Would kickstarter still be viable post-release? How would you feel about paying for a DLC to support
hotd0g
Join Date: 2004-03-19 Member: 27419Members
Join Date: 2004-03-19 Member: 27419Members
1: If UWE needs extra money to continue finish NS2, should they consider starting up a kickstarter? I know I would pitch in some $$ at least. Of course, the kickstarter would need some purpose other than gathering money to continue the development process...Maybe the promise of a feature-packed DLC?
2: Personally, I wouldn't mind paying for an extra DLC seeing as the game has been in development for so long and the team has sacrificed so much to get to this point. Plus it would be fun to get a feature-packed DLC, and it would again help UWE build more hype about the game.
I think the new NS2 players might not be so forthcoming as older players like me, but if the quality of the DLC is right I think they might be persuaded either way.
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03/how-natural-selection-2-was-saved-and-made-by-fans/" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03...d-made-by-fans/</a>
2: Personally, I wouldn't mind paying for an extra DLC seeing as the game has been in development for so long and the team has sacrificed so much to get to this point. Plus it would be fun to get a feature-packed DLC, and it would again help UWE build more hype about the game.
I think the new NS2 players might not be so forthcoming as older players like me, but if the quality of the DLC is right I think they might be persuaded either way.
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03/how-natural-selection-2-was-saved-and-made-by-fans/" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03...d-made-by-fans/</a>
Comments
85% of the game is NS1 features with better graphics. Alien 'evolution' is still stupid, uninspired, linear, and dull. The extent of marine teamwork is shoving a welder in each others' bums. A lot of alien upgrades were simply removed with no replacement, no new alien lifeforms, welding map features mysteriously disappeared... Instead we got an alien commander, a flamethrower, and a robot suit. This game is a monument to wasted potential. We have all these cool lighting effects, but because they "don't want the game to be scary", every room is lit up like it's a hospital. We have this cool infestation, but it does nothing but stop you from putting buildings everywhere. We have this cool power node system, but it only stops where marines can build, even features like comm scans and dropping supplies aren't limited by it.
This isn't even going into the technical aspects, where the game struggles to run on a modern powerhouse that can crunch the worst BF3 can throw at it, or the fact that the server browser is underdeveloped and doesn't even work for a rather large number of players.
After NS1, the devs don't exactly have a track record as far as listening to the community anyway. Their DLC would most likely be something nobody asked for and was never wanted. See also: Combat for NS1.
Besides, if I get bored of NS2 vanilla I'll play Sanity or other mods for free.
Do you realize how many people bought/pre-ordered the game for 25 dollars EACH? (and some for more than 25)
Less than 10 dudes made the game right? Pretty sure they'll be okay, it's still selling well and getting good reviews etc.
DLC does NOT belong in a multiplayer FPS game outside of cosmetic stuff (that's all free w/the workshop anyways), it just divides the community and stops devs from making stuff that matters
Here's a CRAZY effing idea though: MAYBE, and I know people nowadays don't really understand this concept but.. here it is: IF the game is FUN people will KEEP buying it at FULL price for like, at least a year.
_OMG_ how nuts is that. Let them earn their money, not every steam game has to be 5 dollars in a year.
IMO NS2 is that good, as long as they fix performance more and stop the annoying ass crashes some people experience.
Do you realize how many people bought/pre-ordered the game for 25 dollars EACH? (and some for more than 25)
Less than 10 dudes made the game right? Pretty sure they'll be okay, it's still selling well and getting good reviews etc.
DLC does NOT belong in a multiplayer FPS game outside of cosmetic stuff (that's all free w/the workshop anyways), it just divides the community and stops devs from making stuff that matters
Here's a CRAZY effing idea though: MAYBE, and I know people nowadays don't really understand this concept but.. here it is: IF the game is FUN people will KEEP buying it at FULL price for like, at least a year.
_OMG_ how nuts is that. Let them earn their money, not every steam game has to be 5 dollars in a year.
IMO NS2 is that good, as long as they fix performance more and stop the annoying ass crashes some people experience.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry, but wake up and smell the coffee sunshine.
Have you seen the games we're getting on PC? If it's not a a triple A console port with no modding, it's a low budget buggy mess that lets you build mods but doesn't have a big enough community. Natural Selection 2 has every right to have any small DLC, because I want to support developers that are so dedicated and supporting of the community.
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03/how-natural-selection-2-was-saved-and-made-by-fans/" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/03...d-made-by-fans/</a>
Personally, I'd probably pay for something interesting again. It was worth it.
Exactly. NS2 is still outselling AAA titles released the same month.
In the meantime, using TWI's clever business model would rack in new players in bunches:
1. make reasonably large free map and/or new content patches
2. make cosmetic stuff available for a small fee
3. make the steam frontpage with a free-stuff/new skin sale
4. repeat every 6-12 months
keeps the game fresh, a stream of new players and extra revenue from supporting fans or cosmetic-dlc-hogs
Pretty brutal. . .
How much of that could be fixed by the community?
I'm sure you could have a scary map or a server side mod that prevents health drops while the power is out
Also what new alien is needed?
I'd like to hear from you personally what role isn't being filled
More strats and combos for Marines are probably around the corner once aliens get up to full speed
I'm still waiting for a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILA1ic-Q8_E&t=0m19s" target="_blank">glorious futuristic flamethrower</a> that marines can be proud of
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I'd like to hear from you personally what role isn't being filled<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know the answer to this one.
Search your heart, you know it to be true!
I'd like to hear from you personally what role isn't being filled<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Either the "Hydralisk" - a durable, frontline attacker (The Fade is no longer durable, the Skulk cannot survive, the Onos is too expensive), or the way Aliens and their upgrades work needs to be changed to make Skulks continue to be viable by making them more customizable and lethal.
In Borderlands, you have the Skag. Single attack, not much there. There's barf skags, which block your vision and hurt you with a DOT, and there's larger skags which can learn to jump on you. Eventually you can get badass skags which have armor and are more difficult to defeat, requiring acid weapons, or even electrical skags which do elemental damage.
Point is, the 'skag' isn't just a skag that stays that way the whole game. In order to continue presenting a challenge, they gave them better abilities and attacks to use against you.
A skulk at the midgame should have a VARIETY of skills and upgrades and interesting features he can EVOLVE, not just picking one of two upgrades and that's it. Look at every "Aliens vs. Humans" movie / work of fiction. The humans' technology is usually lagging behind, as the primal brutality of a species specifically evolved for killing decimates people. They're faster, more durable, more lethal. The game either needs to fill in this midfield gap, or allow Skulks to upgrade to "badass skulks".
I mentioned this in another thread... but the aliens are ALWAYS lagging behind. They don't feel like the advanced race that is <b>evolving</b> to combat the marines, they feel like they're just playing catch-up.
I have a game on my phone called Plague Inc. In it you evolve a disease with evolution points. The screen on which you do that looks like this:
<img src="http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2012/05/inline1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
It's fun. This is exactly how alien upgrades should've been handled. As you play, you get DNA points, which you can use to give yourself new abilities and attacks. Items would have 'genetic stability' levels. Items of high stability would be the lower-tier, and if you survive for a long time, you have a chance of mutating them for free. Low-stability items would be the higher-end, more powerful attacks. If you die, you risk losing them due to the genetic complexity.
Each alien would be able to earn points and spend them as he wishes. A Fade could suffer a few loses and have devolved, and be forced to return to his Skulk which has more upgrades to try to earn more points.
The current method is completely lacking in imagination, makes Aliens outrageously dull to use, and causes huge swings in the power curve, where Aliens dominate briefly after they get a new ability, but quickly fall behind when marines out-tech them. Since Aliens only have a handful of things they can upgrade, they have no choice but to struggle to outplay the marines.
Plus, like I said, right now the Aliens are zero fun at all. Fade is about as fun as it gets, but Fades are so weak now that it can quickly turn frustrating.
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/JcpgB.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/JcpgB.png</a>
I threw this together to show what the evolution system SHOULD'VE been like.
Uh, what? I'm pretty sure Riot Games makes most of its money off LoL through micro-transactions.
From Youtube alone,
$596 - $5.6K /day
$217.4K - $2M /yr
yes, they make money from micro-transactions too, but youtube stats you can see they make $217.4k to $2million a year from youtube alone.
<a href="http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/RiotGamesInc" target="_blank">RiotGamesInc Money stats on youtube</a>
parasite as it is is in a terrible spot. completely useless after 2 minutes. i cannot fathom why they both made it temporary and made it curable through the armory/medpacks.
to answer the OP: no, i don't think DLC is appropriate for this kind of game.
want to support the devs? buy a 4pack and split it with friends.
$596 - $5.6K /day
$217.4K - $2M /yr
yes, they make money from micro-transactions too, but youtube stats you can see they make $217.4k to $2million a year from youtube alone.
<a href="http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/RiotGamesInc" target="_blank">RiotGamesInc Money stats on youtube</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even at the high end of that (2m/yr), that wouldn't even come close to covering the salaries/benefits of the entire staff at Riot.
You missed the point. Youtube is not meant to pay every 400 employees from Riot, but receiving $2 million a year from youtube for posting videos is not bad at all. See it has free money source not a place that will pay for everything. DLC's is not even going to come close to youtube money. That's what I was trying to prove.
I threw this together to show what the evolution system SHOULD'VE been like.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dude, Temphage; make a suggestion of this!
It could pick up!
It could pick up!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know enough of Natural Selection and the UWE devs to understand that:
1) The suggestions forum is only there so they don't have to listen to better ideas than the stupid ones they had, so it's a nice place for them to completely ignore everything.
2) They don't give a rats ass about what the community wants or thinks. Your mantrap idea is excellent and has overwhelming support. Guess what, the devs will never act on it. They only care about Flayra's "vision". We're just giant bags of cash for them to milk.
It's not just the 'public community'. The complaint threads are full of beta testers who are saying that they brought up the same complaints in beta, and were totally ignored. They knew Fade vulnerability during Blink and the shotgun doing normal damage would severely cripple the Fade, but they didn't listen and shipped with it like that anyway.
There was a guy in the NS1 days whose entire job was to sort out the Suggestions forum and make note of the good ideas. I think only TWO community ideas ever made it into the game, and it was useless, little things like marine hand grenades.
I might do it anyway, since thinking of these abilities it more fun than playing NS2.
1) The suggestions forum is only there so they don't have to listen to better ideas than the stupid ones they had, so it's a nice place for them to completely ignore everything.
2) They don't give a rats ass about what the community wants or thinks. Your mantrap idea is excellent and has overwhelming support. Guess what, the devs will never act on it. They only care about Flayra's "vision". We're just giant bags of cash for them to milk.
[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ouch... <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->that hurt<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->... I actually felt my heart tighten. I personally think they listen to the community.
I'm just worrying that now that the game is becoming more popular, the forums will become too saturated with content for them to keep up to date with our feedback and suggestions <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(the good ones atleast)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
I <i>know</i> they aren't ba*****, They are just extremely busy, and if a community suggested feature is planned, <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->they most likely won't vocalize about it <b>either ways.</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<b>That's my honest to god hopes</b>, I just wish we could know if the ideas are terrible or not, or if they like them or not. Because I'm getting exasperated trying to get UWE to just acknowledge <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(not implement)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> Cerberi, If they posted it's not what they are looking for, good for me; I can stop updating it now. If they at-least acknowledge it, I did all I can do; and they know about it: I can stop updating it now. I'm seriously thinking about giving up. But not before sending them an email, asking them to take a glimpse of it.
<b>Also, this is rumour material, don't take it as fact:</b>
My older brother said he contacted Hugh from my steam account one day, <!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->claiming Hugh said the idea was cool and a possible future feature,<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->But I can't quantify the veracity of that statement. Or even if it's true if he cared enough about it to show it to his development peers, or if he remembered to.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> And I'm not very keen to contact him directly. Altho fact is that my brother likes to ###### with my account.
Time will tell but so far their 'communication' with us has been 'LOOK AT OUR WIN PERCENTAGES GAME IS BALANCED', with no word whatsoever about any fixes coming for the server browser / connection failures that is plaguing most people.
If it makes you feel better, they DID use a couple of ideas from the I&S forum in NS1... unfortunately the only ones I can think of were excluded from NS2 altogether.
If you are not happy with the game then don't play it, otherwise stop whining like a little ###### and get on with life. Or perhaps make your own game, because clearly you know better than UWE and apparently balancing this game is as easy as coming up with an idea a throwing fairy dust at it to get it into the game.
If you are not happy with the game then don't play it, otherwise stop whining like a little ###### and get on with life. Or perhaps make your own game, because clearly you know better than UWE and apparently balancing this game is as easy as coming up with an idea a throwing fairy dust at it to get it into the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Things like tying marine weapon / armor tech levels to their level of tech node control and only allowing sensor sweeps / medkits / ammo in places where they have power, have unpowered / infested areas much darker than powered areas, and making Carapace scale are hardly revolutionary ideas.
If NS1 was balanced and fun, and now suddenly the NS2 aliens are missing literally half their features and options, what does that mean? That Aliens have MORE options and are MORE fun now?
The only alien that is fun to play is the Fade, and as soon as they start handing out shotguns with upgrades, you quickly give up because two shots kills you.
What the developers should do instead though, is introduce a skin system alike League of Legends, where players can buy cosmetic items, skins and add-ons to support the game further, so that it's kept "alive."
If you can't grasp the basic concept of the economic system, there's no point in having this discussion with you who disagree.
Kickstarter for a new game by UWE, hell yes!
I wont buy DLC, I will buy a new game from UWE (Like Scardybob posts) but I am sick of DLC riddled games these days, most of the bloody games are built with the idea of selling DLC later so you can never be sure if the game you bought was all it could be ... or was it all it was allowed to be by the accountants.
Not if it doesn't affect gameplay, which would be very odd if it did in a game that relies on balance around weapons and classes...
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/JcpgB.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/JcpgB.png</a>
I threw this together to show what the evolution system SHOULD'VE been like.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I joined these forums just to post that you're entirely right about the alien upgrade path. As a former NS1 player - I have been away for years. I bought NS2 not having played the betas, and was really surprised at how difficult it is to properly motivate and command an alien team. The upgrades are expensive - and take a considerable amount of time to develop. Having these evolutions broken down into multi-stage/branching upgrade paths is EXACTLY what this game needs. It would introduce smaller changes into the alien evolution which would help smooth out the game balancing and pacing issues. Half the problem is that it's this tug of war which happens with each of these milestone upgrades. Marines will dominate until the aliens upgrade, and so forth.
As you diagrammed - the parasite option needs to have the opportunity to evolve to a more destructive and gameplay changing weapon. As of now - skulks (which account for at least 75% of the species break down throughout a whole game) are limited to a relatively useless defensive weapon (parasite) and the short range bite. I can understand giving skulks more armor and health because they have the disadvantage of having no ranged attacks. But giving marines both high amounts of armor and health (which rapidly increases several fold) as well as ranged weapons (and close range melee attacks) which get exponentially more powerful within the first 15 minutes of the game is ridiculous. The only way for Skulks to be truly competitive against the marines is to roam in packs and have at least one or two upgrades and leap. Changing parasite into an upgrade path would encourage players to do more than just rush the marines or have to camp (in these gigantic maps, this is not realistic). Parasite would also add the necessity for a dedicated medic class/upgrade path for marines - which would also add another level of teamwork. Marines need specialization too - not just having a commander who does the heavy lifting leaving everyone else to buy welders and do repairs. Resource points could be used in a variety of creative ways.
Just looking at the K:D ratio of Marines vs Aliens should show that the game is very biased towards marines. The only saving grace being that personal resource points are no longer earned from each kill. But it does impact the balance of the game given that alien skulks get mowed down like they're disposable - and spend a large chunk of the game waiting to respawn. It doesn't help that marine upgrades for weapons and such are so inexpensive compared to the evolution requirements for aliens. When aliens die - they lose an average of 30-50 resource points from their evolution to lerk or fade. Marines only really lose 20-30 depending on the weapon they choose to upgrade to.
That said - it's a very fun game. But the aliens need a bit of spicing up to make it interesting. There's an incredible amount of potential - but it's apparent that the minimum amount of complexity was included in the game at launch.
They have also stated that 1.0 is the beginning.
I follow this because the development interests me, I like watching the competitive tourneys (because FPS is surprisingly exciting from the RTS view) and I occasionally play it on my crappy laptop.
I have posted a godzillion times and e-mail Charlie with suggestions to make the sentrys competitive and pub friendly, but I don't own 51% of the company when I bought the game so I just have to keep posting on here with the possible result that he'll decide to use the idea. You know, democracy.
I have had no illusions that 1.0 for the devs is just the beginning. Really it is a chance to throw it into the world so that they can make enough money to take this game further and potentially a 3rd in the series and a budget to take this even further and possibly try some really new ideas.
I think they mention the TF2 model a lot, but really they mean the Valve model which is to nurture a game once released. For me 1.0 is the exciting time, because this is when we are probably going to see Charlie sitting down (whilst Max & Co continue to optimise and polish) and thinking 'what can we add to this game' and 'how can we balance this properly' given the breather this 1.0 release will hopefully give them all for working so hard to achieve their dream.
Or this is how I like to imagine Flayra's mind works. Though he could be in Hawaii with 10 girls, resting his cocktail on the papier-mache Gorge with his own personal butlering Hughnicorn. I wouldn't blame him!