1. Present ideas on NS2 forums in a calm constructive manner.
2. Explain why the NS1 alternative was better than the NS2 model.
3. Get called a troll by devs and UWE cultists.
3 1/2. Cory cries to his playtesters.
4. Receive ban.
5. Months later Flayra shows up and makes the changes, pretending it was what was intended all along.

The funny thing is that 201 apparently unchains the lifeforms. In some sense I'm happy that they decided to actually make a big decision rather than optimistically sticking to some "it's just a beta" explanation, but at the same time it's damn worrying if they really had to go through extensive testing and feedback to realize that things learned from NS1 still apply.

The funny thing is that 201 apparently unchains the lifeforms. In some sense I'm happy that they decided to actually make a big decision rather than optimistically sticking to some "it's just a beta" explanation, but at the same time it's damn worrying if they really had to go through extensive testing and feedback to realize that things learned from NS1 still apply.

It's okay, by 3.0 we'll have a decent game.

Yeah maybe but then they will implement combat ! XD !

I've pretty much given up on NS2. It's going to be a mediocre game for public play and an awful game for competitive play. Their gameplay design decisions range from bad to meh, except for the few dumb choices they actually reverse years/months after we told them about it (the multiple commanders farce comes to mind).

Worst of all, the spark engine is a disaster. Currently, fps drops to 30-40 in heavy combat sitations during mid-/late-game even with my i5-2500k overclocked to 4.7 GHz. There is a 100-300ms delay, regardless of ping, from clicking mouse1 to attacks actually registering as hits for the client (kill messages, hit animations). The interp is hardcoded to 250ms. The maximum server tickrate is 30.

Flayra has posted that he thinks that the current engine performance is "almost at the point where" it doesn't affect balance. Max (their main engine dev) has posted that their aim is 100ms interp hardcoded at release.

Summer 2012...

I feel the same.

Yeah. I think I've pretty much given up the hope that the game is something I'd like to play. Right now I'm mostly interested in seeing whether they can actually pull the stuff together to any extend and whether the game can establish any success even among casual players.

If at least, performance wise, the game gets improved I wouldn't mind playing it some.

The thing is, I don't think I will ever play as much as I played NS in any other game, because most of the new games are pub-crap. So, if this sequel doesn't get me to play again, I don't think any other will.

Still, I wish they have a lot of success and shit so they can see their work valued by people, but I won't play this game nor "value" the game myself.

Wait till fall 2009 and then judge the game, not before final release :/

Tried the new version, it still performs like dog shit. Even with max oced cpus, servers drop to 10-15 tickrate and client fps drops to 30-50 during midgame. It's pretty hilarious that it performed better half a year ago than it does now.

The game is full of annoying "features" like stuns, vision blur and slowdowns. The jetpacks are so slow and unwieldy you may as well just go without, at least you can sprint (lol) then. Can't wait until they release the dual minigun heavy with "lockdown mode" so I can pretend I'm a human turret because that's fun right?

If you thought NS1 pubs were bad with the offense chamber spam, NS2 beta pubs will amaze you. 15-20 minutes into the game pretty much every room on the map will be filled with cysts, crags, whips, hydras and shades (NS2's even more frustrating version of the sc) or turretfarmed marine mini-bases. I should also mention that this happens every game, because all games last 30+ minutes as it's pretty much impossible to finish rounds unless the aliens get lucky with rushing the marine start powernode (lol).

Terrible game and it seems like it's getting worse, not better, for every update they release.

if someone is able to put the ns1 textures etc to hl2 engine, we would have a much better game i think.

unfortunatly, i cant.

Perhaps someone will end up doing a Natural Selection: Spark ? After all, modding is what Spark was made for.

I'm sad to see you go Bacillus, I usually enjoyed reading your posts an I think you were an important part of the iterative process for balance.

Anyway, there is lots of stuff in the pipe for performance, and the game is improving at an exponential rate. We've waited 6 years for this, another few months is not going to be material.

just create ns1 with source engine... all it needs ^^

which pro-programmer starts it ? :)))

I'm sad to see you go Bacillus, I usually enjoyed reading your posts an I think you were an important part of the iterative process for balance.

Waiting for 3 years for the game that I can barely run and I don't feel excited about is just too much for now. It's no fun or good for anyone if I'm just bleeding out negativity whenever I try to contritube or play the game.

I'll definitely be back if UWE and/or modders provide gameplay that I enjoy, but for now I think I've spent all my reserves of excitement and patience I've had towards the game. It's now up to the game itself to prove it's something worth getting involved.

Ask Jiriki - it's basically already done from what I heard, the guy just needed a modeller. Can't remember who it was - some Canadian.

Perhaps someone will end up doing a Natural Selection: Spark ? After all, modding is what Spark was made for.

The potential NS2 playerbase is small as it is, any mod for it is going to have even less players so it's pretty much impossible to turn it into a viable community.

I'm sad to see you go Bacillus, I usually enjoyed reading your posts an I think you were an important part of the iterative process for balance.

That would surprise me, as I've never seen them give a rats ass about anything anyone "from ENSL" has to say about the game, at least not to the point where it actually has any effect on their gameplay design decisions.

Anyway, there is lots of stuff in the pipe for performance, and the game is improving at an exponential rate. We've waited 6 years for this, another few months is not going to be material.

I doubt anybody really cares how long it takes (within reason at least), but there's no indication what so ever that this game will have anything close to acceptable client and/or server performance at release. When Flayra himself thinks that the current performance has a negligible impact on balance, that's pretty telling of what they consider to be acceptable performance. Even if they manage to kick servers up to 30ticks stable without massive overclocking, it's still unacceptable for a competitive game, not to mention the 100ms interp.

Hell, why should they even care about fixing performance, 95% of their playerbase, at least judging by their forum posts, thinks 30fps, 10tickrate and massive client/server delays = perfectly acceptable performance!

Ask Jiriki - it's basically already done from what I heard, the guy just needed a modeller. Can't remember who it was - some Canadian.

Asmodee, some American, actually did port some maps and basic movement mechanics into source, but it's never going to go beyond that. Even if he somehow managed to turn it into a actual playable game, who would play it?

Maybe in a few years when the game is optimized enough and someone has recreated NS1 it will be worth playing.

I highly doubt that the game will ever exceed 30 tickrate though. I don't even think that they'll unlock the tickrate.

to be honest i dont understand why they set a release date for ns2(this summer 2012).
do they have to release because of their financial situation and demand ? for me it sounds like they need new money to continue the programming... false way, cause it will irrepealable damage the fame of this game for the whole current playerbase.
same as bethesdas incompatible fallout/skyrim gamebryo engine for the playstation 3. they receive so much hate for an unfinished and unplayable game.

for example blizzard about diablo 3 releasedate "it will be release, when its ready"... thats how it should be.

if you ask me, the year when ns2 performs bugfree is at the year when the gamestory plays.

Ask Jiriki - it's basically already done from what I heard, the guy just needed a modeller. Can't remember who it was - some Canadian.

Asmodee, some American, actually did port some maps and basic movement mechanics into source, but it's never going to go beyond that. Even if he somehow managed to turn it into a actual playable game, who would play it?

He was/is looking for a modeler, he had about 20 people saying they'd do it but no one did. Hell, I actually ported a bunch NS1 models to Source for him and I have 0 idea of modeling at all. If he'd get a serious modeler, the game would be done in less than 1 month.

And second, I'd play it.

i'd donate for that one too

And second, I'd play it.

Great, maybe you and bend0rrr can play 1v1 then.

I like playing public games of NS2. Except not as aliens, because it's terrible and boring. Also not as marines any time later than hive2 because everything becomes so bogged down and static.

What I'm saying is I like to shoot skulks, lerks and gorges with LMGs and shotguns and the rest of the game is not enjoyable.

I could expand on why, but I'm tired of the official forums

oh go on then, I'll just say that UWE don't seem to understand what makes a fun FPS game. I'm pretty sure Flayra doesn't play the game enough to have an intuitive feel of how shit works (and never played NS1 enough to get an intuitive feel for why it cultivated the brilliantly long lasting fanbase it did). Spreadsheet balancing is all well and good but it won't help determine systemic errors in the game. See PRes/TRes, multiple commanders, etc etc blah blah blah

The history of NS1 was

Flayra: Here's a bunch of ideas that sound cool but don't work/aren't actually fun.
Everyone else: Well, I guess we'll just change that and use the original HL engine to plug the gaps in gameplay. (thanks puzl, tankefugl et al.)

Now in NS2 the exact same NS1.0 'cool ideas' are implemented, slowly realised to be terrible and reverted back to NS1 solutions.

Also gained large profits by capitalising on the misplaced goodwill of the original fanbase.

I think what I'm saying is I have never seen a UWE developer show any sort of intuitive understanding of why NS1 was successful.

Yes, this post is 90% ignorant fiction but that's what it looks like from the outside :B

also the fact that design ideas are incorrectly derived from day9's StarCraft 2 analysis.

and i dont even care about bunnyhop

And second, I'd play it.

Great, maybe you and bend0rrr can play 1v1 then.

We'll play 1v1 all day until Fana gets jealous about the cool kids. We'll make jiriki join so it will be success. NS goes where he goes.

I bet when they made concept what made NS unique, they wrote down first RTS/FPS hybrid and didn't even mention range vs. melee elements. Everyone here should know that it's indeed range vs. melee which makes NS game it is. Almost every bad feature in NS2 can be lead back to lack of understanding melee vs. range games (sprint, lerk's spikes, fade's teleport blink, slower movement and mobility, smaller maps, stronger static def ect.) Even L4D2 is made better when it comes to combat and L4D2 is shit compared to NS1.

and i dont even care about bunnyhop

I think I've got so sensitive about the bhop thing because of the whole feel that things aren't often understood properly. Also it bothers me badly if the next gamer generation doesn't have any clue about movement systems further than the average CoD or BF game.

The sordid mix of LOL and WTF on the UWE forums never ceases to amaze me: http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=117344&view=findpost&p=1918965

Quote "player", dropping truth bombs:

Can you not understand that the foundation of this sentiment is not so much the overglorification of NS1 (old-timers know it had\has issues that need to be resolved), but rather the intense dissatisfaction with regards to NS2 (both in terms of design-descions, as well as the technical ineptitude of the engine it is built on). So between the 2 games, the choice is simple, and the desire to impose NS1's design onto the wretched heap of poo we have now is very understandable, as by now it seems like the only way we'll ever see a proper NS-game.

Quote reply from "utterly stereotypical UWE forums fanboy":

No I can't understand it, because as I said, NS2 is very similar to NS1, whether or not you agree with the changes, it is very hard to understand why they make it 'not proper NS' unless you are a complete NS1 purist who literally thinks it was perfect and any deviation from it is heresy.

It also doesn't make any sense to complain about NS2 design decisions because of the engine being unstable. The design has nothing whatsoever to do with the engine, the NS2 engine test and the game we have now both run on more or less the same engine, and you could easily go back to that if you wanted to. Changing the design would have no bearing at all on the technical aspects of the engine.

you either got trolled hard, or that guy was fucking drunk.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=117344&view=findpost&p=1919016

Quote Flayra

I wasn't able to read every comment here, but we realize not everyone is going to like the direction we're going with NS2. Personally, I think it's a far better game already than NS1, but preferences and tastes vary.