Natural Selection 2

Great to see some NS2 love here. Feel free to friend me on Steam (steverock). Full disclosure: I'm joining the NS2 team soon, so I'm biased...but I think the game's pretty sweet Steep learning curve, but so rewarding.

Alright, send me PMs with your e-mail addresses and I'll give you my PayPal address to send da' funds. Lobster, I'll respond to yours momentarily.

Hey guys, unless you absolutely need to get the special edition, you might want to hold off for a bit. Everyone that preordered the game should be getting a gift standard edition key.

I don't know how many of us have preordered, but it might be enough to cover everyone that was on the fence.

cube wrote:

Hey guys, unless you absolutely need to get the special edition, you might want to hold off for a bit. Everyone that preordered the game should be getting a gift standard edition key.

I don't know how many of us have preordered, but it might be enough to cover everyone that was on the fence.

Does it make me a horrible person to humbly request my name be added to those willing to do a trade in kind for a key for this? I'm happy to send you a thank you in return off your wishlist

If anyone has access now and would like to play, let me know.

This game is just around the corner! Well, the devs promise release this month at least, haven't nailed down the date. I've roped in a number of friends already. If you haven't played the original, trust me, its fantastic.

Release is Oct 31 for those few who don't already know. Also, the free copies have all been distributed and have been giftable/redeemable for quite some time already. I got mine from a friend and successfully pre-loaded.

Watched the live quick look ex on GB and wondered how this game slipped past my radar! Would anyone like to form a last-minute 4-pack group before release on Wednesday?

Oh wait WHAT this is out already! How time flies! I totally forgot about it!

Installing now.

If anyone has any extra copies let me know if there's anything I can do... for one.

No copies here, I did a 4-pack months ago. That said your not missing much. Been downloading at 0kbps for a while now.

Hey Stylez, I'm pretty sure I have a spare copy kicking around. Not sure if we're friends on Steam, but friend me up and I'll send it your way when I get home from work.

Friended up Redwing. So very much appreciated! Thank you!

Stylez wrote:

Friended up Redwing. So very much appreciated! Thank you!

One sneaky login at work later, and it's away!

I'll have to download this again when I get home, I played a bit of the beta, but had a lot of trouble getting it to work, couldn't join servers, and when I did get in, couldn't join teams. Perhaps the release version is a little more reliable!

Well I tried it out. The game is a little iffy. When you first start out boot up an empty server to run around in. This will let the game do it's pre-caching and work out the shaders for the first time. THEN exit. THEN restart the game and play for real. Your framerate will be loads better.

I'm really not a fan of the mouse sensitivity. The default is SUPER low, and even if you turn it up all the way it feels extremely floaty. I can barely hit anything as a marine.

If you liked NS 1, I can't see you not liking NS 2. The reverse is true, didn't like then, won't like it now.

NS 1. Fun stuff. Good memories. Already getting the same feeling in NS 2. Skulk, cloaked, creeping along the wall to get directly above the two marines repairing a power node. Dropped down, was already biting before I hit the floor, they never knew what got them. Yep, this is gonna be high on the list for a while.

Does the skulk leap do any damage? Never seemed to work for me.

Redwing wrote:
Stylez wrote:

Friended up Redwing. So very much appreciated! Thank you!

One sneaky login at work later, and it's away!

I'll have to download this again when I get home, I played a bit of the beta, but had a lot of trouble getting it to work, couldn't join servers, and when I did get in, couldn't join teams. Perhaps the release version is a little more reliable!

And installed! Thanks again Redwing! I played NS back in the day but I've honestly forgotten damn near everything about the game. We'll have to group up and tackle a server.

Want a high stress high reward time playing? Be the commander. Its like playing an RTS, only your 'units' Female Doggo and complain at you Okay, most of them don't, but enough do to be annoying. Despite that, its going to ruin my taste for RTS games after having players for units on both sides, having computer controlled units on both sides just won't cut it. Its like playing L4D with bots, VS is just so much better. Definitely go marine commander first, the alien side requires a lot more hands on knowledge, since you need to know how 5 different classes play out, and they do play differently enough. The marines are less complex, but still good.

Damn does this thing load levels slow, even accounting for all the first time nonsense.

Loving this game, highly recommend buying it. Performance has stabilized substantially since yesterday's launch, although I'm sure part of it are the settings tweaks I did.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Damn does this thing load levels slow, even accounting for all the first time nonsense.

That's a bug, they're already on it. Load time is still substantially shorter the second time playing a map though even before the fix.

Tamren- I don't have that issue at all. Did you check the mouse acceleration checkbox by accident? Once I turned sensitivity up to 50% or so I've been fine.

If the thought of playing against/with pubs worries you, don't let it stop you this time. Eventually, like L4D, the pub games will turn septic and toxic. But for now, with the game newly released and most players new to the game (or at least this version of it) the pub games have been enjoyable.

I played around in explore mode for a bit. I don't like how the marine weapons feel. They look like they're missing animations and lack impact. Maybe I'm just used to seeing oversized weapons in games but they also seem kind of small? Just me?

The aliens, on the other hand, seem like they could be pretty overpowered. I picked a Lerk so I could fly around the map and fully explore it, and evolved camouflage because why not. Did you know that camo works even when you're flying around at top speed, but not when you're jumping? Is that a glitch?

I still don't like the alien designs. I don't know, I really don't like the visuals in general in this game. I'm in it for the concept. It sounds like a good time. Looks like it has Steam Workshop integration so maybe someone'll produce some better art for it.

Bah, same problem as in beta. I can join a server, but then get disconnected 10-30 seconds into the game, everytime without fail. I'm actually getting this sort of thing a lot with lower budget games, it's probably my router, stupid thing.

Redwing wrote:

Bah, same problem as in beta. I can join a server, but then get disconnected 10-30 seconds into the game, everytime without fail. I'm actually getting this sort of thing a lot with lower budget games, it's probably my router, stupid thing.

I've had a similar problem with a few games, mostly ones on steam (TF2, killing floor, etc) and port forwarding fixes it.

Scratched wrote:
Redwing wrote:

Bah, same problem as in beta. I can join a server, but then get disconnected 10-30 seconds into the game, everytime without fail. I'm actually getting this sort of thing a lot with lower budget games, it's probably my router, stupid thing.

I've had a similar problem with a few games, mostly ones on steam (TF2, killing floor, etc) and port forwarding fixes it.

I tried port forwarding but didn't have any success with that. But it's probable that I just did it wrong, I'll have another try tonight.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I played around in explore mode for a bit. I don't like how the marine weapons feel. They look like they're missing animations and lack impact. Maybe I'm just used to seeing oversized weapons in games but they also seem kind of small? Just me?

I'll agree about the animations. But some of the weapons like the grenade launcher feel and sound just like the original game. If you want impact try the exosuit miniguns. "BBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTT".

I dedicated a few hours to playing as the aliens and I had a blast. The pubbies were very accommodating. Some even went out of their way to show us newbies the ropes. At least for the time being, teams understand that the commander is the boss. They count on the commander to set plans and coordinate attacks. I don't see anyone going on rogue runs, and the game seems to discourage such behavior. Lone players get torn to bits as soon as they leave base. The aliens seem the harder race to learn by far. They rely on unconventional means to attack and are less well-rounded than the marines in general. A game can last up to hours if neither team commits and endlessly trade bases with each other. Resources don't seem to run out. The levels are enormous and will take a while to learn. Expect to pull up the map often as you find your way to the objectives. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. This is obviously a deep game that rewards dedicated players.

I got stuck as the alien faction last night so gave that a shot (it's very intimidating to a newbie because it's so different). Unfortunately our commander had no real idea what to do either, and it didn't seem like my teammates did either beyond zerg-rushing the marines.

So after the commander bought the skulk (? starting critter) camoflage ability, I decided to try working with what I could do well rather than trying to contribute to the big fights where I was just a puffball.

I spent the rest of the match (save for the times when the commander issued orders to me, which I followed unwaveringly, and he even called me out to thank me for being so cooperative) working as a sneaky annoying bastard to distract marines for my team's zerg attempts.

Most successful part of the match was when I snuck all the way to the first node outside the marine base, killed the power, and then lurked on the ceiling above the now-dead power node. One lone marine came in to repair it and - correctly - assumed I was still around. Fortunately their commander didn't scan the area, so after the marine tried to lure me out and decided I must've ran off, he started repairing/rebuilding the power junction. I waited until he was a bit into that, then promptely dropped on his head and chewed him rapidly to bits. Then I chewed up the refinement node a little to make sure the marines knew I was still there, and went and lurked nearby but out of view in case they scanned.

I had notified my team of what I was doing, and told them if they wanted to make a strong push, now was the moment to get moving.

A full squad of marines showed up, swept the room (and I notified my team that four marines were now distracted on my side of the map), then started repairing the power node. At that point I snuck past them and into their base, then started randomly chewing on different structures to generate alarms. They pulled back even more marines, and just in time, because my teammates were able to very successfully tear the hell out of the marines' expansion base with minimal resistance at first!

We still lost the match overall, but I felt totally badass for being such a successful Annoying Bastard. Haven't had that kind of fun since Tribes 2.

Just served under Jam as alien commander, who did quite well. Way better than the analysis paralysis I had the first few times in the big chair. Keep it up man.