NS1 was great at the time, but NS2 is the vastly superior game.
And don't judge this on nostalgia. Go back and actually play NS1 for a bit. You'll be horrified.
This.
Haven't played NS for.. ehh... since like 2003 ? Played for a few days last week.
Skulk/lerk/fade/jetpack movement is so horrible, no fluidity in motion or something else is missing, that's for sure.
RFK is disaster.
And... eh... devour.
Maps are good, tho. All ns2 maps, except for veil, has the same strucute: wheel. Either with tech point in the middle, or 5 points scattered around. Would love to see something more complicated/different in NS2. Also, those huge doors, elevators. Really adds to atmosphere.
Bad
2) The notorious "getting killed around the corner" lag due to hl network quirks.
Wait what??? I just said to myself yesterday that the HL engine is still one of the best engines out there, especially regarding network.
The "getting killed around the corner" rarely happens even with a game where you move as fast as NS1 (which is faster than NS2).
NS1 was great at the time, but NS2 is the vastly superior game.
And don't judge this on nostalgia. Go back and actually play NS1 for a bit. You'll be horrified.
I play it every day, and everyday I have the same thought, NS1 is a crazy freaking good game and nothing that good has been done after that, it is vastly superior in so many way than NS2. And the part of a game that are important to me are the one where NS1 is great: the gameplay and the depth of this game is crazy.
NS1 was great at the time, but NS2 is the vastly superior game.
And don't judge this on nostalgia. Go back and actually play NS1 for a bit. You'll be horrified.
This.
Haven't played NS for.. ehh... since like 2003 ? Played for a few days last week.
Skulk/lerk/fade/jetpack movement is so horrible, no fluidity in motion or something else is missing, that's for sure.
What²??? The motion is so fluid in NS1, thanks to the HL engine and old school gameplay and controls. You have an absolute control of your character, that's one of the big complain about NS2.
About Devour I never understood the complain. Yeah it's frustrating, but so is building. I loved it because you had that strain to know if you are going to be rescued or not. And the hope was fading away as much as the shots were fading out.
If you haven't played NS1 for a long time, you need to play it for a while before forming an opinion about it. The movement is quite different and so it takes a bit of time to get used to it, obviously it's gonna feel weird coming from NS2.
What²??? The motion is so fluid in NS1, thanks to the HL engine and old school gameplay and controls. You have an absolute control of your character, that's one of the big complain about NS2.
It's the exact opposite for me. When I tried NS1 again, I couldn't believe this is what it was like all those years and skulks felt like bricks with virtually no air control compared to NS2. I think what most people complain about in NS2 movement is the slight acceleration, as in you don't instantly teleport-move anymore when you press a button. I never understood why this is a problem for some. Everything is just as, if not more responsive in NS2 because air control is increased. My character does exactly what I want it to do. In NS1, you jump in one direction and can't stop that movement before landing. It was just frustrating and unintuitive and I couldn't even be bothered to learn the game again. Also, I will never be able to live without walljumping ever again. And I never cared much about bunnyhopping because it's aesthetically stupid.
I loved NS1, and I love NS2... but there's only one thing I truly miss.
I miss Gorges being the builders. If UWE came out and said, "Next big patch: Khammander gone! Gorges back in business!" I would lose my mind and start beating my chest and roaring in triumph.
The mod Natural Selection 2: Classic goes a long way in making things better, and above and beyond by not only returning it to the old, but adding new. The whip upgrades add new flavor and choice to the game. Do we go for our movement, defense, stealth/awareness, or damage? The only time the extra hive choice goes down is on Veil (only 4 tech points).
Unfortunately, NS2:C doesn't see a lot of play.
Oh, wait. I also miss armories not healing armor. Armory humping marines in NS2 don't know how to use a welder. It's a disgrace!
What²??? The motion is so fluid in NS1, thanks to the HL engine and old school gameplay and controls. You have an absolute control of your character, that's one of the big complain about NS2.
It's the exact opposite for me. When I tried NS1 again, I couldn't believe this is what it was like all those years and skulks felt like bricks with virtually no air control compared to NS2. I think what most people complain about in NS2 movement is the slight acceleration, as in you don't instantly teleport-move anymore when you press a button. I never understood why this is a problem for some. Everything is just as, if not more responsive in NS2 because air control is increased. My character does exactly what I want it to do. In NS1, you jump in one direction and can't stop that movement before landing. It was just frustrating and unintuitive and I couldn't even be bothered to learn the game again. Also, I will never be able to live without walljumping ever again. And I never cared much about bunnyhopping because it's aesthetically stupid.
I just tried all of that in depth just to be sure about it.
Yes, there is more air control in NS2, but only if you are standing still. But an unmoving skulk is a dead skulk. If you are in motion, you can control your Skulk a lot more in the air in NS1, and the faster you go the more control you have (while it looks like it's a flat rate in NS2). You can even do a "S" in the air with leap and Celerity.
Again, if you want to stop in the air in NS1, it's a lot easier and faster in NS1 than in NS2. It's instant in NS1 while you have an inertia in NS2. Try to stop from a full celerity leap in NS2, it's impossible.
Basically nearly everything in movement is delayed in NS2, and not as responsive and as fast as in NS1.
Also the leap in NS2 is nearly like the jump in NS1.
The proportions are probably not the same, but I can go from the west wall of the marine start in Veil (control) while I can't even go half way of the room in NS2. The moment you leap you feel no impulse, it's like the skulk is having a hard time to move its ass from the ground.
One other problem in NS2, is the consistency, you rarely get the same impact by doing the same thing.
Just do that experiment: go on a platform (summit Atrium) and throw yourself into the deep end and try to come back on it by doing a 180. Then try above the ramp in the south of Data core, it will seem harder. Perhaps because the wall will try to suck you up? I don't know, but don't even think about using the ctrl key to disable this, as it will suck you to the ground.
In open areas you generally have more control than in closed areas.
With all that, I don't see how you can say that Skulks in NS1 are like bricks, with all those differences in movement mechanisms (which are the opposite that you claims). That's the kind of things that added so much depth to the NS1 movement and gameplay.
Test it for yourself, I launched NS1 and NS2 like dozens times today just to be sure.
I replayed ns1 for a few weeks before ns2 was released. Beware of rose-tinted spectacles!
What negatives did you find there? I just absolutely loathe the nostalgia argument without any backup. Way too often it's used as the go-to when you actually don't have a proper argument.
Don't get me wrong, I still liked NS1! But off the top of my head, here are a few of the things I found specifically annoying and/or worse than NS2:
Hitboxes not matching models well (had to re-learn the old shooting-above-the-skulk's-bum thing)
Graphics - OH SO DATED!
Music: the classic music is amazing - really really great - but is of poor audio quality, and the new stuff in NS2 is also very good but much nicer to listen to!
Skulk movement. I remembered it very differently to how it was when I replayed. This is before I played NS2, and in retrospect, I prefer the way the skulk moves in NS2. Even post-b240.
Fades being so strong. I had to think hard about whether this is better in NS2 or not. On balance, I like the hit-and-run feel, but wish we could bring back no armoury healing to make this a valid tactic. The NS1 fade was more tanky IMHO.
Devour: This ruined NS1 for me, personally. I hated being taken out of the game like that. Strangely, I don't feel so aggravated by stomp. Maybe because it doesn't seem to last for 5 minutes, and it's not a 99% chance of death...
Marine turtles in NS1 could be monstrous. Now, occasionally this can be fun, but when you have limited gaming time (like me) it's annoying to have to leave a game without an end - plus it just seems so wrong.
Bunnyhopping. (I used to do this in Kingpin, and I used to teach it. I had a training session twice a week for people, and had a mapper friend make me a training map, which included a section with a fast moving spike wall - you had to bunnyhop quite a long distance to be able to make it through this section. This really taught people how to do it rather well! I later came round to the opinion that, as the vast majority of people couldn't do it, didn't know about it and didn't like the admittedly stupid look of it, it was completely unintuitive and seemed like a cheat, and therefore I concluded that it might as well be a cheat and I stopped using bunnyhopping.) I personally didn't like it in any game after that because there was a completely ridiculous barrier to most people due to it being unintuitive and exploitative of an engine bug. I know the arguments - these are just my personal feelings on it. I'm personally glad that bunnyhopping (in the true sense of the word) is out of modern engines.
Moar Turrents Commando! - no wait, we still have this problem...
<and a couple of unrelated ones>
The community in NS1 that remained when I replayed it was SO elitist. (Think it was bad back in 2004-5? Try it now!)
Some of the mods used: self-weld on one server I didn't like at all, also a whole load of completely unintuitive and undocumented armoury mod changes.
And to keep things balanced, it's only fair that I also list some things that I DID like in NS1 more than the current implementation/lack thereof in NS2:
Tenseness and 'atmosphere' - this is still there in NS2, but isn't *quite* at the same level yet.
Armoury not healing armour - makes hit and run really worthwhile. Hoping this comes to NS2...
Permanent parasite on marines and buildings. The hive sight was MUCH better, and I also preferred the lack of outline on marines so you didn't know which way they were facing.
Weldables - this is a big one that NS1 does better. I'm hoping this makes it to NS2 soon!
Those are just my opinions and feelings, based on playing NS1 for a few weeks before NS2 came out. Both are EXCELLENT games, but for me NS2 clinches it. I was surprised that I found as many faults with NS1 when I replayed it, as I do remember it very fondly indeed, except for devour
And to keep things balanced, it's only fair that I also list some things that I DID like in NS1 more than the current implementation/lack thereof in NS2:
Tenseness and 'atmosphere' - this is still there in NS2, but isn't *quite* at the same level yet.
Armoury not healing armour - makes hit and run really worthwhile. Hoping this comes to NS2...
Permanent parasite on marines and buildings. The hive sight was MUCH better, and I also preferred the lack of outline on marines so you didn't know which way they were facing.
Weldables - this is a big one that NS1 does better. I'm hoping this makes it to NS2 soon!
Nailed it. Especially the "Tenseness and Atmosphere". Nothing in NS2 comes close to trying to set up a covert Siege Base in NS1.
And to keep things balanced, it's only fair that I also list some things that I DID like in NS1 more than the current implementation/lack thereof in NS2:
Tenseness and 'atmosphere' - this is still there in NS2, but isn't *quite* at the same level yet.
Armoury not healing armour - makes hit and run really worthwhile. Hoping this comes to NS2...
Permanent parasite on marines and buildings. The hive sight was MUCH better, and I also preferred the lack of outline on marines so you didn't know which way they were facing.
Weldables - this is a big one that NS1 does better. I'm hoping this makes it to NS2 soon!
Nailed it. Especially the "Tenseness and Atmosphere". Nothing in NS2 comes close to trying to set up a covert Siege Base in NS1.
^ These. I wish armory healing armor would go away, as it gives an incentive for welders to be used much more among teammates. Also would love to see the return of permanent (until death) parasite and NS1-esk hivemind changes. It was quite fun getting marines parasited in NS1, especially in the early game.
Okay, I think I've been sold. I'm going to download the mod and try it out for myself. I don't know if there is still an active population but here's hoping
What²??? The motion is so fluid in NS1, thanks to the HL engine and old school gameplay and controls. You have an absolute control of your character, that's one of the big complain about NS2.
It's the exact opposite for me. When I tried NS1 again, I couldn't believe this is what it was like all those years and skulks felt like bricks with virtually no air control compared to NS2. I think what most people complain about in NS2 movement is the slight acceleration, as in you don't instantly teleport-move anymore when you press a button. I never understood why this is a problem for some. Everything is just as, if not more responsive in NS2 because air control is increased. My character does exactly what I want it to do. In NS1, you jump in one direction and can't stop that movement before landing. It was just frustrating and unintuitive and I couldn't even be bothered to learn the game again. Also, I will never be able to live without walljumping ever again. And I never cared much about bunnyhopping because it's aesthetically stupid.
Are you holding forward(W for most) while in the air? You should not. In NS1 you can make crazy turns in the air without losing any speed at all(1080 degrees for example). In Ns2 you cant even do 180.
On topic in NS1 i loved and still love the speed of everything(play it almost everyday). Aliens move faster(harder to hit), but so do marines(with JP you are faster than a fade without celerity, with celerity you can still keep up for some time.). Overall NS1 is even harder to learn and harder to master than NS2, which makes games of NS1 even more fun, even more frustrating or even more rewarding than in NS2. Depends on the players. 1 super fade or 1 super marine can dominate whole other team. Not so much in NS2.
What i feel is the problem in NS2 right now is the fades.
Id like to see at least one of these to happen:
1. Shotguns made to shoot twice as fast, but lowering dmg to 50%(2 marines cant now instakill fade)
2. Armory healing from armory removed to make hit & run more effective.
3. Better air control.
One thing i find that is better in NS2 is the onos. In NS1 fade is always a better choice than onos, if you know how to play it. In NS2 onos is actually useful.
Okay, I think I've been sold. I'm going to download the mod and try it out for myself. I don't know if there is still an active population but here's hoping
I think you can catch a 32 player server active here and there. Depending on what you're looking for, it might be the best or absolute worst place to try NS1.
I definitely prefer smaller servers (6v6 organized or pubs up to 24 players or so), but I guess there are also some reason for the 32 player servers remaining active the longest in NS1 lifespan.
If you're interested in all the fuzz about movement, skill based gameplay and such, you can probably find some competetive replays in the ENSL site. You can drop me a message if you can't figure out how to run them, it's a bit tricky compared to most modern games.
I loved NS1 at first but Combat sort of spoilt it for me. The long epic games of classic stopped and players just wanted a quick fix with classic instead. I left and didn't play for a good while. I downloaded it again when I signed up for the alpha of NS2 and found very few servers. The players who were still playing were very elitist and abusive and I didn't play long before quitting, as did all of my friends.
I much prefer NS2. Pretty much in every way. The three things I disliked the most: bhop, Gorge web and devour were gone and the skill ceiling is much better for casual gamers, which is the majority which means more players will not just buy NS2 but end up sticking with it.
Its too easy to get all nostalgic, but UW have rightly looked to the future rather than the past.
The problem with that logic is that it is horribly flawed. NS2 currently at best enjoys ~1500 concurrent players, a decent amount of those players are active/semi active with competitive or more organized public play. While there is certainly a degree of approachability that NS2 does bring that NS1 lacked, the genre and design of the game is inheriently very niche and hard to get into. By removing the very designs that kept NS1 so populated for years (NS1 had more players concurrently 2 years after release then NS2 has currently, granted that is a very abstract comparison), I fear that without changes to NS2 that return it to the roots of the game and its design focuses, NS2 will not survive for 10 years like its predecessor.
Another thing worth noting is that if not for some mistakes during NS1's lifecycle, there is an extremely large chance that NS1 would still be both hugely popular, and potentially have even become a successful e-sports game.
blindJoin Date: 2010-04-17Member: 71437Members, Squad Five Gold
I miss NS1 movements the most. Just compare JP vs. fade fights (starts 3m24s), without even touching the other classes:
Don't get me wrong, I love NS2. But the fast paced action in NS1 combined with the strategy involved and incredible depth keeping you busy for years to improve is what really thrived me personally. No doubt that NS1 at its last iteration v3.2 was the almost perfect game for me and I hope NS2 will reach it one day as well. Of course, this can only be a personal opinon, so I am just leaving it as how I feel.
People keep talking about how NS1 "changed" over the course of its lifetime, and several have made references to some mistakes made by the developers. What do they mean when saying things like that?
Also this is a silly question but how exactly do I play NS1? lol. I downloaded the game and I tried opening HL to start playing but I couldn't quite figure out how to actually do it.
People keep talking about how NS1 "changed" over the course of its lifetime, and several have made references to some mistakes made by the developers. What do they mean when saying things like that?
The final version of NS1 was 3.2. There were tons of smaller patches, but also two big reworks leading from 1.0 through 2.0 to 3.0s.
At least the transition to 2.0 was a huge one and they reworked the whole resoucre model and a lot of the core ideas in the gameplay. The result made some players quite unhappy, but I think at least some kind of redesign was necessary to allow NS to develop further. The 1.0 model had some interesting and awesome things in it, but it was also really rigid, vulnerable and limited in many aspects.
Also this is a silly question but how exactly do I play NS1? lol. I downloaded the game and I tried opening HL to start playing but I couldn't quite figure out how to actually do it.
I think the basic steps are:
1. ) Download Half Life on Steam and run it once so that all the necessary files are generated.
2. ) Run the NS 3.2 installer.
3. ) You should now have a separate Natural Selection entry on your steam games list. Run it from there.
The most confusing part is probably that you actually might have to run Half Life before it all works. For some reason simply downloading it doesn't complete it all the way.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
NS1 was awesome and got me hooked.
* the marine tres, alien pres was different and I find it more fun then the res system in ns2. (I liked overflow also)
* aliens felt more close with there 'gorge commander'.
* marines relocates were fun.
* so many maps to go up & down and interact with your environment. like welders, swim. etc
* Hive sight felt awsome.. I have still not gotten used to the new yellow outline hivesight. (although I guess its superior)
* parasite felt better, think it was better. it was permanent.
* HA, unlike Exo, were not a complete liability.
* Scent of Fear was a funny end game update.
* gorge in general was more fun. Actually building everything yourself.. dodging marines to stay alive to build more. Or a fully experienced battlegorge.. awsome.
* long long long long epic matches. (I had 8 hour matches aswell)
* OC/DC combo.. OP but ow so fun.
* combacks possible with a but..
* I liked webs.
But the bad
* Horribly unbalanced. Rushes were even easier then now.
* think shade is bad? Try sensory. Actually you had 1 upgrade path. Movement > defense > sensory, and anything else was a step backwards.
* graphics of course
* combat.. it crushed the classic playing community as there were no matches of good quality most of the time, for classic.
* Almost every goddamn server ran mods, making playing vanilla even harder.
* about those comebacks.. usually it was just camp camp camp > push. Very boring very fast.
* turtling was even worse then it is now.
NS1 jetpacks were much more powerful and fun to fly with.
No delay between leap and bite. In ns2 it's very hard to do a fast leap->bite
I don't like physics death animations since they are very inconsistent compared to death animations.
Metal ManJoin Date: 2011-11-13Member: 132717Members
rose-tinted spectacles... nostalgia... come on people...
I will admit NS2 does MANY things better than NS1. I really do appreciate and like this game. But NS1 is superior:
Watch blind's video. We all want NS2 to be great but this game (like its predecessor) SHOULD be sharp and intense in atmosphere and combat. Really that video says it all. And that didn't even show combat from the alien side.
Played some NS1 and had a great time with it. I agree that the combat feels a lot better than in NS2. I mainly played as a marine and I thought the combat was excellent, much more fluid and less jump-spammy. Played a bit as a skulk but not knowing the maps hurt me a bit and I got killed a bunch of times. Also I didn't know how to evolve to higher life forms so I don't know what they felt like either.
There weren't a lot of people though . The server got up to a 4v4 at most
the atmosphere is what i miss the most in ns1, comparing the two, ns2 has none, and i hope UWE is considering redoing the overall art of ns2 to make it closer to NS1, simply making colors less saturated is a start, then add some more ambient sounds.
i loved playing ns1 and hearing the fade breathe as he goes around the map, in ns2 all you hear is blink swipes and steps, very dull
In NS1, you jump in one direction and can't stop that movement before landing. It was just frustrating and unintuitive and I couldn't even be bothered to learn the game again.
Frustrating perhaps but you can in no way call it unintuitive, its exactly how things work in real life and last I checked peoples intuition is based off the real world (at least for those of us who live there).
Also I miss the mad dps of the knife, that thing hit like a ton of bricks.
Comments
This.
Haven't played NS for.. ehh... since like 2003 ? Played for a few days last week.
Skulk/lerk/fade/jetpack movement is so horrible, no fluidity in motion or something else is missing, that's for sure.
RFK is disaster.
And... eh... devour.
Maps are good, tho. All ns2 maps, except for veil, has the same strucute: wheel. Either with tech point in the middle, or 5 points scattered around. Would love to see something more complicated/different in NS2. Also, those huge doors, elevators. Really adds to atmosphere.
The "getting killed around the corner" rarely happens even with a game where you move as fast as NS1 (which is faster than NS2).
I play it every day, and everyday I have the same thought, NS1 is a crazy freaking good game and nothing that good has been done after that, it is vastly superior in so many way than NS2. And the part of a game that are important to me are the one where NS1 is great: the gameplay and the depth of this game is crazy.
What²??? The motion is so fluid in NS1, thanks to the HL engine and old school gameplay and controls. You have an absolute control of your character, that's one of the big complain about NS2.
About Devour I never understood the complain. Yeah it's frustrating, but so is building. I loved it because you had that strain to know if you are going to be rescued or not. And the hope was fading away as much as the shots were fading out.
Actually that's a great idea, I'll give that a try tonight.
I miss Gorges being the builders. If UWE came out and said, "Next big patch: Khammander gone! Gorges back in business!" I would lose my mind and start beating my chest and roaring in triumph.
The mod Natural Selection 2: Classic goes a long way in making things better, and above and beyond by not only returning it to the old, but adding new. The whip upgrades add new flavor and choice to the game. Do we go for our movement, defense, stealth/awareness, or damage? The only time the extra hive choice goes down is on Veil (only 4 tech points).
Unfortunately, NS2:C doesn't see a lot of play.
Oh, wait. I also miss armories not healing armor. Armory humping marines in NS2 don't know how to use a welder. It's a disgrace!
You can affect you trajectory with air strafing. Release forward key, strafe and smoothly move your mouse in the strafing direction.
Yes, there is more air control in NS2, but only if you are standing still. But an unmoving skulk is a dead skulk. If you are in motion, you can control your Skulk a lot more in the air in NS1, and the faster you go the more control you have (while it looks like it's a flat rate in NS2). You can even do a "S" in the air with leap and Celerity.
Again, if you want to stop in the air in NS1, it's a lot easier and faster in NS1 than in NS2. It's instant in NS1 while you have an inertia in NS2. Try to stop from a full celerity leap in NS2, it's impossible.
Basically nearly everything in movement is delayed in NS2, and not as responsive and as fast as in NS1.
Also the leap in NS2 is nearly like the jump in NS1.
The proportions are probably not the same, but I can go from the west wall of the marine start in Veil (control) while I can't even go half way of the room in NS2. The moment you leap you feel no impulse, it's like the skulk is having a hard time to move its ass from the ground.
One other problem in NS2, is the consistency, you rarely get the same impact by doing the same thing.
Just do that experiment: go on a platform (summit Atrium) and throw yourself into the deep end and try to come back on it by doing a 180. Then try above the ramp in the south of Data core, it will seem harder. Perhaps because the wall will try to suck you up? I don't know, but don't even think about using the ctrl key to disable this, as it will suck you to the ground.
In open areas you generally have more control than in closed areas.
- Some videos of trick jump? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmYBwZj6GgA (Just go for the skulk tricks)
- The quality is really really bad, but try to go as fast as that in Veil with that much control https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lElzo-IKgCI
- And that's the kind of things I miss in NS2 (regarding movement) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu74Exq-rog
With all that, I don't see how you can say that Skulks in NS1 are like bricks, with all those differences in movement mechanisms (which are the opposite that you claims). That's the kind of things that added so much depth to the NS1 movement and gameplay.
Test it for yourself, I launched NS1 and NS2 like dozens times today just to be sure.
Don't get me wrong, I still liked NS1! But off the top of my head, here are a few of the things I found specifically annoying and/or worse than NS2:
Hitboxes not matching models well (had to re-learn the old shooting-above-the-skulk's-bum thing)
Graphics - OH SO DATED!
Music: the classic music is amazing - really really great - but is of poor audio quality, and the new stuff in NS2 is also very good but much nicer to listen to!
Skulk movement. I remembered it very differently to how it was when I replayed. This is before I played NS2, and in retrospect, I prefer the way the skulk moves in NS2. Even post-b240.
Fades being so strong. I had to think hard about whether this is better in NS2 or not. On balance, I like the hit-and-run feel, but wish we could bring back no armoury healing to make this a valid tactic. The NS1 fade was more tanky IMHO.
Devour: This ruined NS1 for me, personally. I hated being taken out of the game like that. Strangely, I don't feel so aggravated by stomp. Maybe because it doesn't seem to last for 5 minutes, and it's not a 99% chance of death...
Marine turtles in NS1 could be monstrous. Now, occasionally this can be fun, but when you have limited gaming time (like me) it's annoying to have to leave a game without an end - plus it just seems so wrong.
Bunnyhopping. (I used to do this in Kingpin, and I used to teach it. I had a training session twice a week for people, and had a mapper friend make me a training map, which included a section with a fast moving spike wall - you had to bunnyhop quite a long distance to be able to make it through this section. This really taught people how to do it rather well! I later came round to the opinion that, as the vast majority of people couldn't do it, didn't know about it and didn't like the admittedly stupid look of it, it was completely unintuitive and seemed like a cheat, and therefore I concluded that it might as well be a cheat and I stopped using bunnyhopping.) I personally didn't like it in any game after that because there was a completely ridiculous barrier to most people due to it being unintuitive and exploitative of an engine bug. I know the arguments - these are just my personal feelings on it. I'm personally glad that bunnyhopping (in the true sense of the word) is out of modern engines.
Moar Turrents Commando! - no wait, we still have this problem...
<and a couple of unrelated ones>
The community in NS1 that remained when I replayed it was SO elitist. (Think it was bad back in 2004-5? Try it now!)
Some of the mods used: self-weld on one server I didn't like at all, also a whole load of completely unintuitive and undocumented armoury mod changes.
And to keep things balanced, it's only fair that I also list some things that I DID like in NS1 more than the current implementation/lack thereof in NS2:
Tenseness and 'atmosphere' - this is still there in NS2, but isn't *quite* at the same level yet.
Armoury not healing armour - makes hit and run really worthwhile. Hoping this comes to NS2...
Permanent parasite on marines and buildings. The hive sight was MUCH better, and I also preferred the lack of outline on marines so you didn't know which way they were facing.
Weldables - this is a big one that NS1 does better. I'm hoping this makes it to NS2 soon!
Those are just my opinions and feelings, based on playing NS1 for a few weeks before NS2 came out. Both are EXCELLENT games, but for me NS2 clinches it. I was surprised that I found as many faults with NS1 when I replayed it, as I do remember it very fondly indeed, except for devour
Nailed it. Especially the "Tenseness and Atmosphere". Nothing in NS2 comes close to trying to set up a covert Siege Base in NS1.
^ These. I wish armory healing armor would go away, as it gives an incentive for welders to be used much more among teammates. Also would love to see the return of permanent (until death) parasite and NS1-esk hivemind changes. It was quite fun getting marines parasited in NS1, especially in the early game.
Are you holding forward(W for most) while in the air? You should not. In NS1 you can make crazy turns in the air without losing any speed at all(1080 degrees for example). In Ns2 you cant even do 180.
On topic in NS1 i loved and still love the speed of everything(play it almost everyday). Aliens move faster(harder to hit), but so do marines(with JP you are faster than a fade without celerity, with celerity you can still keep up for some time.). Overall NS1 is even harder to learn and harder to master than NS2, which makes games of NS1 even more fun, even more frustrating or even more rewarding than in NS2. Depends on the players. 1 super fade or 1 super marine can dominate whole other team. Not so much in NS2.
What i feel is the problem in NS2 right now is the fades.
Id like to see at least one of these to happen:
1. Shotguns made to shoot twice as fast, but lowering dmg to 50%(2 marines cant now instakill fade)
2. Armory healing from armory removed to make hit & run more effective.
3. Better air control.
One thing i find that is better in NS2 is the onos. In NS1 fade is always a better choice than onos, if you know how to play it. In NS2 onos is actually useful.
I definitely prefer smaller servers (6v6 organized or pubs up to 24 players or so), but I guess there are also some reason for the 32 player servers remaining active the longest in NS1 lifespan.
If you're interested in all the fuzz about movement, skill based gameplay and such, you can probably find some competetive replays in the ENSL site. You can drop me a message if you can't figure out how to run them, it's a bit tricky compared to most modern games.
I much prefer NS2. Pretty much in every way. The three things I disliked the most: bhop, Gorge web and devour were gone and the skill ceiling is much better for casual gamers, which is the majority which means more players will not just buy NS2 but end up sticking with it.
Its too easy to get all nostalgic, but UW have rightly looked to the future rather than the past.
Another thing worth noting is that if not for some mistakes during NS1's lifecycle, there is an extremely large chance that NS1 would still be both hugely popular, and potentially have even become a successful e-sports game.
Don't get me wrong, I love NS2. But the fast paced action in NS1 combined with the strategy involved and incredible depth keeping you busy for years to improve is what really thrived me personally. No doubt that NS1 at its last iteration v3.2 was the almost perfect game for me and I hope NS2 will reach it one day as well. Of course, this can only be a personal opinon, so I am just leaving it as how I feel.
Also this is a silly question but how exactly do I play NS1? lol. I downloaded the game and I tried opening HL to start playing but I couldn't quite figure out how to actually do it.
At least the transition to 2.0 was a huge one and they reworked the whole resoucre model and a lot of the core ideas in the gameplay. The result made some players quite unhappy, but I think at least some kind of redesign was necessary to allow NS to develop further. The 1.0 model had some interesting and awesome things in it, but it was also really rigid, vulnerable and limited in many aspects.
I think the basic steps are:
1. ) Download Half Life on Steam and run it once so that all the necessary files are generated.
2. ) Run the NS 3.2 installer.
3. ) You should now have a separate Natural Selection entry on your steam games list. Run it from there.
The most confusing part is probably that you actually might have to run Half Life before it all works. For some reason simply downloading it doesn't complete it all the way.
* the marine tres, alien pres was different and I find it more fun then the res system in ns2. (I liked overflow also)
* aliens felt more close with there 'gorge commander'.
* marines relocates were fun.
* so many maps to go up & down and interact with your environment. like welders, swim. etc
* Hive sight felt awsome.. I have still not gotten used to the new yellow outline hivesight. (although I guess its superior)
* parasite felt better, think it was better. it was permanent.
* HA, unlike Exo, were not a complete liability.
* Scent of Fear was a funny end game update.
* gorge in general was more fun. Actually building everything yourself.. dodging marines to stay alive to build more. Or a fully experienced battlegorge.. awsome.
* long long long long epic matches. (I had 8 hour matches aswell)
* OC/DC combo.. OP but ow so fun.
* combacks possible with a but..
* I liked webs.
But the bad
* Horribly unbalanced. Rushes were even easier then now.
* think shade is bad? Try sensory. Actually you had 1 upgrade path. Movement > defense > sensory, and anything else was a step backwards.
* graphics of course
* combat.. it crushed the classic playing community as there were no matches of good quality most of the time, for classic.
* Almost every goddamn server ran mods, making playing vanilla even harder.
* about those comebacks.. usually it was just camp camp camp > push. Very boring very fast.
* turtling was even worse then it is now.
No delay between leap and bite. In ns2 it's very hard to do a fast leap->bite
I don't like physics death animations since they are very inconsistent compared to death animations.
I will admit NS2 does MANY things better than NS1. I really do appreciate and like this game. But NS1 is superior:
Watch blind's video. We all want NS2 to be great but this game (like its predecessor) SHOULD be sharp and intense in atmosphere and combat. Really that video says it all. And that didn't even show combat from the alien side.
Also, looks like there's a new patch out for NS2!
There weren't a lot of people though
i loved playing ns1 and hearing the fade breathe as he goes around the map, in ns2 all you hear is blink swipes and steps, very dull
Frustrating perhaps but you can in no way call it unintuitive, its exactly how things work in real life and last I checked peoples intuition is based off the real world (at least for those of us who live there).
Also I miss the mad dps of the knife, that thing hit like a ton of bricks.