17 replies to this topic

[Basic]

Official Site: http://www.naturalselection2.com/
Genre: Multiplayer FPS
Developer: Unknown Worlds
Release date: Mid 2012 (Currently in playable beta)

NS2 is an FPS mixed with an RTS and is the sequel to the hugely popular HL1 mod. Two teams, Marines and Aliens, battle over resource points while following the direction of their team's commander player. Each team chooses one player to be their commander who controls the game from an RTS overheard camera, giving orders, placing structures and researching new equipment.

Marines play like a fairly standard FPS. They use kit such as shotguns, flamethrowers, jetpacks and deployable mines and turrets. They rely very heavily on their commander as individual marines can only build structures placed by him. Lone marines are very frail so sticking closely together and covering each other is vital as even a single skulk can ruin your day if you don't shoot him off your team mates when he charges in.

Aliens (AKA Karaa) are the less conventional side. They spawn from eggs at their hive, they have to spread creep in order to build structures and their players can be much more independant. All players spawn as skulks, wall crawling ambush units who can easily chomp through careless marines. Alien players can spawn into other types of alien that can fly, teleport and go on mad rampages that make the marines rage quit.


Active players as of 09/02/2012:
FunkyMike
Lob/Mush
Mosimo
Rymdkejsaren
Zutha


How can I join in?
Buy the game. Currently NS2 is in pay for access beta. If you pre-order the game now, you get beta access immediately. At the moment its very, very ropey as Unknown Worlds are building their own engine, but it has improved significantly in the last few patches. Caveat emptor, but we are playing this game a lot at the moment and having 5 DTEs on one team is damn good fun.


Links
Dev blog
Dev tracker
Natural Selection 1 (HL1 mod)

Edited by Lobotomy Lobster, 10 February 2012 - 01:23 PM.

[Lobotomy Lobster]

Saw some screens yesterday, it looks fing awesome. Might well end up pre-ordering

[Basic]

The NS2 engine test went live last night. This is what they seem to be calling there pre-alpha, as there are no game elements in it yet, just a couple of maps you can wonder around in and shoot targets

The engine has full dynamic lighting, which when it boils down only really helps out during development, the gamer prolly wouldn't notice much as dynamic lighting in its self is nothing new.

Even though all the lighting is fully dynamic the engine still ran smooth on my computer (GTX260 896MB) with settings on high and res at 1650x1080; although the dark level environments helped with this as there where few shadows to be seen.

There are a few lightly glitches I could see, some spot light shadows aren't being calculated until you get nearer them, so when you look down the corridor it looks quite bright, but as you get closer it darkens.

The engine test also came with a LUA api for any aspiring modders, I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but Unknown Worlds did say the api will change quite abit, so I might not bother atm.

All in all quite impressive especially since a team of two have built this engine from the ground up. It is'nt a full featured engine, and prolly will stay on the thin side, which is in no way a bad thing.


http://www.unknownwo... ... t_released


POSTS MERGED


The two test maps it came with are quite pretty, and you can see the vents and stuff in the level editor for the aliens, but cant actually explore those in game.

pre-ordering gives you access to the engine test and level editor (and perhaps a warm feeling for a small indie dev team if you are that way), I'm interested in using this engine for a project next year so that’s why I pre-ordered, so I could play with modding tools.

Edited by Lobotomy Lobster, 09 February 2012 - 10:38 PM.

[Lobotomy Lobster]

If it wasn't Steam only then I would have pre-ordered already to be honest, but looking at the screens and videos is pushing me over the edge anyway so I'll probably get this soon

[Basic]

seems alot of people are using steam only now (AVP, Metro2033), which I guess it could be worse, could be securom and the like.

[mosi]

Watched a few youtube videos earlier if people just running round the maps and I recon it looks really nice. How is it to actually play? guns shoot alright, feel right running round?

[Basic]

feels okay, but the test has next to nothing that you could use to tell what the game is going to be feel like (other than graphics). its simple to see how the graphics work on a large variety of hardware combinations and to give something for the modders to start with, which seems to be somthing they are pushing quite hard.

[Basic]

Although I thought the alpha was the engine test, it seems NS2 is going into alpha at the end of the month.

http://www.unknownwo... ... a_date_set

Sounds good to me.

[The Mushroom King]

I don't quite understand how the alpha access works.

"The NS2 playable alpha will be available on Steam to all NS2 Special Edition owners, Monday, July 26th!"

Does this mean you have to have the special to play alpha full stop or do you just get earlier access? ho hum.

[Rymdkejsaren]

Special edition = earlier access to alpha. All preorders get access at some point though.

[Basic]

yes yes, special edition = alpha access + tools, normal edition = beta access + tools

[Rymdkejsaren]

Quote

Hello NS(2)Players!

This has been a big week for us.

We set the date for the NS2 Alpha for Monday, July 26th (11 days). If you've pre-ordered the Special Edition already, THANK YOU. Otherwise, if you want to be playing on Day 1, you'll need to order it before then:

http://www.naturalselection2.com/buy

NOTE: After July 26th, we are discontinuing the Special Edition and black marine armor and will be increasing the price on the Standard Edition. We want to make sure our early adopters retain this distinction.

Lob, might wanna get your order on before the 26th.

[Lobotomy Lobster]

New gameplay trailer http://www.viddler.c...shot/videos/51/

[Basic]

Since the last patch I can actually log onto servers, I've managed to have a couple of shots of it the last week, is quite good, (although they need to do more engine optimization), the game isn't balanced by any stretch atm, almost all the games I've played the aliens have won hands down.

Also its really hard to see anything, which can be anoying. often you die from god knows what before you even realise it. I think the art style provides some confusion at times as it can be hard to see whats level and whats alien.

That said its coming on good.

[Lobotomy Lobster]

I'm bumping this thread just to say that we've started playing together since the last patch and its ace. We had a few games with RK in commander and lost every one

[Rymdkejsaren]

Clearly I need better soldiers!

[mosi]

You need a better axe!

[Lobotomy Lobster]

Level 3 axes and flamethrowers are the supreme marine strategy.