On January 31 2012 07:15 ShadowDrgn wrote: Back in 2009, I remember thinking that NS2 and SC2 were going to come out at the same time. Well, SC2 obviously got delayed a little, but it's 2012 now and NS2 doesn't even look nearly ready for release. I already purchased the game ages ago pre-alpha, but my enthusiasm for it couldn't be any lower now.
It's taking a very long time but I think it'll be great if everything works out. They've got good ideas and should be able to balance is quite well. I don't know if it'll be out this year though.
Pretty awesome trailer. My only gripe with it is how bad skulks look: for cinematic purposes, they have them walking slowly to be blown up by grenades.
I'm doubting the summer 2012 release date as they're still making substantial changes. Even if they do push it out the door, there will be lots of subsequent patches, so I don't see any hurry in getting excited.
Yeah that trailer almost makes me want to reinstall, but I'm content to wait until release -> more hype -> more people on servers. This game is going to be great. Eventually.
On February 04 2012 00:56 myopia wrote: Yeah that trailer almost makes me want to reinstall, but I'm content to wait until release -> more hype -> more people on servers. This game is going to be great. Eventually.
Is there a way of trying out the beta without pre-ordering?
On February 04 2012 00:56 myopia wrote: Yeah that trailer almost makes me want to reinstall, but I'm content to wait until release -> more hype -> more people on servers. This game is going to be great. Eventually.
Is there a way of trying out the beta without pre-ordering?
I don't think so, though they may have a free trial closer to release. If you own Half-Life, NS1 is a free mod and people still play it. NS2 is the same game on a new engine (like DotA -> Dota 2), so if you like NS1, you'll like NS2.
On February 04 2012 00:56 myopia wrote: Yeah that trailer almost makes me want to reinstall, but I'm content to wait until release -> more hype -> more people on servers. This game is going to be great. Eventually.
Almost my exact attitude. I pre-ordered the special edition way back when they announced it (lol fall09 release date), and slowly realized it wasn't going to be coming any time soon. Never regretted putting my money out there though, if for nothing else than to pay them for the magnificence that was NS1.
That said, I still haven't doubted for one second that when it DOES finally get released, this is going to be a great game. I'm not tremendously hyped right now and I don't think I'm going to redownload the beta to try the recent changes out for now, but I still will be pumped for the actual release. Hope it does very well and there will be a lot of people playing.
On July 20 2011 04:08 carltron wrote: There wasn't all that much "strategy" involved with NS1 and the devs never supported the competitive scene so I can't see NS2 ever being much of an esport.
there was a lot of strategy in scrims/matches
As aliens you had to choose M/D/S which drastically affects the game play early on.
Marines were kinda bland though, it was a fairly linear tech tree.
Either way I loved the game, played a ton of it competitively.
Well I bought it in... 2009 I think? When it was coming in the fall (it didn't). I tried it once they released the alpha or whatever (pretty much a beta, but anyway). Wasn't playable because it didn't perform well enough to give me more than 5-10 FPS.
So basically, anyone played it lately and does it actually perform like you'd expect it to?
On March 23 2012 11:35 HellRoxYa wrote: Well I bought it in... 2009 I think? When it was coming in the fall (it didn't). I tried it once they released the alpha or whatever (pretty much a beta, but anyway). Wasn't playable because it didn't perform well enough to give me more than 5-10 FPS.
So basically, anyone played it lately and does it actually perform like you'd expect it to?
I last played 5 months ago I think? The game was a bit laggy at times but totally playable. It was fun, but I stopped because there weren't enough people online / still missing a bunch of tech for both sides / freakin' fades had stupid amounts of armour and health and would never die.
Yesterday I decided to reinstall and have a look around. Played for an hour and NS2 is looking really good. I think every major feature except marine heavy armor is implemented (jetpacks YEAH), and they've done some great rework on models and effects. The game was running pretty smoothly on a 16 man server, though loading new maps seems to take forever. I think a late summer release is possible at this point.
There are a lot of subtle changes and fixes in this build. Nothing too mind-shattering, but the alien armor changes, Gorge refinements and fixing of sentry "confusion" from Lerk spores should make the game play noticeably better.
We are now starting a two week "sprint" where we are focused on the new main menu, new Shade abilities and the Shift, while the more engine focused guys (Max and Dushan) are working on performance.
Features
Added new Marine Commander ability: Nano construct. Allows the Commander to speed a marine's construction by 4x for a short time (uses Command Station energy).
Balance
Increased Clog health from 200 to 250 (same as an egg).
Clogs have "shock absorbing" property where they can take no more than 50 points of damage in any single attack, making them more resistant to grenades. Will remove this if it feels weird.
Lowered bile bomb splash radius as it was affecting way too big of an area (close to NS1 now)
Increased ARC cost from 10 to 15 tres and upgrade Robotics Fastory cost from 10 to 20. They still need more work but hopefully this will lessen the mega-trains of doom.
Moved some of power point durability from health into armor, to make them more susceptible to Heavy/Door damage (Onos).
"Door" damage now treats armor as 1 point of health (currently only used by Onos).
Number of allowed Hydras, Cysts, Clogs no longer grow with # of Hives.
Changed corrode damage type (bile bomb) to deal heavy damage (double damage to armor), no damage to players unless exosuit, and reduced bile bomb base damage to 35 per second, down from 80.
Increased Whip Bombard damage to 1200 and added custom damage type: it will deal light damage (half to armor) and affect only structures.
Adjusted Gorge spit damage to 30 to compensate for new Marine armor: 6-7-8-10 (was 7-8-9-11)
Rebalanced Marine armor to have an effect at as many levels as feasible. Marines now get 20 armor with each upgrade level (was 15). Puncture damage multiple changed from 1.5 to 1.25. Aliens should now kill Marines with this many attacks (Armor 0/1/2/3):
Change
User settings (name, keybindings, etc.) are now stored on Steam Cloud
Added code to prevent order spam which led to choke.
Changed alien wave spawn. Now it spawns 1, 2 or 3 aliens together, depending on how many are currently dead. 1 alien takes 9 seconds, 2 takes 13 and 3 takes 17 seconds. The idea here is that 1-hive aliens spawn slightly faster than 1-IP marines and slightly slower than 2-IP marines. This is a complicated system and we're still trying things out here.
Hit indication (at crosshair) is not shown anymore when your Hydra hits a target.
Increased Onos base speed slightly to have him feel less like a wounded senior citizen.
Gorges can no longer place a structure once the limit has been reached (Gorge need to manually destroy them before they are allowed to place a new structure)
Aliens are no longer allowed to re-evolve an upgrade when they already had it before and use all upgrade slots.
AI units can no longer follow move orders which leads them onto neutral entities (powerpoint, resourcepoint, techpoint) to block them.
Slightly increased range when doors open for players.
Each chat message is limited to 80 characters now to reduce spam.
Decreased Hydra accuracy and further reduced their ability to track moving targets.
Fade blink is now lag compensated.
Observatory "blips" Fade now by distance for Marines.
Removed sprint penalty on infestation for Marines.
If the parent Gorge for any of his structures dies, and doesn't become Gorge again for 60 seconds, then his structures start dying as if they didn't have infestation.
Whips will no longer auto Bombard players (they would not harm them anyway)
Resource points are no longer selectable.
Fix
Fixed bug which allowed Lerks to shoot bilebombs through glass (mineshaft Marine start)
Fixed bug where Onos smash attack was triggered when targeting friendly structures.
Fixed a rare bug that caused the Onos to remain on fire visually after the fire was put out by a Gorge heal spray.
The Flamethrower will no longer shoot before the reload animation is complete.
Fixed bug where dead enemies would appear detected when near an Observatory.
Fixed bug where locations could be marked as "visited" during round start up (resulted in fore sight could be used in multiple locations from the beginning on)
Fixed Onos charge sound playing for local player when camouflaged.
Fixed Onos crouching speed (was same as walk speed before)
Fixed bug where MACs could repair insanely fast.
Fixed saving and loading of system options.
Fixed problems with sentries not being confused (by spores) at long ranges and short ranges. Fixed playback of sentry confusion sound.
Fixed rare script error caused by displaying the health circles in spectator mode.
Changed console output for the dedicated server to be ASCII.
Fixed script error that occurred sometimes when a Fade died while blinking.
Ragdolls will no longer have a minimap blip displayed.
Fixed a bug where blinking at low energy as Fade would immediately cancel the blink.
Fixed the collision scaling bug.
Chat messages are now limited, this should not be noticeable in most cases but will help to prevent spam.
Fixed the % symbol not working in chat.
Fixed crash if a Lua object did not return a class namke from the __towatch function.
Fixed issue with Stomp where the Stomp animation played but no shock wave was sent.
Fixed but where mouse sensitivity would not properly reset when you die as Onos while charging.
Various crashes related to collision objects being destroyed.
Sound
Fixed playback of sentry confusion sound.
Quieter skulk enemy footsteps
ns2_mineshaft
Increased player clip distance around operations window.
ns2_summit
Fixed several stuck issues
Fixed evolution stuck issue in the corridor between Flight Control and Summit Reception
Smoothed out player movement in curved stairs in Summit Reception and Sub Access
Rotated some Tech Points and Resource Nozzles so the models would be better oriented
Gorges can now fit in Atrium's floor vent
Blocked the Atrium vent a little further back to avoid player confusion
Fixed issue in Glass Hallway where Fades or Marines weren't able to get into the vent
Moved rocks below the platform in Crevice (to prevent alien camping)
Removed clipping faces in some railings that were blocking bullets (not needed anymore)
Removed steam from Sub Access
Removed "Murder Holes" in Computer Lab
SDK
Added Pathing.FindRandomPointAroundCircle.
We hope you're enjoying the beta! We'll have more info and another patch for you soon.
When I last played a month ago there were the same 2-3 active american servers. The game isn't exactly lively but you can get good 16 man games going in the evening.
EPT
