuq is this shit, really... I'm really speechless about how fold the mentality is. Do you honestly believe you can turn this game around by not prepping for f2p, not going f2p at all? PEOPLE will not BUY ns2 anymore, get it into your heads before steam charts read 80-100 people.. Even if you turn it around by then, you will lose so many hardcore fans, who contribute way more than you know, that in the end we all still end up losing.
EVERYONE in my steam list, and personal life, have agreed that f2p is the last shot ns2 got, no one knew what the game even was, and let alone none would pay a dime for it today, to get into a 500 player community. Reason I'm getting extra pissed now, is that I don't hear any alternatives coming from anyone, everyone is just against what could be a revival for this game, but the current course is by no means any better, so unless I hear a well articulated and constructive argument about what the future would hold, I stand my case that f2p is the best solution to getting more people into ns2 tommorow, if not the only because the team is more busy being naysayers than coming up with something better than f2p then, your "builds" ain't doing **** for anyone but your resume and the few people that adore being naive.
You might make it f2p now, getting a boost for maybe 6 months, but afterwards, the player base will stabilise to similar levels. Maybe a little higher with a slow steady stream of rookies, but it won't be substantially better. I haven't played Evolve, but unless they have made substantial improvements to the game, I'm confident that their average players will fall below 500 players in lets say 3 months. You only get one shot at f2p, you can't re-release as an f2p again. If they/we screw this up, there is no next time.
To summarize what I told you in steam chat: chill.
Would this step save the game you love?
Wait
This brings me to another question.
Why do you love NS2?
Did any of the "F2P now" people ever asking this question to yourself?
Playing NS2 with and against people who know what todo is a blast.
Killing a marine much better than you as skulk in an good coordinated engagement is rewarding.
Cause these 2 things i dont need ranks, archivements or whatever modern games has to attract poeple. The game itself is rewarding enough.
On the other hand.
Beeing the only one in the team who knows what todo is frustrating like hell.
Losing every engagement against one good marine cause people dont listen or cant use the map drives me away.
NS2 has already reached a critical level incompetence.
I never played a game before where you had to to explain the game to people in every round.
4 years with "leave the base", "power1st", "shoot the tunnel from the distance", "Use the phase gate", ..
Just imagine 40 full servers (Wow, yess) and the knowledge that you will have horrible rounds on each of these.
Deinstall.
Last times I played, I was already experiencing what you describe and this, for the last 12 months at least.
Do I want to experience bad games on a couple of servers or do I want to live with the same issue on 40 full servers? Answer's quite simple. Also, if the playerbase increases, you might get more chances to find an enjoyable round, and more chances to watch people getting better at this game (with dedicated servers filling this purpose, solutions are plenty). I don't think people pretend that F2P will solve all issue NS2 has, but will certainly solve a few, and major ones.
That's also up to the devs to as they like to say: 'get ready for it with a proper infrastructure'. You think about the problems that may occur, you find solutions beforehand, not once they're already here. The current development does the opposite altogether, thinking about the past issues, fixing them and not tinking about what could arise from their 'solution'. So obviously, thinking that way, F2P will never work on NS2.
Oh, and I picked NS2 because it looked like an original and interesting game, and I sticked around because I had no trouble finding a game quickly and enjoy a few rounds with friends. All that has changed already since I originally bought the game. What made me purchase NS2 and kept playing later on vanished already, so going F2P won't make it worse to me. Not saying I'd love it, but I'd be prepared to give it a go, I don't play NS2 anymore so... if there's any chance I might get back to the game, I'd take it.
Did someone of you ever checked the Evolve steam discussions?
Even after the huge Dumbdown you see countless "Everything is op", "Hacker everywhere", "Bad performance", ... threads.
What a bright future for NS2.
I don't mean to derail this, but... in the new Evole I managed to get a 12 game win streak with the monster, whereas I only ever won three games in a row as the hunters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, because NS2 has a bright future right now. Oh, and the 'bad performance' threads do not exist either on NS2.
Care to explain what this would be exactly?
even if 10% decide to buy some kind of skin or audio pack from ns2 if it was free out of a maximum of 10.000 new players testing it (for 5 bucks thats 5000 dollars) in the bank sure its pennies for a company making millions troughout the years but i dont see 5000 being spent among the 91 players left. you think of the game as a business model oh we can only go free once etc have to cover the expenses etc but how much does existing players spend on this game in total? does me yearly buying bundles of 4 giving out to my friends on steam count in hopes they will like it and stick around? that wont hold up in the end.
I do not have a qualified guess on another solution, but I'd much rather we were discussing stuff like this, than just sticking our heads down the sand. NS2 is a quality game, but it needs an f2p relaunch or something major for it to gain more people, the question is just how and when. On the opinions on what that will entail, players and devs seems to be in opposite ends of the spectrum currently.