NS2 Updates creating a 0.27% increase in players (half a person). What is the long-term plan?
tallhotblonde
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174770Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174770Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Is there a plan at all?
Community members are trying everything from twitch streams and events, to running competitive tournaments and rebuilding the actual game in their own time (thanks CDT!)
Would be interesting to hear what might be on the horizon, if anything.
Community members are trying everything from twitch streams and events, to running competitive tournaments and rebuilding the actual game in their own time (thanks CDT!)
Would be interesting to hear what might be on the horizon, if anything.
Comments
Instead of focusing on maintaining the game the focus should be new players / expanding the game.
Change game lobby page.
Include game modes in the lobby (combat, ns, siege, marineVSmarine, ctf, others)
Allow friend parties.
Rework team balancing tools.
Create single-player campaign.
Rebagde NS2 as NS3.
marineVSmarine is a great opportunity to increase the player base of this game. By adding marine classes and game modes for mVSm you create an environment familiar for new players (tf2, bf4, cs, insurgency).
CDT roadmap is here:
https://trello.com/b/91ApENY6/ns2-cdt-development-tracker
You should work at EA, I'm sure they would love your ideas.
Yes there is. Sorry, I can't say anything more at this time.
This is totally reasonable if we look at how people choose games.
And we need hats, lots of them. Connection to the Steam economy is a huge thing.
That being said, UWE will not even think about NS3 until Subnautica and Future Perfect near completion.
VERY ironic coming from you, sir. I'm not sure I've seen you stick with your team for a whole round in a pub game as you take "balancing tools" into your own hands...
False. It's a huge priority, but one that requires tackling a huge problem. We take our approaches very carefully, and we will have more information later.
Instead of you being ironic you could make actual constructive arguments.
The "matchmaking" need 3 elements to work properly.
1. A rank system. We have the "hive skill" and it works fine.
2. A balancing tool. We don't have a good one. FET, KDR, Balance by hive score, all of them produce more often unbalanced matches than balanced ones. It doesn't take into account the player team preference, locks the player into a team, creates commanding issues, etc.
3. A rank update algorithm at the end of the match. What we have works. I believe improvements could be made (mentioned in another topic) but it's not critical. HH should be invested elsewhere.
Couse when i joined ns2 there was only 2 servers with peps online. Now it's usual with 5 or even more servers with Peps in. And i realy think the game is going up again. Slowly but for sure (athleast i hope so)
I just joined the comunity at the delerict update so athleast not a half person :P.
Youre a cheater.
Like if 10 peps do skins and 5 are good enough for the game it would be more interesting and more people would mabey buy deluxe edition.
Or Making a having to do somethings to get skins. Like have a lerk dubbelkill within 5 seconds (on a non modded server) and win 50 Times as a commander. And when you got a sertan amount of (missions)
You get that shotgun or gorge skin.
And including some comunity maps like Caged that realy work good and look well enough to make it in to the game should be offical maps!
Ofcurse the creator must aggre and evrything like that. But if i could have my Map included in to the game (i got none as of yet) i would work a crazy amount of time.
Even if i got no money it would be one of my biggest priority of my year. (Can't promise anything).
Yeah thats all i had to say.
Edit: sorry for 2 post in a row forgote the Edit option.....
This means, making it easier to seed servers (easy server seeding = more players joining servers = more games played = higher player count)
Realistically, I think the best way to make seeding servers faster/easier/less boring would be a global chat at the main menu, with subchannels for region and looking for server.
This would let players at the main menu ask if anyone else is looking for a game, and allow all the players looking for a server join at once.
Currently, I think most players launch NS2, see 2-3 full servers, and 1-2 with 1 player, then close the game since there are no active games they can get in to (people are impatient, lets be honest).
Imagine if the regional "LFG" channel reported 6 people looking for a game, and those people could chat to pick a server to join. That would make the server with 1 player suddenly have 7, which is much more likely to attract players since the perceived "wait time" for a game would be less.
IMO, this would be the highest-impact for lowest-work** way to increase active player base (steam groups don't work so well because it required players to proactively JOIN the group, and most people wont want to do that)
**I have no idea how much work an in-game global chat client would take to implement. Can anyone explain the process?
You need big sweeping ideas, I liked @NovoRei suggestion for MvM. I actually had a lot of fun with that mode when it was briefly popular on the public servers, nothing serious but a change. I would also seriously recommend brushing up combat mod or integrating combat standalone into the client of NS2, probably an impossible task at this point but it would get a lot of people looking at NS2 again.
I also recommended a newb/rookie mode in the past where resource rates are much higher, less punishing for new players who quite frankly, sit on skulk/rifle 90% of the game which isn't fun. Skins, cosmetics would also be good, do what valve does with DOTA and have people vote on skins that should make it into the game if that is even possible at this stage.
Global IRC chat.
edit:To add to conversation, a matchmaking system that works won't add to the player-count unless you have a massive influx of players once it is working, or even then it just won't work. We need something to retain those players and the only way that will happen is if it goes free to play(100% important), modding system updated and cards, market, achievements etc(minimal on the side of steam api integration, but more directed towards F2P) in regard to steam integration i think i saw some residual traces somewhere, can't remember where though ;p
edit2:Hi Flayra m8
maybe it's too tough to fix the engine (i don't know), but if the game was balanced around getting notified about damage extremely late then it might be more enjoyable and retain more people
not yet it's not :P
My hope is that quantum computing/cryptography somehow allow a 100% detection rate anti-cheat to be developed.
Yet other games with more cheaters are vastly more popular, so your logic does not stand. Also "skyrocketting" numbers are probably beyond hope at this point no matter the method.
Ah well, once NS3 comes out, the devs will have another chance at capturing an audience and hopefully better navigate the mistakes they made with NS2's player retention.
What other online multiplayer competitive FPS games on the PC are popular?
Counterstrike GO? It's only successful because of trading/$9000 knife skins/and the legacy of its predecessors.
Team Fortress 2? Hats, hats, and then some more hats
Call of Duty? Kids want to make 360 no scope kill montage videos
Battlefield/Hardline/Bad Company? Nothing more than a way for people to justify their $3000 computers because.... GRAPHIX
Arma/Red Orchestra? Realistic war-sims for people who want PTSD but don't want to join the military.
Basically, all the games I listed are only popular because of their "gimmicks". However they would all most likely be even more popular if their cheater numbers went down.
NS2 has no gimmick (RTS elements are a liability if anything) and so it can't maintain a strong playerbase while at the same time being burdened with cheating.
Also, all the games I mentioned above are not asymmetrical, meaning even the cheaters themselves are on an equal playing field relative to other cheaters. Meanwhile in NS2, even if a fade has an aimbot/wallhack/cham/speedhack/automatic bunnyhop, he is still going to get REKT by a marine who has the same cheats. So not only are non-cheating players turned off by the cheaters, but the cheaters themselves are turned off by the game because they know they are going to lose 100% of their matches when they are playing an evenly matched marine team.
Just because you are providing reason for their popularity as if it was some excuse, does not exclude the fact that you admit they are popular.
You answered your own question and then ignored that answer.
Seems like you're more interested in being thought to be right than actually having an opinion that is reflective of reality.
Keeping your heads in the ground doesn't stop the sky from falling. Then again, in the case of NS2, the sky fell a long time ago.
And do any of these posts have any actual proof?
And that's why nobody takes em seriously. It is a matter of skill. Nearly 3 yrs out and I've seen maybe 2 ever, and these were years ago.
The people left who play generally have a lot of time invested into the game, it's very easy to percieve these players as cheating.. but really... they're just better.
Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to prove cheating beyond a shadow a doubt. People have cheated in LAN tournaments for counterstrike, tournaments where referees could literally look over their shoulders. Many cheats have no HUD's showing on the screen, so even setting up a video camera in the room of the cheaters wouldn't prove anything in many cases.
Technology is great, but can also be very not so great.