New Players Incomming

Mephilles

Just saw on Steam that Natural Selection 2 in in the top 100 og current Player count (#97 I guess).

http://puu.sh/56Mky/830b007d8e.png

took that screenshot on 02.11.2013 20:25 CET. I am sorry that I couldn't screenshot the whole list but it was too big for my screen.

But I'm glad to see more Players now

CCTEE

Yup and it's not a free weekend too, these guys payed actual money (although not alot, granted).

MrPink

I think maybe it's impossible to retain new players at this point. The skill gap is too great so that any one person who has been a regular player just completely breaks a server. I don't know how anyone could possibly learn commander if they haven't done it before.

Vetinari

NS2 beats Far Cry 3 B-)

Mestaritonttu

MrPink wrote: »

I think maybe it's impossible to retain new players at this point. The skill gap is too great so that any one person who has been a regular player just completely breaks a server. I don't know how anyone could possibly learn commander if they haven't done it before.

Then that one person should get the hell out of rookie server. :P

Obligatory disclaimer: Above statement does not will not has not included players with inability disability inaccessibility to join normal servers.

DefaultError

That most be why when I've been playing commander we win. Hope we get more people into NS2!

Omega_K2

MrPink wrote: »

I think maybe it's impossible to retain new players at this point. The skill gap is too great so that any one person who has been a regular player just completely breaks a server. I don't know how anyone could possibly learn commander if they haven't done it before.

Too bad they also join normal servers, games ain't much fun with half the team being rookies or rookies in disguise.

Ots

Theres a degree of hilarity in games where we kill a batch of marines and other aliens start chewing rt/armory instead of pg.

Daxx

DefaultError wrote: »

That most be why when I've been playing commander we win. Hope we get more people into NS2!

Shooting fish in a barrel (or floor skulks) gets old, so exactly that. Been commanding in rookie servers to help out new players. Going into it with the attitude and expectations of newbies makes it much less frustrating.

Mavick

Was wondering what was going on, my server was actually populated last night.

Asraniel

I have 4! Of my friends have pick up the game again and they actually love it. And i didnt even force them ns2 made huge progress since release, so lets hope it continuesbthat way

Vetinari

Daxx wrote: »

DefaultError wrote: »

That most be why when I've been playing commander we win. Hope we get more people into NS2!

Shooting fish in a barrel (or floor skulks) gets old, so exactly that. Been commanding in rookie servers to help out new players. Going into it with the attitude and expectations of newbies makes it much less frustrating.

I would command, I would command, if those rookies listened. Or communicated. The occasional rookie who is communicative, asks questions etc is very nice to work with, however, the others are not.

The_Ranger

That's why when I'm not playing, I still admin my server ("That One Server", west coast USA, 30 tick rate, 18 slot) from Web Admin as much as I can. Give warnings to not be a douche, kick if it continues.

Side note, I don't get why so many ppl keep playing on servers that drop down to 3 tick rate. Rubber banding all day but still full.

Asraniel

Because people dont know that the server is at 3 ticks. Simple as that

The_Ranger

Maybe, but I'm not talking about just the new ppl, also those that have played for months that *should* know the diff at this point.

The_Ranger

Also: for those that don't know, join a server - in console type
Net_stats to see server tick.
Fps if you want to see your fps.

kk20

more people playing FTL, borderlands 1 and DODs (I bet they are all flash servers too!). Not a great sign. Better than nothing though.

Shame they will be noobstomped and never return Same happened with another indie game I liked - nuclear dawn. good idea but generally if you weren't in early enough you simply got stomped.

blackpiranha

kk20 wrote: »

more people playing FTL, borderlands 1 and DODs (I bet they are all flash servers too!). Not a great sign. Better than nothing though.

Shame they will be noobstomped and never return Same happened with another indie game I liked - nuclear dawn. good idea but generally if you weren't in early enough you simply got stomped.

Well that's their own fault, if you dont spend some time learning or finding out about (advanced) game mechanics you have a disadvantage in games with a steep learning curve. People will get rewarded the more they grapple with the game. I guess you can always browse some forums for help if there are no ingame guides or watch competitive matches. Nothing new though.

Krovakon

blackpiranha wrote: »

kk20 wrote: »

more people playing FTL, borderlands 1 and DODs (I bet they are all flash servers too!). Not a great sign. Better than nothing though.

Shame they will be noobstomped and never return Same happened with another indie game I liked - nuclear dawn. good idea but generally if you weren't in early enough you simply got stomped.

Well that's their own fault, if you dont spend some time learning or finding out about (advanced) game mechanics you have a disadvantage in games with a steep learning curve. People will get rewarded the more they grapple with the game. I guess you can always browse some forums for help if there are no ingame guides or watch competitive matches. Nothing new though.

while that's true. It's also terrible game design since it severely lowers player retention. Games like Dystopia which also have an extremely high learning curve balance it out by providing "beginner" friendly weapons and implants. as well as having a useful tutorial. Ns2 more or less thrusts you into a match, often against extremely good players where you end up spending more time in the spawn queue than actually playing.

Benson

I wish that there were two icons for connection problems

red-plug-of-doom for client side issues, and some kind of server health icon for serverside (tickrate) issues.

There was an image posted by Ironhorse a while ago about how many servers he could see, and there were many (dont know their names) that had something like 30% performance on the server browser that were all full.

Just imagine how bad the tickrate has to be for the incredibly inaccurate sever browser to actually pick up on it.

I think a disclaimer is neccecary to prevent new players from thinking the game has performance issues, when its really just a bad server.

_INTER_

I hope they stay and play and don't just discard it after a week. Lets be friendly and helpful :P

The_Ranger

In that picture you're talking about, there is a server showing around 33% performance: yet that server is full a ton of the time. Don't understand that.

IronHorse

Love your server @the_ranger
So nice having more west coast US servers

The_Ranger

Ty Ty. I had thought about shutting it down, ppl flock to the bigger yet slower servers, but seems to be changing some.

CrushaK

Mestaritonttu wrote: »

Then that one person should get the hell out of rookie server. :P

Obligatory disclaimer: Above statement does not will not has not included players with inability disability inaccessibility to join normal servers.

That's a tough thing to do nowadays, since pretty much every server shows up as rookie-friendly. In fact so many that the whole concept is almost meaningless again.

Cannon_FodderAUS

Comm-ed a few games last night with a few rookies (and some new players that aren't green - but still new). It was fun (low level game play though - ground skulks, attacking armory not pg etc...). Everyone had fun (at least no on complained). Please just let the newbies know to check out videos on youtube (Its Super Effective's tutorials are fantastic), and to ask questions if they don't know what to do. More than one of the greens had commented on how complex the game was (I think that is a good thing that they realise its complex).

Most importantly, have fun and nurture our new found player base (again).

ns2isgood

Benson wrote: »

I wish that there were two icons for connection problems

red-plug-of-doom for client side issues, and some kind of server health icon for serverside (tickrate) issues.

There was an image posted by Ironhorse a while ago about how many servers he could see, and there were many (dont know their names) that had something like 30% performance on the server browser that were all full.

Just imagine how bad the tickrate has to be for the incredibly inaccurate sever browser to actually pick up on it.

I think a disclaimer is neccecary to prevent new players from thinking the game has performance issues, when its really just a bad server.

lol, that server browser performance label actually works? I always see nothing but 100% and a lot of servers I play on have some form of stuttering. It's very rare to find a decent server that doesn't lag or stutter under heavy load. I've never seen anything below 100% for performance.

http://i.imgur.com/X9zsIe9.jpg

The_Ranger

Even the really bad servers will show 100% at/near the start of a round. It tends to drop quickly from there. If you know which are the bad ones, you and right click and watch it drop.