Natural Selection 2 alpha for preorders tonight, time is ticking
polycounter lvl 10
IMPORTANT: Only the special edition gets into the alpha
Thought i'd throw this out for you guys to check out, the alpha release for NS2 preorders starts tonight and ENDS tonight, so if you don't preorder now, you don't get in the Alpha, not to mention the price is about to go up, so it's a double whammy!
The original was enjoyable enough and had tons of potential so i'm pretty stoked to see the sequel evolve through alpha, beta and finally release. It also just feels good to support "little guys" in this industry.
Video to give an idea of the game (think aliens but with an eye for gameplay from the ground up):
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoWiRv9JJzo&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
Link to buy:
http://www.naturalselection2.com/buy
I'm not in any way linked to unkown worlds other than my interest in the game, but i've seen their influence around here on PC from time to time, this may look familiar:
P.S. I haven't played this, and it is ALPHA, so be warned. I figured this place was full of game developers so this should more or less go without saying: this game is probably not very feature complete at this point.
Thought i'd throw this out for you guys to check out, the alpha release for NS2 preorders starts tonight and ENDS tonight, so if you don't preorder now, you don't get in the Alpha, not to mention the price is about to go up, so it's a double whammy!
The original was enjoyable enough and had tons of potential so i'm pretty stoked to see the sequel evolve through alpha, beta and finally release. It also just feels good to support "little guys" in this industry.
Video to give an idea of the game (think aliens but with an eye for gameplay from the ground up):
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoWiRv9JJzo&feature=player_embedded[/ame]Link to buy:
http://www.naturalselection2.com/buy
I'm not in any way linked to unkown worlds other than my interest in the game, but i've seen their influence around here on PC from time to time, this may look familiar:
P.S. I haven't played this, and it is ALPHA, so be warned. I figured this place was full of game developers so this should more or less go without saying: this game is probably not very feature complete at this point.
Replies
glad to see this happening. Their engine looks amazing, and I can't wait to play.
I actually forgot I had the special edition. I must've gotten upgraded to it through the Wolfire deal, or I just forgot I was so generous, haha.
qft. It has great potential but in its current alpha state it does not really play as more looks pretty with a series of still frames and gun sounds firing from where you used to be.
Again as said DONT let this be the judge of the final product.
That said, its looked very pretty, IMO for a long time and I'll probably demo/pick it up once its released and stable.
I don't get the hostility. It is an Alpha, not a Beta. If people don't want to test it, they don't have to. Their team is really small and they are making their own engine from scratch, so of course it is going to take a long time.
I have no doubt that a lot of stuff remains to be optimized, but I think it's also likely people are just used to playing shitty XBox ports that are produced for hardware that is 5 years old. The game is probably going to launch next year, and by then the hardware required should be pretty common.
Correction: Alpha-testers.
-Matt
I don't think I'll get the alpha, but I'll probably get it when a few of my friends get a copy.
Don't get me wrong, it looks fun, probably is fun, graphics look neat, I've watched most/all the development videos...
I suppose what I'm questioning then really is just why develop their own engine when the market is virtually flooded w/ capable middleware? And why is it, given the lengthy development time, it runs so poorly on client workstations? That sounds like a major show stopper I would have thought would have cropped up and been fixed a little earlier. I mean, this has been in development for 4+ years and the first release isn't even really able to run in real-time? Anyway, I'm sure its going to get optimized and corrected in short order.
Honestly, once I get a little money in my pocket, I may just pick it up (if its still possible to play the alpha) because I'm interested in the title, just surprised/disappointed that the engine is reportedly performing so poorly.
It was set to run on source at one point. I dont know the reasons they decided elsewise. I think because what they wanted to do would require something more unique. Not all cookie cutter engines are the best option. They also dont have a large staff. So where you might be used to things being able to be done quickly, they are small. Indie. Live it. Love it. Learn it.
Anyway, yes, please don't base your opinion of the game on the alpha, obviously.
It's a nice throwback to oldschool Quake and HL days and I understand that the game is in Alpha but the readability and usability need to be more apparent. The technical issues are a whole other story.
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2010/7/ns2_alpha_patch_released
The engine has some really cool stuff going on with it, they've got some great art together, the original was fantastic, and I just gotta admire anyone making a game (let alone of this scope) with their own studio.
I'm just paraphrasing from memory here, mind.
It will add to the feeling of the game quite alot.
I hope they'll get back on track with the engine and asset optimizations, NS was one of those mod I really enjoyed back in the days.
Pretty bad marketing mistake. A friend of mine is doing an Indy game and he holds the belief that the smaller your marketing budget the longer you wait to hype your game. It's easier to maintain the buzz for a few months until release rather than years.
I think this is exactly wrong. You want to be as noisy as possible for as long as possible. Almost all the big indie "hits"-- World of Goo, Braid, Mount & Blade etc. had prototype or pre-release versions out before their actual game.
Also, if you are a small indie company working on a game that may have a lot of technical issues, at least with an alpha release you have a good excuse for problems and can start working those out before 95% of your potential customers have even heard of your game. It's true that maybe some portion of their pre-order customers are disappointed in the initial alpha test, but these same people have already bought (and bought in to) the game, and their feedback will be used to make the game better. If UWE fixes an issues based on a person's feedback, there is a very good chance that person will become a loyal fan. If you can't win over your most avid supporters, your game has no chance of commercial success anyway.
Which brings me to my next point. Good review scores are based mostly on a reviewer's fear of fan backlash rather than the quality of a game. This is why glaring flaws in some games are totally ignored, while in other games those exact same flaws are picked apart and mocked. If you have no fans for your game, you better be sure your game is absolutely better than every other game in the genre in every way (which is kind of hard for an indie dev to do). Even still, you will probably get worse review scores than Halo 3.
One of the main accepted ideas behind marketing is that more is better. This is even more true for indie games, because the most marketing you can do is going to be almost nothing compared to the massive ad campaigns for AAA games.
One more thing is that an indie developer has to do all their marketing themselves. If you want to get good at anything, it takes practice. The more experience you get with marketing, the better you can do.
The alternative is to leave it up to chance. Maybe a core group of passionate people will fall in love with your game when it's released. The more likely alternative is that your game will simply be ignored.
If a game is somewhat stable but just misses some features in an alpha, then that will bring a much more positive experience, and the "tester" won't be as eager to say how much it sucks.
This is partly while most beta tests and the likes will have a NDA going on, and also partly why they'll keep it smaller at first.
I Have my own project I'm working on right now, a very modest mod by today's standards and i've long been of the mindset, "i'll release it when it's worth playing and kinda polished", but let me tell ya, when you don't have a paycheck coming in, don't have a lead breathing down your neck every week to get stuff done, no fan base giving feedback, essentially no one one to put a fire under your ass to get things done, development can easily slow down over any time you hit a hurdle that makes you think it's time for a long break or two. You need to come up with ways to rekindle that fire. An early release, good or bad, can really motivate you to start hammering away and get things done.
Wish i could comment on the alpha, purchased the 20 dollar buy-in myself, looking forward to beta.
Maybe during Alpha stages there should be a check-box that must be okay'ed every single time paraphrasing that what they are playing is a very early test build and not meant to reflect on the final product. If you pound that point into the customer I think you could get it to work.
I'm really looking forward to this game quite a bit!
The day when every single human being becomes a responsible friendly person, and we get worldpeace.
Its still got a ton of bugs and its hard to get a lag free game going, but the few games i've had from start to end are friggin awesome. Best FPS experience in years. Anyone else playing
Ah,how I miss you NS :<
However I'm not sure it was interesting enough for me to buy this. It'd have to be super cheap when it's done. Of course I could take advantage of the alpha cheap price...
Don't worry, I doubt anyone is that stupid but it has turned me away from buying the alpha.
Playing a slideshow or a demo where you're stuck ever 5 seconds thanks to a bad collision system is just wrong. Leaves a very bad taste and doesn't help you at all promoting your game.
If the stuff still isn't working properly, make a video instead. Don't share broken builds.
The game has a long way to go though in terms of becoming a worthy succesor in my opinion, and i'm not reffering to lag and bugs as this IS an early beta.
What i'd like to see more of is evolutions of the gameplay from the original. There's a lot of potential for cool progression and leveling mechanics, but right now i feel there aren't enough options or rewards for playing well and too much of a teams progression lies in the hands of the commander who really doesn't have that many options at the moment. It's an FPS/RTS hybrid and the RTS component just isn't complex enough in the current iteration. This IS beta, so things are sure to improve, i just hope once they resolve all the bugs they spend a lot of time making the gameplay a bit more in-depth as well (savage would an obvious comparison with personal levels and upgradeable items that were serperate from upgrades from the commander). The marines more than the aliens are suffering from stale play at this point.
If you're a fan of the original i would say by all means go out and get this right away, it's quickly shaping up to surpass the first iteration. If you're new to NS, i'd suggest waiting a bit until the latency improves and there are more compelling features. Trying out the aliens is quite a blast though, running on walls (though this doesn't have the same benefit it had in AvP it's fun!), teleporting around (buggy and overpowered but awesome!), and my favorite is the new flying creature, love tappin' the space bar for each wing flap. That alien needs some kind of upgradeable dive attack combined with levels with higher ceilings to really do his fun movement justice.