Goodbye NS2
SamusDroid
Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Hello everyone, I’m sure most of you know who I am, but in case you didn’t, my name is Samus/Orphan Black (Brian). I’m the one who has been working on NS2 behind the scenes for the last 2 years. I’m writing to you today to inform everyone that no later than 2 weeks (Jan 14) I will be leaving Natural Selection 2 for good. In the next 2 weeks I will be working on finishing up a few things, making sure the last few things I want to do get done and implemented, and any other things that need done before I leave. I am leaving on good terms, and I wish everyone the best of luck.
It saddens me to say that I must leave, but it is something I must do. I am leaving because other things really need to take priority, that really should have over the past few years, such as taking 18 credit hours. I have “quit” a time or two before, but it never really stuck, I have also come really really close to quitting out of frustration many times. After 2800 hours in NS2, nearly 1/3 of that likely being development time, I feel it is time to move on. Of course I would love to continue working on NS2, but at this point I am not getting anywhere near what I am getting out of it when I first started, it has become a somewhat useless time sink. Some wonder why I have stuck around this long, I will say it is out of love for this game. There of course is always the possibility of me returning, but it will likely be a while, if ever. I will be completely uninstalling NS2, and any related development software used exclusively for NS2 from any of my computers. Some have asked me what I plan to move onto next, the answer is I don't quite know yet. Surprisingly after going strong for 2 years I'm still not burnt out.
My opinion on the Paid Development Team and what happened: There has been a lot of talk about Mendasp and I, and the paid development team, and why we weren’t on the team. I will say that if I had been asked to be on the team, I would have declined anyways. The reason I would have declined is because I don’t think I would have been a good fit for creating new things as I am better at fixing things, and the amount of time I would spend on NS2, I should be spending on other things. I have been waiting some time to see how I really felt about the whole ordeal, I didn’t want to make any rash decisions. After working on this game for 2 years, and very closely with some individuals (some who were really awesome, and some not), and seeing what has happened, nothing really surprised me. I was not even mad, or frustrated about what had happened, but instead understanding of why they did what they did. Could things have been handled better? Sure, but that's not why I left.
I have learned a lot of things during my three years of working with NS2. I learned lua, 3DS Max, how to use Git, and more. I’ve learned how to do pretty much anything that is required by NS2 to do any sort of development anywhere in the game, Cinematic Editor, Viewer, Editor, Engine, Lua, Art, Sounds, and more. I have had many great moments, and some really horrible moments. Most people who have had the chance to work with me in the past may think I’m an asshole. I want to apologize to those who I may have frustrated, pissed off, annoyed, irritated, butted heads with, etc… my frustrations from NS2 carried over to places where they shouldn’t have.
My journey with NS2 began 2 years ago when I found out that I could apply for playtesting. This changed my life forever. I met some really awesome people during my time, that I will be friends for life with (some who I’ve personally met, some more than once (shoutout to that weird creature @Zavaro ). I slowly started to send fixes to UWE for addition to the game. It eventually evolved into me getting LUA access, which means I can directly commit to the game’s files officially. Over time I gained access to maps, then art, sounds, and after a long but worth it wait, I got engine access. I worked on some really cool things, fixed a lot of bugs, (and added and then fixed some oops). Some people refer to me as the “original CDT” because I was working officially on NS2 over a year before the CDT was founded. I worked on the game from August 2013 to Q2 of 2014 alone, and then to present time on the CDT. At the time of writing this it will be my 20th build working on NS2. I am very thankful for UWE allowing me and trusting me with such responsibilities. I want to thank everyone for their help and support over the years, it means a lot. I wish all the modders, mappers, and the new development team good luck.
There’s a lot I could say here, some things I forgot to say, but here’s some highlights of things I’ve done over the years.
Added an in-game player customization menu (open menu while in game to see)
Added a brightness slider
Added Commander Bindings
Added interface sounds
Added queueing for servers with reserved slots in server browser.
Added line wrapping for long text chat messages
Fixed over 100 art and sounds in the game
Previous location bind for commander which teleports you to your previous location before moving to an alert/hotkey
Added idle animations for first person Marine weapons
Added overhead zoom. Next/Previous weapon to zoom, Drop weapon key to reset zoom. Works for Commanders and Spectators
Added changeable menu backgrounds and music
Numerous tool fixes and quality of life improvements
Of course, if you really have a question you want to ask me, I'll be more than willing to help. I'm still always on Steam.
And of course, I'm always am up for Depth if I have time now.
It saddens me to say that I must leave, but it is something I must do. I am leaving because other things really need to take priority, that really should have over the past few years, such as taking 18 credit hours. I have “quit” a time or two before, but it never really stuck, I have also come really really close to quitting out of frustration many times. After 2800 hours in NS2, nearly 1/3 of that likely being development time, I feel it is time to move on. Of course I would love to continue working on NS2, but at this point I am not getting anywhere near what I am getting out of it when I first started, it has become a somewhat useless time sink. Some wonder why I have stuck around this long, I will say it is out of love for this game. There of course is always the possibility of me returning, but it will likely be a while, if ever. I will be completely uninstalling NS2, and any related development software used exclusively for NS2 from any of my computers. Some have asked me what I plan to move onto next, the answer is I don't quite know yet. Surprisingly after going strong for 2 years I'm still not burnt out.
My opinion on the Paid Development Team and what happened: There has been a lot of talk about Mendasp and I, and the paid development team, and why we weren’t on the team. I will say that if I had been asked to be on the team, I would have declined anyways. The reason I would have declined is because I don’t think I would have been a good fit for creating new things as I am better at fixing things, and the amount of time I would spend on NS2, I should be spending on other things. I have been waiting some time to see how I really felt about the whole ordeal, I didn’t want to make any rash decisions. After working on this game for 2 years, and very closely with some individuals (some who were really awesome, and some not), and seeing what has happened, nothing really surprised me. I was not even mad, or frustrated about what had happened, but instead understanding of why they did what they did. Could things have been handled better? Sure, but that's not why I left.
I have learned a lot of things during my three years of working with NS2. I learned lua, 3DS Max, how to use Git, and more. I’ve learned how to do pretty much anything that is required by NS2 to do any sort of development anywhere in the game, Cinematic Editor, Viewer, Editor, Engine, Lua, Art, Sounds, and more. I have had many great moments, and some really horrible moments. Most people who have had the chance to work with me in the past may think I’m an asshole. I want to apologize to those who I may have frustrated, pissed off, annoyed, irritated, butted heads with, etc… my frustrations from NS2 carried over to places where they shouldn’t have.
My journey with NS2 began 2 years ago when I found out that I could apply for playtesting. This changed my life forever. I met some really awesome people during my time, that I will be friends for life with (some who I’ve personally met, some more than once (shoutout to that weird creature @Zavaro ). I slowly started to send fixes to UWE for addition to the game. It eventually evolved into me getting LUA access, which means I can directly commit to the game’s files officially. Over time I gained access to maps, then art, sounds, and after a long but worth it wait, I got engine access. I worked on some really cool things, fixed a lot of bugs, (and added and then fixed some oops). Some people refer to me as the “original CDT” because I was working officially on NS2 over a year before the CDT was founded. I worked on the game from August 2013 to Q2 of 2014 alone, and then to present time on the CDT. At the time of writing this it will be my 20th build working on NS2. I am very thankful for UWE allowing me and trusting me with such responsibilities. I want to thank everyone for their help and support over the years, it means a lot. I wish all the modders, mappers, and the new development team good luck.
There’s a lot I could say here, some things I forgot to say, but here’s some highlights of things I’ve done over the years.
Added an in-game player customization menu (open menu while in game to see)
Added a brightness slider
Added Commander Bindings
Added interface sounds
Added queueing for servers with reserved slots in server browser.
Added line wrapping for long text chat messages
Fixed over 100 art and sounds in the game
Previous location bind for commander which teleports you to your previous location before moving to an alert/hotkey
Added idle animations for first person Marine weapons
Added overhead zoom. Next/Previous weapon to zoom, Drop weapon key to reset zoom. Works for Commanders and Spectators
Added changeable menu backgrounds and music
Numerous tool fixes and quality of life improvements
Of course, if you really have a question you want to ask me, I'll be more than willing to help. I'm still always on Steam.
And of course, I'm always am up for Depth if I have time now.
Comments
Gonna be weird without you around, man. Best of luck with everything in your future; I'm sure you'll do great.
It wouldn't be the fantastic game it is today without your contributions. Best of luck to you!
And in the spirit of ::awkwardness::, this one's for you man.
I feel like I have seen your name pop up countless times over the years, both in change Logs and helping people in the forums
I wish you the best in your new and improved life.
and again... Thank You
It is a shame to see you leave the game, because with you gone who will i get to yell at. All in all you did an amazing job at keeping this game in working condition. Thank you. Goodbye friend. Although this isnt really a goodbye because im sure you'll still be on mumble.
P.S. we all know the reason why youre "leaving" is because the depth team is offering you more.
P.P.S. Am i still the worst?
Eclipse will remain unfinished...
In short, I make you personally responsible for the good times I've had with this game.
Good luck in your future endeaveurs - whatever that might be!
But I'm about to, I wish ya luck with your new stuff. Beware, I'm sending the TSF after you to re-recruit you
Here's a going away present that I'm sure you'll appreciate and a certain someone will not (if I get banned tell my family I love them):
NSFW?
@Pelargir Eclipse is one of those things I'm making sure gets done before I leave. You can see the CDT trello for the remaining things in Proposed and Accepting Merge Requests
But some years too late to use as twitch wallpaper
(Don't tell Amanda!)
Also I want to thank you for always hunting down and chasing those difficult to fix and typically mundane yet annoying bugs or missing features.. you know the ones ...they were never on anybody's priority list but were still everybody's pet peeves.
You definitely did the dirty work that no one was willing to do, more often than not. Thank you for all your contributions, you made a better game for everybody!
I am not saying goodbye to you though..
Best of luck with your future commitments!
I guess now I'll have to look for someone else's name in all the changelogs...
Seriously, he has 30 pages of mods.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/samusdroid/myworkshopfiles/?appid=4920
Also, pretty much everything that IronHorse said :
You were the ray of hope during the early NS2-to-SN transition, notably for optimization.