Clarification Welcome
CrazyEddie
Join Date: 2013-01-08 Member: 178196Members
Join Date: 2013-01-08 Member: 178196Members
Some bits extracted from a different thread:
I think Rollmans has a good point here. I think some of the hand-wringing in the recent announcement thread and the original discussion thread is due to people thinking that whatever is in BT right this minute is going to get dropped into Live any day now. My impression, based on following the discussion thread for three months now, is that that's not at all what's going to happen. As I understand it, Andi is constantly making experimental changes in BT - sometimes radical, sometimes minor tweaking - and is constantly trying something new one day and then removing it the next. Nothing in there presently should be considered "ready to go". And even some of the changes that are most well-received and most stable in BT may still not be chosen for inclusion in Live. And prior to inclusion in Live, the candidate changes will be ported out of BT and into a separate mod for final testing and tweaking.
At least, that's what I think the game plan is. I may be wrong, too.
Perhaps if UWE could make a clarifying statement there might be less drama and more productive discussion around the upcoming changes.
Seriously, the make random stuff up and see what sticks aspect of the BT mod is frightening when you consider it is going to replace live at some point.
CrazyEddie wrote: »BT is not going to replace live. Some things from BT are going to go into live. The things that appear to work well will be put into a separate mod and extensively tested prior to being put into live.
Perhaps there should be an announcement clarifying that then. People aren't going to read a 79 page thread to find out what is and is not going to happen. Given UWEs previous record of last minute changes making it in to live builds I think people have a reason to be worried.Hugh wrote:Over the coming weeks, Balance Test Mod will become vanilla Natural Selection 2 – and the way you play will change.
I think Rollmans has a good point here. I think some of the hand-wringing in the recent announcement thread and the original discussion thread is due to people thinking that whatever is in BT right this minute is going to get dropped into Live any day now. My impression, based on following the discussion thread for three months now, is that that's not at all what's going to happen. As I understand it, Andi is constantly making experimental changes in BT - sometimes radical, sometimes minor tweaking - and is constantly trying something new one day and then removing it the next. Nothing in there presently should be considered "ready to go". And even some of the changes that are most well-received and most stable in BT may still not be chosen for inclusion in Live. And prior to inclusion in Live, the candidate changes will be ported out of BT and into a separate mod for final testing and tweaking.
At least, that's what I think the game plan is. I may be wrong, too.
Perhaps if UWE could make a clarifying statement there might be less drama and more productive discussion around the upcoming changes.
Comments
I'm pretty sure there will be a change log when the patch comes out.
The drama about the BT mod is just unnecessary and actually pretty unfair if you think about it. Other companies just throw a patch out and you have to deal with it for months. Here you have the opportunity to help create the patch and people just go crazy about it and act like the sky is falling.
*cough* valve in 2010 *cough*
I think a lot of people are worried that the game they enjoy now is going to become less enjoyable. They have a valid concern, and it's not fair to ignore that. While I'm for many of the changes in the bt mod, there are aspects I'm concerned about, too, and I think some clarification from UWE about whether or not the whole mod will become vanilla (along with some of the less good changes!) would be very helpful.
There may be examples of sweeping changes to games post-release, but off the top of my head I can't remember a patch introducing such drastic changes to another game like the bt mod would. While I think many of those changes are needed, I do respect the legitimate concerns of others about the changes. Open communication is the best way to mitigate those concerns.
If UWE stated more prominently and clearly that the BT mod is still undergoing constant changes and testing, that the final selection of changes is still to come, and that those changes will again be tested on their own - then making such a clear and prominent statement would allay some of the concerns many players have expressed following UWE's most recent announcement.
I think that's a fair point. ESPECIALLY if the industry standard practice *cough* valve in 2010 *cough* is to just drop patches on people like an anvil from the sky. That's what people will be expecting, and that's what they're afraid of, and since that's NOT what UWE is doing then UWE should proclaim it to the heavens. They should take credit where credit is due.
That is just what I made of it anyway.
Would be interesting to get an official response on this though.
I was actually thinking about whether someone would do that earlier myself.
It seems to be pretty clear now that the plan is to pick a random snapshot of the BT mod when it is deemed "ready", add some signature last minute changes (tm) and wtfpatch it over vanilla.
I was kinda hoping you were right actually.
If you had been following the mod from the beginning (I'm assuming you haven't because of the way you speak about it) like I have, you will know that the original BT looked very different from its current state. Many changes have been removed or changed because they weren't conducive to good gameplay. There was once a time when exos could use phase gates in BT! It was an awful change, and as soon as it became clear it was an awful change Sewlek removed it.
The whole purpose of the mod is to try out radical new ideas and see if they work. Some of them don't and are removed, others do and stick around. But I'm fairly confident that by the time the BT becomes vanilla NS2 all of the changes that don't work will be ironed out. Eddie is correct in his assertion that the BT will not be added to vanilla in exactly the form that it is in right now.
Long story short, the sky is not falling.
But I'm inclined to give UWE more faith and credit than you are, it seems. Or perhaps you're simply more determined to assume the worst about UWE than I am.
I'd expect the criteria would be something like "In Sewlek's opinion, the changes substantially improve gameplay and address the specific goals of the BT mod (His objective has been to both increase the depth of NS2 play: Variety of build orders, viability of alternate strategies; and to make gameplay more fun: Removing abusable mechanisms, creating more enjoyable scenarios. - source) while not introducing any substantial problems, and taking into account feedback and consensus from a wide cross-section of the playerbase as to whether the goals have been met and new problems avoided."
What criteria would you suggest? What would you have UWE do that they aren't doing?
Why are you trying so hard to assume the worst?
Really Roo, you don't remember NS1 2.0? Devour? :P
It was the limit on where structures could be built that ruined my day in NS1 v2.0; my favourite tactic was a CC relocate to double res or a strategic location (red room on nothing, double res on bast and veil) with a healthy turret farm to stave off skulks; a bit cheap but both teams worked hard for victory!
Yeah, so anyway, on topic and all that ... if there's one thing UWE have historically done very well (and I feel are not doing currently) it's engage with players about forthcoming changes. "the balance test mod will become vanilla NS2" is not helpful; there's a great swathe of changes in the BT mod that make the game so fundamentally different people will be put off by it and may not return. NS2 does not have the player base to sustain that departure. I would strongly encourage UWE to be as up front as possible about which BT changes will make it into vanilla, and support that with a suggestion that they don't all need to go in at the same time.
Slowly slowly catchy monkey, innit!
How could they not be more upfront with the changes.
Balance mod has been available freely for anyone to play & test for months, there is a 80 page thread of feedback, a public announcement from UWE including a change log, a BT mod filter into the official server browser and sewlek regulary plays in BT servers with everyone else.
What do you want? A massive banner everytime you join a vanilla game that says ' oh btw, I know you don't read forums, pay attention to your server browser, twitter, public announcements, view our website or anything but if you want to input on the future of NS2 then go to forums.unknownworlds.com'.
Some people just don't care enough. The people that do care enough read these forums already....
Additionally, the player base can't sustain the departure? Mate... If NS2 was left untouched I would give it 6 months before the server browser shows 0 players. This mod is the only reason alot of people have come back to play the game again (Australia). It has kicked off 4-5 hours of pugs every night for the past week, people are excited for this and are enjoying the game again.
If that's not enough for you, your best chance of getting some more information is joining the HBZ bt server and asking Sewlek himself, as he's on there like every day.
Only hope that they do, not sure what it would be called though..... NS2 Classic Classic?
@ezekel
I'm curious; what are you refering to ? this ? (first link on google; or at least, is TF2-only ?)
I'm referring to the year when they lost 30-40,000 counter-strike players in the time period of less than two weeks, the time period when they turned team fortress 2 into a widely accepted competitive fps into a hat trading simulator and random stat papped weapons, including weapons that removed essentially part of the games skill (hello force of nature) the year where they completely broke half life 2 deathmatch among even their SP titles; and they did this all without the communities regard.
Not to mention the changes were backwards in some points, ex: lowering ticrate from 100 to 66, completely changing the game engine and core mechanics of the game
It was just a bad year, after that point valve has been doing worse and worse; csgo is a disaster(will be going free 2 play), portal 2 while a good story felt more consolized (can't explain it, you can see their forums for tons of posts on that) tf2 further became a trashcan (while little kids love it, the only way to play that game now is in a league/pug, public play is miserable beyond belief when you could actually get some decent games years ago) css was butchered, bug fixes were needed not an engine swap.
Oh and don't forget killing left 4 dead; releasing a second one not even a year after and killing both of them in one shot.. notice how people got l4d2, played it, quit it, then never went back to l4d1? Why was support dropped when they could have simply just added upon their first title. Also mods being used via .VPK instead of .bsp made downloading from servers not happen, so custom content was scarce.
Dota 2 on the other hand, is a replica of dota 1 and just improved upon (not the exact same) hence why it's widely enjoyed, also they have the original dota devs onboard so they are mostly working on it. This game will do well
Anyway, they haven't done much notable lately.. just hoping they keep the steam client decent and I could care less about what they make anymore.. they gave themselves a bad name, idk if they can fix it
I vaguely remember that; but I do remember that TF2 going F2P sky-rocketed it as the 1st (I believe) game played on steam.
And thanks; just read about CSGO @ F2P;
And I agree @ L4D; that seemed like a purely cash based decision (@L4D2); where it only also divided the community.
Now, it should NOT be assumed that it ends with the first release. Of course we will be closely monitoring how it plays out, continuing to listen to feedback, and making further adjustments as necessary. It may even mean removing some of the features that we believe to be working well currently, if widespread community play shows them to be too problematic. We've shown our dedication to fixing and improving NS2 post release, there should be no reason to assume that we'd just drop these huge changes on everyone without continuing to further refine and improve the resulting gameplay.
It is understandable that changes this big can be scary, but we really hope everyone will give them a fair chance.
Well that is reassuring in case things do not work out. I wonder how much community feedback you require for features to be considered problematic. Either way release day should be quite entertaining.
Might be worth someone advertising the fact that its been updated on the server admins google group, unless it auto updates, I haven't paid much attention to the mod
Of course, make a game free to play and all of russia comes out of no where on their jet plane