So to my surprise, any everyones surprise, UWE(Unknown Worlds Entertainment) is releasing the NS2 Closed Beta tomorrow for everyone that ordered NS2 and for the next 10,000 that order will be in it as well.
Along with that being revealed today, another and personal favorite(absolute favorite) alien(kharra) has been revealed today in its beta glory.
The transition into the beta this early from the alpha is confusing but UWE has shown time and time again that they know what they are doing.
Now the game IS being built entirely on UWE own engine(Spark engine) built from scratch(they DID just implement the Havok engine from Physx for better optimization)
The game isnt near completion, it has about a year left before it will be finished because they are adding some new things not yet seen in video games or uncommon, such as Dynamic Infestation(Think of creep in SC2 but this can block doors, dim lights, stop elevators, trams, and more) 100% dynamic lighting, FPS/RTS hybrid and more(more is explained later in the thread)
Now please, I know this game may look like it has taken a lot of ideas and looks from other games but you need to realize that NS1 came out as a HL1 mod back in 2000, the only game that it has any inspiration from is Starcraft(the main creator has stated this numerous times, and another reason why i think it is so great)
Now Natural Selection one is Free, if you OWN hl1(half life one) and i suggest you download it.
I will be updating this throughout the entire beta.
PLEASE read below to find out more about the game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Older news below this line.(Alpha news and a general sense of what the game is) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Newest patch 154+153 released http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/
For anyone that has been following NS2 should know that it has recently had a MAJOR 2 patches in the past month.
Patch build 152 has been in the works for 2 months and is massive, it has significantly improved playing on servers dramatically and fixed tons of bugs and added tons of new additions.
Now for people who dont have a clue what NS2 is let me explain.
First off, ns2 is the sequel to one of the best if not the best Half life 1 mod ever to be made(Not even opinion based, more on the insane gameplay changes and innovations) the first being Natural Selection.
Now Natural selection was directly inspired from Starcraft 1, the first videos made to show NS1 even have Starcraft 1 sounds(the creator even said this in a old interview)
Its a FPS/RTS hybrid which personally, is pulled off perfectly.
If you own Half life 1 on steam, i strongly recomend downloading NS1 which is free http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/download/ But on that note, NS1 is mainly played by veterans and has a major major MAJOR learning curve, its nothing like your average fps, its extremely strategic and teamwork and timing, if you love starcraft you should love this.
Now onto NS2.
NS2 is being made on a new engine created by one of the developers from Scratch called Spark.
The graphics are amazing and its entirely dynamic lighting and you can even change models, maps, textures, scripts(lua), all in real time while in game and it will update(so say you make a map, your in game, put a wall infront of you, it will do so ingame aswell when you run the builder without any re-load)
Now its still in very early alpha which was released for Special Edition buyers only(YOU CANNOT BUY THE Special Edition anymore so you have to wait till beta to play if you havent bought it)
The developers constantly update the twitter feed and forums on progress of the game, aswell with one of the greatest things i have ever seen in my entire life for a game, which is the progress page seen here http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/progress (I think its down atm, it usually resets on the weekends and removes the finished things from the week but keeps everything else)
The progress page updates on real time of what has been worked on, being worked on, and finished into the game, its incredible. It even has finish marks for when the next patch will be released.
The game is very early and right now can turn a lot of people off because it looks so buggy, but remember this, they gave us the Alpha so early so we can find engine bugs so we can get into gameplay testing and fix gameplay bugs, then get into the beta phase and fix balance/gameplay issues, then release(which is most likely a year-year and half away)
The game also will feature some incredible things, one being Dynamic Infestation(the alien organic infestation will slowly consume the level, blocking lights and sealing doors shut and other gameplay effects, think of it as creep in sc2)
Now if you love SC2 and FPS or RTS/FPS, Terran/Zerg(even a bit of protoss with the power nodes for marines) You should really look into this game.
The first was a hit and still played today and even has tournements still, its a huge skill leap unlike most fps today, and the rts aspect is so perfect in the sense it doesnt overstay its welcome, but affects the game enough to make it amazing.
So please check it out, tell people about it, support it, hopefully to make this game a major e-sport later in time as i really think it has major potential in that department.
Wow, the models look great. I remember playing NC1 back when it came out. Was pretty fun. I'll probably keep an eye on this but I don't think I'll pay 40 bucks for a beta.
The game isn't really ready for closed beta at all. The alpha is still virtually unplayable.
The most likely reason for announcing the game is now in beta is to get more people to preorder because they are broke again. For anyone who thinks they are going to be entering the beta of a playable game I would suggest waiting and seeing at this point. They are claiming that a lot of things are fixed, but they've pushed out updates that supposedly fix all the netcode only for the community to discover they didn't test the thing online at all and lo and behold, the netcode was still utterly broken and servers would die if more than six people connected. I am very skeptical that they have some patch that fixes the game that they haven't let the alpha testers try out. It makes no sense. No one even really plays the alpha test because there's just no point, nothing works and it's pretty well documented.
I think they've just bit off more than they can chew with this game. They decided to design their own engine and as far as I know they have exactly one engine programmer (and like 4 employees total). The engine itself probably needs like a year worth of work let alone the majority of game mechanics are not even implemented yet.
I think it's just the result of bad decisions early on (not licensing an engine because of the costs) not enough manpower, and no real direction or management to speak of.
If you still want to preorder it then you should, they definitely need the money if they are even going to complete the game (and at this point it really is starting to sound like 'if' instead of 'when') but do not lay down money expecting a playable game or you'll probably be very disappointed.
The transition into the beta this early from the alpha is confusing but UWE has shown time and time again that they know what they are doing.
I strongly disagree with that statement. Now I have a very deep love for the original NS, it was the first online multiplayer game that I really got into and I was even on a team that won a CAL division playing it (albeit the lesser of the two divisions). While it was never nearly as popular as CS or TF, I don't think I ever had more fun playing an online FPS than with NS.
I've been rooting for this game to be good since it was announced but there's just absolutely nothing there besides hype and cool looking pre-rendered video. What little gameplay we've seen has been laggy and completely unplayable. Flayra made a giant mistake when he decided to design a new engine from scratch for this game, the reality is that with the limited resources and funds they have it just isn't feasible to design a new engine that's going to be good. We've seen the game get delayed time and time again and every new update just seems like a baby step. I have yet to pre-order the game and I won't be doing so until it's clear that there's actually something there which sadly may never come at this rate.
Wow they are finally releasing it. I stopped checking their website for a release date years ago. How long have they been working on NS2? Six years now?
The transition into the beta this early from the alpha is confusing but UWE has shown time and time again that they know what they are doing.
I strongly disagree with that statement. Now I have a very deep love for the original NS, it was the first online multiplayer game that I really got into and I was even on a team that won a CAL division playing it (albeit the lesser of the two divisions). While it was never nearly as popular as CS or TF, I don't think I ever had more fun playing an online FPS than with NS.
I've been rooting for this game to be good since it was announced but there's just absolutely nothing there besides hype and cool looking pre-rendered video. What little gameplay we've seen has been laggy and completely unplayable. Flayra made a giant mistake when he decided to design a new engine from scratch for this game, the reality is that with the limited resources and funds they have it just isn't feasible to design a new engine that's going to be good. We've seen the game get delayed time and time again and every new update just seems like a baby step. I have yet to pre-order the game and I won't be doing so until it's clear that there's actually something there which sadly may never come at this rate.
Haha i im just strongly biased in that quote, but after listening to one of flayras hour long podcast interviews, this is something he has worked his entire life on and wont give up until its finished, ill try and find the podcast, its fairly new and you can tell that he wont give up on it and he is trying to make the game to what he had always dreamed of it being.
That, and im a die hard NS fan and so far every single change they have made i have been for(except the auto bite with leap but that was never and will never be implemented)
And i agree with you 100% for not buying it yet, If i wasnt into NS as much as i am, i wouldnt have bought it, its been a long long wait but its just amazing to finally see some major progress from nothing to something.
Its got a year to a year and a half to be released but im willing to wait.
For others, you dont even need to purchase it, just spread the word about it, keep an eye on it every so often, along with this thread.
(also that trailer isnt pre-rendered, only the original one is, that was all done in the cinematic editor)
For thoose who played the free NS version, giving thoose guys some money now that they are working on NS2 is well spent money for all the fun in the past atleast =)
Having never played/seen the original, what I'm seeing so far is looking EPIC. I remember hearing about an RTS/FPS hybrid in the past, but that kinda flew under the radar and I can't remember the name now (It wasn't NS).
This is looking to become the exact game I've been wanting to play at our local LAN's for ages! (Besides Starcraft of course, but because most of my gamer friends are ridiculously casual and shooter-fans, there isn't much chance of me playing against them and still being challenged.)
Oh my good. Ns1 was soo good, especially after the latest update. So fun to be commander and scream at people what to do. Think i got to preorder this one.
On November 21 2010 22:27 DarQraven wrote: Having never played/seen the original, what I'm seeing so far is looking EPIC. I remember hearing about an RTS/FPS hybrid in the past, but that kinda flew under the radar and I can't remember the name now (It wasn't NS).
Savage or Savage 2 perhaps. Also, if you have HL1, totally try out the original natural selection. Amazing mod.
The transition into the beta this early from the alpha is confusing but UWE has shown time and time again that they know what they are doing.
I strongly disagree with that statement. Now I have a very deep love for the original NS, it was the first online multiplayer game that I really got into and I was even on a team that won a CAL division playing it (albeit the lesser of the two divisions). While it was never nearly as popular as CS or TF, I don't think I ever had more fun playing an online FPS than with NS.
I've been rooting for this game to be good since it was announced but there's just absolutely nothing there besides hype and cool looking pre-rendered video. What little gameplay we've seen has been laggy and completely unplayable. Flayra made a giant mistake when he decided to design a new engine from scratch for this game, the reality is that with the limited resources and funds they have it just isn't feasible to design a new engine that's going to be good. We've seen the game get delayed time and time again and every new update just seems like a baby step. I have yet to pre-order the game and I won't be doing so until it's clear that there's actually something there which sadly may never come at this rate.
This guy is 100% right, my eyes used to be glazed over by the awesomeness that was NS but NS2 is never going to be half as good (if its EVER released). They have time and time again said that they struggle for money and then suddenly try and "relaunch" what little content they have to try and stay out of the red, its pathetic and incredibly decietful. Their new engine runes like crap on even the best PC's and the "game" they've releases closed beta or not plays like shit. I loved NS and I've been part of a NS/TFC community for nearly 10 years now but NS2 is NEVER going to be even 1/10th as good.
Oh and anything after NS 2.0 was generally shitty and Flayra completely fucked his own game up with 3.0+.
The problem is they tried to finance the entire game through pre orders and whatever money they had from Zen of Sudoku sales and NS1 donations. It's just not feasible. They didn't want to take on debt or find investors or anything. It's just a bad way to do business. Not only does it damage your relation with customers it's clearly not feasible as we can see with what's going on.
The result is pretty clear, the game wasn't ready for the "alpha" release in that there just wasn't anything to test, the netcode was a joke, what were we supposed to do with what they gave us? The truth is they didn't give it to us to find bugs, they gave it to us to appease and to justify taking pre orders.
This beta is the same situation. Let's try to do whatever hasty work we can so it's remotely playable and call it an exclusive closed beta and take 10,000 more pre orders. It's now finally pretty close to alpha stage, feature wise it's not done at all, but it's semi playable. It's definitely not a beta by any stretch of the imagination.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what the next step is going to be: they won't have enough money to continue and they push out a half finished game. It's going to get horrible publicity and the game as a result is just not going to sell. The small NS1 community just isn't going to be able to sustain the game.
It's unfortunate because I loved NS, I played it competitively and helped run one of the most popular servers, but it's really easy to see the problems with their business model and how it has and will continue to damage the game.
But at the same time, reading what they have to say on their site, like they accomplished some huge milestone with beta, guilting fans for being negative on their forum when they are just being honest about the state of things as paying customers, asking them to post on other message boards and quell negativity there. It's kind of getting too much for me. They are in this boat because of their own mistakes, they are lucky people aren't talking about refunds yet.
There's just so much work that needs to be done, I hate to sound pessimistic about it, I wish I was playing NS2 right now and it was an awesome game and worthy sequel. But the reality is I either see it being an unfinished, completely forgettable mess that doesn't attract any new fans, or the entire thing going belly up.
I don't see the closed beta sales getting them over the massive hurdle infront of them. I really don't envy the position they put themselves in.
Should've just stuck to the Source engine. I remember them saying they were having issues with it, but if they/he were/was able to code NS1 for the original HL engine, surely they could get at least the same results on Source.
edit: Playability depends highly on the server you are playing right now. There are many good servers but some servers just can't hold many players and the lag is immense.
EPT
