Better scalability is definitely one thing, but the alien tech in NS is seriously quite limited also. They just pick a plan to get 2 people to 50 res asap and most of the time it just happens to involve 2 extra nodes and a lerk. A commander in res model could mean a lot of different build orders, gameplay plans and so on. Commander spells could offer some makeshift replacements for the fade's ability to fight groups, so having a fade asap wouldn't be completely obligatory.

An accurate release date...

Seriosuly though, balance between teamwork and skill. I want skilled players to make a difference but not to the point where teamwork can't win against rambo aim. However, Im pretty sure this is probably much easyer said than done and will take a load of testing to get right.

I think they confirmed that NS2 will only have 1 place for starting hive which is very sad. They have cut out very much flexibility out and I already told my concern only to see it locked in 0.7 seconds. Most of the stuff have been said here but I would really highlight the "Listen competitive players" I dont want a pub onry game.

But keep in mind: the start hive brings more balance into the game ( just think of hives as tanith on eclipse), of course there are also some negative effects. But u also have to see that in ns2 there is (hopefully?) no waypoint bug. (dunno if the commander can still "hear" the map.) Since it´s getting harder to detect a hive without obs, it´s just fair to have a fixed starting hive.

I hope ns2 wont be fps based too much :D and I hope there wont be too much hacking possibilties :>.

Also I hope for a tutorial and maybe in 2 years :D (or 200?) a little single player adventure.


oh and I hope there is some reg :D

Face it, NS2 will be cool at start but it's bound to have horrible imbalances and stupid decisions in the gameplay.

'http://www.naturalselection2.com/overview'

WYSIWYG graphical tools and powerful scripting allow you to create new weapons, scenarios or entirely new games.

At some point the clanner communities will probably pick up on this, get together and design a tournament mode NS2. Something that isn't an exact copy of NS1, but better than NS2.

But yeah, you can start thinking about what you'd want to keep and what to add. Flayra won't listen to you though.

The problem with custom tournamentmode is that it hasn't got a good player intake like a complete game does. I fear it's going to be the same NS1 small scene problem as we've had for the last 5 seasons now.

Even with massive HL playerbase only a few mods managed to gather big enough playerbase to maintain a healthy competetive scene, NS being almost the only one that didn't receive the 'official mod' status at any point.

I may be able to do the mod but in the worst case we may have to pay someone to make mod. It really depends what has to be coded in. If its some complex hacks that can involve matrices and vector calculus, then I don't know if I'll have the competence but of course there're lots (well some) other interested people aswell, hopefully someone will have experience in game coding.

But another issue is that if the original version is not as competitive as TF2 (for example), many competitive players might skip it.

what do i want of NS2? to come out before 2011

Maybe someone should make a video showing what we like about the current ns version. Showing some lifeform movements, little something about how the gameplay goes. Maybe it would open up the eyes of how developers think about bhop, wallhop, lerk flight(also ability usage) and how marine behaves in current ns with a skillful player.

good idea

Yeah I agree, videos can have lots of influence. But it should be more, like a webpage with a video and petition etc. But before that we'll have to wait for alpha, see how it goes, make a promod and then make an appeal to make it the original game.

For example, they are removing PGs. Let's show how a skilled team traps a fade with MT and PGs. Then add some kickass music and editing.

Sounds good, but there will be an engine test before the alpha if i got that right.

I think we should submit a few clips of sheep and phil lerking so they add bite back into the game.

Or...

even better;

a clip from 1.04 - like mst or someone sitting in a vent for 2 hours and then a 3.0 lerk flying around pwning and actually having fun.

Yeah Gibbz I was thinking the same. Just not sheep, phil and Macpersil!

Anyway, we should do it about lots of stuff. I just don't know if we should do it after or before Alpha release.

I agree with most of what has been said here.

I think that what has to be pointed out is the necessity of having a new "veteran" generation, with its own forum on the NS2 site. Flayra said that he wanted to do a game "as competitive as NS2", therefore it seems REALLY OBVIOUS that he should take the competitive players opinions into account.

The main issue being : "how to determine those people ?" - I haven't got much of an idea for this, maybe for all the active members of the ENSL website for the past 2 years ? I don't really know.

Look huhuh, those ideas are old. We already tried to get lots of clanners into PT's. Its not really happening.

Its obvious to you they should take veteran players, but not obvious to devs.

lets say it straight.... its commertial game... pub> competitive cose $ from competitive < $ from pub players...

Clanner PTs are often too arrogant and rude in their manner, what I remember was a lot of whining from clanner PTs but not much in the way of productive feedback using the formal methods. Only a few of them (including me ;D) ever bothered to write a report on their opinions using valid arguments and opinions, the rest just shouted on IRC about how they thought things should be.

Actually I agree on that, clanner PTs are also a PR problem for UEW. But since there won't be any official PT team for NS2, I don't see how discussing about this is useful at all.

the veteran program probably ruined the idea of anyone in clans for flayra. although he did listen to hambone a hell of a lot

By the way, I don't know if they've mentioned Parasite attack already, is it on the Skulk ? If not, how about they could put it on the Lerk ? After all it's like the best "attack" in the world ... But once more it's hard to tell I guess, since we have no information about that "alien commander" and stuff :X

@Gibbz "a clip from 1.04 - like mst or someone sitting in a vent for 2 hours and then a 3.0 lerk flying around pwning and actually having fun."

*whistles* ^^

Yeah, didn't notice that before. Lerks were the fades of 1.04 and mst was mainly around in 2.0, which was when lerks were mindless spore machines that couldn't even fly around well. wtf gibbz little baby newbie

1.04 bite lerks could be somewhat effective in the hands of a skilled player. Much of that was due to bad marine aim and the ridiculous hitboxes though. Couldn't really evade fire with the helicopter flight model.

Yea way to show yourself up as a terrible gorge, George.

I think what we need to do is go onto the ns.com forums and NOT TROLL.



YOU HEARD ME



We need to make a series of posts each concerned with area of the game. For instance, one on how we don't want them to fail with a matchmaking system (l4d2) or with a menu that barely works on an octocore (any battlefield game). Also gameplay issues such as team maneuverability overall and separate classes.

These posts should not be the usual elitist shit we spout. It needs to be a well thought out, well argued set of suggestions and perhaps complaints. Any complaints we do make about their current plans should be explained. We should also stress the value of a skill spectrum - maybe this is best served by making the video Tamis and Jerky suggested.

Most of the time we're all tempted to shout down the subhuman pubnubs because we can plainly see that they're wrong. We have to explain to them why they are wrong by listing isolated and game-integrated situations in which their reasoning is faulty.

And before you say you've tried this before. I'm talking about initiating each conversation and then dealing with whatever counter arguments there are in a mature and totally dominant fashion. Yes it's all terribly unbecoming isn't it? But these pricks will always agree with the mature idiot rather than the arrogant prick with all the right answers. Furthermore if we all go onto post and agree with what is said, our small community becomes noticeable all of a sudden. Kind of like spam but not.

we cant really say shit until alpha is released because we do definitely need to see how it all works together. otherwise we just look like the single building selection complaining spastics with SC2.

otoh trolling does nothing productive. the problem is theres an endless pool of idiots on the official NS forums who havent played since 2.01, can't remember what units even do and quit because 2.0 removed the 'atmosphere'

a good idea is perhaps someone respected and not outspoken (Jiriki/Bacillus/puzl ideally...) not fana or me or whatever basically) or even dux (lol yea right)to post a megathread on the official forums about what is good/should be conserved. it needs to be well composed and look past "KEEP THIS SAME" and get down to the technical grisly shit that goes on behind the scenes of why NS1 is good

(that isnt to say you guys shouldnt contribute because fana pretty much mercilessly destroyed opposition argument to new lerk, but the person to actually post it needs to be seen as not completely diehard fuck tha newbs)

also obviously subs idea too

dux is working on it from inside the dev team, that's probably having more effect than anything we can do. Posting well thought out arguments on the forums is great, but we're still just another voice among the masses. Too much spam from competitive players can also have the opposite effect of what we want, even if it's done with the best intentions.

Not saying we shouldn't post, by all means post, but as Sublime says, it needs to be done in a delicate manner. For every person posting what boils down to "god damn why won't you noobs shut up" we reinforce the perception of us as unlikeable elitists that should be opposed at every turn. You could have the best argument in the world, but it still wouldn't matter if nobody wants to listen.

I'm sure flayra has a rough idea of how he wants to be played (yes that is a lie), personally I think if you want to engage him and actually get any results you're going to have to communicate to him within his own "world" (conceptualisation of the game) so the speak. Which is tricky at the best of times, with the limited information availible (,as has already been said) it would be nearly impossible.

(-on 2.0 ruining the atmosphere) Personally for me when 2.0 came around I was deeply angry and disappointed with the large amount of hard counters that were included in the game play, I was happy to see a big changeup in most of the major strong marine openers (yes this took a lot longer to actually do than 2.0 release) but a lot of the fun soft counters and things you could outskill with were removed (and the fun exploits :/) but aside from the +movement bug and a few other problems I think the final version of NS ended up being something that was actually fun to play and that felt a little more like pub 1.0.

Fuck this nL propaganda! DICK ON THOSE IGNORANT SHITES.

we cant really say shit until alpha is released because we do definitely need to see how it all works together. otherwise we just look like the single building selection complaining spastics with SC2.

this !



Also about that Lerk, I am not as pessimistic as Fana because we haven't seen the rest of the game.

What bothers me most is the switch from 3 hives to only 1. It was like... at the heart of the scheme of NS's gameplay, and yet nobody ever seemed to take note of this. This change gets me really... wondering ?