Been thinking about buying this...

[Just Ken]

So, a wee while ago NS2 was free for a week-end. I played it quite a lot, it was a brilliant game. I absolutely loved it. Is it still worth it? Is the community holding up still? From what I see in the discussions, people seem to be pretty pissed off at it...

[Massakaaarrrr]

Try looking at the last discussion: "Soo,, this game any good? what happened to it since launch?"

[Keyser Gorze]

the game itself is good. it is the devs pissing off the gamers. NS2 has been losing a lot of royal, oldbies for a long time. which is why the devs r keep promoting the game with like 75% discount and stuffs.(also to make more money out of it since video games thesedays don't cost manufacturing fee once it's finished)
I've seen a lot of players with over 1000 hours of gameplay time who abandoned the game and i know for the fact that they are not just tired of playing the game. 9/10 of them r pissed at the devs.

[OhNoes]

The game has a solid community right now and plenty of servers in NA and Europe.

You are right OP that there is a lot of complaints in the forums, but the devs are trying to fix things.

1)The latest patch, build 258 improved fps/loading performance
2)A balance patch is being tested which includes a reduction of the infamous marine strafe jump (because marines had more hopping ability than a rabbit)
3)A ranking/elo rating system is being worked on to reduce pub stomping/stacking. The game really needs this IMO and stacking is pretty much the reason I don't play this game as much as I used to

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Keyser Gorze původně napsal:

I've seen a lot of players with over 1000 hours of gameplay time who abandoned the game and i know for the fact that they are not just tired of playing the game. 9/10 of them r pissed at the devs.

Too many changes too fast. And some of these changes were undone. It does appear that Sewlek was removed from being the only dev on balance. Game lost huge numbers of players due to his ADHD. I basically stopped playing for two months because Sewlek was constantly engaging in radical changes left and right.

[Vitdom]

Dunno why people rant sometimes. A couple of times their points are valid, but making a discussion just to say I don't like this game is pretty useless.

Loads of people who like to play this game daily.

[November]

Keyser Gorze původně napsal:

the game itself is good. it is the devs pissing off the gamers. NS2 has been losing a lot of royal, oldbies for a long time. which is why the devs r keep promoting the game with like 75% discount and stuffs.(also to make more money out of it since video games thesedays don't cost manufacturing fee once it's finished)
I've seen a lot of players with over 1000 hours of gameplay time who abandoned the game and i know for the fact that they are not just tired of playing the game. 9/10 of them r pissed at the devs.

Regular player here. I'd like to counter a couple of points you made.

- "also to make more money out of it since video games thesedays don't cost manufacturing fee once it's finished"
Really? Do constant balance changes, rebuilding the entire alien tech tree, adding an auto-cyst placement system for the alien com, as well as gorge babblers, webs, rail exos, and 3 types of hand grenade not cost them anything to make? You'd have to agree that the kind of post-launch support we've recieved has been unprecedented. Don't be so flippant to suggest that Unknown Worlds is a poor developer because they need money to develop.

-"NS2 has been losing a lot of royal, oldbies for a long time. which is why the devs r keep promoting the game with like 75% discount and stuffs."
'Royal, Oldby' here. Those are called sales. Sales are good for a couple of reasons: it funds Unknown Worlds' 9 employee team so that they may continue to afford to work on NS2 full-time. It also keeps up the player-count as the game ages so that we 'Oldbies' may continue to have people to play with.
http://ns2stats.com/

- Finally, I'd like to address the main point of your post: Unknown Worlds is "pissing off the gamers"
Your paragraph about UW pissing off their playerbase doesn't have a single example of what they are doing to piss them off. Also, when you talk about "A lot of players with over 1000 hours of gameplay time who abandoned the game," How many people are you really talking about? 5? 10? Is it just .exalt, who posted above?

Reply with some specifics please.



p.s. Your profile says you are VAC banned for something. What game were you banned from?

[Just Ken]

Whelp, I'm definitely going to get it. Still seems like a good game, and I remember every aspect of it felt new and brilliant to me. It was definitely unique, so, thanks for the help.

[November]

FCK YEAH!!

[Squeal Like a Pig]

Hey Lizburn, if you are thinking about getting the game, now is the time. It won't get cheaper then the on sale price that is is now.

Yes, if you read the forums there are a lot of complaints (as well as a lot of positive comments) but if read the forums for any game it is the same way. Generally people don't spend the time to sign up and post on a forum if they are perfectly content and have no issues, it is a place for them to go and vent issues they have with a game. Not to say there aren't valid concerns, and if you view our track record we have made many, many updates and improvements to the game that directly addressed players concerns. But yeah, game/movie/whatever forums are generally not designed as place to go for a big love fest :P

100% Recycled Awesome původně napsal:

Too many changes too fast. And some of these changes were undone. It does appear that Sewlek was removed from being the only dev on balance. Game lost huge numbers of players due to his ADHD. I basically stopped playing for two months because Sewlek was constantly engaging in radical changes left and right.

1 - Sewlek was not removed from being the dev responsible for balance, and he is doing a great job

2 - The game did not lose massive amounts of players due to big changes with the game. There is absolutely no correlation in player counts going down in relation to any of the patches that made large changes.

3 - The "radical" changes are done with. There were some very large issues with the game that unfortunately needed some large changes to be made, which is never ideal to do with a released game that people are used to playing a certain way. But it had to be done and the game is in a much better place now then it ever has been because of the changes. From here on out the focus will be on small, incremental changes/fixes/improvements

--Cory

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Whatever you say Cory. Steam makes player time charts avaliable over time. You can claim whatever you wish, but the data showing player peaks and troughs over time is freely given out. People can come to their own conclusions as they see fit. Some of us are educated enough to do time line analysis and corrolate it to changes made during specific time periods.

http://steamcharts.com/app/4920#All

I've seen plenty of companies live in their own bubbles. What you described is just that. UWE is hardly the first company to dislike the fact that Steam Charts is publicly avaliable.

I can tell you for a fact that many, many, many players cited Selwek's ADHD changes as the primary reason they quit. In fact, the own survery UWE did had many of these comments about why they quit. Heck, UWE's own forums had dozens of users all citing radical changes as "too much too fast" and thus why they stopped playing. It was funny watching Steam forums during the radical change months calling the game back in Beta.

Hint: Follow how Blizzard, Valve and others do changes for your next product, a little over time. Not radical shifts.

[Chris]

From a 1000+ hour person who uninstalled/reinstalled. I am One person, and I do believe I count.

There WAS a time, the end of August. You might fall in the technicality of being right, but seriously, are you pointing out the divide of the pre patch problems with the content patch that followed as separate issues?

Squeal Like a Pig původně napsal:

There is absolutely no correlation in player counts going down in relation to any of the patches that made large changes.

[OhNoes]

100% Recycled Awesome původně napsal:

I can tell you for a fact that many, many, many players cited Selwek's ADHD changes as the primary reason they quit. In fact, the own survery UWE did had many of these comments about why they quit. Heck, UWE's own forums had dozens of users all citing radical changes as "too much too fast" and thus why they stopped playing. It was funny watching Steam forums during the radical change months calling the game back in Beta.

Hint: Follow how Blizzard, Valve and others do changes for your next product, a little over time. Not radical shifts.

A lot of people quit pre 250 like me because the game was slow paced and less competitive when compared to NS1. 250 brought a lot of hardcore NS1 fans back to the game and not just a loss of some current fans of NS2.

Looking at Steam Charts, pre 250 patch or post 250 patch it doesn’t matter there are large percentage drops in player count. There are large percentage drops in other popular shooters this year too like COD or Payday 2. A lot of people play what is hot at the moment and move on.

[FeX]

Same this game look awesome, i hope i can learn how to play this game. This game seen a bit difficult to learn...

[OhNoes]

Fex původně napsal:

Same this good look awesome, i hope i can learn how to play this game. This game seen a bit difficult to learn...

Ask a lot of questions, most people are helpful and friendly.

But I wouldn’t try the commander position until you get a good feel for the game. Even on rookie servers people might scold new commanders.

[Squeal Like a Pig]

100% Recycled Awesome původně napsal:

Some of us are educated enough to do time line analysis and corrolate it to changes made during specific time periods.

Some of us are also educated enough to know that the peaks and troughs occur based around large promotional events and steam sales. As with pretty much any game, successful or not, there are very large spikes around a sale, then player counts fall off quite a bit, until the next sale/promotion. It is the nature of not being a free to play game - the few games these days which can continue to grow a player base over time and not have to constantly work at bringing in new players.

People play, have fun, move onto a new game, since there are so many new ones coming out every day. Even very hardcore fans reach a point when they've just gotten burnt out on a game, or have other life issues that come up to keep them from playing. A big changeup to the game inevitably will lose a few players, but also gains some as well, so the overall effect is really not statistically noticeable, and is rarely to blame for a large change in playercounts either way.

However, people will continue to point to low peak player counts as proof of the perceived problems they personally have with a game, and others will point to high peak player counts around sale times, etc. as proof that the game is as good as they believe it to be. NS2, for an indie game with no real advertising and a minuscule PR budget, has managed to hold up very well, for a whole year after its release, and its consistent player counts, in between the spikes, has changed very little, no matter the the large changes that have been made to the game.