NS2 Feed

"Spikes So his main attack is a rapid-fire spike attack. These don't have the super-long range as they did in NS v1.0 which means the Lerk must be in medium range to do damage to its target. The spikes fall with gravity and have some spread to them. They are good against marines and structures alike, although Skulks are more effective at bringing structures down quickly.

The alt-fire for spikes is new, although many community members will recognize it as an ongoing feature request. Alt-fire zooms his view and changes his spike attack into more of a sniper attack. This will let him hide in dark places and pick off marines. We also plan on adding a cool bit of flavor with this - if the sniper spike kills a marine standing near a wall, the spike will impale him up against it."

Ongoing feature request from who? NS2 is starting to look more and more like the pubfest we've all been fearing. So far we have:

- Slower, tanking skulks (even more emphasis on hiding in corners).
- Lockdown mode (just when you thought it was impossible to make heavies more boring).
- 1.0-esque Lerk (because hey, why bother learning anything from NS1 development?).
- Movement skill all but removed (remains to be seen if the Skulk can still bunnyhop or walljump, and what do we get in its place? Sprint).
- No mass spectating functionality (HLTV).

Did I forget anything?

+ Uhhh... The graphics?

Honestly, at this point, I can't think of a single GOOD reason to play NS2 instead of NS1. I pray to whatever higher powers may exist that the development news can only get better from now on.

Thank god there is lua.

If we have to resort to making a promod to make it playable, the competitive community is going to be the same as it was/is in NS1. Trying to recruit new players to the comp scene is going to be useless.

I think i said that a lot but still .. thx god i did NOT preorder that bunch of crap !

Call of Duty series worked fine with promod

THERE IS STILL HOPE

asmodee is working on NS:Source, basically same as NS in everything except better graphics.

perfect game?

i rly dont mind the graphics

Asmo must be doing some good job but it doesn't matter because he won't have the marketing budget and power of UWE, and its investors. Unless he plans to become Flayra #2, he won't have the maps, models etc. of new-game-generation quality even if he single-handledly coded NS2 to source.

I actually agree with Fana, but I'll wait until alpha before I make my final judgement but things are not looking good. Iny any case lerk is another step towards wrong direction. I'm getting a bit pissed off by these new "updates" aswell.

Promod can technically work well, but whether people other than us few ENSL will play it, is a matter of bigger question. I mean how many promodded public servers will there be, 1, 2 or zero?

In any case, NS1 1.04 was a shit version, probably equal to the upcoming alpha, yet it still got a massive scene. However NS 1.04 probably wins on the nice HL arcade physics.

But the real problem is that since NS1 is a commercial game, they are likely not interested doing another "2.0" version of the game, making big changes to the gameplay.

Besides, how big of success would TF2 be in competitive gaming if it the original version would suck balls?

getting on the sc2 bandwagon now --->

I agree, not only are they making the actual gameplay worse, but they are taking the challenging/more fun aspects out. I can see myself playing NS2; but currently only as a public game in the same way I play AvP. Commercial Bullcrap.

I suppose this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I've "officially" lost my faith in NS2.

what was HA lockdown mode? cant find it

The most positive feature so far is that it actually might have more than a few hundred somewhat regular players.

Otherwise I don't really know. I tend to have this childlike faith in things being more though out than they look like.

I guess it will be a TFC -> TF2 sort of thing. Only TF2 has very different gameplay so idk

Your lack of faith disapoints me...

i wanna battle gorge!!

maybe you should post about your concerns to unknownworlds forum

send an email to mr. cleveland

"The alt-fire for spikes is new, although many community members will recognize it as an ongoing feature request. Alt-fire zooms his view and changes his spike attack into more of a sniper attack. This will let him hide in dark places and pick off marines. We also plan on adding a cool bit of flavor with this - if the sniper spike kills a marine standing near a wall, the spike will impale him up against it."

now that's gonna be completly unbalanced feature... whole sg rush down by sniper lerk...

It probably won't be unbalanced (medspam), but less fun for both teams.

depends how much damage does that sniper shot takes imo. comm might not even have a chance to med the marine that got shoted by that thing.

maybe they bring us HeadShots for the lerk Sniperspike .. that would make it even worse !!

if fade will be as shit as lerk is i quit!

"I think i said that a lot but still .. thx god i did NOT preorder that bunch of crap ! "


same here

I hope jiriki or asmodee get an invitation to the engine test rather quickly so they can start toying around with the scripting tools and start on the pro-mod :D

I think the mistake we're making is that we seem to look at all of this as "changes" to the game we already know. Trying to place these features in the game model we are all used to while seemingly forgeting that they are pretty much building and balancing this thing up from scratch. Everything should and probably will have a counter. We can give them shit for making empty promises about relese dates but knocking the gameplay from a few scraps of info without having the full picture is stupid.

who cares about balance at this point? the point is whether its fun to play a class or not

I agree with mu. Argueably atm the only class I can see as boring is the onos. Why? Because of it's sluggish movement, low skill ceiling, and high damage output vs normal marines, yet uncapable of killing marines with any weaponry or jps/ha. I think most agree the onos is the most boring class aswell, but it doesn't matter too much as it's a very unplayed class, where anyone with a brain can just play it here and there when needed. However, from the sound of it; all the classes, and the main ones at that, are sounding more and more boring to play... defensive vent lerking again? sluggish ambush only fat skulks? gorges who can't even build more then a select few chambers? It's a downgrade of fun.

Btw I was refering to NS1 with the onos.

1.0 lerk why not 1.0 fade with teleport!!! woot

Well as bacil said 100+ more players lets recruit them to ns1? only + side i can see to this

the community is still hopeful because nobody sad "i want my money back" :) (Eistee say that)

after u decided how the lifeforms work, the balancing is up to the mappers
u can create the most interesting/boring abilities but if u cant use them in the fun way then we are fcuked

and please make at least 1 new lifeform or alien building!

- Slower, tanking skulks (even more emphasis on hiding in corners).
1. Great for americans/pubbers who never wanted to learn bunnyhop or wanted to use scripts, all their servers got MP_blockscript 1 and scripting is cheating. Even with hl1 engine where more fps its more harder to time your jumping + gravity/rof changes oh and the rates
- Lockdown mode (just when you thought it was impossible to make heavies more boring).
2. Now they could aim bunnyhopper and I bet there is coming some kind recoil or double faster firerate
- 1.0-esque Lerk (because hey, why bother learning anything from NS1 development?).
3. Well why have more extra tankers when skulks (fat bulldogs) just got their tank armor
- Movement skill all but removed (remains to be seen if the Skulk can still bunnyhop or walljump, and what do we get in its place? Sprint).
4. Look about first reason and second, but now we can use our new TURBO button without HL1 glitches.
- No mass spectating functionality (HLTV).
5. Maybe later and you can't know if they will change/update like they did with NS1. OR there is some kind NS1 combatmode but its competitive mode (like "Classic NS" mode or something)...

Did I forget anything?
6. They have sponsor/investors and they want their profits

+ Uhhh... The graphics?
7. Looks pretty much about Quake 4/Doom 3.. And moving seems to be really slow.

But it could be fun but dunno about competitive. If its not competitive friendly it will fail (After all its online multiplayer game..). And look about those preorders (I didn't) over 10 000.. When its comes out its already sold.

AND yes I really hope it's good, but I dont believe it.

it'll be ok in the end once everyone can playtest it. As long as people like puzl still get preferentially listened to I have faith

^^ Puzl the best developer ever.

Yes well Flayra has great respect for puzl, and he's probably the only one that has enough influence to change NS2's direction.

We'll have to see how it turns out. Convincing him on the other hand to help us on this won't be easy, but I'll do it if I have to.

But yeah I keep him mostly responsible for making NS 3.x such a great version. And I'm not talking about the code only but the decisions he did.

To be honest, we can change whatever the hell we like during alpha/beta through LUA to demonstrate what we think would be better

yes but the devs will most likely ignore it... and you...

and if that happens, the epic limitless skill ceiling of the original NS wont be recreated in ns2

Nde, you forgot that they may not implement health status on HUD, turret may be buffed (just look at its size), and Lerk has this Roosting ability which makes it a turret. And oh, power grid system and no pgs are a recipe for siege-like static warfare without phase gates.

5 mobile sieges + 1 gibbz = no hives.

mobile sieges better move quickly and have a long set up time rather than the other way round

start learning lua we'll need NS1 with NS2 graphics for new players