NS2 Alpha, Its finally here!
Ink
Join Date: 2009-08-15 Member: 68499Members
Join Date: 2009-08-15 Member: 68499Members
<div class="IPBDescription">well almost!</div>Long thread, dont TL:DR, Read it if you are just pumped up for the alpha.
I know that everyone here is pumped for the Alpha, everyone here that loves Natural selection and has shown their support and never giving up on the devs for NS2.
The Developers have done so much to show their support and dedication back to us.
After stating new blog posts every friday about some NS2 news, for about 90% of the time since then, their has been a blog post every friday, the other 10% are the couple of times where it was on saturday or monday or until next week, but always reminding us through twitter and the forums.
They also gave us the map editor, WAY before any of us had any clue on how to make a correct layout for a real NS2 map, or even how to use the editor. With the help of everyone here that uses it has made it better, by telling of bugs,issues, giving ideas for the spark editor. When it released, it sucked, slow, laggy, unoptimized, half the ###### didnt work. Who cares? We all still used it (eventhought my nvidia 6800 was getting raped by it)and without having any real knowledge of how to use it efficiently, made some INCREDIBLE looking rooms/layouts/and even some full fledged maps, all of the early screenshots in the screenshot thread just blew my mind at how fast people were already making great looking maps.
Then Pre-alpha came out,(along with some other goodies). Now speaking for myself here, im on a
Nvidia 6800 Ultra, yes i need a new card and i am working on it. I couldnt even handle the pre-alpha on the lowest resolution, and lowest graphic setting. I got 10 fps looking at a wall. Now this was a good thing, because i found out what caused this lag for the lower end cards.
The Dynamic shadows, as cards similar to mine were not meant to process Dynamic shadows because back then people didnt believe in such magic. I emailed max about this, telling him that adding a disable shadows function would DRASTICALLY improve fps for low end cards. Max said, "just put r_shadows false into console" i did, and BAM at 1280-1024 on medium, i had a pretty good fps, not 30, not real enjoyable, but a hell of a lot better, later i toned down the resolution and was getting a nice 30 fps.
Now its going to be time for the real Alpha, were we play against each other and gorge rush and pretend that were all fades.
Its gonna be buggy, glitchy, unoptimized(to an extent) and could be a little disappointing to some.
But you gotta Remember, its only the Alpha, yes its meant for us to play it and have fun, but at the same time, bring up the issues we find with it, Graphical, balance, gameplay, design, bugs, glitchs, and errors, All so we can help ease the process of the release of v1.0.
Like people have said, this isnt going to be like the awesome polished perfect game that NS2 will be at release.
Only the alpha, but get real excited and have tons of fun(i know i will), play it without raising your expectations to high, play it expecting unfinished MarineVsAlien gameplay that will change dramatically over the course of the next couple of months.
With that being said, who cares if its alpha, its Still NS2, so basically what im trying to say is that, NS2 alpha is gonna kick ass, and i cant wait to play with the people here.
Also we got black armor.
I know that everyone here is pumped for the Alpha, everyone here that loves Natural selection and has shown their support and never giving up on the devs for NS2.
The Developers have done so much to show their support and dedication back to us.
After stating new blog posts every friday about some NS2 news, for about 90% of the time since then, their has been a blog post every friday, the other 10% are the couple of times where it was on saturday or monday or until next week, but always reminding us through twitter and the forums.
They also gave us the map editor, WAY before any of us had any clue on how to make a correct layout for a real NS2 map, or even how to use the editor. With the help of everyone here that uses it has made it better, by telling of bugs,issues, giving ideas for the spark editor. When it released, it sucked, slow, laggy, unoptimized, half the ###### didnt work. Who cares? We all still used it (eventhought my nvidia 6800 was getting raped by it)and without having any real knowledge of how to use it efficiently, made some INCREDIBLE looking rooms/layouts/and even some full fledged maps, all of the early screenshots in the screenshot thread just blew my mind at how fast people were already making great looking maps.
Then Pre-alpha came out,(along with some other goodies). Now speaking for myself here, im on a
Nvidia 6800 Ultra, yes i need a new card and i am working on it. I couldnt even handle the pre-alpha on the lowest resolution, and lowest graphic setting. I got 10 fps looking at a wall. Now this was a good thing, because i found out what caused this lag for the lower end cards.
The Dynamic shadows, as cards similar to mine were not meant to process Dynamic shadows because back then people didnt believe in such magic. I emailed max about this, telling him that adding a disable shadows function would DRASTICALLY improve fps for low end cards. Max said, "just put r_shadows false into console" i did, and BAM at 1280-1024 on medium, i had a pretty good fps, not 30, not real enjoyable, but a hell of a lot better, later i toned down the resolution and was getting a nice 30 fps.
Now its going to be time for the real Alpha, were we play against each other and gorge rush and pretend that were all fades.
Its gonna be buggy, glitchy, unoptimized(to an extent) and could be a little disappointing to some.
But you gotta Remember, its only the Alpha, yes its meant for us to play it and have fun, but at the same time, bring up the issues we find with it, Graphical, balance, gameplay, design, bugs, glitchs, and errors, All so we can help ease the process of the release of v1.0.
Like people have said, this isnt going to be like the awesome polished perfect game that NS2 will be at release.
Only the alpha, but get real excited and have tons of fun(i know i will), play it without raising your expectations to high, play it expecting unfinished MarineVsAlien gameplay that will change dramatically over the course of the next couple of months.
With that being said, who cares if its alpha, its Still NS2, so basically what im trying to say is that, NS2 alpha is gonna kick ass, and i cant wait to play with the people here.
Also we got black armor.
Comments
I got a radeon 48xx (will have to check on last two numbers), and the game seems to go ok, it somethings delays a fraction of a second when I turn. I'm concerned how this will turn out with more people on screen. My pc is only a couple months old and I hate to think he is already outdated..
I'm pretty sure we do.
I need to try out that 'Disable Shadows' thing. I got rubbish FPS after I manage to get the Engine running after it wouldn't work at that level of Resolution.
*Cries*
Of course we do, did you guys not read the news post? Charlie specifically says you can choose the black or regular armor.
"If you have the Special Edition, you will be able to choose your armor when you play - possibly at the Armory, like the rest of your weapons and equipment!"
Makes me wonder if the Special Edition armor will be the only armor variant. (Other than HA and JP, of course.)
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=10649&view=findpost&p=1777895" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....t&p=1777895</a>
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<!--quoteo(post=1777895:date=Jul 12 2010, 07:27 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jul 12 2010, 07:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1777895"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Black armor is done, though likely not going to be hooked up for the alpha, as it a pretty non essential gameplay item at the moment, and we have higher priority things to fix and implement first, in order to get the alpha into the hands of the people who ordered the special edition version.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
edit: I am aware this is in contradiction with the news update, but it seems a bit counter-intuitive to say "if you have special edition, you'll be able to select black armor during alpha" as all alpha-testers are SE owners. I thought that this paragraph was targeting a wider audience, for those who haven't yet decided on the SE or standard.
I got a radeon 48xx (will have to check on last two numbers), and the game seems to go ok, it somethings delays a fraction of a second when I turn. I'm concerned how this will turn out with more people on screen. My pc is only a couple months old and I hate to think he is already outdated..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have a much older computer (2-3 years old) and pretty much the same thing. With the engine test on high, it runs flawlessly outside of an occasional short hiccup when I enter a large room or make a sharp turn. My computer wasn't even top-of-the-line two years ago; I built it with the best I could get for reasonable prices.
My assumption is that any major performance problems are related to vendor-specific issues with drivers, etc., and not actual hardware limitations.