Natural Selection 2

Hmm. Kind of like the Gorge, I guess. Still not really digging the alien designs. They look like moldy wolves.

There is now an update on the new marine look for NSII.

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6694/marines1024x768.jpg)

So along with a new interview released today, there are two in-game screenshots:

IMAGE(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6369/naturalselection2roct30.jpg)

IMAGE(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8604/naturalselection2roct30u.jpg)

These graphics are pretty impressive, and it's great they seem to be handling that part of the game well, but I'm just completely not going to think about it until the demo arrives or some gameplay videos emerge.

It looks like every marine armour ever. Green plates of armour, open faced helmet. No protection whatsoever for the joints, of course. But its still cool.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/new...

NS2 is moving into Alpha on the 26th. The 'Special Edition' offer will end at that point as well. Looking forward to this.

Yes! Hopefully this works out, the first one was a blast. Of course, going Alpha the day before Starcraft II launches .... hmm.

So pumped for the alpha today!

Apparently this is in Beta now, pre-ordering gets you in if you're one of the first 10,000 to pre-order. Anyone had a chance to see this in action?

Whether if I will eventually get it depends on if it's going to be reskinned NS1

As weird as it sounds, I want there to be a few changes from NS1

The skill difference between good players and normal pubbies is so sky high I've seen it ruin games. Marines that go 20/1 ratios. Fades that can pretty much solo a regular pub server. For a "team" game, it feels sort of wrong.

Ahh hell, I'll take the leap, downloading the beta now. The first game was impressive so this should be worth it. I should be back with impressions soon!

Played it a little the other day. Its visually impressive, and feels like it should be at least as good as the first version - which was exceptional. It is still a beta, a closed beta, and is definitely not ready for release. But, I expect that will be taken care of properly, the dev team has always been very responsive and dedicated. Its a small indie shop, and they love their game. I will note that I preordered, months ago.

As someone who didn't play NS1 except to download the mod and run around a few maps, is NS2 being made for NS1 fans and will hit newbies over the head, or is there any effort being made to bring newbies into the game?

We don't know. If you are looking for a tutorial, or a single player mode, there probably won't be. I expect it will be about the same as jumping into TF2 without having played many FPS games.

Its an RTS based team focused FPS. Your team battles for control of resources nodes, which are used by the commander (if you are on the marine team) to research tech, and to place buildings down for the marines to build. Labs, resources extractors, gear access points, turrets, etc. If you just jump in and do what the marine commander says, you should be alright. If you've played games like Aliens vs Predator, or Left 4 Dead, that will give you a basic understanding of the 'guys with guns vs uglies with special abilities' game play.

The alien side is a bit more free form. There is no commander, but there is a builder class, the gorge. Like L4D, you get 'glows' on your screen, showing where your team is, your buildings are, their condition, and if someone (or a turret) can see a marine then you see a glow for that. Like L4D, this allows a sort of natural teamwork effect.

End game normally means pushing the other team back into their base, and destroying it/them.

As a new player, avoid the commander's seat (an actual object in the game), and don't take a gorge, and you should be fine. After a few games, feel free to be a gorge, but wait until you are well versed in the game before taking the commander's spot.

Couldn't get this to work unfortunately, couldn't join any servers for some reason. Hopefully I can get it to work before Azeroth devours my free time once more...

NS1 seems to have a lot of hackers these days. I don't know how but some of the people playing the Lerk can teleport, kill marines in 2 hits or less and heal themselves faster than you can kill em. Lerks have all of those abilities, but these people somehow use them all at once without running out of steam. Which basically makes them invulnerable.

I hear Azeroth gets destroyed. Why go back?

As far as NS2 goes, I have a mild interest in it. I really enjoyed NS1, kudos to whoever on our forums was a lead dev on it for a time. I can't remember for the life of me who it was though!

Epic revival

Very cautious optimism

I've read about some of the changes that I am sorta iffy about atm, including alien commanders that take over some gorge duties, leaving gorges with less of a role, and lots of complaints about frame lag on the forums atm.

After seeing the video presentations done by TotalBiscuit I am fully on board. He has videos done from the viewpoint of the aliens, humans and human commander. Looks like a ton of fun! A lot of small things I hated about the original are being fixed like giving marines personal resources to spend.

Tamren wrote:

After seeing the video presentations done by TotalBiscuit I am fully on board. He has videos done from the viewpoint of the aliens, humans and human commander. Looks like a ton of fun! A lot of small things I hated about the original are being fixed like giving marines personal resources to spend.

Yeah, I watched those this week as well and this game went from being barely on my radar to something I really want in on. Money's tight this month unfortunately but next month, I'm definitely buying in to get early beta access. Looks like a ton of fun. Really impressed that this small team not only made their own engine but it looks really nice.

So there are now pre-orders up on Steam and you get upgraded to the Deluxe Edition for free. They have a 4-pack available that gives 25% off. I'd like to get in on this, are there 3 others that are also interested?

$18.75 a piece? Yeah, I can swing that.

I still think they look like moldy wolves, though...

Hmm... guess I finally have to decide if I want to bite on this game or not.

I wouldn't mind going for the 4-pack. The logistics of payment are always a little annoying though.

I've facilitated the 4-packs before so I don't mind. If everyone has PayPal, they can just send me the payments and their Steam names and I'll make sure the copies go out.

Maybe we ought to do it a little more organized than that, so you don't end up with 4 payments?

I've been playing the game in it's varying stages on and off for over two years and since the end of last year it's been fairly stable. After diving in and playing a few rounds last month I can say it's quite awesome. They've improved the control of the alien classes significantly from the original, added in an alien com, and the maps they've released are great. They've also had steamworks support running for a while and there are 15ish community maps available currently. I'm not sure if they will persist through the official launch, but I'm sure those contributors will quickly make the necessary updates. All told it's a significant improvement over the original, and not just graphically.

So I've got Lobster and Tamren. Are you interested Mantid? That would make 4 of us.

Sure, why not. I'm in.

What's your PP, PA?