The acclaimed man vs aliens FPS-RTS Half-Life mod done good is something I don’t believe we’ve mentioned on this silly old site of ours before, and the same’s true of its impending sequel. Curse our grasshopper minds. Let’s correct that, with a link to a fairly dry but handy fundamentals-establishing interview with the dev team, Unknown Worlds, over on Nofrag. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve conveniently Youtube-snaffled the first footage of the new engine, which is looking impressively shiny.
The big thing to know about the much-delayed NS2, if you didn’t already, is that they’ve switched from their original plan to build the game on the Source engine to custom-designing their own engine and intending to flog the thing as its own game rather than a free mod, as with NS1. From that interview:
The nice thing about being a small, independent is that we’ll be doing well if we sell even small numbers of units. If we sell 50,000 units we’ll be in good shape, although we hope to sell more. It’s not like we can just sit back though, we’ll have to keep working to make sure we have a healthy company.
So let’s hope they make this sequel a worthy one, and are in return rewarded for their valiant efforts. We’ll try and sort out an interview with the team here too, as it’s a particularly fascinating, risk-laden career path. Their funding model’s interesting enough in itself – a while back they knocked out a slick, timely, self-published Sudoku game that was also one of the earlier third-parties offerings on Steam. Canny buggers, them.
Oh, and here’s that footage:
Related Stories:
No game has ever replicated the depth of gameplay that standard NS multiplayer gave (I’m ignoring combat, I realize why they did it, but it’s not the point of NS).
Those moments when you realize you’ve just got into the alien hive with no-one about, get the commander to drop a phase gate, and then phase in 5 heavy marines. Or when you’re a skulk and you realize that the commander doesn’t know how to arrange turrets and thus manage to take out an entire base single handedly.
Or just the entirely frantic moments when everything’s going on. I agree with the comment above about left4dead – it does remind me of NS in some ways with the franticness and the asymmetry between the two sides in versus.
Select Harder
@caramelcarrot: Meh… you must play Tremulous. Placing turrets in tremulous is a art at itself. Ignore Team Fortress, engineers on teamfortres are totally limited. On Trem you have like 3 turrets (I forget) to play with, and what to repait on the “OH SHIT” moments are really important. IMHO Tremulous is a superior game than Team Fortress 2. But he!, I love to play as engineer.. and I like Turret Defense games/play infected in L4D. Maybe is me :-)
The very limited time I’ve spent playing NS1 was enjoyable to say the least.
I must say that I am looking forward to eating some faces as an onos when this comes out.
Assuming they keep Onos.
NS2 has the potential to be better than NS if they manage to strike a balance plus make the game quicker to get into for complete initiates. It’s a ludicrously difficult balancing act to get RTS and FPS co-habiting happily in the same game, but I think they could do it.
I’ve played all other similar games except Tremulous, which I refuse to play because its players are so overly-zealous of it (which just gives me the impression they are over-protective because they know it’s not as good).
- Empires is great but a bit too broad in terms of the tech tree (but the best alternative to NS for me).
- IG:W is a good concept but full of horrible design executed at a very basic level and imho not a very good game at all.
- IG:TO was worse than IG:W, so at least the commercial game is a step up.
- Zombie Master is quite fun but gets a bit stale after a bit, even more so with the might of L4D to contend with.
If anyone is interested in getting into NS, send me a PM on the forums and I can suggest some good (welcoming, and advanced gameplay) servers to go on.
For those wondering why they ditched the Source engine:
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/2008/07/engine_questions_and_answers
“I’m glad they ditched source
Games on that engine don’t feel good”
Finally someone who agrees with me on this! I don’t like how movement feels on the Source engine — I feel like I’m sliding all over the place when I do basic movement.
About this engine, and the people behind it — isn’t it four guys doing this? Because that’s crazy impressive. We have 110 (105? I forget) people at my company, and I know what coding work on a new engine can be like.
The problem I have with this update is the lighting in NS2 won’t make or break the game, the actual gameplay and timing of the release will. There are more RTS-FPS’ coming out every year and they’re increasing the likelyhood of failure to market NS2. If they would have figured out a way to use an existing cheap game engine they probably be close to a NS2 beta and six months off of releasing a profitable game.
Also Flayra is fucking horrible at balance and listens to the wrong playerbase.
// Random links:
The original mod, Quake2 Gloom
http://www.planetgloom.com/
Derivative mods:
Tremulous
http://www.tremulous.net/
Natural Selection
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/
This is great. Never heard of the original mod. I’m lazy like that. These guys could probably get a job in any studio they wanted, but they’re doing the start up thing. Follow your dreams guys :)
I like that they are targetting a small audience, small budget. It’s like the smart way pioneered by Stardock that proved it pays off (especially when it turns out to be a big hit).
And yay for RPS giving this media attention!
Oh, and what happened to the new They Hunger?
Erlam said, and i’m typing this out manually since the comments layout here sucks due to a mistaken belief that it’s the RPS writers that matter :
“About this engine, and the people behind it — isn’t it four guys doing this? Because that’s crazy impressive. We have 110 (105? I forget) people at my company, and I know what coding work on a new engine can be like.”
Funny thing there. About two years ago, there was a documentary about an indie startup trying to make their own MMORPG. They also ended up creating their own engine despite being a ragtag bunch of volunteers. The head of the project was working part-time as a doorman in NY, away from his wife and child. Another member of the team went homeless for 2 weeks. Another sold his house to move closer to everyone else. The artist for the project was ready to move from Thailand to the states for the project. If there was any group of people that, under these circumstances, had a shot, it was them. If anyone sacrificed more in the process, i’ve never heard about it.
Cut to episode 8 of that documentary series:
“He doesn’t know how hard making a big game is yet”
— Charlie Cleveland, head of the NS team that was more comfortable than the person he was describing thanks to the bullshit Sudoku clone his company crapped out, and whose only real credentials otherwise are driving his own mod into the ground before it had a chance to seriously take off.
Something to keep in mind if you want to be amazed at the poor little indie NS team making their own way.
Ok… I don’t understand that. What are you trying to say?
Is it wrong to fund your company by creating a casual game that isn’t innovation-in-a-can but earns some money?
Haven’t they’ve been working hard enough because they don’t working part time as doorman? They do not sacrifice enough because they don’t sell their houses or move from Thailand to the US???
I believe this is a world that is not about how much you sacrifice but how much you earn. (You know.. “efficiency”)
If they are able to ship their game than they did it the right way.
Until then… lets see, there is still much time to go to hell for them.
After reading the Q&A cyrenic linked to their engine seems to be a well thought-out concept. (Everything gameplay related in modifiable LUA code + easy level editing because you don’t have to worry about lightning + easy-to-use and powerful tools)
I don’t know how revolutionary or awesome NS2 will be but I do know I’m going to play it.
I spent a bunch of time playing the original NS and I had a blast.
teo says: “I’m glad they ditched source
Games on that engine don’t feel good”
Erlam says: “Finally someone who agrees with me on this! I don’t like how movement feels on the Source engine — I feel like I’m sliding all over the place when I do basic movement. ”
Hooray, I thought I was the only one! I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but most, if not all, Source games I’ve played feel sort of… gooey? I can’t quite explain it though, I mean surely things like acceleration are easily modifiable. Maybe it’s something more fundamental to the physics side of the engine? Or maybe Valve just like their movement style, and most modders don’t bother messing with it. I was also wondering whether it has anything to do with field of view: I find low FOV quite unsettling, and from memory HL2 and its derivatives may have had sub-90 FOV as default, while CS: Source, which felt a bit better to me, didn’t? I have no ida what I’m talking about, but I agree: Source games tend not to feel quite right.
Magic: It’s certainly a smart thing to put out a profitable game that is nothing new or special just to make money to fund development.
At least they’re not buying other companies and cannibalizing their talent and reputation to trick people into buying crap, so they aren’t quite as bad as a commercial game publisher.
That said, I could see a lot of people doubting Unknown Worlds just because they put out one game already strictly for a profit. That profit was most likely just a realistic way to fund the development of their dream game, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Then again, ’slippery slope’ arguments don’t prove anything.
Personally I have zero hype for Natural Selection II right now, so much so I won’t even bother making a better-informed decision. No matter what I say, the game will come out sooner or later (or not), and a more informed decision can be made then.
I cannot wait to play NS2. Regardless of the ratings it will get, regardless of the prize, regardless of the release date. I will buy it the day it comes out!
[Your insults are no use here - RPS]
I’ve been waiting so long for them to release something so I can rebuild my map for NS2. If it takes much longer, there won’t be any time for me to do this since paid jobs come first.
Everything you just said Therlun, was retarded. Deus Ex 2 NPC models? seriously? nice troll i guess.
I’ve probably played NS more than any other game since Elite – and I can assure you that’s some going !
Really looking forward to it, just hope it retains the scare factor of the original (it’s still the only game that can make you sh!t yourself after 6 years of playing when you’re ambushed by something like a skulk)
Jon R.:“Something to keep in mind if you want to be amazed at the poor little indie NS team making their own way.”
Uh, if you go to the artist’s website you’ll see that he also made models for the same game that you are throwing a fit over the developers having more of a struggle with.
On a more related note, I hope NS2 is able to keep the same competitive edge and depth while still making it newbie and casual friendly.
On a more related note, I hope NS2 is able to keep the same competitive edge and depth while still making it newbie and casual friendly.
Exactly. I loved the old NS. People can talk about Tremulous all they want, but that’s just a twitch-shooter with small RTS elements. It doesn’t have the depth or dynamics of NS. To each his own, but for me nothing was more intense than a long push/pull battle of NS.
I was really disappointed when in the later betas, the team made adjustments to the “classic” mode that would make game rounds shorter on average. I used to LOVE these games that could take over 3 hours. For short games we already had the Combat mode, right? Whilst a stale moment in most games ends in bored players leaving, in NS it stays interesting, because there are always so many options to try and change the tide. Also, the power of teamwork can be so insanely great in NS. It makes TF2 seem like a lone-wolf game in comparison, and I love TF2! It’s just that playing TF2 always makes me think of how great NS was. In fact, I’m going to install the old NS again and have some games! There were a good few servers left. Only problem was the community which largely got kind of bittered. For 90% , the only thing you hear over voice is whining about how others can’t play the game right or just plainly suck.
Get bigger penis today with top natural herbal male enhancement products that enlarge penis size, increase penis blood flow, produces hard rock erections and kill premature ejaculation at http://www.Naturalherbalz.com
I thins I naver see type website before its very informative for me. I also want to ask u some thiing You make more this type blog where we can get more knowledge. and any one tell me how can I find this type blog. http://www.penisenlargementz.com