Natural Selection II

[Meian]

Kotaku - Unknown Worlds Triumphantly Teases Natural Selection 2 - Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2 Promo Site - View teaser

Don't know how many of you guys have played Natural Selection 1 on Steam but it was a very enjoyable game and still is up to this day since I've played it so many years ago. If you haven't tried it you should give it a go before looking into the sequel to get a general idea. In a way it is like Starcraft but only with Terran Marines and Zerg.

It is about time they gave an idea on a release date as I have been waiting on this since day 1 when HL2 was released (until they decided to use their own engine instead of HL2's).

Good price of $20 is really fair which includes Beta if preordered. $40 for Alpha, Beta, and having the black armor Marine (prolly more for hardcore NS1 fans).

[Curzori]

I have been waiting for this(game and thread too)! The first one was the best HL1 mod.

Teaser looks nice. New onos also look alot cooler than older. Need gameplay trailer soon!

[Maguspk]

Sounds cool, never played the original HL mod though.

[Kisamoo]

The original HL mod was awesome and way ahead of it's time. The production values were amazing, with gameplay to match. I'm skeptical that this game will actually get finished though, as most mod team turned retail developers fail.

[geno]

NS1 was one of the few games that actually managed to draw my attention away from counter-strike back then. The game was (and is) truly an amazing experience in every way, and I've been waiting for some more info on this for a long time. I've known they were shooting for an 09 release date for awhile now since I've been pretty good about checking their ns2 blog a couple times a week, but I somehow managed to miss this reveal. Now I gotta decide if I should preorder, and if I should go for the $40 preorder!

[Meian]

Sounds cool, never played the original HL mod though.

You should try it sometime. It is pretty tough to be a Marine as compared to the aliens but still fun fun (if you played Vampire Slayer mod for HL then you'll have a better handle on shooting things that move so damn fast)

The original HL mod was awesome and way ahead of it's time. The production values were amazing, with gameplay to match. I'm skeptical that this game will actually get finished though, as most mod team turned retail developers fail.

Why do you say that? I was skeptical too until I saw the teaser with them saying it'll be done in Fall 2009 and they started preordering today.

Now I gotta decide if I should preorder, and if I should go for the $40 preorder!

Good question. But I think I'll decide to do the $40 because I've been playing NS 1 for so many years and still do and hoping I'll do the same with NS 2 meaning I'd like something to show for it like the black armor (which must look nice also) and I want to get back into comm'ing as early as possible XD

Would've been nice if it came in a tin or something too but seems to be downloaded.

[Kisamoo]

Why do you say that? I was skeptical too until I saw the teaser with them saying it'll be done in Fall 2009 and they started preordering today.

A lack of screenshots or anything beyond concept art and teasers, really. The system requirements seem awfully low too but again I would have to see in-game footage before commenting on that. I'm sure they're capable of developing a great game but funding seems to be an issue, and truth be told they probably won't be getting as many pre-orders as they hope. The FPS genre is much more saturated these days, whereas the only FPS worth playing back than was CS.

[Meian]

A lack of screenshots or anything beyond concept art and teasers, really. The system requirements seem awfully low too but again I would have to see in-game footage before commenting on that. I'm sure they're capable of developing a great game but funding seems to be an issue, and truth be told they probably won't be getting as many pre-orders as they hope. The FPS genre is much more saturated these days, whereas the only FPS worth playing back than was CS.

Graphics are the least of my concern in most games. I am guessing they want to make it accessible to more people also.

Most FPS don't follow the way NS does. CS was just pew pew pew bomb/defuse. Classic NS was something really done well to implement major strategy against the opponents (alien being FPS? heh...). Combat NS was more FPS orientated since it was leveling up. Guess NS Classic was like a combination of FPS/RTS/RPGish.

[geno]

Good question. But I think I'll decide to do the $40 because I've been playing NS 1 for so many years and still do and hoping I'll do the same with NS 2 meaning I'd like something to show for it like the black armor (which must look nice also) and I want to get back into comm'ing as early as possible XD

Would've been nice if it came in a tin or something too but seems to be downloaded.

I just went with the $40 one as well. Alpha and black suit thingy were tempting, but alone wouldn't have been enough incentive to drop the extra $20. I dropped the extra cash because I feel like getting NS1 for free was a steal, they deserve some money for that effort too.

[The Blackrose]

NS, as a concept, was pretty badass.

NS, once lifted off paper and brought to a practical standpoint, needed some adjustment but was fun.

NS, as a community, was absolutely fucking abysmal.

[Meian]

Bit of a necro but some more info:

http://www.unknownworlds.com/images/...with_notes.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...with_notes.jpg

Looks like they want to replace knife with this. The concept is an interesting idea especially if the accuracy is as good as the pistol. Although, I think they are trying to make it really fancy for a melee weapon in general (but I guess they didn't like the montony of knife in general).

So this is what we desired in NS2:

•A melee weapon that you can always use
•A secondary ranged weapon that isn't better than your default weapon
•A way for players to destroy structures without monotony
•To minimize the work we have to do

With these goals in mind, we started thinking about a "hybrid" weapon that solved all these problems. This is what we came up with:



You can see from the notes in the concept largely how it functions, but let me describe it in a bit more detail. The primary fire ability fires transponders into ranged targets. This is our basic pistol functionality and will let you try to stop a fleeing Lerk or nail an assaulting Skulk before your screen fades to black. The alt-fire ability functions as a basic melee attack, not unlike the knife.

The transponders both do damage when they hit and also stick in for awhile (either for a certain amount of time or perhaps fall off relatively quickly from moving targets and stay for a long time in stationary ones). By charging the primary attack, you can send electricity through the transponders, doing damage to one or more targets in range. This would start as a harmless light electric shock, but over time would grow to massive damage. This makes it ideal for taking down structures (high hit points, stationary). Because it can work through multiple targets too, it means you might be able to take down a few structures without too much effort or time. It would take long enough for the alien team to respond but not so long as to be tedious.

Besides achieving our design goals, we think there are going to be a lot of other cool things players do with this weapon. Chaining of electricity, holding the alt-fire to form a "shield" that does damage if an alien runs into it, possibly even electrifying marine structures. It also means one less weapon to concept, model, texture, rig and animate!

lol they're still playing around with some new stuff. Fall release may be pushing it since Alpha isn't out yet. No SC2 or NS2 this year? :\


Oh, they also added the Skulk video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAGDMExYyl4

The Skulk's abilities are pretty similar to those in NS1. He's such an important class that we're a little timid about giving him crazy new abilities (although new ones are always under consideration).

Wall-running Skulks can drive their sharp leg spikes into crevices to walk on walls or ceilings as if they were the ground. It doesn't cost energy nor does it slow you down, so it can be used to dodge gunfire, confuse enemies or hide. You can get a glimpse of wall-running in action with the Skulk running up the wall behind the Onos at 0:41 in our teaser video.

Bite With his powerful multi-hinged jaws, he can deliver a lot of damage very quickly. As in NS1, the Skulk player's view is from inside his mouth (is this really that controversial or weird?).

We're still not sure what his alt-fire for Bite is going to be. We've talked a lot about a grapple type of attack where he could clench down on a marine and do damage to him over time, but that seemed too annoying from the marine's perspective (and how would he shoot the skulk off of him?). Please give us some suggestions.

Leap The Skulk can leap short distances quickly, landing in a pounce and doing damage to its target. In NS1, leap appeared later in the game – now he always has it. Coupled with wall-running, leap allows good players to traverse the map without ever touching the ground.

What about 'site?! You'll notice that he no longer has Parasite. The reason we currently don't have it as one of his abilities is because we think it's better for the Alien Commander to be scouting (which is the main purpose of Parasite). I really like the secondary purpose of it though, which is to do a small amount of ranged damage to kind of goad a marine into (hopefully, very stupid) action. I would love a kind of provoking ability for him here and will probably put one in later if we come up with an appropriate one.

No parasite huh, wonder what they'll do in the end. They want to think of a grappling attack but not sure how you'd counter that as Marine (I guess taser it off? lol)

[lilfoo]

Did a quick search and could not find a thread to bump.

So, the alpha client was just released tonight. Very much an alpha of the game but looks like it will be amazing. new gorge mechanics look like a ton of fun and ambush potential is just insane. Sadly the lag makes it very very hard to play >.<

Many other people here spend money on the Special edition here? Very happy with my perches of it with the price bump of the regular from $19.99 to $34.99 when the sales for special edition ended.

[aru]

My brother loves this game and was playing last night.
Unfortunately, he was unable to get into any servers for multiple reasons so he was running around the map in SP mode with no enemies or allies.
Looks good, certainly has potential but I can't say anything more until I see a real match going.

[Meian]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/showt...ural+selection

[Meian]

Alpha is out, been playing in the morning since the night previous was ridiculous with most people unable to connect. Settings had to be put at a minimum to play (Alpha and all).

Hit box for Marines shooting any weapon is incredibly off where point blank shots may not hit the alien but alien seem to hit fairly fine so far. Game looks prettier though than it was and the first patch should fix the first major issues such as the connectivity that some have been having.

Lack of mini-map for Marines makes it harder to navigate currently for the Commander to give orders but will likely be added later.

Armory seems more precious than before since it also does upgrades. Marines can now buy their own weapons from the Armory (I know many who played NS1 may rejoice at this idea). Armory has really low HP for one reason or another but could be because only Skulk, Gorge, and Lerk are active in Alpha while Marines get LMG, Shotty, Grenade Launcher, and the ax (new knife)

Pre-order to join Alpha/Special Edition is gone now and the $20 regular edition (let's you play Beta too) is now $34.99 (disappointing honestly to others but it will surely drop prolly after Beta).

[Kaisha]

Wait, they seriously offered a pack that's $20 extra (before the price hike on the normal pre-order) just for a DLC outfit and being a guinea pig for alpha?

[Meian]

There are some who played NS1 for years which was free and felt the extra 20 (previous the price change) would've been a nice show of gesture, not to mention the black armor can show you were there for Alpha and contributed (if they reported anything anyway lol).

Funny though, did notice some people who thought Alpha = fully working game with no issues have been spamming the boards with topics that were already addressed regarding these "issues" they thought shouldn't have existed in the first place.

[Meian]

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/18/na...r-t/#continued

Closed Beta begins tomorrow, pre-ordering will let you in for $35

New trailer with Fade release is in the video


Edit: Here are some other videos during the Alpha, this one being one of the more recent and nicer ones. Check them all out from the guy's account in HD

[geno]

Gonna bump this!

As might be expected, the game is STILL in beta (lol @ their Fall 09 estimate back then), but a major patch was just released:
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/new...loom_blink_etc

Actually, there has apparently been whole hell of a lot of patches since the last time I played, but this one in particular warranted them sending out updates to their subscribers so I checked it out.

So I just hopped on again today to see if all the lag and stutter problems were still there and was thoroughly shocked. Not only was there no more lag for me at all outside of ping lag (dual core CPU + radeon 4870 512MB), the game has developed a shitload.

Marines have a lot of the good old stuff as well as some new things like flamethrowers (which are crazy good). They also have some crazy ARC cannon things and are just generally pretty damn good. That said, I didn't get a chance to see a lot of marine stuff because I mainly played alien, where I had a shitload of fun. Skulks are crazy strong in low number encounters and have incredible maneuverability with their speed and wall walk. Lerks flight is really easy to get used to and they are so good at annoying the shit out of the marines. Gorges can now apparently spread infestation (kind of like creep from Starcraft in that its needed for buildings to stay alive, but it always provides a lot of passive bonuses to aliens as well) with their heal spray when they look down. My personal favorite though is the fade. Insanely fun to play, and probably downright imba. Probably needs to be seen to understand why its so good, both from the marine and alien perspective. Also worth mentioning, all the aliens have this awesome flashlight very reminiscent of detective mode from Arkham Asylum.

That flashlight comes in handy with some of the awesome map features as well (when they hell did they get up to 4 crazy polished and detailed maps??). There are these nodes at key points all around the maps that must be active to power up marine buildings, or something like that. The cool thing about them is when the aliens break them down though. Right when they go off, power to the room/area is COMPLETELY shut down, pretty much all the lights go off for a good 15 seconds before backup emergency red lights come on. It's a really cool atmospheric effect, but that blackout phase at the right moment can really be awesome for aliens because of those flashlights I mentioned. Outside of that, the maps are very reminiscent of NS1, fairly large with a million little nooks and crannies and vents for aliens, as well as chokes and staging spots for marines.

My only complaints would be that #1: the game is probably not completely balanced yet, aliens won all 3-4 of the games I played, but that may have just been odd chance as the marines often did make pretty good runs during those games. More pressing though is #2: a lack of servers. I'm sure this is because its beta and its in the middle/late phase where a lot of people who DO have it haven't even had it installed for months (myself included), but I'm sure this will get better.

[geno]

Found a pretty good gameplay video demonstrating some of the awesomeness I mentioned on that NS2HD account linked earlier. What a hero he must be for the devs, over 200 full HD videos of many of the different builds and playtests and even interviews and whatnot here and there. Pretty sure he's not, or at least wasn't employed by them at all either, just a dedicated fan trying to spread the word.

Anyways, this is his most recent video and it captures (among other gameplay) both sides of what a Fade looks like. First the terror effect of being a marine against one (you do NOT want to go up against a fade alone, lol), and then later in the video some alien domination and fade perspective. Also during the video is that blackout stuff I was talking about, and exactly how it can be utilized by the aliens (though it is seen from the alien commanders overhead PoV).

Which reminds me, I didn't mention alien and marine commanders at all in the previous post. Probably cuz I didn't play either, but they definitely seem pretty awesome. The genuine RTS element in the game, it's not exactly as demanding as a pro-match of SC2 but it still can have a very drastic effect on gameplay if you are the type that likes that leadership role. Don't need to play it if you don't want to though, always need more soldiers/frontline aliens than commanders. You get to see some of what the alien commander does in this video at least, put down specialty buildings, spread infestation, and generally set up gameplans for the team to follow.

If anyone is interested, check out more of his stuff as well (here's his channel). He has at least 1 other video from this build, and the older ones do still give a pretty good impression of the game from the few I watched.