My thoughts about this matter is I always had a problem with paid DLC's..
It causes the community to separate which only hurts everyone. I seen it many times with top AAA games. This game doesn't have the benefit of a huge user base like other AAA, so it hurts the community worse. imo
I don't see how a DLC can cost more than the game itself..NS2 coded the game engine, designed everything from top to bottom and cost less than the DLC it makes no sense. If this DLC coded there own game engine and rewrote the whole source code than I would understand.
imo DLC should only cost $5...at the most. Why pay more for DLC when all you have is combat mode..while NS2 has combat mode, siege, normal and so on.
But, I am not so worried. DLCs will always come and go it happens all the time. I am sticking with NS2..to be honest I was never a fan of non-comm combat NS. I always enjoy a comm especially if they have a military background..always good to hear real military strats.
whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh!
I think you might want to take a look at this thread again mate and read through your post - you will find combat isn't a DLC
It says stand alone, but it uses the same game engine the same source code and even the same models..it is a DLC no matter how you paint it. But, I give them credit for making a good combat mode. It does take a lot of time and effort. So, I just wish them the best.
DLC = Downloadable Content
This is not a DLC. You may argue that it is a mod, as it's basically a modification of ns2 - I'd agree there, but it is never-the-less a standalone mod.
I think 95% of all posts in this forum are just made to collect a higher post number. Thankfully there are no ranks linked to the post count. Because then we could forget the last 5% of serious posts along the way.
I think 95% of all posts in this forum are just made to collect a higher post number. Thankfully there are no ranks linked to the post count. Because then we could forget the last 5% of serious posts along the way.
You dont even have 1000 posts, why should we listen to you? :P
I think 95% of all posts in this forum are just made to collect a higher post number. Thankfully there are no ranks linked to the post count. Because then we could forget the last 5% of serious posts along the way.
You dont even have 1000 posts, why should we listen to you? :P
You're only barely above 1000, meaty, what makes your contribution any better? :P
I feel like a sucker for having paid 15€ for this, especially since i read the "justifications" and "reasons" for why this went the way it went, after having spent those 15€.
Earlier comments by acid_rain said it had been Charlies idea to elevate combat to it's own "stand alone product", created by a separate "company".
Certainly an odd decision considering that whole move prevented combat from being sold as an DLC/give out discounts to NS2 owners. So why start a new company for it in the first place? It only did more damage than good, having two companies involved also increases the overhead costs, compared to using already established company assets and structures by UWE. Trying to create a new company from scratch, only adds to the overall costs for "building this".
It's also funny how NS2:Combat is supposedly so different that it needs it's own executable, because it has building structures in it! How could that happen? When Spark is supposed to be the most "mod-friendly" engine out there ever, yet it can't even handle a mod that's not even close to a total conversation? Let's also mention that NS2:Combat feels worse, performance wise, than playing NS2 on a 42 player server. When playing NS2:Combat it feels like taking a step back in playing NS2, client and server/network performance generally just feel worse compared to NS2 vanilla and how much is actually going on there. How can that happen?
This whole impression doesn't bode any better considering how vocal Fautline had been about their future aspirations: NS2:Combat supposedly being their "cashcow" to create an actual "new game". Wait.. what? So it's basically milking people so you can "create" a new game that doesn't actually reuse 99% of already existing assets? Will it be set in the NS2 universe? Will that future game at least actually expand the Natural Selection 2 universe, instead of creating a mere spin-off, like Combat did?
Nobody ever thought about the impact this might have on the NS community as a whole? That's also odd, considering how NS2:Combat credits look like the "who is who" of this forum. Many of these people now pointing fingers at the NS2 community as a whole for "sabotaging" their awesome "release" of an game that doesn't have any mass appeal at all and would have been better suited as an DLC/standalone combination.
Even if all of the active NS2 community "supported" NS2:Combat by buying into it the first day and "mentoring" new players on servers, you'd still end up with a pitiful small community and a lot of cannibalization of the remaining NS2 community. Because people can either play NS2:Combat or Natural Selection, as they can't play both at these games at the same time. No amount of "community PR" would have changed a single thing about the steep learning curve and niche appeal. It's so sad to see how responsibilities for this are being shoved off to the community, while at the same time going "Oh but we so indie, don't expect so much! Oh but we need so much money, because running a company is so expensive!".
You can't have your cake and eat it applies here, you are either indie and do this with the blood of your hearth, next to working dayjobs or you are "running a company, stuff is difficult and expensive". Sorry but at this point this whole "We are indie, give us your money, ignore the quality of our product (indie)!" shenanigans feels cheap and abusive. Just like constant appeals to the "NS2 community" for even more "support" of things that will actually harm this very same community.
I can agree with most negative sentiments about Combat in this thread. However we should also ask ourself, why we didn't voice our concerns before the release. Apart from the "splitting-community" issue, which fortunately won't happen, we didn't speak up. Now the deed is over and done.
I can agree with most negative sentiments about Combat in this thread. However we should also ask ourself, why we didn't voice our concerns before the release. Apart from the "splitting-community" issue, which fortunately won't happen, we didn't speak up. Now the deed is over and done.
Maybe a bit too late though but I'm not sure there were other possibilities anyway, meaning that FLG was really silent between the moment they started to develop their game and the official release (except the few days before which isn't enough IMO).
And honestly, even if they had attempted such things, I'm personally not convinced it would have helped. They designed their game as they wished to, they probably did everything they planned to do so. Informing the developers that it might be a failure wouldn't have changed anything once the project is already started and with a such short delay to make the game up and ready to be sold.
In other words, the best thing that could have been done would have been to ask for the community if they'd be willing to purchase Combat or any other projects if those ideas were gathered to create a final game. Our NS community isn't as big as some others, hence I think asking NS2 customers if releasing a SA game could be a success (would you be willing to buy it once released?) or if it's already down and does not even need discussions about it.
I can agree with most negative sentiments about Combat in this thread. However we should also ask ourself, why we didn't voice our concerns before the release. Apart from the "splitting-community" issue, which fortunately won't happen, we didn't speak up. Now the deed is over and done.
There aren't that many people to speak up, let alone who care about combat and then care enough to talk about it. Some people did speak up and voice things but when the amount of people playing the game (NS2) is this small, it's going to look like no one did.
I can agree with most negative sentiments about Combat in this thread. However we should also ask ourself, why we didn't voice our concerns before the release. Apart from the "splitting-community" issue, which fortunately won't happen, we didn't speak up. Now the deed is over and done.
I, for one, think that the idea of combat could very well have worked - it was just not executed well imho. I could not have known it would be like the way it is untill after release, so idk how I could possibly have voiced my concerns prior when I had no idea what the game was like.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
@rebirth Way to get the story completely and totally wrong!!
A team of people started making a mod called Combat for NS2.
After a couple of years, this group of people decided to set up a company making games, they called themselves Faultline Games.
They stopped developing the mod called combat, and began to make a game on the unity engine.
Then Charlie contacted the team and asked them if they would come back and make combat a standalone. As a new developer in the games industry, getting a publishing deal generally makes good business sense, so they took UWE up on the offer.
I'll give you an example, if you are old enough..
There once was a game called Half-Life, it was a popular game. Valve decided they wanted expansions to Half-Life, but they didn't want to make it themselves. To get the desired results, they hired a new young development company to make the game, which was eventually called Gearbox Software.
Gearbox created the half-life expansions - Opposing Forces and Blue-Shift.
Now gearbox have gone on to make other stuff such as borderlands etc, but their beginnings came from a very similar situation as UWE and FLG.
UWE wanted a standalone version of combat, so they turned to FLG, makers of the combat mod, to do this.
Of course, remotely accurate information doesn't seem to be high on the general list of priorities around this release.
I just can't understand how a community so forgiving to UWE and their problems is so hate filled towards one of their own, members of the very same community.
Oh, and the world doesn't revolve around NS2. I bet when FLG get to make their next game, it will neither be NS2 related or Spark based. I bet they will go back to working on the Unity engine and finishing off the game they started making before Charlie came along and asked them to make Combat.
So if you going to hate on FLG, you should only do so for the state of the game, it wasn't their idea to make a Combat standalone, so whether you think it should be DLC or not, that matter is not in FLG's hands and never was.
However we should also ask ourself, why we didn't voice our concerns before the release. Apart from the "splitting-community" issue, which fortunately won't happen, we didn't speak up. Now the deed is over and done.
But that's once again shifting responsibility to the community, like always!
I only knew about this whole thing after the news of its actual release, because I'm not really that active in the "community", i just play on NS2 on public servers.
Even prior to release there seems to have been a lot of secrecy shrouded around this whole "NS2:Combat" thing, at least that's what i got from forum discussions prior to release.
@bonage has asked some pretty valid questions, which have mostly been drowned in a lot of "pseudo PR speak", while never really addressing them.
This will fracture the community, just alone based on it being a completely different executable, Faultline is even pushing to generate it's own community on their website.
Who's supposed to take part there and in the actual NS2 community? Most adult people only have limited time at their hands to devote to such things, splitting that limited time between 2 games/communities is asking quite a bit much.
It just feels mind-boggling considering the very obvious, and way more sensible, alternative which would have existed: DLC and stand-alone which gives a discount on a NS2 purchase. That way each "game" could boost each others popularity and mass appeal. The learning experience of Combat only works in the context of actual vanilla Natural Selection, without that context the Combat experience on it's own ends up only more confusing to new players. Yes it might be unconventional, yes there's always some contractual bullshit involved making such innovations more difficult, but they will happen sooner or later because having options appeals to consumers.
Now we have two NS2 themed games competing for pretty much the same playerbase, with basically no interchangeability between those two games and both still suffering from a steep learning curve on their own. It just feels like such a giant missed opportunity. NS2:Combat will not bring new players to the "Natural Selection Universe" and it most certainly won't bring back people who had been discontent with their previous NS2 vanilla experience. Those won't just be willing to drop 15€ on something they didn't like before, to give it "another chance", 5€ for "another chance" that might be more reasonable pricepoint for those kind of consumers.
Right now there's one NS2:Combat SA server with actual people playing on it, like always it's an US server. 18 people playing, that couldn't have fit on a NS2 mod combat server? On Natural Selection 2 there are currently 4 servers running the combat mod, the french one usually has a couple of players, at least until co_faceoff loads, at which point it won't let anyone connect anymore (missing file). Without that issue this server would actually enjoy a good population of 14+ people.
How is that not a needless split of the community? The NS2 mod does not have base building and is lacking a few abilities, but playing on it between NS2 rounds is pretty much an seamless experience. The mod also does not pretend to be something else, so i feel more at home without the UI changes, thus my practice from NS2 combat mod transitions smoother to actual NS2 vanilla games. NS2:Combat SA just "feels different" in a lot of weird ways in that regard, i don't like this feeling of playing a "different game" than NS2.
Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting, but I'm also trying to give reasons as to what bugs me about this situation. What to do about it at this point? I don't really know, because it looks pretty fubar to me.
Let's talk about NS2: Combat and why it's a standalone!
As simply as I can put it, there are a couple reasons why NS2: Combat is its own entity. One of those reasons is that it is a game developed by a completely different company. If the game were included into NS2, UWE would be responsible for the development cycle of Faultline Games, and that is not something that UWE approached us to do for Combat in the first place. UWE specifically wanted Faultline to be the sole creators of Combat, holding us responsible for its development and future, and we think that's a great move. We absolutely want Combat to be a great game and we want and have the time to spend making the changes to make it something great.
Another reason for Combat being standalone is for the simple fact that half the things we wanted to achieve with Combat required core engine changes in many many different areas. There is absolutely no way to incorporate Combat's engine changes into NS2's changes without breaking one or both games entirely. Could we add it as DLC? Still not possible. Could we call it an expansion? No, not really, because expansions don't generally change the core functions of the game, they just... expand them. The best place for Combat to be is on the Steam store selling as a completely new experience with a familiar universe setting that NS2 players know and love.
We were entrusted by UWE to make something special, and both UWE and FLG believe Combat is something very special as it is today. We are our own company and want to stand out as having a release of our own. UWE wants that too, it's one of the main reasons Charlie approached us with the crazy idea that Combat could be something more than just a mod that was broken every time UWE released a patch. They wanted to see themselves do something crazy -- something unique; turning a mod team into a company with a release of their own based on a game made by a company that was once a mod. That alone doesn't exist anywhere else in the world (hope I'm not wrong there).
Mind the bold parts, and that whole second paragraph still does not sound sensible to me. If they needed core functions of the engine changed, then UWE would have been the best place to start, who could introduce these changes better than for example Max, the actual creator of the engine?
Old enough to do what? Condensenting much? You do realize that you are making an invalid and pointless comparison? UWE is no Valve, Natural Selection 2 is no Half Life, Faultline is no Gearbox, this ain't the 90's anymore.
So what's your little story to do with the actual reality of the situation?
Oh, and the world doesn't revolve around NS2. I bet when FLG get to make their next game, it will neither be NS2 related or Spark based. I bet they will go back to working on the Unity engine and finishing off the game they started making before Charlie came along and asked them to make Combat.
I guess that bodes well for the future support of NS2:Combat SA? I didn't realize FLG has so much manpower? But these days UWE is also "supporting" NS2 while somehow working on two new games at once. But we all so indie and we forever supporting NS2 (of which the world doesn't revolve around)! At this point you people don't even know what you are talking about anymore.
So if you going to hate on FLG, you should only do so for the state of the game, it wasn't their idea to make a Combat standalone, so whether you think it should be DLC or not, that matter is not in FLG's hands and never was.
See that's the issue I'm having here, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong where! Because as somebody who has not been involved in actually building/selling this "new game", it ain't really that obvious to me. But good sports on "hating" on one of your few actual customers in this passive aggressive way, like i stole your fucking cookies
I feel like a sucker for having paid 15€ for this, especially since i read the "justifications" and "reasons" for why this went the way it went, after having spent those 15€.
Earlier comments by acid_rain said it had been Charlies idea to elevate combat to it's own "stand alone product", created by a separate "company".
Certainly an odd decision considering that whole move prevented combat from being sold as an DLC/give out discounts to NS2 owners. So why start a new company for it in the first place? It only did more damage than good, having two companies involved also increases the overhead costs, compared to using already established company assets and structures by UWE. Trying to create a new company from scratch, only adds to the overall costs for "building this".
I believe the purpose was that they wanted to make more out of this project but in order to do so they'd have to approach it from a commercial angle, ie forming a developer group as a business. It was not impossible to go down the DLC route because UWE was unable or unwilling to pay them for the trouble and that the best approach is to simply have a "parallel" product that, I think it's appropriate to label it as a spin-off. I mean really, the only thing NOT NS2 about NSC is that it wasn't UWE that made what was different about it.
It's also funny how NS2:Combat is supposedly so different that it needs it's own executable, because it has building structures in it! How could that happen? When Spark is supposed to be the most "mod-friendly" engine out there ever, yet it can't even handle a mod that's not even close to a total conversation? Let's also mention that NS2:Combat feels worse, performance wise, than playing NS2 on a 42 player server. When playing NS2:Combat it feels like taking a step back in playing NS2, client and server/network performance generally just feel worse compared to NS2 vanilla and how much is actually going on there. How can that happen?
I think the problem from the beginning was that no one really knew just how different NSC is apart from NS2. The name doesn't really help, and there just isn't a great deal of material out there to figure that out, short of buying the thing to see for yourself. But no one wants to shell money just to figure out whether a product is indeed different than what they already have. If you disagree on that and think I am cheap, forget the ad hominems and give me $15 to see for myself, I'd gladly spend 100 hours to see the difference (I wanted to say 1000 hours, but I've a feeling the game just doesn't offer that much difference in content). In the meantime people can only infer to those like TotalBiscuit to get a glimpse of what NSC is really about, and according to him, it's not very different. The impression is not a very good one, but is that the fault of reviewers or is that simply the fact about the game? As you say, no structures in the game heavily implies that you get less of what you'd experience in NS2, and the majority of similar experiences are found in mods, ergo the comparison. NSC would at best be seen as a form of supermod, but that probably doesn't convince many people that it's a difference of fifteen dollars.
This whole impression doesn't bode any better considering how vocal Fautline had been about their future aspirations: NS2:Combat supposedly being their "cashcow" to create an actual "new game". Wait.. what? So it's basically milking people so you can "create" a new game that doesn't actually reuse 99% of already existing assets? Will it be set in the NS2 universe? Will that future game at least actually expand the Natural Selection 2 universe, instead of creating a mere spin-off, like Combat did?
I wouldn't want to buy NSC either if the impression is that it's merely a stepping stone for another product. Just because you want Faultline to succeed as a game developer doesn't mean you can't expect good games out of them that aren't just churned out to fund another game; we already have giant monopoly studios doing that already.
I think a better approach is not to view buying NSC to allowing them to create more games; rather, buying NSC allows Faultline to make it even more of a separate game in it's own right apart from NS2. At present it is pretty much a supermod, but it need not remain that way, especially if funds are starting to come in and give Faultline the means to develop the game they have further. In this case, you're garnering more sales not by making a completely different new game, but improving the game you already have. Reputation would likely improve that way as well; I'd prefer to buy their next instalment if over the course of a year or two they have proven themselves worthy by not just selling a game, but working on it to the point that at the end of its lifeline, NS:Combat barely looked like anything it was at launch day.
Even if all of the active NS2 community "supported" NS2:Combat by buying into it the first day and "mentoring" new players on servers, you'd still end up with a pitiful small community and a lot of cannibalization of the remaining NS2 community. Because people can either play NS2:Combat or Natural Selection, as they can't play both at these games at the same time. No amount of "community PR" would have changed a single thing about the steep learning curve and niche appeal. It's so sad to see how responsibilities for this are being shoved off to the community, while at the same time going "Oh but we so indie, don't expect so much! Oh but we need so much money, because running a company is so expensive!".
I agree; think about it, would the outcome be that different if naysayers said nothing? If they were all raving about how great NSC was? The only difference is number of sales, not the game. I actually think Faultine and even UWE should be glad that it didn't turn into a hype fest where tons of people bought the game but then hated on them for what the game turned out to be. To my mind not a lot of people would have bought NSC anyways simply because relatively little is known about it, and little of what is known is presented as a copy of NS2. Great game or not, that's not a good starting point to rack up sales.
And if that's what it's really about, getting sales and getting money, perhaps NSC reflects that mentality, and the people responded with disgust to the idea and did not buy, or spread the word that it's not worth buying. If I hate NSC so much that despite how great it is I'm going to go and spread lies about it, I can only go so far. If I say the game is great but no way is it worth %15, isn't that still a statement to it's quality?
In any case, if my friend told me NSC sucks balls because it's a total rip off of the mod in NS2, I'd still investigate the matter for myself. But I can't say I speak for all gamers and their education and critical approach. I for one tried real hard to find something remotely similar to TotalBiscuit's video that was not just parroting the same information. Without paying for the game, gamers only got things like reviewers and YouTube to help formulate informed decisions. Then again who's to say that's what selling games is about?
On a more positive note I think what Faultline can do is start Kickstarter projects to implement new features in Combat that could not possibly be found in NS2, for example larger maps or more weapons and modes. The funding will be derived from donation and also increase awareness in not only what the game has to the wider gamer audience but what it could become...and gamers would get a detailed glance at just what that vision is. Even if you don't donate you can still see the difference and might go "Hey, that's nice stuff, I'll actually buy the game now since it's no longer a spinoff ripoff mod".
On a more positive note I think what Faultline can do is start Kickstarter projects to implement new features in Combat that could not possibly be found in NS2, for example larger maps or more weapons and modes. The funding will be derived from donation and also increase awareness in not only what the game has to the wider gamer audience but what it could become...and gamers would get a detailed glance at just what that vision is. Even if you don't donate you can still see the difference and might go "Hey, that's nice stuff, I'll actually buy the game now since it's no longer a spinoff ripoff mod".
I don't think something like that would work at this point: I just spent €15 on this game that confuses me/doesn't appeal to me, now I've got the option to pay more money, for some changes that might turn out good or bad and in an questionable timeframe? Sorry, but that does not sound appealing at all..
On another note that might maybe have been the perfect way to introduce Combat to NS2: Trough an kickstarter
UWE could simply put a pricetag on how much they'd need to make Combat officially supported and people could have "donated" towards that, higher reward tiers could have included skin packs/badges and such. But doing that has now basically become impossible with NS2:Combat SA existing.
Hindsight is a bitch
Guess I'd donate to a kickstarter which aims to integrate NS2:Combat SA into actual NS2
Does Faultline have to pay some type of royalty fee to UWE? If not Faultline can change it up and make it like TF2(Team Fortress 2) Free to Play if users population is very low. I can see NS2-Combat go to TF2 route and just charge for hats/new models etc. That will surely bring more people in the game and even give reason for others who don't own NS2 to go out and buy it. It seems like it can work, but I am not sure how much UWE is controlling NS2-combat ability to even make a move like that.
Before you knock TF2(Team Fortress 2) free to play down... check the facts..in 2011 they already made $50 million dollars in hats alone....that doesn't include the gun sales
***even if Faultline has to pay royalty fees the hats/models/guns(same ability, but different design) can easily pay for it self.
Indeed my initial thoughts on Kickstarter was why didn't they do that in the first place. it wouldn't have come off as attempting to commercialize what was originally a mod of a game and would have been less of a demand to pay for them to deliver something.
I don't think any loyal NS2 player would be so turned off that they'll go tell people about how it should be free when the funds were given charitably. Doing it Kickstarter style would probably have made it more viral among the gaming community and have people flock to give them money, not be presented with the demand that they must pay for it to experience what is essentially the starting project of an indie dev.
What's more, this might have spurred development onto things that you wouldn't expect to find in NS2...which means it becomes even more ludicrous to compare the two despite the similarity in titles.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
It was a simple question, if you are old enough to remember, it is not patronising, this is the problem with forums, people read it how they want, not how it was written.
The analogy of the situation is valid, from a company to company interaction. I never meant any more than that.. again, that is you interpreting the text in a way completely differently from the way it was written..
Oh, and for that hating on a customer comment, what have you ever bought of mine? I am not a member of FLG, but I am someone who has been modding NS2 for many years and so knows a lot of people in the community....
If FLG didn't have the mod basis to work from, I doubt many people would be as dubious as they would've been.
@Soul_Rider If you're going to use an analogy without explaining your meaning then expect some connotation that you had not thought of. That analogy from my perspective does not work because they aren't similar enough to warrant such a similar relation. FLG developed Combat from a mod, Gearbox (to my knowledge) did not develop OF or BS from a previously worked on mod for HL. You also don't account for the fact that the market was drastically different. Back then people might consider Combat to be some sort of stand-alone expansion while today, it would be considered as DLC which is partly why people are so skeptical to the business practice. In addition, I don't think Valve was not an indie developer with limited resources like UWE was/is, they also revolutionized the FPS genre to some extent, NS2 has not done that, HL also had a tonne of marketing and impression behind it, NS2 does not. The concept behind an experienced developer asking a new developer to develop a "side-game" is sound but the small intricacies behind this analogy are flawed so expect some other connotations instead of condescending people for misconstruing the point.
Combat was developed from a mod inside a game that already had the game lore, world, weapons, gameplay, etc that only offers 1-2 game modes and some new weapons/abilities to work with (OF/BS at least offers a new story and a new perspective). That doesn't sound like a standalone game to the average consumer, it seems more like DLC. Paying $15 for what is essentially a DLC pack seems very maladaptive to the current steam market.
We might be biased towards FLG and UWE and consider Combat a good product (which I do fundamentally) but the business practice is to say the least, difficult to swallow for the average consumer and its clearly evident in the player count even with Totalbiscuit's coverage on the game which he said was good overall but the business practice was off putting. It may not be the only variable in the games success or lack thereof but it most likely played a significant role.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I honestly don't think it is the malcontents, or the state of the game that is the reason the game itself is not having great success. That is purely down to marketing. I know some pretty regular NS2 players, who only found yesterday when I told them that combat even exists.
If regular NS2 players barely know of combat, how is anyone else going to find it?
I've been watching RPS regularly, Alice is very supportive of NS2 and even covered GorgeCraft in the summer, but no mention of combat in their pages. It is an almost total media blackout on combat. I haven't found any reviews on my normal gaming sites for combat.
The complete lack of exposure is combat's biggest problem, but that might work in their favour. When a couple of updates have been released and some of the more obvious problems have been addressed, the coverage might actually be more positive and wider spread because of the delay...
i think the main issue here is that the game ns2 itself sold rather poorly in the grand scheme of things, Sure you could count it as a success for a small indie company. But compared to most games that receive the kind of content that combat brought. It would not be able to compare. I think had ns2 been fresh in peoples minds at the time of ns2 c launch it might have been enough. But think. If nuclear dawn released a new game with the same amount of new content as ns2 c would anyone expect it to be anything other than a failure? no.
If faultline had developed a new game based off of something like l4d with a similar amount of content as ns2 c even if it had received the same sort of reviews it would have been a success.
You cant generate more money from a product that is at the end of its line, especially not with a few maps a new weapon and some new abilities. No matter how good the game is. UWE knew that and thats why they left ns2 in the hands of the cdt.
A few, hopefully objective, words about everything I've seen and read regarding Combat's launch and all the fallout.
First we have the seeming lack of support from the publisher that may be a substantial contributing factor to Combats current health.
However, I can only judge at face value, so who knows how much behind the scenes involvement UWE had during all this, be it negative or positive.
I would assume that it was actually minimal as their efforts are now being concentrated on Subnautica and at least one other project, but that's all it is, assumptions.
The current state of active Combat players obviously can't be exclusively blamed on a vocal minority either. It was no doubt a factor, but it's far from the only reason.
Having said that, what @GISP wrote a few pages back about the malicious activity of a number of people went far beyond what even I had assumed had gone on.
Everyone has a right to their opinion, and in a perfect world that opinion would be based on a fair assessment of the product, not malice towards the developer.
The internet is far from perfect though, and so are people. It's what makes each of us unique. I clearly have a bias towards Combat and FLG not just because I see them as the underdog but also because I simply enjoy the game.
Make no mistake, I do think that some of the negative reviews are fair and give a fairly good explanation why they didn't like Combat. That's fine, and it's fair.
However, we then get to the malice. People who simply want to see the game fail for a multitude of reasons that only they understand.
Added to the mix is some misguided randomness like one guy who simply stated that Combat and NS2 are identical with no difference between them what so ever.
Out of curiosity I checked how much time he spent with both games to make that assessment and came up with roughly half an hour of Combat and two hours of NS2.
Though this one was easy to dismiss because he clearly wasn't an avid NS2 player and it was pretty obvious from his play time that he had no idea what he was talking about.
If a product is good, it will defend itself, and the positive reviews now largely outweigh the negative ones. Sadly, this is not boosting the concurrent player count.
Combat (the game) would have probably been much better off as a free expansion to NS2, with a lot of hype and fanfare behind the content patch.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that this was completely out of the question from a business point of view for both FLG and UWE. At the moment NS2 is on the returns phase, so large investments are out off the table. It just makes sense to release Combat and sell it to NS2 players, if you're not going to invest in marketing. I'm sure @GISP did all he could, but there's only so much you can do with word of mouth.
Why a standalone? According to @Acid_rain the core engine needed changes and it would be in conflict with NS2, on the other hand @Mendasp says that it really shouldn't be the case as most of the game code is written in LUA.
Who to believe? Take your pick.
I personally don't want to see combat fail, or at the very least have it fail because it didn't cut it rather than because some people just want to see it burn.
Obviously, as stated at the beginning of the post, a vocal minority shouldn't be enough to drown Combat, but when a product is this fragile it doesn't take much to help it sink.
I'm hoping that it retains enough players to keep FLG from going under as well.
So here's to FLG keeping their head held high.
Hope to see more from them both in terms of more Combat updates as well as an original IP they can call their own.
Most recent complaint: We were told to expect balance changes in a patch within a week, a 50MB+ patch was released and a few things have been identified as 'different' yet FLG has yet to even release a changelog of any kind a week out. Frustrating.
Comments
DLC = Downloadable Content
This is not a DLC. You may argue that it is a mod, as it's basically a modification of ns2 - I'd agree there, but it is never-the-less a standalone mod.
You're only barely above 1000, meaty, what makes your contribution any better? :P
Earlier comments by acid_rain said it had been Charlies idea to elevate combat to it's own "stand alone product", created by a separate "company".
Certainly an odd decision considering that whole move prevented combat from being sold as an DLC/give out discounts to NS2 owners. So why start a new company for it in the first place? It only did more damage than good, having two companies involved also increases the overhead costs, compared to using already established company assets and structures by UWE. Trying to create a new company from scratch, only adds to the overall costs for "building this".
It's also funny how NS2:Combat is supposedly so different that it needs it's own executable, because it has building structures in it! How could that happen? When Spark is supposed to be the most "mod-friendly" engine out there ever, yet it can't even handle a mod that's not even close to a total conversation? Let's also mention that NS2:Combat feels worse, performance wise, than playing NS2 on a 42 player server. When playing NS2:Combat it feels like taking a step back in playing NS2, client and server/network performance generally just feel worse compared to NS2 vanilla and how much is actually going on there. How can that happen?
This whole impression doesn't bode any better considering how vocal Fautline had been about their future aspirations: NS2:Combat supposedly being their "cashcow" to create an actual "new game". Wait.. what? So it's basically milking people so you can "create" a new game that doesn't actually reuse 99% of already existing assets? Will it be set in the NS2 universe? Will that future game at least actually expand the Natural Selection 2 universe, instead of creating a mere spin-off, like Combat did?
Nobody ever thought about the impact this might have on the NS community as a whole? That's also odd, considering how NS2:Combat credits look like the "who is who" of this forum. Many of these people now pointing fingers at the NS2 community as a whole for "sabotaging" their awesome "release" of an game that doesn't have any mass appeal at all and would have been better suited as an DLC/standalone combination.
Even if all of the active NS2 community "supported" NS2:Combat by buying into it the first day and "mentoring" new players on servers, you'd still end up with a pitiful small community and a lot of cannibalization of the remaining NS2 community. Because people can either play NS2:Combat or Natural Selection, as they can't play both at these games at the same time. No amount of "community PR" would have changed a single thing about the steep learning curve and niche appeal. It's so sad to see how responsibilities for this are being shoved off to the community, while at the same time going "Oh but we so indie, don't expect so much! Oh but we need so much money, because running a company is so expensive!".
You can't have your cake and eat it applies here, you are either indie and do this with the blood of your hearth, next to working dayjobs or you are "running a company, stuff is difficult and expensive". Sorry but at this point this whole "We are indie, give us your money, ignore the quality of our product (indie)!" shenanigans feels cheap and abusive. Just like constant appeals to the "NS2 community" for even more "support" of things that will actually harm this very same community.
There are a few people who asked for this and even "voiced their concerns": http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/135770
Maybe a bit too late though but I'm not sure there were other possibilities anyway, meaning that FLG was really silent between the moment they started to develop their game and the official release (except the few days before which isn't enough IMO).
And honestly, even if they had attempted such things, I'm personally not convinced it would have helped. They designed their game as they wished to, they probably did everything they planned to do so. Informing the developers that it might be a failure wouldn't have changed anything once the project is already started and with a such short delay to make the game up and ready to be sold.
In other words, the best thing that could have been done would have been to ask for the community if they'd be willing to purchase Combat or any other projects if those ideas were gathered to create a final game. Our NS community isn't as big as some others, hence I think asking NS2 customers if releasing a SA game could be a success (would you be willing to buy it once released?) or if it's already down and does not even need discussions about it.
There aren't that many people to speak up, let alone who care about combat and then care enough to talk about it. Some people did speak up and voice things but when the amount of people playing the game (NS2) is this small, it's going to look like no one did.
I, for one, think that the idea of combat could very well have worked - it was just not executed well imho. I could not have known it would be like the way it is untill after release, so idk how I could possibly have voiced my concerns prior when I had no idea what the game was like.
A team of people started making a mod called Combat for NS2.
After a couple of years, this group of people decided to set up a company making games, they called themselves Faultline Games.
They stopped developing the mod called combat, and began to make a game on the unity engine.
Then Charlie contacted the team and asked them if they would come back and make combat a standalone. As a new developer in the games industry, getting a publishing deal generally makes good business sense, so they took UWE up on the offer.
I'll give you an example, if you are old enough..
There once was a game called Half-Life, it was a popular game. Valve decided they wanted expansions to Half-Life, but they didn't want to make it themselves. To get the desired results, they hired a new young development company to make the game, which was eventually called Gearbox Software.
Gearbox created the half-life expansions - Opposing Forces and Blue-Shift.
Now gearbox have gone on to make other stuff such as borderlands etc, but their beginnings came from a very similar situation as UWE and FLG.
UWE wanted a standalone version of combat, so they turned to FLG, makers of the combat mod, to do this.
Of course, remotely accurate information doesn't seem to be high on the general list of priorities around this release.
I just can't understand how a community so forgiving to UWE and their problems is so hate filled towards one of their own, members of the very same community.
Oh, and the world doesn't revolve around NS2. I bet when FLG get to make their next game, it will neither be NS2 related or Spark based. I bet they will go back to working on the Unity engine and finishing off the game they started making before Charlie came along and asked them to make Combat.
So if you going to hate on FLG, you should only do so for the state of the game, it wasn't their idea to make a Combat standalone, so whether you think it should be DLC or not, that matter is not in FLG's hands and never was.
But that's once again shifting responsibility to the community, like always!
I only knew about this whole thing after the news of its actual release, because I'm not really that active in the "community", i just play on NS2 on public servers.
Even prior to release there seems to have been a lot of secrecy shrouded around this whole "NS2:Combat" thing, at least that's what i got from forum discussions prior to release.
Because those actually happened: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/135770/let-s-get-serious-about-ns2-combat/p1
@bonage has asked some pretty valid questions, which have mostly been drowned in a lot of "pseudo PR speak", while never really addressing them.
This will fracture the community, just alone based on it being a completely different executable, Faultline is even pushing to generate it's own community on their website.
Who's supposed to take part there and in the actual NS2 community? Most adult people only have limited time at their hands to devote to such things, splitting that limited time between 2 games/communities is asking quite a bit much.
It just feels mind-boggling considering the very obvious, and way more sensible, alternative which would have existed: DLC and stand-alone which gives a discount on a NS2 purchase. That way each "game" could boost each others popularity and mass appeal. The learning experience of Combat only works in the context of actual vanilla Natural Selection, without that context the Combat experience on it's own ends up only more confusing to new players. Yes it might be unconventional, yes there's always some contractual bullshit involved making such innovations more difficult, but they will happen sooner or later because having options appeals to consumers.
Now we have two NS2 themed games competing for pretty much the same playerbase, with basically no interchangeability between those two games and both still suffering from a steep learning curve on their own. It just feels like such a giant missed opportunity. NS2:Combat will not bring new players to the "Natural Selection Universe" and it most certainly won't bring back people who had been discontent with their previous NS2 vanilla experience. Those won't just be willing to drop 15€ on something they didn't like before, to give it "another chance", 5€ for "another chance" that might be more reasonable pricepoint for those kind of consumers.
Right now there's one NS2:Combat SA server with actual people playing on it, like always it's an US server. 18 people playing, that couldn't have fit on a NS2 mod combat server? On Natural Selection 2 there are currently 4 servers running the combat mod, the french one usually has a couple of players, at least until co_faceoff loads, at which point it won't let anyone connect anymore (missing file). Without that issue this server would actually enjoy a good population of 14+ people.
How is that not a needless split of the community? The NS2 mod does not have base building and is lacking a few abilities, but playing on it between NS2 rounds is pretty much an seamless experience. The mod also does not pretend to be something else, so i feel more at home without the UI changes, thus my practice from NS2 combat mod transitions smoother to actual NS2 vanilla games. NS2:Combat SA just "feels different" in a lot of weird ways in that regard, i don't like this feeling of playing a "different game" than NS2.
Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting, but I'm also trying to give reasons as to what bugs me about this situation. What to do about it at this point? I don't really know, because it looks pretty fubar to me.
I'm referencing this comment by acid_rain:
Mind the bold parts, and that whole second paragraph still does not sound sensible to me. If they needed core functions of the engine changed, then UWE would have been the best place to start, who could introduce these changes better than for example Max, the actual creator of the engine?
Old enough to do what? Condensenting much? You do realize that you are making an invalid and pointless comparison? UWE is no Valve, Natural Selection 2 is no Half Life, Faultline is no Gearbox, this ain't the 90's anymore.
So what's your little story to do with the actual reality of the situation?
I guess that bodes well for the future support of NS2:Combat SA? I didn't realize FLG has so much manpower? But these days UWE is also "supporting" NS2 while somehow working on two new games at once. But we all so indie and we forever supporting NS2 (of which the world doesn't revolve around)! At this point you people don't even know what you are talking about anymore.
See that's the issue I'm having here, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong where! Because as somebody who has not been involved in actually building/selling this "new game", it ain't really that obvious to me. But good sports on "hating" on one of your few actual customers in this passive aggressive way, like i stole your fucking cookies
I think the problem from the beginning was that no one really knew just how different NSC is apart from NS2. The name doesn't really help, and there just isn't a great deal of material out there to figure that out, short of buying the thing to see for yourself. But no one wants to shell money just to figure out whether a product is indeed different than what they already have. If you disagree on that and think I am cheap, forget the ad hominems and give me $15 to see for myself, I'd gladly spend 100 hours to see the difference (I wanted to say 1000 hours, but I've a feeling the game just doesn't offer that much difference in content). In the meantime people can only infer to those like TotalBiscuit to get a glimpse of what NSC is really about, and according to him, it's not very different. The impression is not a very good one, but is that the fault of reviewers or is that simply the fact about the game? As you say, no structures in the game heavily implies that you get less of what you'd experience in NS2, and the majority of similar experiences are found in mods, ergo the comparison. NSC would at best be seen as a form of supermod, but that probably doesn't convince many people that it's a difference of fifteen dollars.
I wouldn't want to buy NSC either if the impression is that it's merely a stepping stone for another product. Just because you want Faultline to succeed as a game developer doesn't mean you can't expect good games out of them that aren't just churned out to fund another game; we already have giant monopoly studios doing that already.
I think a better approach is not to view buying NSC to allowing them to create more games; rather, buying NSC allows Faultline to make it even more of a separate game in it's own right apart from NS2. At present it is pretty much a supermod, but it need not remain that way, especially if funds are starting to come in and give Faultline the means to develop the game they have further. In this case, you're garnering more sales not by making a completely different new game, but improving the game you already have. Reputation would likely improve that way as well; I'd prefer to buy their next instalment if over the course of a year or two they have proven themselves worthy by not just selling a game, but working on it to the point that at the end of its lifeline, NS:Combat barely looked like anything it was at launch day.
I agree; think about it, would the outcome be that different if naysayers said nothing? If they were all raving about how great NSC was? The only difference is number of sales, not the game. I actually think Faultine and even UWE should be glad that it didn't turn into a hype fest where tons of people bought the game but then hated on them for what the game turned out to be. To my mind not a lot of people would have bought NSC anyways simply because relatively little is known about it, and little of what is known is presented as a copy of NS2. Great game or not, that's not a good starting point to rack up sales.
And if that's what it's really about, getting sales and getting money, perhaps NSC reflects that mentality, and the people responded with disgust to the idea and did not buy, or spread the word that it's not worth buying. If I hate NSC so much that despite how great it is I'm going to go and spread lies about it, I can only go so far. If I say the game is great but no way is it worth %15, isn't that still a statement to it's quality?
In any case, if my friend told me NSC sucks balls because it's a total rip off of the mod in NS2, I'd still investigate the matter for myself. But I can't say I speak for all gamers and their education and critical approach. I for one tried real hard to find something remotely similar to TotalBiscuit's video that was not just parroting the same information. Without paying for the game, gamers only got things like reviewers and YouTube to help formulate informed decisions. Then again who's to say that's what selling games is about?
On a more positive note I think what Faultline can do is start Kickstarter projects to implement new features in Combat that could not possibly be found in NS2, for example larger maps or more weapons and modes. The funding will be derived from donation and also increase awareness in not only what the game has to the wider gamer audience but what it could become...and gamers would get a detailed glance at just what that vision is. Even if you don't donate you can still see the difference and might go "Hey, that's nice stuff, I'll actually buy the game now since it's no longer a spinoff ripoff mod".
I don't think something like that would work at this point: I just spent €15 on this game that confuses me/doesn't appeal to me, now I've got the option to pay more money, for some changes that might turn out good or bad and in an questionable timeframe? Sorry, but that does not sound appealing at all..
On another note that might maybe have been the perfect way to introduce Combat to NS2: Trough an kickstarter
UWE could simply put a pricetag on how much they'd need to make Combat officially supported and people could have "donated" towards that, higher reward tiers could have included skin packs/badges and such. But doing that has now basically become impossible with NS2:Combat SA existing.
Hindsight is a bitch
Guess I'd donate to a kickstarter which aims to integrate NS2:Combat SA into actual NS2
Before you knock TF2(Team Fortress 2) free to play down... check the facts..in 2011 they already made $50 million dollars in hats alone....that doesn't include the gun sales
***even if Faultline has to pay royalty fees the hats/models/guns(same ability, but different design) can easily pay for it self.
I don't think any loyal NS2 player would be so turned off that they'll go tell people about how it should be free when the funds were given charitably. Doing it Kickstarter style would probably have made it more viral among the gaming community and have people flock to give them money, not be presented with the demand that they must pay for it to experience what is essentially the starting project of an indie dev.
What's more, this might have spurred development onto things that you wouldn't expect to find in NS2...which means it becomes even more ludicrous to compare the two despite the similarity in titles.
Probably not that high.
The analogy of the situation is valid, from a company to company interaction. I never meant any more than that.. again, that is you interpreting the text in a way completely differently from the way it was written..
Oh, and for that hating on a customer comment, what have you ever bought of mine? I am not a member of FLG, but I am someone who has been modding NS2 for many years and so knows a lot of people in the community....
@Soul_Rider If you're going to use an analogy without explaining your meaning then expect some connotation that you had not thought of. That analogy from my perspective does not work because they aren't similar enough to warrant such a similar relation. FLG developed Combat from a mod, Gearbox (to my knowledge) did not develop OF or BS from a previously worked on mod for HL. You also don't account for the fact that the market was drastically different. Back then people might consider Combat to be some sort of stand-alone expansion while today, it would be considered as DLC which is partly why people are so skeptical to the business practice. In addition, I don't think Valve was not an indie developer with limited resources like UWE was/is, they also revolutionized the FPS genre to some extent, NS2 has not done that, HL also had a tonne of marketing and impression behind it, NS2 does not. The concept behind an experienced developer asking a new developer to develop a "side-game" is sound but the small intricacies behind this analogy are flawed so expect some other connotations instead of condescending people for misconstruing the point.
Combat was developed from a mod inside a game that already had the game lore, world, weapons, gameplay, etc that only offers 1-2 game modes and some new weapons/abilities to work with (OF/BS at least offers a new story and a new perspective). That doesn't sound like a standalone game to the average consumer, it seems more like DLC. Paying $15 for what is essentially a DLC pack seems very maladaptive to the current steam market.
We might be biased towards FLG and UWE and consider Combat a good product (which I do fundamentally) but the business practice is to say the least, difficult to swallow for the average consumer and its clearly evident in the player count even with Totalbiscuit's coverage on the game which he said was good overall but the business practice was off putting. It may not be the only variable in the games success or lack thereof but it most likely played a significant role.
If regular NS2 players barely know of combat, how is anyone else going to find it?
I've been watching RPS regularly, Alice is very supportive of NS2 and even covered GorgeCraft in the summer, but no mention of combat in their pages. It is an almost total media blackout on combat. I haven't found any reviews on my normal gaming sites for combat.
The complete lack of exposure is combat's biggest problem, but that might work in their favour. When a couple of updates have been released and some of the more obvious problems have been addressed, the coverage might actually be more positive and wider spread because of the delay...
If faultline had developed a new game based off of something like l4d with a similar amount of content as ns2 c even if it had received the same sort of reviews it would have been a success.
You cant generate more money from a product that is at the end of its line, especially not with a few maps a new weapon and some new abilities. No matter how good the game is. UWE knew that and thats why they left ns2 in the hands of the cdt.
I hope you haven't bought Assassins Creed:Unity.......
http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/12/7204745/assassins-creed-unity-is-an-amazing-glitch-factory
First we have the seeming lack of support from the publisher that may be a substantial contributing factor to Combats current health.
However, I can only judge at face value, so who knows how much behind the scenes involvement UWE had during all this, be it negative or positive.
I would assume that it was actually minimal as their efforts are now being concentrated on Subnautica and at least one other project, but that's all it is, assumptions.
The current state of active Combat players obviously can't be exclusively blamed on a vocal minority either. It was no doubt a factor, but it's far from the only reason.
Having said that, what @GISP wrote a few pages back about the malicious activity of a number of people went far beyond what even I had assumed had gone on.
Everyone has a right to their opinion, and in a perfect world that opinion would be based on a fair assessment of the product, not malice towards the developer.
The internet is far from perfect though, and so are people. It's what makes each of us unique. I clearly have a bias towards Combat and FLG not just because I see them as the underdog but also because I simply enjoy the game.
Make no mistake, I do think that some of the negative reviews are fair and give a fairly good explanation why they didn't like Combat. That's fine, and it's fair.
However, we then get to the malice. People who simply want to see the game fail for a multitude of reasons that only they understand.
Added to the mix is some misguided randomness like one guy who simply stated that Combat and NS2 are identical with no difference between them what so ever.
Out of curiosity I checked how much time he spent with both games to make that assessment and came up with roughly half an hour of Combat and two hours of NS2.
Though this one was easy to dismiss because he clearly wasn't an avid NS2 player and it was pretty obvious from his play time that he had no idea what he was talking about.
If a product is good, it will defend itself, and the positive reviews now largely outweigh the negative ones. Sadly, this is not boosting the concurrent player count.
Combat (the game) would have probably been much better off as a free expansion to NS2, with a lot of hype and fanfare behind the content patch.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that this was completely out of the question from a business point of view for both FLG and UWE. At the moment NS2 is on the returns phase, so large investments are out off the table. It just makes sense to release Combat and sell it to NS2 players, if you're not going to invest in marketing. I'm sure @GISP did all he could, but there's only so much you can do with word of mouth.
Why a standalone? According to @Acid_rain the core engine needed changes and it would be in conflict with NS2, on the other hand @Mendasp says that it really shouldn't be the case as most of the game code is written in LUA.
Who to believe? Take your pick.
I personally don't want to see combat fail, or at the very least have it fail because it didn't cut it rather than because some people just want to see it burn.
Obviously, as stated at the beginning of the post, a vocal minority shouldn't be enough to drown Combat, but when a product is this fragile it doesn't take much to help it sink.
I'm hoping that it retains enough players to keep FLG from going under as well.
So here's to FLG keeping their head held high.
Hope to see more from them both in terms of more Combat updates as well as an original IP they can call their own.
Compared to a few AAA shooters out there that sell millions of copies (COD for example), NS2 Combat is better.
Nuff said.
Subjectively.