The Unknown Worlds website is carrying word of Natural Selection 2, an upcoming commercial game (yes, that means you'll have to pay for it):

Natural Selection 2 is the next wave in the war for survival between humankind and the Kharaa. Natural Selection 2 is the next evolution in multiplayer action/strategy gameplay and will be targeted for both competitive and public play. New features include dynamically changing environments, a new resource model, flexible game scripting and modes, and new weapons, abilities and upgrades. Natural Selection 2 will be a stand-alone commercial game for release on VALVe software's digital distribution service called Steam

Awesome :) I've been waiting for this for ages now :)

I think you will be still waiting a little while longer yet...

f*** yeah, Ill pay for it, natural selection was free and I played that s*** heaps.

I was just thinking about Natural Selection the other day actually.
Hopefully this should be a step up again from the first to make it worth me buying.

rofl i remembered also this the other day and was talking about how it had the right idea for a fps strat.. beta was so good, but the community for the release was a little... i dunno immature and noone worked as a team for a while..

but i very much regret giving up haha but i have a steam account so ill probably get this =D

Sweeet.

Yay, another mod turned pay product that offers nothing much over the original multiplayer component of the original mod. Still, I hope the NS team will make some dosh out of it, since I did enjoy the original alot.

i dont think people will buy this in aus thus the community for it willl be tiny

That's great. I have really enjoyed communities like the FEAR and AA community. You seem to avoid the masses of spastic CS/BF players.

Nice to see Flayra now has a commercial advantage. He & team have really worked hard to create a Strategic FPS that has awesome gameplay.

As for the 'Counter Strike community'. Lets all keep them where they should be. In Counter Strike with non linear gameplay that doesn't involving planning. Its nice to think that they (CS Players) think CS is a tactical shooter when Natural Selecton anything is just taking the cake a 1/4 at a time.

icewyrm you never know they might just include more elements to the gameplay that you've never thougth about. Remember we are dealing with the Half Life 2 / Source engine on the Half Life 1 engine.

That's what worries me Kimbo, every hl1 to hl2 conversion I have played so far has been somewhat of a letdown for a commercial product. Many of them even seem to lack some of the interesting features which had previously been apart of the old mods.

Hopefully they run a free trial like what was done for Red Orchestra.

As much as I loved NS, I don't see this taking off.

If they couldn't attract a large enough community when the mod was free, how can they expect to succeed by going commercial?

What? iirc it had a heap of players when it first came out, and did so for a while... because it doesnt have many players years later it was a failure?

I played it a bit, never really got into it though.

I found NS to be really intuative and easy to understand. However many found it had a steep learning curve and that drove many away. If they address the learning curve, more people would be able to pick it up quickly and enjoy it. They also need to improve on the animations and sounds. The gameplay could do with extra features, as it is a sequal. I dont think they should focus much on competative play tho.

Hopefully they address the tendancy for one side to dominate and give the other side little chance of catching up, as that too drives people away. ie, you join a server and get stuck on the inevitable losing end for 10-20 mins. Thats my thoughts anyway.

Also siege canons are bullsh*t :)

because it doesnt have many players years later it was a failure?

Not necessarily years.

I only found a handful players that were interested in NS at the last couple of QGL's, and right now there aren't too many servers around.

and right now there aren't too many servers around.

Well thats years later isnt it? (look like 4 years since release to be exact)
It was popular for at least a year, ns 1.0 had lots of players/servers and i remember playing ns 2.0 and it had a lot of players at that time, that was 8 months (?) after release, i'd say that kind of success would probably make it worth it for the developers.

It will need a better comunity. I played it a fair bit and I was never surprised when it became hard to find a full server. Whenever a new player joined (A.K.A. N00b), they would get flamed for not doing it the "l33t" way (btw, I think that anyone who DOES talk 1337 speak is a total wanker).

Or someone wants to try commanding, and would be shot down because of the placement of base structures. The more anoying ones are those commanders who were vote kivked from the chair only to leave it vacant because noone else would comm.

If they want the game to take off they will need a more supporting community to WELCOME new players, not scare them off.

LOTUK wins.

Mind you, it is annoying when some noob wants to try being commander without reading the readme or anything.

Inevitably place stuff in bad spots, and build siege canons out the front of the base :) And don't support parties in the field.

NS is one of the only games where I might consider joining a clan.

Its just there was no tutorial. If you gave people the tutorial and made it manadatory that you had to do the tutorial to learn how to play Im sure people would pick it up easy.

Counter Strike / Counter Strike: Source is a no-brain no-skiller.

All you Counter Strike players should take example of Natural Selection and really see how a 'tactical shooter' where 'communication is vital' is really played. If Natural Selection had as much coverage in the CPL as Counter Strike did it would be a smash hit. Second that, easily a smash hit.

Natural Selection requires thinking, strategy and planning

I'm no defender of Counterstrike...but CPL and tournament play require all of those things to be successful.
I think the reason NS never reached the heights of popularity is that it is much more complex to play than counterstrike, simplicity = win.

I'm no defender of Counterstrike...but CPL and tournament play require all of those things to be successful.
I think the reason NS never reached the heights of popularity is that it is much more complex to play than counterstrike, simplicity = win.

What was complex about it. Granted, it took me 2 maps to get the general idea of how the game worked. But the game play was quite basic, unless you were going to be the commander.

I think the problem of the more expirienced players attacking new comers was more detrimental to the success of the game than it being too complex. The kind of people who find NS too complex would find defusing the bomb in CS mind boggling.

last edited by Twisted at 11:03:31 13/Nov/06