Does NS2 have kinda small amount of active community members?
MisterYoon
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
Join Date: 2012-08-18 Member: 155747Members
I've never thought that NS2 has such a small comunity, but i saw couple of guys saying so..
As i've certainly never participated in any of specific game community except this and old HL2 mod called Insurgency, i don't know how big a certain community should be. So could anybody tell me how active this forum should be to be called as 'Active Community'
As i've certainly never participated in any of specific game community except this and old HL2 mod called Insurgency, i don't know how big a certain community should be. So could anybody tell me how active this forum should be to be called as 'Active Community'
Comments
Now, a question of mine; why do you ask? What is the reason behind this thread?
If the NS2 community was anything like it was back before NS1 was released, the community should swell with the full feature release of NS2. We still enjoy very active discussions here on the board, but the official IRC channels have a bit to be desired for the time being.
more then 150k forum members, and considering not everyone joins the forum, I think NS2 is atleast pretty well known.
I know the above has nothing to do with the actual activity, but I think it's far from a 'small' community.
The amount of people actively playing the game is small.
I don't know exactly how NS2 does compare to other games but someone smart could certainly by looking at the numbers.
NS1 and NS2 gathers used to compete about which one would start first, I don't know if it's still the case though.
~250 active players at peak times per day(this is just my feeling observing server lists and ns2stats, might be more, certainly was less before TB youtube magic...) - is a little underwhelming.
Is it normal?
edit:
Hmm... some strange numbers to compare:
Dota2 Beta stats:
1,371,394 players/steam accounts <a href="http://stats.dota2.be/" target="_blank">http://stats.dota2.be/</a>
Peak today 69,926players <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/stats/" target="_blank">http://store.steampowered.com/stats/</a>
You have to remember that ns2stats counts the number of players only from servers that have the stats mod installed. This includes 14 servers currently: <a href="http://ns2stats.org/server/index" target="_blank">http://ns2stats.org/server/index</a> and that there 92 servers online according to the nanogrid: <a href="http://hypernovadesign.co.uk/nanogrid/" target="_blank">http://hypernovadesign.co.uk/nanogrid/</a>
Many popular servers such as HBZ, NS2France, NS2HD and Monash are not included in ns2stats thus the player count statistics can't really be used to measure the activity of NS2 scene.
a) might be more players because ns2servers is not on every server
b) it doesnt tell us unique players.
So there might only be 250-300ppl playing at peak times or whatever, but this doesnt tell us the unique players - soo looking at a whole week for example, it might be 1-2thousand of different ppl playing the game. (maybe more maybe less)
So yeah, measureing the activity of the ns2 scene by only looking at peak/avg players per day numbers isnt really telling the whole story. (still you could try to compare some numbers with other games [a bit unfair tho])
I'd assume there's probably a few thousand fairly active players though and it'll get much bigger when the game releases, performance is better, and modding is easier.
<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/stats/" target="_blank">http://store.steampowered.com/stats/</a>
However, I also like game monitor as a place to check game playercounts. Though, it has the same problem as Steam Game Stats (i.e. I only found them tracking two NS2 servers atm). Here's the list for NS1:
<a href="http://www.game-monitor.com/GameSearch/ns/Natural_Selection.html" target="_blank">http://www.game-monitor.com/GameSearch/ns/..._Selection.html</a>
If you just want to know NS2's playercounts, then Nanogrid (http://hypernovadesign.co.uk/nanogrid/) and ns2stats (http://ns2stats.org/) are good resources. Nanogrid frequently shows a couple hundred concurrent players while ns2stats has gathered stats on probably over a thousand different players.
^this, more or less
I've seen plenty of players who decide to take a break from NS2 while they wait for performance/balance/features to be finished, too. Those people will likely come back once the full version hits in a couple months.
I myself only play 1-2 games a week, but I check the forums every day.
The amount of people actively playing the game is small.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
define small? Compared to mods or mw2 its large. compared to CS its small.
Almost everynight i see ~5-7 full servers , with others on their way. That doesnt seem "small" to me (like say ns1 is)
People can theorize or assume any number of reasons why those who pay for a product then dont use it or aren't "Active" but in the end its guesswork and depends on the person.
After talking with a few of from the TB crowd who arent active already, I have a feeling most people just like seeing "what its like" and then return when big things happen like a release.
Recently I've been hanging out in the [420] IVY GROVE server when it's full. Lots more fun to be had compared to other servers. The 2 clan members I always see in the server are cool, very helpful, and they always take command quickly to make the games hard and interesting :) You need people to talk and take command in the comm chair or on the field in this game.
The 420 server never feels like a normal pub server when they're around. Hope to see more lively servers jumping in.
While there is more playing NS2 than NS1 now i wouldn't say that NS2's active playerbase is anything but small...
Most HL2 mods have about that many players TBH, ZPS has about 250+ players currently, with PVKII having 70. Nuclear Dawn has about 110...
Yes the game is still in beta but all those mods also saw huge popularity spikes on release, and look at the numbers they currently hold... I remember playing Nuclear Dawn on release and there was 50+ servers all full or near full, and now look at the game...
Then there are mods-turned-retail-games like Killing Floor whose playercounts have held up, even after 3 years (steam stats says just over 2000 people playing KF right now). I also don't think NS2 will follow the same path as ND because NS2:
- Isn't player vs turretspam
- Is based around smaller playercounts per match
- Has been building its community (and competitive community) much longer than ND did before they released
Either way, yes the community is small; both in terms of concurrent players and forum activity. It seems these forums have a large dormant population because it contains the NS1 boards?
Still this isn't really important; as long as you enjoy the game and there's active low-ping servers for you, that's all you need. Competitive scene might be lackluster.
People who take it for granted that the community will explode at release, are generally optimists.
Now, a question of mine; why do you ask? What is the reason behind this thread?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Checked comments a bit too late. I just asked to know if it is really small as they say. I have even thought that this community is kinda potential active. So that was kinda odd.
Actually i have already registered on this forum at least in 2006 or before, when the korean ns community in which i was was dead. But as the old ID of 2006 one seemed to me recently a bit expired aa i do not use it anymore, i just signed with another registration few days ago. What important is that i am fan of Natural Selection since 2003.
- Isn't player vs turretspam
- Is based around smaller playercounts per match
- Has been building its community (and competitive community) much longer than ND did before they released<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The biggest issue for this particular game is the "competitive community". Most (certainly not all of course) of those players are huge tools who do very little positive for the game at it's current place. They hop on a server, partner with their other competitive buddies and completely dominate the game. They make it impossible to learn the ropes for new players, generally chastise them for not already knowing how to play and being good at the game, it's just bad. Experienced players who group up to destroy newbs do a disservice to UWE and this product. A game like this won't be pimping a huge marketing budget, this game is almost going to live or die via word of mouth. An honest word of mouth assessment right now would go something like this;
"NS2 isn't to bad right now technically, it has some rough edges and is in dire need of a "disconnect" button from the server browser but it's made some nice improvements over the last year and is shaping up nicely. The biggest problem with the game is some of the toolbags playing it, they totally ruin the experiences and do not allow new players to learn the game at their own pace because they are more concerned with "pwning newbs" and practicing for the next big $5M prize pool event that doesn't actually exist then doing anything positive for the game's community. Steer clear of it for now, maybe as it gets closer to release or post release there will be more servers up that are stable so you can avoid those players."