UWE killed Natural Selection 2
Vert^
Join Date: 2013-01-22 Member: 181227Members
Join Date: 2013-01-22 Member: 181227Members
Hello everyone.
I've something I need to get off my chest. The past two years I've worked very hard on a custom map for ns2, I've played for over 1000 hours, a game time that I have accumulated over time both in-game and in the Spark Editor. I've been very harsh in my rhetoric towards UWE, and Beigealert in particular, lately, but I think that, given almost a year have passed, that they are too blind to see the real issues of this game, and they have been stagnant for far too long.
It's funny, been on these boards a few years, and the past two weeks I've went from 3 disagrees to 11, because I'm suddenly speaking from my heart. Even though the majority of these boards tend to agree with me.
No one on this planet, except the few remaining veteran fans, wants to give this game as much attention, as any other major title current on the market with a larger playerbase, because we simply cannot compete in terms of accessibility and popularity. There's no one left that would like to buy into our community and stay here, when you got that many pristine and even free alternatives on the market. Not even mentioning all the new titles coming out.
Paragon will launch mid aug, it's a new moba from epic games, entirely F2P once it launch. Been a part of paid Early Access the past few months myself, even donated them 200$, because the game is just that good, and I will be showered with extra fluff, for months to come after release. This Paragon game already has more players than ns2, runs on a newer engine, is 64 bit and it's going to be 100% free. Top of that, they're also constantly in communication with the players about major changes, I can't recall the last time I have had so much talk with actual developers, and I even have a few devs from ns2 on my steam friend list (prob not for long
). They are also dedicated about their goals. They promised a hero every 3 weeks, and so far they have delivered.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is reaching the milestones of it's most popular predecessor, 1.6. It continues to cost a small one time fee, but it's kept breathing by peoples desire for smurf accounts. It does already have the infrastructure to go F2P, in the steam marketplace and weapon skins / music kits / stickers / tags, you name it. There's even game modes for everyone, from the ranked enthusiast to the casual FFA player.
These are just two examples of way better alternatives of your gaming time than ns2 is currently... The reason is very simple, the devs of UWE keep prioritizing making changes to the game, to cater to a 200-300 people community, instead of trying to grow said community.
The worst part of the inaction that UWE has shown, is that we never received anything in ns2, that could counteract the failing player retention. In hindsight you hear them talk about how, they should have implemented a match making system. Boy... do I and others remember launch day for ns2 and the following weeks, anyone who was asking about Matchmaking, was told to look up what kinda game they bought themselves in to. This was a sequel to a HL1 mod, not a newer shooter like CoD and CS:GO, if we wanted MM, we should go play those, here we had old school server browsers. I'd still have traded the gorgeous update, Descent and even the next 3 maps for a match making system, would back then and still would now. You used the years poorly.
That viewpoint was fine to have, but you can't turn the plate 2 years later, and say to people, that it was sad you never got around to do it (READ; MM), because you never had any freaking intention of doing it, you were even vocally against it and people advocating it, and I was even supporting your decision to keep it server listed, even though I wanted match making myself.
What pisses me off the most...
They even have so much faith in their title, that 300 people playing on avg, for over a freaking year, is not clear enough a warning sign, for them to consider F2P, which is the only way this game can be saved, now, in this age and time... Many people have already considered leaving and my friends are leaving in droves, to make that number plummet down to whatever low it needs to reach, before we see some actual action from UWE to bring new players in, and a new tutorial is not going to cut it. This is arrogant as hell, even though you see no warning signs, we as players can not stop to come across them.
Because even though you might not feel the negative impact, as long as a few people continue to support and buy ns2, doesn't mean that the players don't. We are left to uneven matches and pub stomps, all the while looking at the same dead server list, for 365+ days, only to get a new build that messes everything up again once in a while, so that you can try out your ideas and mods, that you think the community asked for.
So many great players have fallen off. Loki sounds burned out in his posts, after CDT was removed from deving, Howser abandonded ship in favor of the Unreal Engine 4, because he saw you'd just let NS2 drain players, so why not go where the future market will be? Wooza is so close to shutting down his mega servers, because of the continues flack he has received.
ObliviousSight, Blasphemy, the guy that made ns2_colony and Mendasp left us.
Heck, even the guys behind Hera, might never finish their work, because it will not be worth their effort for 100-300 people. And while it's all collapsing, you still refuse to listen to any of us, privately or on these boards.
We are not the ones, who can look forward to optimizing and patching NS2 for the next months, preparing it for the future market, like you can as developers. We are the players of your game, and we are left to eat whatever **** you dish us and be part of the 300 (Can I be Leonidas?), until the day you actually do something major for this game, that isn't just a new map or a balance change. We are left with these variables, just like you have to factor cost and IRL into this as developers.
Maybe, if you're lucky, a few months down the road, a 100 people will have the energy left to enjoy the next ns2 iteration.
This will be my final post on these forums for some time, I need to consider with myself, if I even want to finish up prison or if I am just leaving ns2 with my friends now. I'll be sure to let the people I respect and care for, and those that are waiting for prison, know what my decision will be.. It will largely depend on how this thread is reacted to from UWE and Beige's side. If they continue to believe, that there's not a grain of truth, to any of my words, and that I just need to "chill".
I will be gone in an instant, I however hope, that a team I've respected for so long, can finally break some honest words, instead of just professional spinning it to their advantage, without making up history as it pleases them, neglecting previous statements and actual game history.
Sincerest regards, from a long time former UWE / NS fan.
Vert^
I've something I need to get off my chest. The past two years I've worked very hard on a custom map for ns2, I've played for over 1000 hours, a game time that I have accumulated over time both in-game and in the Spark Editor. I've been very harsh in my rhetoric towards UWE, and Beigealert in particular, lately, but I think that, given almost a year have passed, that they are too blind to see the real issues of this game, and they have been stagnant for far too long.
It's funny, been on these boards a few years, and the past two weeks I've went from 3 disagrees to 11, because I'm suddenly speaking from my heart. Even though the majority of these boards tend to agree with me.
No one on this planet, except the few remaining veteran fans, wants to give this game as much attention, as any other major title current on the market with a larger playerbase, because we simply cannot compete in terms of accessibility and popularity. There's no one left that would like to buy into our community and stay here, when you got that many pristine and even free alternatives on the market. Not even mentioning all the new titles coming out.
Paragon will launch mid aug, it's a new moba from epic games, entirely F2P once it launch. Been a part of paid Early Access the past few months myself, even donated them 200$, because the game is just that good, and I will be showered with extra fluff, for months to come after release. This Paragon game already has more players than ns2, runs on a newer engine, is 64 bit and it's going to be 100% free. Top of that, they're also constantly in communication with the players about major changes, I can't recall the last time I have had so much talk with actual developers, and I even have a few devs from ns2 on my steam friend list (prob not for long
). They are also dedicated about their goals. They promised a hero every 3 weeks, and so far they have delivered.Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is reaching the milestones of it's most popular predecessor, 1.6. It continues to cost a small one time fee, but it's kept breathing by peoples desire for smurf accounts. It does already have the infrastructure to go F2P, in the steam marketplace and weapon skins / music kits / stickers / tags, you name it. There's even game modes for everyone, from the ranked enthusiast to the casual FFA player.
These are just two examples of way better alternatives of your gaming time than ns2 is currently... The reason is very simple, the devs of UWE keep prioritizing making changes to the game, to cater to a 200-300 people community, instead of trying to grow said community.
The worst part of the inaction that UWE has shown, is that we never received anything in ns2, that could counteract the failing player retention. In hindsight you hear them talk about how, they should have implemented a match making system. Boy... do I and others remember launch day for ns2 and the following weeks, anyone who was asking about Matchmaking, was told to look up what kinda game they bought themselves in to. This was a sequel to a HL1 mod, not a newer shooter like CoD and CS:GO, if we wanted MM, we should go play those, here we had old school server browsers. I'd still have traded the gorgeous update, Descent and even the next 3 maps for a match making system, would back then and still would now. You used the years poorly.
That viewpoint was fine to have, but you can't turn the plate 2 years later, and say to people, that it was sad you never got around to do it (READ; MM), because you never had any freaking intention of doing it, you were even vocally against it and people advocating it, and I was even supporting your decision to keep it server listed, even though I wanted match making myself.
What pisses me off the most...
They even have so much faith in their title, that 300 people playing on avg, for over a freaking year, is not clear enough a warning sign, for them to consider F2P, which is the only way this game can be saved, now, in this age and time... Many people have already considered leaving and my friends are leaving in droves, to make that number plummet down to whatever low it needs to reach, before we see some actual action from UWE to bring new players in, and a new tutorial is not going to cut it. This is arrogant as hell, even though you see no warning signs, we as players can not stop to come across them.
Because even though you might not feel the negative impact, as long as a few people continue to support and buy ns2, doesn't mean that the players don't. We are left to uneven matches and pub stomps, all the while looking at the same dead server list, for 365+ days, only to get a new build that messes everything up again once in a while, so that you can try out your ideas and mods, that you think the community asked for.
So many great players have fallen off. Loki sounds burned out in his posts, after CDT was removed from deving, Howser abandonded ship in favor of the Unreal Engine 4, because he saw you'd just let NS2 drain players, so why not go where the future market will be? Wooza is so close to shutting down his mega servers, because of the continues flack he has received.
ObliviousSight, Blasphemy, the guy that made ns2_colony and Mendasp left us.
Heck, even the guys behind Hera, might never finish their work, because it will not be worth their effort for 100-300 people. And while it's all collapsing, you still refuse to listen to any of us, privately or on these boards.
We are not the ones, who can look forward to optimizing and patching NS2 for the next months, preparing it for the future market, like you can as developers. We are the players of your game, and we are left to eat whatever **** you dish us and be part of the 300 (Can I be Leonidas?), until the day you actually do something major for this game, that isn't just a new map or a balance change. We are left with these variables, just like you have to factor cost and IRL into this as developers.
Maybe, if you're lucky, a few months down the road, a 100 people will have the energy left to enjoy the next ns2 iteration.
This will be my final post on these forums for some time, I need to consider with myself, if I even want to finish up prison or if I am just leaving ns2 with my friends now. I'll be sure to let the people I respect and care for, and those that are waiting for prison, know what my decision will be.. It will largely depend on how this thread is reacted to from UWE and Beige's side. If they continue to believe, that there's not a grain of truth, to any of my words, and that I just need to "chill".
I will be gone in an instant, I however hope, that a team I've respected for so long, can finally break some honest words, instead of just professional spinning it to their advantage, without making up history as it pleases them, neglecting previous statements and actual game history.
Sincerest regards, from a long time former UWE / NS fan.
Vert^
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I only wish they'd listen to what the majority of players are ranting about here... I only see thickheaded devs with halfwitted ideas about growing the community, most of which had backfired
Keep the tone sober please, let's show them we're not just a bunch of kids wailing.
That's the reason why I've started reading H.G. Wells novels
EDIT:
But I don't wish to derail the thread, I'd love to see the prison map finished...