If you are planning to do these free weekends on a regular basis you really need to funnel the new rookies into servers of their own.
With the new in game training videos, they should pick up the game fast enough without the need for anyone to hold their hands.
On that note, rookie servers should only allow rookies into them because i know of a good few experienced players who like to go into rookie servers just for the cheap gratification of easily slaughtering them.
For a game as complex as NS2 (compared to the majority of dumbed down FPS games), an intelligent game that requires excellent team work to win, there really needs to be a separation of rookies and experienced players as rookies ruin the experience for us veterans.
I will not continue to play the game if it means i have to play with rookies the majority of the time.
It's bad enough having to put up with inexperienced / commandless / voiceless commanders that can no longer be ejected due to the recent increase of vote threshold to unrealistic levels but throwing in lots of new rookies with regular players just for the sake of populating the existing servers and increasing sales is a step too far for me.
I agree that there needs to be more players as a the majority of servers are always empty but at least do it in a controlled and balanced manner.
I purchased 8 copies of this game for me and my friends to enjoy, i would like to continue to enjoy this game but it's quickly going down hill in my opinion.
I rage quit the game for the first time last night as every marine game i played was full of disorganised rookies who wouldn't listen to any orders / advice, it was infuriating.
One game had 5 commanders in a space of 15 minutes, the whole night was a complete farce.
I get what you're saying, but rookie ONLY servers leads to people not really learning the game well.
Personally, I think the 75% rookie on both teams is fair if both teams have veterans to help the rookies out. What Veterans should really not do this weekend is to stack against the rookies. As you said, the game needs more players and honestly, this is the best way to do it. Furthermore, I feel that if F2P weekenders have someone around to teach them, they're FAR more likely to pick the game up.
And F2P Weekenders are going to gravitate towards the Marines because it's a much easier transfer than picking up a variety of Alien lifeforms. I don't bother with Lerk because I can't play it well. And I got almost 200 hours. So Marines are going to be abnormally weak for the next couple days. Thus, you should do Aliens but not go all dominating on them.
I actually think the F2P Marine stack is not a bad idea as losing as Marines isn't awful like losing as Aliens. And if you have a Veteran Com who can turtle well, it gets fun when you're losing. So a turtle Marine loss equates to F2P Weekenders having fun on BOTH sides.
The game needs more people. It's time to encourage F2P Weekenders to buy the game and join our community.
Comments
6K now, and still going strong. Nice new record coming up for NS2.
7,173 7,173 Natural Selection 2
EDIT: and now it's showing up on SteamGraph too!
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=games
http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=4920&from=1363891039
(Maybe second behind Planetside 2. Or third behind Garry's Mod.)
7.5k and growing!
I get what you're saying, but rookie ONLY servers leads to people not really learning the game well.
Personally, I think the 75% rookie on both teams is fair if both teams have veterans to help the rookies out. What Veterans should really not do this weekend is to stack against the rookies. As you said, the game needs more players and honestly, this is the best way to do it. Furthermore, I feel that if F2P weekenders have someone around to teach them, they're FAR more likely to pick the game up.
And F2P Weekenders are going to gravitate towards the Marines because it's a much easier transfer than picking up a variety of Alien lifeforms. I don't bother with Lerk because I can't play it well. And I got almost 200 hours. So Marines are going to be abnormally weak for the next couple days. Thus, you should do Aliens but not go all dominating on them.
I actually think the F2P Marine stack is not a bad idea as losing as Marines isn't awful like losing as Aliens. And if you have a Veteran Com who can turtle well, it gets fun when you're losing. So a turtle Marine loss equates to F2P Weekenders having fun on BOTH sides.
The game needs more people. It's time to encourage F2P Weekenders to buy the game and join our community.
Enter resettipvids in the console.
Reset_help for hints. (Be sure to have hints enabled in options as well)