The game made it to 11th in the top seller list... which I found disappointing tbh.
I saw it peak at #8 on the top sellers list. Would have loved to see it at #1, but breaking the top 10 is still great for an Indie game.
Oh, nice to hear that! Yes, it is quite an achievement for a game of that (commercial) scope. I might be still a little spoiled from the launch and christmas sales though...
I just wanted to add that from a non-commercial angle, I very much think the Gorgeous update was a success.
While I haven't had much time to try everything out (around 5 hours), the stuff I got to play around with was alot of fun. I loved making packs of skulks explode with my super fast railgun exo (for some reason it's really easy to hit enemies with the railgun). I just love the speed of that thing now, almost as fast as a marine.
Gorge is alot of fun too, even if the babblers aren't very effective, it does make me feel much more of a support unit in combat situations. I even have little problem with the new camo. It looks awesome and I use silence on most of my lifeforms anyway.
I only played one three games on Descent so far (one as a comm), but I'm loving the visuals and the layout seems balanced too.
Even with the slower skulks (fun fact: a marine who dropped his weapons sprints alot faster than a skulk can run? I tested it out last weekend) I won every game I played on alien side. I'll decide about the balance-issue in a week or so, I guess...
Overall the game has much improved for me and feels fresh and interessting. It will probably stay pretty much the only game I play for a long, long time to come.
Thanks UWE for your hard work, I hope it pays off for you!!!
Something is making people lose interest for sure.
The game has enough going on it to foster a larger community Imo.
Too daunting a game for the inexperienced?
I personally think the reason that people lose interest so quickly is just because gamer nowadays have so many options.
There are so many genres of games out there that you can play.
Some require less thinking and strategy and others have rpg elements to get you hooked on playing the game and etc.
While I believe that NS2 should adopt some of these elements, like an achievement system with no in-game benefits, this does not make NS2 a bad game in any respect at all.
I work in the beer industry around metro Detroit and ill use this to strengthen your example. We sell beer, obviously. The key difference from now and 10 years ago though is that we have 1300+ different SKUs (UPC codes) compared to 300 or so back on the day. I attribute that to video games now. We have several choices to play, yet there should always be one brand you run back to.
More on topic, I haven't looked at the steam graphs and what not but I do frequent the counter on the website. It seems we have gained about 400 players average during the eastern daytime. I count that as a success, even if it is small. Retention is however the key here. I'm sure well see the player base slowly start to evaporate. Especially with some ambitious projects coming soon. Can we get them back though?
Well currently the single rail gun is stupidly under powered.
Do the play testers actually test the game or just a very small portion of what their working on? If so that could explain how some serious bugs got through this patch. Maybe before the next patch the devs and play testers were to just play and average game and not look for something wrong, this way they might find something wrong.
It's a shotgun. With "better" accuracy than a pistol. And it is surprisingly mobile. Also, if you have found bugs, make sure to report them so that they can be fixed.
My guess it was a moderate success. Boosted sales and player numbers, but didn't seem to raise the game's profile substantially. The gorgeous mod didn't have anything really that would make people pay attention, who weren't already interested in NS2.
When the ns2 fan mods are complete UW should help publicise them. One NS2 mod - Sanity - has over 2000 subscribers in Steam Workshop and it's still in alpha. It will have custom maps and models...a total conversion. Horror mods get loads of attention on youtube. Help promote Sanity and other mods and you help NS2. I really think people would buy NS2 because it offers so much custom content (in a year, when all that's really taken off). That aspect of the game hasn't been fully exploited marketing wise. Once you have the mods it'll be easy to show people 'You buy this awesome game, and look, all these awesome mods come for free!'. A thesaurus helps too...
When the ns2 fan mods are complete UW should help publicise them. One NS2 mod - Sanity - has over 2000 subscribers in Steam Workshop and it's still in alpha. It will have custom maps and models...a total conversion. Horror mods get loads of attention on youtube. Help promote Sanity and other mods and you help NS2. I really think people would buy NS2 because it offers so much custom content (in a year, when all that's really taken off). That aspect of the game hasn't been fully exploited marketing wise. Once you have the mods it'll be easy to show people 'You buy this awesome game, and look, all these awesome mods come for free!'. A thesaurus helps too...
Yes, definitely. We are looking forward to seeing what Sanity turns into when it has all the custom maps and models, and we'll be sure to promote that and other high profile mods much more in the future.
Something is making people lose interest for sure.
The game has enough going on it to foster a larger community Imo.
Too daunting a game for the inexperienced?
I personally think the reason that people lose interest so quickly is just because gamer nowadays have so many options.
There are so many genres of games out there that you can play.
Some require less thinking and strategy and others have rpg elements to get you hooked on playing the game and etc.
While I believe that NS2 should adopt some of these elements, like an achievement system with no in-game benefits, this does not make NS2 a bad game in any respect at all.
I work in the beer industry around metro Detroit and ill use this to strengthen your example. We sell beer, obviously. The key difference from now and 10 years ago though is that we have 1300+ different SKUs (UPC codes) compared to 300 or so back on the day. I attribute that to video games now. We have several choices to play, yet there should always be one brand you run back to.
More on topic, I haven't looked at the steam graphs and what not but I do frequent the counter on the website. It seems we have gained about 400 players average during the eastern daytime. I count that as a success, even if it is small. Retention is however the key here. I'm sure well see the player base slowly start to evaporate. Especially with some ambitious projects coming soon. Can we get them back though?
Well NS2 is always the "beer" i go back to.
Maybe most people just prefer the light, crisp, pale, insubstantial, flavorless ale that is.... budweiserI mean Call of Duty I mean Halo.
I like to think that NS2 is like a really good barley wine. Thick, deep, sweet, bitter, foamy, hearty, stout, complex, rich, substantial, delicious....
I think most people prefer the cheap button-mashing aim-down-sights-click-button-and-things-die thrills of CoD or Halo.
Games with too much thinking and strategy and awesomeness generally don't make make a big splash or are overlooked.
I mean take a listen to any radio station.... Nobody thinks that the "top hit" songs are really any good, and if you do, you're a dumbass with poor tastes.
Anyway I just think that NS2, while it is super fucking awesome sauce...., its just too deep and complex and amazing for the average gamer to understand these days.
To be fair to Halo, it doesn't have CoD unlocks or look down sights. It is similar to Unreal Tournament in a way, except waaaaaaaay slower. I mean shit, Unreal Tournament with slo-mo mod is faster than Halo.
Well currently the single rail gun is stupidly under powered.
Do the play testers actually test the game or just a very small portion of what their working on? If so that could explain how some serious bugs got through this patch. Maybe before the next patch the devs and play testers were to just play and average game and not look for something wrong, this way they might find something wrong.
Get good. Jesus. It's like you went and played starcraft brood war and said "mutalisks suck because they have crap HP and are stupid expensive" - you're using them wrong.
You do know that the video you are linking was just someone from the community who took the released art assets for the railgun and made a mod, not a video put out by UWE? We never, ever announced a dual railgun for the game. I think anyone putting any thought into it would understand that a dual railgun would be stupidly OP in the current implementation of it.
--Cory
I think you should implement triple railgun exos (one in the crotch area, obviously) and the dual arm exo that can suplex oni. Clearly, the game is a disappointment without those features.
Personally speaking, but due to the increase in performance and load times I've played NS2 more recently than I have ever before. I think I mentioned it on these forums (possibley the Whirpool forums here in Australia) but a big drawback for me at the moment with NS2 is load times and in game performance is not as fluid/fast as I would like.
For me, those two issues are #1 & #2 for me. Balance and features I can put up with, I would just like to select a server, have the map load up within 60 seconds and maintain a steady 60fps from start to finish.
The problem now a days is that there is access to so many different games out there which are fluid and have fast load times and are cheap too. NS1 was super silky smoothe for its time but NS2 is in a harsher environment and while I freely admit there have been great strides in performance tweaking and load times it has left me with a bit of a sour experience and I've ended up putting this game on the shelf and only really playing it when a new build comes out stating there have been performance tweaks etc.
But I'm just one person and probably a minority regarding my issues :P
Hey, Silver, performance really is the priority #1 for us right now, on the programming side. Of course we are going to continue to work on new features and new art content, on the art and gameplay design side (I can't speak for the other artists but I know that you probably don't want me getting anywhere near the NS2 code). But for the next while the programmers are really deep in the trenches working on profiling and optimizing the game.
This is good to hear because the overhead on this game kills me. I can play MMOs on medium-some high settings fine on my computer yet I can't play big games regardless of what graphics settings I use. Mass hydras, arcs/sentries reduce my fps to like 15, especially if it gets to the late game on 18+ player servers (3.4 ghz quad core btw).
Hey Squeal_Like_A_Pig aka Cory aka SLAP, good to hear that it's still high on the list. As I said, great strides have been made since launch so tell the team a random West Australian guy on the internet says they are allowed to high five themselves in the mirror the next time they walk by one.
Comments
Oh, nice to hear that! Yes, it is quite an achievement for a game of that (commercial) scope. I might be still a little spoiled from the launch and christmas sales though...
I just wanted to add that from a non-commercial angle, I very much think the Gorgeous update was a success.
While I haven't had much time to try everything out (around 5 hours), the stuff I got to play around with was alot of fun. I loved making packs of skulks explode with my super fast railgun exo (for some reason it's really easy to hit enemies with the railgun). I just love the speed of that thing now, almost as fast as a marine.
Gorge is alot of fun too, even if the babblers aren't very effective, it does make me feel much more of a support unit in combat situations. I even have little problem with the new camo. It looks awesome and I use silence on most of my lifeforms anyway.
I only played one three games on Descent so far (one as a comm), but I'm loving the visuals and the layout seems balanced too.
Even with the slower skulks (fun fact: a marine who dropped his weapons sprints alot faster than a skulk can run? I tested it out last weekend) I won every game I played on alien side. I'll decide about the balance-issue in a week or so, I guess...
Overall the game has much improved for me and feels fresh and interessting. It will probably stay pretty much the only game I play for a long, long time to come.
Thanks UWE for your hard work, I hope it pays off for you!!!
I work in the beer industry around metro Detroit and ill use this to strengthen your example. We sell beer, obviously. The key difference from now and 10 years ago though is that we have 1300+ different SKUs (UPC codes) compared to 300 or so back on the day. I attribute that to video games now. We have several choices to play, yet there should always be one brand you run back to.
More on topic, I haven't looked at the steam graphs and what not but I do frequent the counter on the website. It seems we have gained about 400 players average during the eastern daytime. I count that as a success, even if it is small. Retention is however the key here. I'm sure well see the player base slowly start to evaporate. Especially with some ambitious projects coming soon. Can we get them back though?
It's a shotgun. With "better" accuracy than a pistol. And it is surprisingly mobile. Also, if you have found bugs, make sure to report them so that they can be fixed.
When the ns2 fan mods are complete UW should help publicise them. One NS2 mod - Sanity - has over 2000 subscribers in Steam Workshop and it's still in alpha. It will have custom maps and models...a total conversion. Horror mods get loads of attention on youtube. Help promote Sanity and other mods and you help NS2. I really think people would buy NS2 because it offers so much custom content (in a year, when all that's really taken off). That aspect of the game hasn't been fully exploited marketing wise. Once you have the mods it'll be easy to show people 'You buy this awesome game, and look, all these awesome mods come for free!'. A thesaurus helps too...
Well NS2 is always the "beer" i go back to.
Maybe most people just prefer the light, crisp, pale, insubstantial, flavorless ale that is.... budweiser I mean Call of Duty I mean Halo.
I like to think that NS2 is like a really good barley wine. Thick, deep, sweet, bitter, foamy, hearty, stout, complex, rich, substantial, delicious....
I think most people prefer the cheap button-mashing aim-down-sights-click-button-and-things-die thrills of CoD or Halo.
Games with too much thinking and strategy and awesomeness generally don't make make a big splash or are overlooked.
I mean take a listen to any radio station.... Nobody thinks that the "top hit" songs are really any good, and if you do, you're a dumbass with poor tastes.
Anyway I just think that NS2, while it is super fucking awesome sauce...., its just too deep and complex and amazing for the average gamer to understand these days.
Get good. Jesus. It's like you went and played starcraft brood war and said "mutalisks suck because they have crap HP and are stupid expensive" - you're using them wrong.
I think you should implement triple railgun exos (one in the crotch area, obviously) and the dual arm exo that can suplex oni. Clearly, the game is a disappointment without those features.
And yes, Gorgeous was a success. Onwards to new features, development, and content!
For me, those two issues are #1 & #2 for me. Balance and features I can put up with, I would just like to select a server, have the map load up within 60 seconds and maintain a steady 60fps from start to finish.
The problem now a days is that there is access to so many different games out there which are fluid and have fast load times and are cheap too. NS1 was super silky smoothe for its time but NS2 is in a harsher environment and while I freely admit there have been great strides in performance tweaking and load times it has left me with a bit of a sour experience and I've ended up putting this game on the shelf and only really playing it when a new build comes out stating there have been performance tweaks etc.
But I'm just one person and probably a minority regarding my issues :P
Hey Squeal_Like_A_Pig aka Cory aka SLAP, good to hear that it's still high on the list. As I said, great strides have been made since launch so tell the team a random West Australian guy on the internet says they are allowed to high five themselves in the mirror the next time they walk by one.
Cheers.