Natural Selection 2

[Vandelay]

Hope this sale gives a boost to player numbers. There is definitely enough playing to get games going, but I have been finding myself limited to just a few possible servers. Lately, I've been particularly trying to find games that only have a max number of 14 people, given the discussions earlier in thread, but that seems to be almost impossible.

Also hope that a few more people from RPS pick this up. Playing with randoms is still fun and is much better than many other games, but I imagine the game would be significantly better in a group of people.

[airtekh]

Hope this sale gives a boost to player numbers.

That is my hope also.

I think people are afraid of investing in an indie multiplayer game since they have a tendency to die off quickly (Section 8: Prejudice springs to mind), although I don't think this will happen to NS2 since the community has been around for nearly ten years already. If people see it really cheap then they're probably more willing to part with their cash.

I suspect that it will show up as a daily deal in the Steam winter sale at some stage, for the same discount it was at yesterday, and that will give people more time to buy it too.

[Finicky]

Btw anyone remember launch day? Try to act like on launch day as vet, be patient with the newbies, take things slower, teach them how to play, compliment them when they stumble into doing something productive.

The mindset of launchday was really good and helped the community grow, don't scare off the new players by expecting high level play from them right away.

Learning the ropes in ns2 is extremely rewarding, don't ruin it for them :p

[Felisc]

I had another great session tonight. second night playing, yay :D . As mentioned in the Rock Paper Onos thread, I'd love to play this with rps folks right after christmas.

[gundato]

Decided to finally give the game a shot (got it with Overgrowth). After spending FAR too long loading the maps (apparently it bakes the levels on the first load?) I entered a chat room that basically made Counterstrike (and I played 1.6 AND Source :p) seem like a bunch of well adjusted and tolerant individuals...

So yeah, not going back to this one.


Also, not particularly big on the movement (feels "wrong" to me) and the aiming felt sluggish (that could be a mouse sensitivity thing, but I saw no real point in trying to tweak).

Ah well, doubt I am really missing much in all honesty. Already seemed pretty dead server wise (LOTS of empties) which is a really bad sign considering it was on sale yesterday.

Probably a fun game, but not for me. And a community that hellish isn't helping things.

[Bobtree]

gundato, turn on the "raw input" option to make the mouse aiming feel better. I'm guessing the odd movement is due to high default FOVs (90+, more for certain aliens), and the FOV option slider only goes higher.

I too just started NS2, and there was a small update while I was playing yesterday, after which my server list got increasingly empty until I exited and got the patch. Rookie servers full of new players and commanders are pretty rough, with Marines getting stomped consistently. I had an incredible time when I found some balanced matches though.

[DaftPunk]

Still no online demo or at least free trial ?

[Outright Villainy]

Decided to finally give the game a shot (got it with Overgrowth). After spending FAR too long loading the maps (apparently it bakes the levels on the first load?) I entered a chat room that basically made Counterstrike (and I played 1.6 AND Source :p) seem like a bunch of well adjusted and tolerant individuals...

Definitely sounds like a symptom of the noobie inftested sale period, NS2 has the friendliest community I've ever seen.

[Finicky]

Definitely sounds like a symptom of the noobie inftested sale period, NS2 has the friendliest community I've ever seen.

Don't tell him, I enjoy the game a lot more without the gundatos of the world shitting it up.

Btw it's also the single most responsive engine (least input laggy) that I know of, at least equal to the half life engine.

[jnx]

Definitely sounds like a symptom of the noobie inftested sale period, NS2 has the friendliest community I've ever seen.

Yeah. Granted, I haven't played since beta. But back then it was a real friendly bunch and most used public voice coms in a good way that doesn't make you instant mute them.

[Moraven]

Heh, Aliens get easily as stomped. Go 5 gorges...or a new commander. I was patient and tried to help him, but I had to suggest something like 10 times before it did it.

[TixyLixx]

It's ok, nothing special, seen this type of game before and I don't see why this one needs to exist over the original mod, all they've seemed to do is made the same game when really they should have done something more exciting after all these years.

I don't like how the camera doesn't change when you're climbing on walls. I don't like the eyes in the mouth thing or how it feels like you're gliding because there is no movement animation or head bob. I don't like the guns, they feel very floaty, no kick back, no power to them, like I could be shooting one of those pea shooters.... just got nothing to them.

The maps are pretty uninspired and the UI doesn't give you any clear clue to what the hell is going on, people just seem to do whatever as a result. It's a very hard game to understand for new players and that is bad for everybody because then that feeds their team. I don't like the whole run to a door thing to choose a team, just let me select it in a 2D menu, it is faster.


It's a pretty mediocre game, I don't see why they ditched Source all those years ago to make their own engine, the game doesn't look any better than the latest Source games like TF2 or Portal 2. They could have stuck with Source and had this game out in like 2008/9 and moved on to do something else, just seems like a waste of time to me.

I wont be playing again, like I said it is ok, just I played it before with the original and not really interested in playing it in this day and age, the whole thing feels pretty uninspired. Those are the worst games in a way, where you just don't have any feeling towards them.

[airtekh]

For those of you who haven't been turned off by your purchase of NS2, there is a brand new steam group for us RPSers and we can discuss all things related to that over in the social forum thread.

[DaftPunk]

Just saw your rant in screenshot thread about ME3,now you whine here.. Why so sad :/

[Finicky]

Who cares:D he already paid for the game.
Uwe wins, we win, he loses.

Ps there is no feeding in this game, get back to dota.

[internetonsetadd]

I've never seen such a friendly community though as in ns2...

If any of you fuckos ever chance upon this post....

Aw let the little man have his inane counter argument :(

It's called a learning curve, you should know about if if you've been playing games since the ns1 days-.-

The community is awesome in ns2, very willing to help rookies as long as they are willing to listen and as long as they are responsive and communicate.
You can lead a horse to water...

Btw anyone remember launch day? Try to act like on launch day as vet, be patient with the newbies, take things slower, teach them how to play, compliment them when they stumble into doing something productive.

The mindset of launchday was really good and helped the community grow, don't scare off the new players by expecting high level play from them right away.

Learning the ropes in ns2 is extremely rewarding, don't ruin it for them :p

Don't tell him, I enjoy the game a lot more without the gundatos of the world shitting it up.

Who cares:D he already paid for the game.
Uwe wins, we win, he loses.

Ps there is no feeding in this game, get back to dota.

Oscillate much?

[gundato]

Oscillate much?

Yeah, that's why I don't really feel like I am missing much. Over the course of three servers, I found people who make fin look like a well adjusted individual. But what was more distressing was that nobody even spoke out against it and said "Hey, stop with the racial slurs". That tells me one of two things:

1. The community is okay with assholes like that. Knowing that fin is part of it, I strongly suspect this to be the case
2. The community isn't interested in new players (nobody who "is in the community" on any of the rookie servers) and the game is doomed.

Either way, I can spend my time on something that actually DOES have a nice community :p

I'm not saing NS2 is bad. I do think there are some serious flaws (if fixing sensitivity is one flag, why is it not flagged by default? Why the hell aren't the maps I downloaded baked, etc), but I can see an interesting game underneath. But with a community like that and plenty of comparable (if not better) games out there, I just don't see why I should put the time in. And sadly, I suspect I am speaking for the "normal" gamers right now.

[DaftPunk]

And what games have nice community for you ? In my whole gaming online life,that is lets say 10 years so far,there was rarely any nice communities,there are always some shitheads who piss on them.

[jnx]

Killing Floor had a great community. Niche titles often have.

[gundato]

And what games have nice community for you ? In my whole gaming online life,that is lets say 10 years so far,there was rarely any nice communities,there are always some shitheads who piss on them.

These days? ArmA 2, Red Orchestra 2, and Chivalry all come to mind. Yeah, there is some occasional trash talking, but there are never any "below the belt" hits with respect to race and sexual preference and the like (and when someone DOES say stupid crap, people call them out on it).

Although, I do acknowledge that i have been playing multiplayer games over the internet since the late 90s, so I have set the bar pretty low as to what counts as a "nice" community. Which is why I pretty much lose all interest the moment something manages to find a way to tunnel beneath. :p

Killing Floor had a great community. Niche titles often have.

Definitely true. Which is another thing that concerns me with this. Although, I suspect it might be the same principles as DotA. The game is hard and requires teamwork, so the community have a tendency to gravitate toward "elitest prick" mode and are much more forgiving of assholishness becuase they need the players.