<!--quoteo(post=2036330:date=Nov 28 2012, 05:10 AM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TychoCelchuuu @ Nov 28 2012, 05:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036330"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's also possible that CoD loses players just as fast as indie games but it sells so many copies that the losses don't show up as clearly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Here's what I got out of this, from the other thread:
Fact is, the "5-miunute gamer" is a myth with nothing to back it up but conjecture. There's a lot you can take from that:
- It was <b>four months</b> before MW3 really dropped below 50% and stayed there. This is slower than just about any other game we've put on these graphs in these discussions. - The small absorption of players from the previous titles in COD is but a tiny fraction of the huge influx of either new players or revitalized interest. - Battlefield 3, the successor (more or less) to Bad Company 2, came out in Oct 2011. Not only is there no serious drop in players around that time (indicating that most players probably lost serious interest in the franchise), but to me this also shows that <b>Battlefield failed to hold onto players even remotely as well as the ultra-cliche derision of the flash-in-the-pan flavor-of-the-month Call of Duty series</b>.
Fact is, these graphs show that COD retains players remarkably well, better than most games, as a matter of fact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Every</b> game is going to hemorrhage players shortly after release. Every single one. This is known and has nothing to do with whether or not a game is dumbed down or the crowd its' aimed at is too stupid to enjoy <i>real</i> games. It comes down to where the player levels stabilize at. The fact is, COD stabilized at rather impressive levels. At the rate NS2 is going, it's going to 'stabilize' at around 500 players, which is low enough that it will just keep dropping until it hits zero.
As a Canadian University student, I am busy writing assignments right now and will then be busy with Exams. I haven't played NS2 (my secondary game) in weeks and my main game, Dota 2, has been barely touched. Odds are when I come back from exams, I'll be playing Dota 2 + Mark of the Ninja (woo steam sale), then return to Dota 2 + NS2.
There was once a game called Brink, it was spiritual successor to ET : Quake Wars and the Enemy Territories series.
Wolfenstein ET was one of the top team-based competitive shooters and Quake Wars had a large competitive following, both are still played by a decent amount of players.
When Brink came out, developers had a different idea from what ET vets had of what the game was supposed to be like.
The competitive scene died because of this, and Brink has never seen the glory of what its predecessors were.
This was because the community was made up of serious, dedicated players who played the game enough to know what they wanted in it and what other people would want. The developers did not have this ability, so it flopped.
Now NS2 can be compared to Brink in how this worked out. Fortunately, NS2 is unique and enough needed mechanics carried over from NS1 that it is able to step over such flawed titles as Brink and keep some of its playerbase.....
but for how long? and at what cost? This is up to the developers to decide.
NeoRussia - ET:QW, the predecessor to BRINK, was something of a failure as well. On the contrary to BRINK, ET:QW got rave reviews. Just... nobody played it. The W:ET players weren't going to quit playing the game they already liked to play a game that was similar but not quite the same, and people who didn't care about W:ET weren't going to care about a spiritual successor. I'm surprised they made BRINK at all, really.
I thought they had shut down the ET:QW servers, actually.
Because our generation was so damn old when the first competitive FPS games came out.
If you were born in 1985, that means you were 13/14 in 1998 / 1999. So why the hell <b>shouldn't</b> teenagers be doing good at Call of Duty? You have better reflexes, better eyesight, better hand/eye coordination when you're young. Mozart wrote some of his finest works when he was young. There's a saying that runs something along the lines that a brilliant mathematician will perform his greatest work before the age of twelve.
Jaedong was 16 when he started playing Brood War professionally. FlasH, widely considered the top Starcraft player, was born in 1992, which put his professional debut at the ripe old age of 15. All of them started playing and kicking asses years and years before then. I guess that makes Brood War a crappy game because teenagers can excel at it? If FlasH started playing Brood War when it came out, that means he was probably kicking asses when he was <i>seven</i>.
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->I was <b>14</b> when Tribes came out. How old were you?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
This is seriously getting to the point where we need a new iteration of Godwin's Law. "As an online discussion about video games grows longer, the probability of a cliche whine about CoD or CoD kiddies approaches one."
And isn't that just the most ironic thing? In a thread where there's been several posts whining about how the CoD kiddies are the ones who just pick up games and abandon them, the most damning proof is that it's the people who support and play indy games (which is more than likely "our" generation of gamers) that will only play them for a few weeks before giving up and moving on to the next thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Obviously you forgot to take in consideration the depth of games back then. The ever increasing skill caps. The more invigorating gameplay and plot. Kids today are as creative as a brick. Games are nothing but mindless click and shoot drab. With arrows telling you to go here and the skill sucked right out of it. There's nothing to get better at really. The COD generation is the "gimme generation". Ours was a lot better off in professional gaming. That's why the US hardly has any professional teams anymore and the ones we have are laughable.
<!--quoteo(post=2036399:date=Nov 28 2012, 01:41 AM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 28 2012, 01:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There was once a game called Brink, it was spiritual successor to ET : Quake Wars and the Enemy Territories series.
Wolfenstein ET was one of the top team-based competitive shooters and Quake Wars had a large competitive following, both are still played by a decent amount of players.
When Brink came out, developers had a different idea from what ET vets had of what the game was supposed to be like.
The competitive scene died because of this, and Brink has never seen the glory of what its predecessors were.
This was because the community was made up of serious, dedicated players who played the game enough to know what they wanted in it and what other people would want. The developers did not have this ability, so it flopped.
Now NS2 can be compared to Brink in how this worked out. Fortunately, NS2 is unique and enough needed mechanics carried over from NS1 that it is able to step over such flawed titles as Brink and keep some of its playerbase.....
but for how long? and at what cost? This is up to the developers to decide.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Wait, Brink? You mean the game that was unplayable, broken, and buggy after being released? A game that had to be tweaked by the player at release just so it's not locked at 30 FPS? Not to mention the horrible, gimmicky, under-cooked parkour and unsatisfying, arbitrary gun-play. Oh, and that awful, awful downed mechanic and seemingly infinite HP.
<!--quoteo(post=2036401:date=Nov 28 2012, 09:21 AM:name=Jarl Ballin')--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jarl Ballin' @ Nov 28 2012, 09:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036401"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Obviously you forgot to take in consideration the depth of games back then. The ever increasing skill caps. The more invigorating gameplay and plot.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Is that why the people who liked these 'games of skill' seem to just want the same copy-pasted features in every single one? How many games need bunnyhopping? Apparently every single one of them.
I'm reminded of Tribes 2. They intentionally slowed down the gameplay because they wanted more focus on teamwork rather than individual ability, and it worked fantastically; it made the game considerably more cerebral and intellectually stimulating. Except all the die-hard Starsiege vets just whined that it wasn't a direct copy-paste of Tribes 1. They didn't want a sequel, or to try something new - they just wanted the game that they already knew and were good at.
As long as it can more or less retain the peak amount of players as the months go by, I'm not too worried. But for that performance is going to have to increase significantly and balance/gameplay will need to improve a lot as well.
<!--quoteo(post=2036413:date=Nov 28 2012, 01:40 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 28 2012, 01:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036413"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is that why the people who liked these 'games of skill' just keep whining for the same copy-pasted features in every single one? How many games need bunnyhopping? Apparently every single one of them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think anyone is whining for the same features. Ever heard of the term "Don't fix it if it aint broke". Well that rings true. There's no problem implementing new ideas into the game, but when the majority of the community responds negatively to your new ideas it's time to put them on the back burner.
Same reason why more people play CS 1.6 13 years down the line then the newer CSS or CS:GO. It's a better game. It's 13 years older but the gameplay is more rewarding, exciting and harder to master. Games back then were reveled a hell of a lot more then games today. I hop on Call of Duty or the new Counter-Strike, play for a few hours, and find myself bored out of my mind. It's the same repetitive jargan. You can actually become so good at games nowadays that you reach a skill cap and can't go any further. Games such as CS 1.6, Quake, Tribes, and UT were limitless.
I think part of the reason is because the game is nowhere near as casual as most other popular games. If you are new to the game, you will spend 99% of your time on aliens as skulk and most of your time on Rines with an lmg. The benefits you get from all the movement tricks (wall jump, shadowstep+jump, lerk flying backwards, gliding) are massive but not very well explained to a newbie and take a long time to master.
Aiming for Rines is also 200% harder than most other games and performance is making it really hard to do. Play something like Battlefield, PlanetSide or even CS and you aim in a relatively small horizontal arc at something 20m away. You can play those with 30fps easy. In NS2 you have to have pinpoint accuracy at every direction around you at a target 1m away. It's not easy with bad performance.
<!--quoteo(post=2036436:date=Nov 28 2012, 11:55 AM:name=Desther)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Desther @ Nov 28 2012, 11:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036436"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think part of the reason is because the game is nowhere near as casual as most other popular games. If you are new to the game, you will spend 99% of your time on aliens as skulk and most of your time on Rines with an lmg. The benefits you get from all the movement tricks (wall jump, shadowstep+jump, lerk flying backwards, gliding) are massive but not very well explained to a newbie and take a long time to master.
Aiming for Rines is also 200% harder than most other games and performance is making it really hard to do. Play something like Battlefield, PlanetSide or even CS and you aim in a relatively small horizontal arc at something 20m away. You can play those with 30fps easy. In NS2 you have to have pinpoint accuracy at every direction around you at a target 1m away. It's not easy with bad performance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
about the performance: Anyone able to play BF3 with good FPS should be able to play NS2 with 60 fps as well...
the changes they made afte 1.0 are what's keeping me away for the moment. The game in general just feels clunky and weird, while 1.0 was perfect and I was having a blast.
On most servers I was not really having a problem with hit reg on 1.0, occasionally I would get killed after passing behind cover, but it happens more often with the latest builds.
<!--quoteo(post=2036459:date=Nov 28 2012, 08:09 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Nov 28 2012, 08:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036459"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->about the performance: Anyone able to play BF3 with good FPS should be able to play NS2 with 60 fps as well...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not so for me since the latest patch... it WAS fine after release but the latest patch killed my framerate in NS2 (specifically NS2, no problems in other games, no changed software or driver, the ONLY thing different was the NS2 patch!).
I have no problem running BF3 on my machine at pretty reasonable settings, 1920/1200 at a good framerate. My machine is a 3-year old high-end gaming rig, so should be considered mid-range at best nowadays.
I still play NS2 at every opportunity I can, though :) Loads still to learn and master (although new maps, better performance and balance tweaks are still definitely important for keeping me playing this game for a while). I can't remember the last time I played BF3.
Another performance/stability issue in this patch of which I have first-hand knowledge: a mate of mine started getting red disconnect icon - again ONLY in this latest patch - he's unable to join any servers from the browser, he has to wait for me to join then join game from steam overlay...
These sorts of problems absolutely HAVE to be ironed out as the top priority. New stuff has to wait until the basic function and performance of the game is acceptable to the vast majority of players!
<!--quoteo(post=2036470:date=Nov 28 2012, 07:31 AM:name=Roobubba)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Roobubba @ Nov 28 2012, 07:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036470"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not so for me since the latest patch... it WAS fine after release but the latest patch killed my framerate in NS2 (specifically NS2, no problems in other games, no changed software or driver, the ONLY thing different was the NS2 patch!).
I have no problem running BF3 on my machine at pretty reasonable settings, 1920/1200 at a good framerate. My machine is a 3-year old high-end gaming rig, so should be considered mid-range at best nowadays.
I still play NS2 at every opportunity I can, though :) Loads still to learn and master (although new maps, better performance and balance tweaks are still definitely important for keeping me playing this game for a while). I can't remember the last time I played BF3.
Another performance/stability issue in this patch of which I have first-hand knowledge: a mate of mine started getting red disconnect icon - again ONLY in this latest patch - he's unable to join any servers from the browser, he has to wait for me to join then join game from steam overlay...
These sorts of problems absolutely HAVE to be ironed out as the top priority. New stuff has to wait until the basic function and performance of the game is acceptable to the vast majority of players!
Roo<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As far as the NS2 team has been communicating... those types of problems are top priority. Please look to see if any issue you've been having has already been posted in the help and bugs forum! If everyone has the attitude to stay quiet and wait, important bugs may be overlooked because they just are not known about!
+ the new Hitman that i can't find in the list + others i can't remember of? + Steam sales
It's just a really wrong period for ns2
It really needs a new big update with a <b>steam popup reminder</b> + a real tutorial for all those people who stopped playing <5 hours
new maps (add some workshop maps in the official servers at least! ), new balance(not with capped but funny and different choices), best performance. And people will come back after the short break with those steam sales (short - casual?) titles. (Maybe release them as (fake) Free DLC and people will care more about it? )
Just take the right time UWE! move! 1 or 2 weeks at max? You were able to do a lot of changes in short time back in the beta time. now it seems like you are stuck afraid of any addition/change. That is what i see with that new google suggestions page you just made.
<!--quoteo(post=2036416:date=Nov 28 2012, 09:45 AM:name=Jarl Ballin')--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jarl Ballin' @ Nov 28 2012, 09:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036416"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't think anyone is whining for the same features. Ever heard of the term "Don't fix it if it aint broke". Well that rings true. There's no problem implementing new ideas into the game, but when the majority of the community responds negatively to your new ideas it's time to put them on the back burner.
Same reason why more people play CS 1.6 13 years down the line then the newer CSS or CS:GO. It's a better game. It's 13 years older but the gameplay is more rewarding, exciting and harder to master. Games back then were reveled a hell of a lot more then games today. I hop on Call of Duty or the new Counter-Strike, play for a few hours, and find myself bored out of my mind. It's the same repetitive jargan. You can actually become so good at games nowadays that you reach a skill cap and can't go any further. Games such as CS 1.6, Quake, Tribes, and UT were limitless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's nice to meet someone else who understands: a high skill ceiling retains players for longer. NS2 does not have a comparable skill ceiling to NS1.
Interestingly, GO doesn't even rate at all: <a href="http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920q10q240q730&from=1306882800000&to=End+Time" target="_blank">http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=gra...amp;to=End+Time</a> and 1.6 dominates. Q3 doesn't show stats but probably has a similar player counts to NS2.
I want to point out that Farming Simulator had a fairly generous steam sale, where as NS2 did not.
Also, Farming Simulator is VERY popular in the lets play scene right now because of some hilarious physics bugs, it's a bit like comparing NS2 to the newest version of Happy Wheels or Slender just after a steep sale on those games.
I'm just saying it's not statistically unexpected, although it may be uncomfortable.
<!--quoteo(post=2036512:date=Nov 28 2012, 06:53 AM:name=Spetz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Spetz @ Nov 28 2012, 06:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036512"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->a high skill ceiling retains players for longer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
..And a high skill ceiling almost always translates into a high skill floor, making getting into the game a frustrating and unrewarding experience on par with figuring out how to lose as a few fingers as possible when jumping through a wood chipper. NS2 is, right now, the kind of game that demands you play it and only it for a few weeks if you want to be good enough to have fun, let alone win games.
<!--quoteo(post=2036518:date=Nov 28 2012, 03:02 PM:name=sedek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sedek @ Nov 28 2012, 03:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036518"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->..And a high skill ceiling almost always translates into a high skill floor, making getting into the game a frustrating and unrewarding experience on par with figuring out how to lose as a few fingers as possible when jumping through a wood chipper. NS2 is, right now, the kind of game that demands you play it and only it for a few weeks if you want to be good enough to have fun, let alone win games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I generally have low respect for anyone who gives up on the challenge of learning something new at the first sign of difficulty.
Those types of players are the ones that would not add to the long life and community of the game so nothing is really lost.
<!--quoteo(post=2036512:date=Nov 28 2012, 02:53 PM:name=Spetz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Spetz @ Nov 28 2012, 02:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036512"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's nice to meet someone else who understands: a high skill ceiling retains players for longer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's two ways to sustain a playerbase.
1) A high skill ceiling which keeps a particular group of players interested for longer.
2) Content updates.
The former doesn't get you new sales and won't stop you from going out of business. The latter gets you new sales. The latter is why BF3 is still going as strong as it is. The quarterly DLCs have done much to retain player interest, as well as kicks more money in EA's direction. As the game goes on sale, the perceived value increases and odds are good that more new players will join.
BF3 has a low skill ceiling and a very low skill floor.
There's something of a third way too:
2.5) Have your game be interesting enough that people don't grow bored of it rapidly.
Like it or not, external features like stat tracking, ranking, achievements, and unlocks all do a considerable amount towards sustaining long-term interest. It makes people feel invested in the game, it provides long-term goals, and it helps to remove feelings of repetition.
The only aspect to that would be if your game strikes gold and becomes e-sports crazy-famous, but you cannot put your eggs in that basket because odds are good your game will not succeed. You can't try to force yourself into that so don't even bother.
<!--quoteo(post=2036520:date=Nov 28 2012, 03:11 PM:name=Spetz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Spetz @ Nov 28 2012, 03:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036520"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I generally have low respect for anyone who gives up on the challenge of learning something new at the first sign of difficulty.
Those types of players are the ones that would not add to the long life and community of the game so nothing is really lost.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sustaining a long-lived community is only important if your community is large enough in the first place to keep generating interest simply because of its size alone. For example, everyone has a few people on their Steam friendslist that still plays TF2. Every time they play, it reminds you that TF2 is actually a thing, and that it's still alive and well, which may well encourage people to play it.
A dwindling community of hangers-on is irrelevant.
Yesterdays numbers don't mean anything. No one had a server list. The only people playing were people who knew the IP to the server they wanted and people who have external server lists(which is what I used).
NS 2 has a big problem with the most accessible (and affordable) aliens often being the least fun to use and also the hardest to survive as (skulk/gorge/lerk). The NS 1 gorge was so much more fun and a great go to alien for beginners than the NS 2 gorge and could be taken right away with little cost. Right now there are no alien lifeforms that are all that fun to play <b>AND</b> have a high chance of surviving a fight besides maybe the fade and onos which cost a lot of resources before you get to use it.
NS 1 had the same problem as I said but at least you could go gorge and actually do things other than drop 3 hydras and a useless clog wall before being limited to heal spraying things the rest of your life. NS 2 attempted to make the game more accessible but the game actually got a whole lot more complicated, but failed to solve the problem that has carried over from NS 1 which is high cost short lifespan life forms making the game very frustrating to new players just wanting to get their feet wet.
NS 1 and NS 2 are both games that reward players with patience enough to stick around and get better but with the high system requirements and poor performance coupled with a complex game is not a formula for maintaining a high player count in today's day and age. I know UWE has said they plan to support the game for a long time but honestly first impressions are crucial in maintaining a player base, the game currently at least for me is not in a very good place and gave me little incentive to play it more than a few weeks because of how quickly the "winning strategy" on every map quickly revealed itself.
<!--quoteo(post=2036526:date=Nov 28 2012, 03:25 PM:name=[R8]DJBourgeoisie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ([R8]DJBourgeoisie @ Nov 28 2012, 03:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036526"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> NS 2 has a big problem with the most accessible (and affordable) aliens often being the least fun to use and also the hardest to survive as (skulk/gorge/lerk). The NS 1 gorge was so much more fun and a great go to alien for beginners<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What are you talking about, a gorge who didn't completely understand the res system and the minutiae of the game mechanics would completely screw his team without doing anything even overtly wrong, at which point you would be berated by your team, everyone would F4, and then you get banned.
<!--quoteo(post=2036224:date=Nov 27 2012, 09:22 PM:name=extollo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (extollo @ Nov 27 2012, 09:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->recent steam sale - cheap older games - gamers are playing those as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. Crazy good games under 10 bucks. torchlight 2, orcs must die 2, witcher 2, etc. all under 10 bucks.
I'm sort of bored of NS2 but not because its a boring game. I'm bored of NS2 because I'm tired of playing PUB games.
NS2 needs an in-game match-matching system. The gameplay of NS2 at its core is astonishingly amazing and deep BUT in general the game needs more bells and whistles. More graphics options. An in-game Profile Page that keeps track of wins, losses and other stats. An in-game demo recorder and replay viewer. Ranking systems, that do not affect gameplay by giving buffs to players for time/money spent on the game. Better performance and more fluid animations. More maps. All of these things, while they don't directly affect gameplay, are part of what makes a polished game....polished and keeps people more engaged.
I also blame the lack of well-integrated guides. We need more guide videos, coherent toolt tips and possibly a single-player walkthrough/tutorial map.
This would inform the pub players. NS2 has a huge learning curve. And anybody who doesn't know what they are doing are usually scolded or ruin the game. Combined with performance issues, this causes many new players to not stick with the game. That and many new titles are constantly coming out, after the autumn steam sales, I'm not surprised that people are playing less NS2.
All of these factors combined equals.... Terrible, horrible, horrible PUB games of noobs running around like headless chickens until somebody takes charge.
I didn't stay completely abreast of the patch notes. Did they ever fix the bug, and / or release something that would fix the situation where your server browser filter file would become corrupted and return zero servers? Forcing players to search through google for a solution and then having to open up an obscure file and hunt for a messed up line of code is not a solution.
Also I know they didn't fix the problem where the game would cause UDP overflows on BT and Thompson routers that would cause them to reset and stop you from joining games. Again, requiring your players to google search specific problems and <b>telnet to the router</b> to fix it is not a solution.
I'm going to guarantee you that both of these totally unaddressed and ignored issues butchered a significant amount of interest. What's more likely, people are going to go out of their way to make forum accounts and search for a solution to a weird problem that isn't even clear is really a problem, or are they just going to leave?
<!--quoteo(post=2036528:date=Nov 28 2012, 03:32 PM:name=Tig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tig @ Nov 28 2012, 03:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036528"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This. Crazy good games under 10 bucks. torchlight 2, orcs must die 2, witcher 2, etc. all under 10 bucks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Midterms and steam sales serve as convenient excuses to deny that there's a problem.
What do you think the odds are that these people will <i>ever</i> return to the game? Do you think after playing any of those games they're going to go "Oh man, I remember that FPS game that was confusing and ran like crap and only had a handful of maps, I want to go play that again!"?
People will not return to NS2 because NS2 gives absolutely zero reason to want to return. I'm willing to bet that the basic gameplay stuff at this point will not change, and any 'content injections' will be extremely subdued - mostly because UWE has an obsession with minimalist design, which doesn't cut it anymore. Keep in mind that all the content that got added to NS1 - Combat aside - was a hand grenade, an electrify feature, and a couple of alien evolutions. People don't keep going back to BF3 because you can put an extended magazine on a new gun.
Natural Selection has always been competitive i nature but it always had plenty of things for everyone to enjoy.
Few things that kept players in NS1 around was: *A lot of sandboxing, creativity was often fun and rewarding. Such as relocations or gorges making their own bases. The game had more than just the competition. This kept the game fresh for a long time.
*Even skill ceiling between teams with no near insta win abilities on pubs(Like exos/onoses in ns2). Skulks, lerks and fades had movement mechanics that were near impossible to master, this allowed them to be really powerful without being broken in public. Very rewarding mechanics.
*Even though the game was competitive in nature it had mechanics to keep both teams a fighting chance on public - like electrify for marine rts and effective defensive structures. Not all mechanics have to be viable on competitive level.
*Combat felt fluid and rewarding. Players had almost no restrictions giving them plenty of abilities of master. When you died in ns1 you died because you were not good enough. (Even though the combat was not the most forgiving - players always found something useful to do in ns1. Like building/welding bases or being a good gorge in the alien team).
*The game flow from beginning to the end was very fluid and both teams always had plenty of chances for comebacks when things were going bad. Even though most games did not last more than 10-25 minutes the games rarly felt stale and boring. When you finally got long games they were usually pretty epic and fun, it stuck to your memory.
The game was far from perfect but it definitely had so much going for it that it had an amazing and dedicated community build around it, the game was played for 10 years both on public and competitive.
* Now NS2 does have few things going for it as well and I might them list them later. However the game has focused bit much on temporary gains such as atmospherics and not enough on long lasting gameplay mechanics. In the end it does not matter how amazing the game looks or how many cool abilities are in the game. What keeps players playing games are good quality game mechanics, if they are good enough players will always crave for more playtime. Cool stuff in games is always appreciated and good to attract more customers but the gameplay must at least be on the same quality for them to stay.
Comments
Here's what I got out of this, from the other thread:
<!--quoteo(post=2036241:date=Nov 28 2012, 02:44 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 28 2012, 02:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036241"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Challenge accepted:
<a href="http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=42710q42690q202990q10190q24960&from=0" target="_blank">http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=gra...4960&from=0</a>
Fact is, the "5-miunute gamer" is a myth with nothing to back it up but conjecture. There's a lot you can take from that:
- It was <b>four months</b> before MW3 really dropped below 50% and stayed there. This is slower than just about any other game we've put on these graphs in these discussions.
- The small absorption of players from the previous titles in COD is but a tiny fraction of the huge influx of either new players or revitalized interest.
- Battlefield 3, the successor (more or less) to Bad Company 2, came out in Oct 2011. Not only is there no serious drop in players around that time (indicating that most players probably lost serious interest in the franchise), but to me this also shows that <b>Battlefield failed to hold onto players even remotely as well as the ultra-cliche derision of the flash-in-the-pan flavor-of-the-month Call of Duty series</b>.
Fact is, these graphs show that COD retains players remarkably well, better than most games, as a matter of fact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Every</b> game is going to hemorrhage players shortly after release. Every single one. This is known and has nothing to do with whether or not a game is dumbed down or the crowd its' aimed at is too stupid to enjoy <i>real</i> games. It comes down to where the player levels stabilize at. The fact is, COD stabilized at rather impressive levels. At the rate NS2 is going, it's going to 'stabilize' at around 500 players, which is low enough that it will just keep dropping until it hits zero.
That is my situation.
Wolfenstein ET was one of the top team-based competitive shooters and Quake Wars had a large competitive following, both are still played by a decent amount of players.
When Brink came out, developers had a different idea from what ET vets had of what the game was supposed to be like.
The competitive scene died because of this, and Brink has never seen the glory of what its predecessors were.
This was because the community was made up of serious, dedicated players who played the game enough to know what they wanted in it and what other people would want. The developers did not have this ability, so it flopped.
Now NS2 can be compared to Brink in how this worked out. Fortunately, NS2 is unique and enough needed mechanics carried over from NS1 that it is able to step over such flawed titles as Brink and keep some of its playerbase.....
but for how long? and at what cost? This is up to the developers to decide.
I thought they had shut down the ET:QW servers, actually.
Because our generation was so damn old when the first competitive FPS games came out.
If you were born in 1985, that means you were 13/14 in 1998 / 1999. So why the hell <b>shouldn't</b> teenagers be doing good at Call of Duty? You have better reflexes, better eyesight, better hand/eye coordination when you're young. Mozart wrote some of his finest works when he was young. There's a saying that runs something along the lines that a brilliant mathematician will perform his greatest work before the age of twelve.
Jaedong was 16 when he started playing Brood War professionally. FlasH, widely considered the top Starcraft player, was born in 1992, which put his professional debut at the ripe old age of 15. All of them started playing and kicking asses years and years before then. I guess that makes Brood War a crappy game because teenagers can excel at it? If FlasH started playing Brood War when it came out, that means he was probably kicking asses when he was <i>seven</i>.
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->I was <b>14</b> when Tribes came out. How old were you?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
This is seriously getting to the point where we need a new iteration of Godwin's Law. "As an online discussion about video games grows longer, the probability of a cliche whine about CoD or CoD kiddies approaches one."
And isn't that just the most ironic thing? In a thread where there's been several posts whining about how the CoD kiddies are the ones who just pick up games and abandon them, the most damning proof is that it's the people who support and play indy games (which is more than likely "our" generation of gamers) that will only play them for a few weeks before giving up and moving on to the next thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Obviously you forgot to take in consideration the depth of games back then. The ever increasing skill caps. The more invigorating gameplay and plot. Kids today are as creative as a brick. Games are nothing but mindless click and shoot drab. With arrows telling you to go here and the skill sucked right out of it. There's nothing to get better at really. The COD generation is the "gimme generation". Ours was a lot better off in professional gaming. That's why the US hardly has any professional teams anymore and the ones we have are laughable.
Wolfenstein ET was one of the top team-based competitive shooters and Quake Wars had a large competitive following, both are still played by a decent amount of players.
When Brink came out, developers had a different idea from what ET vets had of what the game was supposed to be like.
The competitive scene died because of this, and Brink has never seen the glory of what its predecessors were.
This was because the community was made up of serious, dedicated players who played the game enough to know what they wanted in it and what other people would want. The developers did not have this ability, so it flopped.
Now NS2 can be compared to Brink in how this worked out. Fortunately, NS2 is unique and enough needed mechanics carried over from NS1 that it is able to step over such flawed titles as Brink and keep some of its playerbase.....
but for how long? and at what cost? This is up to the developers to decide.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait, Brink? You mean the game that was unplayable, broken, and buggy after being released? A game that had to be tweaked by the player at release just so it's not locked at 30 FPS? Not to mention the horrible, gimmicky, under-cooked parkour and unsatisfying, arbitrary gun-play. Oh, and that awful, awful downed mechanic and seemingly infinite HP.
Comparing THAT to NS2 is really insulting.
Is that why the people who liked these 'games of skill' seem to just want the same copy-pasted features in every single one? How many games need bunnyhopping? Apparently every single one of them.
I'm reminded of Tribes 2. They intentionally slowed down the gameplay because they wanted more focus on teamwork rather than individual ability, and it worked fantastically; it made the game considerably more cerebral and intellectually stimulating. Except all the die-hard Starsiege vets just whined that it wasn't a direct copy-paste of Tribes 1. They didn't want a sequel, or to try something new - they just wanted the game that they already knew and were good at.
I don't think anyone is whining for the same features. Ever heard of the term "Don't fix it if it aint broke". Well that rings true. There's no problem implementing new ideas into the game, but when the majority of the community responds negatively to your new ideas it's time to put them on the back burner.
Same reason why more people play CS 1.6 13 years down the line then the newer CSS or CS:GO. It's a better game. It's 13 years older but the gameplay is more rewarding, exciting and harder to master. Games back then were reveled a hell of a lot more then games today. I hop on Call of Duty or the new Counter-Strike, play for a few hours, and find myself bored out of my mind. It's the same repetitive jargan. You can actually become so good at games nowadays that you reach a skill cap and can't go any further. Games such as CS 1.6, Quake, Tribes, and UT were limitless.
Aiming for Rines is also 200% harder than most other games and performance is making it really hard to do. Play something like Battlefield, PlanetSide or even CS and you aim in a relatively small horizontal arc at something 20m away. You can play those with 30fps easy. In NS2 you have to have pinpoint accuracy at every direction around you at a target 1m away. It's not easy with bad performance.
Aiming for Rines is also 200% harder than most other games and performance is making it really hard to do. Play something like Battlefield, PlanetSide or even CS and you aim in a relatively small horizontal arc at something 20m away. You can play those with 30fps easy. In NS2 you have to have pinpoint accuracy at every direction around you at a target 1m away. It's not easy with bad performance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
about the performance: Anyone able to play BF3 with good FPS should be able to play NS2 with 60 fps as well...
havent played for almost 2 weeks. the lack of maps plus terrible reg just bores the piss outta me and i just dont play.
On most servers I was not really having a problem with hit reg on 1.0, occasionally I would get killed after passing behind cover, but it happens more often with the latest builds.
Not so for me since the latest patch... it WAS fine after release but the latest patch killed my framerate in NS2 (specifically NS2, no problems in other games, no changed software or driver, the ONLY thing different was the NS2 patch!).
I have no problem running BF3 on my machine at pretty reasonable settings, 1920/1200 at a good framerate. My machine is a 3-year old high-end gaming rig, so should be considered mid-range at best nowadays.
I still play NS2 at every opportunity I can, though :) Loads still to learn and master (although new maps, better performance and balance tweaks are still definitely important for keeping me playing this game for a while).
I can't remember the last time I played BF3.
Another performance/stability issue in this patch of which I have first-hand knowledge: a mate of mine started getting red disconnect icon - again ONLY in this latest patch - he's unable to join any servers from the browser, he has to wait for me to join then join game from steam overlay...
These sorts of problems absolutely HAVE to be ironed out as the top priority. New stuff has to wait until the basic function and performance of the game is acceptable to the vast majority of players!
Roo
I have no problem running BF3 on my machine at pretty reasonable settings, 1920/1200 at a good framerate. My machine is a 3-year old high-end gaming rig, so should be considered mid-range at best nowadays.
I still play NS2 at every opportunity I can, though :) Loads still to learn and master (although new maps, better performance and balance tweaks are still definitely important for keeping me playing this game for a while).
I can't remember the last time I played BF3.
Another performance/stability issue in this patch of which I have first-hand knowledge: a mate of mine started getting red disconnect icon - again ONLY in this latest patch - he's unable to join any servers from the browser, he has to wait for me to join then join game from steam overlay...
These sorts of problems absolutely HAVE to be ironed out as the top priority. New stuff has to wait until the basic function and performance of the game is acceptable to the vast majority of players!
Roo<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As far as the NS2 team has been communicating... those types of problems are top priority. Please look to see if any issue you've been having has already been posted in the help and bugs forum! If everyone has the attitude to stay quiet and wait, important bugs may be overlooked because they just are not known about!
<a href="http://www.steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=4920q202990q218230q208480q49520&from=1351483499" target="_blank">http://www.steamgraph.net/index.php?action...from=1351483499</a>
+ the new Hitman that i can't find in the list
+ others i can't remember of?
+ Steam sales
It's just a really wrong period for ns2
It really needs a new big update with a <b>steam popup reminder</b> + a real tutorial for all those people who stopped playing <5 hours
new maps (add some workshop maps in the official servers at least! ), new balance(not with capped but funny and different choices), best performance. And people will come back after the short break with those steam sales (short - casual?) titles.
(Maybe release them as (fake) Free DLC and people will care more about it? )
Just take the right time UWE! move! 1 or 2 weeks at max?
You were able to do a lot of changes in short time back in the beta time. now it seems like you are stuck afraid of any addition/change. That is what i see with that new google suggestions page you just made.
Same reason why more people play CS 1.6 13 years down the line then the newer CSS or CS:GO. It's a better game. It's 13 years older but the gameplay is more rewarding, exciting and harder to master. Games back then were reveled a hell of a lot more then games today. I hop on Call of Duty or the new Counter-Strike, play for a few hours, and find myself bored out of my mind. It's the same repetitive jargan. You can actually become so good at games nowadays that you reach a skill cap and can't go any further. Games such as CS 1.6, Quake, Tribes, and UT were limitless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's nice to meet someone else who understands: a high skill ceiling retains players for longer. NS2 does not have a comparable skill ceiling to NS1.
Interestingly, GO doesn't even rate at all: <a href="http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=4920q10q240q730&from=1306882800000&to=End+Time" target="_blank">http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=gra...amp;to=End+Time</a> and 1.6 dominates. Q3 doesn't show stats but probably has a similar player counts to NS2.
Also, Farming Simulator is VERY popular in the lets play scene right now because of some hilarious physics bugs, it's a bit like comparing NS2 to the newest version of Happy Wheels or Slender just after a steep sale on those games.
I'm just saying it's not statistically unexpected, although it may be uncomfortable.
..And a high skill ceiling almost always translates into a high skill floor, making getting into the game a frustrating and unrewarding experience on par with figuring out how to lose as a few fingers as possible when jumping through a wood chipper. NS2 is, right now, the kind of game that demands you play it and only it for a few weeks if you want to be good enough to have fun, let alone win games.
I generally have low respect for anyone who gives up on the challenge of learning something new at the first sign of difficulty.
Those types of players are the ones that would not add to the long life and community of the game so nothing is really lost.
There's two ways to sustain a playerbase.
1) A high skill ceiling which keeps a particular group of players interested for longer.
2) Content updates.
The former doesn't get you new sales and won't stop you from going out of business. The latter gets you new sales. The latter is why BF3 is still going as strong as it is. The quarterly DLCs have done much to retain player interest, as well as kicks more money in EA's direction. As the game goes on sale, the perceived value increases and odds are good that more new players will join.
BF3 has a low skill ceiling and a very low skill floor.
There's something of a third way too:
2.5) Have your game be interesting enough that people don't grow bored of it rapidly.
Like it or not, external features like stat tracking, ranking, achievements, and unlocks all do a considerable amount towards sustaining long-term interest. It makes people feel invested in the game, it provides long-term goals, and it helps to remove feelings of repetition.
The only aspect to that would be if your game strikes gold and becomes e-sports crazy-famous, but you cannot put your eggs in that basket because odds are good your game will not succeed. You can't try to force yourself into that so don't even bother.
<!--quoteo(post=2036520:date=Nov 28 2012, 03:11 PM:name=Spetz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Spetz @ Nov 28 2012, 03:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2036520"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I generally have low respect for anyone who gives up on the challenge of learning something new at the first sign of difficulty.
Those types of players are the ones that would not add to the long life and community of the game so nothing is really lost.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sustaining a long-lived community is only important if your community is large enough in the first place to keep generating interest simply because of its size alone. For example, everyone has a few people on their Steam friendslist that still plays TF2. Every time they play, it reminds you that TF2 is actually a thing, and that it's still alive and well, which may well encourage people to play it.
A dwindling community of hangers-on is irrelevant.
NS 1 had the same problem as I said but at least you could go gorge and actually do things other than drop 3 hydras and a useless clog wall before being limited to heal spraying things the rest of your life. NS 2 attempted to make the game more accessible but the game actually got a whole lot more complicated, but failed to solve the problem that has carried over from NS 1 which is high cost short lifespan life forms making the game very frustrating to new players just wanting to get their feet wet.
NS 1 and NS 2 are both games that reward players with patience enough to stick around and get better but with the high system requirements and poor performance coupled with a complex game is not a formula for maintaining a high player count in today's day and age. I know UWE has said they plan to support the game for a long time but honestly first impressions are crucial in maintaining a player base, the game currently at least for me is not in a very good place and gave me little incentive to play it more than a few weeks because of how quickly the "winning strategy" on every map quickly revealed itself.
NS 2 has a big problem with the most accessible (and affordable) aliens often being the least fun to use and also the hardest to survive as (skulk/gorge/lerk). The NS 1 gorge was so much more fun and a great go to alien for beginners<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What are you talking about, a gorge who didn't completely understand the res system and the minutiae of the game mechanics would completely screw his team without doing anything even overtly wrong, at which point you would be berated by your team, everyone would F4, and then you get banned.
This. Crazy good games under 10 bucks. torchlight 2, orcs must die 2, witcher 2, etc. all under 10 bucks.
I'm bored of NS2 because I'm tired of playing PUB games.
NS2 needs an in-game match-matching system.
The gameplay of NS2 at its core is astonishingly amazing and deep BUT in general the game needs more bells and whistles.
More graphics options.
An in-game Profile Page that keeps track of wins, losses and other stats.
An in-game demo recorder and replay viewer.
Ranking systems, that do not affect gameplay by giving buffs to players for time/money spent on the game.
Better performance and more fluid animations.
More maps.
All of these things, while they don't directly affect gameplay, are part of what makes a polished game....polished and keeps people more engaged.
I also blame the lack of well-integrated guides.
We need more guide videos, coherent toolt tips and possibly a single-player walkthrough/tutorial map.
This would inform the pub players. NS2 has a huge learning curve.
And anybody who doesn't know what they are doing are usually scolded or ruin the game.
Combined with performance issues, this causes many new players to not stick with the game.
That and many new titles are constantly coming out, after the autumn steam sales, I'm not surprised that people are playing less NS2.
All of these factors combined equals....
Terrible, horrible, horrible PUB games of noobs running around like headless chickens until somebody takes charge.
Also I know they didn't fix the problem where the game would cause UDP overflows on BT and Thompson routers that would cause them to reset and stop you from joining games. Again, requiring your players to google search specific problems and <b>telnet to the router</b> to fix it is not a solution.
I'm going to guarantee you that both of these totally unaddressed and ignored issues butchered a significant amount of interest. What's more likely, people are going to go out of their way to make forum accounts and search for a solution to a weird problem that isn't even clear is really a problem, or are they just going to leave?
Midterms and steam sales serve as convenient excuses to deny that there's a problem.
What do you think the odds are that these people will <i>ever</i> return to the game? Do you think after playing any of those games they're going to go "Oh man, I remember that FPS game that was confusing and ran like crap and only had a handful of maps, I want to go play that again!"?
People will not return to NS2 because NS2 gives absolutely zero reason to want to return. I'm willing to bet that the basic gameplay stuff at this point will not change, and any 'content injections' will be extremely subdued - mostly because UWE has an obsession with minimalist design, which doesn't cut it anymore. Keep in mind that all the content that got added to NS1 - Combat aside - was a hand grenade, an electrify feature, and a couple of alien evolutions. People don't keep going back to BF3 because you can put an extended magazine on a new gun.
Few things that kept players in NS1 around was:
*A lot of sandboxing, creativity was often fun and rewarding. Such as relocations or gorges making their own bases. The game had more than just the competition. This kept the game fresh for a long time.
*Even skill ceiling between teams with no near insta win abilities on pubs(Like exos/onoses in ns2). Skulks, lerks and fades had movement mechanics that were near impossible to master, this allowed them to be really powerful without being broken in public. Very rewarding mechanics.
*Even though the game was competitive in nature it had mechanics to keep both teams a fighting chance on public - like electrify for marine rts and effective defensive structures. Not all mechanics have to be viable on competitive level.
*Combat felt fluid and rewarding. Players had almost no restrictions giving them plenty of abilities of master. When you died in ns1 you died because you were not good enough. (Even though the combat was not the most forgiving - players always found something useful to do in ns1. Like building/welding bases or being a good gorge in the alien team).
*The game flow from beginning to the end was very fluid and both teams always had plenty of chances for comebacks when things were going bad. Even though most games did not last more than 10-25 minutes the games rarly felt stale and boring. When you finally got long games they were usually pretty epic and fun, it stuck to your memory.
The game was far from perfect but it definitely had so much going for it that it had an amazing and dedicated community build around it, the game was played for 10 years both on public and competitive.
*
Now NS2 does have few things going for it as well and I might them list them later. However the game has focused bit much on temporary gains such as atmospherics and not enough on long lasting gameplay mechanics. In the end it does not matter how amazing the game looks or how many cool abilities are in the game. What keeps players playing games are good quality game mechanics, if they are good enough players will always crave for more playtime.
Cool stuff in games is always appreciated and good to attract more customers but the gameplay must at least be on the same quality for them to stay.