let's not pretend it even had a chance to sustain a player base they way the rushed it out
Yep. Decade-long development cycle... way too hurried and far too frantic to get it out the door.
decade long development cycle and we got game logic written in a scripting language that is almost definitely the cause of shit performance. (not to talk-down[can't think of the proper word] the effort for writing your own engine with a small team, that genuinely is amazing)
edit: I appreciate the effort they put in to make the game easily modifiable.. but they just went too far with it. It's great if any amateur coder can pick up the tools and whip out a mod, but it's even better if the game has a player base.
edit2: edited the post a bit to make it not sound as dickish, it isn't meant to be.
I think what the developers hope for that if the game is moddable enough, there going to be mods that have nothing to do with the aliens vs marines and become populair next to NS2. But the problem are the amount of players... the mods that are in development has always something todo with the aliens vs marines because the players that are playing NS now like the gameplay and are not going to make an counterstrike of it (for example), or with ARMA2 and Dayz.
Why it isn't popular : the games are essentially the same thing over and over, you win, and that's all you get. To be popular these days you need to engage the teen demographic of acheivement lovers. Top shooters all have progression, and while it doesn't always make for a good game and is often hated by old folks it brings in the masses. Classes, vehicles, gun variety, anything that makes for more toys to play with and more chances for epic action increase the amount of time any player will play and increased play time equals more people. Ns2 sadly probably loses 10 new players after a few hours for every 1 person it turns into a addict.
Its the old concept of you can only do something for so long and for so many times until you become bored with it.
The game has a very high learning curve. Not only do you need to learn about 2 different faction, you also need to learn about hwo the game operates. Finally the maps are really big and can be confusing at first.
I suppose this has already been stated, but there is no ranking up system. Or a system to play ranked games or 6v6 games. I wish there where servers that had 6v6 games and if one person left a spectator would take his place or something like that.
- Not casual enough to attract the masses.
- Small niche genre.
- Limited marketing.
- No skinner boxes.
- Heavy competition with plethora of f2p online shooters.
- Performance issues.
There's still potential for NS2 to grow though, if they can continue polishing it.
It's a hardcore, oldskool corridor shooter, which is extremely hard to truly understand for people who aren't proficient in both FPS and RTS games already, a combination which isn't very common to begin with.
On top of that, it's made by an indie studio, currently has incredible system requirements compared to, say, source engine or modded quake/id tech engine (cod) games.
It's a very peculiar and unforgiving game in many respects - unsurprisingly, the niche appeal leads to low player numbers.
Personally, I never stopped playing because of poor performance, and none of my friends, or anyone I know from my local community, stopped playing because of performance.
Not many people know NS2 yet unfortunately. Also, there are no "rewards" or "ranking" system. The common people loves "leveling up" and receiving new benefits and weapons. However, I do not see a reason to put that system in NS2.
I agree with the single player part. This is a hard game to get into if A) you haven't played NS1, and b) you aren't willing to put the time into getting good.
While a story mode could be developed (something simple like BZ2 had), it would take the devs "some" amount of time.
In the least, interactive tutorials would be great for new players in a single player mode. But we'd need intelligent bots and AI for that (especially for a campaign with a simple pre mission briefing story). And that my friends is a whole other can of worms...
You need AI paths, bot mechanics, tons of testing, etc. And I'm not sure for a game this complex, UWE has a large enough dev team.
Personally, I never stopped playing because of poor performance, and none of my friends, or anyone I know from my local community, stopped playing because of performance.
That's great and all. Allow me to share my experience; I bought the game for one friend who quit. I invited two others who quit. A friend of mine gave out his keys, they quit. I convinced another two friends to purchase it (one 4packed it with us), as you guessed they quit. Former top NS1 players quit the game in beta and made it verbal how shit the game was in both gameplay and performance... such huge advocates of NS1 saying that about NS2 doesn't really look good to the entire community that was reading it. I know that left a mark because when I ask people if they consider buying it, they refuse to due to shit performance (and yet they never played the game).
They quit because of performance. Perhaps it's because the people I play with are typically competitive players with higher standards for a games performance, though.
They quit because of performance. Perhaps it's because the people I play with are typically competitive players with higher standards for a games performance, though.
You are deluding yourself if you believe the main reason more people don't play is because of performance. Sure in your little circle of competitive players that may be a big issue, but for casuals, which are the mainstay of any game, it is not the biggest issue.
I already stated what I think it is in a earlier post.
They quit because of performance. Perhaps it's because the people I play with are typically competitive players with higher standards for a games performance, though.
You are deluding yourself if you believe the main reason more people don't play is because of performance. Sure in your little circle of competitive players that may be a big issue, but for casuals, which are the mainstay of any game, it is not the biggest issue.
I already stated what I think it is in a earlier post.
SintJoin Date: 2007-01-09Member: 59540Members, Squad Five Blue
Agreed that games nowadays need a way to progress somehow, get achievements or ranking. For example game like league of legends is pretty complex to learn to play properly but it has nice amount of unlock able content and also ranking system which makes it more interesting. In ns2 there is not much to keep player playing for years compared to other games (if player has to choose which game to play). Clan matches are good, but its big step to become clanner usually. Well this is just my personal opinion, I find it hard to find interest to play games if there are no bigger goals to go forward to.
If by incentives you mean gated content that is unlocked by grinding away for hours on end, that kind of thing only drives me away from games and I am sure I am not alone. The "reason to play" is to have fun and get better, not so I can unlock this "leeto-burrito" gun to "pwn sum n00bs" and make a frag video. Honestly these unlock systems are probably one of the worst things to happen to gaming ever. They are a time sink and disingenuous method of prolonging a game's life. If the game is fun to play, it will survive; if it isn't it won't. Building in some crappy tiered unlock system is a piss poor way to keep customers.
IMHO YMMV FWIW
I don't think that's what he meant at all. In fact you'd have to be an idiot to think that any dedicated member of NS2 would want that. What he was trying to say by using "incentives" was most likely a ranking system. You want to be rewarded by all your practice not with new guns and stuff, but by a simple recognition of your skill level. If NS2 was to have a ranking system that allowed you to be not only recognized as skilled but also be able to play a higher skill level tier that would be reward in itself. I think it's safe to say that any dedicated NS2 player with more than 600 hrs doesn't want NS2 to become a COD crap knock-off with unlocked weapons/upgrades, but they do want recognition for the amount of time/practice they've dedicated to the game.
What happened to winning your engagements as a recognition of your skill? I don't need some fancy icon next to my name, special skin for my marine, or any other such cruft to know that my practice has paid off.
Besides, his own words were "Each contains some type of ranking and/or level system with rewards. I would say if NS had such rewards and levels, it would have a rising player base instead of a decreasing. " so to me it does sound like he wants something like that.
Furthermore, I think you missed the word "If" in my post.
OP asked why NS2 is not more popular; I answered. A ranking/level/reward system would no doubt bring more players into the community. Do I want a reward system that gives aesthetics to your character? I do not really care. It does not affect me if someone has a cooler looking gun than I do. From a business stand point for UWE, rewards, as mentioned, would most likely bring in more players. If they go that rout, I would not mind; it is a smart move. As long as they do not change the way the game is played.
Although, I would LOVE some sort of matchmaking/ranking system(I believe UWE is working on this). Not to show off my e-peen as some see the system, but to be paired with players who are equally skilled as I. Quick, easy and no hassle. Of course, there would still be an option to play public servers that would not affect your ranking. I do not see why any hardcore player of NS2 would not desire an option to simply click a button and, minutes later, play a 6v6 with players who you do not CONSTANTLY have to yell at.
EDIT: Also, UWE is a business. I see nothing wrong with doing what you can to get and keep more customers.
I visited Paris when L4D was released. Pretty much every other billboard on the subway was an L4D poster, that's a lot of posters!
You can't really compare a Valve release with Unknown Worlds as the marketing budget couldn't be further apart.
That doesn't mean things can't be done to increase the quantity of players. Personally I would say forget you have a game already, if you were building it from scratch think of what you would do to increase the number of players and start from there. Achievements/Social Media integration, and as someone else said some sort of single player option.
It is clear the game was not made with any of this in mind as it is completely lacking in anything to increase player count. I think the main aim was to make a good game and people will come. I don't think I can argue with that logic. It doesn't matter how good your marketing is, if the games crap people won't play it.
We have a good game now, so I'd like to see some effort put into adding player increasing features to the game.
A single player option would take a lot of resources to create, has NS2 been successful enough to fund a huge amount of extra work like this?
I think a tutorial of some sorts would have been very helpful. Like a lot of folks, I gave out some copies to friends who no longer play. When asked, most of them said something along the lines of it being either too tough to understand what was going on, or too hard to get better at before getting tired of dying all the time.
While technically, yes this is a L2P issue, I'd rather have people want to L2P so I'll be able to enjoy this game as long as I did NS1.
Well known, ok...
I don't know what you consider a "supercomputer", and maybe everything below 60fps is "slideshow" to you. But my PC is over 5 years old (Core2Duo @2x3.3GHz, 4GB RAM, Geforce GTX 260) and NS2 is running just fine with toned down graphics. So if your computer is anything above mine, you are full of crap. You talk like pro gamers, but your hardware is toys-r-us ?
Also, I get a little mad when I read things like "UWE should have..." Apparently you have no idea what it takes to create a product like this if you're not Blizzard (=unlimited $$). UWE have done everything right - otherwise there would be no NS2, trust me. And certainly no discussion about performance.
Well known, ok...
I don't know what you consider a "supercomputer", and maybe everything below 60fps is "slideshow" to you. But my PC is over 5 years old (Core2Duo @2x3.3GHz, 4GB RAM, Geforce GTX 260) and NS2 is running just fine with toned down graphics. So if your computer is anything above mine, you are full of crap.
this isn't console gaming
120 FPS is the target... not the 30-40 you're going to get with that
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
he said he could play the game just fine.
He didnt say he could push superb graphics higher then a console.
of course anyone with a rig not 5 year old worth anything can run on higher graphics then a console. I surely do.
Also screaming mere fps is worthless. Its a combination of fps, smooth tech, frametime per frame, frametime difference between frames and personal difference due to having certain eyes. There are plenty of folk who can game on 60fps just fine in this game. or even less.
And there are folk who grab 150 and still have sucky play.
Also throw on stuff like SLI and high framerates mean even less.
For me, and my friends whom I introduced to the original NS and eventually NS2, we simply don't find NS2 to be as much fun as NS1. We believe a lot of what made the original NS fun is missing or not well executed in NS2 (freedom to build anywhere, gorge builder, aliens not having a com, map design (high ceilings), etc.).
As a result we stopped playing the game, some of us also had performance issues, myself included, and my PC is capable of running BF3, Farcry 3 and many new games without any problems.
It's true that the game doesn't have many players, today I opened the game, removed all the filters except empty servers and the server list consisted of about 20 servers. This is on a Saturday afternoon. I would have liked to play some combat but I couldn't find a single server
"Although, I would LOVE some sort of matchmaking/ranking system"
These systems need a "large" player pool to work, it won't really work well with the current player numbers.
"Although, I would LOVE some sort of matchmaking/ranking system"
These systems need a "large" player pool to work, it won't really work well with the current player numbers.
True. But doing nothing could perhaps be the worst they could do. Remember, if the MM sucks, there is always pubs again...
Comments
Yep. Decade-long development cycle... way too hurried and far too frantic to get it out the door.
decade long development cycle and we got game logic written in a scripting language that is almost definitely the cause of shit performance. (not to talk-down[can't think of the proper word] the effort for writing your own engine with a small team, that genuinely is amazing)
edit: I appreciate the effort they put in to make the game easily modifiable.. but they just went too far with it. It's great if any amateur coder can pick up the tools and whip out a mod, but it's even better if the game has a player base.
edit2: edited the post a bit to make it not sound as dickish, it isn't meant to be.
Its the old concept of you can only do something for so long and for so many times until you become bored with it.
I suppose this has already been stated, but there is no ranking up system. Or a system to play ranked games or 6v6 games. I wish there where servers that had 6v6 games and if one person left a spectator would take his place or something like that.
- Not casual enough to attract the masses.
- Small niche genre.
- Limited marketing.
- No skinner boxes.
- Heavy competition with plethora of f2p online shooters.
- Performance issues.
There's still potential for NS2 to grow though, if they can continue polishing it.
On top of that, it's made by an indie studio, currently has incredible system requirements compared to, say, source engine or modded quake/id tech engine (cod) games.
It's a very peculiar and unforgiving game in many respects - unsurprisingly, the niche appeal leads to low player numbers.
That didn't help brink...
Brink was a bad game though, NS2 has a lot of potential, but little exposure
While a story mode could be developed (something simple like BZ2 had), it would take the devs "some" amount of time.
In the least, interactive tutorials would be great for new players in a single player mode. But we'd need intelligent bots and AI for that (especially for a campaign with a simple pre mission briefing story). And that my friends is a whole other can of worms...
You need AI paths, bot mechanics, tons of testing, etc. And I'm not sure for a game this complex, UWE has a large enough dev team.
They quit because of performance. Perhaps it's because the people I play with are typically competitive players with higher standards for a games performance, though.
You are deluding yourself if you believe the main reason more people don't play is because of performance. Sure in your little circle of competitive players that may be a big issue, but for casuals, which are the mainstay of any game, it is not the biggest issue.
I already stated what I think it is in a earlier post.
I guess you can keep imagining that, sure.
OP asked why NS2 is not more popular; I answered. A ranking/level/reward system would no doubt bring more players into the community. Do I want a reward system that gives aesthetics to your character? I do not really care. It does not affect me if someone has a cooler looking gun than I do. From a business stand point for UWE, rewards, as mentioned, would most likely bring in more players. If they go that rout, I would not mind; it is a smart move. As long as they do not change the way the game is played.
Although, I would LOVE some sort of matchmaking/ranking system(I believe UWE is working on this). Not to show off my e-peen as some see the system, but to be paired with players who are equally skilled as I. Quick, easy and no hassle. Of course, there would still be an option to play public servers that would not affect your ranking. I do not see why any hardcore player of NS2 would not desire an option to simply click a button and, minutes later, play a 6v6 with players who you do not CONSTANTLY have to yell at.
EDIT: Also, UWE is a business. I see nothing wrong with doing what you can to get and keep more customers.
What game do you play? Big Rigs?
I visited Paris when L4D was released. Pretty much every other billboard on the subway was an L4D poster, that's a lot of posters!
You can't really compare a Valve release with Unknown Worlds as the marketing budget couldn't be further apart.
That doesn't mean things can't be done to increase the quantity of players. Personally I would say forget you have a game already, if you were building it from scratch think of what you would do to increase the number of players and start from there. Achievements/Social Media integration, and as someone else said some sort of single player option.
It is clear the game was not made with any of this in mind as it is completely lacking in anything to increase player count. I think the main aim was to make a good game and people will come. I don't think I can argue with that logic. It doesn't matter how good your marketing is, if the games crap people won't play it.
We have a good game now, so I'd like to see some effort put into adding player increasing features to the game.
A single player option would take a lot of resources to create, has NS2 been successful enough to fund a huge amount of extra work like this?
While technically, yes this is a L2P issue, I'd rather have people want to L2P so I'll be able to enjoy this game as long as I did NS1.
I don't know what you consider a "supercomputer", and maybe everything below 60fps is "slideshow" to you. But my PC is over 5 years old (Core2Duo @2x3.3GHz, 4GB RAM, Geforce GTX 260) and NS2 is running just fine with toned down graphics. So if your computer is anything above mine, you are full of crap. You talk like pro gamers, but your hardware is toys-r-us ?
Also, I get a little mad when I read things like "UWE should have..." Apparently you have no idea what it takes to create a product like this if you're not Blizzard (=unlimited $$). UWE have done everything right - otherwise there would be no NS2, trust me. And certainly no discussion about performance.
this isn't console gaming
120 FPS is the target... not the 30-40 you're going to get with that
He didnt say he could push superb graphics higher then a console.
of course anyone with a rig not 5 year old worth anything can run on higher graphics then a console. I surely do.
Also screaming mere fps is worthless. Its a combination of fps, smooth tech, frametime per frame, frametime difference between frames and personal difference due to having certain eyes. There are plenty of folk who can game on 60fps just fine in this game. or even less.
And there are folk who grab 150 and still have sucky play.
Also throw on stuff like SLI and high framerates mean even less.
As a result we stopped playing the game, some of us also had performance issues, myself included, and my PC is capable of running BF3, Farcry 3 and many new games without any problems.
It's true that the game doesn't have many players, today I opened the game, removed all the filters except empty servers and the server list consisted of about 20 servers. This is on a Saturday afternoon. I would have liked to play some combat but I couldn't find a single server
"Although, I would LOVE some sort of matchmaking/ranking system"
These systems need a "large" player pool to work, it won't really work well with the current player numbers.
True. But doing nothing could perhaps be the worst they could do. Remember, if the MM sucks, there is always pubs again...