Nostalgic thoughts from a player that started more than a decade ago
CaptainSnake
Join Date: 2010-06-19 Member: 72105Members
Join Date: 2010-06-19 Member: 72105Members
Hello there, I was mainly inspired by this thread over here:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138592/general-impression-on-game-state-after-2-years-out-and-some-stuff#latest
A player that came back after 2 years since the release.
I want to share my thoughts as a player that started back when Natural Selection 1 was first released. I'm sure there are many of these threads and I remember reading one a while back that gave me some good feels but I didn't share my story back then so I thought I'd do it now.
First off. I'm 23 now and I can't remember when I started playing but I believe it was around the end of 2003 or beginning of 2004. In those days I remember I was in Grade 6 of elementary school. I didn't have much money and my parents didn't give me an allowance but I did have a Chinese copy of Counter-Strike with a serial key that may or may not have been procured legitimately and/or shared. Regardless of that fact, Steam was a new thing at the time and I registered it first and got Counter-Strike 1.6 along with a bunch of games that came with it. The key one being Half Life 1.
So anyway, playing Counter-Strike exclusively got boring over time and I went to explore Half Life mods because they were free. The first mod I played was Sven Coop which was really fun where I met a lot of new friends and other HL1 mod connoisseurs. Memorable ones being Zombie Panic (bridges 24/7 lol), Science and Industry, The Specialists and of course Natural Selection.
I discovered Natural Selection pretty early on. I was instantly capitivated by its custom menu music and custom menu sounds. It was very uncommon for HL1 mods to have their own theme song but for those that don't remember
. The theme song really had the feeling of being a frontiersman. It invoked emotions of intrigue, exploration, courage and overall was a very exciting prologue music to the battles that were yet to come. It was very uncommon for a mod, back then, to have a custom sound track but NS1 even had voice acting and it was fantastic!
It was a game that really hit home for me because I was a Starcraft 1 player. Back in the days of having AOL online internet and playing on battle.net with 56k but thats a story for another time. I was always a marine player because I loved Terran in Starcraft and hated Zerg with passion. I was also a Counter-Strike player so 1+1=2.
Thinking back, I wasn't a very good shooter despite always playing marine nor was I a good skulk.. Must have been age related, lol. IIRC, there was a time when backpeddling was not penalized but the slow was added to make it what it is today. I really enjoyed the alien aspect of Gorges doing most of the backbone building of the alien team. I made a lot of friends by playing Gorge with other Gorges. We would go around building the whole map for our team.
I remember when combat mode was added. I really enjoyed combat mode because it fast tracked everything. I can't remember the name of the map but does anyone remember the map with the big drop in the center of the map, U shaped alien side with vents leading to a hall way in the center of the room and almost all the way to the marine side's entrance to the drop. The marine side had their CC on an elevated platform with one tunnel leading to the bottom of the drop and one to the top. There was open space behind the marine area for JPs. That was the most fun and balanced combat map IMO and I wonder if its in NS2 yet. I don't know because no one plays NS1 anymore.
I remember when they added welders to help build. You could weld and press E at the same time to build EVEN faster. It was a bit broken and it took a while to fix, lol.
I remember when they added complimentary grenades. I miss my free grenade very much. It was like "Hey, you're gonna die to aliens but here, have a free grenade", haha. I think it was my most preferred upgrade aside from weapon and armour upgrades.
I remember that the Commander had to drop JPs, heavies and weapons. As a result, there was a lot of begging but it was better coordination for rushes such as the heavy rush (oh and heavy welding partys were fun). Shotgun rushes at start worked about 5% of the time and we only ever did that if the map sucked. AMX_mod brought a lot more options when it came to maps but back then you had to play with the server rotation.
I remember when Siege was first made. Those were some fun times that occupied a lot of my time because it allowed both sides to easily progress to end-game tech. Normally end-game tech wasn't normally used as much but Siege was a mode that allowed everyone to experience it to its fullest.
Anyway, enough with nostalgic memories of NS1 that may or may not be accurate. Lets talk about NS2. I remember when NS2 was announced. I think I found out originally on a forum called Facepunchstudios, there wasn't a thread about it but a news article. I think I was the first person to create a thread on it but it was unfinished. Back then, on the front page of the NS2 release news there was almost nothing other than some promises of what they would do. They would make a new engine and sell the game. Shortly after there was a $20 pre-order and a $40 pre-order for exclusive black marine armour. I wanted the black marine armour but couldn't afford it so I traded World of Warcraft gold for it which was 10k iirc but this was during the Burning Crusade or WotLK era so gold was really precious back then. I promptly forgot about it for the next couple years but when the NS2 Alpha test came out, I went and emailed the support email for my steam key.
Now at this time I had feared for the worst. The key would most likely wouldn't be given to me because it was registered to the paypal email from the guy that purchased it for me. He quit playing a long time ago and we lost contact but I did have an email that he forwarded to me. I emailed support with the honest truth, that someone had purchased it for me, I lost contact with said person, I had their email but I don't have a key. To my surprise and also relief, support emailed me back with a steam key. I registered it to my steam account and went in to try the NS2 alpha. After a very long loading screen I was able to move around a map on the lowest settings, that looked like an outpost on Mars, with the LMG that had endless ammo. That was all you could do back then.
I would be lying if I said it wasn't disappointing but it was nice to see that my money (WoW gold lol) didn't go to waste and the developers were making progress. Afterwards I promptly redownloaded NS1 and played Siege for the first time in ages.
Its been such a long journey since then. I'm sure the majority of you guys are familiar with the changes that happened to NS2 over time. I'll be brief to stir up some nostalgia. We started out without Fade and Onos, Fade was added along with Jetpacks iirc. Onos and Exos were next. The game originally was like NS1 but it deviated over time.
Armoury purchases were added. There was a grenade launcher attachment for the LMG which was supposed to be a replacement for the grenade launcher but it was clunky and weird. It exploded on impact making it very strong against skulks and stationary buildings but you only had so much ammo, forced to use the LMG and you had to purchase it from the armoury.
I remember seeing the old LMG at one point with the side magazine.
We've come a long way since the first Natural Selection game. I'm proud to have been with this game since the start. I miss HMGs and Heavies a lot and I really dislike exosuits-as-a-replacement but I understand why it was replaced. Engine limitations prevented us from having exosuits in NS1. Having heavy armour in NS1 had a feeling of being a space marine which is one of the most epic feelings back in the day. I hope one day they'll add it. HMGs were the pinnacle of Human technology (available). Bringing their biggest machine gun into battle against the Kharaa. You'd think that with a mini-gun that overheats so quickly would have some extra barrels so it can fire longer, lol. I also miss the Onos devour ability. You could effectively eliminate a marine from the game for a small duration. I remember being able to type kill in console to get out of it if you thought the Onos wasn't going to die any time soon. They fixed that a while later iirc. Anyway this is not a complaint post or sarcastic post so I'll leave it at that.
I would like to hear the thoughts and opinions of other players that have played since the beginning. This has been such a long journey. Lets share stories around the fire like old men do. We're not old men but I think we can relate with this. I don't want to advertise any servers but I've been playing a lot of Siege lately and its stirred up a lot of my old memories. Although the server owners have made a lot of modifications in the name of balance, it still reminds me of the good ol' times of playing Siege. Of course the remade maps do as well such as that one with 2 res nodes in the middle but siege is the map that I enjoyed the most a decade ago and still do.
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138592/general-impression-on-game-state-after-2-years-out-and-some-stuff#latest
A player that came back after 2 years since the release.
I want to share my thoughts as a player that started back when Natural Selection 1 was first released. I'm sure there are many of these threads and I remember reading one a while back that gave me some good feels but I didn't share my story back then so I thought I'd do it now.
First off. I'm 23 now and I can't remember when I started playing but I believe it was around the end of 2003 or beginning of 2004. In those days I remember I was in Grade 6 of elementary school. I didn't have much money and my parents didn't give me an allowance but I did have a Chinese copy of Counter-Strike with a serial key that may or may not have been procured legitimately and/or shared. Regardless of that fact, Steam was a new thing at the time and I registered it first and got Counter-Strike 1.6 along with a bunch of games that came with it. The key one being Half Life 1.
So anyway, playing Counter-Strike exclusively got boring over time and I went to explore Half Life mods because they were free. The first mod I played was Sven Coop which was really fun where I met a lot of new friends and other HL1 mod connoisseurs. Memorable ones being Zombie Panic (bridges 24/7 lol), Science and Industry, The Specialists and of course Natural Selection.
I discovered Natural Selection pretty early on. I was instantly capitivated by its custom menu music and custom menu sounds. It was very uncommon for HL1 mods to have their own theme song but for those that don't remember
. The theme song really had the feeling of being a frontiersman. It invoked emotions of intrigue, exploration, courage and overall was a very exciting prologue music to the battles that were yet to come. It was very uncommon for a mod, back then, to have a custom sound track but NS1 even had voice acting and it was fantastic!It was a game that really hit home for me because I was a Starcraft 1 player. Back in the days of having AOL online internet and playing on battle.net with 56k but thats a story for another time. I was always a marine player because I loved Terran in Starcraft and hated Zerg with passion. I was also a Counter-Strike player so 1+1=2.
Thinking back, I wasn't a very good shooter despite always playing marine nor was I a good skulk.. Must have been age related, lol. IIRC, there was a time when backpeddling was not penalized but the slow was added to make it what it is today. I really enjoyed the alien aspect of Gorges doing most of the backbone building of the alien team. I made a lot of friends by playing Gorge with other Gorges. We would go around building the whole map for our team.
I remember when combat mode was added. I really enjoyed combat mode because it fast tracked everything. I can't remember the name of the map but does anyone remember the map with the big drop in the center of the map, U shaped alien side with vents leading to a hall way in the center of the room and almost all the way to the marine side's entrance to the drop. The marine side had their CC on an elevated platform with one tunnel leading to the bottom of the drop and one to the top. There was open space behind the marine area for JPs. That was the most fun and balanced combat map IMO and I wonder if its in NS2 yet. I don't know because no one plays NS1 anymore.
I remember when they added welders to help build. You could weld and press E at the same time to build EVEN faster. It was a bit broken and it took a while to fix, lol.
I remember when they added complimentary grenades. I miss my free grenade very much. It was like "Hey, you're gonna die to aliens but here, have a free grenade", haha. I think it was my most preferred upgrade aside from weapon and armour upgrades.
I remember that the Commander had to drop JPs, heavies and weapons. As a result, there was a lot of begging but it was better coordination for rushes such as the heavy rush (oh and heavy welding partys were fun). Shotgun rushes at start worked about 5% of the time and we only ever did that if the map sucked. AMX_mod brought a lot more options when it came to maps but back then you had to play with the server rotation.
I remember when Siege was first made. Those were some fun times that occupied a lot of my time because it allowed both sides to easily progress to end-game tech. Normally end-game tech wasn't normally used as much but Siege was a mode that allowed everyone to experience it to its fullest.
Anyway, enough with nostalgic memories of NS1 that may or may not be accurate. Lets talk about NS2. I remember when NS2 was announced. I think I found out originally on a forum called Facepunchstudios, there wasn't a thread about it but a news article. I think I was the first person to create a thread on it but it was unfinished. Back then, on the front page of the NS2 release news there was almost nothing other than some promises of what they would do. They would make a new engine and sell the game. Shortly after there was a $20 pre-order and a $40 pre-order for exclusive black marine armour. I wanted the black marine armour but couldn't afford it so I traded World of Warcraft gold for it which was 10k iirc but this was during the Burning Crusade or WotLK era so gold was really precious back then. I promptly forgot about it for the next couple years but when the NS2 Alpha test came out, I went and emailed the support email for my steam key.
Now at this time I had feared for the worst. The key would most likely wouldn't be given to me because it was registered to the paypal email from the guy that purchased it for me. He quit playing a long time ago and we lost contact but I did have an email that he forwarded to me. I emailed support with the honest truth, that someone had purchased it for me, I lost contact with said person, I had their email but I don't have a key. To my surprise and also relief, support emailed me back with a steam key. I registered it to my steam account and went in to try the NS2 alpha. After a very long loading screen I was able to move around a map on the lowest settings, that looked like an outpost on Mars, with the LMG that had endless ammo. That was all you could do back then.
I would be lying if I said it wasn't disappointing but it was nice to see that my money (WoW gold lol) didn't go to waste and the developers were making progress. Afterwards I promptly redownloaded NS1 and played Siege for the first time in ages.
Its been such a long journey since then. I'm sure the majority of you guys are familiar with the changes that happened to NS2 over time. I'll be brief to stir up some nostalgia. We started out without Fade and Onos, Fade was added along with Jetpacks iirc. Onos and Exos were next. The game originally was like NS1 but it deviated over time.
Armoury purchases were added. There was a grenade launcher attachment for the LMG which was supposed to be a replacement for the grenade launcher but it was clunky and weird. It exploded on impact making it very strong against skulks and stationary buildings but you only had so much ammo, forced to use the LMG and you had to purchase it from the armoury.
I remember seeing the old LMG at one point with the side magazine.
We've come a long way since the first Natural Selection game. I'm proud to have been with this game since the start. I miss HMGs and Heavies a lot and I really dislike exosuits-as-a-replacement but I understand why it was replaced. Engine limitations prevented us from having exosuits in NS1. Having heavy armour in NS1 had a feeling of being a space marine which is one of the most epic feelings back in the day. I hope one day they'll add it. HMGs were the pinnacle of Human technology (available). Bringing their biggest machine gun into battle against the Kharaa. You'd think that with a mini-gun that overheats so quickly would have some extra barrels so it can fire longer, lol. I also miss the Onos devour ability. You could effectively eliminate a marine from the game for a small duration. I remember being able to type kill in console to get out of it if you thought the Onos wasn't going to die any time soon. They fixed that a while later iirc. Anyway this is not a complaint post or sarcastic post so I'll leave it at that.
I would like to hear the thoughts and opinions of other players that have played since the beginning. This has been such a long journey. Lets share stories around the fire like old men do. We're not old men but I think we can relate with this. I don't want to advertise any servers but I've been playing a lot of Siege lately and its stirred up a lot of my old memories. Although the server owners have made a lot of modifications in the name of balance, it still reminds me of the good ol' times of playing Siege. Of course the remade maps do as well such as that one with 2 res nodes in the middle but siege is the map that I enjoyed the most a decade ago and still do.
Comments
As for the future, I hope the NS2 devs continue working on new content and releasing some every now and then.
I hope that one day NS2 will go free2play or at least the combat version would. The main reason why NS1 was so popular was because it was free. I understand that they're all invested into this project but maybe one day they can move to a free2play model with inventory additions or something like that.
They're no longer invested in NS2 development, at all.
What?
I was extremely excited when NS2 was announced, and had a blast even in the early development stages when the netcode wasn't really even playable. I enjoyed seeing NS2 progress and get better and better, though my experience with NS2 ended there (I still always check the site and updates every day). I always had massive load times and crippling (and consistent) bugs/crashes, so I was never able to get back into it unfortunately. It also just didn't have the same feel as NS1 for me. It wasn't that NS2 was bad, it was just different and the community wasn't like what it was back in the day (again: not bad, just different).
Still, my memories of NS1 are enough for my support of NS2 to be worth it, even if I can't really play it. They are easily my very favorite gaming and online social moments, and I'll cherish them.
Hey glad to hear your side of the story. I would have to say that NS2 really got me to the WH40k series because of the theme of humans vs aliens.
I'm sorry to hear that you're unable to play NS2. I recently had this problem too however the 2D fastest menu workshop mod helped me immensely. The loading screen/menu was always the first boss for my computer and then it was loading into a server.
Of course a new CPU and new GPU will help immensely. Have you tried getting a custom fan for your CPU and overclocking it? Might help.
I struggled to play NS2 even with my GTX460 then GTX 760 SC on the lowest settings. Only until I upgraded to a GTX 980 Ti, have I been able to play this game at max settings.
This is definitely a high end game and I hope it'll go f2p one day for when the requirements are lower than what the average gamer's computer has.
Ah yes, the stealth command chair drop was fun. It only ever worked against noobs though because they wouldn't search hard for our stealthy command chair comeback. I do remember 2 or 3 times it was successful but thats out of, I'd estimate, 10 times. And probably for half those times I was on the alien team
I also miss blocking off areas with Command Chairs. I wish there was a wall-esk structure for marines to block off areas. I know armory fits this role but its not wide enough for a good block.
I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to play again one day though.
I'd recommend that custom PC fan again. An EVO212 is a great fan in regards to price/performance and overclocking your CPU and GPU would help a slight bit. A bit more RAM would do you some good too. 16gb of RAM is $50 nowadays, assuming you're using DDR3.
Unfortunately $50 is even way too much for me. I live pretty much 100% paycheck to paycheck, so I don't have much expendable cash. Eventually I'll save up for a totally new rig, but that'll take quite awhile... some emergency savings are more of a priority, after all
SSD prices dropped so much... The HDD/SSD market reorganized since the SSD arrival in laptops.
So HDD are for storage, SSD are for OS. If one thing was the last bottle neck in a PC, it was clearly the HDD (and IDE bus). You can get a SSD (256Go) for a 100€ (~114 USD).
It's useful not only for NS2, but for anything that require regular access to data. In other words everything that is called software actually. Any game is like 20 to 40Go, up to 80 for the COD and such. Maybe a new rig isn't relevant. Just buy the SSD.
PS i can't tell if your CPU is fast enough. But maybe someone can. I considered it was ok.
If there's no part 2, I at least want an After-Story.
Please predict your future gaming adventures and write a story about that.
I have a new-ish but small 60 GB SSD lying around. Got it for NS2 on my last computer, before i made a new one (this one).
Not big enough for windows but enough for installing NS2.
If you want it let me know. Its small and light so i can take care of the mailcosts.
Otherwise there would not be a cdt surely.
Not really.
Yeah jeez @Zavaro , I'm super glad you guys are working on the game
I'm just resentful for giving uwe $75 when I couldn't really afford it just so they can go make Subnautica. I knew they never had the thoughts on ns2's design as I did, but I didn't know their thoughts were "woah there was a shooting at a school, we cAn't help with a violent game anymore because Im a pussy lets take this money and run and make a fucking exploration game" (relax im sure im the money wasnt spent exactly like that, but it doesnt change how it feels lol)
The future is grim and uncertain but it'll be dark for sure.
In the future we'll finally get a cup holder in the command chair.
MACs will have espresso machines built in so marines can have that last shot of coffee before they are skulk food (skulks hate caffeinated marines).
Marine high command will devote more resources to the front and give all freshly trained Marines a grenade before they meet an unfortunately end. Should they decide to go out with honour instead of becoming Onos chow.
Perhaps one day we'll see heavy armour again. Marine high command is sick of seeing high number of marine casualties and decide to recommission old, outdated, heavy armour that was used effectively against the Kharaa and reduced casualty rates. In addition to this, Marine high command will find heavy machine guns paired with the heavy armour. Doesn't make sense for a Marine to go into battle in the best armour without the biggest, baddest and best gun in the arsenal.
I hope that one day, a genius Marine R&D scientist will smoke some space weed to get an epiphany and add a couple extra barrels to the EXO mini-gun so it doesn't over heat as quickly. In addition to this, EXOs should be modular and include a upgrade-able module that allows a marine to ride on its back and fire a weapon from there. Mounted or unmounted.
Because of new supplies in-bound to the Frontiersmen. A Human anarchist faction posing as members of the frontiersmen will sneak some Oni to the front. These Oni haven't eaten in a while so... Well they're hungry hungry Oni and have a thirst for meat..
The Kharaa haven't evolved significantly lately but maybe we'll see fades learning how to stab better. Perhaps synchronized animations to instantly kill a Marine with a stab. Maybe lerks will evolve to be more intelligent scouts for the Kharaa since they have the ability of flight. Temporary additional armour upgrades as they attain more hives as eggs would be of higher quality if they weren't hatched as quickly.
Lerks will evolve better spikes in exchange of speed.
Units should be able to ride Oni or at least Gorges be able to strap bio bombs on Oni to help fulfill their role.
Some wishful thinking here xD
Your commander has not sent you personal mac yet? I am sorry, I will have to order him to do so. As part of our Marine Moral initiative (MMI) all macs now come with an espresso maker. Just press E on any mac.
There has been some public meetings discussing this topic. There is not an official TSF consensus on the matter as of yet.
Mistakes were made. Our science division deleted the nanite blueprints for both the heavy armor and LMG. Consequently, they have been sent to the front lines with only a pistol.
We are in short supply of scientists at the moment. Many were recommission to the front lines.
This was a personal project of mine, but development has ceased because the lack of scientists. You can read our public documents here.
You are actively supporting an anarchist faction? You are involved with helping the kharra evolve? Whispering quietly to my secretary thinking you can not hear me: ...John, get the Bureau of Treason and Punishment on the line... Captain Snake, I am deeply upset that your commander has not sent you a personal mac bot yet. We will send you one now. We just need your location. While we are at it, how about we give you a "promotion". You deserve it for being so informed about the enemy. Please Captain, tell us your location.
Just keep your graphics options to medium (disable AO course) and maybe disable shadows if you have to with that video card. After that over clock and the right settings you should rarely ever go under 60 fps..
If you do still, there's something wrong so feel free to pm me or open a tech support thread.
As for loading times I am consistency getting exactly 60 seconds or under from a fresh reboot *on the next patch to be released*, using a 1tb HDD. Map changes and future loading of ns2 without rebooting is averaging 15 to 30 sec.
So sit tight
co_faceoff is what you're talking about :P overall best NS1 Combat map, oh you played on cso/yms and other servers? hehe.