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Moleculor

<div class="IPBDescription">General Forum FAQ</div><a href="http://www.natural-selection.org/about_ns.html" target="_blank">About NS</a>
<a href="http://www.natural-selection.org/faq.html" target="_blank">Official FAQ</a>

So you've decided to join us, eh? Welcome to Natural Selection. A couple of rules to start us off, eh?

1. No posting in foreign languages. We moderators can only speak and understand English.

2. If you would like to introduce yourself, please do so in the New Players forum, in the "<u>New to the NS community?</u>" thread. Even if you have something that belongs in the General Discussion forum, or elsewhere, post that in a separate thread.

3. Ideas go in the Ideas forum, Mapping questions and pictures go in the Mapping forum. The other forums have their own purposes as well. This means that Ideas about new Mapping tools/entities/func's/whathaveyou go in the Ideas forum, not the Mapping forum! Your posts will be moved otherwise!

<!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->4. If you find an offensive post, or something you don't think should be in our forums, please send a private message to a moderator. The "report post" feature is not currently working.

5. Updated 07/10/02: Keep sig pictures to a width of 400 or less, and a height at or below 75 pixels. They should also not exceed 22KB.
Keep avatar pictures to a width of 64 or less, and a height at or below 64 pixels. They should also not exceed 22KB.

6. Use of oversized text is both tacky, and prohibited. Draw attention to yourself with thoughtful ideas, and helpful criticism... not huge letters. <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Now, everyone (including myself) wants to know exactly how many posts you need to achieve the next/this one/whatever title. Everyone starts out as a Hatchling. You work up from there. Here's the lineup.

Hatchling - Default
Drone - 10 posts
Beast - 50 posts
Foul Beast - 100 posts
Minion - 200 posts
Dark Minion - 400 posts
Dark Queen - 600 posts
Hive Queen - 1000 posts
Hive Keeper - 2000 posts
Sire - 3000 posts
Dark Sire - 4000 posts

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: Can I make up my own title after 5000 posts?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: No.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: 6000 posts then? 7000?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: Um....no.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: So then how do I get one of those nifty <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=52427" target="_blank">custom titles</a> that replaces the "Beast" and "Minion" stuff?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: The general rule is it's at the whim of the admins. Asking for one almost <i>never</i> works. Various admins have been known to give them out when they see something particularly funny, creative, or otherwise unique to that member.
I, Marik_Steele (okay, time to stop speaking in 3rd person), will give out custom titles to anyone who is on the staff of a mod for a Valve product, on two conditions:
1. You must have a website and/or forums established. This is so that when I get a PM from you requesting such a title, I can check your account info on our forums with the contact info you have posted on your mod's website. It's to make sure you're really that staff member.
2. The mod can't just be one you say you're going to finish someday, or one you did in 5 minutes and put up for download just for the sake of a title. It has to be good enough to show up in Steam's "Browse 3rd party games" area. If you see someone on the staff of (example) an unreleased HL2 mod with a custom title, it's probably because I gave it out before thinking of this rule.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: Hey the main site FAQ says if I make a lot of insightful posts I can be in the beta! My post count is XXX, can I be in the beta?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: Maybe. Were most of those posts insightful? Did they generate a lot of deep intellectual discussion? Were they informative, well thought out, or at least well explained? Is Flayra looking for more beta testers? The simple fact of the matter is the number of posts you make does not make you more or less eligible for the beta. Also <b>don't ask to beta test</b>, anyone that is wanting to test, just be a good person in the community and you will be contacted to test if they need/want you.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: Why are the boards so slow?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: Try going into your Control Panel (Accessible at the top left of each page) and change some of your settings to turn off Avatars, sigs, and the like. That should at least cut down on some of the stuff that's slowing you down. Check out the other options to see what else can be done.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: What the heck is the TSA?!?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: Well, <a href="http://www.natural-selection.org/world_marine_start.html" target="_blank">here's</a> the complete marine backstory, in case you missed it.

<!--sizeo:2--><span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Q</b>: Will you port this game to the Source or another engine? Will there be a Natural Selection: Source?<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
<b>A</b>: we've got several answers from staff members on this:
<!--QuoteBegin-"joev"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("joev")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The simple answer is that *we* don't know. Sure, we see the potential, and are told by VALVe that porting is "easy", but at this point there is no SDK. Before we can even consider the idea, we need to see what is in the SDK. At that point we will determine if it's possible/feasible to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quote edited to remove irrevelant content. <a href="http://"http://www.ampednews.com/?page=articles&id=2862" target="_blank">Original Interview</a>

Nemesis Zero's earlier answer: There're multiple things to say on this, because some issues are easily mixed up here:<ul><li>As Flayra affirmed in multiple interviews, he is planning on creating a retail sequel to NS that'll be developed by his new company, Unknown Worlds Entertainment. This sequel will naturally use a more recent engine, although it is not clear which. Note that NS2 is only one of the concepts offered to possible investors, so it's not guaranteed to be UWE's first product.

</li><li>Multiple members of the mod's devteam have expressed interest in updating NS(1) to a newer engine, possibly Source. <i>Interest</i>.

</li><li>So far, there has been no publicised decision on the issue of whether and if so, which port is to be made. Nor can such a decision be expected until work on the current version of NS has been finished, or until the team had an opportunity to get a good idea of how much work would be involved in such a port.</li></ul>So, in case you feel as though you've just read a hugely bloated 'No comment.', you are correct <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />

<b>Q:</b>But that sounds like such an old answer! The source SDK has been released by now!
<b>A:</b>You're right. Since then, <a href="http://www.cgonline.com/content/view/360/2/" target="_blank">Flayra has been interviewed by Computer Games Magazine</a>. In that interview, he had this to say:
<!--QuoteBegin-Flayra+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Flayra)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->We haven't spent much time with the SDK yet (been too busy with current NS development), but we've started to talk about NS:Source. We're probably going to start porting it shortly after 3.0/3.1. Instead of taking many months to create on big version, we will probably port just the game over first, then start redoing artwork, maps and gameplay a piece at a time. We want to release smaller versions more frequently, and that's why 3.1 and the first NS:S version will come relatively quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>Q:</b> Are the NS sounds stolen?
<b>A:</b> <!--QuoteBegin-joev+Mar 24 2003, 02:47 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(joev @ Mar 24 2003, 02:47 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--coil+Mar 24 2003, 01:35 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(-coil @ Mar 24 2003, 01:35 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--> [...]NS and Starcraft have drawn from the same publically available sound library, so you may encounter some sounds that you've heard elsewhere. I believe there is at least one sound effect that also appears in the movie "Aliens."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But you should also note, all the Voice work is original and exclusive to NS.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>Q:</b> X Player is a cheater and should be banned.
<b>A:</b> It is inappropriate to post demos, screenshots or other "data" lambasting a player for cheating. If you want objective data on cheat detection <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73623" target="_blank">Esuna's thread</a> is a good place to begin.

<b>Q:</b> Are hitboxes broken in Natural Selection?
<b>A:</b> <a href="http://"http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=83575" target="_blank">Joev's Answer </a>

Other than that, welcome, read the forums, and enjoy NS (when it comes out).

--Your NS Forum Moderators

Nemesis_Zero

<span style='color:orange'>Once again, this is Marik speaking. This post I'm interrupting and the one Nemesis Zero made just below it were both originally from the "Public Beta Discussion Rules" thread, which he moved into General when the beta phase of 3.0 ended. They're still good guidelines for general game feedback, so we've moved them in here. Next time you want to let us all know what's on your mind, it might be helpful to remember these.</span>

Hey everyone,

below, you'll find a number of things to keep in mind while posting here. Seeing that this forum is supposed to offer straight input into design decisions, some of these rules will be strictly enforced, so do yourself and the modding squads nerves a favor and stick to them.<ul><li><b>No generalizations without of factual backing.</b>
If you put "Aliens win 90% of all games" in your 'Topic Title' line, we'll expect you to at least be capable of supplying multiple server logs proving just this. If you feel like telling us that "The Onos is absolutely worthless", this'd better not be an exaggeration of "Five HA/HMG marines just killed me in that last game.".
Vastly exaggerated claims are counterproductive, tend to spawn bad rumors, and will not be tolerated.</li><li><b>Seperate between subjective and rational points.</b>
It's one thing that you dislike the feeling of the new Lerk flight system, it's a completely different thing that this system doesn't work. If you want to voice your feelings towards a certain gameplay element, by all means do so, but don't mask these feelings as facts; it's just not necessary, because an intuitive, fun game experience is at least as important as a technically flawless game.</li><li><b><i>Never</i> insult other opinions.</b>
And if someone told you that all gameplay problems could be solved by introducing a "skorpian that hovers without flapping", to cite the long lasting meme, do not flame this person. Report the post if you feel it's an attempt at trolling, but <i>don't flame</i>, or <i>you</i> will be the guy who's being suspended for <i>his</i> idiocy.</li><li><b>Discuss with your head, not your heart.</b>
Supply arguments. Try to present your thoughts in a stringent manner. Stay rational. Stating that "xyz sucks" and keeping it at that only means that the devs will stop reading.</li></ul>Aside from this, have fun tearing the current beta apart.


Your moderation team.

Nemesis_Zero

<b>Addendum:</b> For easier reference, we'd greatly appreciate if you could seperate your threads into feedback for either Combat or Classic, and mark the thread accordingly with 'NS:' or 'CO:' in the title. It's often highly difficult to discern what you are actually giving feedback for.